Millennium City/Doctor Destroyer Ideas

[GrooveD70]

(Mild spoilers for those playing in my game)









I am thinking of having a climactic "throw down" with Dr D. in my champs game and I have never used his "new" stats in a game. He seems quite deadly. I was wondering how you all have used Doc in your Millennium City games. I'd like to work up to an actual face to face confrontation that will be memorable.

[Shaft]

Well, Dr Destroyer is not the type of villain you encounter "randomly". He's got Chess at 16-(20- w/his levels), and he thinks like a grandmaster- several steps ahead of his opponent.

A physical confrontation should be built up to. At first the players are beneath the notice of Dr Destroyer. They are but one of many insignifigant obstacles in his way, and in his plan, he will treat them with the same disregard that a lower powered supervillain might treat a patrol car that happened to stray too close.

The players are likely to encounter one of his minions, like Gigaton, as the minion is running an errand for the Doc, such as overthrowing Mexico, or stealing a space shuttle. When the players stop this minion, Dr Destroyer will take their names down (or more accurately, one of his minions will take their names down for him) and begin gathering intel on them with his network of spies that include Rakshasa, who can shapechange into someone who can get close to them.

Dr Destroyer will continue to gather intel on the players. He may even sacrifice a pawn or eight to determine their tactics, recording the battle from a distance, of course. He will try to find out Secret IDs, DNPCs, psych. lims, vulnarabilities & susceptibilities, and then he will lure the players into deathtrap after deathtrap. We're talking about a guy who has the resources to build an island-base sized death trap if need be, so go crazy.

However, Dr Destroyer has a bizarre sense of honour that can be exploited. He won't announce himself in the intel gathering stage, but he will announce himself before each deathtrap stage, so that the PCs can know who beat them. He may have thousands of followers, and definitely surrounds himself with many of them at any time, but when the PCs make themselves enough of a thorn, he will make sure that is is by his own hand that they fall.

His overconfidence is his undoing, of course. First, he will never go after the PCs directly- they are still beneath him. He will arrange it for them to come with him on his turf. That turf will not be really where he is, it will be a deathtrap. He will assume that the players will never find him, and will be slightly surprised when they do, but that doesn't mean he won't be ready for them. He will also have at least three escape plans, and it will not be apparent which one he is using, so the players will have to split up to pursue him. And divided, they fall, of course. His escape plan inevitably has a deathtrap to further slow down the PCs, and there is a very likely chance that after all of it, the Doc still gets away. But he'll have been put on the run, and that itself is more than any single group of heroes can hope for.

A straight fight against him is nearly impossible to win. He has taken on 7 or 8 *teams* of heroes at a time, and lived to tell the tale. Ironically enough though, he could be beaten in single combat if you had a chess skill of 21-... once. If you were to challenge him to such a game with the stakes being the heroes surrender versus him calling off his attack, he just might take the challenge, provided the hero had the reputation in Chess-playing to make it worth his while.

[WilyQuixote]

Eh I dont know if your Chess idea would work out as you said. This all depends on your interpretation of Dr. Destroyer's "honorable villain". While it has been atleast 2 years since I looked at Destroyer's profile in the CKC so I might be completely off on this but IIRC Destroyer only acts honorable as long as he's winning.

This isn't to say you couldn't get him to accept the challenge of a chess game just that IMO as soon as you yelled "CHECK and MATE Doctor!" Destroyer would show your poor hero just how he earned his name by blasting you with a 20D6 EB (or any one of his other very nasty attacks).


As to try helping answer the original post we never used Destroyer. However if I were to use him I think some of the suggestions given already are good ones. I don't think Doc would try more then two death traps though. Yes he has unlimited resources but the man is a genius, if a planned death trap didn't work once against the heroes that might be nothing more then a fluke. If a death trap (even a different one entirely) didn't work a second time then it wasn't a fluke and therefore pointless to try a third.

Also I would keep Gigaton in reserve, if you bring him out too early then the heroes will know who is ultimately behind this all and the might ruin the suspense. Unless you want your heroes to know their going after Destroyer then have at it. Since this is your goal as a GM after all I have to believe that your PCs are of sufficient point lvl to tangle directly with the doctor at some point. Any hero or team of heroes who can do this should be known to the world at large and so too to the Destroyer.

Therefore I would think he wouldn't ignore the heroes, as that smacks of idiocy and the Doctor is anything but an idiot. I think that Destroyer would recognize them as a possible irritation that can serve his purposes with proper motivation. So he manipulates the heroes into attacking other enemies or targets of elimination to further Destroyer's agenda. He might set them up to attack a viper nest/s, take on the Crowns of Krim, DEMON (remember he has an absolute disdain for magic), or heck he might even set up an encounter with Menton or Gravitar (He decided this is a good a time as ever to shut her big mouth) hoping one or both eliminates the other.

Remember there are also plenty of baddies (Grond and Mechassassin just to name two) out there who only need money as motivation. Doc just has to throw a few million in their accounts, point them in the right direction and wait for the dust to settle. The doctor's plans should always resemble an onion. You peel away one layer to find another underneath, and another below that. To show Destroyer's true evil have these encounters with the various baddies listed be revealed as aiding Destroyer's plans or just his orginization. Whats better is towards the end to put PCs in a position where they have to ignore going after the Doctor who can wait for now and take on the immediate threat of DEMON (or whoever) hoping all the while that they won't be too late to stop the Destroyer.

Also don't forget that many villains out there hate/fear Destroyer for various reasons. They might be inlcined to give some help to the PCs in the hopes that the PCs succeed where others have failed. Of course they too will want something in return for this help but thats all part of being a hero trying to save the world! Bottom line is this... don't be afraid to do your worst! This should be the end all be all of a campaign. The good Doctor is like 80+ years old, maybe this fight really is his last and he is bound and determined to destroy the world so no one else can have it either. Go nuts thats what I say!

[BoloOfEarth]

I once came up with a story arc after reading the Helmet of Dr. Destroyer adventure by Bob Greenwade for Star Hero (from DH #25). Though the article didn't provide the adventure I ran, I have to cite it as the inspiration.

Remember that the only thing found after the Battle of Detroit was Destroyer's (damaged) helmet. The premise I was working off was that Destroyer's battlesuit linked into his mind through the helmet, so its circuitry could be used to create a copy of Destroyer's brain pattern. A mentalist of sufficient skill (cough*Menton*cough) could use this to, in turn, create a device enabling him to potentially bypass Destroyer's mental defenses and battlesuit control.

And a mastermind supervillain as powerful as Destroyer might learn of that mentalist's plan and try to get the helmet first (initially on display at a memorial to the Battle of Detroit). At that point in time in my campaign, Destroyer had not made his "return from the grave" known, so he didn't want to just jump in with all guns blazing, as it were.

It's been two years, so I don't remember details, but as I recall the heroes ended up smack in the middle of machinations by both Menton and Destroyer to acquire the helmet. Not a nice place to be, believe me. And if the heroes end up in possession of the helmet, you can bet that Dr. D will be knocking at their door in some form or other.

[Shaft]

Eh I dont know if your Chess idea would work out as you said. This all depends on your interpretation of Dr. Destroyer's "honorable villain". While it has been atleast 2 years since I looked at Destroyer's profile in the CKC so I might be completely off on this but IIRC Destroyer only acts honorable as long as he's winning.

Darn it... you're right. It always comes down to violence doesn't it? Why? WHY? WHYWHYWHY?

This isn't to say you couldn't get him to accept the challenge of a chess game just that IMO as soon as you yelled "CHECK and MATE Doctor!" Destroyer would show your poor hero just how he earned his name by blasting you with a 20D6 EB (or any one of his other very nasty attacks).

And that's if he's in a good mood, otherwise it might be the 20d6 EB from his primary system simultaneously with the 15d6 from his secondary system. Sure they don't stack, but that just means you're unconscious for a month instead of a year.

Therefore I would think he wouldn't ignore the heroes, as that smacks of idiocy and the Doctor is anything but an idiot.

Yeah, but the players have do to do something noteworthy to register as a blip on the Doc's radar first. A bunch of 350pt newbs who just got together and happened to stop Ogre's weekly rampage doesn't qualify. Inadvertantly foiling a stage of the Doc's plan on the other hand is more than enough to initiate his eventual wrath.

[Cardinal]

I agree with the "grand scheme" nature that is required for DD.

However, if you want to just run a random encounter between your team and the good Dr. to test the build, consider the following concept: Dr. D is actually one of his Dr. D androids that was stored in one of his Detroit hideouts (that was not discovered in the rebuilding). Something happens to bring the android online, at which point it is stumbled upon by (a) a group of kids with a stoned dog and a psychedellic van, (b) a nosy reporter, or (c) some techno genius intent on trying to use the technology to take over the world.

The good guys find out about this menace and intervene. Unless you depower the android they soon become paste.

[WilyQuixote]

A bunch of 350pt newbs who just got together and happened to stop Ogre's weekly rampage doesn't qualify. Inadvertantly foiling a stage of the Doc's plan on the other hand is more than enough to initiate his eventual wrath.

I agree but from what I gathered these heroes arent newbs. Besides which even if they are then sending some 350 pt super-thugs to rough the PCs up is a fine beginning to lead into the grander battle/events to come.