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Old 06-23-2012, 10:29 AM   #1
Doctor Thantos
 
Join Date: Jun 2010
Default Telekinesis and Moving Vehicles Question

A question to the wise sages of this forum

Situation: A PC is trying to help an injured NPC on the street and suddenly a car bears down on him / her. The car accelerates from 20mph to 30mph before it is about to strike.

The Character has Telekinesis 31 (BL lift 192.2 lbs). EHvy (1922 lbs) Shove (2306lbs)
The Car is moving at 15 (30mph), assume a sedan at 2300 lbs wt. (Toyota Camry - curb wt.) ST/HP 50.

Using the Collision rules I calculate that the car will do 8d if it hits. (not doubled for a hard surface).

Assuming the TK character wants to stop or slow the car to prevent the damage to both the PC and the NPC. (assume the PC can't move because protecting the NPC and that he cannot move the NPC)

Can the PC stop the car?

Can the PC only deflect it?

Since the damage calculations are based on speed and ST/HT of the Vehicle, how much damaged gets blocked?
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Old 06-23-2012, 10:41 AM   #2
whswhs
 
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Default Re: Telekinesis and Moving Vehicles Question

Quote:
Originally Posted by Doctor Thantos View Post
A question to the wise sages of this forum

Situation: A PC is trying to help an injured NPC on the street and suddenly a car bears down on him / her. The car accelerates from 20mph to 30mph before it is about to strike.

The Character has Telekinesis 31 (BL lift 192.2 lbs). EHvy (1922 lbs) Shove (2306lbs)
The Car is moving at 15 (30mph), assume a sedan at 2300 lbs wt. (Toyota Camry - curb wt.) ST/HP 50.

Using the Collision rules I calculate that the car will do 8d if it hits. (not doubled for a hard surface).

Assuming the TK character wants to stop or slow the car to prevent the damage to both the PC and the NPC. (assume the PC can't move because protecting the NPC and that he cannot move the NPC)

Can the PC stop the car?

Can the PC only deflect it?

Since the damage calculations are based on speed and ST/HT of the Vehicle, how much damaged gets blocked?
Telekinesis doesn't seem to work with categories like "shove." The category is "any object you have strength enough to lift." ST 31 gives BL 192, as you say, and that gives Extra-Heavy encumbrance of 1920 pounds, which is too small to lift the car.

With a Will roll at -4, you can get 20% extra effort, which will bring the car within the limits of Extra-Heavy encumbrance.

The speed specification is "at a Move equal to your TK level, modified as usual for encumbrance level." So base Move is 31, x0.2 for Extra-Heavy encumbrance is Move 6. That equates to 12 mph, so the car's speed can be lowered from 30 mph to 18 mph, or Move 9. That will cut the damage to 5d.

It might be more efficient to telekinetically snatch the intended victim out of the car's path.

Bill Stoddard

Edit: As for deflection, assuming one second's move, the care will move 15 yards, but telekinesis can move it sideways 6 yards. That's two or three times the car's width, so it can almost surely be made to swerve. Of course, what else it will hit is another story!

Last edited by whswhs; 06-23-2012 at 10:45 AM.
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Old 06-23-2012, 11:42 AM   #3
Doctor Thantos
 
Join Date: Jun 2010
Default Re: Telekinesis and Moving Vehicles Question

If you could lift it, wouldn't the car be deflected upward then? Going over the PC and the NPC? The move of 6 you mention, that could be upwards right? Only would take 1 hex laterally or 2 hexes vertically to miss the PC and the NPC.

So theoretically, if the car had a move 2/55 (meaning it could increase speed by 2 hexes per second to a max speed of 55). If you could lift it at Extra Heavy encumbrance per above, you could slow the car down at 4 hexes per second, assuming the driver was fighting you by slamming down on the gas pedal?

What about tipping the car? making it go on two wheels?
Shove wouldn't work? A man trying to tip a car wouldn't have to lift the full weight, just a portion.. Shouldn't the same apply to TK?

From Page B353
Shove and Knock Over: 12xBL.
Double this if you have a running start. The GM can also make allowances for precariously balanced objects, to make them easier to tilt.


Running start wouldn't apply for TK- but surely you could knock something over with TK. Also carry on Back wouldn't apply for TK...


Shift Slightly: Depending on your footing and the way you are braced,
you could shift or rock 50xBL.
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Old 06-23-2012, 12:20 PM   #4
whswhs
 
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Default Re: Telekinesis and Moving Vehicles Question

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Originally Posted by Doctor Thantos View Post
If you could lift it, wouldn't the car be deflected upward then? Going over the PC and the NPC? The move of 6 you mention, that could be upwards right? Only would take 1 hex laterally or 2 hexes vertically to miss the PC and the NPC.
It's not that you are literally lifting it. It's that your ability to lift objects is the measure of your ability to move objects. This is how it's defined on p. B92, and it's consistent with the treatment of lifting, handling, and carrying on p. B353, where both lifting and pulling use the same weight.

The definition of telekinesis does not mention shoving as a maneuver.

Bill Stoddard
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Old 06-23-2012, 12:26 PM   #5
Kallatari
 
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Default Re: Telekinesis and Moving Vehicles Question

Telekinesis works identically to having "two hands manipulate the object at the ST of TK." An important limitation to this is that with two hands, the maximum you can lift is 8 x BL, not the full Extra-Heavy encumbrance.

Otherwise, if you can "punch" with TK, then I'd allow you to shove as well.
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Old 06-23-2012, 12:48 PM   #6
Doctor Thantos
 
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Default Re: Telekinesis and Moving Vehicles Question

What about pulling and dragging then?

You should be able to slide the car laterally right?

Halving the weight on a smooth surface like a road at a minimum?
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Old 06-23-2012, 01:06 PM   #7
whswhs
 
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Default Re: Telekinesis and Moving Vehicles Question

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Originally Posted by Doctor Thantos View Post
What about pulling and dragging then?

You should be able to slide the car laterally right?

Halving the weight on a smooth surface like a road at a minimum?
I would probably allow halving the weight; I wouldn't allow the 1/20 weight for a wheeled vehicle, not when you're moving along the axis of rotation of the wheels. I would allow deflecting the car sideways, as I suggested in my Edit: above.

Bill Stoddard
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Old 06-23-2012, 01:14 PM   #8
DouglasCole
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Default Re: Telekinesis and Moving Vehicles Question

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Originally Posted by Kallatari View Post
Telekinesis works identically to having "two hands manipulate the object at the ST of TK." An important limitation to this is that with two hands, the maximum you can lift is 8 x BL, not the full Extra-Heavy encumbrance.

Otherwise, if you can "punch" with TK, then I'd allow you to shove as well.
This was the solution we settled on for Technical Grappling. I had a big section using anther method to create a superpowered ranged grapple, plus a note on TK. One of the playtesters pointed out the text Kallatari mentions above (heck, it might've been Kallatari himself), and we scrapped a huge chunk of text (yay!) in favor of the simpler version:

TK gives two-armed ST. Anything you can do with two hands that requires that ST or less, you can do. You can swing a sword, grapple, shove, pick a lock, give someone a backrub, fly a plane, drive a car, type on a computer, or wax-on, wax-off. Anything. You may use skills with it, too.

If you want to NOT do any of those things, that's a limitation to your power.
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Old 06-23-2012, 01:22 PM   #9
whswhs
 
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Default Re: Telekinesis and Moving Vehicles Question

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Originally Posted by DouglasCole View Post
This was the solution we settled on for Technical Grappling. I had a big section using anther method to create a superpowered ranged grapple, plus a note on TK. One of the playtesters pointed out the text Kallatari mentions above (heck, it might've been Kallatari himself), and we scrapped a huge chunk of text (yay!) in favor of the simpler version:

TK gives two-armed ST. Anything you can do with two hands that requires that ST or less, you can do. You can swing a sword, grapple, shove, pick a lock, give someone a backrub, fly a plane, drive a car, type on a computer, or wax-on, wax-off. Anything. You may use skills with it, too.

If you want to NOT do any of those things, that's a limitation to your power.
But the shove rules on p. B372 don't specify how much weight you can shove, or how much you can change the velocity of the target, or how much collision damage your shove can stop. Nor should they, I think; you wouldn't normally use a shove maneuver to stop a person charging at you, or a bull, or a rolling car. Shove is usually used against still targets.

Going with BL 192, and a limit of 8x BL, I get 1536 lbs. moved at 20% of telekinetic Move, or Move 6. If you think "half weight on a smooth surface" should apply, I'd allow lateral displacement by 6 yards in one second, which ought to be enough to turn a car aside.

Bill Stoddard
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Old 06-23-2012, 02:03 PM   #10
DouglasCole
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Default Re: Telekinesis and Moving Vehicles Question

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Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
But the shove rules on p. B372 don't specify how much weight you can shove, or how much you can change the velocity of the target, or how much collision damage your shove can stop.
No, the shove rules say how much knockback you can inflict on a target.

You do thrust/crush doubled for a two-armed TK shove. At ST 31, that's equivalent to 6d+2.

For Knockback (p. 378), you'd either need to calculate the ST of the car, or use HP (depending on if you decide the car is "resisting"). This was given as ST/HP of 50, the same in either case.

Every 48 points of shove damage (by a literal interpretation of the rules with ST-2), or perhaps as low as 40 points (80%, or the equiv of ST-2 on a ST 10 person) would shove the car back one hex. Max shove damage is 38 points; you basically can't affect the car, which given ST 31 vs ST 50, is probably not too far wrong. If you roll a critical hit on the shove, you might get a damage multiple, which might double or triple that value, perhaps allowing you to move the car one or two hexes.

Point is, shoving is a perfectly valid thing to do with TK, and the rules for a TK shove are not at all different than any other kind of shove. This is precisely the same as a ST 31 superhero or robot shoving the car with two hands.

That the shove rules might not scale well or be easy to adjudicate in this case applies generically (and I don't disagree that it's odd); but TK is very straightforward in how it's applied.

Looking at it another way, car tires will often hold the road against anywhere from 0.5 to over 0.9 gravities of acceleration. For the car, which itself weighs 2300 lbs, that's about 1200-2300lbs of lateral resistance to shoves. The grip of the tires themselves is stronger, almost certainly, than the maximum force our shover can exert, so my analysis above (shoving won't do much) and the force comparison above (shoving won't do much) produce the same result.
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