Raze - you certainly are a buffet of information!
I think somewhere in the starters hints and tips it mentioned avoiding
frost weapons for same reason you don't like them. I rather like it,
though, especially when there's a crowd. I tried charm, but it just
seemed to make the monsters mill around and pick flowers, not necessarily
attack other creatures. I could be wrong, though; I find it hard to pay
strict attention to more than one thing at a time. (Do you get exp from a
kill by a charmed mob?)
And do you think using a dagger (and they all pretty much seem to do
9-31 damage) with a level 5 backstab) is as good as wielding some of
those high damage swords? Math isn't my forte, apparently.