Falcos
2015-02-18, 05:22 AM
Hi, all! This is me creating an ice-themed discipline, as none of the ones I've seen so far have really scratched the itch I want in them.
So, without further ado, welcome to Glacial Grasp!
A Glacial Grasp disciple believes that the best way to fight is to dictate the flow of the fight. Freeze limbs, restrict movement, block passages, do everything you can to be able to move without allowing your opponent the same privilege.
Glacial Grasp was originally developed in the icy wastes of the tundra, and incorporates the harsh, unlivable environment of its birthplace into its style. Cold, sterile, and unforgiving, Glacial Grasp isn’t the kind of ice most people are familiar with, it’s the kind of cold that leaves you dying, alone, on a mountaintop, whipped by the icy winds and with no hope of survival.
Glacial Grasp’s favoured weapons are the pick, heavy pick, scythe, axe, longsword, and war hammer. Its key skill is Survival.
Level One
Chips of ice (Stance) - Cold resistance based on Survival
Numbing Blow (Strike) - Slow an opponent for one round
Icy Grasp (Boost) - Either touch an opponent for cold damage or temporarily freeze your weapon
Spiked Ice (Counter) - 1d6 to opponent upon being struck in melee, may start grapple
Level Two
Hoarfrost (Counter) - Reduce incoming damage by amount scaling on level
Frozen Breath (Strike) - Breath does 2d6 Cold damage in cone
Fogbank (Counter) - Damage self to create fog cloud for concealment
Hailstorm (Boost) - Conjure hailstones in your weapon’s wake, dealing damage at range
Level Three
Icestep (Stance) - Creates path of ice underfoot, can walk on liquids or move through air as Dark Way
Sheet of Ice (Boost) - As spell Wall of Ice
Ice Shackle (Strike) - Bind one limb of target
Level Four
Zero Second (Counter) - Many defensive benefits, but restricted actions until end of your next turn
Winter's Bite (Strike) - Slow for init level*rounds
Arctic Path (Boost) - Step between icy surfaces as standard, may charge upon exit
Level Five
Pillar of Ice (Strike) - Create pillar(s) of ice
Ice Armour (Stance) - DR and Natural Armour based on init level
Icy Chains (Strike) - Entangle struck creature
Level Six
Retaliatory Freezing (Counter) - Freeze an opponent’s weapon
Frozen Crown (Stance) - Localized snowstorm on your face, blindness and blindsense
Level Seven
Swirling Storm (Strike) - Create powerful blizzard
Frostburn (Counter) - Set self on coldfire to damage attackers
Level Eight
Robe of Snowflakes (Stance) - Freeze surroundings, deal additional damage on melee, move slower except on ice
Frozen Tomb (Counter) - Seal yourself in ice to protect yourself
Level Nine
Glacial Kingdom (Boost) - Freeze surroundings, restrict others' mobility, enhance own
Chips of Ice
Stance [Cold]
Initiation action: Swift
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: Stance
Some say that purveyors of Glacial Grasp have chips of ice floating in their veins. This stance proves them right.
While in this stance, you gain cold resist based on your ranks in Survival.
Survival Ranks
Cold Resistance
4–8 5
9–13 10
14–18 20
19+ Immunity
Numbing Blow
Strike [Cold]
Initiation action: Standard
Range: Melee Attack
Target: One Creature
Duration: Instantaneous
Save: Fort negates
By bringing to bear a tiny fraction of the coldness of the tundra, you can attempt to numb an enemies limbs.
Upon hitting your target with this strike, they must make a Fort save and if they fail, they are slowed for one round.
Icy Grasp
Boost [Cold]
Initiation action: Swift
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: One round
Save: None
Imbuing your hand with the fury of a blizzard, you cause it to ice over whatever it touches.
Upon using this Boost, you coat your hands in a thin layer of frost. You can choose to discharge this in two ways:
You can make a touch attack to deliver 1d6 plus an additional d6 per two initiator levels of Cold damage to your target
You can temporarily give a held or touched weapon the Frost enchantment for one round. If it already has it, give it Frozen Burst. If it already has that too, raise its threat range by two. This increase stacks with other critical threat increases, even ones that don't normally stack.
If you do not discharge it in either of these ways before the beginning of your next turn, the ice fades harmlessly.
Spiked Ice
Counter [Cold]
Initiation action: Immediate
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: Instantaneous
Save: None
As your opponent’s blow collides with you, you create tiny, razor-sharp shards of ice on your fingertips and reach out and grasp his wrist, digging the shards in.
Upon being struck, you may counter by gripping the offending appendage with sharp ice, dealing 1d6 slashing damage and giving the option of initiating a grapple check, if applicable. You need at least one hand free to initiate this maneuver.
Level Two
Hoarfrost
Counter [Cold]
Initiation action: Immediate
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: Instantaneous
Save: None
As you notice an inbound attack, you invoke the coldness of frost to defend yourself.
You can choose to counter any attack you are aware of before it hits you by coating yourself in a thin cracking layer of ice, reducing the damage of the attack by 1. Increases by a further 1 at level 6, and every three levels thereafter (total of 3 at 9, 4 at 12, etc).
Frozen Breath
Strike [Cold]
Initiation action: Standard
Range: 15ft cone
Duration: Instantaneous
Save: Reflex half
Inhaling deeply, you feel icy air burn your throat and lungs, before exhaling in one great, sweeping breath.
Upon initiation, you breathe a cone of frigid air that does 2d6 cold damage to anything in its path and freezes any liquid within range.
Fogbank
Counter [Cold]
Initiation action: Immediate
Range: 30ft burst, centered on you
Target: You
Duration: Until beginning of your turn
Save: None
Watching closely, you see an attack begin against you. Immediately, you give up some of your own body heat to react with the frigid air around you, and create a large burst of dense fog.
To initiate this action, you must be in a Glacial Grasp stance and deliberately take 3d6 cold damage. This damage cannot be mitigated by Cold resistance or immunity. Immediately create a thick cloud of fog that provides total concealment, but fades quickly, lasting only until the start of your next round.
Hailstorm
Boost [Cold]
Initiation action: Swift
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: One round
Save: None
Breathing deeply for a moment, you ponder the fury of storms, and then, glaring at your opponent, you swing at the empty air between you. Suddenly, fist-sized chunks of ice appear in your weapon’s path and fly at your target.
After initiating this boost, you add 30-foot range onto your melee attacks in the form of hailstones that fly at your target, dealing your weapon damage (half bludgeoning, half cold).
Icestep
Stance [Cold]
Initiation action: Swift
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: Stance
Concentrating all of the cold around you to your feet, you freeze a path beneath you.
While in the stance, you constantly create a 5ft-wide path of thin sheets of ice. This allows you to walk over liquids and even through the air, although if you do not touch down again within 20 ft per initiator level, the stance ends and the ice crumbles. After you move out of the square, the ice within only lasts a single round, but is difficult terrain for everybody but yourself.
Sheet of Ice
Boost [Cold]
Initiation action: Standard
Range: Medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./level)
Effect: Anchored plane of ice, up to one 10-ft. square/level, or hemisphere of ice with a radius of up to 3 ft. + 1 ft./level
Duration: One round/Initiator Level
Save: None
Raising one hand high, you bring it down in a sudden motion, and a thick sheet of ice forms in front of you.
Upon initiation of this boost, you create a wall of ice as the spell Wall of Ice.
Ice Shackle
Strike [Cold]
Initiation action: Standard
Range: Melee Attack
Target: One Creature
Duration: Instantaneous
Save: None
You strike a target’s limb, and emanating from the impact point in a continual motion is a block of ice, continuing on to the ground and pinning your target’s arm.
Upon hitting an opponent’s limb with a melee attack, you may create a block of ice around the struck point that connects to the closest surface (usually the floor) or another limb of your choice within five feet (which doesn’t have to belong to the same creature). Your opponent may immediately make a Strength or Escape Artist check (DC 25) to break free, and may do so again on every subsequent round until they do so. Until they break free, they cannot move further away or closer to the attached surface, object, or creature.
Zero Second
Counter [Cold]
Initiation action: Immediate
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: Immediate
Save: None
By lowering your core temperature to absolute zero, you form a complete defense against incoming attacks.
When you initiate this maneuver, you gain DR 20, cold immunity, resist acid and electric 20, and immunity to precision-based damage, but are unable to take any action that requires moving. Both of these effects last until the end of your next turn.
Winter’s Bite
Strike [Cold]
Initiation action: Standard
Range: Melee Attack
Target: One Creature
Duration: Instantaneous
Save: Fort negates
Striking your foe with all the chill of winter, you try to slow their movements.
If you successfully hit an enemy with this strike, slow them for your initiator level in rounds.
Arctic Path
Boost [Cold]
Initiation action: Standard
Range: See text
Target: You
Duration: Instantaneous
Save: None
Sliding into a nearby surface of ice, you erupt out of another icy surface near an enemy and strike them viciously.
With this maneuver, you may disappear into any icy surface at least 5ftx5ft, and reappear out of any surface under the same criteria within 100 ft+10ft per initiator level. If an enemy is within 30ft of your exit point, you may immediately charge them with an otherwise standard charge attack.
Pillar of Ice
Strike [Cold]
Initiation action: Standard
Range: 50 feet +10ft per initiator level
Duration: Instantaneous
Save: Reflex (See text)
Roaring with the fury of the tundra, you conjure several massive pillars of ice, blocking off sections of the battlefield to your liking.
With a standard action, you may conjure one large pillar of ice plus one per three initiator levels (two at three, three at six, etc). Each pillar fills a 5-feet square and can extend up to 10 feet per IL upwards (relative to the local gravity, if there's none, wherever you please). If the pillar was created under a creature, it must make a reflex save or be carried upwards on the pillar. The pillars cannot break through solid objects, and either shatter or stop upon hitting one while extending upwards (your choice). If a creature ends up between a surface and a growing pillar, the creature takes 1d6 damage for every point they failed the reflex save and the pillar instantly shatters.
If a creature succeeds on their save, they may choose to step to an adjacent square from where the pillar emerges or stay on top of it as it rises from the ground.
You need two pillars to affect a large creature, three for a huge, four for a gargantuan and five for a colossal (in which case it's a single save).
The pillars persist indefinitely, but will melt away as normal ice outside frigid climates. Using this maneuver again makes any leftover frost pillars created by you immediately shatter. Pillars that shatter by any means turn into useless icy dust.
Ice Armour
Stance [Cold]
Initiation action: Swift
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: Stance
As you enter this stance, hundreds of tiny overlapping, paper-thin sheets of ice cover your body.
As long as you are in this stance, gain DR/- equal to your initiator level, and one-third that amount in natural armour.
Icy Chains
Strike [Cold]
Initiation action: Standard
Range: Melee Attack
Target: One Creature
Duration: Instantaneous
Save: None
As you hit the enemy, a spiralling net of icy chains, tipped with spikes, erupts out of your weapon and drives into the ground, trapping your enemy.
Upon landing a blow with this strike, your enemy becomes Entangled, and cannot move until they meet a DC 30 Strength or Escape Artist check. Additionally, they take 3d6 Cold damage per round until they are freed.
Someone outside the net may free the trapped creature as a full-round action, with a DC 15 Strength check. Doing so causes them to take 3d6 Cold damage from contact with the net.
Retaliatory Freezing
Counter [Cold]
Initiation Action: Immediate
Range: 5 ft
Target: You.
Duration: Instant
Save: Fortitude Partial
As one accustomed to the ice, using it to fight doesn’t bother you. Other creatures do not share this trait.
When you initiate this maneuver, you may coat a weapon that is about to strike you in blockish and unwieldy ice, causing the person who is holding it to make a Fort save. If they succeed, they keep ahold of the weapon, but it loses the effects of all enhancements and enchantments on it for the remainder of the round, becoming bludgeoning and cold instead. If they fail the save, they drop their weapon and cannot attempt to pick it up again until the ice has melted.
If the wielder has cold resistance equal to your initiator level times two, they do not have to make the save.
Frozen Crown
Stance [Cold]
Initiation action: Swift
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: Stance
Calling upon the imagery of the arctic wastes being the crown of the world, you crown yourself in a miniature snowstorm, flurries of snow drifting down your body.
While you are in this stance, you cannot see. However, you gain blindsense out to thirty feet. (If you already have blindsense, extend it by thirty feet). Additionally, if you are grappled while in this stance, you may voluntarily end the stance to cause the frozen crown to leave your head to blind your opponent for a number of rounds equal to a Survival check. This causes them to automatically let go of you. However, if you end the stance in this manner, you cannot re-enter it for one minute.
Swirling Storm
Strike [Cold]
Initiation action: Standard
Range: 50ft radius, centered on you
Target: You
Duration: One round per initiator level
Save: See text
By slamming your weapon into ice, you cause that ice to splinter into myriad fragments, more than it should, which then swirl around you in a blizzard, blinding and damaging enemies in its range, but avoiding your allies.
To initiate this maneuver, you must strike any ice you have created. Once you do so, you destroy it instantly (even if your strike ordinarily wouldn’t) and cause it to surround you in a swirling storm. This storm grants total concealment to everybody in it, with the exception that you can see through it without any issue. It also damages anybody you consider an “enemy” for 8d6 (mixed cold and piercing) per round they remain within it, and slows them. If any slowed target spends a second round in the storm, they become exhausted in addition to slowed. If an exhausted target spends a third round in the storm, they must make a Fort save or fall unconscious from cold. If a passed out enemy is in the storm for a fourth round, they die (Fort save DC 30).
Frostburn
Counter [Cold]
Initiation action: Immediate
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: Immediate
Save: None
As your enemy goes to hit you, you can suddenly burst into blue coldfire, causing him to recoil and take damage.
When any enemy attempts to hit you, before you see what the result of his attack roll would be, you can activate this counter. If you do so, you cause him to take 5d6 frostburn damage and give him the option of aborting his attack. If he does not, he takes a further 10d6.
Robe of Snowflakes
Stance [Cold]
Initiation action: Swift
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: Stance
With wide, sweeping arm movements, as you enter this stance, you collect snow about yourself until you seem to be wearing a long, deep-sleeved robe of purest white.
While in this stance, you project an aura of utterest cold, freezing everything freezable within one hundred feet of you and chilling everything else to subzero temperatures. All of your melee attacks do an additional 4d6 frostburn damage, and you can only walk at half speed unless walking over ice.
Frozen Tomb
Counter [Cold]
Initiation action: Immediate
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: Immediate
Save: None
As a desperation technique, you freeze yourself in a solid block of ice.
When you activate this counter, you cause all attacks to bounce off the ice harmlessly. However, you are also stuck in the block for 1d4 rounds, and are dazed for one round upon leaving it. This maneuver does not stop attacks that are ethereal or may pass through solid objects.
Glacial Kingdom
Boost [Cold]
Initiation action: Full-round action
Range: 100 ft radius
Target: You
Duration: One round per initiator level
Save: None
Forcing your will on the world around you, you create a field of ice and frost, your perfect domain.
When you activate this will, the ground or liquid surface within a 100 ft radius of your current location flash freezes. This is difficult terrain to everybody but you. When you do, you may simultaneously use the maneuvers Sheet of Ice and Pillar of Ice once each as if you had them prepared, anywhere within Glacial Kingdom’s range. Creatures may not fly above the Kingdom (to a ceiling of one hundred feet) unless you allow them to. Finally, you may use Arctic Path at will while standing on Glacial Kingdom, but only to other ice surfaces within the domains of the Glacial Kingdom.
So, I'm specifically wondering about the SU/EX dilemma, the names of the discipline and abilities, and whether or not they're all balanced. I don't want things too strong, nor too weak.
I can take criticism, so if you think something needs be said, then cut loose. All feedback is good feedback, as long as it's coherent. :P
So, without further ado, welcome to Glacial Grasp!
A Glacial Grasp disciple believes that the best way to fight is to dictate the flow of the fight. Freeze limbs, restrict movement, block passages, do everything you can to be able to move without allowing your opponent the same privilege.
Glacial Grasp was originally developed in the icy wastes of the tundra, and incorporates the harsh, unlivable environment of its birthplace into its style. Cold, sterile, and unforgiving, Glacial Grasp isn’t the kind of ice most people are familiar with, it’s the kind of cold that leaves you dying, alone, on a mountaintop, whipped by the icy winds and with no hope of survival.
Glacial Grasp’s favoured weapons are the pick, heavy pick, scythe, axe, longsword, and war hammer. Its key skill is Survival.
Level One
Chips of ice (Stance) - Cold resistance based on Survival
Numbing Blow (Strike) - Slow an opponent for one round
Icy Grasp (Boost) - Either touch an opponent for cold damage or temporarily freeze your weapon
Spiked Ice (Counter) - 1d6 to opponent upon being struck in melee, may start grapple
Level Two
Hoarfrost (Counter) - Reduce incoming damage by amount scaling on level
Frozen Breath (Strike) - Breath does 2d6 Cold damage in cone
Fogbank (Counter) - Damage self to create fog cloud for concealment
Hailstorm (Boost) - Conjure hailstones in your weapon’s wake, dealing damage at range
Level Three
Icestep (Stance) - Creates path of ice underfoot, can walk on liquids or move through air as Dark Way
Sheet of Ice (Boost) - As spell Wall of Ice
Ice Shackle (Strike) - Bind one limb of target
Level Four
Zero Second (Counter) - Many defensive benefits, but restricted actions until end of your next turn
Winter's Bite (Strike) - Slow for init level*rounds
Arctic Path (Boost) - Step between icy surfaces as standard, may charge upon exit
Level Five
Pillar of Ice (Strike) - Create pillar(s) of ice
Ice Armour (Stance) - DR and Natural Armour based on init level
Icy Chains (Strike) - Entangle struck creature
Level Six
Retaliatory Freezing (Counter) - Freeze an opponent’s weapon
Frozen Crown (Stance) - Localized snowstorm on your face, blindness and blindsense
Level Seven
Swirling Storm (Strike) - Create powerful blizzard
Frostburn (Counter) - Set self on coldfire to damage attackers
Level Eight
Robe of Snowflakes (Stance) - Freeze surroundings, deal additional damage on melee, move slower except on ice
Frozen Tomb (Counter) - Seal yourself in ice to protect yourself
Level Nine
Glacial Kingdom (Boost) - Freeze surroundings, restrict others' mobility, enhance own
Chips of Ice
Stance [Cold]
Initiation action: Swift
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: Stance
Some say that purveyors of Glacial Grasp have chips of ice floating in their veins. This stance proves them right.
While in this stance, you gain cold resist based on your ranks in Survival.
Survival Ranks
Cold Resistance
4–8 5
9–13 10
14–18 20
19+ Immunity
Numbing Blow
Strike [Cold]
Initiation action: Standard
Range: Melee Attack
Target: One Creature
Duration: Instantaneous
Save: Fort negates
By bringing to bear a tiny fraction of the coldness of the tundra, you can attempt to numb an enemies limbs.
Upon hitting your target with this strike, they must make a Fort save and if they fail, they are slowed for one round.
Icy Grasp
Boost [Cold]
Initiation action: Swift
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: One round
Save: None
Imbuing your hand with the fury of a blizzard, you cause it to ice over whatever it touches.
Upon using this Boost, you coat your hands in a thin layer of frost. You can choose to discharge this in two ways:
You can make a touch attack to deliver 1d6 plus an additional d6 per two initiator levels of Cold damage to your target
You can temporarily give a held or touched weapon the Frost enchantment for one round. If it already has it, give it Frozen Burst. If it already has that too, raise its threat range by two. This increase stacks with other critical threat increases, even ones that don't normally stack.
If you do not discharge it in either of these ways before the beginning of your next turn, the ice fades harmlessly.
Spiked Ice
Counter [Cold]
Initiation action: Immediate
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: Instantaneous
Save: None
As your opponent’s blow collides with you, you create tiny, razor-sharp shards of ice on your fingertips and reach out and grasp his wrist, digging the shards in.
Upon being struck, you may counter by gripping the offending appendage with sharp ice, dealing 1d6 slashing damage and giving the option of initiating a grapple check, if applicable. You need at least one hand free to initiate this maneuver.
Level Two
Hoarfrost
Counter [Cold]
Initiation action: Immediate
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: Instantaneous
Save: None
As you notice an inbound attack, you invoke the coldness of frost to defend yourself.
You can choose to counter any attack you are aware of before it hits you by coating yourself in a thin cracking layer of ice, reducing the damage of the attack by 1. Increases by a further 1 at level 6, and every three levels thereafter (total of 3 at 9, 4 at 12, etc).
Frozen Breath
Strike [Cold]
Initiation action: Standard
Range: 15ft cone
Duration: Instantaneous
Save: Reflex half
Inhaling deeply, you feel icy air burn your throat and lungs, before exhaling in one great, sweeping breath.
Upon initiation, you breathe a cone of frigid air that does 2d6 cold damage to anything in its path and freezes any liquid within range.
Fogbank
Counter [Cold]
Initiation action: Immediate
Range: 30ft burst, centered on you
Target: You
Duration: Until beginning of your turn
Save: None
Watching closely, you see an attack begin against you. Immediately, you give up some of your own body heat to react with the frigid air around you, and create a large burst of dense fog.
To initiate this action, you must be in a Glacial Grasp stance and deliberately take 3d6 cold damage. This damage cannot be mitigated by Cold resistance or immunity. Immediately create a thick cloud of fog that provides total concealment, but fades quickly, lasting only until the start of your next round.
Hailstorm
Boost [Cold]
Initiation action: Swift
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: One round
Save: None
Breathing deeply for a moment, you ponder the fury of storms, and then, glaring at your opponent, you swing at the empty air between you. Suddenly, fist-sized chunks of ice appear in your weapon’s path and fly at your target.
After initiating this boost, you add 30-foot range onto your melee attacks in the form of hailstones that fly at your target, dealing your weapon damage (half bludgeoning, half cold).
Icestep
Stance [Cold]
Initiation action: Swift
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: Stance
Concentrating all of the cold around you to your feet, you freeze a path beneath you.
While in the stance, you constantly create a 5ft-wide path of thin sheets of ice. This allows you to walk over liquids and even through the air, although if you do not touch down again within 20 ft per initiator level, the stance ends and the ice crumbles. After you move out of the square, the ice within only lasts a single round, but is difficult terrain for everybody but yourself.
Sheet of Ice
Boost [Cold]
Initiation action: Standard
Range: Medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./level)
Effect: Anchored plane of ice, up to one 10-ft. square/level, or hemisphere of ice with a radius of up to 3 ft. + 1 ft./level
Duration: One round/Initiator Level
Save: None
Raising one hand high, you bring it down in a sudden motion, and a thick sheet of ice forms in front of you.
Upon initiation of this boost, you create a wall of ice as the spell Wall of Ice.
Ice Shackle
Strike [Cold]
Initiation action: Standard
Range: Melee Attack
Target: One Creature
Duration: Instantaneous
Save: None
You strike a target’s limb, and emanating from the impact point in a continual motion is a block of ice, continuing on to the ground and pinning your target’s arm.
Upon hitting an opponent’s limb with a melee attack, you may create a block of ice around the struck point that connects to the closest surface (usually the floor) or another limb of your choice within five feet (which doesn’t have to belong to the same creature). Your opponent may immediately make a Strength or Escape Artist check (DC 25) to break free, and may do so again on every subsequent round until they do so. Until they break free, they cannot move further away or closer to the attached surface, object, or creature.
Zero Second
Counter [Cold]
Initiation action: Immediate
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: Immediate
Save: None
By lowering your core temperature to absolute zero, you form a complete defense against incoming attacks.
When you initiate this maneuver, you gain DR 20, cold immunity, resist acid and electric 20, and immunity to precision-based damage, but are unable to take any action that requires moving. Both of these effects last until the end of your next turn.
Winter’s Bite
Strike [Cold]
Initiation action: Standard
Range: Melee Attack
Target: One Creature
Duration: Instantaneous
Save: Fort negates
Striking your foe with all the chill of winter, you try to slow their movements.
If you successfully hit an enemy with this strike, slow them for your initiator level in rounds.
Arctic Path
Boost [Cold]
Initiation action: Standard
Range: See text
Target: You
Duration: Instantaneous
Save: None
Sliding into a nearby surface of ice, you erupt out of another icy surface near an enemy and strike them viciously.
With this maneuver, you may disappear into any icy surface at least 5ftx5ft, and reappear out of any surface under the same criteria within 100 ft+10ft per initiator level. If an enemy is within 30ft of your exit point, you may immediately charge them with an otherwise standard charge attack.
Pillar of Ice
Strike [Cold]
Initiation action: Standard
Range: 50 feet +10ft per initiator level
Duration: Instantaneous
Save: Reflex (See text)
Roaring with the fury of the tundra, you conjure several massive pillars of ice, blocking off sections of the battlefield to your liking.
With a standard action, you may conjure one large pillar of ice plus one per three initiator levels (two at three, three at six, etc). Each pillar fills a 5-feet square and can extend up to 10 feet per IL upwards (relative to the local gravity, if there's none, wherever you please). If the pillar was created under a creature, it must make a reflex save or be carried upwards on the pillar. The pillars cannot break through solid objects, and either shatter or stop upon hitting one while extending upwards (your choice). If a creature ends up between a surface and a growing pillar, the creature takes 1d6 damage for every point they failed the reflex save and the pillar instantly shatters.
If a creature succeeds on their save, they may choose to step to an adjacent square from where the pillar emerges or stay on top of it as it rises from the ground.
You need two pillars to affect a large creature, three for a huge, four for a gargantuan and five for a colossal (in which case it's a single save).
The pillars persist indefinitely, but will melt away as normal ice outside frigid climates. Using this maneuver again makes any leftover frost pillars created by you immediately shatter. Pillars that shatter by any means turn into useless icy dust.
Ice Armour
Stance [Cold]
Initiation action: Swift
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: Stance
As you enter this stance, hundreds of tiny overlapping, paper-thin sheets of ice cover your body.
As long as you are in this stance, gain DR/- equal to your initiator level, and one-third that amount in natural armour.
Icy Chains
Strike [Cold]
Initiation action: Standard
Range: Melee Attack
Target: One Creature
Duration: Instantaneous
Save: None
As you hit the enemy, a spiralling net of icy chains, tipped with spikes, erupts out of your weapon and drives into the ground, trapping your enemy.
Upon landing a blow with this strike, your enemy becomes Entangled, and cannot move until they meet a DC 30 Strength or Escape Artist check. Additionally, they take 3d6 Cold damage per round until they are freed.
Someone outside the net may free the trapped creature as a full-round action, with a DC 15 Strength check. Doing so causes them to take 3d6 Cold damage from contact with the net.
Retaliatory Freezing
Counter [Cold]
Initiation Action: Immediate
Range: 5 ft
Target: You.
Duration: Instant
Save: Fortitude Partial
As one accustomed to the ice, using it to fight doesn’t bother you. Other creatures do not share this trait.
When you initiate this maneuver, you may coat a weapon that is about to strike you in blockish and unwieldy ice, causing the person who is holding it to make a Fort save. If they succeed, they keep ahold of the weapon, but it loses the effects of all enhancements and enchantments on it for the remainder of the round, becoming bludgeoning and cold instead. If they fail the save, they drop their weapon and cannot attempt to pick it up again until the ice has melted.
If the wielder has cold resistance equal to your initiator level times two, they do not have to make the save.
Frozen Crown
Stance [Cold]
Initiation action: Swift
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: Stance
Calling upon the imagery of the arctic wastes being the crown of the world, you crown yourself in a miniature snowstorm, flurries of snow drifting down your body.
While you are in this stance, you cannot see. However, you gain blindsense out to thirty feet. (If you already have blindsense, extend it by thirty feet). Additionally, if you are grappled while in this stance, you may voluntarily end the stance to cause the frozen crown to leave your head to blind your opponent for a number of rounds equal to a Survival check. This causes them to automatically let go of you. However, if you end the stance in this manner, you cannot re-enter it for one minute.
Swirling Storm
Strike [Cold]
Initiation action: Standard
Range: 50ft radius, centered on you
Target: You
Duration: One round per initiator level
Save: See text
By slamming your weapon into ice, you cause that ice to splinter into myriad fragments, more than it should, which then swirl around you in a blizzard, blinding and damaging enemies in its range, but avoiding your allies.
To initiate this maneuver, you must strike any ice you have created. Once you do so, you destroy it instantly (even if your strike ordinarily wouldn’t) and cause it to surround you in a swirling storm. This storm grants total concealment to everybody in it, with the exception that you can see through it without any issue. It also damages anybody you consider an “enemy” for 8d6 (mixed cold and piercing) per round they remain within it, and slows them. If any slowed target spends a second round in the storm, they become exhausted in addition to slowed. If an exhausted target spends a third round in the storm, they must make a Fort save or fall unconscious from cold. If a passed out enemy is in the storm for a fourth round, they die (Fort save DC 30).
Frostburn
Counter [Cold]
Initiation action: Immediate
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: Immediate
Save: None
As your enemy goes to hit you, you can suddenly burst into blue coldfire, causing him to recoil and take damage.
When any enemy attempts to hit you, before you see what the result of his attack roll would be, you can activate this counter. If you do so, you cause him to take 5d6 frostburn damage and give him the option of aborting his attack. If he does not, he takes a further 10d6.
Robe of Snowflakes
Stance [Cold]
Initiation action: Swift
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: Stance
With wide, sweeping arm movements, as you enter this stance, you collect snow about yourself until you seem to be wearing a long, deep-sleeved robe of purest white.
While in this stance, you project an aura of utterest cold, freezing everything freezable within one hundred feet of you and chilling everything else to subzero temperatures. All of your melee attacks do an additional 4d6 frostburn damage, and you can only walk at half speed unless walking over ice.
Frozen Tomb
Counter [Cold]
Initiation action: Immediate
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: Immediate
Save: None
As a desperation technique, you freeze yourself in a solid block of ice.
When you activate this counter, you cause all attacks to bounce off the ice harmlessly. However, you are also stuck in the block for 1d4 rounds, and are dazed for one round upon leaving it. This maneuver does not stop attacks that are ethereal or may pass through solid objects.
Glacial Kingdom
Boost [Cold]
Initiation action: Full-round action
Range: 100 ft radius
Target: You
Duration: One round per initiator level
Save: None
Forcing your will on the world around you, you create a field of ice and frost, your perfect domain.
When you activate this will, the ground or liquid surface within a 100 ft radius of your current location flash freezes. This is difficult terrain to everybody but you. When you do, you may simultaneously use the maneuvers Sheet of Ice and Pillar of Ice once each as if you had them prepared, anywhere within Glacial Kingdom’s range. Creatures may not fly above the Kingdom (to a ceiling of one hundred feet) unless you allow them to. Finally, you may use Arctic Path at will while standing on Glacial Kingdom, but only to other ice surfaces within the domains of the Glacial Kingdom.
So, I'm specifically wondering about the SU/EX dilemma, the names of the discipline and abilities, and whether or not they're all balanced. I don't want things too strong, nor too weak.
I can take criticism, so if you think something needs be said, then cut loose. All feedback is good feedback, as long as it's coherent. :P