Feedback & A new "What would your charater do?"

[Mr. Ooze]

I need some feedback on a new villan I'm unleashing on my unsuspecting heros. Supervillian teams bore them, Viper is a drag, Even our favorite Meglomanical Arch Superfiend is old hat.

 

What I'm trying to do is make them afraid for their characters, really afraid. They've accumulated enough experince to be relativly unafraid of any regular stand-up superfight. I want to put the fear of death into them.

 

Now, I haven't got all the particulars hammered out, but she's basicly a female shooter with minor gadget based powers, and characteristics at the high end of normal, with one really horrific sniper rifle...

 

"Terminus Est" Rifle: 4d6 RKA, Armor Piercing x2 (+1), x5 Maximum Range (+1/4), No Range Modifier (+1/2), OAF Rifle (-1), 4 Charges, (-1)

 

With this monstrosity, she can really "reach out and touch someone."

 

She will also have appropriate powers to help her get away after the fact. In combination, this will make her one truely nasty hunted for the group.

 

Now, I need a name for her, and some feeback on how people and their characters might respond. So, let's turn this into another "What would your character do?" Situation. The world this game takes place in as a mostly realistic modern near-future world.

 

It's a nice sunny afternoon, your local supergroup is at the dedication ceremony to new the Library. Suddeny, a shot rings out, and one of your allies who was standing near the mayor drops to the ground. Chaos erups as the panicing normals scatter screaming.... You look up, and see the bright red dot of a laser sight on the Mayor's head...

 

Edited for spelling and clarity

[Bartman]

Re: Feedback & A new "What would your charater do?"

 

Originally posted by Mr. Ooze

It's a nice sunny afternoon, your local supergroup is at the dedication ceremony to new the Library. Suddeny, a shot rings out, and one of your allies who was standing near the mayor drops to the ground. Chaos erups as the panicing normals scatter screaming.... You look up, and see the bright red dot of a laser sight on the Mayor's head...[/b]

Rune jumps in front of the mayor no questions asked. Of course even a 4d6 RKA, x2 AP won't do any body and is highly unlikely to stun Rune, so this is a bit less heroic then it might otherwise appear. He would then wait for his teammates to find and eliminate the threat.

[Mr. Ooze]

Your character has 24 resistant double hardened pd?

 

Yeesh.

[Chuckg]

One of the most horrific things I ever went up against in a Champions game was...

 

2d6 AP RKA, No Range Penalty (+1/2), Indirect (comes from same location) (+1/4)

 

linked to

 

Telescopic N-Ray Vision (not through force fields or lead)

 

(edit -- to use the NRP and the N-Ray you had to peer through the scope, which was a half-Phase action... i.e., it was a full-Phase action to shoot this bastard.)

 

A man portable railgun rifle that shoots effortlessly through anything short of hardened defenses or Questonite (we made it a -0 limitation that the DU railgun slug couldn't go through anything that it's max damage couldn't penetrate), linked to a comic-book tech "X-ray vision" targeting scope. Do you have any idea of how frightening it is to try and fight somebody who's doing the Golgo-13 and shooting you *THROUGH* the building?

 

OTOH, unlike Terminus Est, you actually have a chance to survive being hit with this thing (especially if you have Combat Luck), and if you use your brain properly and the DM is kind enough to provide opportunities, you might even get away.

 

(And yes, it was based upon the railgun from "Eraser")

[The Watcher]

Warp: Use his Interceptor Gate to missile deflect all of her incoming shots while the rest of the team goes after her or returns fire. And with one of his fellow Sentinels being an incredibly powerful mentalist and the other having a Cosmic Power Pool with the LOS advantage, the sniper will get pegged back.

 

Spectrum: Vaporizes incoming bullet with a laser beam and then does a Penetrating, No Range Modifier, x5 Maximum Range Flash back at her, and then blasts her repeatedly with an NND (Defense: Safe Environment - High Radiation).

 

Mystic: Magically creates a Force Wall to protect all the innocents. Heal or ressurect person who was shot. Then scry for sniper and then ego blast her into unconsciousness.

 

Proteus: Immediately grow scales (Hardened Armor with the Visible Limitation) and deflect the bullet with my body (Missile Deflect for adjacent hexes. Special effect is heavily armored body getting in the way). Proceed to keep intercepting shots this way while team mates rush to neutralize sniper.

[Bartman]

Originally posted by Mr. Ooze

Your character has 24 resistant double hardened pd?

 

Yeesh.

 

Nope, 35pts resistant pd. It halves to 18, which is more than the 15 body of the attack. And even then he also has regeneration so he doesn't worry about taking body. And he has enough Stun and Con that he can take anything but a x5 stun multiplier without being stunned. Now he couldn't do it indefinitely. In fact he probably couldn't take a third shot. I realize this is higher than many campaigns but he isn't at all unreasonable in the current campaign. Heck I've seen a teammate take three 20dc attacks without going down. I don't know what his exact stats are but I figure he has to have defenses in the 40s and 100+ stun.

 

Therefore my statement that it wouldn't particularly heroic for this character to do so.

 

However even if the attack was an 8d6 RKA x2AP linked to a 10d6 transform living character to dead character, he would happily take the fall for an innocent. I as a player would be a bit sad. But there is no better way to 'retire' a character than by saving an innocent.

[Mr. Ooze]

What would be the best way for a group to find her, seeing that she can nail you from about 7 klicks away?

 

Given that I'll end up giving her some movement powers. She might be long gone by the time you get to where you think she is.

 

The reason I'm asking is that I need to anticipate the various things my players might do.

[Speedball]

A question: just how far away from the target is she when she's shooting? I don't have my books in front of me, so I don't know what those advantages give her in terms of range. Because, if it's as far as I think, the mayor would go down BEFORE anyone hears the shot--the bullet moves a lot faster than the sound does. By the time most characters would sense the attack coming, the mayor would be pulp. If she's good, she could get off a couple of shots. If you really wanted to mess with the group, you could make it Autofire, too...

[Mr. Ooze]

3750", I think. You have a point about the sound though. From that far there would be significant lag between the bullet and the sound.

[lemming]

Calico: Dive on the mayor and get him under cover. She's not worried about getting hit herself, but she wouldn't slow down the bullet much. (Tough to kill, not so hard to bleed)

Afterwards, would hunt this person down.

Scales Step in front of the mayor telling everyone to get down. No worried about getting hit in the slightest. Would then be casting a locator spell on sniper.

Mr. Impervious Another shield

Triad If Triad was on stage, the sniper would probably pick another day for target practice. Triad is an energy being capable of warping space and would be directly in front of the sniper next phase.

Spectrum Push FF and dive on mayor. Get Rodin to cover for her since he's better at taking shots. Would then take out sniper with mental powers, but would probably be taken out by any other shots herself.

[Bartman]

Originally posted by Mr. Ooze

What would be the best way for a group to find her, seeing that she can nail you from about 7 klicks away?

 

This is so character dependant I'm not sure how to even begin to answer that. That said here are a few options.

 

Mentalists: Mindscan + attack. And if a mentalist gets a good lock on the character it doesn't matter how fast she runs, she can never escape him.

 

Blasters: A good number of PCs are going to have options which allow them to return fire, even if not quite as powerfully. And if they don't now, expect at least one of them to want to add a slot to their multipower after a couple of encounters.

 

Speedsters: She better be real fast, because some of these guys can cover 7kms a phase once they get going.

 

Detectives: She also better not have left any evidence (shell casings etc) or she will be getting a visit from someone at a time and place not of her choosing.

[Blue]

It's a nice sunny afternoon, your local supergroup is at the dedication ceremony to new the Library. Suddeny, a shot rings out, and one of your allies who was standing near the mayor drops to the ground. Chaos erups as the panicing normals scatter screaming.... You look up, and see the bright red dot of a laser sight on the Mayor's head...

 

Anthem judges the distance and decides if its possible to take down the foe. (Her range is limited.) Presuming he's high on a rooftop, she would focus on the mayor. If he's more than 7" away she's unlikely to get in the way of the shot (which she would gladly do typically), then she'll take the mayor down herself. She'd take a throwing star, target a place on the mayor where he's unlikely to be killed, such as the leg, and take him down just as the shot rings out, so that the shot misses.

 

Uncle Slam would use his flight to dissect the path of any future shots and he'd bear the brunt of any shots in superman-like fashion.

[Chuckg]

Starguard -- grab the Mayor and extend her 20 PD/20 ED "Protects Carried" Force Field around him.

[Vondy]

Physical fear is the weakest kind, and the least lasting.

 

I recommend hitting it where it hurts, this can be done in numerous ways:

 

1. a villian whose plans threaten them personally (developers are using government contacts to have the property where their base is declared public domain by the government, but its a front for the villians nefarious plans; the member who finances it all finds his fortune under threat, or his corporation being raided).

 

2. a villian who doesn't confront them in combat (at first), but makes it clear their Secret IDs, DNPCs, or various interests are on the line (and not just physically - perhaps the villians contacts can get wives and girlfriends fired - etc).

 

3. a villian who literally has their number and taunts them on the phone at night (and how did he figure out who I am, and what will he do about it?), or starts killing people they know in tertiary ways ("you thwarted my plans hero - now all you know shall suffer for your meddling!").

 

4. a villian who has done enough research to know their vulnerabilities and weaknesses, developes the weapons, and trains the men, to put them out of commission and into a big deathtrap (teamwork, coordinated attacks, the use of cover, ambush, and specialized weapons). They will be afraid (though, of course, that is a physical fear).

 

5. isolate them. as a team they can face anything, but what if they are alone.

 

If you just try to do it with bigger attacks the players will enter an arms race with you. If you say no after hitting them with something big they'll whine about it.

[Chuckg]

> 2. a villian who doesn't confront them in combat (at first),

> but makes it clear their Secret IDs, DNPCs, or various

> interests are on the line (and not just physically - perhaps

> the villians contacts can get wives and girlfriends fired -

> etc).

 

In yesterday's session, our DM did precisely that to our team's martial artist -- rather than have Green Dragon (somebody who Streethawk, our team MA, can fold up like an accordion) merely challenge him in the street and get pounded, the DM had Deng sneak into his apartment, leave nasty notes in the refrigerator, and scare the living whey out of Streethawk's fiancee.

 

Right now, Streethawk -- on temporarly leave of absence from the Millennium City PD -- is busy obsessively tearing MC's Chinatown apart on his off time in civilian clothes, and had to be forcibly restrained from issuing an open challenge to Green Dragon on citywide television.

 

So yes, it does get the dramatic tension up *quite* a bit.

 

It also gets the supervillain mangled, because when Streethawk finally catches Green Dragon, odds are about even that his Enraged is gonna go off.

[Zed-F]

Warg - Hmm, not much he can do about this particular threat, but he probably wouldn't be there in public anyway, he'd have the crowd gasping in revulsion at the odor.

 

Glaive - get in front of the mayor and missle deflect with her spear.

 

Dynamode - depends what form she's in, but the most likely response is to get in front of the mayor and deflect the bullet if no-one else is taking that job. Once the culprit seems to be on the move, will transform to Jetform, activate her telescopic vision to spot her target, either returning fire with her own No Range Penalty attacks if appropriate, or if the target's in cover, megascale flight to a better vantage point.

[phydaux]

Dude, you've got it ALL wrong.

 

In my campaign, all the PCs are supervillans. As a result, and despite all my STRENOUS warnings, there has been A LOT of collateral damage, and recently a few NPC deaths.

 

So a few sessions ago, I sprung this on them:

 

GM "While you're waiting for the team Hoverjet to decend and pick you up, you see a group of UNTIL Shock Troops in Turtle Armor coming your way."

 

PLAYER "Again? These guys just won't quit."

 

GM "They are firing on the move from an ambush position. They level their guns in your direction. There are three of them. All three aim at The Horror. (For The Horror, think Bat Man with a Code vs. Mercy. It was The Horror who killed the NPC civilians in front of a news crew.)

 

GM "The first UNTIL guy in Turtle Armor fires and hits. It's a 1D6 Autofire RKA. All 10 shots hit"

 

PLAYER "A 1D6 RKA? There's no way that can penitrate my Resistant PD. All the shots bounce off"

 

GM "Yes, except it's a Penatrating 1D6 Autofire RKA. You're character takes zero stun and TEN BODY! The SECOND UNTIL guy in Turtle Armor fires and hits..."

 

The other PCs thrashed the UNTIL goons, but by the time the fight was over The Horror was at -12 Body. Tough shape for a character with only 15 Body to start.

 

They finally "got it" that while the city folk didn't so much mind the stealing, rampaging and general destruction, casual killing was right out!

[Mayday]

Have to agree with D-Man. The opponents I remember arent powers they are about mood and panache and I like the Green Dragon refrigerator thing ChuckG posted. Good one!

 

Have you tried going for some serious mind games with your crew? The scariest villain we ever faced we dont even know what it looks like or what its powers were other than some kind of RKA and alot of movement (or phases to move in).

 

Our team leader investigates a farm (at night) and finds everything slaughtered and partially snacked on. We see rolls. We see the GM smiling at nothing. He tells us about the old farm. The breeze thats blowing. Loose objects bang against each other now and then, or a tree branch hits the side of the house. She moves from building to building. He rolls some more and smiles. More sound effects or lack of, because its soooooo quiet.... She tries another building. More rolls. More smiles.

 

By the time the thing finally makes an attack roll we are all wondering WTH is this thing and a bit spooked, especially when it cleans her clock without her ever seeing it. We go in to save her and end up fleeing for our lives through a CORNFIELD at NIGHT with the moon covered by clouds and this THING chasing us. It was faster than us and whatever it was, it was a real eye opener session.

 

Another game, we ended up in a van being chased by guys in a convertible with machine guns down the Interstate. One guy did nothing but Combat Driving rolls, the rest of us threw stuff and had a great time, until our driver lets out a scream of terror at 100mph, as he smashes through a construction barrier, past the sign (PER Check thankfully made) saying that just ahead half the overpass was still under construction, as in it didnt exist. And we were racing right for it. The GM stopped the game with the bus about to launch itself into midair on the next phase. To Be Continued.

 

I ran a fight in a small plane once too, the villain was planning to be suave and talk to the captive hero, but the hero got free and decided 30,000 feet was a fine time to start a fight. His unluck went off and he killed the pilot. They did eventually call a truce and level the plane out in time (barely) but the second that plane touched down he started the fight all over again.

 

Later on he ran a solo game for a friend of ours, in which nuclear suitcase bombs were being thrown around like a jugglers act. Luckily noone dropped them.