A Polar Bear in an arctic environment...

[Dark Dragon]

Ok, here's what happened in the session last night:

The party is hunting some giants in very cold arctic environement. During daytime, temperatures are at roughly -30 to -40 °F (meaning, 1d6 points of cold damage per minute).
During night, temperatures are at ca. -60 °F. Protected by Endure Elements and shelter, the party survived.
When some winter wolfs attacked during the night, the sorcerer summoned a polar bear.
The polar bear has neither the cold subtype nor some protective spell....

Following the RAW, a polar bear wouldn't survive in an arctic environment???

Seems to be a case for Rule 0 or use common sense.

 

[Wolf72]

you could always assume that any creature is relatively immune or adapted to it's environment for purposes of dmg and what not.

The cold breath from the winter wolves would still affect it (or you could house rule that it only does half dmg)

 

[smootrk]

It may not have Cold subtype or Cold Resistance but it is surely very adapted to it's environment. It would be immune. The environmental hazards in the rules are intended to reflect the impact of the conditions on your typical character, not creatures obviously adapted to the environment.

 

[dcollins]

For starters, assume the bear has equivalent of winter clothing:

Characters wearing winter clothing only need check once per hour for cold and exposure damage.

Also, hope it doesn't drown: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1938132,00.html

 

[Patlin]

If you are going for realism, you should probably shift the temperatures at which creatures suffer from heat or cold based on their natural environment. For ease of use, treating the polar bear as immune to the natural cold hazards would work fine... but note that in the article quoted above, it indicates that even polar bears can suffer from hypothermia, so they aren't quite immune.

Realism is generally overrated, IMO.

 

[Silveras]

Ok, here's what happened in the session last night:

The party is hunting some giants in very cold arctic environement. During daytime, temperatures are at roughly -30 to -40 °F (meaning, 1d6 points of cold damage per minute).
During night, temperatures are at ca. -60 °F. Protected by Endure Elements and shelter, the party survived.
When some winter wolfs attacked during the night, the sorcerer summoned a polar bear.
The polar bear has neither the cold subtype nor some protective spell....

Following the RAW, a polar bear wouldn't survive in an arctic environment???

Seems to be a case for Rule 0 or use common sense.

Frostburn adjusts and clarifies some of this.

Polar Bears would be considered "Arctic Animals with fur". That gives them an innate "Level 2 protection" from cold.

The temperatures you are describing fall more into the "Extreme Cold" band in Frostburn, which causes damage per 10 minutes to unprotected characters. The Polar bear would have partial protection, and would get a save every hour to avoid taking damage (no damage in between saves).

Without using Frostburn (or a similar 3rd party product), you do indeed have to apply some common sense, because, as noted, the rules in the DMG are a very light sketch focused on human(oid) PCs.

 

[frankthedm]

For starters, assume the bear has equivalent of winter clothing

I'd say of masterwork quality.

 

[Dark Dragon]

So far the party has not encountered any polar bears in an arctic environment, and so DM was not forced to come up with any ruling (the summoned bear didn't receive environmental damage, IIRC)...or all polar bears in that campaign are already dead

But still we were wondering about the missing clarification in either DMG or MM (or both).

It was quite tough to get 8 adventurers (one of them comes from the jungles of Chult ) and their horses alive through that extreme climate...

 

[domino]

You could also say that Polar Bears have ranks in survival, with which to make those "make it through the weather" checks.

 

[LostSoul]

The damage you take from cold is a little too extreme. -20° F isn't all that cold.