Calibrating Supervillains

[Cloppy Clip]

With emphasis on the Super.

 

Something I've been wondering about is how certain conventions were decided on. 12 DC attacks feels about right for your baseline hero: bricks can lift a solid 100 tons with 60 STR, mentalists can steamroll bystander's minds while a bit of MD still counts for something, etc. But one thing that I don't quite understand is the top-end villains in the Champions universe: your Dr Destroyer types. They seem to have a baseline 30 DC power, whether that's Dr Destroyer's Destroyer-Beam, Menton's Mental/Telekinetic Powers or Takofanes's Darkest Sorcery. But isn't that a bit much? I only have the 5e book downloaded at the moment, but even a maxed-out Very High Powered superhero is going to fold very quickly against a 30d6 EB.

 

So, given you could clobber most parties with a significantly weaker villain, why did 30 DC get settled on as the baseline for these guys? Does anybody know some old trivia that explains this?

 

 

[Lord Liaden]

I would say you have to attribute those benchmarks foremost to Steve Long. When these characters were integrated into the rebooted Fifth Edition version of the Champions Universe, Steve was Line Developer, having oversight over the creative element of all Hero Games products, as the late Darren Watts had over the business element. Steve would have had final say on what the power level of these characters should be. AFAIK that rendition of Doctor Destroyer was the mightiest published to that point. But I can't say what specific design considerations Steve might have had in mind when he set the characters' power level, and since Steve made it his policy to never answer design philosophy questions, we'll probably never know.

 

To address your point that "even a maxed-out Very High Powered superhero is going to fold very quickly against a 30d6 EB," some campaigns have been around a long time, with PCs having gained epic Experience and being raised to intimidating power. I'll just cite an anecdote from our long-absent forum colleague, Lord Mhoram. He once mentioned that shortly after Dr. D first appeared for Fifth Edition in Conquerors, Killers, And Crooks, Lord M pitted the villain as written against his PC team of Justice League-level veteran heroes, translated to 5E. Lord M reported that the heroes killed Destroyer -- killed him -- in two Turns of combat.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I have never run any of the 6th edition villain builds in any campaign largely because they are wildly overpowered.  They won't just knock out a hero they hit, they'll probably vaporize them.  But I tended to run lower powered games than some do here at least, and as Liaden points out an old campaign with tons of xps probably can handle that sort of thing better.

[Stanley Teriaca]

Characters who have been operating since Champions 1 would probably be strong enough to kill Destroyer by 6ed. Talk about dedication.

[assault]

A lot of Steve-era stuff is overpowered compared to earlier material. Tanks, guns...

 

The problem is that superheroes have fallen behind in comparison. Even the extra points don't make up for it.

 

George MacDonald's guidelines worked well for early Champions, unsurprisingly. That stuff in the books about 100 points being generally wonderful was serious. Around 500-1000 points, you get to be a JLA level character.

 

By Steve's standards, you're an X-man.

[DShomshak]

I can only guess at the reasoning behind such design, but I'll try.

 

One thing you sometimes see in comics is the giga-villain who fights multiple teams of heroes at once. They come at him in waves, he bats them back, the next wave piles on and gets scattered in turn, etc. This is tricky to do in Champions, because a single team of, say, 5 heroes can dish out an awful lot of STUN in a Turn. Even giving the giga-villain high defenses and lots of Damage Reduction might not be enough -- and yet you still want it to mean something if a hero manages a Pushed, Haymakered, Called Shot to the head. So it's not a good idea to push the villain's defenses too impossibly high.

 

Ditto DCV. It's a boring adventure if the fight consists of whiff after whiff because nobody can hit Big Bad with any roll over a 5. Okay, so players might be able to devise a clever use of Powers to reduce Big Bad's DCV, but when you publish Big Bad you don't know who the PCs will be.

 

Or you use the STUN rules. Give Big Bad such overpowered attacks that any hero he hits is Knocked Out, or at least Stunned. That way, you don't have a dozen or more heroes launching 5+ attacks per Turn. You have the few who are conscious at any given moment, not all of whom will hit, while the others regain consciousness and take Recoveries.

 

So that's my guess. I still think it sucks. I think it's based on a comic-book trope that just doesn't translate to the gaming table. Don't have a fight with large numbers of NPC heroes. (Or if you do, have them engage in a separate fight off in the distance, which you as GM merely allude to now and then. No dice rolls, good God.)

 

Though as LL recounts -- some campaigns have run so long the PCs *can* fight even the most apparently overpowered published villains and win handily. That's why 6e versions include notes on adjusting character power up and down... one of few 6e innovations of which I approve.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Rich McGee]

7 hours ago, assault said:

A lot of Steve-era stuff is overpowered compared to earlier material. Tanks, guns...

Having largely stopped with 4th, I hadn't really registered on that - although I do recall having to tone down some of the stuff from the 5e books that I did buy.  

[LoneWolf]

Characters like that are designed to fight large teams of experienced heroes.  These types of villains are not supposed to be used against starting characters.  You don’t put DR. Destroyer against a group of 4 standard characters; you put him against a group of 6+ very high powered characters. The guidelines for in 6 edition books for very high powered characters suggest   stats in the 20-80 range, DC of 12-20 and defenses in the 35-50 with 25-40 being resistant. The 30d6 blast is not likely to one shot a character with a 50+ Con and 50 DEF.

[Lord Liaden]

The 6E Champions villain roster -- and the 5E, to be fair -- covers a wide range of power levels. Yes, you do have the mega-villains, but there are also many who fall within the standards that Cloppy Clip alluded to in his original post, and quite a few below that, essentially being "street-level supers." So there are official villains usable for just about any campaign.

 

I should also mention that the Champions genre book includes a number of suggestions for making supers more effective than their stats would suggest against things made of mundane materials or realistic technology, e.g. making such things more "Vulnerable" against superpowers and supertech, or reducing the damage that Real Weapons do against super-class Defenses. Those suggestions make super interactions with the realistic world much more adjustable to the preferences of GMs and players.

[Cloppy Clip]

Thank you very much, everyone! Your point, Lord Liaden, about long-running campaigns reminds me of the Harbinger of Justice from Dark Champions. I'm not 100% sure on this, but if that statblock was what Steve Long had gotten him to after however many years of playing then it would make sense you'd want villains like Dr Destroyer to challenge Champions characters who'd been playing that long.

 

Not that it helps my newbie players, of course, but there's always the options for powering down villains, or using some smaller fry to get them warmed up. Would it be worth picking up some 4e or earlier books, if the villains got a noticeable power-up in 5e?

[Tech]

12 hours ago, Stanley Teriaca said:

Characters who have been operating since Champions 1 would probably be strong enough to kill Destroyer by 6ed. Talk about dedication.

 I have been and no, my characters aren't that strong. Nope.

[Tech]

A long time ago when the Adventurer's Club was around, a poll was taken for what power levels are used. 11d6 oddly was about average. Speed was 5.5, meaning 5 or 6 Speed. Defenses ranged from 20-30. I have heard a few (emphasis on 'few') campaigns that have 20d6 to start, where one heroine was hunted by Dr. Destroyer and Grond. Those are the exceptions. I never used the higher-end 6th edition write-ups, they simply don't fit in the campaign. I also tire of the Multipower examples of: slot 12d6 EB, next slot 8d6 EB at 0 End but that's besides the point. I guess it's supposed to be variety for different campaigns but I think it wasn't a good idea IMO.

[Stanley Teriaca]

It should be noted that very few experienced game masters actually use the characters as is, instead usually modify the stats to suit the GM's campaign. If you ponder why, it is because different campaigns have different needs.

 

In fact, many GM's scrap the established setting and villains to start in favor of everyone they created over the years. It is a very small "many" which does so (as opposed to adding there villains into the setting, which a larger amount of GM's actually do).

[Cloppy Clip]

To be honest, I prefer making my own NPCs too, but I like understanding why things are the way they are in the books, if that makes sense. So while I'm not going to drop Dr Destroyer as-written on my players, it's helpful for me to hear why he's written the way he is, so I'm hopefully better informed when making my own setting.

 

@Tech I think I agree with you on the Multipowers. I'm more than okay with frameworks if the SFX justify it, but it does sometimes feel like too many villains have every possible variation on their power jammed into a Multipower, which makes them feel a bit samey. I have the same problem with the giant Cosmic VPP a lot of villains at the higher levels have.

[Lord Liaden]

I've always disliked the big VPP designs as well. TBH they feel a bit lazy to me in terms of defining what a character can do. (Not that I would ever call Steve Long "lazy." The man's work ethic is legendary.) I much prefer characters to have more specified abilities, although there are some concepts that practically demand the VPP approach. You couldn't do the Silver Surfer or Green Lantern justice without one.

 

3 hours ago, Cloppy Clip said:

Thank you very much, everyone! Your point, Lord Liaden, about long-running campaigns reminds me of the Harbinger of Justice from Dark Champions. I'm not 100% sure on this, but if that statblock was what Steve Long had gotten him to after however many years of playing then it would make sense you'd want villains like Dr Destroyer to challenge Champions characters who'd been playing that long.

 

Not that it helps my newbie players, of course, but there's always the options for powering down villains, or using some smaller fry to get them warmed up. Would it be worth picking up some 4e or earlier books, if the villains got a noticeable power-up in 5e?

 

If you're familiar with 4E or 5E (they're very similar) so the system differences from 6E won't give you pause, I'd suggest sampling Classic Enemies for 4E. It's a broad cross-section of Champs supervillains which has quite a few that were later updated, but also quite a few that were not. Overall power level is definitely lower, and there are more "small fry" suitable for low-power or your specified average-power campaigns. And the PDF in the Hero store is only $5 US. That would give you a sense of whether those villains meet your needs well enough to want to invest in more of those books. And you can always come back to the forums if you want recommendations.

 

 

Edited January 20 by Lord Liaden

[Cloppy Clip]

I don't think anyone could accuse Steve Long of being lazy, but I think his strongest villains are held back a bit by the need to cover absolutely every angle. When he does the midlisters you can see some really creative build ideas and tradeoffs being made, which is why I tend to prefer those characters in the villain books. Thanks for the Classic Enemies recommendation; I'll have to give it a look!

[Tech]

On 1/20/2024 at 4:46 PM, Cloppy Clip said:

I don't think anyone could accuse Steve Long of being lazy, but I think his strongest villains are held back a bit by the need to cover absolutely every angle. When he does the midlisters you can see some really creative build ideas and tradeoffs being made, which is why I tend to prefer those characters in the villain books. Thanks for the Classic Enemies recommendation; I'll have to give it a look!

 Be aware I think this has some powerful "updated" stats for villains. In particular, Eurostar and the newer version of Dr. Destroyer (not 30DC though).

[Lord Liaden]

6 hours ago, Tech said:

 Be aware I think this has some powerful "updated" stats for villains. In particular, Eurostar and the newer version of Dr. Destroyer (not 30DC though).

 

If you mean Classic Enemies, almost all the 4E CE villains who were updated for 5E/6E are a step or two down in power from their more current versions, including Dr. D.