Should Villains Be More Powerful Than Heroes?

[Ninja-Bear]

28 minutes ago, PamelaIsley said:

 

VIPER agents in CU are 5 OCV +2 with their blasters. UNTIL are similar, but just have +1 in skills.

Yeah -I always thought the rank and file VIPER agents were too powerful. If we’re reducing Villains to be in Benchmarks, then so should agents, imo. ?

[Ninja-Bear]

Ps-I’m basing this off the generic agents found in Champions genre book.

[Dr. MID-Nite]

Honestly, I've never had much of an issue with any of the published villains as I just adjust them to fit my campaign. OCV to high....lower it. Damage too high...reduce it. Easy peasy. Someone brought up certain villains being way overpowered....like Gravitar. Well....many CU villains are homages to published Marvel/DC characters....in this case....Marvel's Graviton. In his first appearance, he suspends a HUGE chunk or real estate in the air while SIMULTANEUOSLY pinning most of the Avengers to a slab of rock(including the Vision...so Affects Desolid), fighting...and getting the better of...Thor, and protecting himself with a nigh impenetrable Gravitic force field. This is after he previously defeated The Avengers...sans Thor...with ridiculous ease. Gravitar fits right into that displayed power level. That said...she's as easily adjustable as any of the other published characters. I adapt them as necessary to make for interesting game sessions.

 

To answer the original question....It depends on the type of scenario I'm running and what kind of story I'm intending to tell. Sometimes they need to be more powerful....other times not so much. Again...adaptability is your friend. The important thing is does this bad guy add to the story you're trying to tell and is everyone having fun. If the answer is yes, you're fine.

[PamelaIsley]

11 hours ago, Dr. MID-Nite said:

To answer the original question....It depends on the type of scenario I'm running and what kind of story I'm intending to tell. Sometimes they need to be more powerful....other times not so much. Again...adaptability is your friend. The important thing is does this bad guy add to the story you're trying to tell and is everyone having fun. If the answer is yes, you're fine.

 

I want to thank everyone for their posts.

 

My original thoughts were more related to overall world demographics -- kind of a universe building question.  The CU's published villains are all really powerful (and lots of them have gotten more powerful through editions; I just discovered Anubis received an enormous jump from 5E to 6E).  It calls into question some of the assumptions presented in the 6E Champions book and the 6E Champions Universe book (talking about the ratio of heroes to villains, and the over all power levels of characters).

 

I did understand from the start that you could adjust these characters as needed.  It would be tedious work if you didn't enter them in Hero Designer, but it can be done.  I just think that there isn't a good representation of average villains in the published materials.  Or the "average" villain according to published materials is too powerful to fit with the demographic information that we've been given.

 

We would need another thread, I think, to discuss opinions on the Master Villains' stat blocks. 

[Ninja-Bear]

Pamelaisley have you looked at Thunderbolt II? He’s a reall simple build Speedster! Good thing I was sitting down when I read him! I almost fainted! ?

[PamelaIsley]

13 minutes ago, Ninja-Bear said:

Pamelaisley have you looked at Thunderbolt II? He’s a reall simple build Speedster! Good thing I was sitting down when I read him! I almost fainted! ?

 

Yes, his OCV is very high (12).  I guess you can forgive the STR and Resistant Protection since he's described as a Brick / Speedester.

[Ninja-Bear]

I didn’t check his OCV but his power write up for a Speedster is nrefreshingly plain.

[Cassandra]

Last nights Flash had a new Cicada show up who managed to take down the entire team.  Would that character be build on more points then each of the team members?  Not necessarily.  A Villain can put all their points into attacks, OCV, and SPD.   Furthermore most Villains can have a IAF as the source of their powers while the Heroes pay for there powers with few limitations if any.

[massey]

18 minutes ago, Cassandra said:

Last nights Flash had a new Cicada show up who managed to take down the entire team.  Would that character be build on more points then each of the team members?  Not necessarily.  A Villain can put all their points into attacks, OCV, and SPD.   Furthermore most Villains can have a IAF as the source of their powers while the Heroes pay for there powers with few limitations if any.

 

Sounds like he's burning through his Hero Points to me.

 

To explain: the old Mayfair DC Heroes game had something called "Hero Points".  In Champions terms, Hero Points allowed you to boost your attack power, OCV, DCV, or Defenses up to double their normal amount.  You could do a few other things with them as well, such as reducing damage, but boosting your stats was what people normally did with them.  Once you spent Hero Points, they were gone.  Instead of gaining XP, you gained Hero Points.  Get enough of them and you could permanently increase your powers.  Hero Points generally represent how important a character is, and how likely the whims of fate are to tilt in his direction (if anyone can survive that "one in a million" fall out of an airplane, it's Batman).  Certain characters are consistently lucky, almost like they had loaded dice.  So the general thinking among DC Heroes players is that when a villain makes an impressive first appearance, and then later they start sucking, is that they probably blew through all of their Hero Points in that first go, and then never got enough back to be a credible threat again.

 

So imagine if somebody like Pulsar could blow through his reserve in his first appearance, chucking 24D6 Energy Blasts at an 18 OCV, and could shrug off damage like it was nothing.  Of course, he can only do that once, because ultimately the heroes defeat him anyway, and then he never gets enough XP to offset everything he just spent.

 

It's a simulationist explanation for a common trope, that the villain is badass awesome at the beginning and then becomes less powerful as time goes on.  It's also a really long way of saying that you can't judge the villain on his first appearance.  Presumably we aren't spending every waking moment with our characters.  There are probably times when a new villain shows up to challenge the Flash and Flash beats him in a tenth of a second.  Those battles aren't worth paying attention to.  So we really only see the fights where the villain presents a credible threat, because they're either very powerful, or they got the drop on the hero, or they just got lucky.  And a "first appearance" power bonus could simulate that fairly well.

[Cassandra]

3 minutes ago, massey said:

 

Sounds like he's burning through his Hero Points to me.

 

To explain: the old Mayfair DC Heroes game had something called "Hero Points".  In Champions terms, Hero Points allowed you to boost your attack power, OCV, DCV, or Defenses up to double their normal amount.  You could do a few other things with them as well, such as reducing damage, but boosting your stats was what people normally did with them.  Once you spent Hero Points, they were gone.  Instead of gaining XP, you gained Hero Points.  Get enough of them and you could permanently increase your powers.  Hero Points generally represent how important a character is, and how likely the whims of fate are to tilt in his direction (if anyone can survive that "one in a million" fall out of an airplane, it's Batman).  Certain characters are consistently lucky, almost like they had loaded dice.  So the general thinking among DC Heroes players is that when a villain makes an impressive first appearance, and then later they start sucking, is that they probably blew through all of their Hero Points in that first go, and then never got enough back to be a credible threat again.

 

So imagine if somebody like Pulsar could blow through his reserve in his first appearance, chucking 24D6 Energy Blasts at an 18 OCV, and could shrug off damage like it was nothing.  Of course, he can only do that once, because ultimately the heroes defeat him anyway, and then he never gets enough XP to offset everything he just spent.

 

It's a simulationist explanation for a common trope, that the villain is badass awesome at the beginning and then becomes less powerful as time goes on.  It's also a really long way of saying that you can't judge the villain on his first appearance.  Presumably we aren't spending every waking moment with our characters.  There are probably times when a new villain shows up to challenge the Flash and Flash beats him in a tenth of a second.  Those battles aren't worth paying attention to.  So we really only see the fights where the villain presents a credible threat, because they're either very powerful, or they got the drop on the hero, or they just got lucky.  And a "first appearance" power bonus could simulate that fairly well.

 

Plus heroes spent their points on communicators and bases while villains buy Followers and increase their attacks.

[massey]

1 minute ago, Cassandra said:

 

Plus heroes spent their points on communicators and bases while villains buy Followers and increase their attacks.

 

Well, I thnk the Hero Point explanation is really a justification for giving villains a boost in their first appearance.

 

Let's say you've got Captain Blastarr.  He's a fairly generic energy projector in early 90s Image armor.  And he first appears on the cover of Champions #287.  He's not an amazing character, but he's got to look cool in his first issue.  So he's standing there like a cheapo Dr Destroyer, with the entire team on the ground unconscious.  He's got his hand pointed at Defender's body, with a glowing aura surrounding him.  The cover says "AT THE MERCY... OF CAPTAIN BLASTARR!!!"

 

He looks pretty tough there, and if you read the issue you see that he slaps around the team pretty easily.  He's chucking huge energy blasts that drop two or three members per shot.  Their attacks harmlessly bounce off his force field.  It looks like nothing they can do can hurt him.  By the end, the Champions will pull out a win by the skin of their teeth, and Captain Blastarr is defeated.  But one day he will return...

 

Of course, when he does eventually return six months later, the Champions don't have near the problem with him that they did the first time.  They're ready for his moves, and they pound him into the dirt.  Five years later he's making an appearance in some second string comic, and the Kindergarten Kommandoes are pounding on him.  Eventually he only shows up in big group battles, where some giant team of 50 villains attacks the heroes all at once.  He's just a face in a big group shot, and then you see him unconscious in some two-page splash panel.

 

So... how tough is this guy anyway?  Is he the guy who kicked the crap out of the Champions?  Or is he the guy who got trounced by Wonder Tot's dog?  It's too hard to judge villains by their first appearance.  Presumably some villains roll really well the first time they show up.

[Cassandra]

On 3/13/2019 at 2:39 PM, massey said:

 

Well, I thnk the Hero Point explanation is really a justification for giving villains a boost in their first appearance.

 

Let's say you've got Captain Blastarr.  He's a fairly generic energy projector in early 90s Image armor.  And he first appears on the cover of Champions #287.  He's not an amazing character, but he's got to look cool in his first issue.  So he's standing there like a cheapo Dr Destroyer, with the entire team on the ground unconscious.  He's got his hand pointed at Defender's body, with a glowing aura surrounding him.  The cover says "AT THE MERCY... OF CAPTAIN BLASTARR!!!"

 

He looks pretty tough there, and if you read the issue you see that he slaps around the team pretty easily.  He's chucking huge energy blasts that drop two or three members per shot.  Their attacks harmlessly bounce off his force field.  It looks like nothing they can do can hurt him.  By the end, the Champions will pull out a win by the skin of their teeth, and Captain Blastarr is defeated.  But one day he will return...

 

Of course, when he does eventually return six months later, the Champions don't have near the problem with him that they did the first time.  They're ready for his moves, and they pound him into the dirt.  Five years later he's making an appearance in some second string comic, and the Kindergarten Kommandoes are pounding on him.  Eventually he only shows up in big group battles, where some giant team of 50 villains attacks the heroes all at once.  He's just a face in a big group shot, and then you see him unconscious in some two-page splash panel.

 

So... how tough is this guy anyway?  Is he the guy who kicked the crap out of the Champions?  Or is he the guy who got trounced by Wonder Tot's dog?  It's too hard to judge villains by their first appearance.  Presumably some villains roll really well the first time they show up.

 

Maybe lots of Combat Luck because Villains know Heroes don't do surprise attacks.

[archer]

1 hour ago, Cassandra said:

 

Maybe lots of Combat Luck because Villains know Heroes don't do surprise attacks.

 

Whose games have you been hanging around in?

 

 

[megaplayboy]

I think, if you have mega villains and master villains in a setting, it's reasonable to sprinkle in a few mega heroes, legends and icons as well, just to counterbalance them.  Players do occasionally complain about being overshadowed by "ringers", but that's more a matter of GM misuse of such NPCs rather than their mere existence being some terrible injustice.  Who, after all, are those 250 point newbie heroes aspiring to emulate?  Captain Average?  

[Lawnmower Boy]

5 minutes ago, megaplayboy said:

I think, if you have mega villains and master villains in a setting, it's reasonable to sprinkle in a few mega heroes, legends and icons as well, just to counterbalance them.  Players do occasionally complain about being overshadowed by "ringers", but that's more a matter of GM misuse of such NPCs rather than their mere existence being some terrible injustice.  Who, after all, are those 250 point newbie heroes aspiring to emulate?  Captain Average?  

"When Captain Average throws his mediocre shield/

Villains in the lower third of the point range must yield. . . "

Think I need to work on the scansion. 

[Spence]

2 minutes ago, megaplayboy said:

I think, if you have mega villains and master villains in a setting, it's reasonable to sprinkle in a few mega heroes, legends and icons as well, just to counterbalance them.  Players do occasionally complain about being overshadowed by "ringers", but that's more a matter of GM misuse of such NPCs rather than their mere existence being some terrible injustice.  Who, after all, are those 250 point newbie heroes aspiring to emulate?  Captain Average?  

 

You are not wrong. 

 

A bad GM/DM can quickly suck the fun right out of a game. 

 

But a bad player will do the same, crying wolf when it was really just poor player decisions. 

 

In my opinion, villians are introduced based on the player characters.  The world may have much more powerful villians and heroes.  But that doesn't mean the players have to meet them.  But if they seek them out, that is on the players, not the GM. 

 

Just like when the party of 2nd levels decide to travel cross-country and take out an elder black dragon liche.

 

Sometimes you just have bad GMs or bad players.

 

 

 

[PamelaIsley]

13 hours ago, megaplayboy said:

I think, if you have mega villains and master villains in a setting, it's reasonable to sprinkle in a few mega heroes, legends and icons as well, just to counterbalance them.  Players do occasionally complain about being overshadowed by "ringers", but that's more a matter of GM misuse of such NPCs rather than their mere existence being some terrible injustice.  Who, after all, are those 250 point newbie heroes aspiring to emulate?  Captain Average?  

 

Champions Universe has plenty of over-pointed villains and heroes.  In fact, the vast majority of published characters are built using far more than the standard 400 points (or whatever 5E uses). 

 

What Champions Universe is missing are "average" villains or villains more in line with a lot of comic settings (particularly the animated universes) that pose a threat to heroes through planning, henchmen, or situations, but who can't personally beat a hero one on one.

 

I think the vast majority of villains in a universe should probably be weaker than the average hero, particularly if you're going to set the ratio of villains to heroes as 3:2 (which CU does), and right now, a GM probably has to create most of these villains themselves.

[Greywind]

The general basis for points in the CU is whether or not the character is intended to go solo up against a team (boss fight situation) or are they a member of a team intended to be fought as part of a team.

[Lawnmower Boy]

2 hours ago, Greywind said:

The general basis for points in the CU is whether or not the character is intended to go solo up against a team (boss fight situation) or are they a member of a team intended to be fought as part of a team.

This is true. The question is where that gets you when you're modelling the CU as a setting. Pamela's point is that the heroes are going to be overwhelmed by a human wave of villains. You can't have a global gang up on Dr. Destroyer in Djakarta when Dark Seraph chooses just that minute to level New York and Eurostar decides to use the opportunity to hold Zurich for ransom. 

 

From a story telling angle, Pamela's fix to that makes perfect sense, which is why, as I understand it, she's brainstorming the way that you apply it to the actually existing CU. 

 

Now, as a CU fan, I take the different approach of trying to save the published details. The problem that Pamela has identified is real, but her solution obviously doesn't work from my perspective. It also doesn't work if you're a fan of  climactic battles.  

 

Perhaps we need to sit down and figure out just how much firepower the Forces of Good in the CU have to have to make this all even out. I'll admit that Isvatha V'han, in particular, makes this hard to do. Watch V'han take on Tyrannon and root for an injury? If so, maybe we're expecting Borealis to counter Dr. Destroyer. . . 

[megaplayboy]

5 hours ago, PamelaIsley said:

 

Champions Universe has plenty of over-pointed villains and heroes.  In fact, the vast majority of published characters are built using far more than the standard 400 points (or whatever 5E uses). 

 

What Champions Universe is missing are "average" villains or villains more in line with a lot of comic settings (particularly the animated universes) that pose a threat to heroes through planning, henchmen, or situations, but who can't personally beat a hero one on one.

 

I think the vast majority of villains in a universe should probably be weaker than the average hero, particularly if you're going to set the ratio of villains to heroes as 3:2 (which CU does), and right now, a GM probably has to create most of these villains themselves.

Well, there used to be a fair number of such villains in 1st-3rd edition Champions--the Geodesics, for example, were built on only 200 points apiece, and there were multiple villains who weren't particularly overwhelming, such as Bulldozer.  It's not difficult to write up such villains, just skimp on noncombat stuff, give them just enough power to hurt heroes, just enough defense and stun to not be one-shotted or one-stunned, and modest mobility.  They should be tougher than a Viper agent but weaker than the heroes they're fighting.  Or alternatively, you write up a team that outnumbers the heroes but the individual villains are weaker.  One other option is villain teams that are a mix of weak and more capable characters.  If you take out the weak ones quickly, you can team up on the stronger ones.  But if you ignore either for too long...

[archer]

25 minutes ago, Lawnmower Boy said:

This is true. The question is where that gets you when you're modelling the CU as a setting. Pamela's point is that the heroes are going to be overwhelmed by a human wave of villains. You can't have a global gang up on Dr. Destroyer in Djakarta when Dark Seraph chooses just that minute to level New York and Eurostar decides to use the opportunity to hold Zurich for ransom. 

 

From a story telling angle, Pamela's fix to that makes perfect sense, which is why, as I understand it, she's brainstorming the way that you apply it to the actually existing CU. 

 

Now, as a CU fan, I take the different approach of trying to save the published details. The problem that Pamela has identified is real, but her solution obviously doesn't work from my perspective. It also doesn't work if you're a fan of  climactic battles.  

 

Perhaps we need to sit down and figure out just how much firepower the Forces of Good in the CU have to have to make this all even out. I'll admit that Isvatha V'han, in particular, makes this hard to do. Watch V'han take on Tyrannon and root for an injury? If so, maybe we're expecting Borealis to counter Dr. Destroyer. . . 

 

The CU focuses a lot more on making us aware of the forces of evil than it does with how many superhero groups exist, just how much firepower U.N.T.I.L. can amass, what NATO can toss into the mix, etc.

 

And that's before the various GM and player additions to the Forces of Supposedly Good.

 

There's a Kingdom of Champions sourcebook to tell us the major players in the Great Britain superhero scene. But I haven't seen the Great Big Book of US Superheroes sourcebook.

 

At least not yet.

[PamelaIsley]

My feeling is that if they published a book of superheroes (which I would love to see by the way, despite what I'm about to write), the point inflation problem would continue.  They would build them the way they built the Sentinels and Justice Squad in News of the World, and the way the villains are built in the 6E books: with lots and lots of points.  This would contradict the CU book telling us that average heroes are 300 and 400 point builds.  Again, the GM would be left to wonder, where are these average heroes?  In fairness to the villain builds, nothing ever tells us what an average villain is supposed to be.  We simply know that there are 3 of them for every 2 heroes.  We also know that a high percentage of the villains in published materials are much more powerful than a low or standard powered hero.  This presents, to me at least, a major demographic problem.

 

And it also presents a major storyline problem too because I think it's a huge divergence from how superheroes are usually presented within their own worlds.  I just can't imagine Scorpion cleaning Spiderman's clock during a one on one fight.  Or Mad Hatter taking down Batman.  Or Toy Man defeating Superman.  Etc., etc.  There are exceptions, of course.  It just gives me pause to imagine Superhero X wading through traps and henchmen to confront Villain One, and then saying, "Oh, I'm going to need two or three friends to take this guy down."

 

And as @Lawnmower Boy points out above, if you need 2-4 heroes to take down every villain, then how on Earth are you handling the fact that there are 50% more villains than heroes in the world?

 

My solution is to de-power the villains, create suitable villains that make the world consistent and reasonable, and make sure that normal people with weapons are still a major threat to superhumans in general.

[steriaca]

One thing people 'forget' is that villains do not gain experience points like heroes do. If the GM wants to 'advance' Villain X, he simply does so, regardless of how many encounters with the PC he had before. The players, in order to advance there characters, must wait till they get enough experience points.

[massey]

There's a problem in that superhero games don't normally play like superhero comics.  Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, these guys are all solo heroes.  Often they'll team up with their friends and have a team book, but most of these guys are powerful enough to adventure on their own.  Popular characters get their own books, and they have to be powerful enough that they can win against the foes who appear in those solo books.  The average Champions game, however, has several players, each with their own hero.  The game universe is thus structured to play more like an X-Men or Fantastic Four comic than a Spider-Man comic.

 

The problem is that our favorite characters are the ones who get their own books, and so that's who most of us want to play.  But we've got other people at the table with us, and most of them don't want to sit and watch as Dave spends half the night taking out a member of his Rogue's Gallery while everybody else twiddles their thumbs.  So the game basically balances around villains (or villain groups) who can take on an entire team.  You've also got the fact that PCs gain experience, and usually become more powerful over time.  So some villains are powerful enough to challenge who you will become.

 

I'm reminded of the old RPGs I used to play on Nintendo.  Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior, games like that.  You start out at the castle with the king telling you that you're the chosen hero who has to defeat the evil wizard guy.  You get your starting equipment, step outside of town, and get attacked by an angry muskrat.  After you've gained enough experience, you wander away from town and start fighting tougher enemies, like evil wolves and skeletons.  Eventually you're tough enough to take on dragons and giants.  Even as a kid I wondered, why doesn't the evil overlord just send his dragons at the starting castle?  What are all those monsters doing before you level up?

 

It makes for a fun game but it doesn't make for a very sensible world.

 

 

[steriaca]

What are the other villains doing while yours is gaining experience? Doing other crimes and facing other heroes, and/or taking a break in the super prison of your choice.

 

Meanwhile, the heroes go on adventures, stop crime, gain experience, and so heroic things. While the only experience and adventure the villains see is 'don't drop the soap'.