Beefing up Villians

[Odraude]

I am GMing a game with 6 heroes. One is an Iron Man with magic fire powers, one is a shadow controller, one is a gun mage, one is a hydrokinetic, and one is a mimic

 

Well last night was an important part of the ongoing campaign about a world in which superhuman registration is mandatory and the only organization that protects superhuman rights is actually a front to corrupt the supers and make them evil. Anyways this was at a conference for that group and it was attacked by 5 supervillains

 

Now these heroes are built at 350 points while the villains are at around 450 ish except the Duplicator which is a 350 that can duplicate and his duplicates can duplicate, however will be forced to recombine if shocked with electricity

 

Here are the villians

Unnamed Strong Man

Biohazard: Based on Der Sxhwarze Tod only with the ability to shoot "webbing"

Helix: a beefed up Malestrom

Blitzkreig: Based on Panzer

Riot: the duplicator, though he was not in the match

 

Well within one turn they had completely obliterated the villain team. There was some pretty good team work and I had rolled poorly in alot of cases. That said I would like to figure out a good way to beef up some future villains to make fighting them better. This is a 350 point game though the villains get more (around 450 for average supervillain and 600 for the Main nemesis. So what can I do to beef them up?

[Certified]

Re: Beefing up Villians

 

The first two things that come to mind are fodder and environment. Would it be reasonable for this band of villains to have some basic thugs assisting them? Nothing too impressive just enough to distract the heroes for a shot or two. As for environment, players often look for every advantage possible in a fight, why shouldn't the NPCs? Fighting on the roof and can't seem to damage the brick? take out the floor below him. Fighting in the sewers against a fire based hero, take out that water pipe behind him. As a GM it is often you who will decide where the battle takes place or at least the conditions of the location. This is not to say design the environment to work against the players only keep in mind the description given and look for ways it can be used for either side.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Beefing up Villians

 

Welcome, Odraude! Hope you enjoy participating in the community.

 

Not knowing your own GMing style and how you've designed and customized these villains, I'm hesitant to make recommendations that may not apply to your game; but IME the easiest way to "beef up" a team of villains is to use more villains, and to play them smarter.

 

The first one is obvious. You had four villains against six heroes, with one member of the villain team absent. Include the absent one in the next run. But you also mention that the heroes used good team tactics, so the villains should do the same. I know that it's tough for a GM running five characters by himself to think as fast as six players responsible for only one PC apiece, but you can work out a number of tactical maneuvers in advance for your villains to use: coordinating attacks against the most dangerous opponent; a villain Grabbing one foe to make him an easier target for the others; Knocking Back one enemy into another; and so on.

 

This is especially valid since the villains have now encountered the heroes once, and will have taken note of their abilities, any Vulnerabilities they displayed during the fight, and the like. Also, villains being villains, they'll probably try to set up a trap or ambush to take out the heroes who beat them so badly.

 

That said, I don't really know how optimized for combat your group's PCs are. It's certainly possible to make a 350-point hero who totally outclasses a 450-point villain who's put more of his points into non-combat abilities. If you want to retool your villains to make them more combat-efficient, look at the stats of the PCs (CV, Damage Classes, SPD, Defenses) and add more points or shift some of their existing ones to make them a closer match to the PCs.

[gojira]

Re: Beefing up Villians

 

Welcome Valkyrie ... er, Odraude!

 

That said, I don't really know how optimized for combat your group's PCs are.

 

To me, this is the big point. It doesn't matter so much what your villains are like, as what your PC heroes are like. Could you perhaps post their builds? That would help us out, so we can figure out what happened.

 

Anyway, pull up a chair, sit down, enjoy your stay here on the Hero Boards.

[incrdbil]

Re: Beefing up Villians

 

Yes--without seeing them characters off hand, its ahrd to say. Rule of thumb: grousp beat smaller groups, and it takes a lot more points than you think to offset numbers--especially as PC built heroes tend to be more combat effective than most fleshed out villains.

 

Still, some things come to mind: if the villains dropped that quick, examine why.

 

were they all stunned by first attacks? Higher defenses or COn is suggested.

 

Was the damage getting through just overwhelming, or well concentrated? Consider givign villains some damage reduction.

 

Were villains falling to the killing attack stun lottery? Assign a fixed stun multiple, and forbid, limit, or increase the cost of extra stun multiples.

 

Next time, bring some fodderfor the villains--but well armed ehough the heroes have to split attention. make sure the villaisn take advantage of the good guys nature.For example, a villain picks up a car filled with innocents, and tosses it into a nearby lake--at least hero is going to have to spend some time rescuing the innocents, leaving the villains free to take on their remaining teammates.

[Spence]

Re: Beefing up Villians

 

In addition to the comments already put forth.

 

If you are wanting to beef up the Villains combat abilities, don't look at total build points. Look at their combat oriented Active Points. Most PC's are lovingly crafted and their performance tends to be above what you would expect just looking at the straight points.

 

Options to increase the villains effectiveness without falling back of brute point stacking can include targeting PC disadvantages. Make the villains fill the perfect opponent slot.

[incrdbil]

Re: Beefing up Villians

 

In addition to the comments already put forth.

 

 

Options to increase the villains effectiveness without falling back of brute point stacking can include targeting PC disadvantages. Make the villains fill the perfect opponent slot.

 

Agreed--if your PC's have any vulnerabilities, especially if its somethign obvious, the PC has a reputation, or the villains are very knowledgeable, then the villains should exploit that. If they are focus users, disable them? Have robot minions attack the mentalist who has powers that only affect human minds, that sort of thing.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Beefing up Villians

 

The heroes will quickly learn to exploit synergies. Build villains who have synergies. Maybe one has Darkness vs sight and hearing, while another has Targetting Smell. Perhaps one has a very powerful, low OCV attack. Another has a Flash, Entangle ,Extra Knockback or other low/no damage attack that reduces the target's OCV.

 

Make the villains work together and they become far more effective - just like the heroes.

[Alverant]

Re: Beefing up Villians

 

Fight smarter not harder. A well organized team of Viper agents can beat a team of superheroes without resorting to cowardly tactics like hiding in a crowd and holding hostages.

 

Have them stagger their phases by holding actions. Then have the team work together. In your example Biohazard entangles a hero, Strong Guy does haymaker, while the other two keep the rest of the heroes busy (AE attacks, entangle walls, etc). If they have the same speed by staggering phases they can attack more frequently to force the heroes on the defensive. Even delaying the heroes an extra phase can make a difference.

[Odraude]

Re: Beefing up Villians

 

Thanks everyone for the ideas. I'll definately do all this!

 

Welcome Valkyrie ... er' date=' Odraude![/quote']

 

Huh?

[LoresLost]

Re: Beefing up Villians

 

Welcome Valkyrie ... er, Odraude!

 

 

Huh?

 

I believe gojira has played one too many games of Guantlet (Atari) somewhere along the line

 

Lost in Code today

[Kirby]

Re: Beefing up Villians

 

PCs gain XP and in most games, NPCs do as well. I would give each member of the criminal team (unless it goes against their character) 3pt Teamwork for starters and one skill level. Skill levels can really make a difference.

[Silbeg]

Re: Beefing up Villians

 

I have to agree with much of what has been said here.

 

Give the villains mooks, to distract the heroes. Try to keep the numbers of villains about the same as the heroes, as 3 characters totalling 1400 points does not compare to 4 characters with the same point totals (especially if the heroes are coordinating attacks, etc).

 

Use smart tactics with the villains... if the heroes can do it, so can the villains.

 

What else? From personal experience in my game, I pretty much cannot use "book villains" as written. They tend to be built with lower defenses and often CVs than the PCs, even those built on 500+ points (this is less the case with the characters in CU:NOTW). The design philosophy on them stresses higher attack to defense ratios than my game typically has. So, beef up defenses! In some cases, you may need to beef up OCVs as well, and watch the balance on the attacks.

 

If you have a lot of heroes with high defenses, or high OCVs, then you may need to go an additional route. For high DEF targets, exotic attacks (NNDs, Ego Attacks, etc), and for high OCV, 1-Hex AE is always "nice".

 

Other than that, always remember that your goal should not be to defeat the heroes (at least not in every fight), but to give them a strong challenge.

 

Other things that help in the fights will be thinking ahead of time where environment can be a help to the villains. Are there large heavy things for bricks to throw (to get AE attacks)? Are there innocents around that villains can grab as hostages? What about gas mains they could blow up, or cars?

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: Beefing up Villians

 

Another thought is for the villains to recruit, or even temporarily hire, someone that would work very well against the heroes by taking advantage of a hole in the heroes' MO.

 

For example, in my game none of the PCs have Area Effect damage attacks, and only one can affect desolidified targets. So one master villain recruited Pestilence, a shrinker who can summon swarms of stinging/biting insects to harass the heroes.

 

Are the heroes mostly ground-bound? Pick a fight in an open-air area, and hire some thugs to attack from rooftops with No Range Mod sniper rifles.

 

Are the heroes weak in enhanced senses? Hire someone with Invisibility to ambush them in combat.

 

Is one hero the damage sponge? Ignore him and concentrate on taking out his softer teammates first.

 

Villains can have key info on the heroes (vulnerabilities, susceptabilities), even if was never displayed in combat against that particular villain. I introduced an organization (CrimeNet) into my game that collects and disseminates info on individual heroes and hero groups, for a small fee. They start hero fan clubs and internet chat rooms and discussion boards dedicated to the heroes, giving them a lot of unwitting help in collecting this information. This made a fun plotline for the heroes to follow up on, after they discovered different groups of enemies all possessing similar printouts on their powers and tactics.