Icy touch

[jscottbowman]

Many spirit creatures have the Icy Touch ability, such as the Barrow Wights.

What I am unsure about is what constitutes "contact" as defined by the rule.

Does a hit by the Spirits armed combat weapon (eg longsword) count as contact for Icy Touch, or must the creature make an unarmed combat "touch" attack?

Or is it a presence effect; all the time you are in "combat contact", say within 2 yards of it, you are affected by each round?

Grateful for any clarification
Scott

[Nolmir]

IIRC, they need to make an unarmed combat touch attack to activate this ability.

[Tomcat]

Icy Touch: A wight's grasp is cold and lethal. Every successful hit by an Unarmed Combat test, or every round held in a grab by the wight, drains the victim of 2 points of Strength and Vitality (may make a Stamina save TN 10 + the wight's Bearing modifier). The victim falls unconscious for 2d6x10 minutes when either attribute reaches 0, and when both attributes reach 0 the victim dies. If the victim is not killed, lost points return normally (see CRB p. 247), or are fully restored upon the application of a Healing-spell.

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Above is my amended rules for the LotR undead Icy Touch. I think I sourced someone else on this who had submitted amended undead to the Hall of Fire. It gives the wights a bit more deadliness than just being rendered unconscious.

You are welcome to check out all of my amended creatures for the CODA system here:

House RUles, Amended creatures, and timeline

[jscottbowman]

Thank you both for your replies, and Tomcat for link.
Cheers
Scott

[jscottbowman]

@TOMCAT

That was a very good set of useful house-rules! I liked the extra successes in combat, weariness interpretations, and parrying against bigger creatures etc etc. Thanks again.
Just one question, as a narrator, how do you handle "cannon fodder opponents", like orcs and dunlendings etc? Are they one hit opponents or some other mook rules that you have devised.
I'd be grateful again for your interpretation.
regards
Scott

[Tomcat]

I use the cannon fodder rules from the book - also referred to as Mook combat (not sure why) and I will do the following depending on the advancement level of my heroes:

- I will always have one enemy (leader), or more, that have standard hit points.
- The rest of the minions (cannon fodder) will be at varying number of hits, based again on heroic levels. The hit levels will also have wound penalties attributed to them.

Example: if a minion is 5 HIT creature here are the effects for each hit it takes:

0 HITS: no penalties
1 HIT: no penalties
2 HITS: -1 to all skill tests
3 HITS: -3 to all skill tests
4 HITS: -5 to all skill tests
5 HITS: Dead

If it is a 3 HIT creature, than this...

0 HITS: no penalties
1 HIT: -3 to all skill tests
2 HITS: -5 to all skill tests
3 HITS: Dead

or something like that. I may vary the penalties based on the creatures - but weaker ones will pretty much be worthless by the 3rd or 4th hit anyway. The main benefit of cannon fodder minions usually is volume, which causes a hero to have to use up most (if not all) of his/her actions.

I hope this helps.

[jscottbowman]

Yes thanks, again some nice interpretations there.
regards
Scott