D&D Monster Spotlight: If Sticks & Stones Don’t Break Your Bones, Frost Giants Will
Living in castles, carrying around rocks for throwing, and being impervious to even ice dragon cold makes these D&D Frost Giants very cool.
First Edition
If your adventuring party finds an inviting looking castle while traveling across the frozen tundra, be wary of Frost Giants. While they often live in frigid caverns, they prefer to take up residence in castles with the pack of winter wolves that they use as watchdogs and companions.
Blue-white skin, hair, and eyes make the Frost Giants look otherworldly, bit their gigantic stature will identify them as giants every time. And as giant they can do things like hurl rocks up to twenty feet for up to twenty point of damage.
And oh yeah, they’re immune to all cold attacks, including icy dragon breath weapons.
Second Edition
Coming in at twenty one feet tall and eight thousand pounds, most adventurers probably don’t want to hear that Frost Giants, like many other giants, have a tendency to be crude and stupid, but crafty fighters.
They carry throwing rocks with them in a sack that will also contain their possessions including any wealth and mundane items they may have. This makes them one of those monsters that literally drop loot when you defeat them… but also a monster that carries throwing rocks with it. For throwing. At your party.
Third Edition
In Third Edition Frost Giants are smaller at sixteen feet and and little less than three thousand pounds, but they’re also somehow more terrible. Now brutal attackers and destructive raiders, Frost Giants will attack with cunning and purpose.
One of their favored tactics is to wait, buried in the snow at the top of a slope where they are hard to reach and ambush a potential victim. Frost Giants prefer to make ranged attacks until their foe closes the distance between them or they run out of throwin’ rocks.
Fourth Edition
The Frost Giants of Fourth Edition are much happier to charge into battle than their hiding and ambushing predecessors. Armed with icy axes and a can-do attitude, Frost Giants will run into a melee encounter, no word of the throwing rocks of waiting for the perfect moment in the snow.
Also, while Frost Giants are still considered very average of intelligence, some especially crafty battle strategies tell another story. Frost Giant Ice Shapers will use Wall of Frost to divide a battlefield so it’s most beneficial to them, while Frost Titans will use their Breathaura to stop an enemy from escaping the encounter.
Fifth Edition
While Frost Giants care much for might and power, they have next to no interest in money and wealth. When they are raiding villages taverns and smithies will be destroyed with the ale and weapons gone, while banks will stay surprisingly upright.
Frost Giants appreciate jewels large enough for them to wear and have noticed, but don’t care about smaller baubles. Within Frost Giant society dominance is determined through wrestling and community tasks and jobs are handed out based on the hardiness and strength of various Giants.
Have you encountered a D&D Frost Giant in your adventures? Which edition’s take on the Frost Giant is your favorite? Which giant would you most like to encounter with your adventuring party? Let us know in the comments!
Happy Adventuring!
