While I hardly am an advocate of toning down powers.  In fact, I am usually accused of making powers TOO powerful.  I mean, we are supposed to be SUPER hereos.  However, I do feel that ice powers is too easy to abuse. 

So without really changing anything,  I have done a few things to make ice powers a bit more managable.

So far everything stays as is in the rules, with one exception.  I  don't limit the amount of armor you can generate.  You will see why.

   As movement you can create armor out of ice.  Fine, but you are SPENDING your movement points to do so.   That means, if you create 50adr you spent 50 movement points and can not regain those movement points until that armor is gone.   So if you have a total movment of 55 points,  you can only move at 5 mp untill that armor is blasted away.

AND  each point weighs a pound.   That means your agility is adjusted as far as saves and intitiative.

  Go ahead speedy, create 200adr, see if I care.  Be immobile,  be the last in combat with your one attack.  I hope not getting hurt is worth the sacrifice!

That works too, but it does seem to lessing the flavor, for lack of a better word, of Ice Powers.   

I kind of picture some warrior, coated with ice, getting bogged down under a glacier of protection, fighting  on step by extruciating step.

Yup  5 mp is not 5mph.   I guess I didn't make that clear.

And as far as a guy with speed bonus etc...  All I can say is, some superheroes are more powerful than others.

For one dose of a sonics a guy gets to pay 5 power and do 1d12 damage and mimic sounds.

For one dose of a power a guy gets to form ice armor,  do 1d12 damage and  sometimes do clinging damage for free, AND form solid matter in any shape they desire  AND get  a defence  and do some cool tricks
  I am not worried too much about "punishing" the player.  I think  the slowing down offsets all the over the top advantages.

I'm just glad to see I'm not the only one who's struggled with this power...

In going back and looking at the power I would make several changes to many aspects and further edit the Ice Armor alternative I wrote above:

Acceptable Basics:
Range=S+E /5 
Damage: 1D12
PR=5 per attack
Maintaining Ice created: PR=1 per turn per item that requires maintenance within character's range. No maintenance required in an Arctic or Winter environment.

Now the changes:
1.The power no longer generates cubic feet of ice on an attack nor does ice cling to the target and cause further damage. This aspect of the power is replaced by Ice Prison below.

2. New ability: Ice Prison
Attacks as Ice powers but Inflicts no damage,requires 1 action to attack and affects a single target only.PR=7 per attack

On a successful hit roll 2D8 and multiply the result by 100 to get the weight of the ice which will range from 200-1600 lbs. If the target's CC is less than the weight of the Ice the target is frozen solid and rendered immobile. If the target's CC equals or exceeds the weight it takes him one action to free himself from the ice. Ice must be maintained or it melts off at 100 lbs per turn.

3. Ice Armor:
The character may spend an action to create a hard coating of Ice around his body for protection at a cost of 30" of movement and a PR of 8 + maintenance. Armor melts at a rate of 2 pts of Invulnerability per turn.
     The Ice provides Ice Defense. It also provides 10 points of Invulnerability to any attacks that are AFFECTED BY ICE DEFENSE (with the exception of Ice Powers-Ice Armor will protect against ice attacks).

This means that Flame Powers, Emotion Control, Force Fields, Gravity Powers,  Lightning Control, Magnetic Powers, Mind Control, Paralysis, and Transmutation IGNORE the Ice Armor.

4.Creating Ice:
1 " of movement for each 2 cubic feet of Ice created. PR=1 per creation. These ice masses will require maintaining or they will melt at a rate of 200 lbs/2 cubic feet per turn. Larger or more complex creations may require an additional power or action cost as determined by the GM

With this alternative the Ice using hero gets to do a lot less for free or for a cost only in movement. It also removes the capacity to inflict ongoing damage and containment in a single attack at a paltry Pr cost of 5. The Ice Prison ability grants a hero a nice thematic method to capture and restrain villains without hurting them as well, which is a facet of most ice-wielding comic book heroes that I think was sorely lacking here. It will work pretty reliably on thugs and such but many super villains will be difficult to capture with such a method...as it should be.

STORMDANCE wrote on Nov 5^th, 2009 at 7:36pm:


Most of this looks good, but a few of these (Flame, Force Field, Magnetics, and possibly Lightning) - when they are doing a  physical 'blast' or physical, kinetic attack (as they usually do) - SHOULD be affected by this limited Invulnerability.  If a character has 10 points of protection against physical attacks (as this ice should do), then it should provide that against fire as much as it should against a power blast, IMHO.

I'm in the camp that says, "Yes, Ice armor is powerful, but...".  So are the other mega powers.  Animal Plant Powers, Bionics, Mutant Power, Body power, Flame Powers, Gravity control - these all have a lot of pluses tagged into them.  Heck, if you maxed out number of powers, then rolled animal plant powers, you could end up with 12 powers total, assuming you don't roll one of the other mega powers and end up with even more.

I'm all for doing what the book says, though, and working with the player to balance out the character powers.  None of the solutions above are ones I would use as a standard reading of Ice Powers - I'd pretty much stay as it says in the rules.  But they are variants that would work as options.