...She tried the holy item quest at level 5, hoping to get a Frost sword, but gave up reloading after a fair bit of time. Coming back to this quest around level 8 or 10, she found it much easier to get acceptable stats on the holy sword (though she didn't get Frost).
what i got after about 5 hours of S/L
http://img135.imageshack.us/my.php?image=5frostrl6.jpgwicked luck? maybe, but hard work too!
the kill gave me 2 levels, so technically you can get 5 frost at as early as level 4...as long as the weapon itself has a really high stat requirement.
because if you think about it, i can't even use this sword until i am level 8~10(depending on how much str/agi i can get with other gears)
edit: i guess i could explain what i did to get the sword:
i killed orcs around aleroth, got a spider statue, use it to lure Lord Seth down to the Ambush quest area, let him fight the drummer,
since the drummer goes back to full HP every time you save/load, it is possible to keep saving/loading to wear Lord Seth down. when Lord Seth is low enough, kill drummer, and then use spider statue to lure wounded Lord Seth back to the village, kill him and then save without picking up/mouse over the sword.
the long/boring loading would be something like this, Ctrl+L, pick up sword and let Joram(or any other merchant that can identify) identify it, if it's not good(most of the time), then Ctrl+L.
ps, it's impossible to lure the drummer(newest version of game) to the village where Seth is, so i had to lure Seth out.
