Earth Evocation Question

[Katarn]

Alright, so I'm playing a terramancer.  I'm in a combat situation where enthralled innocents are attacking me.  I've got a gun and magic.  I want to use my earth magic to trap their legs in earth (either the earth rising up to their waist or quicksand pulling them down).


How would I go about this?  I was using this as an attack (with weapon strength being the difficulty to break out).  However, would a maneuver be more fitting?

[bobjob]

Maybe do it as a zone wide block against movement?

Alternately, maybe the maneuver thing would work, with you temporarily liquidating the ground like quicksand and applied a sticky maneuver on them.

[Mal_Luck]

You could do this a couple ways:

1.) Straight Up Attack / Earth Stomp variation (YS293, this might not be what you are looking for)
2.) Maneuver / an Earth version of Entanglement (YS293)
3.) Magic Grapple Attack / an Earth version of Orbius using the physical attack variation (YS294-295)

[UmbraLux]

Here are a couple options:

• Block - The dirt around their feet becomes the stickiest of black mud...
  • Type:  Earth Evocation Block
  • Power:  <block strength> + 2 (zone) + 1 per extra exchange of duration
  • Notes:  6 shifts of power would get you a Block:3 on the zone for two exchanges or until someone breaks through the block.
• Block as 'Armor' - The entire area is filled with sticky knee deep mud...
  • Type:  Earth Evocation Armor
  • Power:  <2 * armor strength> + 2 (zone) + 1 per extra exchange of duration
  • Notes:  6 shifts of power would get you a Armor:2 on the zone for one exchange reducing all actions requiring movement through the mud by two.
• Maneuver - Patches of mud appear, seeping up from underneath...
  • Type:  Earth Evocation Maneuver
  • Power:  3 per aspect + 2 (zone) + 1 per extra exchange of duration
  • Notes:  6 shifts of power would get you Seeping Mud on the zone for two exchanges with one free tag.

[wyvern]

If your GM is willing to run with it, the maneuver is the best of these.  Set up a scene aspect, tag it for effect, and let the GM compel all those people to stay put.  Of course, this feeds fate points (at least one, anyway) to whoever mind controlled those poor innocent folks... but in exchange you get a barrier that they're simply not going to overcome.

One could also run this as a straight up attack - if you think you can get enough shifts to force a taken out result, you could just fire off a zone-wide earth "attack", describe it as trapping them, and narrate the taken out result as they're buried up to their necks in the ground and can't act.  ...Of course, if they're willing to take consequences to keep going, this could get bad; a severe consequence of, say, a broken leg from someone who tried to keep moving could put you dangerously close to lawbreaker territory if you don't make sure they get rushed to a hospital (i.e. gives the GM good reason for a compel on your high concept)...

And the last thing I'd suggest is, instead of targetting a zone, target a zone border; that may not cost the +2 power to affect a full zone, and will still effectively stop them from chasing you - though it does open up the option that they might go around such a limited barrier.

[Katarn]

2.) Maneuver / an Earth version of Entanglement (YS293)

This fits exactly what I was looking for.  I have 7 shifts of Power:
3 power + 2 zone + 2 duration