Frostbite.

Seeing as my own game is temporarily in limbo (damn RL stuff), I figured I'd keep going with what I started with the Sentinel thread, and start one for Frostbite, then Lionheart, I'm fairly sure DaveM has Haunt well figured out at this point though.. so I probably won't get into him.

So.. Here's Frostbite:



I'll start in the next post by going over his key power, Ice Production.

Ice Production is Frostbites main power, it's highly versatile and at 11 APs is quite powerful. Using it, Frostbite can do any of the following

- Create solid ice constructs with a Body equal to the APs of Ice Production, and a maximum Volume also equal to the powers APs. This makes Frostbites ice constructs nearly as strong as steel (11APs compared to steel at 12 Aps). Constructs can include things such as walls, bridges, layers of ice on any surface, buildings, melee weapons made from ice.. essentially anything you could reasonably make using ice.

- Create an 'Ice Slide' (think Iceman) that allows movement at up to 8 APs speed (half the speed of sound).

- Create an 'Ice Barrier'. This is a defensive use of the power, and allows for your APs of Ice Production to be added to your RV against attacks. As a downside you cannot engage in Physical Combat with someone who you are protected from by this use of Ice Production. (Well, unless you can somehow go through a solid ice barrier, attack them and then move back through the ice..   )

- Perform a simple Physical Attack using APs of Ice Production exactly like Energy Blast. (kind of pointless when you have energy blast as a power already. Though it is a good backup incase someone was to power drain your energy blast)

- Trap a target inside of a block of ice. This is an attack using Ice Production as AV/EV against the targets Dex/Str. The number of RAPs (Result APs.. how well you do) represents how much ice the target is contained in. While trapped the target has their Dex (and therefore their initative) reduced by the number of RAPs gained during the action. To break free the target has to make a successful physical attack against the ice (likely using their reduced Dex). The Ice is rated at the number of RAPs earned. It should be noted that this may result in killing combat damage as the target could suffocate and/or freeze to death in the following rounds. That's up to Paul

Ice produced by this power will last an amount of time equal to your APs of power, in Frostbites case this is 2 hours.

It's also worth noting that all uses of this power other then the energy blast and trapping an opponent are Auto actions and can be performed in the same round as a dice action. Additionally creating an Ice Barrier is a defensive power and can be activated in the same Auto action that any other defensive powers are activated. This makes Frostbite the single toughest character in the group. With a Body of 10, Dispersal of 10 and Ice Production of 11 he can ramp himself up to a mind boggling 31 RV against physical damage. He would however be stuck inside of a Ice Barrier that his Dispersal of 10 couldn't pass through.

Up next is Ice Control. I figure I should go through his ice powers as a group then move on to other things.

So, Ice Control has a lot of overlap with Ice Production, so I'll probably cover a couple powers in this post. However I'll list its functions here

- Make a simple Physical attack by throwing an existing chuck of ice as an opponent.

- Create a defensive barrier of ice by moving existing ice to form a barrier

- Move a volume of ice that already exists. The volume is equal to the APs of power. Functionally Telekinesis for ice only. This is the only power that doesn't overlap with Ice Production.

Interestingly.. Frostbite has 3 individual Force Blast style powers. I was also wrong, he can technically add Ice Control to his RV as well, resulting in a Physical RV of 42! Of course the obvious rule of 'keep it simple' would prevent Ice production and Ice Control from overlapping.. I would assume at least..

Next up.. Icing!

- Adds to Physical RV against cold based attacks, but makes the user weak to fire attacks. (Cold RV would be up to 50 at this point)

- Also may be used instead of Strength for hand to hand combat EV (Effect Value). It's tied to Frostbites Strength however, so its use is mostly cosmetic. It does however let you inflict damage without any reasonable way that you would cause knockback, which may be useful in some situations.

Now we'll cover Cold Immunity

- Adds to Physical RV against cold type attacks only (RV vs cold damage is now up to 60. I'm fairly sure Frostbite would find Space positively warm at this point..

And last, we'll deal with Frostbites main attack power. Energy Blast.

- Perform a basic Physical Attack using APs of power as AV/EV

- Serious Power Burnout #3 means that if you roll a 3 or lower the power will burn out and be unavailable until you can recover it as per normal healing.

Functionally here just to allow Frostbite to get himself a 15 AP attack power. It's mindbendingly powerful, capable of shattering a reinforced bank vault door after a couple rounds.. from 32 miles away.

Next up is Dispersal.

- Allows the user to move through any object as if it wasn't there, so long as the object has a Body equal to or less then the APs of Dispersal.

- Adds APs of power to Physical RV against any attack caused by something with a Body rated higher then APs of Dispersal.

- Fatiguing means each use of dispersal causes an attack at the APs of power used against Frostbites Body. This makes it a poor idea to remain in a dispersed/phased state for long amounts of time.

Some things of note about Dispersal are the fact that it is rated lower then Ice Production is. That means that if Frostbite uses his Ice Production at full power then he cannot phase through it. You can however choose to have Frostbite use less then his full APs of Ice Production whenever you'd like so that you can in face phase through. Additionally, steel is rated with a Body of 12 so it would be currently impassable to Frostbite.

Interesting.

Can Ice Slide be used offensively? I'm thinking something along the lines of creating an ice slide behind a bad guy, blast or hit him, knocking him onto the ice slide and then using the ice slide's movement to cause extra knockback - either damage or range or both. Or would some sort of combat maneuver need to be created to allow something like this?

So if somebody is about to explode and take the city with him, could you create an ice slide with a ramp and use your powers to basically shoot him as far away from the city as possible?

I'm thinking of the times Superman has thrown dangerous criminals out of Metropolis in order to fight them in less populated areas, except Ice Sliding/Blasting them out of the area.

dunecat wrote:Next up is Dispersal.

- Allows the user to move through any object as if it wasn't there, so long as the object has a Body equal to or less then the APs of Dispersal.

- Adds APs of power to Physical RV against any attack caused by something with a Body rated higher then APs of Dispersal.

- Fatiguing means each use of dispersal causes an attack at the APs of power used against Frostbites Body. This makes it a poor idea to remain in a dispersed/phased state for long amounts of time.

Some things of note about Dispersal are the fact that it is rated lower then Ice Production is. That means that if Frostbite uses his Ice Production at full power then he cannot phase through it. You can however choose to have Frostbite use less then his full APs of Ice Production whenever you'd like so that you can in face phase through. Additionally, steel is rated with a Body of 12 so it would be currently impassable to Frostbite.

Wow Dunecat, thanks for all this, its really helpful to have this mapped out like this as a way to get your head around the way the powers work and or overlap with one another.  I really found the different ice power explanations really helpful, especially where they overlap.  As regards Dispersal, this is a case of the power actually being more powerful in GH than in DCheroes.  A rarity, let me tell you, as I normally have had no problem dispersing through most if not all barriers, and for a long time was a major power for helping me be useful under the GH rules in which my character basically sucked.  But since the game encouraged you to roll powers randomly I went with it.  

Anyway I think I will gather these notes together, subject to Paul's approval or corrections/revisions in any case the powers description gives me some great ideas as to how to use those powers to try and contain our current break out situation.  

Look forward to getting the game underway, when RL settles down for you DC, thanks again.  

Sj.

Build Recommendations.

Consolidate the different ice powers together. Currently Frostbite is paying multiple times for the same abilities, it also makes advancing him with character development less effective.

Currently we're paying like this

11 Ice Control 5/8 (165)

11 Ice Production 20/10 (220)

15 Force Blast 15/3 (55)
- burnout -2

If we cut Force Blast, and Ice Control, then gave Ice Production a +1 FC adjustment letting it move existing ice we could rename it as Ice Mastery and have it cost like this

14 Ice Mastery 20/11 (372)

The first setup with the 3 separate powers cost 440 points, with this single power we save 68 points. This also has no added weaknesses. If we really want to push up to 15 APs of Ice Mastery, it would cost 460 points, a mere 20 more points then having the three split powers. There isn't REALLY much of a reason to do that however. 14APs and 15APs are in the same group, and it will only cost him 165 hero points to improve from 14 to 15. Before it would have cost 335 hero points to improve each of his powers by 1 AP. With a single power he can now do everything better then he could before except for dealing damage, and that's only taken a slight drop in power.

No problem man! If you'll notice, I actually suggested that you and paul fold the different ice powers together into a single ability. While they're separate though something to keep in mind is that any non attack use of Ice Production and Ice Control counts as an AUTO action, you can always trade your movement action and dice action for an auto action. That means you can do up to 3 of them, which is useful because you could use your 11 Ice production to make ice while also using 11 Ice Control to protect yourself by syphoning off some of your produced ice.

You can also use Ice Production to do something, and move while using the same action, allowing you to effectively do more in a single round. For example:

- Auto1: Ice Production, 5 Aps to move up to a computer console, 6 Aps to create an Ice Barrier
- Dice: Force Blast someone who isn't on the other side of your Ice Barrier
- Auto2: interface Frostbot with the computer console.

Functionally you've just performed 4 actions, but because you were using a single power to do 2 of them you still only actually used up 3 actions.

dunecat wrote:No problem man! If you'll notice, I actually suggested that you and paul fold the different ice powers together into a single ability. While they're separate though something to keep in mind is that any non attack use of Ice Production and Ice Control counts as an AUTO action, you can always trade your movement action and dice action for an auto action. That means you can do up to 3 of them, which is useful because you could use your 11 Ice production to make ice while also using 11 Ice Control to protect yourself by syphoning off some of your produced ice.

You can also use Ice Production to do something, and move while using the same action, allowing you to effectively do more in a single round. For example:

- Auto1: Ice Production, 5 Aps to move up to a computer console, 6 Aps to create an Ice Barrier
- Dice: Force Blast someone who isn't on the other side of your Ice Barrier
- Auto2: interface Frostbot with the computer console.

Functionally you've just performed 4 actions, but because you were using a single power to do 2 of them you still only actually used up 3 actions.

Wow wonder how Paul feels about this, hopefully when he's had a chance to read this thread, he can come in and verify or not.  

In any case I'm grateful for the clarification and suggestions.  

Sj

Excellent summary of the character as usual Ryan. Thoughts as follows:

1) I'd probably split that final round example into a) Movement with Ice Production b) generate ice barrier* then either c) Force Blast (Dice action) or d) Interface with computer (Auto, though I always thought this sort of thing should be a dice action vs the Artificial intelligence of the AI you are targeting and auto for simpler devices)

*Defensive powers are 'free' activations that cost none of your three actions usually, but strictly speaking this is a miscellaneous power that is used in a defensive fashion as opposed to cold immunity, skin armour, force field, icing and so on.

As most of you guys know, the Champions RPG has something called multipower and an elemental version which basically has a pool of power with which to accomplish various effects. DC Heroes breaks powers up into individual abilities but there's no reason a game like this can't accommodate homebrew powers. You could say that Power Reserve allows this already (buy each power at base cost and low or zero aps) then buy Power Reserve as high as you can to spread between each power. That works out as more expensive that this option.

The big problem I guess I have is adding Ice Control for only +1FC extra until you realise, as Ryan stated, that you are really only adding the ability to move ice - the rest is more or less covered already by Ice Production, so yeah, most of those abilities have been bought twice in effect. However, I'd probably put it at +2FC, if only for the reason that you have an attack (say accounting for FC3) then Protection (in this case FC3, say) then moving the volumes of (existing) ice for FC2, making FC8, which is the cost of the power.

Thoughts (from everyone, but mostly Ryan who understands the ins and outs/mechanics of this game even better than I do)?

Answering your stuff one at a time.

1) I was thinking of Ice Mastery/Production working much the same way that Continuum Control does. APs are split between each different application of the power. The same is true with all the 'Manipulation' style powers, As well as Superspeed splits between using it as EV in combat or subbing for Dex.

2) The auto action there used by Frostbite is just the Auto action to control a sentient Pet/Sidekick (Frostbot). Frostbot would then make his own set of actions based on his instructions. Without instruction Frostbot would just do as he would on his own.

3) I wasn't suggesting adding Ice Control, I was suggesting adding the ability to move just ice. Also keep in mind this is making the power into a FC11 ability. We aren't adding anything but that one component.. to a power that can already create ice from nothing.

Ok you guys carry on till you've reached a decision, this conversation has already gone way above my head.  My familiarity with the rules just doesn't cover this level of understanding.  ;-)

Sj

Well, I see your point with Frostbot. Giving a command would be a 'free' action because it happens at the speed of thought and Frostbot is an AI, more than capable of self control so it'd just get on with it, so point conceded there.

With regards the 'adding Ice Control' it's not the whole power, rather just once function (of three). I think moving quantities of Ice is worth +2FC rather than +1FC based on the breakdown I gave (attack was worth 3FC, defence was worth 3FC and moving ice was worth 2FC, making up the 8FC of the power.)

Fair enough. He'll still be saving points by folding them all into a single power at 14APs. He could also trim some extra points out of it by putting some limitations on. Say a range limit or something like that. Or we could just leave it and keep the 30 some points he'll get from it to spend in play.

Another area that might be good for getting some points would be from his skills. There might be a couple subskills that could be cut. It wouldn't be bad to get him a low level Regeneration power. Even just 2 APs would cut his healing time from 1 hour down to 15 minutes (or to 6 hours for killing combat instead of 24).

dunecat wrote:Fair enough. He'll still be saving points by folding them all into a single power at 14APs. He could also trim some extra points out of it by putting some limitations on. Say a range limit or something like that. Or we could just leave it and keep the 30 some points he'll get from it to spend in play.

Another area that might be good for getting some points would be from his skills. There might be a couple subskills that could be cut. It wouldn't be bad to get him a low level Regeneration power. Even just 2 APs would cut his healing time from 1 hour down to 15 minutes (or to 6 hours for killing combat instead of 24).

Hmm interesting discussion, min maxing & power gaming character generation or how not to make a character suck big time...discuss?  In any case I do appreciate the look see at my character, however can we get to the part where we settle on what we include and what not and I can finally start to get to grips with how he is supposed to work.  I like what DC said about his powers earlier and the examples and pointers were great help. 

Its been fun (and not that I am not grateful, cause I am) but since a lot of this is going over my head lets skip to the good bit.  Paul you've heard and more importantly understand what DC is saying so you go ahead and make a final decision.  I like what we've come up with and powers that can be folded in together sounds far less confusing - for me its about playing the character not the numbers.  My ingame 'luck' has always been completely terrible (its my most consistent feature) but I've tried to compensate by playing smart (well as smart as I can muster) so lets finish up here as the powers aren't what make the man! 

Sj

Well, being honest.. adding Regeneration would be a little on the min/maxing end. However going through your subskills would be a matter of presenting Frostbite in the most accurate way. The best suggestion I have for any points freed up in that manner would be to improve his dispersal. Namely to remove the 'Fatiguing' drawback it currently has. As it stands you should be taking damage with each use of the power. From what I understand though it's one of your defining powers and shouldn't be limited in such a way.

After thats decided then I don't think there's to much left to do. You have a full description of what you can do and it wont change if we fold those three powers together. The only things left after that are Frostbot (who you're using to full effect already), and your skills. So, for the sake of completion.

Charisma: Persuasion; Intimidation and Interogation. (I think) This functions as both the AV and EV for basically any kind of character interaction check.. and is rated high enough to sway just about anyone who isn't a trained mystic.

Military Science; This one is harder without my book on me, but it covers such things as detecting ambushes, useing and creating make shift camoflauge, setting out demolition charges and explosives (and disarming them), along with other assorted skills. I'll get a full list of them when I'm home and post it up. This also functions as your AV/EV for any of the related actions.

Military Science is the one field that I suspect Frostbite might be able to shave a subskill or two out of, though his background does support having all of them in theory as well. Outside of that fairly small issue, we're done. you have everything you should need to know for using Frostbite up in the top portion of the thread.

dunecat wrote:Well, being honest.. adding Regeneration would be a little on the min/maxing end. However going through your subskills would be a matter of presenting Frostbite in the most accurate way. The best suggestion I have for any points freed up in that manner would be to improve his dispersal. Namely to remove the 'Fatiguing' drawback it currently has. As it stands you should be taking damage with each use of the power. From what I understand though it's one of your defining powers and shouldn't be limited in such a way.

After thats decided then I don't think there's to much left to do. You have a full description of what you can do and it wont change if we fold those three powers together. The only things left after that are Frostbot (who you're using to full effect already), and your skills. So, for the sake of completion.

Charisma: Persuasion; Intimidation and Interogation. (I think) This functions as both the AV and EV for basically any kind of character interaction check.. and is rated high enough to sway just about anyone who isn't a trained mystic.

Military Science; This one is harder without my book on me, but it covers such things as detecting ambushes, useing and creating make shift camoflauge, setting out demolition charges and explosives (and disarming them), along with other assorted skills. I'll get a full list of them when I'm home and post it up. This also functions as your AV/EV for any of the related actions.

Military Science is the one field that I suspect Frostbite might be able to shave a subskill or two out of, though his background does support having all of them in theory as well. Outside of that fairly small issue, we're done. you have everything you should need to know for using Frostbite up in the top portion of the thread.

This is great, just need Paul to sign off on the recommendations you made and he'd be complete as he's ever been.  

Thanks again

Sj

If Ryan gets chance maybe he can rattle off a 'final' version of the character (with points costs) to take a look at. I agree about the fatiguing part of Dispersal (Intangibility, Dave). It's not as powerful as the Golden Heroes version and is tricky for Frostbite to use for any length of time, so it has been nerfed. The method behind my madness was purely down to expense and not wanting to load Frosty up with piles of weaknesses to pay for it.

If I get chance (ha! Week off and I literally spent the best part of the day up a tree believe it or not. Chopping and pruning. I'm as stiff as a board now and look like I've been attacked by a horde of scratching cats... and still have more to chop tomorrow...) tomorrow I will rattle off the character based on Dunes' recommendations.