With your combined powers, nothing can stop me!

[Bloodstone]

Ok, I have a confession to make: I love the Super Skrull and Mimic. Two of my favorite villians of all time. I just love the concept of a single villian with the powers of an entire team of heroes. My favorite type of team buster really. Oddly, I'm not so hot for the Super Adaptoid, but I blame that on never really getting into many of the old school Avengers books.

 

Now, in the comics the villian is usually defeated through team work and strategy, so the readers go home happy. I'm not so sure how it would workout in a Champions game though.

 

First of all, the villian is obviously built on a LOT more points then any individual hero. You get the five original X-men in a room with the Mimic and you are probably looking at a villian that tops 1000 pts (assuming the X-men were around 250 pts each back then). Of course, he's still only one guy so he's limited to a number of actions based on his SPD and only has so much Stun and Body. So teamwork SHOULD pull through here still.

 

Now, personally I've never fought a villian like that in a Champs game, so I was curious: Do your GM's ever use these types of characters in Champions? Do players actually enjoy battling them or do they think they are just cheesy and lame? Does the concept just not work out that well on paper?

[transmetahuman]

Re: With your combined powers, nothing can stop me!

 

Great minds think alike: [thread=33851]Superskradaptomimic[/thread]

[GoldenAge]

Re: With your combined powers, nothing can stop me!

 

What, no love for AMAZO???

[SKJAM!]

Re: With your combined powers, nothing can stop me!

 

Back in Fourth Edition, I had a robot character that Dr. Destroyer created to have the powers of the Champions. With a number of catches, one of which was that Doc D had to use mechanical means to imitate Solitaire's powers, not being able to create the "magic" special effect. The other big one was that Championsbane only had the powers of the Champions at their 250-pt starter levels, rather than the improved with experience versions that had since been published. Thus Championsbane was much less of a threat now than when he started.

[Powerhouse]

Re: With your combined powers, nothing can stop me!

 

Galactic Champions has a character named Echo I believe who has this ability. Basically, he has a HUGE VPP with a certain set of limits. I think that the UNTIL Database book might touch on this as well.

 

To boost defenses and toughness, consider letting stats be additive to a certain extent. For example, Amazo isn't just as tough as Superman but Superman, Wonder Woman, AND Martian Mahunter as well. Thus, higher defenses and stun. Rather than just having higher PD/ED, this can justfiy damage reduction.

[Sketchpad]

Re: With your combined powers, nothing can stop me!

 

Now, personally I've never fought a villian like that in a Champs game, so I was curious: Do your GM's ever use these types of characters in Champions? Do players actually enjoy battling them or do they think they are just cheesy and lame? Does the concept just not work out that well on paper?

 

Yes ... yes I do My players groan at the concept, but they've never shown any distaste for the character. I think it works quite well ... if used properly. A character like this should be used in major stories and not constantly, spoiling its mystique if used too often. When translating it into stats, I use VPPs a lot with MPs and ECs to represent its static powers. Mind you, I also bend the rules for ECs and allow armor in them

[Bloodstone]

Re: With your combined powers, nothing can stop me!

 

What' date=' no love for AMAZO???[/quote']

 

I have no love for Amazo because, to my knowledge, I have never actully read a comic book with him in it. I mean, I know he exists and all, but he's just not the first guy to come to mind.

 

Galactic Champions has a character named Echo I believe who has this ability. Basically' date=' he has a HUGE VPP with a certain set of limits. I think that the UNTIL Database book might touch on this as well.[/quote']

 

Yep, I'm familar with Echo. Ultimate Metamorph has a variety of power duplicaton power builds as well, along with the super villainess Eclipse, who is a potent power/identity thief.

[CBikle]

Re: With your combined powers, nothing can stop me!

 

I've never used one of those yet, but I'd like to eventually.

 

I have , however, built a PC for an M&M game who was a Amazo -knock-off, basically a now reformed super-villain thug who could duplicate multiple powers at a time (basically the reformation was really a side-effect of , over time, "absorbing" the nobler/positive personality aspects of super-heroes).

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: With your combined powers, nothing can stop me!

 

I built one as a base character with a huge Multipower, one slot for each hero holding multiple effects. he had enough pool to duplicate 2 characters' abilities at a time. That worked pretty well.

 

These characters need to be prepared carefully. Consider a character who has the Brick's PD, plus the EP's Force Field and Powered Armor Man's Armor. That will doubtless put him well aboce double the campaign's maximum defenses. Now tack on the Martial Artist's DEX and SPD...

 

Most of these characters have some restrictions. The Super Adaptoid could only use four powersets at once, although he had all the Avengers (and pretty much anyone else he encountered) to choose from. The Mimic was limited to five powersets. This makes a VPP or Multipower approach a good mechanic for creating the character.

[Lord Mhoram]

Re: With your combined powers, nothing can stop me!

 

When running our cross campaign crisis thing I and the Champs GM who's game I played in ended with something like that (we had the same group, we generally alternated doing adventures).

I ran the big ending bruhaha, and the big bad guy had mimiced the powers of each character. The way I built him, as he was a one shot, was to do the following.

 

For each primary characteristic, I took the highest of all the characters to be involved in the final fight. For each figured I would use the figured, then spend the same amount of points on each of those as the highest points spent of said figured characteristic. I think I may have bumped up REC, CON and END but I don't recall.

 

Then I gave him every power that every character had. It was ugly.... for example he had the brick's PD/ED and DR, the other brick's Armor, and the Energy Projector's FF. He had the martial artist's Dex and the points the low dex brick had spent on speed, so his speed was obnoxius. And so on.

 

It was a complete blast to play. And they were in a mystic pocket dimension he had created to do whatever dimension merging that he was going to do, and as each player had at least 2 PCs (one from each game, and in some cases backups) every time a character was knocked out, they were mystically replaced by another character (that belonged to the same player).

Everyone loved it.

[Tech]

Re: With your combined powers, nothing can stop me!

 

Yes, I have someone like this and have for a long time. My brother made up the Superskrull a long time ago but his powers were based on one of our groups, not the Fantastic Four (since they don't exist in our campaign). Anyways, it was one of our best adventures in our entire 20+ years campaign.

 

First, I'll recall the episode with Superskrull before describing my villain. For some reason, one our teams was in the antarctic (why? who knows) and encountered him. He prompty thrashed them and continued on to New York City with his goal of destroying the group with which he had copied their powers. As it turns out, the team Superskrull was aiming for was on a mission somewhere else. One of our premier supergroups was there house/base-sitting and here comes along Superskrull. He lands on the front lawn, spewing out how he's so powerful and gonna destroy his target. Our premier group says "There not here. Do you want to leave a message?" Now, the group had just previously had a real rough adventure so they were tired and base-sitting was relaxing, and this dude comes up threatening everyone - time to release some frustration. This was a complete turnaround fight! Whereas Superskrull had thrashed our other team, this one goes a 180': Superskrull gets off one attack. Every single attack from the heroes is high damage, from move-throughs to coordinated haymakers to other attacks. Superskrull is trashed. That episode has become the bar against every fight with a mega-powerful badguy is measured. Ah, sweet memories of a glorious adventure.

 

Regarding my villain, he can copy powers but there is a limit of how much he can copy. He can also change his shape, meaning he could be almost anyone or anything. However, in order to copy a power, he has to be able to read your mind, and that can lead to powers not copied. Also, intricated worked in as a -0 limitation, he can't copy certain powers that as GM I deem special. I arbitrarily put limits on total PD & ED he can have, else theoretically he could end up with 100 PD or ED. Anyways, having a recurring villain like this can work but it must be carefully handled: having a villain trash a team doesn't make for good player/GM relationships if you do it on a regular basis.

[Murrkon5]

Re: With your combined powers, nothing can stop me!

 

I had a dimensionally exiled and marooned Super Skrull. The game universe had no idea who these "Fantastic Four" people might be, but this green goon was bad news.

 

The appearance of the Super Skrull always got people excited. It took no false starts or whining or head scratching. They knew that they had to think outside the box in defeating the alien because they could not win (survive) a toe-to-toe punch out. They always did. Always a grand evening.

 

The purely ultimate amalgam character is the legendary "Composite Superman" from the olden days. The combined power of the Silver Age Legion of Superheroes in one person.

 

http://nightwing.superman.ws/adventures/compositesuperman.htm

[AdamLeisemann]

Re: With your combined powers, nothing can stop me!

 

I have yet to encounter such a situation, but I can imagine facing one eventually.

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: With your combined powers, nothing can stop me!

 

Sadly, I've never run into one, and have never GM'd one either. Plenty of evil duplicates, but never a single guy encompassing all the powers. In my games, I've never really had someone around who would a) have the inclination to do it and b ) would have the ability to make something that would successfully imitate/recreate the sometimes wildly-varying powers/forms/concepts into one being.

 

Would be much easier with single-origin campaigns (all mutants, all altered humans, etc) than a game where the team consists of (to use some board examples): Z'lf, Husky, Meeb, Dr. Anomaly, and Flesh Gordon. I think if I tried to comprehend and play a character composite of those, my head would explode.

 

I've written up one as a potential character as a hero (combining powers of some of the Champions) and as a villain for a villain game (including writing up the hero team he has the powers of), but haven't played either yet.

 

Another thing to remember about beating them, is that frequently they absorb the target's weaknesses as well - vulnerabilities, susc, limitations. Parasite has Superman's powers? Get some Kryptonite. Dunk Super-Skrull underwater and you don't have to worry about his flames.

 

As previously mentioned, the SPD difference can be huge. One Spd 8 villain is still going to be massively out-actioned by a team of Spd 5 characters.

[Mike W]

Re: With your combined powers, nothing can stop me!

 

Ok, I have a confession to make: I love the Super Skrull and Mimic. Two of my favorite villians of all time. I just love the concept of a single villian with the powers of an entire team of heroes. My favorite type of team buster really. Oddly, I'm not so hot for the Super Adaptoid, but I blame that on never really getting into many of the old school Avengers books.

 

Now, in the comics the villian is usually defeated through team work and strategy, so the readers go home happy. I'm not so sure how it would workout in a Champions game though.

 

First of all, the villian is obviously built on a LOT more points then any individual hero. You get the five original X-men in a room with the Mimic and you are probably looking at a villian that tops 1000 pts (assuming the X-men were around 250 pts each back then). Of course, he's still only one guy so he's limited to a number of actions based on his SPD and only has so much Stun and Body. So teamwork SHOULD pull through here still.

 

Now, personally I've never fought a villian like that in a Champs game, so I was curious: Do your GM's ever use these types of characters in Champions? Do players actually enjoy battling them or do they think they are just cheesy and lame? Does the concept just not work out that well on paper?

 

I've never used one that was based on the team he was fighting. But I did use an Amazo robot once. Really, I think my players would go for it. And I do think that it would be manageable for the team if they work together or think their way through it.