Ripping Telephone Poles From The Ground

[Acroyear II]

When bricks or other strong superheroes want to rip a telephone pole (or similar object) out of the ground and throw it at someone, do they have to roll a STR roll in order to free the pole from the ground?

 

Example: Major America wishes to grab a telephone pole and throw it at Ogre. Major America has a 60 STR, and can easily lift a telephone pole, but does he have to make a STR roll to free the pole from the cement it rests in? And if so, what is the roll? Does he have to roll the DEF and BODY of the telephone pole in order to free it? Does this action take the whole phase, or is he able to rip it free and throw it all in the same phase?

 

Maybe I've missed it, but I can't find this detailed anywhere in FREd.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Ripping Telephone Poles From The Ground

 

That's completely in GM land ... based on telephone poles in the campaign, Cinematics, Drama, Coolness Factor etc..

 

A good guide is to decide how much STR is actually needed to rip a telephone pole out of the ground (which is mostly arbitrary and campaign based). After that if the Casual STR of the character ripping out the pole is equal to the STR required allow it for a 0-phase action. If it's less then either a 1/2 phase or if it's a lot less a full phase action.

 

That's a suggestion at least.

[Blue]

Re: Ripping Telephone Poles From The Ground

 

For my games, anything laying around loose can simply be picked up if you have the right strenght and swung/thrown according to the rules. If you want to swing an achored telephone pole, I would determine the weight of the pole, see what STR is needed to lift that, subtract that amount of STR from the character's current total and have him perform a STR roll. If it's under 50% of his STR I'd give the player a choice: If you want to make it a half phase action you don't need a STR roll. If you don't want to waste the half phase, then make a STR Roll and you won't spend any time ripping it up.

 

It could be done simpler. That's just how I like it.

[BoneDaddy]

Re: Ripping Telephone Poles From The Ground

 

30 Str is enough to lift a little over 1.5 tons, and I think it takes more than that to hoist a phone pole out of concrete, so I think this takes more than casual strength. I think that logically means this takes at least a half-phase action, and I think a strength roll is appropriate. I think, were I the GM, I might want to guesstimate the Body damage the concrete can withstand, and then see your brick beat it. Of course, I think you could just snap off the pole at the earth and swing away. Simple Strength roll, probably.

 

Of course, telephone poles do no live in isolation. They have friends. Close friends with whom they are in constant contact. You sure you wanna do that, and risk the 60 cycle dance? Or is that 120 cycle, for electrical lines?

[Vex]

Re: Ripping Telephone Poles From The Ground

 

I will pretty much let my players get away with cinematic effects as long as the 1. Make sense and 2. Aren't over used. Keep in mind that telephone company will frown on this and may sue, the wanton destruction of property is illegal, the sudden lack of basic services (water, electricity, gas and telephone service) could cause the locals to riot and not all "telephone poles" have telephone wires. In one game a player pulled the "metal telephone pole" out of the ground, even after the other players warned him. Unfortunately, the brick in question had a vulnerabilty to electricty and was fighting a hydroblaster.....ugh, it was painful to watch.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Ripping Telephone Poles From The Ground

 

30 Str is enough to lift a little over 1.5 tons, and I think it takes more than that to hoist a phone pole out of concrete, so I think this takes more than casual strength. I think that logically means this takes at least a half-phase action, and I think a strength roll is appropriate. I think, were I the GM, I might want to guesstimate the Body damage the concrete can withstand, and then see your brick beat it. Of course, I think you could just snap off the pole at the earth and swing away. Simple Strength roll, probably.

 

Of course, telephone poles do no live in isolation. They have friends. Close friends with whom they are in constant contact. You sure you wanna do that, and risk the 60 cycle dance? Or is that 120 cycle, for electrical lines?

 

depends entirely on the lines .. higher power ones might even go up to 240? not sure, enver dealt with them.

 

As for the casual STR .. assuming it requires 30 STR to lift one out, a 60 STR character might be able to do it, maybe as a 1/2 phase... if for some reason you have an 80 STR character however, that's another 16x stronger than the 60 STR guy and can lift 1000x the 30 STR needed to remove the pole ... that'd be a zero-phase action.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Ripping Telephone Poles From The Ground

 

Just like to point out that HERO System STR is "Barely lift off the ground and stagger a few feet with" strength.

 

 

That aside to pull something out of the ground, and assuming the character has enough STR to actually lift the object in question, I would say make a "count the BODY" style STR Roll and apply the BODY against the material that the object is rooted in comparing to its DEF and BODY. To pull something out may take less than the full BODY of the material at the GM's discretion; pulling something out of the dirt doest destroy the dirt for example, it merely displaces it, but to pull something off metal bolts or brackets probably ruins the securing material. The GM may determine that as little as 1 BODY over DEF or up to the max BODY of the material is sufficient.

 

Depending on how deep the object in question is buried/rooted determines how many Hexes worth of material the character must affect with their STR damage.

 

Alternately such a character may just break off the item rather than uproot it, in which case they roll against the item's DEF & BODY.

 

 

A character can choose to use their Casual STR if they think they are strong enough, as normal for Casual STR.

[Sociotard]

Re: Ripping Telephone Poles From The Ground

 

Bear in mind the concrete isn't that strong against tension, only compression. Unless it's reinforced with rebar, it shouldn't be too hard for a 60 str character

[Dust Raven]

Re: Ripping Telephone Poles From The Ground

 

Most of the telephone poles where I live aren't anchored into concrete, but into the earth, with a concrete base for stability. Basically, all you have to do is rip the whole thing out of the earth, concrete and all. For anyone with 5 STR more than needed to lift the object, I’d just say it’s a ½ or 0 phase action to rip it up, concrete base and all. If they were anchored into a solid block of concrete, it would probably be easier to snap the pole, spending a ½ phase action (I wouldn’t call it an attack though) to do STR damage to the lesser of the pole or the concrete. If enough damage is done, you have yourself a telephone pole.

 

As far as the lines are concerned, I’d just say they snap and create a hazard on the field of battle that could randomly attack hero, villain or bystander.

[Hawksmoor]

Re: Ripping Telephone Poles From The Ground

 

Why am I thinking that this would be a really enjoyble combat?

 

Gotta goad some villians into picking up telephone poles and smacking me with them.

 

Hawksmoor

[Southern Cross]

Re: Ripping Telephone Poles From The Ground

 

Actually the Freedom Force computer game does enable your superhero(s) to pick up telephone poles and swing them. However,it does take extra time to do this,so I'd say it should take a half-phase action to pick up the telephone pole and the remaining half-phase action to actually attack.

If bought as part of a "'strength tricks" multipower,I'd buy it as Stretching (with the Stretching's Active Points equal to the character's normal STR), only for combat purposes,and with the following Limitations:Always Direct,No Noncombat movement,and OIF:Pole of Opportunity.

[Diashan]

Re: Ripping Telephone Poles From The Ground

 

Telephone poles make wonderful wepons in combat. So your villian wants to stand of and try to plink me I don't think so.

 

A little off topic but manhole covers make great projetiles for bricks, big metal Frisbees. 9 DEF 5 BODY ohhhh! Just hope you don't miss.

 

 

 

 

 

Diashan

[Fenixcrest]

Re: Ripping Telephone Poles From The Ground

 

I pretty much agree with Shrike.

 

Treat it as though the Telephone Pole is in an entangle with the DEF and BODY of the material it's rooted in, and just bust up the entangle with your STR, casual or otherwise.

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: Ripping Telephone Poles From The Ground

 

I pretty much agree with Shrike.

 

Treat it as though the Telephone Pole is in an entangle with the DEF and BODY of the material it's rooted in, and just bust up the entangle with your STR, casual or otherwise.

That's almost exactly what I wanted to say, but you said it much more succinctly than I probably would have.

 

An Entangle is a perfect way to thing of it. Ask yourself, "how tightly does the concrete, or dirt, hold on to the pole, i.e., the equivalent of what DEF/BODY Entangle?" The same would apply to uprooting a tree, a lamppost, a phone booth, a fence post, etc.

 

I think what we need is a new table for uprooting things, after all, picking up a fallen tree is not the same thing as ripping it out of the ground, nor is it the same as simply destroying the tree. It's probably too late to get such a table included in The Ultimate Brick, but it really should go in there.

 

Something like this:

 

Object   Weight   Destroy        Uproot (break Entangle)
                 BODY DEF       BODY DEF
Tree
Sapling
Telephone Pole (wood, in earth with concrete base)
Traffic signal pole (metal, bolted to concrete)
Street sign
Lamppost
Mailbox
Fence post
Boulder in ground
Sword in stone
Sword in Anvil*
Car in mud
Wooly mammoth in tar pit

 

Anybody have references for these?

 

*(and why do we often see the proverbial "sword in the stone" depicted as a sword embedded in an anvil? )

[Dust Raven]

Re: Ripping Telephone Poles From The Ground

 

I think it should be kept more loose than that. If I run a four-color or silver age champs game, ripping stuff out of the ground is part of the genre and should be easy. I could just say that anyone with enough STR to lift it and swing it could rip it up (unless the plot would say otherwise, such as a sword in stone/anvil story).

 

Figuring out the "engantle" hold of certain objects is rather easy though. Just look at the Breaking Things Table in FREd and use the DEF and BODY of the types of substances the objects are imbedded in.

[Fenixcrest]

Re: Ripping Telephone Poles From The Ground

 

Anyway, somebody with the STR to wield a telephone pole as an effective weapon probably has enough power to break a concrete-level Entangle without too much effort.

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: Ripping Telephone Poles From The Ground

 

I don't think so. I could easily pick up the chair I'm sitting on and swing it or throw it as a weapon. But I couldn't pick it up at all if it was bolted to the floor.

[Dust Raven]

Re: Ripping Telephone Poles From The Ground

 

I don't think so. I could easily pick up the chair I'm sitting on and swing it or throw it as a weapon. But I couldn't pick it up at all if it was bolted to the floor.

A chair doesn't weigh nearly as much as a telephone pole, although the restraints are probably just as sturdy. Do you think those bolts are gonna slow down someone who can juggle telephone poles?

[lemming]

Re: Ripping Telephone Poles From The Ground

 

I don't think that example scales as well. Perhaps using fence posts as the example instead? Talking about the thinish metal stakes. Those can be a pain to get out of the ground.

 

Though someone who can pick up a telephone pole with no problem, probably doesn't have as much problem ripping it out of the ground as well. If it takes 30 STR to pick up a pole, ripping it out of the ground would probably only take a 40. though I think that would take effort. Once you get to the 60 - 80 STR you might casual the concrete.

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: Ripping Telephone Poles From The Ground

 

My point was that the weight of an object may bear no relation to the strength with which it is achored to the ground. An olympic weightlifter also couldn't lift a chair bolted to the floor, but could easily throw it across the room if it wasn't. A tornado might leave a tree or small structure standing while easily picking up things just as heavy that aren't anchored to the ground. See how much strength it takes to pull up a weed out of your garden and comare that to how much strength it takes to then pick it up an carry it to the trash can. You can easily knock down a stack of bricks that aren't cemented together, you can even juggle the bricks, but it's much harder to knock down a brick wall or pluck out one brick to use as a weapon after the mortar is dry.

 

And yes a person with 80 STR could easily pull up a telephone pole, but a person with 30 STR couldn't, even though he could pick one up easily if it was just laying there. And the 80 STR guy would probably break off the pole long before it came out of the concrete unless he's very careful to pull it straight up.

[Dust Raven]

Re: Ripping Telephone Poles From The Ground

 

And yes a person with 80 STR could easily pull up a telephone pole' date=' but a person with 30 STR couldn't, even though he could pick one up easily if it was just laying there. And the 80 STR guy would probably break off the pole long before it came out of the concrete unless he's very careful to pull it straight up.[/quote']

Your definition of 'easy' varies from mine it seems. I can easily lift a 50 lb bag of flower. With some signicent effort I can lift a 300 lb washing machine. (I'm working under the assumption I have 14 STR and I'm in a heroic level game that only allows pushing with an EGO roll).

 

A character will 30 STR will grunt and groan and strain while lifting a telephone pole, and couldn't hurl it more than an inch once he got a grip on it. A 60 STR character will pick it up like any other club.

[Razor]

Re: Ripping Telephone Poles From The Ground

 

Telephone poles make wonderful wepons in combat. So your villian wants to stand of and try to plink me I don't think so.

 

A little off topic but manhole covers make great projetiles for bricks, big metal Frisbees. 9 DEF 5 BODY ohhhh! Just hope you don't miss.

Diashan

 

 

I'm at work now without my trusty book.

Somebody out there refresh my memory as to how you determine damage a thrown object does to it's target? I remember the rules for hitting (balance, aerodynamics etc..) but not damaging, and it's driving me crazy!

[TaxiMan]

Re: Ripping Telephone Poles From The Ground

 

Damage is equal to the STR of the thrower, but limited to the (DEF + BODY) * DC of the object. 9 DEF 5 BODY can do a maximum of 14d6 normal damage or the equivalent DC in killing, if converted somehow by SFX to a killing attack.

[austenandrews]

Re: Ripping Telephone Poles From The Ground

 

I like Dust Raven's idea on the first page, of breaking the substance to which the object is attached. So to rip up a telephone pole or a fence post embedded in cement, you have to beat the DEF + BODY of the cement. Though I suppose you could argue that 1/2 BODY might be enough to bust it up enough to make it let go.

 

-AA

[devlin1]

Re: Ripping Telephone Poles From The Ground

 

I'm at work now without my trusty book.

Somebody out there refresh my memory as to how you determine damage a thrown object does to it's target? I remember the rules for hitting (balance, aerodynamics etc..) but not damaging, and it's driving me crazy!

Wouldn't it be DEF + BODY of the object, plus STR, but not to exceed total dice greater than twice the DEF + BODY of the object?

 

In fact... hmm... a thrown manhole cover (Range Based on STR EB, Double KB) would be a great standard brick trick.