SuperVillian Combat problems.

[starblaze]

Hi,

I was wondering if I could get some tips about how more effectively I can run my supervillians in combat. They seem to get beaten rather easily because it is more difficult to run 5 or more bad guys in combat as a GM than it is for the players to just play one.

 

Could you please help me beat up my superheroes?

[JeffreyWKramer]

Re: SuperVillian Combat problems.

 

Think up the villains' basic strategies - including some tricks and some teamwork routines - ahead of time. Write them down. Don't follow this rigidly, but have the notes available to refer to them.

 

Make sure you know the villains well ahead of time. Write cheat sheets to remind you of things you might otherwise forget(Lightning Reflexes, etc.).

 

Write up a combat chart, with characters' DEX, SPD, action segments, OCV/DCV and relevant levels, etc.

[Chimpira]

Re: SuperVillian Combat problems.

 

Heh. Ok. I am not an advocate of beating up on the heroes but they should feel a little more threatened. Right. First we are going to need information on how you prepare for the game. What type of prep do you do?

[OddHat]

Re: SuperVillian Combat problems.

 

Levels in DCV

 

Snipers

 

Concentrating all fire on the heroes with the lowest defences

 

Ambush

 

Missile Reflection

 

Villains built on as many points as you need

 

Power Supressors

 

Villains who run away then come back better prepared

 

Giant robots

 

Villains with massive attacks that can one shot a hero every phase

 

Villains with massive defences

 

Plan out the villains' tactics ahead of time

 

Get to know the maneuvers and modifiers, then use them

 

The problem isn't beating the Heroes; You can always build someone to do that. The problem is keeping it fun. Nothing helps with that as much as a little extra prep time.

[starblaze]

Re: SuperVillian Combat problems.

 

I love this board! You guys are so helpful!

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: SuperVillian Combat problems.

 

Here are a couple of 'design' options.

 

1. Make the villains a little more powerful, on the average, than the heroes, for equal numbers. That will help balance you having to juggle 5 characters at once.

 

2. Design teamwork into the stats. This may be a little cheesy, but it works. For example, build one character with an Entangle with Dex 24 Spd 5, and a character who can take advantage of that setup with Dex 23 Spd 5, so you don't have to plan so far ahead.

[OddHat]

Re: SuperVillian Combat problems.

 

Here are a couple of 'design' options.

 

1. Make the villains a little more powerful, on the average, than the heroes, for equal numbers. That will help balance you having to juggle 5 characters at once.

 

2. Design teamwork into the stats. This may be a little cheesy, but it works. For example, build one character with an Entangle with Dex 24 Spd 5, and a character who can take advantage of that setup with Dex 23 Spd 5, so you don't have to plan so far ahead.

 

One related nasty tactic that works very well even with low point total villains:

1) Sniper #1 with Entangle, does not protect target, and plenty of levels using it. BOECV or Fully Invisible Source even better.

 

2) Sniper #2 with held action, one massive attack, no knockback, and lots of levels. Levels versus hit location even better. Invisible power effects make this hellish.

 

3) Frontman Tank with fantastic defences, especially 3/4 Damage Reduction and a great CON score. Bonus points if frontman is only a hologram maintained by Sniper #3.

 

Heroes show up. Speaches given, tank attacked. Tank sucks up damage. Sniper 1 paralyzes target. Sniper #2 uses massive attack to pound paralyzed target. Tank attacks target if target is still movng.

 

It will only work once, after which your players will be very cautious forever, but it's very effective.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: SuperVillian Combat problems.

 

The Player Advantage is that the players get very familiar playing their own characters, and with the teamwork options they have, over time. The GM has a tough time matching this, since he doesn't get to play numerous sesions and try out different options.

 

The GM Advantage is that the GM knows a lot about what the PC's can do and, if they have had several public appearances, so might the opposition, realistically. I've had several games where the PC's are beaten pretty soundly in their first encounter with a group of opponents, and spend considerable mental effort planning for the next battle. At the next battle, errors from the first are not reperated, and they have a better overall tactical plan, normally resulting in a win.

 

If your villains have the advantage of knowing who they are likely to go up against, they should be prepared for that. Maybe none of the villains have significant mental defenses? They would logically focus on taking out the PC's mentalist. Obviously, thios approach works only to the extent there is reasonable public knowledge on the PC's, and the opposition can realistically access it, but that is fairly common.

[MitchellS]

Re: SuperVillian Combat problems.

 

Don't forget that as the GM you can "cheat" a little. Just because Blowtorch should've been knocked out on the second hit doesn't mean you need to lay down his counter. Giving each villain one extra hit can really change the dynamics of a combat.

 

Preparation and tactics are really the key to beating the heroes. Try to devise one main strategy for each villain team. Maybe Grab hates mentalists and so gang-up on them first in combat, or bricks. Having all 4 members of Grab attack Power Guy on Phase 12 can really change the dynamics of the combat.

 

Having one of the PC's hunteds show up in the middle of a battle can also change the dynamics. The heroes are doing well against the Ultimates when up pops Ankylosaur to get some revenge on Crimson Armor for some past transgression. Throwing the unknown into the mix can really cause some problems.

 

A lot of heroes have fears and phobias and other psychological issues. Having a hero who fears water thrown into a swimming pool by "accident," or some other event can be helpful. And don't forget all those heroes with Protective Of Innocents on their sheet. A stray blast heading toward the crowd or some other danger can take a hero out of the combat for a phase or two and give the villains some additional edge. Superman loses half of his battles because he needs to stop the fight to save someone from something, giving the villain the jump on him or time to escape.

 

Being organized is really the key to it all though. If you're going to do it on the fly then the simplist method is to just give the villains one extra hit each and maybe add 5 extra stun to all of their rolled attacks.

[Tech]

Re: SuperVillian Combat problems.

 

Listen to what everyone's suggested so far. Depending on how experienced a GM you are, some of these ideas might take awhile to incorporate into your style. I've GM'd for well over 10 years (putting it mildly) so I'll tell a few things that I do:

 

a) Know your villains - When you create your episode, you really need to know what the villains can and cannot do. The players know their characters really well and it's up to you to know what the villains can do. You need to know that Megamuscle has Damage Resistance and has his rarely used Footstomp manuever. You need to know what Whitesnow has Absorption to cold attacks and will purposely get in the way of said attack to power up. You need to know what each villain can do in a pinch; it simply doesn't help you think what a villain should do in combat if you're not sure what they can do and end up looking at their stat sheet.

 

Know the heroes - Same as above. You need to know that although Mooseman is superstrong, he doesn't have Damage Resistance. You need to know if any heroes can actually fly the jet in the base that's blowing up. You need to know the disadvantages of the hero.. and heroines.

 

GM (thinking to self): Wow, Justice Girl has the vulnerability of x2 Effect from Presence attacks from handsome men. Maybe Megamuscle with his 21 COM and 25 PRE could romance her to get the team's secrets.

 

If you don't know what the heroes can take, you may accidentally end up killing one or all of them off when you had expected them to all survive and continue on with your episode - it almost happened to one of my heroes.

 

c) Know the players - This part might be a little off regarding helping you with villains but here goes: I don't know how well you know the players but if you know people for a certain time while they play, they tend to do certain things over & over. If you know Mary likes to have her character run into battle, don't expect Mary to have her character stay back and get clues for a detective-type story. If you know Tom likes to think while playing his character, give him puzzles the figure out in an episode, etc etc. Knowing what the players like allow you to mold adventures to allow them to do things they like to do and increases the overall fun for the players.

 

d) Create villains specifically for certain heroes - I can't emphasize enough of how much fun this is! To do this, you need to know everything about a hero or heroine. Try photocopying the sheet for your reference. Now, create an archnemesis for them. A villain created just for a certain hero will be able to fight for a satisfying battle. This villain will be able to take advantage of the heroe's weakness and likewise, the hero can do the same to the villain.

[levi]

Re: SuperVillian Combat problems.

 

This game is based on comic books and if there's one thing all of the Character X vs. Character N debaters will agree upon it is that anything is possible in a comic book so long as it moves the story along and provides dramatic tension / action / resolution. No one should feel cheated if the aforementioned Blowtorch sets fire to a nearby schoolbus while he scampers off to hide and recover.

 

Make the combats memorable. Location, location, location. Mix things up and vary the combat landscape.

 

Give your heroes a reason to be fighting the battle. This doesn't mean that they have to save the world every tuesday night, but a string of bank robberies will start to fall flat quickly.

 

Make the villains memorable. Each of the published villains have their own feel or style and you should really accentuate that as a GM. They are more than just different assignments of points.

 

Make things personal. Even if the villains are not the types to hunt a Hero, they will definitely take the Heroes of Vibora Bay into account when planning a job in Vibora Bay.

 

Don't be a slave to the numbers. I can't stress this one enough. Try to be as consistent as possible here, but remember that villains should get XPs too so they may evolve during the campaign.

 

The MOST important thing is the story. You and the players are improvising comics and as such you have to keep the story moving and compelling for the players (and yourself).

 

Hope that helps...

[TheEmerged]

Re: SuperVillian Combat problems.

 

No order implied

 

#1> Sense rules. Often overlooked, few things can skew a fight quite like one side being prepared for this and the other not. The PC's in the campaign I'm running right now, for example, were built knowing that one of the PC's was going to be surrounded by a perpetual Darkness field and the ability to create others. As a result all of them have a second targetting sense (radar for the gadgeteer, "the ear that sees" for the ninja, and a variety of them for the multiformer).

 

#2> Entangle with "offers no protections" (+1/2), as others mentioned, can be evil. Reduce victim to 0 DCV, everyone makes their Teamwork role, sucks to be entangled

 

#3> Crowd Control/Misdirection. Playing an enchanter in EverQuest drove this home to me -- there are few things as powerful as the ability to make the opposition waste phases. Consider an NPC with Invisibility, Teleport, and Images -- did he teleport, or go invisible and create an image? Add Duplication to that and it gets even screwier -- add Desolidification w/ IPE and you can drive the PC's nuts. Images and Mental Illusions are *vastly* underrated tools, IMO; a little creativity and you'll find MI is often easier to invoke a combat-useful effect than MC.

 

#5> Dispel, the nigh-ultimate screwer. You can do some really nifty things by dispelling things that might not have occured to you. Dispel a gadgeteer's END Reserve, for example, and anything drawing power from it is turned off until the power can be turned back on -- no simple matter if it has the Focus limitation and must be repaired, for example.

[DoctorItron]

Re: SuperVillian Combat problems.

 

Hi,

I was wondering if I could get some tips about how more effectively I can run my supervillians in combat. They seem to get beaten rather easily because it is more difficult to run 5 or more bad guys in combat as a GM than it is for the players to just play one.

 

Could you please help me beat up my superheroes?

 

Players only have to build one character. They get a lot of time to debug that character. As a GM, you have to make a lot more characters, and you'll likely forget important things for your new villains. The first time you use a villain, feel free to do on-the-spot adjustments while combat is going on.

 

Example: You build Doctor Klon,Villainous Master of Martial Arts. On the first phase of combat, one of your player characters grabs the evil Doctor. No problemo, you get ready for the Dr. to break free. You look up the numbers on the character sheet and are shocked that Martial Escape is missing!

 

Easy solution: Pencil in Martial Escape.

 

Don't get carried away with this. The villains should probably lose most of the time. As another poster said, the objective is for the players to have fun, not for the GM to "win".

 

No need to thank me. "You have my gratitude".

[Tech]

Re: SuperVillian Combat problems.

 

Starblaze, I hope we've helped.