The Ice Spider is a huge, fast predator from Iron’s Spells ‘n Spellbooks that hunts players across snowy biomes. It climbs walls, pounces from a distance, and if the pounce lands it pins you down, drinks your health and then spits you out inside a block of ice. It’s one of the more dangerous regular mobs in the mod, especially if you meet it early.
It’s mostly hunted for the 
Icy Fang, which is the drop that starts off the mod’s ice gear, including the 
Boreal Blade and the 
Frostbranded Book. Its den also holds an egg that can be cooked and eaten for an ice buff, which is a second reason to go looking for one.
Spawning
Ice Spiders mostly show up as patrols. When you’re playing alone, the game checks every 8 to 11 minutes whether it’s raining, which counts as snowing in cold biomes, and if it is there’s a 50% chance it sends an Ice Spider after a random player. Those checks come around more often when there are more players online.
The spider spawns 24 to 47 blocks away in a snowy biome, digs its way out of the ground and starts hunting. Patrols never happen on Peaceful, and a server is able to turn them off in the mod’s config. You’ll also find Ice Spiders in the Ice Spider Den, a ruined structure in snowy biomes that isn’t on mountains or oceans.
The Ice Spider Den is rare, as the game only tries to place one roughly every 85 chunks. The easiest way to find one is to craft the Infested Ruin map from two 
Frozen Bones, four 
Cobwebs and a piece of 
Arcane Cloth, which points you straight to the nearest den. Frozen Bones drop from Strays in the mod, so you’ll probably have a few already.
Inside the den you’ll find 
Ice Spider Eggs. Breaking a frosted egg summons an Ice Spider that spawns a little way off and comes hunting for you, and it turns the egg back to normal. Break that egg again with a Silk Touch tool and you can pick it up, which is the only way to get one for the egg recipes.
Behavior
The Ice Spider goes after players and Iron Golems on sight, and it’ll attack villagers and Raiders too. When it’s hungry it also hunts animals, and it eats them rather than leaving any drops behind. A spider that’s eaten recently heals itself slowly while it’s out of combat, so it’s best not to give it any time to recover between fights.
It’s quick, it can step up blocks easily and it climbs walls, so running away or pillaring up doesn’t work very well. It’s also got 60% knockback resistance, so you can’t really push it back with weapons either. While it’s still digging its way out of the ground it can’t be hurt at all, so don’t waste your best hit on it until it’s fully out.
Fight Ice Spiders out in the open, as they climb walls and can come at you from above or the side in tunnels and caves. On flat, clear ground you’ll see the pounce coming, and strafing sideways gives the leap a better chance of missing you.
Attacks
Up close it bites and swipes for 8 damage a hit, which is four hearts, and it has a slightly longer reach than you’d expect. When you hit it hard there’s a chance it leaps backwards away from you and casts Ice spells, either Snowball or Ice Spikes, and the bigger the hit the more likely that is, up to a 70% chance on a really heavy one.
The Grapple and Ice Tomb
The pounce is the start of its most dangerous combo. If it lands, the Ice Spider pins you in place and works towards trapping you in ice, so learning to deal with the pounce is most of the fight. There are three stages to it, and you can break out of it at the first one if you’re ready.
Pounce
Leaps onto its target
It launches itself at you from a distance and grabs you as it lands. If you’re holding a 
Shield up when it hits, the grab is cancelled completely, but the spider disables your Shield for a few seconds afterwards, so you’ll need to be ready to fight without it straight away.
Pin and Drain
Holds you for about 2 seconds
Once it’s latched on it holds you in place for about 2 seconds and freezes you. It heals 8% of its health every second while it’s holding you, and any damage you deal to it during the grapple is cut down to a fifth, so there’s not much point trying to fight your way out of it.
Ice Tomb
Encases you in ice
After the grapple it spits you out inside an Ice Tomb, which keeps freezing you for about 5 seconds before it breaks. Anyone can break the tomb early by hitting it, but whoever’s inside takes double the damage of the hit that breaks it, so a friend should use a light tap rather than a full sword swing.
Being grappled and entombed leaves you frozen and stuck for around 7 seconds in total, and the spider heals the whole time it’s holding you. If you’re low on health, back off and heal before it lines up its next pounce, rather than trading hits with it at close range and hoping for the best.
Weaknesses and Immunities
The Ice Spider is well protected, with 20 points of armor on top of its 50 health, so weak hits don’t do a lot. It only takes half damage from Iron Golems, so a golem won’t kill one on its own either. On the other hand it doesn’t have any special resistance to magic, so Fire and Lightning spells are one way of getting around its armor.
Its body is made up of several parts, and hitting any of them counts against the same health, so just aim for whatever’s closest. A 
Frostward Ring stops you from freezing completely and lets you walk on Powder Snow, which takes a lot of the danger out of the grapple and the tomb, although it can still pin you and trap you in the ice.
Drops
Ice Spiders drop more Arcane Essence than most regular mobs, so they’re hunted for that as well as for the Icy Fang. The fang doesn’t drop every time though, and it’s less likely without Looting, so it can take a few kills before you get one.
Ice Spider Drops
Every Ice Spider drops a good pile of 
Arcane Essence, 4 to 16 of it, and 2 to 5 
String, and Looting increases both. The Icy Fang is the important drop, but it has to be a player that kills the spider, and even then it’s a 40% chance, going up by 5% for each level of Looting.
To use the Icy Fang, drop it into an Alchemist Cauldron with Water to brew Ice Venom, then fill a 
Glass Bottle from the cauldron to get an 
Ice Venom Vial. Those vials go into the Boreal Blade and the Frostbranded Book, and the Cryomancer will swap two Icy Fangs for an Ice Rune.
The Boreal Blade takes two Ice Venom Vials along with a Mithril Ingot, Ice and Weapon Parts, while the Frostbranded Book needs three vials, two Mithril Scrap, a Ruined Book and three Arcane Cloth. That’s five Icy Fangs for both, so expect to kill quite a few Ice Spiders before you’ve got everything.
Ice Spider Eggs
An Ice Spider Egg can be turned into food. Put one in a crafting grid with a 
Honey Bottle above it, 
Sweet Berries on either side and a 
Bowl underneath to make a 
Prepared Ice Spider Egg, then cook it in a 
Furnace, 
Smoker or on a 
Campfire to get a 
Cooked Ice Spider Egg.
The Cooked Ice Spider Egg is placed down like a cake, and you can take four bites out of it. Each bite fills 4 hunger and gives you 45 seconds of Frostbite X, with the time stacking if you keep eating. While you have Frostbite, any mob you kill that’s fully frozen turns into an Ice Shadow that shatters into icicles for around 10 damage.
FAQ
They patrol snowy biomes that aren’t oceans, but only while it’s raining or snowing, with a check every 8 to 11 minutes. You’ll also find them in the Ice Spider Den, where breaking a frosted Ice Spider Egg summons one that comes after you. Patrols don’t happen on Peaceful, and a server can turn them off in the mod’s config.
Hold up a Shield when it pounces and the grab is cancelled, although your Shield gets disabled for a few seconds afterwards. Otherwise, keep strafing so the leap misses, and try to kill it before it gets another chance. A Frostward Ring stops you from freezing, but it doesn’t stop the grab itself.
Every kill drops 4 to 16 Arcane Essence and 2 to 5 String. There’s also a 40% chance of an Icy Fang, but only when a player lands the killing blow, and each level of Looting adds another 5%. The Icy Fang is brewed into Ice Venom for the Boreal Blade and Frostbranded Book.
Find one in an Ice Spider Den. Breaking a frosted egg summons an Ice Spider and leaves the egg in place but no longer frosted, and breaking it a second time with a Silk Touch tool drops the egg. Without Silk Touch it breaks and drops nothing, so make sure you bring the right pickaxe.
