Captain Cold's counter to Orion

Plane · 02-28-2022, 03:55 PM

So there's this scene in the JLU ep "Flash and Substance" where Orion is charging toward Captain Cold. He initially hits him directly encasing him in ice which shatters his flying harness, but Orion jumps off and seems ready to fall toward Snart (possibly a flying tackle) and we see an interesting countermeasure...

https://youtu.be/fxQqh-8DZhM

Snart shoots the ground to create an ice barricade, which I figure is something like Crushing Attack (Area Effect, Persistant, Wall) in GURPS terms...

Normally if you created a wall in front of you when someone is charging you, they would just take Collision damage, right?

But in this case he angles a curved wall so that instead of colliding directly, he redirects the angle of Orion's fall so that he slides past-and-away from Captain Cold.

So naturally I think "well how do you do something like this in GURPS"

This reminds me of what happens when a Slam gets dodged, B371's "you must move at least two yards past him if you have enough movement"

Orion seems to go a bit further than two yards though... it actually makes me wonder if there should be a fixed "two yards" situation, or if the yards you go should instead be based on a % of unused Move that your travel speed would have allowed for?

Snart doesn't actually move though so it's not a true "dodge", yet seems to have a similar effect. It's like he forced Orion to miss him via redirecting his path.

Would this be an example of how you could explain a "Power Parry" using a Crushing Attack to deflect incoming force from another Crushing Attack?

Powers 236 uses the phrase "weaken or stop", but I'm not sure that's necessarily what a Power Parry is, at least not in an objective sense (force ceases to exist) but merely in a subjective one (force ceases to apply to original target)

I guess this depends on when you should apply P165's "Collateral Damage" rules. P168 says:

roll once on the table, using the larger attack’s damage type and the modifier for the difference between damage dice

I'm not sure I'm reading this right but as best I can interpret

a) if a 1d crushing (ice) parried a 2d burning (fire), Collateral would be 1d burning (fire)

b) if a 3d crushing (ice) parried a 1d burning (fire), Collateral would be 2d crushing (ice)

This is reading "difference" as "largest minus smallest" though, if it's intended as "attack minus parry" then I guess in (b) it would be "1d-3d crushing" with minimal chances to harm others?

I kinda like the 'largest vs smallest' though, because that would actually make it risky (financially, to do repairs) to use your full 10d crushing ice attack to power-parry a mere 1d burning attack: you'd be better off (if you had Variable) to lower that to something like 6d crushing, which guarantees you will cancel out all of the Basic Damage without getting you into the 3d+2 tier of 10d

I guess technically 9d would do that, though think maybe GMs could define damage tiers (maybe 5d?) for a +1 on the Collateral table?

Or, for example, defining somewhere between the +2 for 10d and the +4 for 100d as being +3. (Powers 165)

- -

Anyway getting back to the concept of this being a Power Parry, while that reflects the concept of "I deflected Orion and he hit an expensive" (there is no cost to surroundings if Orion actually hit your ice wall - it's YOUR property) it still doesn't really reflect the idea of "Orion slides past me instead of stopping in front of me".

We can view a wall collission as having some element of knockback to it (collisions cause crushing damage, knockback could be "bouncing off" a wall you collide with, for example) but in this case, instead of bouncing backward, Captain Cold's angling of his curved wall seems to be basically preventing a direct collision with his wall, but he gets to not only enjoy the knockback but DIRECT the angle of the knockback caused if Orion HAD collided.

Like "you don't bounce back where you came from, you bounce left", so to speak, if someone rams you from the front.

Something like "colliding with my wall does not hurt you" seems to be covered by "No Wounding" limitation, but I think Snart would only do that if there was a tactical reason for it (hurting Orion is usually a good thing).

Maybe it's something like Powers 137 where Snart can specify "colliding with my wall knocks you upward instead of backward" using the "knockback is vertical" feature?

In the case of "Twister" knockback is ALWAYS vertical though, whereas Snart has the ability to make a classic wall (collisions knock back) not just curved walls (collissions knock up/past) so I'm not sure how you'd design a Crushing Attack which allowed you to specify custom angles as it suited you.

I was thinking maybe someting like Cosmic +50% for "extra options", not sure if that would be too expensive. This might explain why Snart would take "No Wounding", if it was applied to halve that cosmic enhancement's cost to +25%, meaning he could only alter knockback angles by a facing (60 degrees upward, or left/right) by making collissions with his wall non-wounding ones?

I figure +50% per facing-change of knockback flexibility (from baseline expectations) seems pretty reasonable, so do be able to flip it 180 degrees would cost +150% .

02-28-2022, 03:55 PM	#1
Plane Join Date: Aug 2018	Captain Cold's counter to Orion So there's this scene in the JLU ep "Flash and Substance" where Orion is charging toward Captain Cold. He initially hits him directly encasing him in ice which shatters his flying harness, but Orion jumps off and seems ready to fall toward Snart (possibly a flying tackle) and we see an interesting countermeasure... https://youtu.be/fxQqh-8DZhM Snart shoots the ground to create an ice barricade, which I figure is something like Crushing Attack (Area Effect, Persistant, Wall) in GURPS terms... Normally if you created a wall in front of you when someone is charging you, they would just take Collision damage, right? But in this case he angles a curved wall so that instead of colliding directly, he redirects the angle of Orion's fall so that he slides past-and-away from Captain Cold. So naturally I think "well how do you do something like this in GURPS" This reminds me of what happens when a Slam gets dodged, B371's "you must move at least two yards past him if you have enough movement" Orion seems to go a bit further than two yards though... it actually makes me wonder if there should be a fixed "two yards" situation, or if the yards you go should instead be based on a % of unused Move that your travel speed would have allowed for? Snart doesn't actually move though so it's not a true "dodge", yet seems to have a similar effect. It's like he forced Orion to miss him via redirecting his path. Would this be an example of how you could explain a "Power Parry" using a Crushing Attack to deflect incoming force from another Crushing Attack? Powers 236 uses the phrase "weaken or stop", but I'm not sure that's necessarily what a Power Parry is, at least not in an objective sense (force ceases to exist) but merely in a subjective one (force ceases to apply to original target) I guess this depends on when you should apply P165's "Collateral Damage" rules. P168 says: roll once on the table, using the larger attack’s damage type and the modifier for the difference between damage dice I'm not sure I'm reading this right but as best I can interpret a) if a 1d crushing (ice) parried a 2d burning (fire), Collateral would be 1d burning (fire) b) if a 3d crushing (ice) parried a 1d burning (fire), Collateral would be 2d crushing (ice) This is reading "difference" as "largest minus smallest" though, if it's intended as "attack minus parry" then I guess in (b) it would be "1d-3d crushing" with minimal chances to harm others? I kinda like the 'largest vs smallest' though, because that would actually make it risky (financially, to do repairs) to use your full 10d crushing ice attack to power-parry a mere 1d burning attack: you'd be better off (if you had Variable) to lower that to something like 6d crushing, which guarantees you will cancel out all of the Basic Damage without getting you into the 3d+2 tier of 10d I guess technically 9d would do that, though think maybe GMs could define damage tiers (maybe 5d?) for a +1 on the Collateral table? Or, for example, defining somewhere between the +2 for 10d and the +4 for 100d as being +3. (Powers 165) - - Anyway getting back to the concept of this being a Power Parry, while that reflects the concept of "I deflected Orion and he hit an expensive" (there is no cost to surroundings if Orion actually hit your ice wall - it's YOUR property) it still doesn't really reflect the idea of "Orion slides past me instead of stopping in front of me". We can view a wall collission as having some element of knockback to it (collisions cause crushing damage, knockback could be "bouncing off" a wall you collide with, for example) but in this case, instead of bouncing backward, Captain Cold's angling of his curved wall seems to be basically preventing a direct collision with his wall, but he gets to not only enjoy the knockback but DIRECT the angle of the knockback caused if Orion HAD collided. Like "you don't bounce back where you came from, you bounce left", so to speak, if someone rams you from the front. Something like "colliding with my wall does not hurt you" seems to be covered by "No Wounding" limitation, but I think Snart would only do that if there was a tactical reason for it (hurting Orion is usually a good thing). Maybe it's something like Powers 137 where Snart can specify "colliding with my wall knocks you upward instead of backward" using the "knockback is vertical" feature? In the case of "Twister" knockback is ALWAYS vertical though, whereas Snart has the ability to make a classic wall (collisions knock back) not just curved walls (collissions knock up/past) so I'm not sure how you'd design a Crushing Attack which allowed you to specify custom angles as it suited you. I was thinking maybe someting like Cosmic +50% for "extra options", not sure if that would be too expensive. This might explain why Snart would take "No Wounding", if it was applied to halve that cosmic enhancement's cost to +25%, meaning he could only alter knockback angles by a facing (60 degrees upward, or left/right) by making collissions with his wall non-wounding ones? I figure +50% per facing-change of knockback flexibility (from baseline expectations) seems pretty reasonable, so do be able to flip it 180 degrees would cost +150% .