WWYCD: Escalation of Villainous Power

[SKJAM!]

In their last adventure, your character's team (or just your character if solo) faced off with a well-known villain. He normally fights a considerably less-powerful team or hero and gives them a rough time, but should have been easy pickings for the PCs. Instead, however, he walked all over them. His power levels were way above those in his dossier, and his tactics made the team/hero look like chumps.

 

Just as your character finally got the upper hand with an unorthodox tactic, the villain teleported away tracelessly. (A power he has never shown before.)

 

Subsequent investigation reveals that this isn't an isolated case; several other villains have in the last few days suddenly shown a remarkable increase in power and combat skill, way above what you'd expect from, say, "he trained harder." Worse, the one villain who did not escape can't seem to explain how this happened beyond "I woke up stronger this morning."

 

WWYCD?

 

((Metagaming: Presume that the GM is trustworthy, and also that some of the "looking like chumps" was just a string of bad die rolls, but obviously the characters don't know this.))

[jkwleisemann]

Re: WWYCD: Escalation of Villainous Power

 

The Protectors of Colton (Void, Huntress, Darkchild, Heat Wave): "The arms race is on. Huntress, you've got that R&D budget you've been bugging me about."

 

Clearly, while they might not know what's doing it, something is resulting in the villains developing new powers more quickly, and with less rhyme or reason to it. The logical solution is to get Huntress on developing a series of power armor for the entire team, and put her on upgrading her own. He and Darkchild set about trying to figure out what the blazes it is, suspecting either mega-villain interference or (on Darkchild's part) that some metaphysical entity is trying to not-so-subtly shift the balance of good and evil.

 

If it can be beaten into submission, take the armor and do so. If not, hunker down and get ready for the real disasters to start hitting when folks like Doctor Destroyer get pumped up by this strange phenomenon.

 

Colton High North "Special Studies Unit" (Outsider, Sparky, Galaxy Girl, and many others): Class Alpha is quickly overwhelmed. They might have standard superhero power levels, but they don't have the experience; the Faculty is quickly called out to deal with the escalating supervillain issues.

 

Worse, they are quickly robbed of their central leadership, as the tri-partite mental balance between Mister White, Principal Grey, and Dr. Black is shattered, Dr. Black is destroyed, and Principal Grey is subsumed into Mister White (who, quite possibly, arrange the whole thing in the first place.)

 

In the end, it probably involves several members of the team either trying to retire, or going out in blazes of largely futile glory against their newly empowered enemies. Unfortunately, except for Outsider, none of the students really have the resources to do any sort of functional research into things. But, while he could do some research into it, his regeneration and higher power level would mean that he's in the field too often to actually do it.

[jkwleisemann]

Re: WWYCD: Escalation of Villainous Power

 

As a note, while I am assuming that the GM is trustworthy and that part of it was just bad die rolls, I am also assuming that there is some sort of plot element behind many of these goings on, and that the escalation will continue until the heroes stop it or die trying (and, as I'm the GM and creator of most of both groups, it's quite possible to be either).

[David Johnston]

Re: WWYCD: Escalation of Villainous Power

 

This "teleporting away tracelessly". Does only one of the villains do it, or do they all start doing it? It could indicate that their benefactor is Summoning them once they start losing. And do they reappear afterward or are they not seen again?

[SKJAM!]

Re: WWYCD: Escalation of Villainous Power

 

This "teleporting away tracelessly". Does only one of the villains do it' date=' or do they all start doing it? It could indicate that their benefactor is Summoning them once they start losing. And do they reappear afterward or are they not seen again?[/quote']

 

Other villains flew away at remarkable speed or Flashed the heroes they were fighting (for several minutes worth of blindness); none of these were powers they'd shown before.

 

Most of the villains who escaped show up again in a couple of days, though not in the same cities they were before. One of them will show up where the player characters will have a chance at catching him/her/it (especially if they have better die rolls) now that they know about the power boosts.

[SKJAM!]

Re: WWYCD: Escalation of Villainous Power

 

As a note' date=' while I am assuming that the GM is trustworthy and that part of it was just bad die rolls, I am also assuming that there is some sort of plot element behind many of these goings on, and that the escalation [i']will [/i]continue until the heroes stop it or die trying (and, as I'm the GM and creator of most of both groups, it's quite possible to be either).

 

Correct. It's not just a GM beatdown for no good reason.

[Lethosos]

Re: WWYCD: Escalation of Villainous Power

 

Hrmmm... Queen of Spades will have to make some cover exscuses for her Secret ID, find a quiet place for a week or two, and really understand the Forge (the origin of her power armor) like she hasn't before. Her head would hurt afterwards from asorbing the knowledge gleaned from the alien nanotechnological builder, but I'm willing to bet that she can do a heck lot more after she completly re-designs the Queen's Armor and the rest of her gear...

[Kevin Schultz]

Re: WWYCD: Escalation of Villainous Power

 

Three words for you:

 

coordinated. pushed. movethrough.

 

[jkwleisemann]

Re: WWYCD: Escalation of Villainous Power

 

Three words for you:

 

coordinated. pushed. movethrough.

 

 

Y'know... that tactic is just begging for a painful outcome.

 

Each and every member of the team at high speed prepares for the aforementioned move-through, approaches the target from various directions....

 

And the villain uses a Held action to t-port out just before they hit.

[Kevin Schultz]

Re: WWYCD: Escalation of Villainous Power

 

Heh - most of the characters I was thinking of have specific weapons, shrinking, or enough practice to ensure that this wouldn't happen: having the opponent not be there a known issue for this maneuver. Althought if your team had more than 3 people, some of the attacks would be moveBYs, rather than moveTHROUGHs.

[Arac-4105]

Re: WWYCD: Escalation of Villainous Power

 

Welllllll... since Arac's usually KO'ed the first time somebody swings/blasts at him, it's not really a change from the usual way things go.

Having said that, the first thing is to investigate where the villain that didn't escape usually spends the night. Hunt for clues of outside involvement (strange radiation, footprints from other people, etc).

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: WWYCD: Escalation of Villainous Power

 

Well, let's see. First and foremost, War Wolf, having at least a mild military mindset, would insist on a debriefing as soon as everybody was conscious and back at the warehou ... er, Guardians HQ.

 

After coordinating and correlating the data from these other sudden power bumps, and noticing that while the power is up, but not always the same powers, he'd presume that someone's either doing genetic tinkering, or they've got some hidden gadgetry beneath the costumes that's giving them new abilities.

 

So ... rematch (either against this guy or someone else who's gotten his power goosed). Everybody else plays interference while Pulse EMPs the guy (in case he's packing hidden tech), Wildcard gives him a good once-over with Magesight (if it's magical gear or enchantments), and War Wolf would metalmorph some kind of genetic sensor so he (or rather, some friendly NPC scientist) could try to figure out what was going on from the DNA structure, assuming that it's obviously altered.

 

After that ... we'd have to see.

[OddHat]

Re: WWYCD: Escalation of Villainous Power

 

Stye - He assumes some sort of supernatural intervention and starts reading auras. If he finds nothing, he'll quietly start asking questions among the Mystic community, concentrating on his shadier contacts. The next time he spots a boosted villain, he'll hold back from the fight for a few phases, carefully examaning their aura and seeing what (if anything) he can learn. If all that fails, he'll walk the paths of time backwards through the day of the villain in question (retrocog). If it is nothing Supernatural, he'll have to play it by ear.

 

Flesh Gordon - Can pure luck turn up the bad guy? If not, he gets kicked around a lot while the other members of the Beach Patrol figure something out.

[Pyre-Archer]

Re: WWYCD: Escalation of Villainous Power

 

Pyre archer would try to lay low, seeing just how much power is being tossed around. Being occult minded, he'd suspect someone's been making a lot of Faustian deals, and start looking for common links; shared origin, convenient gathering point in recent history, patterns to the renewed attacks. That sort of thing.

 

Check with the more investigative-minded members of the team, see if they had any insights. Then go after the source.

[nexus]

Re: WWYCD: Escalation of Villainous Power

 

Tao and Eve both attempt the same thing, devising new team tactics to deal with the increased power. Tao will start a solo investigation and try to find the common source of the villianous power boosting.

[SKJAM!]

Re: WWYCD: Escalation of Villainous Power

 

Bump.

 

This thread was, of course, inspired by the Deathstroke vs. JLA fight in Identity Crisis.

[Sundog]

Re: WWYCD: Escalation of Villainous Power

 

Terminus would assume that The Disruption was likely behind the situation (increased mayhem is part of their modus operandi) and get the team together for intensive training, while getting PRIMUS and UNTIL involved in tracking down the source of the powers - then hit it. Hard.

[Zed-F]

Re: WWYCD: Escalation of Villainous Power

 

Soulbarb is mostly a solo heroine, though she has in the past often worked with one other meta (her boyfriend, Nocturne, but he's still in Houston, and she, at the moment, is not.) She might have to start seriously working on contacting other known heroes and vigilantes in the area, and forming some sort of temportary partnership until the source of the problem is identified and taken care of. This would in some sense annoy her as she values her privacy and is wary of others' reactions to her demonic appearance, but there might not be any way around it if she doesn't have enough moxie on her own to handle the level of opposition she's now expecting to face (she's pretty pragmatic and not given to overconfidence.) She'd probably be one of the primary investigators on the case, regardless.

 

Sylph is already a novice heroine and unsure about taking on actual supervillains; this would quickly convince her that she's out of her league. She would probably try to contact one or more of the other 'real' heroes in the city for help. That is... if she remembered the fight. Odds are pretty good that at some point during the fight she'll have switched to her alternate persona, if she was getting beaten up a lot beforehand. In which case, the more violent and rough-and-tumble the fight, the better she'll have liked it... and she might well just go looking for more.