Frost Brand

)   Frost Brand   (No tile)
Base item	long sword
Damage vs. small	1d8 ×2
Damage vs. large	1d12 ×2
To-hit bonus	+1d5
Bonus versus	targets without cold resistance
Weapon skill	long sword
Size	one-handed
Affiliation	unaligned
When carried	(none)
When wielded	cold resistance
When invoked	(none)
Base price	3000 zm
Weight	40
Material	iron

Frost Brand is an artifact that appears in NetHack. It is unaligned, and its base item type is a long sword.

Fire Brand is the fire-aligned counterpart of Frost Brand.

Generation

Any long sword that is randomly generated on the ground has a base ¹⁄₂₀ chance (5%) of being made into an artifact, which has a ¹⁄₆ chance of being Frost Brand.

Description

While wielded, Frost Brand grants fire resistance, has a +1d5 to-hit bonus and deals double damage against monsters without cold resistance - it may also destroy potions in the target's open inventory.

Strategy

Frost Brand is more popular than its counterpart Fire Brand due to many of Gehennom's denizens being fire-resistant demons, and it does not destroy as much valuable loot when used to attack, making it an excellent artifact weapon to have. Frost Brand is considered the best artifact weapon to have for Gehennom after Grayswandir: it deals slightly more damage against non-resistant large monsters that are not weak to silver, though Grayswandir naturally still has the advantage against. Frost Brand is also the weaker of the two on the Astral Plane, where most of the monsters present will resist cold damage but not fire damage.

Average damage calculation

The average damage calculations in the following table do not include bonuses from weapon skills, strength, or from using a blessed weapon against undead or demons.

Weapon	Cold-resistant		Not Cold-resistant
	Small monster	Large monster	Small monster	Large monster
+0 Frost Brand	$\frac{1+8}{2}=\bold{4.5}$	$\frac{1+12}{2}=\bold{6.5}$	$\left (\frac{1+8}{2} \right )\times 2=\bold{9}$	$\left (\frac{1+12}{2} \right )\times 2=\bold{13}$
+7 Frost Brand	$\frac{1+8}{2}+7=\bold{11.5}$	$\frac{1+12}{2}+7=\bold{13.5}$	$\left (\frac{1+8}{2}+7\right )\times 2=\bold{23}$	$\left (\frac{1+12}{2}+7\right )\times 2=\bold{27}$

Messages

The ice-cold blade <hits/freezes> <monster>!

Frost Brand was used to attack a monster, with "hits" used only if the target has cold resistance.

Variants

xNetHack

In xNetHack, Frost Brand has its base item changed to a short sword, and it can be twoweaponed with Fire Brand or Mirror Brand.

EvilHack

In EvilHack, Frost Brand has its base item changed to a steel short sword. It can be combined with Fire Brand at a forge to create Dichotomy, an artifact runesword.

Encyclopedia

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

[ Fire and Ice, by Robert Frost ]

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It may contain text specific to NetHack 3.4.3. Information on this page may be out of date.

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