Effect: Array (Environmental Control)
Action: Standard (active)
Range: Ranged
Duration: Sustained
Saving Throw: Fortitude
Cost: 2 points per rank
You can create an area of extreme cold with a radius of 5 feet at rank 1. Each additional rank moves the area one step up the Progression Table (see The Environment, M&M, page 167 for the effects of extreme cold).
COUNTERING
The ability to control cold may be able to counter itself (depending on the power’s descriptors) and cold control usually counters effects involving fire or heat. At the GM’s discretion, a cold controller could also counter certain effects involving gaseous or liquid mediums by freezing them. For example, a use of
Cold Control to counter a cloud of poisonous gas by radically lowering the temperature and turning the gas into a solid that precipitates out of the air. The same may apply to effects like Water Control, instantly turning water into ice.
Fire and heat effects can likewise counter Cold Control. The GM may wish to apply the effects of a hot environment as a modifier to Cold Control effects: a –1 rank penalty for intense heat and a –2 rank penalty for extreme heat; this isn’t considered a drawback per se, just a side effect of Cold Control’s descriptors. Of course, if a cold controller lowers the temperature in the area, then other usesof the power may be less affected.
ALTERNATE POWERS
The following are additional Alternate Powers suited to a Cold Control Array:
• Cold Blast: You strike a target with a blast of extreme cold, inflicting frostbite and related damage. This is a Ranged Fortitude Damage effect (3 points per rank) so the base rank is two-thirds your Cold Control rank. It’s useful for bypassing Toughness, but has no effect on targets immune to cold damage or Fortitude effects.
• Create Ice: You can create masses of ice out of the moisture in the air, sculpting them into various shapes, an Independent Create Object effect at your Cold Control rank. Ice objects you form may be “super-frozen” giving them greater than normal Toughness (based on your Cold Control rank rather than the Toughness of ordinary ice), although they still melt away. You can also freeze masses of water: affecting a cube five feet on a side per rank of Cold Control. If freezing a mass of water could trap swimmers in the ice, use the guidelines for trapping someone with the created object given in the Create Object effect.
• Dazzle: Highly polished ice or a “white out” of snow can create momentary “snow blindness,” a Visual Dazzle effect at your Cold Control rank.
• Fatigue: By freezing the air around (and perhaps even inside) a target you cause a Ranged Fatigue effect at two-thirds your Cold Control power rank since Ranged Fatigue costs 3 points per rank).
• Ice Blast: You hurl a solid mass of ice at a target, inflicting bludgeoning damage, or a shower of sharp icicles or ice-knives to inflict lethal piercing or slashing damage like a Blast power at your Cold Control rank. Note that Immunity to Cold Damage does not protect targets against this attack, which while “cold” is purely physical.
• Ice Slick: You coat the ground with a slippery sheet of ice. This is a Ranged Trip effect, either targeted against a single opponent or (more commonly) acquired as a Burst Area Trip effect extending all around you. Either effect has a rank equal to your Cold Control, with the Area version extending in a (rank x 5 feet) radius around you. Alternately, you might have a Cone or Line Area Trip effect, allowing you to create ice slicks in different shapes in front of you, or even a Trail Area for leaving a slick sheet of ice behind you.
• Icy Conditions: You freeze the surfaces around you, hampering movement through the area like the Environmental Control effect, reducing ground movement
to one-quarter normal speed. This is less intense than the ice slick effect, but extends over a much larger area.
• Obscure: Cold Control can generate a blinding blizzard that acts as a Visual Obscure effect at the Cold Control power rank and, when the blizzard ends, can shift to the icy conditions effect described previously, if desired, or the snow can just miraculously melt away.
• Snare: You can trap a target in ice, a Snare effect equal to your Cold Control power rank. An icy snare can have variations with different Snare modifiers. In particular, the Suffocating extra may apply for ice snares that completely cover their targets. See the Snare effect for details.
• Weaken: Super-cooling materials can render them brittle and easily broken. This is a Ranged Affects Objects Drain Toughness effect at your Cold Control rank.
DRAWBACKS
• Power Loss: A more intense version of the slight power loss in hot environments mentioned under Countering, Cold Control with this drawback does not work at all in conditions of intense (2 points) or extreme (3 points) heat.
• Vulnerable: Cold controllers may be Vulnerable to heat and fire attacks (usually a common effect). Alternately, some cold controllers are actually vulnerable to cold effects, other than their own, because they are dependent on heat in some way, although this may also manifest as a Weakness.
• Weakness: A Cold Control character may have a Weakness involving extremes of temperature, either “melting” in the heat or being dependent on absorbing heat in order to function.
• Weak Point: Rather than the usual vulnerability to critical hits, the GM may approve a variation of this power drawback that applies to a type of attack, such as heat attacks bypassing the Toughness of ice armor or ice objects by melting them.
ASSOCIATED EFFECTS
The following are some additional powers commonly associated with Cold Control.
• Absorption: A cold controller may have the power to absorb cold damage. Conversely, some may have the power to absorb heat damage, acting as “living heat-pumps,” and using the energy to heal or enhance Cold Control (since the power to generate cold implies the ability to drain or absorb heat in some manner).
• Ice Armor: You can form icy armor that protects you from harm like the Force Field power or continuous duration Protection, if you prefer.
• Ice Form: You can transform bodily into ice (see the Alternate Form power for details).
• Ice Slides: You can move rapidly along icy slides and ramps formed by your power. This is a Flight effect with the power drawback that you can still be tripped (knocked off your ice slide) while using it (worth –1 point).
• Immunity: Immunity to cold environments (1 rank), cold damage (5 rank), or cold effects (10 rank) are all commonly associated with Cold Control. The ability to regulate your temperature might also grant varying ranks of Immunity to heat as well.
• Super-Movement: A cold controller might have the Permeate, Sure-Footed, or Trackless effects of Super-Movement, all Limited to ice and snow (reducing Super-Movement cost to 1 point per rank).
• Super-Senses: X-Ray Vision, limited to ice and snow, is a useful power for a character able to pass through solid masses of ice with Permeate. Infravision (the ability to “see” temperature differences) may also be associated with Cold Control.