How powerful are your agents?

[Asperion]

18 hours ago, Steve said:

I wonder. Do GMs ever have specific agents return after gaining XPs? That 50-point minion of VIPER could slowly grow to become an agent leader or special operative.

 

I've done this several times. It has been fun watching the PCs look at this mook that not long ago they took out with one casual blow now not only can take that blow but can return it and dish out a rather impressive blow in return. 

[Christopher R Taylor]

An example of this in the Marvel movies is Hydra goon Brock Rumlow coming back as Crossbones (briefly) in Captain America 3.

[Spence]

Really depends on the game.

If I had to pick it would be 2, 3 or 5.  Really decisive I know.

 

I model agents to the campaign and how the players play their Heroes.  The objective is to make the PC's work for it and experience setbacks but not to overwhelm them. 

Agents are the filler between the villains and the Heroes and are scaled to fill that role.  

[drunkonduty]

I've got an intro scenario that I've run a couple of times - the opposition are all VIPER agents. I used the ones from the VIPER sourcebook. They're dug in behind some defences in a captured UNTIL base. Their mission is to get the macguffin out of the vault and get away through the basement and into sewer and subway tunnels.

 

I've run it twice and both times the heroes ripped through the agents with no problem. It could have gone a bit worse for the heroes but in both cases the heroes took the time to scout the opposition and so avoided the obvious traps. Fun was had by all!

 

So I guess that puts me in the "agents as window dressing" category. But window dressing that can be problematic in the right scenario.

[steriaca]

Agents power levels depends on the needs of the group in question and campaign needs.

 

Panther Claw and Galactor are both made up of mostly faceless minions, as the focus is basically on the Monster of the Week (Cutie Honey, but can be applied to any Sentai or fighting Magical Girl campaign) or the Mecha of the Week (Gatchaman, and any Sentai based game...). The agents are basically a cake walk (depending on the show, all and every agent of Panther Claw are androids so Cutie Honey doesn't have to worry about killing real people, Gatchaman doesn't really worry that they are outright murdering Galactor agents because it is kill or be killed.)

 

Genocide agents are notorious for being strong, mostly because beyond the Minutemen robots they can't have a "supervillain branch" without stretching believability too much. (Broken mutant slaves? Possible but unlikely. Power suits? Doable, but why limit them to a single person. Cyborg? Again a possibility. Politicians? This is IHA territory.)

 

VIPER is a perfect example of having cake and eating it. There agent arm is powerful but not overpowering. And they have the Dragon Branch, which you can introduce whoever in the ranks then take them away only to be replaced by whoever you choose. 

 

I like the idea of WITCH agents using "wands" (energy guns which don't look like guns), flying broom shaped platforms, lightbending cloaks (invisibly only when they activate them and do not attack). But that is simply using the images of witches to their advantage. The cloaks can compensate for the fact that the group doesn't have a practically large faceless goon pool to draw from. (Same for the platforms...there is something to be said about Invisibility and freedom of movement). True magic, biological weapons, walking chemical factories are best left to the group mothers (leadership/supervillain pool).

 

I'm rambling on. Forgive me. 

[Duke Bushido]

On 9/18/2021 at 1:43 PM, Christopher R Taylor said:

An example of this in the Marvel movies is Hydra goon Brock Rumlow coming back as Crossbones (briefly) in Captain America 3.

 

 

And dont forget Scott Hall.