Faerie Frost Giant attack question

[b-dog]

The frost giants in Ars Mágica are faerie unlike the ones in AD&D. This means the frost giants have a lot of innate magical power. One power is sort of an aura of cold but it also has swirling snow and ice surrounding the frost giant. How would you handle the vision and hearing penalties for this? Swirling icy wind probably could make arrows go off track too. And what if the frost giant just blasted the PCs with a cone of snow and icy wind and then tried to whack them with his club or chop them with his axe? Would they be stunned or blinded by the snow and ice? Would the frost giant be able to whack them more easily due to being distracted by the blinding snow and ice?

[Anthony]

Depends how you build the spells or powers. Define what you want them to do and we can probably suggest how to represent that in GURPS.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by b-dog

The frost giants in Ars Mágica are faerie unlike the ones in AD&D. This means the frost giants have a lot of innate magical power. One power is sort of an aura of cold but it also has swirling snow and ice surrounding the frost giant. How would you handle the vision and hearing penalties for this? Swirling icy wind probably could make arrows go off track too. And what if the frost giant just blasted the PCs with a cone of snow and icy wind and then tried to whack them with his club or chop them with his axe? Would they be stunned or blinded by the snow and ice? Would the frost giant be able to whack them more easily due to being distracted by the blinding snow and ice?

As was said it depends on how its built.
Obscurement with Defensive and Extended would interfere with others trying to hit the giant but not the giants attacks.
So that covers vision, hearing and attacks using those senses.

Attacking them with an icy blast would have the effects you add.
Look at Bard and elemental storm builds for how to build it.
You dont need to decide on the point costs for the NPCs but you should build it so the effects are clear.

[Dalin]

Originally Posted by b-dog

One power is sort of an aura of cold but it also has swirling snow and ice surrounding the frost giant. How would you handle the vision and hearing penalties for this? Swirling icy wind probably could make arrows go off track too.

In DFRPG, I might model this on the Windstorm spell (Spells, p. 17). The spell would move with the giant and its eye would be the giant's hex. (This would provide the added fun of encouraging close combat.) Ice and snow would be a special effect (or add some cold or piercing damage to people in the aura). You could adjust the power level by extending the area around the giant or using the double-strength version. If vision penalties were desired on top of the ranged attack penalty, just pick a value and go with that (or a value per yard). I would write this into the monster's description as a custom effect, like the Electric Jelly's Electrical Aura (Monsters, p. 24).

[Dalin]

Originally Posted by b-dog

And what if the frost giant just blasted the PCs with a cone of snow and icy wind and then tried to whack them with his club or chop them with his axe? Would they be stunned or blinded by the snow and ice? Would the frost giant be able to whack them more easily due to being distracted by the blinding snow and ice?

Again, presuming you would have posted this in GURPS if you wanted full GURPS specs, I'll stick to DFRPG. Some models that already exist for freezing blasts are Dragon's Breath (cold) (Monsters, p. 22-23), the Frost Snake's Chill Breath (Monsters, p. 28), and the Ice Wyrm's Frost Breath (Monsters, p. 38). Each of these handles it a bit differently, providing a good menu of options.

[Dalin]

I don't know how I missed it when I posted last week, but the Sandstorm spell (Spells, p. 16) might be an even better model than Windstorm for the swirling aura. It includes a mechanic for being blinded by sand and having blurry vision as you recover; this could work just as well for swirling ice crystals.