A Boomerang power set

[temnix]

After being disappointed that there is no proper, full Whip set with customizable looks for the whip and various special powers one could think of - making villains twirl like spinning tops, jerking them close, rising into the air helicopeter-style and attacking in a circle from there... and you can talk about that, if you like, I thought of another weapon to build a set around: the boomerang.

 

Now, all of the power sets should have something special about them, like Storm Cells, Seismic Waves or Blood Fury. In the boomerang's case it must be, of course, that the boomerang flies out in a loop and returns the same way. In the real world it only returns if one is clever about throwing it and catching it, and then only if it fails to hit anything large, and it has to be a returning type. The non-returning boomerang is meant to hit prey and enemies, which if it does, it stays lodged or falls to the ground, and the owner has to plod over - trot, trot, trot - and pick it up. It is just a dart. But we can imagine that the boomerang hits and returns. Being that this set is called Boomerang, not Boomerangs, its special feature is that it can be employed for a single power at a time only. There is no recharge interval for any of the powers, they can be clicked on and off like any device, e.g. the rocket packs, but as long as the missile is on its way out and until it returns, the other powers are unavailable. The character has to wait to recover the boomerang. It does not materialize in his hand after hitting or missing.

 

This creates a bunch of possibilities. Obviously the powers of the set should get a big Accuracy bonus, because it would be very disappointing to wait for the missile to travel there and back again, by Bilbo Baggins, and miss. And it should do good damage and be more effective than other sets to offset the disadvantage of using only one power at a time. The speed of the missile in going out and returning should be fine-tuned in testing. This is all clear. But consider range: usually the farther a power hits, the better, but here the more remote the target, the longer the character will have to do without his weapon, and this will matter for all powers in the set. The secondary power set becomes more important, but some characters might hurl far away for the sake of accuracy and damage and keep nearby enemies off with secondary powers, others might prefer to make short throws. Perhaps the longer the range, the higher the Accuracy bonus, the shorter, the Damage.

 

Besides hitting people in oval arcs and coming back, the set should have a couple of toggles. One might set the boomerang spinning over the head of an enemy, frightening him until it is turned off (and the boomerang returns); on another the missile might circle the enemy, disorienting him. Resistance checks can be made every few seconds. A round attack power is also possible, but here also increased range means that the boomerang will return to the hand later.

 

The appearance of the missile should be up for customization. It might be an Australian boomerang, a steel boomerang, a toy boomerang, a tech boomerang, an energy boomerang, a frisbee, a chakram, a buzzsaw, a Krull glaive, a propeller, * * * - or something else my suvivalist gal could pick up!

 

Edited April 3 by GM_GooglyMoogly
So many things after propeller were inappropriate that the entire list got chopped. Please keep it clean and uncontroversial.

[Haijinx]

Know any good animators willing to work for free?

[Yomo Kimyata]

This topic keeps coming back.

[Hyperstrike]

 

[Rudra]

3 hours ago, temnix said:

In the real world it only returns if one is clever about throwing it and catching it, and then only if it fails to hit anything large, and it has to be a returning type.

You have a fundamental misunderstanding of boomerangs. Outside of TV and movies, I have not seen a boomerang actually come back back to the thrower's hand. They return for easy retrieval though. And it doesn't matter if the boomerang hits a large object or not. If it hits something, it stops or has its flight path violently altered. You can clip a stick with a boomerang and it loses the ability to return. That's a real world boomerang. Now a comic boomerang, or a cartoon/anime boomerang, or any other fictional boomerang? Yes, those always return to the thrower's hand. Often even after critically smacking some massive beast up its head.

 

3 hours ago, temnix said:

The non-returning boomerang is meant to hit prey and enemies, which if it does, it stays lodged or falls to the ground, and the owner has to plod over - trot, trot, trot - and pick it up.

Those are called throwing sticks, not non-returning boomerangs. It is more appropriate to think of a boomerang as a (semi-)returning throwing stick than to think of throwing sticks as non-returning boomerangs.

 

I don't have an issue with a boomerang set. However, it looked like you needed some education on boomerangs and throwing sticks.

[CrusaderDroid]

I'm really not seeing it. Give Martial Assault a try on your next Dominator - if you still play the game. It's got thrown shuriken that get close enough to boomerangs.

[temnix]

3 hours ago, Rudra said:

You have a fundamental misunderstanding of boomerangs. Outside of TV and movies, I have not seen a boomerang actually come back back to the thrower's hand. They return for easy retrieval though. And it doesn't matter if the boomerang hits a large object or not. If it hits something, it stops or has its flight path violently altered. You can clip a stick with a boomerang and it loses the ability to return. That's a real world boomerang. Now a comic boomerang, or a cartoon/anime boomerang, or any other fictional boomerang? Yes, those always return to the thrower's hand. Often even after critically smacking some massive beast up its head.

 

Those are called throwing sticks, not non-returning boomerangs. It is more appropriate to think of a boomerang as a (semi-)returning throwing stick than to think of throwing sticks as non-returning boomerangs.

 

I don't have an issue with a boomerang set. However, it looked like you needed some education on boomerangs and throwing sticks.

 

And I got plenty. Me and Wikipedia both.

[JasperStone]

A ricochet powerset was being worked during live

...

Basically electric affinity does that