More Powerful Than a Locomotive!

[BoneDaddy]

Strong Guy is a brick, with his Strength at the campaign max (50). His leaping enables him to leap tall buildings in a single bound. One day, after a bout of building bounding, Strong Guy notices a powerful locomotive, hurtling out of control down the tracks, towards a stalled bus on the Rail Road crossing, loaded with crying nuns, screaming orphans, and a few puppies.

Strong Guy leaps (naturally) into action. He can't possibly get to the bus in time - he isn't faster than a speeding bullet or anything. He jumps on to the side of the train, smashes through the wall (Tunnelling, 16 def, 1", only to smash through walls), grabs a hold of the engine's massive frame, and braces his mighty legs against the tracks and ties in a frantic effort to avert calamity.

So, now what? Using only his strength, he digs a long painful furrow in the ground that extends well past the carnage of the nuns and orphans. He can lift 25 tons, the freight train weighs several hundred tons. He's just not more powerful than this locomotive.

How about Suppress? Suppress running would be prohibutively expensive - the train could have 100" of running, and even 10d6 worth of suppress won't stop that train in anything like a hurry. It would take about 7 Suppressions, or 2 turns, which costs a busload of nuns and orphans.

Suppress speed? I'm betting the Train's speed is no higher than 3, maybe 4. This could be suppressed more quickly. But what about inertia? The laws of physics won't like this one bit, but then, it fits genre, and it could be done fairly quickly. It could also reflect his superstrong ability to grab just about anybody and stop them eventually.

Clinging? A handful of points could give Strong Guy enough clinging strength to hold onto the train and the tracks, but the tracks would yeild long before the train stopped, which brings us back to the long painful furrow in the tracks. Clinging linked to Aid (ground Body) seems a little off, and the ground needs a LOT of body to stop a train.

A pigload of knockback resistance and the willingness to stare locomotive death in the eye and laugh? Seems like a poor choice, and the conductor won't like it at all.

Whaddyall think? I'm working on a bag (multipower, actually) of Strength tricks for Strong Guy, and I think being More Powerful Than a Locomotive is precedented for strong guys.

[Dust Raven]

Two things come to mind, both of which you mentioned above.

First, Suppress Running. Trains don't, if I recall, have 100" if running. They have more like 15" with lots of non-combat multipliers. Check TUV or ground vehicles (trains) for suggested writeups.

Second, LOTS OF KNOCKBACK RESISTANCE. And possibly some Damage Reduction as well. A train would get it's STR plus v/3 in d6 as a move through. 120mph is roughly 160"/phase on a SPD 2, 105" on SPD 3, or 90" on SPD 4. I forget how much STR a train has, but based on size I'd say around 45.

This would give Move Through damages of 62d6 for a SPD 2, 44d6 for a SPD 3 and 39d6 for a SPD 4. Of course, if you're using that often frustrating rule about doubling damage, a STR 45 train can't ever do more than 18d6.

If you are calling it 18d6, then you can just buy 15" of KB resistance (a bad roll will send you a few inches, probably off the tracks) and some DR to shrug off the damage and you have the ability to stop anything in it's tracks (litterally).

[Dust Raven]

Oh, yeah! I forgot a third option.

Buy extra STR with Increased Endurance and call it Pushing. Buy him an extra 25 points with x10 END. I'll only cost 5 points!

[BoneDaddy]

The trouble with the KB Resistance option is this - the train takes the full damage. I'd like to stop it with as little collateral damage as possible. If it was a Septa liner loaded with commuters, no one but Bruce Willis would survive the crash when the Train's move-through failed. Not particularly heroic, but quite dark & gritty.

I want to stop the train, not kill it.

[Dust Raven]

Originally posted by BoneDaddy
The trouble with the KB Resistance option is this - the train takes the full damage. I'd like to stop it with as little collateral damage as possible. If it was a Septa liner loaded with commuters, no one but Bruce Willis would survive the crash when the Train's move-through failed. Not particularly heroic, but quite dark & gritty.

I want to stop the train, not kill it.

Good point. Go with Suppress Running or extra STR. With the extra STR he can simply "grab" the train. According to the rules, it's instantly stops (in game mechanics, actually it takes the entire phase of the grab maneuver) without taking any damage (well, unless Strong Guy wants to crush or throw it).

[Morningstar]

So, now what? Using only his strength, he digs a long painful furrow in the ground that extends well past the carnage of the nuns and orphans. He can lift 25 tons, the freight train weighs several hundred tons. He's just not more powerful than this locomotive.



[FONT=times new roman]If you have disabled the engine you are only working against momentum, not the trains strength. Unless you are going downhill, you will stop the train fairly quickly with 25 tons of force. If you push your strength, which seems reasonable fo rthis situation, you get up to 100 tons. You dont have to lift it either, gravity will make this stop eventually anyway, you just have to help out and 25-100 tons of force should be more than enough.

[BoneDaddy]

Good point. Go with Suppress Running or extra STR. With the extra STR he can simply "grab" the train. According to the rules, it's instantly stops (in game mechanics, actually it takes the entire phase of the grab maneuver) without taking any damage (well, unless Strong Guy wants to crush or throw it).
Do you think I could just martial grab the darn train? A push here, a haymaker there, a few CSLs to add strength, martial grab the engine car, and then the conductor needs clean trousers?

I understand that the notion of martially grabbing a train is slightly absurd, but the hideous strength involved here could make a hand hold in just about anything.

[Dust Raven]

Do you think I could just martial grab the darn train? A push here, a haymaker there, a few CSLs to add strength, martial grab the engine car, and then the conductor needs clean trousers?

I understand that the notion of martially grabbing a train is slightly absurd, but the hideous strength involved here could make a hand hold in just about anything.
The grab maneuver (or martial grab) is just a mechanic used to get a hold of something so that it doesn't move, and then you can crush, throw or redirect it. So sure, grab them trains!