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View Full Version : Preventing Derailing - In the Most Literal Sense



Axle-Gear
2018-03-20, 10:53 AM
Lately I've been running a Pathfinder campaign with an emphasis on sabotage, robbery, and general heist'ing against a variety of baddies. Currently, the party is in a realm being invaded by a technomancer autocrat who has been stomping all over the locals with his industrial might. We've been having a pretty good time so far, and I have an awesome mission planned involving a train.

Y'see, I want the party to board an alleged supply train from the rear, and crawl their way to the engine to find out it's a bomb set to go off at its destination, wiping out both the BBEG's faltering front lines and the allied forces poised to push them back - boss fight against a construct built into the engine ensues, and the party can then defuse said bomb.

The problem is, however, that even a modestly leveled party should be able to tear up some railroad tracks with little to no problem (the fact that one of them is a Quartermaster doesn't help matters. Anything short of magically enhanced adamantine may as well be so much play-doh to him). I can partly justify the party's military allies having not done so yet under the pretence that most of the tracks are within enemy territory, and any attempt by their forces would have been noticed. Even so, if the party can be given enough foresight to catch the train, it makes it all too easy for them to also have enough foresight to go a little further up the tracks to derail said train.

How do I prevent this? My current plan is for the party to have relatively short notice - say, allied diviners determine the train will be passing by soon enough that the party will get there the day of - and then forcing an encounter along the way. However long that encounter takes, I would have-wave it as having taken enough time that the party is running behind schedule and arrives just as the train is passing. Alternatively (or possibly additionally), I could have said diviners say that causing the train to derail would be disastrous (which takes away some of the surprise of the bomb in the engine), or I could have the party's allies insist on taking the train without crashing it in order to loot it for valuable tech and weapons to be used in the war effort.

Any suggestions or remarks on this? Maybe ideas to help the party reach a more natural conclusion to conduct a good ol' fashioned train robbery?

Pleh
2018-03-20, 01:33 PM
Volatile cargo. The party knows if the cargo is breached, it can expel a huge load of poison into the area, making the area unusable to both sides.

When they learn there's ALSO a bomb, the range of the poison effect doubles in area.

LordCdrMilitant
2018-03-20, 01:57 PM
Interception and decrypted transmissions indicate that the train is transporting weapons that could turn the tide of the war, and it is vital that they be seized and brought to friendly lines. As it would be impossible for the party to single handedly haul back a trainload of artillery pieces or rifles or ammunition, it is vital that the train be captured intact and run to friendly tracks.

To be honest, once they discover than the train is loaded with an armed bomb instead of guns or whatever, they'll probably want to turn it around and send it back to detonate the way it came, or be inclined to derail it anyway to cause damage to the enemy forces. I would probably encourage this.



Once I had a party hijack a railway artillery gun. They had to intercept the train when it stopped, and then move the gun to friendly territory where it could be re-purposed for their own war effort. Securing and protecting the gun was a couple sessions worth of encounters, and it was fun.

Pleh
2018-03-20, 02:27 PM
Interception and decrypted transmissions indicate that the train is transporting weapons that could turn the tide of the war, and it is vital that they be seized and brought to friendly lines. As it would be impossible for the party to single handedly haul back a trainload of artillery pieces or rifles or ammunition, it is vital that the train be captured intact and run to friendly tracks.

This is good. Promising the chance to attain cool new toys and an edge in the greater conflict will prompt the players to try to have their cake and eat it, too. There's no way they'll just throw the whole train away if they think they can outsmart the system.

If you do this, make sure you have some cool toys for them to win if they manage to do it.

The important thing is that telling them they are supposed to steal powerful weapons will likely eliminate any idea of derailing the train they might have had. It gets them on the train before they discover the complication, which is all you really need.


To be honest, once they discover than the train is loaded with an armed bomb instead of guns or whatever, they'll probably want to turn it around and send it back to detonate the way it came, or be inclined to derail it anyway to cause damage to the enemy forces. I would probably encourage this.

Easy to fix. Make sure the bomb's timer does not allow for too much improvisation for its use, then make sure defusing the bomb renders it unusable (at least, re-arming the bomb would require taking it back to HQ and having technicians work on it).

Axle-Gear
2018-03-20, 04:05 PM
Yah, I think intercepted messages saying the train is full of precious weapons would be enough incentive for the party not to simply head it off and wreck it - I may still run the encounter beforehand just to hedge my bets.

Good thinking on the party turning the train around with its payload re-armed. It's the sort of thing I could easily imagine this party doing, but hopefully I can mitigate that through two factors:
1) The BBEG, already willing to sacrifice a faltering army, would probably be willing to tear up part of his own tracks to prevent a return trip.
2) The train is armed with an atomic bomb, which I hope the players would be squeamish about tinkering with after it's disarmed.

Things should be manageable even if the party sends the train back all the way - the mission that follows from this is optional, and then it's back to the main storyline in a different realm with no planned back-tracking to this place.

Darth Ultron
2018-03-20, 04:23 PM
How do I prevent this?

Don't have a Train that can be so easily taken out.

Sounds like you have the typical ''PCs are powerful'' and ''world is weak", and this often happens after 5th level or so in a typical game. The PCs become demigods in a mundane world.

Like a 1st level PC can't do anything to stop a train....but a 5th level Pc can cast the spell Shatter three times, and derail the train in like 30 seconds.

This is where you need to ''level up'' the world, OR, just except the PCs will be demigods in the world.

Now, myself, I use the Ultra High Magic World....so if I had a magic train....the train tracks would be self mending/repairing. Or maybe have a 'levitation' train.

Knaight
2018-03-20, 05:01 PM
Like a 1st level PC can't do anything to stop a train....but a 5th level Pc can cast the spell Shatter three times, and derail the train in like 30 seconds.

Railways are exceptionally vulnerable to sabotage - given advance notice they're just not that hard to take down, and the security systems needed to make taking them down nonviable get really ridiculous really fast.

On the other hand having something on the train that makes it derailing turn into a disaster is pretty easy, to the point where this already applies to a lot of cargo trains holding their standard loads. The bomb being nasty enough and triggering if the train gets derailed would be enough to do it - something like a poison gas system which if released is going to blow somewhere and probably kill a lot of people would do it.

LordCdrMilitant
2018-03-20, 05:46 PM
Yah, I think intercepted messages saying the train is full of precious weapons would be enough incentive for the party not to simply head it off and wreck it - I may still run the encounter beforehand just to hedge my bets.

Good thinking on the party turning the train around with its payload re-armed. It's the sort of thing I could easily imagine this party doing, but hopefully I can mitigate that through two factors:
1) The BBEG, already willing to sacrifice a faltering army, would probably be willing to tear up part of his own tracks to prevent a return trip.
2) The train is armed with an atomic bomb, which I hope the players would be squeamish about tinkering with after it's disarmed.

Things should be manageable even if the party sends the train back all the way - the mission that follows from this is optional, and then it's back to the main storyline in a different realm with no planned back-tracking to this place.

Why would you be opposed to them sending the train back at the enemy? As a GM, it seems like a pretty amazing opportunity to naturally continue the mission.

After all, they got out here looking to capture weapons/ammunition to use against the enemy, and instead they got a giant bomb. Instead of being disappointed that their mission is technically a failure, they can seize the opportunity to send the train back from whence it came; leading into an escort mission where they effectively get to play the train fight from the opposite perspective, leading their captured firetrain toward a critical enemy factory, rail depot, etc. while defending it from enemies trying to recapture it, before they get there, arm the explosive, and run away as fast as all hell.

RFLS
2018-03-20, 07:29 PM
The train only has rails so that people know where not to stand - it's actually travelling along and powered by a ley line.

Bohandas
2018-03-20, 07:55 PM
Perhaps The train has some kind of built-in make whole effect to prevent derailings and malfunctions. In fact, part of it re-forms even after it blows up

Psikerlord
2018-03-20, 11:34 PM
Why not just let them derail the train. Have the BBEG chase them back with the weapon.

Bohandas
2018-03-21, 12:23 AM
How mystical magical is the setting? It's possible if it's old enough and mystical enough that the train no longer follows tracks, by this point it follows routine

ross
2018-03-24, 07:26 PM
Tell your players that you have a cool encounter planned for them that you put a lot of work into, and would appreciate it if they didn't wreck it.

Their responses will tell you which players to invite to the next session.

Bohandas
2018-03-25, 02:38 PM
Barring the use of powerful anti-magic and planar-sealing effects the characters' proximity to the railroad causes anything they try to fail as a result of the sympathetic magic principle of correspondence (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sympathetic_magic)

Axle-Gear
2018-03-26, 01:06 PM
Why would you be opposed to them sending the train back at the enemy? As a GM, it seems like a pretty amazing opportunity to naturally continue the mission.


Pretty slow on the uptake here, considering the session is tonight, but I should try to get some responses in, anyway!

Under other circumstances, yah, this would be kind of cool. But I think the sheer size of this bomb (it IS a literal nuke, after all) and the ensuing fallout would make it less than ideal for retaliation, especially if the party has to escort it. Even on a vehicle, they would need plenty of time to clear out, giving there enemies more time to disarm it. And if the party were to send the train, unmanned as a kamikaze, back to a city in a realm we don't plan on revisiting... well, it scarcely makes any difference, now that I think it out.

[/quote=Bohandas]
How mystical magical is the setting? It's possible if it's old enough and mystical enough that the train no longer follows tracks, by this point it follows routine [/quote]

I'd say this setting is pretty comparable to your average Greyhawk style setting, maybe a little more magic-heavy on the side of the elves that the players are working with (ex: they probably have a handful of 10th-12th level diviners casting ritual scrying/auguries and sending spells to act as military intelligence, though most of this info would be in the form of portents and wheel/woe answers). The forces of the BBEG would be more along the lines of 'sufficiently advanced' technology.

If it comes down to it, I might consider some combination of RFLS's and Bohandas's ideas. Since the boss of the train is a giant construct built into the engine, if the party gets as far as destroying the rails maybe the train sprouts temporary mechanical limbs to skip over the portion of ruined track before chugging along as normal.

I think I'm still going with my 'waylay the party with an encounter' idea, just to make things seem less rail-roady (Eh? EEHH? *nudge-nudge*), with the above solution as a last resort.. There are already entities that have been introduced in this campaign that would be interested in seeing the bomb go off, and I could see them mustering some monsters to put in the party's path.