How to build an Area Effect with Hit Location attack?

[Kallatari]

I use a Powers-base approach for all my powers: magic, psi, supers, etc.

I have a player who wants to create a "caltrops-like effect" attack ability, that will essentially fill an area effect with sharp, pointy stones that will damage anyone who moves through the area. The basics of this build are easy enough: Innate Attack (Accessibility, only those who are moving on the ground; Area Effect; Persistent).

But caltrops only do damage to the foot, and only apply the DR of the foot (as opposed to an average of torso + worse DR location). How do I go about getting that specific effect into the Area Effect attack?

While this came up because of a specific request, I realize my request can definitely be made more generic than just caltrops. What about an Area Effect that causes eyes to melt?

I know some of these can be modeled with Affliction (e.g. Blindness for eyes attack), but it's not the same as Affliction gives Resistance Roll and DR does not reduce the damage (but does help with resistance).

Anyway, if anyone has suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

Thanks in advance

[Refplace]

I would go with the Bombardment limitation.
Attacking the feet vs. the head and such is probably a wash and instead of cover they just stop moving or lay down something over the ground.
May be worth a little more of a limitation if you allow another means to counter it, like a DX roll.

As to using this to attack other locations that's more an issue. Normally I would say use the base to hit roll reduced by location penalty. However you get some nasty damage that way so I would require Cosmic as well, assuming I even approved it.

[Kallatari]

Originally Posted by Refplace

I would go with the Bombardment limitation.
Attacking the feet vs. the head and such is probably a wash and instead of cover they just stop moving or lay down something over the ground.
May be worth a little more of a limitation if you allow another means to counter it, like a DX roll.

Bombardment does not target the head. It requires a hit roll and hits a random hit location.

Ditto for Overhead enhancement.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Kallatari

But caltrops only do damage to the foot, and only apply the DR of the foot (as opposed to an average of torso + worse DR location). How do I go about getting that specific effect into the Area Effect attack?

It's probably a small enhancement, because it gives the beneficial effect that you can cripple the feet, but I don't know of a standard one for it. I'd probably wind up with something like 10% x hit location penalty.

[Gurps Fan]

That's basically an Impaling Attack enhanced with Delay, Triggered (Touch, +50%).

Delay, Triggered enhancement means the ability works like a land mine or radio bomb -- by taking an Attack maneuver, you coujure up some object that endures indefinitely until it "goes off" by fulfilling a certain predetermined condition (e.g., touch, radio signal, etc.), and toss it as a ranged weapon. The "a body part in contact with the object, instead of torso, suffers the effect" part of the ability is already included in Delay, Triggered. A full write-up might be like the following:

Magical Caltrops: Impaling Attack 1d (Area Effect, 2 yards, +50%; Bombardment, skill 14, -5%; Delay, Triggered, Touch, +50%; Magical, -10%) [15]. Notes: Fills the affected area with magical caltrops that stick into a foot (or whatever body parts) stepping on them. You roll against your Innate Attack skill to see if you have successfully place the effect on your desired area (see also Scatter, p. B414). Whenever someone enters any one of the affected hexes, you roll against a skill of 14, modified by SM of the potential victim. On a success, the caltrops inflict a 1d impaling damage on his body part that is in contact with the ground -- normally a foot. An affected hex loses effect after it has successfully attacked anyone. 15 points.

[Figleaf23]

An alternative approach would be to use Create (Caltrops) with whatever mods are needed to cover the desired area.

[Langy]

To do something like this (my character's eyes could burn with a holy light that would burn other people's eyes out), I used Accessibility: Can Only Target Eyes and Extra Attack to make him capable of hitting multiple targets at once.

You could also give the attack a limited version of a high ROF and then use the autofire rules. Basically, limit the Rate of Fire enhancement so it doesn't allow you to hit a single target with more than one shot - sounds like maybe a -50% limitation, halving the value of the enhancement. Also give the attack Selective Area, and you can just spray everything you see, making skill rolls to attempt to hit the target locations. Use your high RoF bonus to help cancel out the hit location penalty, and maybe toss a few points into Targeted Attack technique, too.

EDIT: Alternatively, give the area-effect attack Selective Effect and, when rolling for the attack, apply the hit location penalty to the attack. Bam, you just made an attack that only targets eyes and yet also targets an area. EDIT2: And re-reading my build for the ability in question, I realize that this is exactly what I did; the Extra Attack bit was for something else entirely.

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by Gurps Fan

Whenever someone enters any one of the affected hexes, you roll against a skill of 14, modified by SM of the potential victim. On a success, the caltrops inflict a 1d impaling damage on his body part that is in contact with the ground -- normally a foot. An affected hex loses effect after it has successfully attacked anyone. 15 points.

Just a quick note, I think by RAW anyone who triggers the delayed attack would make the entire thing activate. Making each hex an independent "attack" sounds like an enhancement along the lines of Selective Effect. Also, technically anyone who triggers would use up the "charge", whether or not he's actually hit. Letting the hex retain its charge might require additional enhancement. Other than that, yeah, Triggered Delay is great for this sort of attack.

Another way to do it comes to mind though. You could drop Delay, and just make the attack Persistent. A hex of caltrops would represent more than just one, so could potentially affect multiple people passing through it. Maybe give the attack a Nuisance Effect, that every attack which hits reduces that hex's "skill" by 1 or 2. Of course, this doesn't really address the OP's question of how to target the feet. Since they're -4 to hit, I'd call it at most a +20% enhancement (ie, the price of +4 Reliable / Accuracy).

[whswhs]

That actually doesn't sound like an attack ability in the usual sense. The caltrops aren't flying through the air at someone; they're just lying there.

I'm not sure of the right way to build this. One way might be as a Create with the damage coming as a side effect. You probably wouldn't want to spend creation points on stabilizing it. . . .

Bill Stoddard

[Refplace]

I cant recall where at the moment but I think I saw a build like this suing binding as an army of zombie hands or grasping vines.