Wizardry: Frostburn Spells II

Wizardry: Frostburn Spells II

    Oh boy, here we go. This is going to be a long one.

    Call Avalanche calls down a mass of snow and ice from the sky to bury victims. Of course, D&D's resolution granularity forfeits such things as snow depth and the fact that it probably shouldn't be a cylindrical mass of snow but a pile of snow. The description says "snow and ice," implying tightly packed snow, and even a sidebar on page 90 says claims that a 5x5x5-foot cube of tightly packed snow weighs 500 lbs. This means that D&D assumes snow density of 4 lbs/cu.ft or 108 lbs/cu.yd. According to data I found online in scientific articles and on the website of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, this is actually closer to the lower end of the density range of dry snow that isn't packed. I'll assume that 108 lbs/cu.yd is incorrect and will use the density of 450 lbs/cu.yd.

    So, how do you build this ability? First, it has to deal some damage, because the mass of snow falls on the area. Second, it should impede movement and, possibly, bury those small enough to be buried. Third, I don't think this should be a cylindrical AoE spell that stays in place indefinitely in this shape - that's be silly. Thus, the snow depth should degrade with distance from the center of the effect, and the ability of the spell to bury victims also must degrade. But what if damage caused by the spell knocks somebody down? Then it may bury a victim that wouldn't otherwise be buried.

    Does GURPS have rules for avalanches? It actually does. Page 32 of GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 16: Wilderness Adventures has somewhat cinematic rules - roll 1d-6d crushing damage, and the result also serves as effective ST grappling the victim. Suffocation is neglected in favor of heroism. There's also this article that talks about avalanches and other natural disasters (I'm actually happy to have found it even for non-avalanche reasons).

    What are my options here? I think there are two of them. The first one is going with linked Crushing Attack and Binding, with Binding taking some arbitrary modifiers to represent movement impediment, uneven spread, and, possibly, enhanced layering from GURPS Meta-Tech. The second one is Create with Ranged and some kind of limitation to restrict creation to a certain height above the ground to remove the need to recalculate fall damage every time (with long range, this damage may get too silly).

    The original spell says that it can bury Large creatures. Let's assume that this means SM+1 in GURPS terms. That is, the spell must produce at least 9 feet of snow at its apex. A 3-yard-tall hex of snow with density of 450 lbs/cu.yd. would weigh 1,170 pounds. For the sake of rounding, let's increase it to 1,200 pounds, just so that we can say that a 1-yard-tall hex of snow weight 400 lbs and a 1-foot-tall hex of snow weighs 133 lbs. We know that a grappler who has less than half of the grapplee ST simply counts as dead weight, so we can invert this to find the effective ST of 3 yards of snow. I will count snow as a living creature for this purpose, as the aforementioned rule doesn't take the grappler's composition into account. A pillar of snow weighing 1,200 lbs. thus would have effective ST 21 (funnily enough, this coincides with the average value of 6d - the maximum avalanche damage from DF16). This also works nicely with the gradual decrease of snow depth, as each foot of snow is roughly equivalent to 1 ST.

    Since we have the apex of 3 yards/9 feet, we could have the depth decrease by 1 foot per yard. This means that one casting will create 94,697 lbs of snow, i.e. ~47.3 tons. This would require us to apply Area Effect, 9 yards, but since AE isn't granular enough, I will use treat it as 8 yards for the purpose of enhancement value and just ignore the fact that there's an extra yard. The Dissipation limitation only provides rules for Innate Attack and Affliction, but not for Binding. I assume that the rules for Innate Attack apply here, i.e. ST is divided by distance from the center. This is not what I'm looking for, according to the calculations above. Thus, I will have to use something like, Dissipation, Reduced, -20% for Crushing Attack and Dissipation, Variant, -50% for Binding, because at a certain point, Engulfing and Suffocating will stop working, and this will justify the extra -30%.

    Since you can layer snow upon snow, I will have to use Enhanced Layering from GURPS Meta-Tech. Enhanced Layering, 1/3, +100% will not suffice, but something closer to Enhanced Layering, x0.42, +140% should do the job.

    But what about the damage component? How much damage would 1,200 pounds of snow do? It should be possible to calculate this by using the collision rules, but this time snow will count as homogenous for the purpose of HP calculation. I'd like the apex of the area to deal 6d crushing damage, and that roughly corresponds to a fall with velocity 7, i.e. fall from 2 yards. The snow itself is higher than 2 yards, so I will just shrug, say "it's magic" and just say that it's 6d. Realistically, the damage drop-off with distance should be the following: 8 feet of snow: 4d+2; 7 feet of snow: 3d-1; 6 feet of snow: 1d+2; 5 feet of snow: 1d-1; 4 feet of snow: 1d-2; 3 feet or less: no damage. This is less harsh than Dissipation, -50%, so let's reduce the value of this limitation to -30%.

    With all this we get a spell that costs 243 points. If we impose a character point cost, we'll get 50 points, which is much more reasonable. If I had to use Create, I'd have to use Create Snow 99 [495] as a base. With all the modifiers and the character point cost, I'd probably arrive to the same 50 or its whereabouts.

    Column of Ice is a fun spell. While quite simple, it can serve many purposes. It can isolate an enemy in combat, it can isolate you in combat, it can give you a good vantage point for shooting, it can deal damage, it can create cover, it can serve as a lift, etc. Imagination is the limit.

    Cometstrike calls down a comet from the sky that crashed down, deals explosive damage, and sends sharp icy fragments everywhere.

Call Avalanche
Keywords: Area (Fixed).
Full Cost: 50 points.
Casting Roll: Skill. Use Innate Attack (Gaze) to aim.
Components: V, S.
Cost: 2 FP + 1 character point.
Casting Time: 2 seconds.
Range: 100 yards.
Duration: Instantaneous.
 
This spell may only be cast outside. At the start of the next turn after the completion of the spell, an avalanche of packed snow falls out of the sky, dealing large-area crushing damage and potentially burying creatures within the area. The avalanche covers an area 9 yards in radius. The effects are as follows:

Distance from the center	Snow depth	Damage	Effects for SM+1	Effects for SM+0	Effects for SM-1	Effects for SM-2
1 yard	9 feet	6d	Buried	Buried	Buried	Buried
2 yards	8 feet	4d+2	Buried	Buried	Buried	Buried
3 yards	7 feet	3d-1	Very deep snow	Buried	Buried	Buried
4 yards	6 feet	1d+2	Very deep snow	Buried	Buried	Buried
5 yards	5 feet	1d-1	Very deep snow	Very deep snow	Buried	Buried
6 yards	4 feet	1d-2	Deep snow	Very deep snow	Buried	Buried
7 yards	3 feet	0	Deep snow	Deep snow	Very deep snow	Buried
8 yards	2 feet	0	Deep snow	Deep snow	Deep snow	Very deep snow
9 yards	1 foot	0	Medium snow	Medium snow	Deep snow	Deep snow

Since the avalanche falls from above, knockback caused by the damage is directed downward – there is no actual knockback, but a failed roll to remain standing still causes the victim to fall. This may cause it to be buried even if its SM would indicate otherwise, at the GM’s discretion.
    Buried: The victim is buried and pinned by the avalanche. Use the damage roll as effective ST of the snow holding the victim in place. If additional castings of this spell cover the victim in extra snow, treat each extra foot of snow as +1 to ST. The victim cannot move, speak, or breathe (see Suffocation, p. B436); his only options are purely mental abilities. He may try to break free by rolling a Quick Contest of ST against the snow once every 10 seconds. A failed attempt also makes the victim lose 1 FP. This FP lost counts as FP lost to freezing (see Cold, p. B430). Allies may try to free the victim by digging (see Digging, p. B350).
    Very deep snow: Move is reduced to 1. Bad footing imposes -6 to attacks and -3 to defenses. Adjacent hexes of very deep snow may impede actions, such as using long weapons.
    Deep snow: +2 movement points per hex. Bad footing imposes -4 to attacks and -2 to defenses.
    Medium snow: +1 movement point per hex. Bad footing imposes -2 to attacks and -1 to defenses.
    Note that tightly packed snow provides DR 0.4* per inch of thickness. Each casting produces about 47 tons of snow. The snow remains until melted by natural or unnatural means. A rapid melting of the ice and snow could cause a flash flood. The snow avalanche also extinguishes all flames it touches.
Statistics: Crushing Attack 6d (Area Effect, 9 yards, +150%; Character point-powered, x1/5; Delay, 1 second, +0%; Dissipation, Variant, -30%; Environmental, Ground, -20%; Environmental, Outdoors, -20%; Link, +10%; Magical, -10%; Overhead, +30%; Requires Gestures, -10%; Requires IQ Roll, -10%; Requires Magic Words, -10%; Takes Extra Time 1, -10%) [51 / 5 = 11] + Binding 21 (Area Effect, 9 yards, +150%; Character point-powered, x1/5; Costs Fatigue, 2 FP, -10%; Delay, 1 second, +0%; Dissipation, Variant, -50%; Engulfing, +60%; Enhanced Layering, x0.42, +140%; Environmental, Ground, -20%; Environmental, Outdoors, -20%; Link, +10%; Magical, -10%; Overhead, +30%; Requires Gestures, -10%; Requires IQ Roll, -10%; Requires Magic Words, -10%; Suffocating, +75%; Takes Extra Time 1, -10%; Unbreakable, +40%) [192 / 5 = 39].
 
Column of Ice
Keywords: Area (Fixed).
Full Cost: 33/47/59/66/74/81/88/94/100/105 points for level 1-10.
Casting Roll: Skill. Use Innate Attack (Gaze) to aim.
Components: V, S.
Cost: 2 FP.
Casting Time: 2 seconds.
Range: 10 yards.
Duration: Instantaneous.
 
A cylindrical 3-yard-diameter column of ice rises from the ground, lifting any object or creature (including you) standing in the area into the air. Those in the area may perform a retreating dodge to move out of the area.
The column rises at a rate of 4 yards per second. The maximum height of the column in yards is equal to the spell level, but the caster may always choose to create a shorter one. Moving and fighting atop the ice column takes the same penalties as moving and fighting on normal ice. The fact that the column rises counts as movement at Move 5 even if creatures atop stand still, prompting DX rolls to remain standing until the column reaches its maximum height.
Creatures atop the column as it rises may be smashed against the ceiling or other overhead obstructions. This deals 2d crushing damage and stops the column’s growth. This is large-area injury that treats rigid armor as flexible.
The ice column remains indefinitely until melted through natural or unnatural means. Ice provides DR 0.8* per inch of thickness.
Statistics: Create Ice 33 (Accessibility, Only as a cylindrical column, -25%; Environmental, Ground, -20%; Magical, -10%; Nuisance Effect, Doesn’t rise instantaneously, -5%; Ranged, +40%; Reduced Range, 1/10, -30%; Requires Gestures, -10%; Requires Magic Words, -10%; Takes Extra Time 1, -10%) [33]. Level 2 increases the level of Create to 47 [+14]. Level 3 increases the level of Create to 59 [+12]. Level 4 increases the level of Create to 66 [+7]. Level 5 increases the level of Create to 74 [+8]. Level 6 increases the level of Create to 81 [+7]. Level 7 increases the level of Create to 88 [+7]. Level 8 increases the level of Create to 94 [+6]. Level 9 increases the level of Create to 100 [+6]. Level 10 increases the level of Create to 105 [+5]. If you’d like to create taller columns, either calculate the required level of Create or just treat every extra level as +6 to cost. One yard of the column weighs 10,916.47 pounds.
  
Cometstrike
Keywords: Missile, Obvious.
Full Cost: 75 points.
Casting Roll: Skill. Use Innate Attack (Gaze) to aim.
Components: V, S.
Cost: 2 FP.
Casting Time: 1 second.
Range: 100 yards.
Duration: Instantaneous.
 
The caster calls down an icy comet from the sky. Thus, this spell can only be cast outdoors. Use Innate Attack (Gaze), at +4, if targeting a hex instead of a creature or object; see Scatter (p. B414) if you miss. One second after the casting has finished, the comet falls, dealing 6d crushing damage on direct impact. Anything nearby receives “collateral damage” equal to basic damage divided by the distance in yards from the blast. This spell bypasses any cover that does not provide overhead protection, and negates attack penalties to hit crouching, kneeling, sitting, or prone targets. (If you are already above or below your target, adjust this appropriately.)
After impact, the comet sends sharp icy fragments. Everyone within 10 yards of the point of impact is attacked with effective skill 15, modified by range penalties from the point of impact; see Fragmentation Damage (p. B414). The fragments deal 2d impaling damage.
Statistics: Crushing Attack 6d (Costs Fatigue, 2 FP, -10%; Delay, 1 second, +0%; Environmental, Outdoors, -20%; Explosion 3, +150%; Fragmentation, [2d imp], +40%; Magical, -10%; Overhead, +30%; Requires Gestures, -10%; Requires IQ Roll, -10%; Requires Magic Words, -10%) [75].