How Strong are the Crowns of Krim

[Cardinal]

Ok, I was looking through CKC at the Crowns and was trying to figure out how nasty they were.

 

Absent a better metric, I started thinking in terms of 350 standard supers (I realize that there is a wide variance in terms of effecicacy for starting supers. I am using the champions and the various 350 pt villains in CKC as my benchmark for a 350SS). My thought was that the 6 members of the Crowns working together could take probably 10-12 350SS. Dark Seraph could take large number down alone, where as Bloodlash or the like might be able to take 1 or 2.

 

How many 350SSs do you think they could take (assume that the 350SS have teamwork and will be played in a competant manner)?

 

What about Eurostar? Gravitar? Firelord? Mechanon?

[Lord Liaden]

Re: How Strong are the Crowns of Krim

 

This is a tough one to answer; a lot will depend on how the Crowns are used, and against whom. As a team including Dark Seraph they're very tough - DS is nearly a master villain by himself. Most of the Crowns are pretty versatile, with a variety of attacks, and if the Crowns use them intelligently and your heroes lack certain abilities they may be in for a rough ride. For example, Bloodstone's attacks are vicious against opponents without Power Defense, and the Darkness wielded by Dark Seraph and Eclipse will play merry hob with supers without Enhanced Senses. The latter two also can become Desolid, putting them out of reach of most heroes.

 

OTOH although the Crowns all obey Dark Seraph their teamwork isn't very sophisticated. Also, none of the Crowns has any Mental Defense, and several have low Ego scores, so a competent mentalist could really mess them up. There's also that group-wide Susceptability and Vulnerability to "holy" stuff. If any of their opponents wield "divine power," or can set the fight on some sort of consecrated ground, the Crowns might be in real trouble.

[Dr. MID-Nite]

Re: How Strong are the Crowns of Krim

 

Adding to what LL said, I'll state that I think they are the most powerful team currently published in 5th Ed. They have powerful attacks like BODY Drains...Does BODY NNDs...large Flash attacks and so on. They have enough defense to last long enough to counterattack...and when they do...it will hurt. Bloodstone is probably the weakest physically, but if you don't have the defense for his bloodletting powers, you're screwed. The toughest to bring down is Seraph himself. Huge defenses and attacks that'll probably take down one hero per attack. Temblor and Phoenix are probably among the weaker ones as well, but even so...Phoenix has large attacks and Temblor is a brick. The Crowns have a lot of varied attacks and defenses between them. Luckily..they usually fight one on one. They rarely coordinate their attacks....and that is how you would beat them. Team up...

 

 

Rob

[Dreadnought]

Re: How Strong are the Crowns of Krim

 

OTOH although the Crowns all obey Dark Seraph their teamwork isn't very sophisticated. Also' date=' none of the Crowns has any Mental Defense, and several have low Ego scores, so a competent mentalist could really mess them up.[/quote']

 

I thought that all of the Crowns had at least 5 mental defense. It's not much, but it's there.

 

From personal experience, I'd say that the Crowns can deal a lot of damage. There were only four of us, and we only fought the Crowns 3 at a time (with Dark Seraph himself barely intervening in the combats he was at). Both the party and the GM were still getting comfortable with the rules at this point, but Phoenix, Tremblor and Force seemed a good match for 4 350 point characters. When Dark Seraph did attack, he managed to knock two of the party unconscious in two attacks.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: How Strong are the Crowns of Krim

 

I thought that all of the Crowns had at least 5 mental defense. It's not much' date=' but it's there.[/quote']

 

Afraid it isn't. All the Crowns have at least 5 points of Power Defense (DS has 10), but none of them has any Mental Defense at all. Their Egos run from a low of 11 (Temblor), 14, 15, 15, 18, and 20 for Dark Seraph.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: How Strong are the Crowns of Krim

 

Adding to what LL said, I'll state that I think they are the most powerful team currently published in 5th Ed. They have powerful attacks like BODY Drains...Does BODY NNDs...large Flash attacks and so on. They have enough defense to last long enough to counterattack...and when they do...it will hurt. Bloodstone is probably the weakest physically, but if you don't have the defense for his bloodletting powers, you're screwed. The toughest to bring down is Seraph himself. Huge defenses and attacks that'll probably take down one hero per attack. Temblor and Phoenix are probably among the weaker ones as well, but even so...Phoenix has large attacks and Temblor is a brick. The Crowns have a lot of varied attacks and defenses between them. Luckily..they usually fight one on one. They rarely coordinate their attacks....and that is how you would beat them. Team up...

 

 

Rob

 

I concur that the Crowns of Krim are the new team to beat, provided that Dark Seraph is in the lineup. I would say that the other five Crowns would likely defeat an equal number of any Standard Superheroes, although as I mentioned earlier the presence of a capable mentalist would make it hard for them. As their opposition comes closer to their point totals, though, solid teamwork on the part of their opponents would likely tip the balance.

 

As a point of comparison, in the 4E Champions Universe Dark Seraph was mentioned as leading a team of monstrous supervillains calling themselves the Dark Masters, consisting of DS himself, the Black Paladin, Leech, the Slug and the Monster. Considering that all of these villains made it to Fifth Edition, the Dark Masters could have reincarnated; but if I were running a PC I'd be just as glad they didn't.

[Cardinal]

Re: How Strong are the Crowns of Krim

 

As a point of comparison' date=' in the 4E Champions Universe Dark Seraph was mentioned as leading a team of monstrous supervillains calling themselves the Dark Masters, consisting of DS himself, the Black Paladin, Leech, the Slug and the Monster. [/quote']

 

That is interesting... I was thinking about teaming the Crowns with Black Paladin for a hum dinger of an assault force.

[Chimpira]

Re: How Strong are the Crowns of Krim

 

In my Champions game the Crowns were the big bad of the season, along with a souped up version of Talisman. My group of supers (5 players all around 380 points because of experience) faced them three times. The first two times, they got trounced. On the third,final and most deadly encounter the team won. I wanted to have the battle be an epic thing and so I arranged it that way. The PC's were able to fight Talisman separatedly from The Crowns and then fight The Crowns sans Dark Seraph and finally put the foot down on the big man himself. By the end of the game many of the players were running on vapors Body-wise but everyone left smiling.

 

I made sure that I knew how powerful the opponents were going in and how well the team could work together. I set the game up to run off of three encounters and then elongated the game when one of my players did something unexpected but which helped enrich the overall game. If you want to throw the Crowns at an inexperienced team, I would say to hold off and let them build to it first.