Runehammer Posted June 7, 2005 Report Share Posted June 7, 2005 From the old days a bad guy could be made with a disadvantage slot called Villain Bonus. I saw this as a pump to cover the fact that one villian may wind up facing 2 to 6 heroes in a game. Since I have all kinds of great ideas for bad guys in the new 5th ed and am retiring most of the 4th ed guys I have a question. Since I have currently 5 heroes as listed below and currently one villian in the works for a campaign epic in my Dark Saviors milieu. What is a good rule of thumb (if there is one) on a villian bonus to hero ratio? (Considering I may not need one with two heroes vs one bad guy but may with more heroes vs one bad guy) hero 1 :275 pts martial artist/stealth infiltrator (de facto team leader) hero 2 :300 pts psyker with issues hero 3 :250 pts straight up in your face brick hero 4 :265 pts energy projector/gadgeteer hero 5 :255 pts the next sorcerer supreme (potential disaster but will try to make it work) fringer character not currently affiliated with team but may run into group shortly villain 1:295 pts (currently without villain bonus) psychotic bio-booster armor based however loosely or not on one of my favorite anime titles Guyver Ideas? TIA Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Black Lotus Posted June 7, 2005 Report Share Posted June 7, 2005 Re: Question on a Villain Bonus. I'd suggest just building the villain with more Character Points, considering that, as he is now, he barely presents a challenge to the characters you have listed there. Maybe in the range of 450 -- 500 points, at least? (Speaking of Guyver, they're making a Casshern live-action movie in Japan that's supposed to also come over to the States at some point.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ternaugh Posted June 7, 2005 Report Share Posted June 7, 2005 Re: Question on a Villain Bonus. Villain Bonus was just a convenient way of listing experience and a "fudge factor" for overall power level when designing a villain. Using the villain's backstory and desired power level, build the character as you see him, and then flesh out all of the disads. Anything left over on the cost becomes Villain Bonus. Now, if your question was really, "what power level of character could take on all of these PCs?", then I'd suggest looking at the type of encounter you desire. If it's a pileup of all of the PCs vs the one character, then your villain needs to be many times stronger than the PCs (and will still probably lose if the players are any good at tactics). Agents or weaker villains may help. I'd probably set the master villain at 2x to 4x the level of the average character, or even higher, with weaker villains at 1x to 2x the level. Agents will typically be at 1/2x to 1x the power level of the average character (depending on how fast you want the agents to fall, I usually rate them as 1-Hit, 2-Hit, etc). If your villain's tactics are to separate the group and take them out one-by-one, then you can get away with a few less points. As always, YMMV, JoeG Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Runehammer Posted June 7, 2005 Author Report Share Posted June 7, 2005 Re: Question on a Villain Bonus. Thanks Ternaugh, right now they are still meshing as a team so they tend to be ball hoggin grandstanders, this villian will more'n likely make 'em work together, building a bigger mousetrap works for me. And Lotus, as for the movie about Guyver....Cool! More stuff for my wish list... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Herolover Posted June 7, 2005 Report Share Posted June 7, 2005 Re: Question on a Villain Bonus. Like what was said above the "villain bonus" is basically a fudge factor to allow villians to have all the villainy good stuff they need to take on a bunch of heroes. One thing about creating villains. Villains aren't nasty because, they have more points, but villians are usually nasty because they break rules that the PCs can't. If you have 6 PCs hitting one villain with a 12d6 EB each it won't matter that the villain has 6 EB worth 12d6 each. He can still only hit once at the same level as the PCs. Take Dr. Destroyer from CKC. Yes, he is a nasty one and mean in a fight. However, what makes him nasty? Yes, he has bases, yes he has some cool equipment. What makes him so nasty is that while the PCs are throwing around 12-14d6EB the DR is throwing 16d6. While the PCs are getting hit their blast are hitting DR. D's armor-FF and bouncing off. Of course, it comes down to what kind of villian you are going for and what kind of encounter you want. Just remember a villain is far far far more than the sum of his points. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roy_The_Ruthles Posted June 9, 2005 Report Share Posted June 9, 2005 Re: Question on a Villain Bonus. It also depends on the villian's ruthlessness. A Villian who will kill a down PC is much more of a threat, even if built on less points because he doesn't need to beat all the PCs to win. I played in a campain where the villian was about 2 times as powerful as the 4 characters who fought it (maybe more, i haven't seen his char sheet), but has a continuing aid power to boost him up as the fight went on, and speed equal to the highest member of the party. The real danger however, came from the assumption we had (don't know if it was true or not) that he would kill us if we fell, so we had to spend actions pushing people out of the way, and protecting the weaker characters Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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