A d8 lieutenant has a freeze ray gun. The effect from a blast is to encase the poor hero in a block of ice, unable to move.
How do you write up that ability? What is the mechanic for such an effect?
That would probably be a normal HINDER action. Completely preventing all action dose not work so well in this system but giving a minus to an action that makes it inefective works well.
We do not have the full preiveiw of lieutenant and villain creation yet so that might have better advice and more rules for lieutenants that are good at one basic action
I'd say the lieutenant could have a +2 bonus on Hinders using the freeze gun. That would emulate the hero having to spend their turn struggling to break free of the ice.
Alternatively, the lieutenant could have a +2 bonus on Overcomes using the freeze gun. Each success on a given hero creates an "Ice Prison" challenge which has 1 box. Each Ice Prison on a hero gives them a -1 persistent penalty on all Actions.
This might also be an occasion where the descriptor of "encased in ice" refers more to the damage dealt than the actual effect.
If the freeze ray is used to encase a hero's arm or leg, it seems like a Hinder (perhaps one that prevents some specific usages, freezing over a weapon or the like).
If the freeze ray is used to deal damage, it's an attack. If that attack brings a hero to 0 hp, then they might be described as 'encased in ice', and unable to use incap actions until they're freed (with an overcome)
Not sure if lieutenants will be allowed to have Abilities, e.g. Hinder with the Mid die and Attack with the Low die, but allowed or not I'd likely go with that in my home game.
Those are great suggestions for uses!
A freeze ray gun could offer multiple different "attacks."
---- an attack attack. Damage, obviously, equals what was rolled on the die. (Just a basic attack.)
---- a Hinder attack with the description being something like frozen limbs or ice-encrusted limbs. (Just a basic Hinder.)
---- an Overcome attack in which you freeze something, like a vault door or lock, to shatter it. (Just a basic Overcome.)
---- an Overcome attack that creates a challenge for the target with a description being the target is encased in a block of ice and frozen still. The resolution is to Overcome (Another basic Overcome action.)
An especially adept freeze ray gun agent, like, say, a Crey Cryo Scientist, could have an innate +1 or +2 with the gun as an additional ability.
The beginning of the Starter Kit poses a similar question, with the spider-bot minions that can Hinder a hero by wrapping them in webs. There, as here, the system doesn’t really have an option for an instantly-incapacitating attack on a hero. The webs - or the ice - would be Hinders on the hero, representing the hero getting partially snared and slowed down as they had to struggle loose. I’d say that getting fully webbed up or frozen in a block of ice would be the description of what happens if a hero actually gets taken Out in a fight with those things - or, potentially, could be introduced as a Twist during the fight. A Twist could definitely introduce a new challenge into play (Trapped In Ice or Web Coccoon or whatever) that has to be Overcome. I’m not sure if minions and lieutenants are supposed to have abilities that introduce new Overcome challenges without a twist, but I guess it could work like that too.
When I was running the starter kit, in the Tomb Of Anubis, I had one of the liuetenants who was good at Overcomes spend it's turns making Overcomes to put heroes in Sand Cages, which required an Overcome to remove. As long as a Sand Cage challenge was present on a hero, that hero had to justify how they were circumventing the sand cage to take action on anything outside of the Cage. It didn't seem too unbalanced, especially because minions and lieutentants making Overcomes are more likely to invoke Twists on themselves by making Overcomes.
This is all I have to add:
https://youtu.be/dlONS745QPo
except we are talking about a Jonny Snow ice gun not a freeze ray
Doesn't mean it wasn't a funny video to post. :-D