What would your character do? II

[Mightybec]

OK, here's the next senario for your favorite PC to take care of.
The same crazy villian has smuggled a backpack nuclear device onto a bullet train, filled with passengers, headed for Washington DC. The state of the union address is about to start, so all of the upper government is in DC at the time. He really doesn't care about living, has a "my pulse stops and we go boom" system for the device, and is armed with some Joker type gadgets. ETA to DC is ten minutes. What would your character do?

Mightybec

[Hermit]

For some reason, I keep visualizing this guy as "Mad Stan" from Batman Beyond :)

Using the same guys as before:
Lone Star- X Ray vision, Flight and such can be a wonderful combo. He'd find the bomb with the X ray vision, then try to grab it and get it the heck away. That would still leave those poor folks with that nutbar and his gadgets, but he'd be calling his team for back up long before this.

Slammer- Slammer would be in trouble with this one, and I don't deny it. He doesn't fly, but he does have good leaping. I think he might try to seperate the baddie and his bomb into a seperate car of the train, then let the rest of the train go on it's way. He might fail, but at least he'd save those people and DC.

Surge- Lock in on the energy signals of the bomb. Flash the bad guy, take him and his bomb out. Surge is pretty powerful, so knocking the guy out would not be hard. Then, if he could think of nothing else to stop the bomb from going off in 10 minutes, but knew he had that time... he'd get out of his power armor, rig it to fly off without him, and send it and the bomb out over the Atlantic.
Given his current situation, that might take him out of the hero game.

Wildcard- Wildcard would go in his secret Id. Swap backpacks after distracting the guy "Hey... is that Elvis?" then leave. He's always wanted a nuke, but they're a bit big to fit on a card.

:)

[Superskrull]

Hmm...
Well, I've played a few different characters, so out of my favorites...
Gallant- keeps him busy while trying to let Decoy ( a teammate) NND him ala Vision.
Thunderbolt- freeze him in a ball of ice and take a trip as far from civilization as possible, considering his flight speed, that shouldn't take more than seconds. If we both go boom, the power will choose someone else.
Ultra- his (cheesy but fun) Kryptonian powers would make disarming that puppy a snap
Doremo- one decent Fist of the Adder NND & it's all over for nutboy, after that, paralysis him with Snake Fist style Spd drains.
Red Enigma- will probably do something disturbing like squeezing the halflife out of the radioactive materials in the bomb then literally smack some sense into the bad guy.

[Alien Knight]

Hmm, well then with my more recent characters:

1) The Ibis: First thing's first, I use my Canopic Jar attack to seperate his soul from his body. While he's touring the underworld I'd quickly use my ability to turn back the clock to see where he hid the bomb. That accomplished, I don't trust my force field to stop a backpack nuke, so I'd need to send it far away, probably use my magical powers to drop it into limbo or something. By this time the bad guy has probably recovered from being Jarred, but with joker-esqe gadgetry he's not much of a threat anymore.

2) The Blue Scarab: Mental powers make everything better. Grab control of his mind and frog-march him to the bomb, then make him disarm it (or use telepathy to get the instructions directly and do it myself). That done, I use my power ring to beat him unconcious for the authorities.

3) Shrike: I'm in serious trouble. If I'm solo, damage containment is going to be the best I can do. First I need to contain the villain, my telekinetic powers should be more than enough to stop this guy, but I don't dare hurt him. Next, we try and find the bomb and pray that my super vision will help me detect the bomb. Once I find it, all three of us are going into space. Hopefully I'll be able to get rid of the thing before it goes boom, but if not, well, at least I went out in a blaze of glory. If I can't find the bomb, the whole train is going into space. The loss of life is unfortunate, but the number of people that are going to die if I let the plan come to term is going to be a lot more than the number of passengers on the train.

[nblade]

Originally posted by Hermit
For some reason, I keep visualizing this guy as "Mad Stan" from Batman Beyond :)


For some odd reason I've always wanted to use someone like him as a villain, but I don't think I can pull it off.

[Acroyear]

High Power:
Fly alongside the train and send my ring floating in to scout it out... then disarm the bomb with a focused EMP. Then I'd summon up a big blue version of the Raider's front line to sack him... since there will be no ref around, they'd rough him up good.

Low Power:
Washington DC? Bummer. I'm in San Francisco. Hope the fallout blows east. If not, I'll take a jog to Japan or Hong Kong or something.

[MuscaDomestica]

Cal would fight the villian and use his ego drain to get the guy to tell me where the bomb is located and how to disarm it, then do a couple drain stuns to knock him out. He would try to get on the train somehow, either with help from another hero or buy a risky jump into the front of the train in ball mode. He would then pick up the bomb and get away from any people then either, difuse the bomb like the guy said, and if that doesn't work he will just use his entropy slash and destroy most of the components and tell someone to call up someone to clean up the radiation.

[Starwolf]

Battlemaster shoots the badguy with a tranq dart loaded with a paralyzing nuerotoxin developed by the inventor of Botox. Once he is paralyzed from the neck down, use a fast acting truth serum to exract the bombs location. Drop a stasis field over the bomb then deliver the bad guy to the authorities, and the bomb to a nuclear bomb test site for explosion/disarmament. Battlemaster is a soldier from the far future, sent back to prevent a sequence of events that cause his timeline to end in earths destruction in the 30th century. He is highly trained and well equiped, but lonely. For him this was a one way trip. He has no time travel capabilities of his own, and just as he faded into the past he saw an explosion detroy the time machine that sent him here. He is trapped in the past....

[ZootSoot]

Armando would insert himself into the train and pose as a passenger. Use his enhanced senses to memorize the guy's biorhythms, snatch the monitor and start doing his beat box impersonation of the guy's vital signs and beat him silly until he tells him where the bomb is. Then get someone else to actually disarm because Armando and technology do not get along . . .

[DoctorItron]

ShadowBlade, the martial artist, would say "10 minutes from DC! I'm in New York. I won't get there in time, so I hope the Washington heroes are up to the job."

If ShadowBlade was lucky enough to be on the train, he'd defeat the villain using the same tactics that worked in the museum. Then he'd wonder "How'd this guy get out of jail so quickly? This is the second time this week I stopped him from blowing up civilians."

[Prometheus]

Prometheus, 4th ed.: "DC? Hmmm... THEMIS, can you get me some wind pattern and fallout projections for the eastern seaboard?"

Prometheus, 5th ed.: First, a combination of Lightning Calculator, Megascaled Flight and Life Support for a suborbital flight to DC. Enroute, he'd mindlink a request to THEMIS, his A.I., for any information on the villian (i.e. KS: Supervillians), and have her request DCPD have a hazmat team on standby. Catch up with and board the train, find said villian.

With the information from THEMIS, it comes down to a choice between brute STR or a Powers skill roll, with an emphasis on restraint. If he can get the villian tussled up and immobile- but unhurt (wrap a handrail around him, tie him up in seatbelts, etc.)- so much the better. That leaves about 1 to 2 minutes to either slow the entire train, or get everyone out of the first car and detach it from the rest (assuming the bomb isn't in the first car).

Then, give local authorities an update and turn the situation over to them, making sure our villian is properly restrained. Stay just long enough for the requisite "Just doing my job son/sir/ma'am/miss, they're the real heroes." with a nod toward the appropriate emergency crew, then it's up, up, and back to L.A.

Rescue a cat from a tree along the way, if possible.

[TheEmerged]

First he'd make a skill roll (Demoltions 17-) to determine if the device was signal=blow or no-signal=blow. If necessary he'd use his Discriminatroy/Analyze Technology Sense to make sure. He'd then either use his Gremlin Ray to short out the fuse or make something that can fool the pulse sensor with his MacGuyver Ray. Chances are he can deal with the Joker-Style gadgets once the real threat is over with.

Did I mention my GM-PC is a gadgeteer?

Once finished he'd kill the sucker for bothering him; Did I mention my GM-PC is a villain?

[Patriot]

In this scenario I would need some team support:
Chief Rising Storm -Indian Shaman who often consorts with the entity known as time
Psycho - Avatar of Chaos -
Burn -Speedster
Electrick-E-caster
Chief would use the spell Imbue another with power on Psycho
Psycho would cast a Time stop spell(9 d6 spd drain, ae radius normally, but with the boost it would go up to 14d6)
Burn would then Pull the Transform (Disasemble)(not to worry he has 30 pts power def only vs SPD drains)
Electrik would use Tactile TK to make sure the trtain would not jump the track and hurt any one)

[lemming]

Ice Pirate: Sneak in, disarm the bomb (she's pretty handy with tech), then sneak up on the villian and ask "What's up?"
Andromeda: She could mimic the radio signal to the bomb, thereby making sure it did not go off. Fly in, disable the villian, then fly off with the bomb into space.
Calico: Get a radiation detector from SWORD to find the bomb, then have someone talk her through disarming it. Then beat the villian within an inch of his life.
Scales: Find the bomb, get it, go up to the villian with it and then swallow the bomb. (This would cause minor internal discomfort based on the old hero almanac version.) If the villian survives the presence attack, knock him out.

[st barbara]

Oh Damn ! I don't have any way of detecting the bomb ! Can I phone a friend ? Depending on which innocents are being harmed "St Barbara" might just try something cute like a seduction role to convince the villain that SHE is the person that he (or she, "St. B" is broadminded) wants to be with and if the villain will just tell her where that nasty bomb is and it can be disarmed they can go off together and enjoy themselves and leave those poor passengers alone. Hasn't this person heard of the addage, "make love not war ?" Not being a tease (well, not REALLY) she would be prepared to not arrest our villain until the next morning, which would at least give the villain something to remember her by !

[Enforcer84]

Enforcer would fly to the train, enter if from the rear. Make his way on foot towards the car with the madman. Use a force bubble to seperate him from the rest of the passengers then take the force bubble and villain a long way a way.

[rbezold]

Okay, are you looking for successful strategies, or would you like to know what my CHARACTER would do?

Captain Muscle- A Golden Age flying brick with a magic word.
SHABAM: Super Hero Achiever Boyscout Another "a" for overachiever Muscle


Fly straight to the track in front of the train and stop train with bare hands. Then search through wreckage of train to find bomb and throw it into orbit. Modestly accept applause from grateful public if successful. Humbly accepts full responsibility for his actions in the Afterlife if everyone gets blown up.

[Mayday]

Mayday: First have the train diverted onto a different track, away from DC. While en route attempt to use Mind Link/Scan/Control to scope out the situation and if GM allows Ego Attack the crap out of this guy if persuasion fails. Thats kind of cheap though.

Assuming she was able to get to the train quickly, swing on board and use Scan and Link to locate him, passengers and his bomb, Unhook all cars with passengers behind his and jam the wheels if possible (luckily this is evening/night time), climb up top and along roof to the car in front of his and unhook it while the rest of the train keeps going. Sneak a look inside his car and a Scan lock on him if possible. Try to talk him down and if it fails Ego Attack him blind. Close for melee if necessary. No attacks that can kill, only incapacitate with emphasis on not allowing him to hurt himself or disconnect himself.

[Super Squirrel]

My character would tunnel underneath the train until he got ahead of it. Once he has a good managable distance, he would destroy the train railing and derail it. Disconnect as many cars as possible to save as many lives.

His reasoning is like this: The baddie is willing to die. The best way to save human lives is by seperating the blast from as many of them as possible. Those immediately nearby would likely die.

But again, this is how he would operate alone.

[Mayday]

Mayday does have Demolitions, but I assumed he was wearing the bomb. She would have the easiest time of it and once he's down take extra time to disarm it if necessary or leave it for the professionals with 17- if no rush.

Wraithe: (A Silver Avenger Mark 1.5) Get on train, locate target. Unhook cars. Cant get to him fast enough on 12 to stop him, so kicks down a door and PRE w/ soliloquy, "Nobody move! This is a PRIMUS Raid and GET THE F--- DOWN NOW!" (Normally wouldn't use language but this is no time to dance around) Can probably take a shot from him if she fails. On her next action close with the bomber and TakeDown. Disarm him next phase of obvious Foci leaving the bomb. If can Grab and Squeeze without jeopardizing the bomb or its connections will do that. Otherwise will pull her punches relying on nerve strikes if successful to alternate areas such as Groin but will use overwhelming blunt force (HA) if necessary and break bones (knee? ankle? foot!).

Alternate Plan: If they can communicate with him by radio after diverting and boarding the train she will use mimicry and attempt to convince him she is Dubya Bush, talk him down until the other cars are released and troops with gas can get in position. Kicking door in still an option.

Sabre: (flying armor with an attached bayonet) Easily reach the train. FF on, crash into his railway car glass flying and grab him, protecting him with her body and FF, out the other side of the train and over the Atlantic then straight UP.... He won't be able to take the acceleration enough to move easily, nor the cold of the upper atmosphere. At worst he will make her drop him but at her speed she can probably recover and catch him long before he pancakes. Should reach Iceland in about an hour.... Or some ship of the US Navy that they direct her to.

Les Gitan: ::plink plink:: Self Teleport to Mongolia

[gewing]

The Champions character I played the most would be SOL.
Martial artist with a lightly armored suit, clinging, and night vision goggles.

If I was actually on the train, I would have this little problem of Enraged when Innocents endangered/harmed- though that was being worked on with a Psychiatrist.

IIRC I wouldhave ended up knocking him out with pulled punches, then interrogating him for the bomb location, after stopping the train, somehow. Probably end up more nuts than I started...

[Karma]

Originally posted by Mightybec
OK, here's the next senario for your favorite PC to take care of.
The same crazy villian has smuggled a backpack nuclear device onto a bullet train, filled with passengers, headed for Washington DC. The state of the union address is about to start, so all of the upper government is in DC at the time. He really doesn't care about living, has a "my pulse stops and we go boom" system for the device, and is armed with some Joker type gadgets. ETA to DC is ten minutes. What would your character do?

Mightybec

Walkabout: Would create a Gate to the train for himself and then one between the floor under the villian and a point a metre above the ocean where the bad guy could happily blow himself up in comfort without the radioactive cloud or the wave it creates reaching any landmass. He would then blame the explosion on 'French Nuclear testing' (Walkabout doesn't like French Nuclear testing).

Karma: Try to get aboard a bullet train moving at the same speed as the 'Death train' and then teleport aboard the DT (unlike Walkabout she doesn't get to pick her velocity). Invisibly move toward the perp and silently, cut the wire between the dead man switch and the bomb. If she'd found out try to put the guy into unconciousness before he can react. If she manages to clip the dead mans switch wire put a sword through his vitals before he can get his **** together (Karma is not one to let a psycho live) then return to the first train with the Nuke let the train stop and teleport to the nearest American missile silo, set the clock and phone in the threat (Karma's version of nuclear disarmament, she's from a very dark future).

[death tribble]

I can think of several ways but

The Magnetic Mistress might waggle her fingers and let all the metal break contact so no way could the bomb detonate.
The Voidwalker would subject the miscreant to the Terror of the Void. Once unconscious, the bomb would then be hurled into space poss via T-Port

As for what the Demoness would do, well it all depends on how evil he was and how many people he had harmed killed.
If she felt he was irredeemably evil, she would teleport him straight to hell with the backpack as well.
If she felt he was savable, she would turn him or the backpack desolid and then teleport the backpack away.

[Pol Rua]

Most of my characters would be in the deep proverbials.

Jack Armstrong, The Scarlet Scarab would probably be worst off.
"Great Scott! This bizarre futuristic vehicle!"
"You tell me this bomb could destroy a whole city? Who'd be mad enough to invent such a thing?"
"Ah well, (rolls up sleeves) This bit I'm okay with!"

'Comet' Dixon would be better off.
"Great Comets! This man has a bomb attatched to him!"
"I'll disable him with my comet-blasts, and see if I can defuse this thing!"
"No good. Looks like curtains old chum. Only in the Shooting Star can I go fast enough to get this damned thing far enough away!"
"To think, I spent all that time keeping Martian technology away from the people of this planet, only to have them invent something far more diabolical without the Martians' aid."
(With that, our hero would load the unconscious bad guy into his Martian War Chariot and try and get as far away from a populated area as possible)
"Is this the last hurrah for 'Comet' Dixon? Tune in next week for the exciting conclusion..."

Beatnik Gorilla would have to reason with the fellah. He reads enough science fiction to deal with the train.
"Man, this cat was like Boom! He was putting out some serious bad vibes, and I knew his blood-box would have to keep up with the ba-boom ba-boom or it's like Splitsville, DC! Crazy!"


________________________________________
Pol.
(Short answer - DC is toast. Historical heroes are never good in situations like this one...)

[Tech]

I noticed no one's mentioned the easiest method yet:

He's disintegrated with the bomb.

[The_Hero]

Spiritwalker: Convince the bomber to get to the front of the train so he can see where the train is going to make sure the train doesn't go off course. Then separate that car from the rest of the train to rescue passengers.

Then I'd tell him to go for it, take the engineer and get off. (My character is a Comanche warrior who hates the persecution of White Man's govt and this'll be a great way to get back at them once and for all without her people getting the blame)

[DoctorItron]

Originally posted by The_Hero
Spiritwalker: Convince the bomber to get to the front of the train so he can see where the train is going to make sure the train doesn't go off course. Then separate that car from the rest of the train to rescue passengers.

Then I'd tell him to go for it, take the engineer and get off. (My character is a Comanche warrior who hates the persecution of White Man's govt and this'll be a great way to get back at them once and for all without her people getting the blame)

Wow, pretty extreme. Is Spiritwalker is a villain? Or is she a hero with a 50 point disad "Wants to kill every government employee" :)

There's a little flaw in the plan. Wouldn't the train engineer hear you telling the bomber to go for it? He'd be a witness and your people *would* get blamed. If you've got no problem with thousands of people dying in a nuclear blast, why would you even bother to save the engineer? He is, after all, part of the White Man's government and deserves to die along with all the other gov't employees in Washington DC.

[Marchwarden]

Without teammates, Marchwarden would probably be screwed, since he doesn't know a bomb from a bag of frogs. However, if that train had a normal on it who could explain that the madman "has a great blasting-fire at his fingertips, and it will be unleashed if he is slain", then MW would probably run along the top of the moving cars and make an acrobatic surprise assault through the window. His martial arts are a pale shadow of his archery, but he's strong enough to knock out a normal, and there is no way the madman can react faster than a superhumanly agile warrior hitting him from an unexpected quarter. Then, get someone competent to disarm the device while the madman is insensible and held fast.

With the team around, things get easier. Even outside his armour, Defender's technical savvy and mysterious intuition should give us a hint as to the location and nature of the bomb. Radar Rider might be able to sense and/or disable it, depending on whether or not it was a radio-control mechanism. Of course, the instant Defender mutters under his breath: "Blue then green wire but NOT red" then unless the madman can outdraw DEX 35, MWs arrows will sever the blue and then the green wire and not touch the red.

Heartseeker could lull him with ninja hand signals and then swiftly and harmlessly render him unconscious.

Eternia? Even she couldn't hope to shield others with her body from a pony nuke. That said, an instant's distraction (her 30 COM might be useful there) and she'd be all over him with her irresistable STR. Also, if the bomb can't be disarmed, she could toss it clear into the Chesapeake - an ecological disaster, but better than the alternative.

[The Watcher]

Warp: Bring along a nuke detector to find the bomb. Then get N-ray goggles so one can see inside of bomb. Teleport the nuclear material out of the bomb. Then port the guy and his now neutralized bomb off the train.

Spectrum: Uses his energy manipulation powers and knowledge of physics to neutralize the nuclear material, and then proceed to knock the guy unconscious with an NND.

Mystic: Transports guy and nuke to another dimension.

Proteus: The old bioadaptive shapeshift into a stealthy organism capable of latching onto and seizing control of his nervous system trick.

[Mightybec]

Wow. This thread is back from the dead.

[Chuckg]

Starguard -- zap the guy with Rapid Fire from her 8d6 NND until he fell over.

Failing that... well, she's got an 80-point Cosmic Power Pool. Even with the Novice Hero psych lim, she's still got quite a few options.


Dr. Pain -- if the villain doesn't know he's there, he's got a chance... not much of a chance, but a chance... to sneak up behind him and put him in a STR 70 pin, followed by a Choke Hold.

Outside of that... well, 350-point bricks never did do ninja missions very well.


Baron von Darien -- 750-point elder vampires, OTOH, do ninja missions *VERY* well. If this nimnul even *SEES* the Baron before he gets hammered unconscious, he'll be luckier than the gods can dream of.

(Yes, even if it's daylight and the guy's standing outside. The Baron has a protective artifact that lets him temporarily endure sunlight... and for that matter, at only 1d6 BODY per Phase, he can actually survive for a Turn or so *without* the protection, if he doesn't mind a little continual searing agony.)



As for defusing the bomb...

Starguard -- again, the Power Cosmic.

Dr. Pain -- pray to God somebody else on the train has Demolitions 18-. Failing that, throw the damn thing about half a mile into the bay.

Baron von Darien -- has the technical skills of an artichoke. Then again...

*Vampiric mind control*

"You want to turn this thing off."

"I want to turn this thing off."

(Yes, even if the guy's got an obnoxious EGO and totally committed Psych Lims. The Baron has a 6d6 Mind Control x4 Cumulative slot... barring actual Mental Defense on the target, he can get *ANYBODY* to go the EGO +30 level if you just give him enough Phases.)

[Seenar]

Seenar:

Mental Illusions and then Mind Control. They guy disarms the bomb and does not even know it.

[Vondy]

Anthem (if he has time to call in the team): use his x-ray vision to find the bomb and have Bane use his cosmic power pool to transform the the bomb into a fifty pound block of cheese, or chocolate, or something else edible (preferably kosher). Or have Mind's Eye use her telepathy pool to take control of the guy and have him walk off the train and disarm the bomb.

Anthem (if he does not have time to call in the team): flyto the train at mach 10, use his x-ray vision to locate the guy, and then either grab him and go FTL into outer space, letting go as soon as they cleared the moon.

Anthem (after he lost his powers, returning him to uber-commando, master-pilot, master-spy status): call in the teams and lead the assualt - saying something like: "lets cowboy up people! time to earn our pay!"

Midnight: "nuke?! what the hell am I supposed to do about a nuke?!" He would try to team up with other heroes, or volunteer to go in with a government team, but he'd know he was way out of his league.

Pinstripe: find fat eddie lucenzo who has a pacemaker, gun him down (he needs to get around to him eventually anyways), take the pacemaker, get onto the train, knock the guy out without killing him (ugh! that's the trick isn't it?), attach the pacemaker to the bomb, shoot the terrorist in the head four or five times, and make his escape before the train is stopped and the authorities boarded.

Doc Micro - shrink the terrorist and the bomb to the sub-atomic level (his x-dim movement: microzone power) and come back, leaving the terrorist to make a ladyfinger sized atomic explosion. Heh!

[farik]

Husky would toss the guy as far from the train as possible (probably toward the ocean) and then pursue him to perform more detailed butt kicking until/unless the explosives interupt that plan.

If the bomb isn't actually on the guy then Husky would stop the train and try to evacuate it as soon as possible. If the bomb is located change into Kenneth and disarm it.