US-Polaris 1 vs. The Hezrou Demon: Sample Icons Combat

My group was discussing a bit about how to make Icons combat a bit more comic-like. It's not so much a matter of house rules as making full use of the rules as written.

What I decided to do was a mock combat of one of the PCs vs an Icons-adapted Herzou Demon.



  • US-Polaris 1 drawing by Stephen Pennsi
  • Herzou image from Pathfinder wiki

US-Polaris 1 is a space probe launched in 1957 that was "upgraded" by mysterious aliens. It has telekinetic abilities, albeit subject to burnout. The demon has a nasty bite, some great armor, and a chaos blast that does both damage and dazzles.

They are atop an elevated train working its way through Port Henry. The demon wants to get into the front car to cause some sort of accident, US-Polaris 1 wants to stop it.





Page 1 - Begin

 Wanting to end the fight fast, US-Polaris 1 spends its only determination point with the quality "more power" to get an advantage - a power stunt allowing it to use its telekinesis as a blast. Rolling coordination vs. coordination (6 vs. 3) US-Polaris 1 wins by 3, a major success! Its telekinesis is a 6 which matches the invulnerability to damage the creature has. That's zero damage, but a stun is still possible. Given damage was 6 (though none got through) we roll that vs. the demon's strength of 7. Not looking good - we roll a -3, a failure. We also roll a 1d6 for US-Polaris 1's power burnout limitation and roll a 2 - no more telekinesis for the rest of the chapter (boo!).

The demon takes its turn, attacking with its bite in a prowess vs. prowess (5 for the demon, 8 for the robot). Both roll a 5 meaning a failure for the demon's attack. (I''m staying fancy for the robot but going basic for the dumb demon strategy).

Page 2 - Miss! Miss!

US-Polaris 1 extends its arms and tries to wrestle the demon off the train. However, even with a higher prowess (8 vs. 5) the attack misses. The demon fires a coordination vs. coordination chaos blast. Another miss.


Page 3 - Sign Knockdown

US-Polaris 1 decides to rush the demon. However, it needs some space so as it backs up it performs a maneuver to tear down a sign off a building the train is passing. We call that a 6 difficulty vs. a 7 strength and we roll a total of 2 - good enough for a single activation of increased difficulty which we use to create some cover, giving a penalty to attacks and maneuvers to get past it.

The demon is shooting again - a difference of -3 plus another -2 from the increased difficulty for -5 - unsurprisingly it misses horribly. The demon gets a determination point for its trouble.

Page 4 - First Blood

US-Polaris 1 hovers its way right into the demon for a rush attack. It gets a massive success in a prowess vs. prowess test. That's a potential stun. First we resolve damage - base damage of 7 for strength with +1 for the rush action. Against its armor of 2 we finally do some real damage - though it has a lot left to give. We resolve the potential stun in a damage (8) vs demon strength (7) and we fail with a -1.

The demon bite attack misses again.

Page 5 - Improved Strategery

US-Polaris 1 decides to do another rush attack. It first needs to set it up again and does so with a maneuver as it moves - it does an acrobatic hover above the demons head to disorient it (it cannot fly and can only hover a few feet above surfaces so it still needs to "jump"). A 6 (robot) vs. 3 (demon) coordination test is made for a moderate success (2 higher). That makes the demon disoriented with 1 free activation.

The demon fires another chaos blast. US-Polaris 1 does not use the free activation at this time and the demon rolls a marginal success in its coordination vs. coordination. That is good enough for half damage on the blast (5 normal, we round down to 2) which are deducted from US-Polaris 1's stamina pool as it is unarmored (though it does have regeneration). The marginal success isn't good enough to trigger a dazzle effect, so US-Polaris 1's sensors are still working fine.

Page 6 - Finishing Move

US-Polaris 1 makes another rush attack. In prowess vs. prowess it rolls 5 above the demon's roll for a massive success - another potential stun. Again the damage is 8 vs. the demon's armor of 6 - another 2 get through. We resolve the potential stun with the full 8 damage vs. the demon's strength of 7 - but we also use our free activation of disorientation for another +2. We succeed by 4 and get a moderate success, knocking the demon unconscious. (Or whatever passes for unconscious for demons).



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