Frost Brand

)   Frost Brand   (No tile)
Base item	long sword
Damage vs. small	1d8 ×2 (2-16)
Damage vs. large	1d12 ×2 (2-24)
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-attuned counterpart of Frost Brand.

Generation

A long sword randomly generated on the ground (including in a shop) or as a death drop has a base ¹⁄₂₀ chance of being made into an artifact, which then has a ¹⁄₅ chance of being made into Frost Brand if no artifact long swords have been generated.

Frost Brand can be given to any hero as a sacrifice gift for a sacrifice with a value of 9 or higher—Frost Brand will not have anything added to its enchantment when randomly generated or given as a sacrifice gift, and heroes that do not have a guaranteed first gift are less likely to be gifted Frost Brand compared to a co-aligned artifact.

Player monsters on the Astral Plane that generate with a long sword have a ¹⁄₂ chance of that mace being turned into a compatible artifact, which then has a ¹⁄₅ chance of being made into Frost Brand if no artifact long swords have been generated.

Description

While wielded, Frost Brand grants cold resistance that has a ⁹⁹⁄₁₀₀ chance per item of preventing the wielder's open inventory from being frozen. As a weapon, the artifact has a +1d5 to-hit bonus and deals double damage against monsters without cold resistance—the cold damage has a ¹⁄₄ chance of freezing and destroying potions in the target's open inventory.

A hero invoking Frost Brand can cast an Expert skill cone of cold spell at a targeted square.

Strategy

Frost Brand is more popular than its counterpart Fire Brand, due to many of Gehennom's denizens being fire-resistant major demons whose vulnerability can be exploited by the artifact, and it also does not destroy as much valuable loot when used to attack. Frost Brand makes an excellent artifact to utilize as a main weapon in the long term, and is considered the best artifact weapon to have for Gehennom after Grayswandir: it deals slightly more damage on average against non-resistant large monsters that are not weak to silver, though Grayswandir naturally still has the advantage against silver-hating large monsters.

Frost Brand is also weaker than Grayswandir and sometimes even Fire Brand on the Astral Plane, whose denizens will most often resist cold damage but do not always resist fire—however, the hero is nearing the finish line at this point, and will prefer clearing paths to the high altar rather than becoming bogged down in combat (unless it becomes absolutely necessary).

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	$\frac{1+8}{2}+7=\bold{11.5}$	$\frac{1+12}{2}+7=\bold{13.5}$	$\left (\frac{1+8}{2}+7\right )\times 2=\bold{23}$	$\left (\frac{1+12}{2}+7\right )\times 2=\bold{27}$

History

Frost Brand is introduced alongside Frost Brand in NetHack 3.0.0. From NetHack 3.0.3–which introduces alignments for artifacts–to NetHack 3.2.3, Frost Brand is neutral—NetHack 3.3.0 makes Frost Brand non-aligned.

In versions up to NetHack 3.6.7, including some variants based on those versions, Frost Brand can be gifted to any hero for any sacrifice and will not be the first sacrifice gift for a hero under normal circumstances, since a hero's first gift must always match their alignment.

NetHack 5.0.0 reworks artifact balance and sacrifice gifts to their current behavior via commit d87cadaf and commit c2c797fa. This version also grants Frost Brand its invoked ability via commit 85de51a6

Messages

The ice-cold blade freezes <you/the monster>!

Fire Brand was used to attack a hero or monster.

The ice-cold blade hits <you/the monster>.

As above, but the target has cold resistance.

Variants

Some variants of NetHack enable a hero to pair Frost Brand with Fire Brand in some manner, and may even change the weapon types that both artifacts can generate as. Variants created prior to NetHack 5.0.0 may not include the engraving and invoking abilities from that version.

NetHack: The Next Generation

In NetHack: The Next Generation, Frost Brand is one of the artifacts that can be created by Duri at The Forge, with a base price of 6750 (slightly higher than Fire Brand). This also applies to SlashTHEM.

SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, Frost Brand's to-hit bonus roll is converted to a flat bonus like most other artifact weapons, giving it +5 to-hit. Artifact weapons can also be wielded in the off-hand for two weapon combat, and Frost Brand is an incredibly stellar primary and secondary weapon option for this purpose.

In NetHack Plus, an ancestor of SLASH'EM, Frost Brand is the first guaranteed sacrifice for the Ice Mage.

dNetHack

In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, Frost Brand and Fire Brand can have multiple possible base items, but will always be generated as matching base items—Frost Brand can also be reshaped into a different base item by dipping it into a fountain, with the available item types depending on what weapons the hero has type-identified or trained to Skilled level in. Some base item choices are only available to certain races, roles and alignments of hero. See the article linked at the top of the section for more details on how Frost Brand functions in these variants.

NetHack Fourk

In NetHack Fourk, Frost Brand can be wielded in two weapon combat with Fire Brand.

xNetHack

In xNetHack, Frost Brand has its base item changed to a short sword, and it can be wielded in two weapon combat with Fire Brand or Mirror Brand.

SpliceHack

In SpliceHack, Frost Brand can generate as any one-handed sword weapon, and can be combined with Fire Brand at a furnace to create Frostburn.

EvilHack

In EvilHack, Frost Brand has its base item changed to a steel short sword, and it can be wielded in two weapon combat with Fire Brand. Frost Brand and Fire Brand can be combined at a forge to create the artifact runesword Dichotomy, which has traits of both weapons.

Hack'EM

In Hack'EM, Frost Brand has its base item changed to a steel short sword and behaves as it does in EvilHack, including being twoweaponed with Fire Brand. Flame Mages cannot handle Frost Brand and will never receive it as a sacrifice gift.

Encyclopedia entry

Frost Brand and Fire Brand share the same encyclopedia entry:

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 ]