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Hi everybody.
I'm planning a Nightbane one-shot adventure where the big bad will be a Nightlord avatar (possibly a Nightlord, but probably not).
Can any of you guys give me some ideas on some cool ways this baddie might use their matter and energy control powers for my final fight?

Note that I am not looking for the optimum way an avatar might use their powers to kill their enemies quickly and easily (where's the fun in that?), but ways to utilise these powers that might be surprising, unexpected, cool-looking, and basically make it both a fun and dramatic experience for all. Ways to temporarily incapacitate some of the players might be useful. The encounter will likely happen inside a medieval castle (but not in the medieval age).
Thanks in advance for your input!

Encase a hostage's head in metal and nightbane need to figure out how to pry it open without killing them?

Turn the entire floor to ice and have him make himself instant ice skates. Everyone who doesn't have the Ice Skating skill is at amssive penalties and really, who takes it ever?

Just something about the Avatar gracefully skating around while attacking while everyone else is tripping over themselves appeals to me. Have him play classical music from somewhere while he does it.

Nekira Sudacne wrote:Turn the entire floor to ice and have him make himself instant ice skates. Everyone who doesn't have the Ice Skating skill is at amssive penalties and really, who takes it ever?

Just something about the Avatar gracefully skating around while attacking while everyone else is tripping over themselves appeals to me. Have him play classical music from somewhere while he does it.

Wait, is that really a thing now?

The Beast wrote:

Nekira Sudacne wrote:Turn the entire floor to ice and have him make himself instant ice skates. Everyone who doesn't have the Ice Skating skill is at amssive penalties and really, who takes it ever?

Just something about the Avatar gracefully skating around while attacking while everyone else is tripping over themselves appeals to me. Have him play classical music from somewhere while he does it.

Wait, is that really a thing now?

It's in the Rifts: Canada.

Wouldn't turning the floor to water also be pretty useful?

Axelmania wrote:Encase a hostage's head in metal and nightbane need to figure out how to pry it open without killing them?

the Ice Skating skill is at amssive penalties and really, who takes it ever?

I’m picturing a scenario where the NightLord being so arrogant that he/she doesn’t have the skill and the whole combat turns into this 3 Stooges act of people falling down, throwing bits of ice, screaming and basically getting frustrated.

I’d play that game


If one wanted to be evil – floor to air over a pit.
Floor to lava
Air to clorine…
Water to glue…
All kinds of stuff

What are the limits? Could a Nightlord turn a moving car into air? Or a plane.. Hmm

hbrika wrote:

Axelmania wrote:Encase a hostage's head in metal and nightbane need to figure out how to pry it open without killing them?

the Ice Skating skill is at amssive penalties and really, who takes it ever?

I’m picturing a scenario where the NightLord being so arrogant that he/she doesn’t have the skill and the whole combat turns into this 3 Stooges act of people falling down, throwing bits of ice, screaming and basically getting frustrated.

I’d play that game


If one wanted to be evil – floor to air over a pit.
Floor to lava
Air to clorine…
Water to glue…
All kinds of stuff

What are the limits? Could a Nightlord turn a moving car into air? Or a plane.. Hmm

Just turn a percentage of the air around into propane, then use their finger to light a fire puff--instant Fuel Air Explosive.

air to uranium nukes? get past sniffers?

Axelmania wrote:air to uranium nukes? get past sniffers?

They can't make complex technology off the cuff that way.

Nekira Sudacne wrote:

Axelmania wrote:air to uranium nukes? get past sniffers?

They can't make complex technology off the cuff that way.

What a about just making enough uranium 235 to have it already critical?

dreicunan wrote:

Nekira Sudacne wrote:

Axelmania wrote:air to uranium nukes? get past sniffers?

They can't make complex technology off the cuff that way.

What a about just making enough uranium 235 to have it already critical?

Doesn't actually work that way. U235 isn't that unstable, you need carefully timed explosives compressing it massively to make it go critical. just sitting in a huge pile wouldn't work because it'd have a huge surface area for that weight to be settled over, and if it's all one big thin tower it'd be so big and thin it'd just break into peices.

Also "Going Critical" just means it's spewing out a lot of radiation. No amount of U235 in a pile is ever going to explode on it's own. at most, it'd be giving off tons of radiation. The more U235 in the pile, the more that mass is distributed. You need an explosive shell to compress it at exactly the right *way* -- just making a shell of C4 and setting it off won't make a nuclear bomb, you'd just scatter the material in a dirty bomb. The damage from Chernobyl was the boilers exploding when the Uranium pile got too hot, the Uranium itself never went nuclear. It just melted and gave off tons of radiation polluting everything around it.

Nekira Sudacne wrote:

dreicunan wrote:

Nekira Sudacne wrote:

Axelmania wrote:air to uranium nukes? get past sniffers?

They can't make complex technology off the cuff that way.

What a about just making enough uranium 235 to have it already critical?

Doesn't actually work that way. U235 isn't that unstable, you need carefully timed explosives compressing it massively to make it go critical. just sitting in a huge pile wouldn't work because it'd have a huge surface area for that weight to be settled over, and if it's all one big thin tower it'd be so big and thin it'd just break into peices.

Also "Going Critical" just means it's spewing out a lot of radiation. No amount of U235 in a pile is ever going to explode on it's own. at most, it'd be giving off tons of radiation. The more U235 in the pile, the more that mass is distributed. You need an explosive shell to compress it at exactly the right *way* -- just making a shell of C4 and setting it off won't make a nuclear bomb, you'd just scatter the material in a dirty bomb. The damage from Chernobyl was the boilers exploding when the Uranium pile got too hot, the Uranium itself never went nuclear. It just melted and gave off tons of radiation polluting everything around it.

Well, if you could summon a 1 ton sphere of 100% U235 into existence, I'm pretty sure that by the time it blew itself apart the resulting release of energy would give everyone nearby a really bad day.

That said, the PPE cost to do so would be astronomical, given that it takes 20 PPE per lb of transformed material.

The OP probably doesn't want to go too overboard on creative uses of the Nightlords' powers, because they're so open-ended that it lets them do virtually anything. And in a game where everyone else's powers are fairly well-defined and specific, that kind of carte blanche "he can do anything as long as it involves matter/energy and he's still got some PPE left" approach can make an already powerful boss fight feel downright unfair.

Going up against a Nightlord should be unfair.