How powerful are your Supervillain's Thugs?

[Cassandra]

How many points are they built on?

 

Do they carry conventional or superpowerful weapons?

 

What kind of defenses to they have?

 

What kind of skills do they have?

[SKJAM!]

Generally, they're scaled to the villain.  Someone like Bulldozer is lucky to score some Competent Normal thugs armed with cheap guns or maybe just knives and clubs.  Your low-level mastermind type will have Skilled Normals with decent weapons and maybe some armor, often a level in Teamwork.  After that we start getting into agent-level thugs and maybe serious martial artists.  The higher level masterminds can offer powered armor and serious weapons, but usually insists on a better level of minion.  By the time you get to Dr. Destroyer, his ordinary mooks are built on more points than starting player characters.

[Enforcer84]

similar sliding scale

The more powerful the organization that sponsors them the better skilled and equipped they are.

[Trencher]

I usually make the thugs as weak as to be taken out of action by one hero attack or two. 

One important thing is to keep things realistic is to use ego roll rules to see if the thugs stop fighting and goes into shock if they are injured. It is also possible to decide that the thugs automatically fail their ego roll if faced with superhero resistance. 

I have a lot of re usable npc characters but for simplicity sake I will cover the three main types of thugs.

 

Punk: These guys are young, weak and stupid. They are pretty fast though and their inexperience can actually make them more dangerous since they don't really understand or care about the risks they are taking. Even though they are pretty stupid and want to prove their courage they can easily panic making them a bit more unpredictable in behavior than regular thugs.

 

Thug: These guys are more seasoned and older. Their criminal life have made them a lot tougher than they were when they were punks and they are a lot more intimidating. They are smarter as well using dive for cover maneuver or martial arts even. However they are most often not stupid and will not fight to their last stun point before running away or quitting.

 

Soldier: These guys are defined by their training and more advanced tactics. They usually have a plan which they have trained for and use hold actions to cover each others backs and stuff like that. The level of danger is highly variable on super villains soldiers mostly dependent on how efficient their equipment is and how well they are trained. Still their physical power in well within human parameters. They are not powerlifters or olympic level acrobats. Its their weapons and tactics that makes them dangerous.

 

In short I try to make them as weak as possible within the story. If the villain have use his resources to augment his thugs any further I treat the thugs as "weak" supervillians and make it clear that they are well above regular humanity in power. The thugs are there to show the players that their characters are bad ass and strong as hell.

[BlueCloud2k2]

1. How many points are they built on?

 

2. Do they carry conventional or superpowerful weapons?

 

3. What kind of defenses to they have?

 

4. What kind of skills do they have?

 

1. Depends. Organizational (VIPER, DEMON, etc) have Competent Normals. Crime Sydencates get Normals. Street Gangs get Normals with Incompetent Normals.

 

2. Organizational-level thugs yes, everyone else depends upon the story.

 

3. Typically no more than 5/5 Armor with an 11- Activation Roll

 

4. Depends. Street Thugs and Mafioso usually only have Streetwise and Area Knowledge, along with Weapon Familiarities. Everyone else has a suite of skills depending upon their role (Assault, Heavy-Weapons, Snipers, Support).

[Balabanto]

Most of my agents in a 400 point champions game are between 175-225 points. Anything below that is really not an agent, it's a talented normal with delusions of grandeur.

 

Generally, the difference between an agent and a talented normal is a measure of training and equipment. SPIDER Destruction Agents are 175 points. They're basic agents. Mole Cyborgs (Why people made this selection I have no idea) are 225, and SPIDER Power Agents are 355, a really tough agent in a powered armor suit.

[Kraven Kor]

Depends on my HEROes.

 

Generally speaking, I try for goons or mooks who have high enough defenses and/or DCV to at least not auto-KO from the brick or the biggest attack, but to where they shouldn't stand up to a good roll.  Thus, PD/ED = Standard Effect of max Attack; 10d6 attacks = 35 max PD/ED for a mook, usually a bit less.  If the average OCV is 5, average mook DCV is 5 or less.

 

As I don't care about supporting skills for mooks, my mooks usually come in at about 1/3 the total points of an actual character or villain.

[Hermit]

Like others, I scale in ways that make sense (Or at least sense to me). Every once in awhile, I give them banter though and just enough KS superhero to realize who stormed in on them (Sorry, but if MY job meant I might end up drawing a gun on spandex clad guys, you can bet I'd want  to know which ones had a rep for being bullet proof)

 

But I've had Viper agents compain about their wives given them hell for long hours at work, and henchmen talking about how they're not sure they can keep working for the master mind, not because he's threatening the city, but because the guy is a Cowboys fan!

 

One of my favorite examples of personality injected in the low level bad guy fodder?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rL1xqqmLR1M

[DusterBoy]

I regard any world-class bad guys as being able to hire top-end former miltary guys: ex-SEALs, Marines, KGB Alpha Teamers, SAS, etc, as well as regular soldiery. His bodyguards would certainly be supersoldier types. And they would definitely all have KS: Superhuman World on an INT roll, as would his regular agent types, the guys who did the gumshoe work for him. And they wouldn't be mooks either, but smart, tough, capable professionals, on the level of undercover police or MI5 types.

 

The idea is that the PCs have to work at defeating these guys, they can't simply one shot them. Or not more than once, anyway.

[Christougher]

Depends on my HEROes.

 

Generally speaking, I try for goons or mooks who have high enough defenses and/or DCV to at least not auto-KO from the brick or the biggest attack, but to where they shouldn't stand up to a good roll.  Thus, PD/ED = Standard Effect of max Attack; 10d6 attacks = 35 max PD/ED for a mook, usually a bit less.  If the average OCV is 5, average mook DCV is 5 or less.

 

As I don't care about supporting skills for mooks, my mooks usually come in at about 1/3 the total points of an actual character or villain.

 

Wait a minute.  Your mooks have enough defense to ignore a game cap attack?  Count me out.

 

Chris. 

[Kraven Kor]

Wait a minute.  Your mooks have enough defense to ignore a game cap attack?  Count me out.

 

Chris. 

 

No, they have enough defense to not be one-hit KO'd from the "standard effect" of a game cap attack.  10d6 standard effect is 35 STUN.  So, at most mooks will have 35 PD.  Usually less.  Depends on the nature of the mook.  Roll above standard effect, likely to be a one-hit KO.

 

Rarely, if ever, do mooks in my campaign last more than a turn. 

[esampson]

Like other people have said, I typically tend to scale my thugs based on a lot of variables (what the group is, how powerful the heroes are, etc.)

 

To help me with this I created a concept years ago called 'Cartel'. Cartel actually fills several different roles in my campaigns including providing thugs, explaining where some people get gear that makes them more powerful, explaining why a villains powers suddenly change, and busting villains out of jail now and again. They're basically a mercenary/arms dealer group with weapons that tend to be more grounded in 'realism', though this varies with the campaign setting.

 

Historically this has given me an awful lot of flexibility. Villains might just use random street thugs to back them up for things where the villain doesn't have much money or the goal is a minor goal. VIllains a bit better off can have their thugs go through a Cartel 'boot camp' that raises stats slightly and gives them a level or two. For things even more serious the villains can start arming their thugs with equipment purchased from Cartel (usually advanced combat rifles and body armor) and for things that are really important the villains might contract out actually Cartel fire teams (Cartel also has super powered agents but their use tends to be more specialized).

 

Fire teams tend to be tough. They have the same general stats as Viper agents but their equipment tends to be a bit better (their advanced combat rifles come with grenade launchers and they have a variety of grenades to chose from including concussion, flash, shaped charges, very powerful 'shotgun' like blasts, smoke, etc.).

 

More important than their point totals, however, is that Cabal agents tend to 'fight smart'. They will usually be spread out to avoid bunching everyone up for area effects. They use cover to their advantage to improve their DCVs, they will set and brace given half the chance (and their rifles often have scopes), and they have a smattering of Martial Arts which they are happy to make use of (Martial Block, Martial Strike, etc.) along with a point allowing them to use the maneuvers with 'clubs' (really their rifles). A Cartel agent who is attacked won't hesitate to dodge or use a Martial Block if they are able to, which tends to tie down the hero while all of the agent's buddies take shots at them.

[kahuna's bro]

I like esampson's cartel and I tend to agree with SJAM regarding scaling the villains to the heroes

[McManus]

In many ways this can be a campaign tone setting issue.  How powerful do you want the PCs to feel? If they are to be JLA/Avenger level heroes then they should be able to easily one-shot individual and even groups of thugs. If you want a more street-level tone, then street thugs need to be at least some danger/challenge to the heroes.

 

I usually want the heroes to feel powerful so I make my thugs more of a speed bump/tripwire than a real combat.

 

Agents/Soldiers are likely to do more damage and have better tactics, but I don’t see them as being all that much harder to put down. Minor villains have both more offence and more defense, but are still more of a quantity rather than quality issue.  Peer villains and above are the real challenges in combat.

 

Normals can still be greatly challenging out of combat.

 

Just the way I usually play.

[megaplayboy]

I think one way to think of it is as a kind of quasi-military organizational structure:

"mooks" or henchmen/agents/proxies/hired help/etc. would be divided hierarchically into foot soldiers, squad leaders, lieutenants, captains and perhaps even generals.  A low level street villain might in effect be the squad leader and simply have a dozen or two foot soldiers with him.  Those would probably be thugs, on par or even a little less capable than a typical police officer in combat ability.  At the other end, a galactic conqueror, epic master villain or the like might have 2-4 powerful generals directly reporting to him, each capable of standing off against a whole superhero team.  Those generals might have 2- 4 captains each, each more powerful than the average hero.  The captains in turn might have 2-4 lieutenants reporting to them, each roughly on par with a hero. The lieutenants might supervise whole platoons or companies of agents, with several squad leaders reporting to them.  The squad leaders would be less powerful than a superhero but more capable than the average super agent.  Finally, the foot soldiers of an epic villain might well be on par with or even superior to elite special forces units or quasi-superhuman troops(e.g. powered armor units). 

[phoenix240]

As a gm do you charge villains points for thugs or just give them as a scenario demands?

[Vondy]

I usually make the thugs as weak as to be taken out of action by one hero attack or two. .

 

Physical Limitation: One Shot Mook.

[Greywind]

As a gm do you charge villains points for thugs or just give them as a scenario demands?

 

It depends on the villain. Some get away with just hiring. Downside to that is that there isn't really any loyalty to the villain beyond their share of the job if it's a heist.

 

Villains that have an organizational base pay for their minions, which gives them more loyalty in return.

[Kraven Kor]

It depends on the villain. Some get away with just hiring. Downside to that is that there isn't really any loyalty to the villain beyond their share of the job if it's a heist.

 

Villains that have an organizational base pay for their minions, which gives them more loyalty in return.

 

Not Mentok the Mind-Taker, though:

 

Mind Control 15d6, Area Of Effect (4m Radius; +1/4), Telepathic (+1/4), Cumulative (+1/2), MegaScale (1m = 10,000 km; +2) (300 Active Points)

 

[kahuna's bro]

mento? the birdman villain?

[Kraven Kor]

mento? the birdman villain?