Tuesday 10 March 2015

Thorn

The current battle of Thorn and Squall versus Kara, Kayma and Draejan has given me quite a bit of insight into Thorn's personality, history, skills and abilities—both Force and lightsaber combat abilities.

Thorn is excellent at coordination and other mental powers. He is skilled at tracking people mentally and Force-throwing more than one object at a time. He has extremely quick reflexes and is rarely surprised by an opponent's move, since he's fought so many times and seen so many tactics. His mental skills are such that he could deflect bullets by pulling debris in their way, but not in the midst of a fierce hand-to-hand fight.

Thorn is a powerful Force-caster. He is proficient in the Force Push, Pull, Disarm, Stun and Stasis abilities, and his mental strength allows him to unleash an extremely focused, though restricted, Force Wave to clear the vicinity of opponents and allow himself to regain his mental balance.

Thorn is less skilled in Force shielding abilities. He could create a rudimentary barrier to block a punch or a cloud of toxic gas, but he cannot create powerful Force shields or block laser blasts with his hands. To compensate, Thorn tends to use Force Pushes to knock bullets off course and his mental coordination to deflect blasts with his lightsaber. He wears durasteel Republic armour, undecorated, to further protect himself, but he only wears a helmet in the thick of battle.

Thorn was elected to the Council on account of his long history as a warrior. He is a skilled commander, able to keep his cool under heavy fire and damaging losses, and is also an able combatant. Thorn's preferred lightsaber style is Ataru, with which he is devastating on the open battlefield. He is also a powerful practitioner of Soresu because of his mental coordination and reflexes, but he uses this as a backup form to deflect blasts and face opponents in confined spaces such as alleys. Thorn is also skilled in Force valour and uses this to move quickly in confined spaces, besides using it to face multiple opponents in open spaces.

Thorn's limitations in lightsaber combat focus around his inability to fully utilise Ataru in restricted spaces, where he is forced to use defensive tactics. He also prefers to incapacitate his opponents if he intends to capture them, which limits him where beskar'gam is involved. Thorn also uses Soresu to tire out superior opponents, but as a Jedi Master and a member of the Jedi Council on Ossus, plus a warrior and commander all his life, few opponents can match his skill.

Now the personal application side, and here I'm interpreting the abilities of characters based on what I've seen. If Thorn had chosen a more open location in which to fight, if he was trying to kill Kara, Kayma and Draejan instead of trying to capture them, and if he didn't have to worry about Squall being dismembered, the battle would have gone quite differently. Kara could possibly be stronger in raw Force powers than Thorn, but Thorn is better coordinated and stronger in focused Force powers. As an Ataru practitioner empowered with Force valour, he would likely be able to take down Kayma very quickly; and, finally, based on his vast knowledge of opponents' tricks and ploys, his abilities in hand-to-hand combat, and his mental abilities in deflecting bullets and blasts, he could also take down Draejan without being injured. This paragraph is my personal interpretation of Thorn's powers, and an actual battle might go very differently.

This is Thorn.

Dmitri Pendragon
Jedi Artisan

12 comments:

  1. Interesting. I can tell you've put a lot of time into analyzing Thorn's abilities.
    Because I'm curious: how would Thorn fare in a battle against some of the CaC2 villains? Gnawthrul, for example? Or Matrus? Or Elius? (Can you guess which of those I'm most curious about?)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah. The Nine Inclinations in the Legendarium really helped me in defining his powers. In the Legendarium, he's a Caster/Mental, which fits his powers here.

      Elius. Since Ver is fighting him. That's my guess. Well, Thorn would have an advantage in the open space that Ver, Helm, Samuel and Io'Nahsé are currently in. In lightsaber combat, I'm quite sure Thorn would defeat Elius; Thorn would attack as fast as he could with Ataru and Force valour, preventing Elius from making any offensive moves, probably incapacitate him by chopping off a hand or both hands, and then kill him. With Elius's Force powers, Thorn would have a significantly harder challenge. I know how Cognition works, but I haven't defined Decimation yet aside from that it has something to do with death. :P So I'll take Decimation out of it. If Elius could discover Thorn's thought process and the other aspects of Cognition, he would be able to adjust his style to resist Thorn—Elius would probably have to use an extremely masterful style of Soresu against Thorn's Ataru to wear out the Jedi Master. Thorn would defeat Elius in one-on-one lightsaber combat; if Elius can use Cognition, then it would be much closer to a tie, and any change in location might turn the tide of the fight in Elius's favour, especially in limited space.

      Gnawthrul and his assortment of powers would be a more significant challenge, as I think Gnawthrul is more powerful in the Force than Thorn is. Thorn would probably use the same tactics as against Elius, but with significantly more caution and tensed reflexes to counter any of Gnawthrul's Force attacks. Eventually, I think Thorn could defeat Gnawthrul, but a slip in caution might mean Gnawthrul would win.

      As for Matrus…Matrus would be one of the Sith who Thorn would not be able to defeat in a burst of power. Against Matrus, Thorn would use extreme Soresu, negating the wide-range advantages of a doublesaber by his close defences. I'm not actually sure who would win, especially since Matrus is one of NightBlade's characters, and I won't be so biased as to say Thorn is more powerful in lightsaber combat and Force power than Matrus is. I'd say they're fairly evenly matched.

      Oh, and a skirmish with Matrus is one of the few times Thorn would want to fight in a confined space, since doublesabers aren't as powerful in confined spaces. So once again, location matters a lot. Hopefully all this answers your question?

      Delete
    2. Elius is more subtle. Thorn is more confrontational.

      Delete
  2. Yes, that did answer my questions. :D Thank you very much for indulging my curiosity.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hmm yes, Thorn does sound typically powerful. And I agree that he could probably take Kayma or company one on one, but with the 3 bounty hunters in concert, I think he is extremely screwed.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. He's a Jedi Council Member, so it makes sense that he will be a powerful Jedi.

      Could be. It depends on a lot of things, such as whether Kayma and Draejan actually throw or set their explosives or just retcon them to the correct positions. (That's a bit pointed. :P )

      Delete
  4. Retcon, huh? What exactly have we done that you never have?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. What I was meaning to say is that after Thorn left the alley, Draejan had no need to set a bomb on the ground—but Jaran later used a proximity detpack without Draejan actually setting the bomb, without explanation or foreshadowing. And likewise, when Thorn earlier stepped back to the wall, you never wrote that Kayma had thrown or set a bomb there; she wouldn't have had reason to set a bomb there before the fight, and since Thorn engaged her in hand-to-hand combat from the start of the fight, Thorn should have seen if she threw a bomb in that direction. That's what I mean. I try to foreshadow what I do, at least—for example, Thorn activated a row of tines on his belt, which called his speeder to him a few posts later.

      I may have done the same thing, using advantages that my characters wouldn't have had time or reason to use. If so, I apologise, and I do try to avoid that. If this is a pointed comment, I don't mean it to be.

      Delete
    2. Ah. Well, speaking for Draejan, he basically has every explosive known to alienkind, and he was perpendicular to Thorn's speeder path as well.

      As for Kayma, that was a wrist rocket. Sorry for the confusion.

      Yeah you've done it before, and so have I, but we usually didn't powerplay so it was pretty much OK

      Delete
    3. How can you be perpendicular to a speeder in an alley? An alley is necessarily a narrow passage.

      Okay, that makes more sense.

      Delete
    4. ----|v|-----
      -->-x-----

      There I tried to make a diagram
      The l-r arrow is Thorn's trajectory, and the down arrow (a.k.a. v) is Draejan in the alley, popping the bomb (represented by x)

      Delete
    5. My impression was that Thorn had already entered the alley, but if that's what Draejan meant, then I do understand it.

      Delete

CaC2er? Comment, by all means!
Elf of the Underground? Welcome, and we hope you join CaC2!
Viewer? You're welcome to comment, as long as it's relevant.