Taking someone out without Stress

[ways and means]

So I was wondering whether burying a physical immune opponent so it couldn't escape by collapsing a mine on its head, would it count as an attack, a grand scaled maneuver or a long duration block? It would effectively take the opponent out of the fight (until it digs itself out) but would also do no stress (due to PI).

[Tedronai]

Sounds like a plot device, to me.

[UmbraLux]

Yeah, plot device / compel. 

[ways and means]

Sounds like a plot device, to me.

PC's defiantly could set up such a scenario or similar (perhaps with a building or a slag heap etc) if they got the opportunity to pick the terrain of the battle and have time to prepare. So you recommend in the situation players try something like this not trying to stat the effect but just letting it fly?

[sinker]

I think I would mix elements of the extended contest (or perhaps a similarly extended simple action) into a conflict. That way the players have a clear goal that they're working toward over the whole of the conflict (collapsing the terrain) while everyone can still maneuver or block to keep the advantage, and the immune being can fight back.

[Tedronai]

I think 'just letting it fly' is a bit of an oversimplification.
Sinker has some good ideas as to how to represent this.
The essence of it being that this tactic does not guarantee success, but simply changes the nature of the conflict to one that allows success.

[Sanctaphrax]

Maneuver/Declare, block, tag for effect to make block last abnormally long.

That's how I'd do it, anyway.

[crusher_bob]

I think that there should be some sort of rules mechanical 'contest' that ends with the opponent getting buried.  And possibly how well the contest went would determine how well it worked.  In general, I think that things that are important to the story should also have some sort of mechanical 'support' to back them up. 

As some sort of samples of this:
You are fighting the bad guy at the edge of the cliff.  'Getting thrown off the cliff' is how the fight ends, but to actually get to the end, you have to run a regular combat first.  You can 'just' pick up the bad guy and throw him off the cliff.

------------------

But do things this way?  So that both the players and GM don't have to have above game arguments about how effective their attempt at knot cutting was, they can run a mechanical contest to decide.

So: example of how you could resolve your building collapse question:

The situation:
The PCs have prepared the building to explode, and have lured the baddie here to bury him under it.  How to decide if their idea is effective or not?

I'll say that I'm going to run this as a maneuver contest, where each of the PCs gets to come up with something they did for the prep, which will set a difficulty for the bad guy to overcome with his compensating roll.

------------------
GM: so what did you do during the preparation to make sure this worked:

PC1 (the mad bomber):
I, of course, prepared all the explosives! They are well placed, of sufficient power, and hard to notice.
(declares a craftsmanship (4) maneuver plus has  a mad bomber stunt that adds +1)
Rolls: (-, -, _, +): total: 4

GM: the baddie rolls his investigation (3) to try to notice your concealed explosives:
Rolls: (+, +, -, _) : total: 4.
GM: He notices the explosives,, but only at the last moment, and he rushes for a stairway to get out of there...

PC1 (The naughty hedonist)
As the baddie runs into the stairway, he discovers that all the stairs have been liberally coated with... lubricant.  looks smug I need to know where to get such things in quantity.
(makes a resources maneuver(4), and invokes his Naughty Hedonist aspect)
Rolls: (-, +, -, +) total: 6

GM: Well, that was... unexpected.  The baddie will try to run up the stairs, despite their unexpected slipperyness.
(makes and athletics maneuver(4) and gets a +2 for having inhuman speed, and this being a sprint action)
Rolls: (+, +, +, _) total: 9
GM: Alas, despite the difficulty, his infernal speed lets the baddie race up the stairs in hardly any time at all.

PC3: (The gun nut)
I'm waiting across the street, to blast the baddie back into the building.  Sure all this firepower won't hurt him, but I have Hollywood physics on my side!  All those bullets should send him flying backwards.
Rolls his guns (4) skill, and invokes his high concept and all the firepower of a Texas militia aspect.
Rolls: (+, -, -, _) total: 7

GM: The baddie attempts to stand unmoved, despite your fusillade.
an might (4) maneuver
rolls: (_, _, -, _). total: 3
GM: but he isn't successful, your storm of fire knocks him back into the exploding building.
-

GM: now, how long is he going to be in there?  You have one tie, and each beat the other once, so he won't be trapped under there for more than a few days.  Better come up with something else...

-------------------

So, I gave the PCs the feeling of effecting the outcome, which probably makes them happy.

----------------

[edit], for more commentary:
Note that you don't have to invoke aspects before the other guys rolls when you play at the tabletop, you can totally use them afterwards.  But it's a common convention to more or less require aspect invocation ahead of time in pbp games to reduce the time required to resolve actions.

[Harboe]

Well, either the Take-Out is less than permanent. A good example from the books is in Fool Moon, where Harry blasted the Loup Garou far enough away that it was gone for the rest of the scene (and more).

If you want to throw someone into a hole of wet concrete and drown them in that, I'd argue that that Take-Out is a result of stress, but where Might [Pushing them in], Athletics [Jumping over pit and forcing them to follow] and Craftmanship [Knowing that just there the cement is soft enough that he'll fall] could be brought to excellent use.

Of course, I'm always more interested in creative solutions than slugging it out. 

[Becq]

So I was wondering whether burying a physical immune opponent so it couldn't escape by collapsing a mine on its head, would it count as an attack, a grand scaled maneuver or a long duration block? It would effectively take the opponent out of the fight (until it digs itself out) but would also do no stress (due to PI).

This sounds to me like the creation of a high-difficulty zone border (probably an application of Demolitions Training).  There's no solid rules for this in the RAW, but there are a few similar mechanics that you might combine/adapt.  For example:

* The Demolitions Training stunt allows you to set a difficulty to avoid damage from the explosion (YS150).
* The Pin Them Down stunt allows you to create a border rating using your Guns skill, though it only lasts as long as you continue firing (YS153).
* The Evocation rules allow a block evocation to be cast as either armor (at half rating) or a zone border (YS252).
* The special-effects attacks rules allow you to replace weapon rating with either maneuvers or a grapple effect (YS326).

If the players were using magic, then just use the capability mentioned above directly.  If they were using explosives or other means, then why not treat this as a 'special-effects attack' that sets up a zone border instead of a grapple?  The border value might be based on the weapon rating of the explosive plus shifts on the roll to set the charge.  The trapped victim would then need to make some form of 'digging' roll (Athletics?  Craftsmanship?) to get through the blockage.  Determine some base time for the digging action (probably in the days or more), roll the appropriate skill, and shift the base time up or down on the time chart based on the results of the roll vs. the border.

Or at least, that might be one way to approach the issue.