Who's the baddest mutha in your campaign?

[RevHooligan]

I'm curious about your "guy to beat" in your campaign. Who's the guy that makes your players groan when the miniature come out of the box? is he/she a CU baddie or a homegrown?

[Enforcer84]

Well the toughest 'Mutha' was Argent, she was the mother of three and could toss a house a block. :D


The one guy I hated was my character's arch nemesis, Zepplin. He was just my character only moreso. I had taken him as "More Powerful" and we paid for it every time we encountered him. Eventually, I was allowed to buy him down (I had a huge increase in power as part of the storyline). Powerman and Zepplin fought for seven turns of combat. It was a brawl to end all brawls. Then I a lucky combination of him missing and me rolling great damage enabled me to stun him. I finished him off with a haymaker and then...then...I was so horrible...My brother's character Coup De Grace'd him while I was too tired and beat up to stop him.

I still wince about that. It was very unheroic.

[Asperion]

With my campaign the one character that no one especially appreaciated was the one that got everyone together. He never did truly fight anyone or anything and had an extremely open and friendly personality that made it so that people were not afraid to approach him in any manner for anything. The way that I created him was so that his mental abilities were second only to the PTBs and everthing else were normal. His public face was that of an extremely successful businessman but this was only a cover for his true goal - meglomania, with he did not truely want but felt as though he was the only person qualified for the job.

[Hermit]

SHAFT!

Uhm, sorry about that, it just slipped out.
My campaigns are still fairly 'new' so the 'baddest of the bad' for 5th is still undecided.
Takofanes is seen as someone who "NEEDS to be beaten... eventually." and the heroes haven't even meet him yet! Just his minions. *Smiles*

Everyone fears Dr. D.

Mm, I need to work on some more home grown 'muthas' now that I think of it. I have one or two ideas I haven't sprung on the players yet.

Thanks :)

[JohnOSpencer]

The Baddest Mutha in my campaign is Fury. Nothing really special about him, he's just a very tough brick who fights intelligently. Nothing scares a party like an Intelligent villian.

John

[OddHat]

The Old Woman, who goes by many names. The oldest "human," and Earth's most powerful witch.

Other deadly top dogs include:

Valt Skaald, a shape-shifting body jumping thousand year old German ghost.

Baba Yaga, the Old Woman of The Forest, one of Europe's most powerful paranormals.

The Nine: The group headed by the Old Woman, a group which has secretly ruled the paranormals of the world since the fall of Atlantis. In disaray since WWII when Valt Skaald, Doc Calliban, and others betrayed its greatest secrets and created the modern wave of metahumans, but still powerful.

Demon: On the surface a loose affiliation of cults and crackpots guided by a few metahumans, in reality a paranormal controlled doomsday cult that has been around in one form or another since the 12th century.

The Dragon: Master of the paranormals of China ans SE Asia for many thousands of years, one time member of the Nine, still trapped in a pocket of the Astral Plane but fighting to break free.

Not many master villains in my campaign that have been around for less than a century. :)

[TheRealVector]

The one villain that my players hated was a Syrian born, western educated scientist who was a genius in the field of nanotechnology. He used his knowledge to re-engineer his body; adamantium skeleton, muscles of diamond fiber, every cell a mini-computer to enhance his considerable intellect. He dubbed himself Jihad and became a super powered terrorist. All this was just the excuse I used to have my players (playing in a modified Ultimate Marvel setting) fight my version of silver age Superman.
He was one tough villain. I used him only twice:
The first time Jihad and a small cadre of enhanced terrorist planned to release a super-virus upon our troops in Afghanistan. It took the combined might of Vanguard (our players superteam) and the Ultimates to bring Jihad down.
The second time Jihad escaped from imprisonment during Gulf War IIand nearly destroyed downtown Chicago (Vanguard's home base) in a preemptive attack that left one hero dead and the team defeated. Then Jihad headed striaght for D.C. and held the capitol hostage. Vanguard rallyed and finally defeated Jihad for good. The archtypical "loose canon/wolverine type" player character made sure Jihad never regained consciousness and disposed of the body. Fortunately the congressional investigation didn't look into that too deeply. My players were never so glad to see an NPC dead.

With Jihad dead, and not counting entities like Galactus, I'd say my players most fear Magneto and a home grown villain of mine called Time Sinc (temporal powers are scary!)

Sorry this is so long, but it's saturday and I'm at work:(

[Agent X]

I think among my group it would be Alchemy, created by the poster known as Superskrull. Apparently he asked what if Firestorm was a mad scientist who liked to manipulate the genetic structure of those around him? He was a frighteningly effective villain and, even though he hasn't been used in something like ten years, he's still the bad mamma jamma.

[Nucleon]

Originally posted by OddHat
Not many master villains in my campaign that have been around for less than a century. :)

Yep, same here. I make it very plain in my campaigns that the Universe did exists before 1939. God-like, immortal heroes and villains, if rare, are in a league of their own, ever dwarfing the players one on one. They always get my player's attention; it most be the lofty way I roleplay them :D

However, for sheer worrying factor, these "mortals" usually take the cake:

The King Of Spades; The actual King of Spadesnia is an energy form maintained by the sheer power of his ego; He absorbs physical and energy attacks in the appropriate defenses, and usually hits with BOECV blasts and draining HTH. My players would generally bet on him vs Destroyer, even if the former is build on less points. Charming personality too, an abusive, disdainfully haughty Blaastar-like ogre with a taste for mythophilia and his descendance. The female players' nightmare.

Captain Justice; A hero, mind you, only a very rightwinged-minded one, the Super's self-appointed police. A typical flying brick Ã* la Superman (or more precisely DC's Cap Marvel), he's incredibly strong, fast, well-trained and resistant, and he knows it. He is the arrogant Law, and he tends to draw hasty, impulsive conclusions. Everybody's nightmare.

The Mass; A low-level loon, this mean, humongously enormous woman usually get all the attacks until she is done for. Her favored (and single) tactic is to wallop her super-dense layers of body fat into the ground, creating a quake. This clumsy personnage can be surprisingly fast (at triple END cost) when the need arise, and is close to invulnerablity (Lard laying Dam. Red.). And once again, a temperament players just love to hate.

I think's that's the key. :cool:

[Blue]

Originally posted by RevHooligan
I'm curious about your "guy to beat" in your campaign. Who's the guy that makes your players groan when the miniature come out of the box? is he/she a CU baddie or a homegrown?

Me, the GM.

Actually, the biggest, baddest guy of this campaign has not reared his head yet, but will soon. And if I run him right, the characters should be petrified. He's homegrown.

[Madstone]

Unfortunately, the campaign didn't last too long, but one antagonist did manage to make a reappearance. He never formally had a name, but I think he was eventually dubbed Hate. He was a mindless rampaging creature composed entirely of acid. And i do remember audible noises when we encountered him a second time after barely surviving the first.

[Lupus]

I'm planning two games at the moment. One is a regular Champions Universe game - there, the bad dude is Dark Seraph. It's a mystic-oriented game, set in London.

The next game is one I'll be running after the regular CU one. Kind of a 'world of darkness Champions Universe.' Supers haven't made an appearance yet publically, and the government is controlling things very carefully. Nazi Germany is also out and about (WWII was fought to a draw in the European theatre). The bad guy for the first few stories, though, will be a government man, military, who collects, controls and studies metahumans. He's human, but has high technology at his disposal. I don't have an identity for him at the moment, but I may use the Warlord. Or perhaps Defender. At the moment, I'm imagining him as a cross between Midas (evil Iron Man from Grant Morrison's Marvel Boy) and Donald Lydecker (from Dark Angel). That game's still being planned.

In a previous game (sci-fi Star Champions), the triple-team of bad guys was Hass, Zorn and Rache (Hate, Anger and Revenge, in German). Humanity was living far away from earth at the time, having been chased off by aliens. The three dudes above had gone back to earth and taken it over. Essentially, their base was a planet populated by slaves and automatons, giving them an immense industrial base. They had the nastiest everything out there, as well as methods of brainwashing that were particularly difficult to fight. No-one was immune to them, though strong-willed people were more difficult to subvert. However, once subverted, their morals were totally changed - they would now resist any attempt to turn them back. It was essentially impossible with current tech available to the good guys. Interestingly, it meant people who were weasels before conversion remained weasels... so could sometimes throw off the conditioning.

[RevHooligan]

My baddest dude is Blitzkrieg, a power armored mastermind with scores of agents. The PCs were shocked when they beat him into a coma, not realizing they were fighting a flunky in a lookalike suit. They don't know his real identity is someone close to the team who has been steering their actions to his ends. I plan for Blitzkrieg to be a Lex Luthor type after he's found out. I may even swipe the supervillian in the White House plot from DC.

[Twilight]

Well at the moment I can't really say. My Golden Age game didn't last long enough for the big bad there to be revealed, though I feel that Professor Peril would've been a very worthy big bad indeed.

Obviously, I'm not going to give out to many details about the possible modern day campaign I may get started, aside from the fact that it's in Millenium City and Dr. D is still belived dead. However I'm hoping that my mystery villain would be capable of holding that position once he's actually revealed.

[don]

In my game, there are two. One is a good guy who spooks the HELL out of the players. His name is Agent Smith and imagine him being active from the pulp era (the twenties). He has grown into a combination of Nick Fury (more likely the Ultimates version, who is more like Shaft, via Sam Jackson) and Dr. Strange. Whenever they contact him, he tends to send a fragment to talk with them, because he's several dozen dimensions away battling hideous reality devouring entities, and only has a spare moment for chat.

The second is a villain. His name is Intellect, and he's my world's equivalent of Dr. Sivana. He's been dead over a quarter century, as far as the world knows. But he casts a long shadow. On a recent adventure, when several terrorist groups were using high-tech weapons to destabilize African nations (like they need much help), they ran suspects, and every one of the players shuddered when it occurred to them that Intellect might be behind the scheme. None of them wanted a piece of that. Could be because he was responsible for apparently killing my world's equivalent of Captain Marvel. Could be because my players are always more afraid of my playing an intelligent opponent.

Don Walsh

[Lord Liaden]

Originally posted by Nucleon
I make it very plain in my campaigns that the Universe did exists before 1939. God-like, immortal heroes and villains, if rare, are in a league of their own, ever dwarfing the players one on one. They always get my player's attention; it most be the lofty way I roleplay them :

I love that kind of character too. You can justify so much depth for a hero or villain who's been active (if only behind the scenes) for centuries: the breadth of knowledge and skill they've acquired, the vast resources and organization they've built up. They may not necessarily be the most powerful beings in the world, but they're certainly among the most versatile and capable.

My campaigns have featured two classic Champions characters of that ilk. On the side of villainy, Lung Hung from Steve Perrin's VOICE of Doom leads the primary world-threatening terrorist organization. A master manipulator but also devastating in a straight-up fight, he's had nearly eight hundred years of practice interfering in the affairs of mortals. (I'm currently in the process of updating and collating VOICE for 5E.)

As for the camp of the angels, I've made use of Nuada of the Silver Hand from Kingdom of Champions on several occasions. This is the original hero on which the mythic Nuada was based, actually an incredibly advanced cyborg who remains in suspended animation until the world faces a major threat. My PCs teamed up with him twice - actually they handled one element of the menace while Nuada confronted another alone, since he greatly outpowered them. Much as my players welcomed his help, they dread his appearances because they usually mean that the world is about to literally go to hell in a handbasket. ;)

[Nucleon]

Originally posted by Blue
Actually, the biggest, baddest guy of this campaign has not reared his head yet, but will soon. And if I run him right, the characters should be petrified. He's homegrown.

Huh, and that's it? More, more!

[John515]

I plan to use everyone's favorite lich (the BIG T) as soon as the heroes get some seasoning under their belt (BTW, whoever designed that guy deserves a medal or something-he's great!). I'll also be using some of my old characters from long-past 4Ed as a super team in case they get cute and start trying to learn about any of the published villains. I've also got a super agency in place that promises to give my players some real headaches......

[Vondy]

Count Wolfgang Von Eroberung and his evil organization CONQUEST. He's an immortal Prussian Count who nearly pushed Germany to victory in both World Wars.

Reporter: "Count, could you tell us what C.O.N.Q.U.E.S.T. stands for?"

CVE: "Its is my goal: to bring unity to the world through Conquest."

Reporter: "Isn't it an acronym?"

CVE: "No."

Reporter: "Then why is it all caps"

CVE: "It looks more impressive that way, don't you think?"

Humor aside. He's in destroyers' league in terms of raw power (though destroyer probably had an edge before the count removed him from the playing field), but he's smarter, has a bigger plot-device pool, and often succeeds where destroyer fails because his gargantuan ego doesn't get in the way. He's feared for his machiavellian ruthlessness.

He's also frustrating to heroes because he's [occasionally] sympathetic. He honestly believes he could run the world better than the current governments are running it. He's also a physician and has staged invasions of embattled third world regions as peacekeeping and humanitarian operations, and has actually improved conditions for the people when he's done so. Improved standards of living, improved education, improved health-care, very little freedom. And that last part is the kicker. He's a great leader, but he's an autocrat... he is a villain.

[WhammeWhamme]

Originally posted by D-Man
Improved standards of living, improved education, improved health-care, very little freedom. And that last part is the kicker. He's a great leader, but he's an autocrat... he is a villain.

[lemming]

Originally posted by D-Man
has a bigger plot-device pool.
Every villian needs a plot-device pool.

[Argus]

Originally posted by RevHooligan
I'm curious about your "guy to beat" in your campaign. Who's the guy that makes your players groan when the miniature come out of the box? is he/she a CU baddie or a homegrown?

Mademoiselle Damnation.
The team met her once. She never showed any powers. She looked like Betty Davis at 90. She smoked with a 12� holder. And she was into pain, giving and receiving.
The Team Mentalist tried to read her mind and was given
A tour into the darkest pits of human depravity, the mentalist fled.
When the team asked her what happen, she would only say.
“Catnip, oh my god, catnip that’s sick.�

The Hero (NPC) is named Stonewall. “He’s 103 years old and has survived a Nuke.�
The Team got to fight in a different world where he was the ruler.

The Team Brick attacked him with a 24d6 Pushed Move Through. (This was her really big attack, only used on Mechanon once).

He didn’t even move.

They ran like children.


A.

[Vondy]

Originally posted by lemming
Every villian needs a plot-device pool.

Indeed, its a variable power pool with the SFX "Plot Device". Its huge... immense, really.

We meet at last, Destroyer. I see your plot device is as big as mine... not.

[zornwil]

The players haven't met the REAL "big bad" yet. They had a long-running battle with Kingpin but honestly he wasn't really enough to make them groan out loud, except maybe once or twice.

The surprise to me in a way was an effective nearly-human group I set up called Fox Force Five, modeled after the mention in Pulp Fiction. These women have not been defeated and have proved difficult to deal with, both in the PCs' "regular" life as well as in super-hero mode. However, they are mercenaries and really not so evil that things have escalated to all-out war.

Oh, and Magneto - he's a tough cookie. They are now at odds, as Magneto demands that mutants join his cause. As the PCs' friends, Professor X/the X-Men (who actually are an under-powered team that goes up against Magneto but is somewhat easily beat by him right now), have become embroiled in conflict with Magneto, so have they. They've only had one battle and even since then have conversed. In that one battle, it was more like shadowboxing. I restrained Magneto a bit, mainly because he's not interested in killing. However, after he was surprised at their strength in battle, he's warned them next time he won't hold back - via a warning to ALL mutants that times are grave and if he must kill other mutants, then he will. It's something he greatly dislikes, but now feels that the battle-lines within his own community must be drawn and he must be more aggressive.

[Tech]

Hmm, on the personally-created villains side, I'd have to go with either Black Hole or Hurricane.

Black Hole is enormously strong, dense and able to absorb virtually any energy in the area. This includes attacks by one super at another super, even those not aimed at him. This never fails to amaze heroes and villains alike.

Ex. Lazer fires an intense laserbeam at you, Skyguy. However, the beam warps and gets sucked into Black Hole's dark corona of energy.

Hurricane is superbly strong on the normal side but not superstrong. He can whip up a small hurricane and dash multiple heroes (or other opponents) to unconsciousness as fast as he wants to. He's somewhat tied into nature and can feel the pollution damage depending on his proximity to it.

Interestingly enough (and not planned for), both of them greatly have the player & characters respect. Black Hole has an amiable personality and isn't a vicious criminal, just selfish. He's even helped out the heroes a couple times. Hurricane, on the other hand, hates cities due to the blatant damage to the environment from pollution. When Hurricane shows up, the heroes rush to try to find out what he's rampaging against and try to fix it and/or investigate. Hurricane is willing to let them since he won't have anyone opposing his ambition, the heroes find out a lot of corruption while saving the environment and both are mostly satisfied. However, should the heroes fail to act swiftly... :)

[Tech]

On the pre-made villain side, I'd say my modified version of Ripper from Stronghold always makes heroes worry - alot! I don't even have to bring up Dr. Destroyer, do I now?

[Broblawsky]

Hunh. How did you build Black Hole's absorption power tech? I'm actually not sure how that would work.

On topic, I think Nebula may be one of the most dangerous characters I've ever seen, not just because of her 14d6 EB (I think that's what she has), but rather because she uses a stop-sign advantage on a stop-sign power. It's not fair, really - if I can't use it, then why should she be allowed to? ;)

[DoctorItron]

I can't give too many details because some of my players read these boards, but the recurring baddies are:

#1: Teleios is an important part of 2 PCs' origins.

#2: A heavily modified Black Paladin is after 2 PCs. The New Defenders temporarily banished him to the Plane of Shadows. Black Paladin is using the downtime to think about ways to get his son and would-be-servant (2 separate PCs) to cooperate with his plans.

#3: A new team of morally-gray supers are ready to irrevocably change the world. I look forward to seeing how the New Defenders react. Will the PCs join them, oppose them, or try to peacefully co-exist?

[Enforcer84]

Originally posted by DoctorItron


#3: A new team of morally-gray supers are ready to irrevocably change the world. I look forward to seeing how the New Defenders react. Will the PCs join them, oppose them, or try to peacefully co-exist?



A La Change or Die?

Actually I trolled my big bad NPC's around for name help. I can't remember if I ever posted them.

They are a horrifying vision of the JLA and Avengers; egotistical, arrogant, omnipresent, powerful and popular enough to do as they please, they are: the Lords of Justice.

After having them bust the chops of my players (literally and metaphorically) on a few occasions they were the baddest muthah's on the planet.

then Atlas returned.



buweahahahahahahah.


I used Atlas from Golden Age Champions, having left earth some time ago to explore the universe and find his place in it, he returns (much like Supreme (originally) did but he's not a d*ck) anyway he's a Superman/Captain Marvel type fellow with full access to the vast intelligence (60) that he was given, his powers are permanent (no OHID) and much stronger. He basically called several mid to high level supers to his banner a la Kingdom Come(....getting the feeling that I don't have an original idea in my head? well I probably just stole that too...)
Superion of the LofJ and his cronies are none too happy about it.

[Tech]

Originally posted by Broblawsky
Hunh. How did you build Black Hole's absorption power tech? I'm actually not sure how that would work.

Since you asked (and hopefully no one from my group reads this), I'll try to write it out. I don't have the sheet in front of me right now. It's horrendously expensive but it works:

note: I don't recall if it's 6" or 12"

6d6 Absorbtion vs. PD to Stun, 6" (or 12") Area Effect +
6d6 Absorbtion vs. ED to Stun, 6" (or 12") Area Effect +
+30 ED, 6" (or 12") Area Effect +
+30 PD, 6" (or 12") Area Effect +
Damage Resistance 30 PD, 30 ED 6" (or 12") Area Effect +
some Life Support, 6" (or 12") Area Effect +
stuff I can't recall off-hand

This isn't the full power but it's at least part of the power. I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff, like Advantages, Limitations & others - I'd have to check later. When Black Hole absorbs 'energy' (whether physical or energy), everybody in the area gets bonus PD/ED because the energy's being redirected towards him. The Area Effect makes sure that if the energy is near him, he gets to Absorb it.

[Hugh Neilson]

Originally posted by Tech
Since you asked (and hopefully no one from my group reads this), I'll try to write it out. I don't have the sheet in front of me right now. It's horrendously expensive but it works:

note: I don't recall if it's 6" or 12"

6d6 Absorbtion vs. PD to Stun, 6" (or 12") Area Effect +
6d6 Absorbtion vs. ED to Stun, 6" (or 12") Area Effect +
+30 ED, 6" (or 12") Area Effect +
+30 PD, 6" (or 12") Area Effect +
Damage Resistance 30 PD, 30 ED 6" (or 12") Area Effect +
some Life Support, 6" (or 12") Area Effect +
stuff I can't recall off-hand

This isn't the full power but it's at least part of the power. I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff, like Advantages, Limitations & others - I'd have to check later. When Black Hole absorbs 'energy' (whether physical or energy), everybody in the area gets bonus PD/ED because the energy's being redirected towards him. The Area Effect makes sure that if the energy is near him, he gets to Absorb it.

hmmm...don't the bonus DEF need "usable against others" to apply to others so they don't take damage? Probably just left off your list.

I was considering Missile Deflection (area effect) with "suck the blasts in" being the special effect. Maybe Ranged, some kind of persistent continuous effect, and penalty skill levels to offset the penalties for deflecting multiple attacks in a phase. That would also put range penalties on his power, so a blast further away from him is more likely to evade his "gravity". Hadn't gotten beyond that point, actually. I didn't realize it also increased his power, but I guess that could be simulated by an Aid (Absorb no longer working as he's not getting hit). It still doesn't get HTH attacks, though.

It's a very interesting construct. I'll have to keep it in mind to piece it together some day. I don't see him as a PC, so it doesn't really matter if the points get a bit fuzzy.

[Tech]

Originally posted by Hugh Neilson
hmmm...don't the bonus DEF need "usable against others" to apply to others so they don't take damage? Probably just left off your list.

I was considering Missile Deflection (area effect) with "suck the blasts in" being the special effect. Maybe Ranged, some kind of persistent continuous effect, and penalty skill levels to offset the penalties for deflecting multiple attacks in a phase. That would also put range penalties on his power, so a blast further away from him is more likely to evade his "gravity". Hadn't gotten beyond that point, actually. I didn't realize it also increased his power, but I guess that could be simulated by an Aid (Absorb no longer working as he's not getting hit). It still doesn't get HTH attacks, though.

It's a very interesting construct. I'll have to keep it in mind to piece it together some day. I don't see him as a PC, so it doesn't really matter if the points get a bit fuzzy.

Hmm, from what I remember, I nixed the PD/ED needing the Usuable against others, instead treating it as as -0 limitation/advantage. I could easily recreate it as a Limitation on the power, correctly stated, but didn't feel like mucking around with it. The Negative Levels are a good idea. I can add the Aid but the Absorbtion stays, in the likely event (since he's a villain) someone blasts away at him. Again, I'll have to look at his sheet later. He's in the process of being converted to 5th Edition. Did I mention he has an 85 Con? :D Yeah, it's way WAY up there but I didn't want him being stunned - ever. The high Con is something of a throwback from 1st Edition Density Increase rules but I kept it as I've upgraded him to newer editions over the years. Thanks for the good upgrade ideas. FYI, Con's in my game are usually below 30 so his is unheard of - not that the players know. They just know he's strong, durable, tough and he's never been stunned; just like I want him to be.

[starblaze]

Originally posted by TheRealVector
The one villain that my players hated was a Syrian born, western educated scientist who was a genius in the field of nanotechnology. He used his knowledge to re-engineer his body; adamantium skeleton, muscles of diamond fiber, every cell a mini-computer to enhance his considerable intellect. He dubbed himself Jihad and became a super powered terrorist. All this was just the excuse I used to have my players (playing in a modified Ultimate Marvel setting) fight my version of silver age Superman.
He was one tough villain. I used him only twice:
The first time Jihad and a small cadre of enhanced terrorist planned to release a super-virus upon our troops in Afghanistan. It took the combined might of Vanguard (our players superteam) and the Ultimates to bring Jihad down.
The second time Jihad escaped from imprisonment during Gulf War IIand nearly destroyed downtown Chicago (Vanguard's home base) in a preemptive attack that left one hero dead and the team defeated. Then Jihad headed striaght for D.C. and held the capitol hostage. Vanguard rallyed and finally defeated Jihad for good. The archtypical "loose canon/wolverine type" player character made sure Jihad never regained consciousness and disposed of the body. Fortunately the congressional investigation didn't look into that too deeply. My players were never so glad to see an NPC dead.

With Jihad dead, and not counting entities like Galactus, I'd say my players most fear Magneto and a home grown villain of mine called Time Sinc (temporal powers are scary!)

Sorry this is so long, but it's saturday and I'm at work:(
Hey! Is that your boss standing behind you?:eek:

[GenreFiend]

Originally posted by Tech
Hmm, from what I remember, I nixed the PD/ED needing the Usuable against others, instead treating it as as -0 limitation/advantage. I could easily recreate it as a Limitation on the power, correctly stated, but didn't feel like mucking around with it. The Negative Levels are a good idea. I can add the Aid but the Absorbtion ......

Etc., etc. If anything, this is the one problem I've always had with Champions. GMs give their villains a really cool ability, and then feel the need to figure out exactly how, in game mechanics, it works. He's an NPC! He absorbs energy blasts from the surrounding area BECAUSE THE GM SAYS SO! Sorry, I just get bogged down in the mathematics of the Hero system sometimes, and long for the simpler days of the original Marvel Superheroes RPG.

[DoctorItron]

Originally posted by Enforcer84
A La Change or Die?
SNIP

Do you mean the Stormwatch story? I wasn't familiar with it before your posting, so I don't think it had an influence on me.

[zornwil]

Originally posted by GenreFiend
Etc., etc. If anything, this is the one problem I've always had with Champions. GMs give their villains a really cool ability, and then feel the need to figure out exactly how, in game mechanics, it works. He's an NPC! He absorbs energy blasts from the surrounding area BECAUSE THE GM SAYS SO! Sorry, I just get bogged down in the mathematics of the Hero system sometimes, and long for the simpler days of the original Marvel Superheroes RPG.

Well, I think some GMs just enjoy doing that. And there are some things you have to chart out in game mechanics, such as how many d6 damage, what the range actually is, a few other esentials. But yea, the value of a lim or adv is fairly meaningless. I do actually put in the lims and advantages because I want to be reminded of them but I don't sweat the value very much. I do like to have a total cost just to get an idea if I'm overarming a villain.

One reason I haven't posted villains though on the boards or elsewhere is that my writeups, because I'm the GM, remain incomplete. I leave out the details necessary for an independent person to really understand how the villain works, particularly the vibrant emotional details that are so important as they tend to stay in my head and barely if at all make it to paper.

[Hugh Neilson]

Originally posted by GenreFiend
Etc., etc. If anything, this is the one problem I've always had with Champions. GMs give their villains a really cool ability, and then feel the need to figure out exactly how, in game mechanics, it works. He's an NPC! He absorbs energy blasts from the surrounding area BECAUSE THE GM SAYS SO! Sorry, I just get bogged down in the mathematics of the Hero system sometimes, and long for the simpler days of the original Marvel Superheroes RPG.

Agree and diosagree. I'll throw the math out for a cool effect, but it's never a bad idea to stat it out. This is especially important for inexperienced GM's, but we can all misjudge the power of an effect.

recalls new GM's villain who seemed to walk all over us. Afterwards, he shows us the character sheet. he's slipped a decimal place, and the major attack power has 10x the dice it ought to have at that cost. I wonder why he seemed so overpowered :rolleyes:

[Lucian]

Although shes not actually a villian, my players are terrified of an npc called Perigrinne. She is a 6000 yr old immortal who was once worshipped as an angel in biblical times. Her power is psionic control of organic molecules on a molecular level (including people).

She freaked everyone out during one battle when she was fighting alongside the players. She dealt with a particularly tough brick by literally turning him inside out and the using the corpse to continue fighting his comrades.

Her facination for life and her tendancy to casually perform grotesque experiments on people just to see what will happen have given her a creepy, unapprochable reputation. My players are currently trying to instill a sense of modern morals in her becase they certainly dont want to fight her.

[GenreFiend]

Originally posted by Lucian
Although shes not actually a villian,... (snip)... her tendancy to casually perform grotesque experiments on people just to see what will happen have given her a creepy, unapprochable reputation. My players are currently trying to instill a sense of modern morals in her becase they certainly dont want to fight her.

Hate to disagree, but I would say she IS a villain.

[Doc Democracy]

The villain all my players feared was based on Deathstroke from the Teen Titans - I called him Contract. I loved the idea of the mercenary villain and the players are aware that if they encounter the villain he will focus on his task rather than on beating the crap out of them so they aren't desperate to beat him - just to frustrate his intentions.

His main weapon is SPD 12. My games are essentially SPD 5-6 and the first few times he faced the whole group he wiped the floor with them. He was built on 500 points compared to the teams five 250 pt heroes with about 50-75 pts experience.

Eventually they learned they HAD to work as a team to beat him - they HAD to make sure they acted on EVERY phase to stop him recovering and taunting on the phases none of them moved. Even then they've had problems.

I think it was said before - players hate intelligent villains. None of his abilities are as good as the players except the SPD and it makes ALL the difference.

It was Contract that was paid to humiliate the heroes and rather than do it personally he constructed robots designed to take advantage of each hero. For 150 points each robot beat its hero 1 to 1 and then Contract appeared to defeat the robots - obviously with the press nearby.

[WhammeWhamme]

Originally posted by Doc Democracy
The villain all my players feared was based on Deathstroke from the Teen Titans - I called him Contract. I loved the idea of the mercenary villain and the players are aware that if they encounter the villain he will focus on his task rather than on beating the crap out of them so they aren't desperate to beat him - just to frustrate his intentions.

His main weapon is SPD 12. My games are essentially SPD 5-6 and the first few times he faced the whole group he wiped the floor with them. He was built on 500 points compared to the teams five 250 pt heroes with about 50-75 pts experience.

Eventually they learned they HAD to work as a team to beat him - they HAD to make sure they acted on EVERY phase to stop him recovering and taunting on the phases none of them moved. Even then they've had problems.

I think it was said before - players hate intelligent villains. None of his abilities are as good as the players except the SPD and it makes ALL the difference.

It was Contract that was paid to humiliate the heroes and rather than do it personally he constructed robots designed to take advantage of each hero. For 150 points each robot beat its hero 1 to 1 and then Contract appeared to defeat the robots - obviously with the press nearby.

Okay, my first reaction is that you are, uh, being a jerk.
'Only' 500 pts with 'Only' SPD 12?
Mere 150pt bots?

You can destroy the world with 60 AP.

[Lucian]

Originally posted by GenreFiend
Hate to disagree, but I would say she IS a villain.

I guess it depends on your definition of "villian". What I meant by that is that she doesnt have an adgenda to take over the world or steal money which is what the classical villian does.

[Hugh Neilson]

Originally posted by WhammeWhamme
Okay, my first reaction is that you are, uh, being a jerk.
'Only' 500 pts with 'Only' SPD 12?
Mere 150pt bots?

You can destroy the world with 60 AP.

Whether you're being a jerk depends more on how the game is played than who the character is. The bigger question is whether the GM made a big deal of the characters losing. "My villain's tougher than all of you put together nayner nayner nayner" is being a jerk. Preventing the players' well thought out plans for dealing with this opponent is being a jerk. Smiling as the heroes clean the villain's clock the second time, and telling them "good job" for their strategic planning as you hand out the XP - that's setting an interesting and challenging scenario, and being a good GM.

To me, both the 150 point 'bots and the 12 SPD 500 point guy sound like classic comic book encounters. Fight the 'bots one on one and lose miserably. Swap opponents and clean their clocks since each one is customized for a specific opponent.

The big villain who cleans our heroe's clocks the first time, then gets clobbered when the heroes come back knowing what to expect and ready to deal with it describes hundreds of classic comics. Sure, the big guy's on double the PC points, but he's probably going up against, what, 5 against one odds? How many points does Mechanon have? Is it being a jerk to use him against the PC's? He's got 12 phases per turn. 5 PC's probably have more than 24 phases per turn.

[One very effective way to fight the big villains is to have the characters switch off so some fight and some recover at any given time. Fighting a guy with 12 Speed just puts the shoe on the other foot.]

[Doc Democracy]

Originally posted by WhammeWhamme
Okay, my first reaction is that you are, uh, being a jerk.
'Only' 500 pts with 'Only' SPD 12?
Mere 150pt bots?


Here we are talking about villains the players love to hate and you want to call me a jerk for presenting a SPD 12 villain. Really makes the place feel welcome.

As Lucian pointed out (thank you :) ) The whole point of a challenge to the players is giving them something they have to think about. With lots of opponents or very powerful opponents there are standard tactics. They'd never faced someone with such a high speed and had to develop a whole new set of tactics to deal with him. They did that and got the experience for it. And the satisfaction of beating the man.

Sorry you think I'm a jerk GM, good job you don't have to play in my games, huh? :(

[lemming]

Originally posted by WhammeWhamme
Okay, my first reaction is that you are, uh, being a jerk.
'Only' 500 pts with 'Only' SPD 12?
Mere 150pt bots?

You can destroy the world with 60 AP.
Hmm, I think you might of jumped to conclusions. Remember that every game is different. Am I a jerk for having PCs at 400-600 points and then for opponents of 1000 points? Depends on how they're played and constructed.
Your quote of "You can destroy the world with 60 AP" shows that you know that the system can be used very effectively at a small expenditure of points.

The moral of the story is, don't get on somebodies case because they play differently. If everyone in the game is having fun, then they're playing correctly.

[zornwil]

Originally posted by lemming
If everyone in the game is having fun, then they're playing correctly.

Oh, and I suppose if everyone broke the law but nothing bad happened, that'd be okay? Well, that's the kind of moral relativism I've learned to expect in this society...

No, if they're not playing my way, they're playing wrong. I've tried to be nice, I've tried to be patient with you all. But you ALL KEEP playing the wrong way. In fact you keep using that new big black book, too.

Therefore, I'm going to invade your houses. One-by-one. Please send me your addresses and I will occupy until you've learned to play the right way. Trust me, you'll be happier.

[WhammeWhamme]

Originally posted by lemming
Hmm, I think you might of jumped to conclusions. Remember that every game is different. Am I a jerk for having PCs at 400-600 points and then for opponents of 1000 points? Depends on how they're played and constructed.
Your quote of "You can destroy the world with 60 AP" shows that you know that the system can be used very effectively at a small expenditure of points.

The moral of the story is, don't get on somebodies case because they play differently. If everyone in the game is having fun, then they're playing correctly.

It just set off warning bells. Particularly the '150pt' robots. It's much easier to munchkinize (mentally speaking) fixed pt characters.

I was probably wrong about the GM in question.

[WhammeWhamme]

Originally posted by Doc Democracy
Here we are talking about villains the players love to hate and you want to call me a jerk for presenting a SPD 12 villain. Really makes the place feel welcome.

As Lucian pointed out (thank you :) ) The whole point of a challenge to the players is giving them something they have to think about. With lots of opponents or very powerful opponents there are standard tactics. They'd never faced someone with such a high speed and had to develop a whole new set of tactics to deal with him. They did that and got the experience for it. And the satisfaction of beating the man.

Sorry you think I'm a jerk GM, good job you don't have to play in my games, huh? :(

Oh, SPD 12 is fine. I think it's a good idea, all up.
The way it was presented made me suspect underhanded play; even 'an intelligent villain' is a warning sign.

Still, if you were fair, I'd say the statement was going far too far.

I wasn't really thinking when I postedf that. :(

[Shocker]

The biggest baddie the players have met (more than once) in my game is Major Menace. He's a psychopathic terrorist/blackmailer type with lots of resources and agents. He's died three times, all dupes in his costume, and whenever the old red and black suit comes out everybody groans.:eek:

[lemming]

Originally posted by zornwil
Therefore, I'm going to invade your houses. One-by-one. Please send me your addresses and I will occupy until you've learned to play the right way. Trust me, you'll be happier.
So I'm back and ready to play. I need to check with my events coordinator and see when my next game will be.

Hmm, I have to figure out where the hell my game is at the moment.

I have a few characters that could of so easily filled the role of bad mutha, but what happens? The PCs are reasonable and make friends. I gotta dust off a couple psychos that I got in the wings...

[GenreFiend]

Originally posted by Lucian
I guess it depends on your definition of "villian". What I meant by that is that she doesnt have an adgenda to take over the world or steal money which is what the classical villian does.

Well, to me, performing "grotesque experiments" on people "just to see what happens," is far more villainous than robbing a bank.

[Twilight]

Originally posted by GenreFiend
Well, to me, performing "grotesque experiments" on people "just to see what happens," is far more villainous than robbing a bank.

Umm, I've gotta go with GenreFiend on this one. Sounds pretty darned villainous to me.

[Doc Democracy]

Originally posted by GenreFiend
Well, to me, performing "grotesque experiments" on people "just to see what happens," is far more villainous than robbing a bank.

My favourite villainous act in a comic was a short five pager at the end of a Superman comic.

Lex Luthor is in a diner in the middle of nowhere. He offers the waitress a ridiculous amount of money if she'll come to Metropolis and essentially be his mistress. He says he'll wait in the car park for ten minutes for her to make up her mind.

He knows she's married due to her wedding ring. She's actually married to the man who was the high school quarter-back - now gone to fat and drink.

As she agonises over it Lex drives off before the ten minutes are up. Now she will never know if she'd have betrayed her husband.

Pure evil.

True villain.

[Lucian]

Originally posted by GenreFiend
Well, to me, performing "grotesque experiments" on people "just to see what happens," is far more villainous than robbing a bank.

Thats probably true, but my players are certainly not treating her like a villian. More like a culturally displaced refugee who needs to be educated into the moral structure of society. They see her as being redeemable and misguided. Maybe theyre just scared to fight her :)

[megaplayboy]

hmmm...let's see:

There was the Viper Revenge Squad, which was a volatile collection of the most dangerous foes the team had ever faced before. Don't think they'll ever let me deploy that team again:D

the one villain I've always wanted to spring on a high powered team is High Lord Ghi Zha Tan(Gigaton), whose name loosely translates to "He who eats Cheerios out of your skull":D

giant energy absorbing density and gravity controlling cosmic super brick....

[Twilight]

Originally posted by megaplayboy
hmmm...let's see:

There was the Viper Revenge Squad, which was a volatile collection of the most dangerous foes the team had ever faced before. Don't think they'll ever let me deploy that team again:D

the one villain I've always wanted to spring on a high powered team is High Lord Ghi Zha Tan(Gigaton), whose name loosely translates to "He who eats Cheerios out of your skull":D

giant energy absorbing density and gravity controlling cosmic super brick....


Megaplayboy, is it OK if I swipe that VIPER Revenge Squad idea for my own game?

[megaplayboy]

Originally posted by Twilight
Megaplayboy, is it OK if I swipe that VIPER Revenge Squad idea for my own game?

yeah, if you want your players to curse your unholy name;)

[Twilight]

Originally posted by megaplayboy
yeah, if you want your players to curse your unholy name;)

Well every GM needs to have thier players curse his name once or twice. All in good fun of course. ;)

[Magmarock]

Our group usually groans whenever my younger brother brings out one of his custom built villains, or worse, an entire team.

Here is a memorable one: Foxhole. You only ever see the head and shoulders of this teleporting, mercenary villain, because his always inside his foxhole (filled with his entire arsenal) that can spring up out of any flat surface. Truly insidious. I once had a brick, M.O.D. (that's Method Of Destruction) jump into the foxhole with him to attack him, and Foxhole just teleported away, without M.O.D. of course! She popped up into the air after taking a load of damage. Was a bummer, really. The guy is a sniper and a damn dangerous one too.

[RevHooligan]

Originally posted by zornwil

Therefore, I'm going to invade your houses. One-by-one. Please send me your addresses and I will occupy until you've learned to play the right way. Trust me, you'll be happier.

Can you invade next Sunday and feed the cat until I get back from my honeymoon?

Good lookin' out, Invader Z.

[zornwil]

Originally posted by RevHooligan
Can you invade next Sunday and feed the cat until I get back from my honeymoon?

Good lookin' out, Invader Z.

Congratulations. But no, I will inavde your honeymoon and explain the right way of playing during your many honeymoon RPG sessions. (That is what you're doing on your honeymoon, right? :p )

[RevHooligan]

Well, unfortunatly, no. The future Mrs Hooligan is not a gamer and has even banned my regular group from bringing dice to the wedding, even though it IS on a Sunday and Sunday is our reqular night.

Eh, maybe her Maid of Honor will smugle in the dice for a few extra XP.

[lemming]

Originally posted by RevHooligan
Well, unfortunatly, no. The future Mrs Hooligan is not a gamer and has even banned my regular group from bringing dice to the wedding, even though it IS on a Sunday and Sunday is our reqular night.

Eh, maybe her Maid of Honor will smugle in the dice for a few extra XP.
The solution is to just have a game Saturday night.

[GenreFiend]

Originally posted by Lucian
Thats probably true, but my players are certainly not treating her like a villian. More like a culturally displaced refugee who needs to be educated into the moral structure of society. They see her as being redeemable and misguided. Maybe theyre just scared to fight her :)
Scared to fight her sounds about right to me. If I was GM for that group, not only would that be my assessment, but I would come right out and ask the players, "What? Are you just too scared to take her on? Sissies:) ."

[GenreFiend]

Originally posted by Twilight
Well every GM needs to have thier players curse his name once or twice. All in good fun of course. ;)
The graetest compliment I ever paid to one particular GM was when I called him an "evil f***ing ba**ard." A rare statement from me.

[Mentor]

Originally posted by GenreFiend
Etc., etc. If anything, this is the one problem I've always had with Champions. GMs give their villains a really cool ability, and then feel the need to figure out exactly how, in game mechanics, it works. He's an NPC! He absorbs energy blasts from the surrounding area BECAUSE THE GM SAYS SO! Sorry, I just get bogged down in the mathematics of the Hero system sometimes, and long for the simpler days of the original Marvel Superheroes RPG. While I am in agreement that the GM has infinite points and doesn't have to justify design parameters to the players or fill in all the boring details and trivia, having the design mechanics too loose or nonexistant seems to run the risk of having the outcome of the encounter predetermined by the GM

I have run Supervillains that I feared might be overpowering, but through great gameplay and teamwork, our team, Midguard rose to the challenge and beat them at the last minute. Likewise, villains I threw in as fodder had just the right combinations of abilities to completely frustrate the team.

How do you deal with the question of spontanaity and real accomplishment by the players if the abilities aren't specified? Or am I reading too much into your description?:)

[TheEmerged]

First and foremost, the NPC the players most fear is... Annoying Man! Officially he doesn't exist in the current campaign -- at least in part because I get death threats for even mentioning him in relation to a session.

In terms of the true "Big Bads" of my campaign... as you may have heard me mention before I assign a "level" to NPC's and PC"s -- and a specific number to those levels. So I know there are 3 "Level 5" novas in the campaign world...


Dr. Destroyer, rewritten anally. That means he pays for his perks. I seem to recall he clocks in around 4300 points or so.
The Trickster -- yeah, the guy responsible for the creation of CLOWN. Haven't actually rewritten him but it's in the same ballpark as Dr. Destroyer.
Young Billy Cranston, AKA "The Nerd". Just erupted, doesn't quite know how powerful he is yet -- or what he's going to do about it. Let me put it like this: his first power reads "Boy With The Power: Cosmic VPP, 250-pt pool". The second one reads "Armor: 75/75, Twice Hardened". 5000 points to the letter.


After this comes 20 "Level 4" novas, generally in the 1000-2000 range. This includes my campaigns version of the Golden Avenger, the Velociraptor (homebrew), Caestus Pax (from Aberrant), Hyperion (from Sanctuary/Neutral Ground), the Meteorologist (long-time homebrew) -- and some names that might surprise people, like Mastodon (from European Enemies).

After this comes the "high end" of the Level 3 novas. Technically these go from 500 to 1000 points, with anybody above 800 considered a "high end Level 3". This include Mega, Victory (not the same character as the Victory in Champions Universe), the Electric Angel, and ArachnaMan.

[Farkling]

GENOCIDE (homebrew) is moving to the forefront as most feared by half the group. They have surplus helicopters with wide area mutant power suppressors...and some long range mutant detectors. They successfully field tested a genetic retrovirus on one of the mutants two sessions back, and they keep showing up whenever the heroes get involved in something... (some of the mutants have "splashy" powers)

The victimized player spent half a session powerless...until the team leader managed to force a cure attempt. There are side effects waiting in the wings from that...

Shortly they will be fielding some of the ever-popular Senitnel ripoffs, and a string of custom made cyborgs from the chop shop they bought out a few weeks ago. Some of the cyborgs will be volunteers, some will undergo augmentation under orders and the promise of reversibility. Foolish minions.

However, the supervillain to beat is the one that damaed the economics of the company GENOCIDE purchased as a cybernetics resource...a mutant of sufficient power to be attempting to gain control of GENOCIDE, and the soon to be arch-nemesis of the gaming group.

At some point, an actual physical threat of villains WILL show up...as soon as the mastermind can arrange a subtle calling of attention to the players. I'm considering along the lines of a Magneto personality and either Electrical or Magnetic powers. Hmmm. Probably Electrical...

[GenreFiend]

Originally posted by Mentor

How do you deal with the question of spontanaity and real accomplishment by the players if the abilities aren't specified? Or am I reading too much into your description?:)

I'm not saying I don't write up my villains, I'm just saying I don't spend hours trying to figure out exactly how a weird power works, point-by-point. And no villain I've ever created has been unbeatable (in fact, most of them turn out to be a great deal more beatable than I had intended). I do make sure I know exactly what they are capable of, especially attacks and defenses, but just beacause I understand how the powers work doesn't mean I have to be able to show it on paper usingthe rules system. Make sense?

[zornwil]

Originally posted by GenreFiend
(snippage) (in fact, most of them turn out to be a great deal more beatable than I had intended) (snippage)

Sigh, yup, that seems to be the case with some frequency for me as well. I've had a few hard-to-beat ones but I never really did do Kingpin justice (I think his org was good, the adventures were good, and he was hard to get to, but once combat ensued he really wasn't THAT difficult to fight, at least not to the degree I'd hoped for).

But then there's those cases where a villain is much tougher than you think. Sometimes that's great and adds new dimensions (Fox Force Five in my campaign have turned out to cause some players fits whereas originally I conceived of them as lower tier), other times it's frustrating (in an older campaign, the Riddler ended up being almost impossible to beat when it was meant to be a simple fun brief-evening diversion).

Overall I'm doing okay though, I'm mostly satisfied with villains these days. However, my first MnM shot at building a villain failed absolutely miserably - fortunately the game had to end for external reasons before that combat went too far! So I get a chance to redo it and see if I learned the right lessons.

[Lupus]

Originally posted by zornwil
But then there's those cases where a villain is much tougher than you think. Sometimes that's great and adds new dimensions (Fox Force Five in my campaign have turned out to cause some players fits whereas originally I conceived of them as lower tier *cackles* It's rare that I laugh out loud at a forum post. But that's just sweet. :) Had to wrack my brains before I remembered where I'd heard that name.

[zornwil]

Originally posted by Lupus
*cackles* It's rare that I laugh out loud at a forum post. But that's just sweet. :) Had to wrack my brains before I remembered where I'd heard that name.

Heh, thanks, I didn't explain because I have done so a few other times throughout different locations on the board so feared risking boredom. But glad you got it. I guess I should post write-ups sometime.

EDIT - whaddami saying?? Lemming is in my game and so, no, i am NOT going to post the writeups for FF5! Not for a while anyway. I guess I sort of gave away that I'm not actively bringing back Game Show Host or Bud Girl as serious enemies to be reckoned with - well, unless of course they have an..."accident"...as in "radiation accident". :D

[lemming]

Originally posted by zornwil
EDIT - whaddami saying?? Lemming is in my game and so, no, i am NOT going to post the writeups for FF5! Not for a while anyway.

Almost! :D I will have to say as a group FF5 seems to be quite the thorn, but I would say Laughton & the Troll would get more information. I think Spectrum isn't fond of them, but at least there's a glimmer of hope in turning them to the good side. Or at least our side.

I guess I could post the writeups of Burn-out, Blow-out, Break-out, and Chill-out as a trade? :)

[zornwil]

Originally posted by lemming
Almost! :D I will have to say as a group FF5 seems to be quite the thorn, but I would say Laughton & the Troll would get more information. I think Spectrum isn't fond of them, but at least there's a glimmer of hope in turning them to the good side. Or at least our side.

I guess I could post the writeups of Burn-out, Blow-out, Break-out, and Chill-out as a trade? :)

Perhaps a deal is possible. Of course I'd love to see the rationalization from the metagame activity into the game worlds - "a sudden time-and-space-shift between the parallel universes suddenly exposes vital information on enemies in each world"

[Shikarr]

Dr D of course deserves honorable mention as does Lung Hung from Voice, but the two that actually get the most oh craps are my premier honorable assassin group The Three Ninja and a high tech group known as Genesis.

Black, Gray, and White are all Ninjas of a very high level in general, but it is their extras that make the characters groan. Black is a shadow Demon possessing a man with appropriate powers reflected. Gray is a ghost capable of possessing almost any normal person and then manifesting through that person(kinda hard to take out a powerful opponent when you are afraid of killing the innocent host), and White is a Japanese vampire. And the worst part is the group has actually had upon occassion had to thank the Ninja for information. I did say they were honorable of course they are still assassins. :)

Genesis is out to remake the world or at least they look to be trying to do so at times. They only target 3 things mainly. All extreme technological advances in any field but especially energy generation, propulsion, and life sciences. They target mutants with powers relating to energy generation or propulsion. Also any mutant with regenerative capabilities. And lastbut not least any country or government which threatens the ecosphere in any major way. (Afterall how can you rule a world if everyone is dead) They use a mixture of robots and powered armor agents with exotic programing to combat any form of telepathy or cypherkenesis. Thier robotic troops while usually not tough individually are usually opperating in a hive mind mind link which makes them very dangerous. Very

[levi]

For villains I would have to go with the standard Dr. D & Takofanes answer. I do have a hero named Brawl that has been given his own "Brawl scale of toughness, 10 being Brawl." This guy isn't the strongest brick, doesn't have the highest Defenses, but he does have the ability to always get back up (Healing to any Char below starting value). He also comes from a huge Italian family in Chicago and his mother often cooks for he whole team.

[Solomon]

In my old, non-CU campaign the main threat was a brood of cannibal, shape-shifting aliens who were marooned on Earth centuries ago and had since infiltrated the human society.

In my current CU campaign the "big bad" is Doctor Destroyer, but my players never physically confronted him. PSI also plays a large role.

I'm loathe to use Takofanes. Every time I think of including him in my campaign, I have flashbacks about the Lichlord Vecna in an old Monty-Haul D&D campaign I occasionally played in...

GM: So the horrible truth is out at last... Vecna is back from the dead!
Everybody laughs.
Player 1: What? Again?!? We killed him, what, three times so far?
Player 2: Yeah. I think that makes him an un-un-un-undead lord.
Player 3: But last time we threw what was left of his body in a volcano after disintegrating him.
Player 2: I guess he just regenerated from the "Hand of Vecna" or the "Eye of Vecna". Sort of like a troll, just uglier.
Player 3: That can be fixed. Let me have my way and there will be a new artifact: the A$$ of Vecna.
Solomon: Wait... you mean you really killed him three times?
Player 1: Vecna is just such a sorry loser. Every time we hand him his a$$, but he just keeps coming for more.

Now, do you understand why I really can't force myself to put a lich in my game?

[lemming]

The players haven't gotten to the big bad yet. Though they short circuited one and befriended them. Need more evil. ;)

[Killer Shrike]

The most hated villain was Black Harlequinn, who was regretably killed in an unfortunate accident by Commando Rubberbando (Basically, the PCs got messed up too bad to continue doing the Omegaworld adventure in Champions Battleground back to back after fighting off Holocaust in "Under Construction" (yes, I did them out of order). Rather than give up, they called on assistance and 4 members of MC8 showed up (ie the players each picked a member of MC-8 and played them)).

The most feared villain was probably Holocaust (my version of him anyway, which is slightly more souped up and uses an END Reserver for his powers). He singlehandedly ran 6 450 point PCs thru the bushes pretty much with impunity, knocking most of them out at one point or another. He was "defeated" in the end in the best possible way -- via deceit and trickery! Finally, a villain the players had to use their noodles to defeat.

IMO as the GM their most dangerous opponent is Teleios, and the group doesnt even realize he has been involved in anything theyve encountered so far.

Heres the EGO Board for the team:

<iframe width=100% height="1000" scrolling ="yes" src="http://www.killershrike.com/MillennialMen/MillennialMen.htm"></iframe>
<ilayer width=100% height="1000" src="http://www.killershrike.com/MillennialMen/MillennialMen.htm"></ilayer>

[Enforcer84]

My current big bad is the Empress. She is the daughter of a former soviet supersoldier turned dicator. He called himself the Liberator, but the world called him the Tyrant. Tyrant was a gifted inventor and physically perfect. He legitimately ruled the country (brokering UN recognition for his efforts against the communists, while holding enough information over his former bosses to get the USSR to recognize his nation so that he wouldn't go west with it (1950's and 60's) Tyrant didn't really bother anyone unless his country was threatened. He gave his daughter everything. When he died during an alien invasion she took control. Like her father she is not a supervillain per se, but she will come into conflict with heroes when their goals go against her will.
She also took in many of Dr Destroyer's agents when he perished in Detroit. (in my world he is dead). She is not someone you want to mess with.

[Mephron]

Hrm. This is hard...

Dr. Destroyer: Dead
Warstar: brain-dead
Golden Avenger/Adolph Hitler: Dead

The Drs. Pomegranite: oooh, we yell when they show up. Usually 'cause they have SCADS of genetically engineered agents to help, too.

Vorpality: Warstar's former assassin, you can guess her special effect of her powers. Never Good to see.

Master of VIPER Japan: 1200 point ninja. I think that really says it all.

Damien and Peter Bose: we're waiting for them to come on stage. They're the twins that run the ARES Corporation. Which was formerly run by Adrien Bose, AKA Ares, God of War. Phobos and Deimos will, I expect, be making a move soon.

Abraxis: humanoid human-size sperm whale with massive psi powers who is at least 75,000 years old, and who claims his people 'seeded' earth to allow it to create sentient lifeforms.

The Zodiac: yes, the ones from 'Zodiac Conspiracy', rewritten for the game. Because of them, we got to put Foxbat into Stronghold! (Protective custody)

DEMON is out there, VIPER is out there, VOICE is out there, the Lord of the Four Deaths is out there... we've got a lot of baddies, really, when you think about it.

[Outsider]

I didnt ever run too many hyper powerful badguys.

I did run a few who were difficult to put down, who knew when to run away to save their own skin (and could run away fast!), and/or were rather difficult to keep prisoner If they did get caught. My players sure ended up hating them, anyway.

Nobody expects the Double Armor Piercing Teleport!

[austenandrews]

Originally posted by Solomon
Player 2: I guess he just regenerated from the "Hand of Vecna" or the "Eye of Vecna".


I'm reminded of the classic "Head of Vecna" story. Ya gotta love D&D.

I don't recall any uberpowerful villains in my old Champs games. For whatever reason, I tended to make extremely powerful NPC heroes and think of reasons for them to fight the PCs. I did occasionally unleash very tough giant monsters or robots on the world, though.

-AA

[Yogzilla]

Originally posted by RevHooligan
I'm curious about your "guy to beat" in your campaign. Who's the guy that makes your players groan when the miniature come out of the box? is he/she a CU baddie or a homegrown?
Right now, the "guys to beat" are the PCs. I wanted high-level characters, and the players certainly came up with them. Now I'm having a difficult time coming up with believable opponents... Let's face it, it gets boring really fast when Galactus shows up every issue! :)

-Yogzilla

[sethwolffe]

Doombringer!

Whenever he's involved, I get the satisfaction of hearing every player groan in unison.

[Champsguy]

Well, we've fought a few. I'm gonna discount the game we played that was run by one particular game master. The guy just had no sense of scale. We fought those bugs from Starship Troopers and got our asses kicked. When 9 or 10 heroes, all built on 400 points (4th Edition), with extreme cheese (I was the weakest in the group, and I had lots of stats in an EC, and everything had at least a -1 limitation on it) get their teeth kicked in by a horde of bugs, you know something is wrong. The team brick, Atom Smasher, hit one of the big bugs with his most powerful attack, bounced it off the cave ceiling, and didn't even daze it. That wouldn't have been too bad, except Atom Smasher's most powerful attack could crack 50 dice.

So I'll leave out that game. :)

In other games, we've fought a number of super-nasties.

The first has to be Gord-Al the Destroyer. This villain was the first guy we ever had to fight. He was somewhere on the order of:

Str: 150
Dex: 35
Con: 50
Body: 50
Int: 35

PD: 50 (with 75% reduction)
ED: 50 (with 75% reduction)
Spd: 8

and he had a 35D6 Energy Blast.

Don't feel bad if you don't think your team could beat Gord-Al. Ours couldn't either. We won the first fight through GM Macguffin. We actually won the second fight by ourselves, but only because we abused our power pools, as well as the sci-fi equivalent of a sphere of annihilation.

The second villain was a cosmically powerful guy, the Emperor of the Celestial Imperium. He was basically a walking 400 point cosmic VPP, with a family of Dr Destroyer-class offspring. Trust me, you don't want to fight his 10 kids. We had to call upon our dimensional teleporters to travel to the Marvel Universe (where we'd previously visited) to find the solution to this guy. We stormed back and threatened him with our new toy: the Ultimate Nullifier. I never thought he'd have the balls to dare us to use it. It's too bad for him, really, because the character holding it definitely had enough pure spite to use the thing. Fortunately, we did some re-winding of time to let him get his (now dead) character back.

Then there are two villains who we are particularly fond of, though we really don't want to run into them. The first is the evil alternate-future version of our Superman-clone. You also have to understand that the good version of our Superman-clone was the guy who was all too willing to zap somebody with the Ultimate Nullifier. One particular alternate future was a bad place, full of nuclear war, where Destroyer ruled the last city on earth, and Mechanon had turned the moon into a giant robot factory. From this future came... Darklord Con-El! The former hero had joined forces with Destroyer, built himself a suit of armor, and then come back to the past to prevent that future from occurring (he wants to rule a nice planet with lots of women, not a dustball).

The second villain was an evil version of my character. An alternate dimension version of my speedster had found a way to increase his personal power. So, for the last few months, he's been happily zipping between the dimensions, chopping off the heads of each reality's version of us, and stealing their power (this storyline happened over a year before "The One" came out). It's not good when a 38 Dex, 10 Speed guy with about 60" of movement comes out of nowhere and does a 10D6 HKA with his adamantium katana.