Trick Arrow Villain?

[Richard Logue]

What kind of trick arrows would a villainous trick arrow archer have? Would it just consist of a bunch of clever takes on Killing Attacks? Or would there be some more interesting arrows in his quiver?

 

Radiation Tipped arrow - CON or BODY Drain with a weeks-long return rate

Acid Bomb arrow - AOE RKA

Industrial Goo arrow - an Entangle with a STR Drain mixed in

Numb Dumb arrow - Flash Touch Group

Paralytic arrow - Dex Drain

 

Thoughts on these? What else?

[gojira]

Re: Trick Arrow Villain?

 

Flash for sure. Maybe a big AoE flash too.

 

"Trick Arrow" says to me "mess with the heroes." So indirect things, like entagle, gas attacks, smoke (blindness), etc. You don't have to kill the heroes to make them hate even the mention of the guy's name....

[Comic]

Re: Trick Arrow Villain?

 

I guess it'd depend on the archer's resources and their skills and style. An alien inventor might create an FTL arrow that lands the target on the Forest Moon of Shervalon. A diabolic mystic might have an arrow that sends the target to the magic dimension of dragonkind. Foxbat might have arrows that grow to the size of tree trunks.. Nerf tree trunks.

 

Arrows that shrink their targets down and imprison them in their tips make an interesting gimmick, for an adjustment-based gadgeteer. Think of how satisfying it'd feel to shoot your enemy far out over the desert, where he'll take days to walk back at 1/100th normal height. Or, more murderously, to shoot one enemy with another. "You could remove that shaft, but if you do, your friend in the arrowhead will expand to normal size. I wonder which of you that will hurt more?"

 

An arrow-themed archer (rare, I know), might merely have arrows that multiply until they blot out the sun (AoE), or that keep burrowing once they strike a target (continuous).

 

If the archer's the type to study her targets (and what brilliant mind wouldn't choose the bow and arrow as obviously the most superior weapon?) she might make use of the hero's vulnerabilities or susceptibilities.

 

Of course, to get that information, her first arrowhead might simply implant a microscopic medical monitoring, bugging or tracking device on the target.

 

And then there's the clown archer, whose cream pie arrows, arrows that make a target's limbs all rubbery, and laugher-inducing plunger arrows are a real riot.

[Alverant]

Re: Trick Arrow Villain?

 

How about a size changing arrow that grows once it impaled itself on a target. A low killing DC arrowhead with Penetrating, then have a bigger NND RKA Does Body.

 

A blunt-end genital-seeking arrow

 

sonic arrow that shatters all glass in the area (thereby causing lots of property damage and dangerous shards of glass falling on the street)

 

barbed arrow

 

A bow and arrow are just objects and is neither inherantly good nor evil. It's how their used.

[Bloodstone]

Re: Trick Arrow Villain?

 

How many points is the villain supposed to be built on and what's his general theme? What's the basis of his trick arrows: technology or magic? Does he stalk and study his opponents? If so, has he learned their weaknesses yet?

 

Few things are worse than a hunter that knows his quarry and comes prepared...

[Guest steamteck]

Re: Trick Arrow Villain?

 

One of my PCs had "regurgitation arrows" which made people throw up. He got in tons of trouble when he used one on Circe

[Korvar]

Re: Trick Arrow Villain?

 

Hologram arrow, that creates an illusion of an Innocent In Trouble, to distract the Heroes while he runs away. Occasionally mixed with ordinary, non-gimmick arrows, when there is an actual Innocent In Trouble...

[Xavier Onassiss]

Re: Trick Arrow Villain?

 

Then there's the 'shoot to maim' effect. It's a normal arrow, but give the archer a Major transform power: healthy person into person with physical limitation (variable effects, depending on body parts targeted) Not really a trick arrow--more like a trick shot, of the worst kind.

 

I used this for an archer villain who could shoot out eyes, hamstrings, hands, kneecaps, or whatever else he decided to aim at. Nasty fellow.

 

XO

[Pariah]

Re: Trick Arrow Villain?

 

* Heat Seeking Arrow: EB or RKA with No Range Modifier

* Boomerang Arrow: EB or RKA with Indirect (The opponent thinks you missed...until the arrow slams into him from behind!)

* 'Cropduster' Arrow: Darkness or NND (Gas/Smoke) Attack with Area Effect: Line

* Magnesium Flare Arrow: Images (bright light), Area Effect: Radius (Great for lighting up dark alleys and such)

* Stinkbomb Arrow: Entangle based on CON, not STR (Smells so bad, it makes everyone start to vomit), not vs. those with appropriate Life Support

* Screeching Arrow: Drain/Dispel/Suppress vs. Mental Powers (The high-pitched squealing makes it really hard for mentalists to concentrate)

 

Those were just a few things that came to mind. If any of them help, feel free to use them.

[Great Beyond]

Re: Trick Arrow Villain?

 

Oooh, I like the rad one. I'm having that.

 

Ok, here's what I've got for my brand new(ish) archer character:

 

tazer arrow - single target NND

EMP Arrow - area effect NND

smoke arrow - darkness

extinugsher arrow - suppression (fire effect powers)

electromagnetic arrow - Suppress electric devices and powers

LSD arrow - mental illusions with no control over what the target sees

oil slick arrow - change environment with a -DEX on it (mine is like -6)

sniper shot - increased maximum range (like 170 inches), armor piercing and penitrating.

acid arrow - drain PD

suction cup arrow - TK, but can only pull towards self

flash arrow - sight and hearing area effect flash

glue arrow - area effect entangle

ice arrow - single target (but much stronger) entangle

flare arrow - images, only for creating light, good for 120 seconds

paint arrow - transform target, covering them in a bright primary color

tracking device - a detect radio transmiting thingie

 

I dont have ALL of those yet, that includes my wish list too. But that'll give you some ideas to hopefuly steal.

[Sidume]

Re: Trick Arrow Villain?

 

Arrows w/ "Suppress Flight" can be particularly nasty.

And the "Paint Arrow" mentioned above can be really irritating when you hit skulker types with glow-in-the-dark paint.

And "the Piercer" High levels of penetrating, limited to 1 body, with a suppress on life support that takes DAYS to recover, but with invisible effects. Mr. Powersuitist won't know that his life support doesn't work right until he's in the burning building, or worse - outer space.

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: Trick Arrow Villain?

 

EMP Arrow II: Drain END, Electrical only

 

Paint Arrow II: Dispel Invisibility, 1 hex area

 

Glitter Arrow: Images, 1 hex area, -0 to PER, 1 phase duration. That's all it does, but won't it make anybody in the glittered area paranoid trying to figure out what it "really does"?

 

Neurotoxin Arrow I: Suppress Danger Sense (or some other odd innate power, or DEX), 0 END Persistent; the chemical (or alchemical) compound in the arrow interferes with the hero's nervous system.

 

Psychotropic Arrow: Mental Illusions, based on CON

 

Jammer Arrow: Suppress Radio, AOE (if the hero team is known to communicate and coordinate by radio)

 

Plas-Stick Arrow: Entangle, Explosion, Sticky

 

As a side note, I'd have the villain hide various arrowheads on him, in case the heroes just take his quiver and think they've disarmed him. Perhaps some disad on the Multipower or VPP, Range Based on STR Without Full Arrows and Bow, even more limited Charges.

 

Also perhaps give him a Martial Art based on using his bow to Block, Disarm, Legsweep, and maybe a defensive Strike.

[Korvar]

Re: Trick Arrow Villain?

 

Tiny collapsible bows, possibly using a shrinking villain's technology, so that the heroes are never quite sure if they've actually disarmed him. Should be annoying...

[Squall]

Re: Trick Arrow Villain?

 

I'll have to dig up the character sheet to get them all, but for a "Suicide Squad" sort of game (villains press-ganged into gov't service, doing black ops) I ran a sociopathic archer assassin type of guy, Quiver.

 

He primarily used regular broadheads (just nice RKA's), but I had a few trick shots bought as part of the multipower (with the caveat that they used up charges from slot 1, the basic RKA) that also had weak RKA's built into them. There was an Entangle (only possible if target was near an appropriate surface) to represent pinning people to walls, etc. A "Crippling Shot" (attribute drain, STR and DEX) to represent those nasty knee and shoulder hits. I think I even paid for the Increased Stun Multiplier on the basic killing attacks, now that I try and remember. I know he was horribly lethal.

 

Other than that most of his arrows were pretty basic, like a flash-bang, a smoke/chaff mix (neener neener, you can't see AND you can't radio for back up), some grappling arrows (shared charges, either as a stretching with limited uses, or a swinging movement), and a few flatheaded arrows (built as EB's, stun only).

 

It was all comparatively low-tech stuff -- nothing that teleported folks to other dimensions or turned them to stone or anything -- but he was a pretty nasty little guy, in the few fights I was able to get in before the game fizzled. When I was creating him, I was readying a lot of Green Arrow stuff, and just thinking "Now how can I make that meaner?" I'm (still) of the opinion that most of Green Arrow and Hawkeye's fancy schmancy trick arrows are made because good guys in comic books need nonlethal ways to take out bad guys. A bad guy that's an inhumanly good shot with a bow? Well, he'll just stick a broad, sharp, arrowhead through your brain and call it a day. Not as much of a NEED for tricky stuff like nets and bolos and junk.

[Doc Samson]

Re: Trick Arrow Villain?

 

If he's a stand alone or arch-villain for the campaign, I would go for effects that slow the combat down so the players all don't just coordinate and one-shot him. Here's a few examples:

 

1. Acid Arrow - RKA, NND vs. Force Field, Does Body, 0 END, Continuous Uncontrolled. This isn't intended to kill a hero, but when he realizes what's going on he (or a teamate) is going to be forced to find some water to dilute the acid.

2. EMP Arrow - Dispel vs. Technology, Expanded Effect: any technology power one at a time. Use this to shut off a technology based character's Force Field, Life Support, or Senses to make him susceptible to the other arrows.

3. Glue Arrow - Entangle, Area Effect, Sticky, Personal Immunity. This causes anyone in the area to break the entangle before every move until they leave the area. It will slow down any ground based character but a Brick.

4. Flash Arrow - Flash vs. Sight Group. Anyone depending on sight will be at a great disadvantage for a few segments, especially ranged characters.

5. Smoke Arrow - Darkness vs. Sight Group, Personal Immunity. Like Flash but you can hide in it for extended periods.

6. Fire Arrow - RKA, NND vs. Force Field, Does Body, 0 END, Continuous Uncontrolled, Area Effect, Personal Immunity. Like the Acid Arrow but against multiple targets.

7. Ice Arrow - Entangle. If used against a character that requires gestures or an accessable focus, will force a teamate to help him escape.

8. Radiation Arrow - Suppress CON, 0 END, Area Effect. A few application will really slow a group down when their cons are so low that more attacks will leave them stunned.

9. Poison Gas Arrow - EB, NND vs. Self-Contained Breathing, Area Effect, 0 END, Continuous, Personal Immunity. Again, hide in the center and melees without Life Support will think twice about running in on you.

10. Explosion Arrow - Dispel vs. Movement, Expanded Effect: any movement power one at a time, Does Knockback, Double Knockback. Use this to create some distance between you and a particularly nasty player.

11. Sonic Arrow - Ego Attack or EB BOECV. For the Brick that has every defense type in the book but mental.

12. Oil Slick Arrow - Change Environment -DEX. I just love this one from an above poster so I am stealing it.

 

For your standard attacks, use a wide variety of arrows (EB or RKA with AE, AF, AP, P, ect.) so that you have something for everyone. Find Weakness can help spice things up as well.

[Great Beyond]

Re: Trick Arrow Villain?

 

12. Oil Slick Arrow - Change Environment -DEX. I just love this one from an above poster so I am stealing it.

 

And you're welcome to it - because I'm *SO* stealing that fire continuous killing arrow one from you. Brilliant!

 

Here's a question for you guys, considering all the suppress and dispell arrows coming up in this thread: which is the superior way to go? They both more or less do the same thing, right? So given your druthers for a fire extinguisher arrow (for example), which way would you go?

[Great Beyond]

Re: Trick Arrow Villain?

 

11. Sonic Arrow - Ego Attack or EB BOECV. For the Brick that has every defense type in the book but mental.

 

So I was reading up on Ego Attack (never played with mental stuff before), and it sounds like the way to go would be to add the "Based on CON" limitation to it, being a physical arrow attack and all. The problem is - while that limitation lets the archer use their OCV instead of ECV, deal with rage and all the other real world attack issues, makes the defenses PD or ED related again - which gets us back to the Brick Who Has Everything problem.

 

Or am I reading things wrong?

 

It would seem that the energy blast with the BOECV would be the better way to go. The only thing I dont see in the discription - and this may be because it's damn early and I'm half asleep - is that it says use the ECV rather than the normal combat value for the attack roll. Would I still use the the OCV to hit the target? It would suck for my non-ego based archer to have to use her wussie ECV to pop a screecher arrow in a bad guy.

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Trick Arrow Villain?

 

Here's a heroic archer that could easily be converted to a villain.

 

Aoi-Ya

 

For humor you could even add Foxbat-like arrows as well.

[Steve Long]

Re: Trick Arrow Villain?

 

There are literally dozens of super-arrows written up in Gadgets And Gear, and a couple published characters (like Warpath in CKC) who use 'em.

["V"]

Re: Trick Arrow Villain?

 

Hey, Cupid was an archer... how about an arrow with a transform in it "Normal person into Normal person with undying passionate love for highly inappropriate nearby subject"?

[steriaca]

Re: Trick Arrow Villain?

 

Ah...I created (but never ran) a villian archer named Arrowsmith. He was a evil 'zen archer' type with a coad vs killing. I gave him a three 'normal arrow' multipower.

 

Type 1) Your typical killing attack, with indirect, used for cutting objects and such.

Type 2) Blunt arrowheads (Energy Blast), with indirect.

Type 3) Entangle with indirect and No Normal Defence (Not wearing lose type clothing). The special effect is that he pins the victom by impailing what he wears.

 

As for gimiced arrows...let me think. I don't know exactly what style of archer you want to run. There are many types.

 

1) The Gadget Archer: Big example is Green Arrow. Ranbow Archer (when she existed) is another, Hero Games one.

2) The Mystic Archer: Basicly The Gadget Archer with a difrent special effect.

3) The Zen Archer: His arrows are, for all entence and purpses, 'normal'. What makes him specail is what he DOES with them. Basicly a 'martial artest' with a bow and arrow. (The guy might also buy Zen Archery from UMA, but that is not always a requierment.) Again, Green Arrow became more of a Zen Archer during the time he gave up his company and millions (and stoped being a Batman clown with arrows).

 

More Zen Arrow Tricks:

I'll Shoot Your Guns Out Of Your Hand/I'll Knock That Over Without Harming It: Telekineses with a focus, only to disarm and knock down.

Oh, You Wanted To Go Through THAT Door? Sorry: Transformation, Door to 'Wall' (Hero shoots the door so that the arrow pins the door shut).

Follow The Arrow In Flight: Aid in Running, Instant, Others Only (Target and archer cordnates...archer shoots an arrow to clear a tempary path for the target to follow)

[Great Beyond]

Re: Trick Arrow Villain?

 

Oh, thought of another arrow for the pile:

 

Fiberoptic Camera Arrow: Clairsentience (Sight Group And Normal Hearing), Increased Arc Of Perception (360 Degrees), Targeting

 

Basicly its a little camera on the end of an arrow that the archer fires at/near/around the target and streams pictures back to a small handheld unit.

[JmOz]

Re: Trick Arrow Villain?

 

Ah...I created (but never ran) a villian archer named Arrowsmith. He was a evil 'zen archer' type with a coad vs killing. I gave him a three 'normal arrow' multipower.

 

Type 1) Your typical killing attack, with indirect, used for cutting objects and such.

Type 2) Blunt arrowheads (Energy Blast), with indirect.

Type 3) Entangle with indirect and No Normal Defence (Not wearing lose type clothing). The special effect is that he pins the victom by impailing what he wears.

 

As for gimiced arrows...let me think. I don't know exactly what style of archer you want to run. There are many types.

 

1) The Gadget Archer: Big example is Green Arrow. Ranbow Archer (when she existed) is another, Hero Games one.

2) The Mystic Archer: Basicly The Gadget Archer with a difrent special effect.

3) The Zen Archer: His arrows are, for all entence and purpses, 'normal'. What makes him specail is what he DOES with them. Basicly a 'martial artest' with a bow and arrow. (The guy might also buy Zen Archery from UMA, but that is not always a requierment.) Again, Green Arrow became more of a Zen Archer during the time he gave up his company and millions (and stoped being a Batman clown with arrows).

 

More Zen Arrow Tricks:

I'll Shoot Your Guns Out Of Your Hand/I'll Knock That Over Without Harming It: Telekineses with a focus, only to disarm and knock down.

Oh, You Wanted To Go Through THAT Door? Sorry: Transformation, Door to 'Wall' (Hero shoots the door so that the arrow pins the door shut).

Follow The Arrow In Flight: Aid in Running, Instant, Others Only (Target and archer cordnates...archer shoots an arrow to clear a tempary path for the target to follow)

 

My CoH archer is named that...