Powerhouse 4th ed Villain

[steriaca]

Also remember, VIPER leadership can and does lie to their agents, Dragon Branch or not. Again, it helps with their opportunity style of agent aquierment.

 

Lie 1: your going to die from that Kelvarite piece reaching your brain.

Lie 2: wear this helmet and it keeps that piece in place.

Lie 3: the helmet is not cheap. We'll take some cost out of your loot to pay for it.

[Lord Liaden]

2 hours ago, steriaca said:

Yes, Powerhouse is basically a thug. But even a thug has a mother ( he wouldn't be here otherwise).

 

 

Teleios would like a word with you. (Or Malachite, depending on your edition.)

 

1 hour ago, Ninja-Bear said:

@Lord Liadenyou know who stays with just the BBB? Poor ones. 😜

 

When you were a starving student, did that stop you?

 

Everyone has their entertainment priorities. For gamers, money that might go to movies, or eating out, goes to game books.

[Ninja-Bear]

2 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

When you were a starving student, did that stop you?

No, but when I got married and have kids. That put a full stop! 😂

[Tom Cowan]

I have played in a game where VIPER made a lot of the villains.  They also only got one super out of 100-1,000 'tests' the rest... missing person.

We got a tape of a nest leader saying 'So, Five Supers with only 2,500 dead from treatment Xz-123-a16-alpha.  So, the answer is, yes, we can create Super at will.  The next 'test' better work better.  How is Xz-123-b3 coming along?  You need to boost the power levels of our new Supers and get the cost down. If you can't cut the dose cost then work on cutting the death rate, and see if you can cut the rogue rate to. I hate to see us lose a Super that we made."

[Ninja-Bear]

I started to read Scott Bennie’s VIPER sourcebook and wow some of the ideas I just posted upstream are in the book.

[Lord Liaden]

I love both of Scott's VIPER books. Each has great stuff, but I believe each to also have flaws, for what I want. When I use VIPER I incorporate elements of both.

[Ninja-Bear]

Scott Bennie is the one who showed me the way and help me break the “its official so don’t touch it”.

[Duke Bushido]

On 11/5/2022 at 6:42 AM, Lord Liaden said:

That's a valid interpretation, except it happened so often in the old Champs books, it severely strained VIPER's credibility. At least the current official setting spreads the potential creators of rogue supervillains around to multiple agencies and masterminds, so no one of them looks completely incompetent.

 

 

It is funny you took this tack.  Way back in the 2 and 3e days, our group had decided, based on results and effect on the campaign world through the various publishwd items that we shared between that VIPER was very much doing mankind a  service, as they were cranking out superheroes left and right, and actively hunting down supervillains. Sure, they wanted do control and harness the villains, but they were better at nabbing them than UNTIL was.

 

In fact UNTIL, by the books of that era, was responsible for creating or driving more existing supers toward villainy that VIPER even dreamed of achieving themselves, and UNTIL worked harder to tie the hands of superheroes than any secret agency, and did so with the full support of the law (which they could evidently override or recreate at will).

 

UNTIL was the most dangerous-to-the-public organization there was in the early editions; only VIPER stood a chance of stopping them.

 

 

[Sketchpad]

On 11/5/2022 at 6:42 AM, Lord Liaden said:

That's a valid interpretation, except it happened so often in the old Champs books, it severely strained VIPER's credibility. At least the current official setting spreads the potential creators of rogue supervillains around to multiple agencies and masterminds, so no one of them looks completely incompetent.

 

Viper has credibility?! It's pretty "comic-booky" to have an agency create a bunch of bad guys (and some good guys) irresponsibly. Look at Captain America back in the '80s, or anyone who's been hurt in Gotham. In many ways it depends on how you view Viper, and if you're using other agencies in the world. I mean, Hydra and AIM both have created messes in the Marvel Universe, right?

 

On 11/5/2022 at 12:16 PM, steriaca said:

Yes, VIPER being responsible for 75% of all supervillains in the campaign is rather stupid. If they could create supervillains at will, why have normal agents? Instead, I would like to think of VIPER as opportunist minded guys. They didn't create Powerhouse. The accident did. They were there to simply persuade him to work for VIPER. They are always on the lookout for young mutants with power problems (Power Crusher for example), bad seed types who just want an easy pay day, mercenary types who feel the need to have a permanent backing group, etc.

 

Why have normal agents? Because many of the powered beings they're making just don't work in the long run. Sure, maybe a small percentile does, but most would have their own motivations, be it survival, greed, or ULTIMATE POWER!!! Great examples include villains created by Justin Hammer, Power Broker, and many, many others. 

[steriaca]

2 hours ago, Sketchpad said:

 

Viper has credibility?! It's pretty "comic-booky" to have an agency create a bunch of bad guys (and some good guys) irresponsibly. Look at Captain America back in the '80s, or anyone who's been hurt in Gotham. In many ways it depends on how you view Viper, and if you're using other agencies in the world. I mean, Hydra and AIM both have created messes in the Marvel Universe, right?

 

Yep. ULTIMADEM (forgive any misspellings) was even created by a rather low level super (Flag Smasher). And then there is also an all female organization whose name I don't remember. Just because Hydra and AIM get more facetime means nothing.

 

And don't get me going about the Bowling loving organization Sticks And Ball...opps...that's Exele Saga.

2 hours ago, Sketchpad said:

Why have normal agents? Because many of the powered beings they're making just don't work in the long run. Sure, maybe a small percentile does, but most would have their own motivations, be it survival, greed, or ULTIMATE POWER!!! Great examples include villains created by Justin Hammer, Power Broker, and many, many others. 

By definition Justin Hammer's group and the Power Broker are not officially "organizations" if the leader is destroyed, the "illegal company" is so crippled that it cannot go on. Hydra can survive without the Red Skull or Baron VonStrucker.

 

Heck, even COBRA survives without Cobra Comander...

[Lord Liaden]

17 hours ago, Sketchpad said:

 

Viper has credibility?!

 

The default way it's written in both source books, particularly the Fifth Edition one, yes, it does. There are options given to play VIPER as more inept and comical, even borderline heroic; but it's given the resources and plans to be as serious and epic a threat as you want it to be.

 

17 hours ago, Sketchpad said:

 

Why have normal agents?

 

Because if you plan to conquer the world, or at least a substantial fraction of it, you need boots on the ground. Almost nowhere in the source material does a villain have the capacity to mass-produce enough loyal supers to enforce their will everywhere they would need to be. The CU follows that trope for the most part.

 

The late great Scott Bennie remarked that one of the complaints he got the most about his VIPER book for 4E, is that it emphasized supervillains too much, and underplayed the agent component. I do share that sentiment to some extent, but IMO Scott overcompensated in the opposite direction for the 5E book, cutting down VIPER's villain roster too far. I blend the two approaches to try to find a happy medium.

[Sketchpad]

16 hours ago, steriaca said:

Yep. ULTIMADEM (forgive any misspellings) was even created by a rather low level super (Flag Smasher). And then there is also an all female organization whose name I don't remember. Just because Hydra and AIM get more facetime means nothing.

 

And don't get me going about the Bowling loving organization Sticks And Ball...opps...that's Exele Saga.

By definition Justin Hammer's group and the Power Broker are not officially "organizations" if the leader is destroyed, the "illegal company" is so crippled that it cannot go on. Hydra can survive without the Red Skull or Baron VonStrucker.

 

Heck, even COBRA survives without Cobra Comander...

 

I would define Hammer and Power Broker's operations as organizations. Heck, Hammer had ties to the Maggia, and both had corporations that had their own minions. 

 

1 hour ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

The default way it's written in both source books, particularly the Fifth Edition one, yes, it does. There are options given to play VIPER as more inept and comical, even borderline heroic; but it's given the resources and plans to be as serious and epic a threat as you want it to be.

 

 

Because if you plan to conquer the world, or at least a substantial fraction of it, you need boots on the ground. Almost nowhere in the source material does a villain have the capacity to mass-produce enough loyal supers to enforce their will everywhere they would need to be. The CU follows that trope for the most part.

 

The late great Scott Bennie remarked that one of the complaints he got the most about his VIPER book for 4E, is that it emphasized supervillains too much, and underplayed the agent component. I do share that sentiment to some extent, but IMO Scott overcompensated in the opposite direction for the 5E book, cutting down VIPER's villain roster too far. I blend the two approaches to try to find a happy medium.

 

The Viper bit was humor, LL.  Honestly, Viper's credibility is based solely on the campaign you're running. I agree on what you're saying about the agents bit, particularly from Scott's perspective. But as far as the mass-production of superhuman villains loyal to a cause, it depends on how your campaign runs. Could someone run a game where these 20 supervillains actually work loyally to Viper? Sure. Can they also run them as being former experiments on the loose? Of course. It all depends on how you define things. 

[Duke Bushido]

Agreed.

 

Given as how much official source material was already in existence demonstrating that VIPER was responsible for the vast majority of villains that weren't created by UNTIL, and that pretty much all of them were the results of attempting to create supers _for VIPER_, I can't imagine the sort of knothead that would complain about there being quite a few supervillains in a VIPER book.  😕

 

honestly, the supers in VIPER is one of many reasons I don't use VIPER myself, but I also accept that they have always been part and parcel of VIPER since Day One.

 

 

[Ninja-Bear]

I just had a Powerhouse versus Bulldozer smackdown. And well it was closer than what I thought it would be. Bulldozer had PH on the ropes and literally on a Firetruck. PH missed a slam on BD which I think would’ve taken him out. PH was able to recover before the next onslaught and managed to get hit even though he Dodged. (I was hot rolling the dice!) Then PH had a breather and a Firetruck to smackdown on BD! 

[Duke Bushido]

The fact that they are that evenly matched lends a thick layer of credibility to the idea that he was indeed created to be  'Dozer's replacement.

 

 

[Lord Liaden]

Well, maybe not a replacement, but someone who filled a similar niche for those who only bought the BBB. Scott Bennie updated Bulldozer for 4E in Classic Enemies, and gave him pretty much the same personality and comic-relief role he retained into 5E and 6E.

[steriaca]

4 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

The fact that they are that evenly matched lends a thick layer of credibility to the idea that he was indeed created to be  'Dozer's replacement.

 

 

I wouldn't actually call Powerhouse a "Bulldozer replacement". Both characters fill similar roles in the campaign, as the villain brick and "muscle for hire". Bulldozer was ment to be more comedic in personality. Powerhouse in comparison is more stable and serious.

 

Also, Powerhouse is a bit of a jock, and can view PC bricks as competition. "How much can you bench shorty?" might as well be his quote.

[Ninja-Bear]

I will say that even though my son didn’t roleplay PH at all and I did BD, BD rolled off the tongue. “You call yourself a wrestler? Watch this!” As he proceeded to miss PH and go sed for it.

[Ninja-Bear]

19 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

The fact that they are that evenly matched lends a thick layer of credibility to the idea that he was indeed created to be  'Dozer's replacement.

 

 

I haven’t done a complete comparison between Brick and Powerhouse but a general one shows that PH has more in common than BD. 

[Lord Liaden]

I was just as happy Brick was removed from the roster of starting villains, when I saw Scott Bennie's reworking of him for the 4E VIPER book. He was a more interesting and versatile villain after he regained his memory and scientific skills, and Brick's trick of throwing pieces of his regenerating body at opponents gave him a little more variety than the average, er, brick.

[Ninja-Bear]

I’ve wondered too that since his looks is similar to the Thing perhaps they pulled him for potential copyright issues? I thought I heard that the big two comic companies copy righted the word Super hero?

[Lord Liaden]

Yeah, they did. Corporate America at its finest.   What you suggest is possible, but then again, "brick" in Champions has become a generic term, so DOJ may have just considered the character's name redundant and/or confusing. The official setting has its own clear analogue to the Thing, Diamond, currently a member of the Sentinels superhero team (CU Avengers analogue), and a founder of the now-defunct "Fabulous Five."

[Ninja-Bear]

Well this past weekend I got to run the Battle in Christopher Park. My brother used a heroic version of Powerhouse straight out of the book and I used an updated (to 4th) version of Brick from the Viper Nest booklet. And it was a tough battle! I still can’t get my brother to understand that he almost stunned Brick. The version I used has a whopping 38 CON!