How do you use Foxbat in your campaign?

[Tech]

Foxbat is certainly a character. For those of us who use him, how do you use him? Is he an actual mastermind, a henchman, a solo villain or what?

 

For myself, Foxbat is (in his own mind) a mastermind and every mastermind needs people to carry out his greatest idea. Of course, all his efforts are considered to be his 'best idea yet', regardless of the reality of it. Foxbat likes to scheme of ways to make himself look good by making the heroes look bad: one such scheme had the hero team show up at a factory where he dumped lotion on them and took a picture to send to the press (it turned into a slippery game of 'catch-the-camera'). Really though, all his schemes are ridiculous. Foxbat always goes out of his way to make sure no one gets hurt, because that shows what a wonderful mastermind he is.

 

Back to the people he has:

 

The Awesome Exo-skeleton Man: who can't love a guy with a name this long, who heaps praise and adoration upon Foxbat everytime the heroes dare to question Foxbats ideas

 

Speedster: a superfast-reaction guy with some superstrength (has a Speed of 10). He follows because Foxbat always has an idea to get rich & because he's greedy but fun. Surprisingly, he's not all that fast as a superspeedster

 

Airhammer: an easy-going young lady with a super jetpack  of incredible speed who uses an airhammer attack to knock heroes around. However, she gets bored easily and doesn't listen to orders for long

 

Scarecrow: a guy dressed like a scarecrow, or is he dressed? No one knows really. He's greedy, overconfident and likes to throw little explosive pumpkins. Tries to be a mastermind himself but has 3d6 Unluck...

 

With a team so, hmmmm, not tight, how could the great Foxbat fail?

 

So, how do you use him?

[Greywind]

I generally don't.

[BoloOfEarth]

He's a great guy.  We generally send him out for snacks and pop.  Maybe the occasional pizza.

 

Seriously, though, Foxbat has been a fixture in my Champions campaigns as long as I've been running them.

 

His most recent caper involved breaking into the Federal Reserve to replace the US currency there with "FoxbatBucks" (basically regular dollars with pictures of him and other members of his troupe in place of the US presidents).  He combined this with covering that section of the city with a giant force dome to try and keep PRIMUS and the superheroes out.

 

Foxbat once tried kidnapping Adam West and Burt Ward (dressing them in their Batman costumes complete with working utility belt gadgets so they could have a proper fight beforehand).

 

He has tried numerous times to get dates with various PC superheroines - even after Batfox joined his team and protested that he was "her man."

 

He ran for president (in 2005 - yeah, we all know it wasn't an election year - he figured he had a better chance because nobody else would be running then).

 

Foxbat once tried participating in the CLOWN annual scavenger hunt (to determine who the next leader of CLOWN would be that year) in the hopes of becoming the new head of CLOWN.

 

He committed a series of small crimes (break-ins of homes and businesses, robberies, etc.) that the heroes eventually mapped out to realize he was creating a giant connect-the-dots Foxbat emblem across the city.

 

Originally, it was the Foxbat Five (more powerful than the Fantastic Four because, y'know, there were *five* of them), but now it's Foxbat Force, consisting of:

• The Awesome Exo-Skeleton Man - because you gotta have Leroy!
• Harmonious Fist, a complete redraw of the the published martial artist whose martial arts maneuvers make you beat yourself up!
• Dot - the character from CLOWN, slightly redone as an homage to Spider-Man's foe Spot
• Garble - the mentalist who mixes up your thoughts and perceptions - and is so scramble-headed himself that he's the only person who truly understands and appreciates the genius of Foxbat's Master Plan!
• Batfox -- because Foxbat needed a babe to hang on his arm
• Professor Steriaca - a mad scientist based off a poster on these boards, who believes everybody (including himself) is just a character in a Champions game
• The King - yes, Elvis is alive - he was kidnapped by aliens who "fixed" his DNA and returned him to Earth decades later
• Blinky - a teleporting would-be-Earth-conquering alien whose weapons have been replaced by Foxbat with non-lethal versions
• The Foxbots -- Freddy's robotic minions, with names like Federico, Freddo, Fritz, Froederick, and Derf.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I don't but if I did I'd make him a really mediocre supervillain who did very low scale crimes like shoplifting and mailing non-books as media then cackle and think he's a master villain.

[steriaca]

12 minutes ago, BoloOfEarth said:

 

• Professor Steriaca - a mad scientist based off a poster on these boards, who believes everybody (including himself) is just a character in a Champions game.

I'm still waiting for that million dollar royalty check Bolo. Remember I take FoxbatBucks (hey, someone has to).

[BoloOfEarth]

17 minutes ago, steriaca said:

I'm still waiting for that million dollar royalty check Bolo. Remember I take FoxbatBucks (hey, someone has to).

 

I sent you those 5 XP so you could buy the Wealth perk.  It's not my fault Foxbat intercepted them and spent them to upgrade the Centipedemobile.

 

Oh, that's another thing I did with Foxbat - wrote up the Centipedemobile as 8 individual "Pods" -- all with legs but also each with its own movement power, sensor(s), and attack -- and then got colored ping-pong balls to represent them on the game map (with velcro dots on opposite sides so they could link up and work together).  45 points for the first Pod, then 15 more to get 8 total Pods.  Spread the cost across the whole team so each member only paid 5 points, plus 20 from Foxbat.  And since there are 8 Foxbots, each Pod has its own driver.

 

 

Centipedemobile.pdf

[Tom Cowan]

Foxbat- wild loose cannon. 25% superhero,50% mastermind, 25% nutjob and 50% nuisance.  The villain most likely save the day when he messes up and takes out the power grid with a glitter bomb.

[steriaca]

8 minutes ago, BoloOfEarth said:

 

I sent you those 5 XP so you could buy the Wealth perk.  It's not my fault Foxbat intercepted them and spent them to upgrade the Centipedemobile.

 

Oh, that's another thing I did with Foxbat - wrote up the Centipedemobile as 8 individual "Pods" -- all with legs but also each with its own movement power, sensor(s), and attack -- and then got colored ping-pong balls to represent them on the game map (with velcro dots on opposite sides so they could link up and work together).  45 points for the first Pod, then 15 more to get 8 total Pods.  Spread the cost across the whole team so each member only paid 5 points, plus 20 from Foxbat.  And since there are 8 Foxbots, each Pod has its own driver.

 

 

Centipedemobile.pdf 68.62 kB · 3 downloads

Ha. If you use me more, I can horde the XP till *I* can unleash *MY* master plan to put everything in the world to run off the phase chart. With vending machines only having a SPD of 1! Mahahahaha *cough cough, ka-pootie* Man, I'm getting too old for this stuff.

[ghost-angel]

He's the most dangerous villain in Champions.. he looks harmless, but then he tries something like filling Grand Central Park with tortilla chips and opening a gate to the "queso dimension" (which doesn't exist!). On top of all that once things are in motion the remote control to his (Working?!!?) dimensional door device has dead batteries in it...

 

DEMON, Dr. Destroyer, and invading aliens didn't get this close to end the world - and they were trying!

 

The guy is Dangerous.

[ghost-angel]

37 minutes ago, Tom Cowan said:

25% superhero,50% mastermind, 25% nutjob and 50% nuisance

 

Does the math... yeah, this checks out.

[alternatum]

Well, my campaigns are barely off the ground at the moment.

 

His second election campaign is going on in the background. Specifically, he's switched places with his running mate and is running for Vice President. That way, the pair will be more acceptable to the intelligent voters, while not losing the fanboy vote either.

On a related note, he's trying to refine his gimmick, since a lot of his old shticks don't get laughs anymore. That's fine with him, though, humor is an illusive and changing thing - and the last thing he wants to do is wind up a flat monster like the modern Joker *shudder*.

 

On a tangent, militant fanboys are ready to help out whenever their idol or his robot stunt doubles go on a caper. That particular type of fan has no trouble attacking superheroes or police with their foam fingers and picket signs, no matter how outmatched the mob may be. No wonder even Foxbat is scared of them. Also, they came very close to harassing a certain supervillain at a convention, but the PCs gave that bunch a serious lecture.

[dmjalund]

1 hour ago, ghost-angel said:

and opening a gate to the "queso dimension" (which doesn't exist!)

i bet that wouldbn't stop him from succeeding tho

[Tjack]

     It’s not exactly for a game but one weekend with nothing else to do I wrote a movie treatment that was a retelling of Man of La Mancha using a superhero instead of a knight.

     It opens with Leroy, an out of work veteran being hired to look out for Freddy Fosworth the creator of Foxbat. An incredibly successful comic book and movie character.  Since the death of his wife during a mugging on the two of them he’s become withdrawn and secretive and his cousins want to have him declared incompetent in order to take over his finances.

   Leroy discovers that Freddy has sunk millions into having the superhero gear in the comic built and is going out at night to fight crime.   End of act one.

    I have the rest of the story worked out as well.  Street gangs,  the city needing a hero,  the cousins finding out and having Freddy put away in a psych ward,  Leroy and the young single mother with a little boy who idolizes Foxbat who runs a local neighborhood watch (re: love interest) breaking into the hospital to convince Freddy that “There’s a hero in all of us” ,  grand escapes,  big confrontations.   Good guys win.  Bad guys defeated.  The end.

   Every character is worthwhile, it all depends on how you use them.

[Mr. R]

2 hours ago, BoloOfEarth said:

 

• Harmonious Fist, a complete redraw of the the published martial artist whose martial arts maneuvers make you beat yourself up!

I am curious how you stated this up?

[steriaca]

43 minutes ago, Mr. R said:

I am curious how you stated this up?

I saw him stated up as having a multipower with no martial arts at all.

[BoloOfEarth]

3 hours ago, BoloOfEarth said:

• Harmonious Fist, a complete redraw of the the published martial artist whose martial arts maneuvers make you beat yourself up!

 

I should point out that this wasn't my original idea.  I believe it was someone at GenCon about 10 years ago who came up with this genius concept (though I didn't see his writeup and had to come up with my own).  I wish I could remember his name, because I'd really like to give him proper credit.  Basically, he took the "Harmonious" part of the character's name to its logical conclusion.

 

53 minutes ago, Mr. R said:

I am curious how you stated this up?

 

He has a full suite of Martial Arts maneuvers, along with

    11    +4 DC with All Attacks; Only to match Target’s STR above 20 (-½)

and: 

    50  Harmonious Reach:  Stretching 50m, Does Not Cross Intervening Space (+¼), 0 END (+½); Gestures (-¼), No Noncombat (-¼), STR reduced by target’s Mental Defense (-¼)

 

The Gestures is him miming a punch at himself (or a disarm, or a throw, etc.), and the special effect is that he causes the intended target to strike/disarm/throw/etc. himself.

 

9 minutes ago, steriaca said:

I saw him stated up as having a multipower with no martial arts at all.

 

That's the published martial artist I referred to (from Enemies Assemble).  I didn't like that writeup at all, and really liked the concept from the guy at GenCon, so I ran with that.

[BoloOfEarth]

3 hours ago, steriaca said:

Ha. If you use me more, I can horde the XP till *I* can unleash *MY* master plan to put everything in the world to run off the phase chart. With vending machines only having a SPD of 1! Mahahahaha *cough cough, ka-pootie* Man, I'm getting too old for this stuff.

 

The players were incredibly irritated with your Seeker Missiles, especially after one temporarily turned the team mentalist into an Aussie ninja.

[steriaca]

23 minutes ago, BoloOfEarth said:

 

The players were incredibly irritated with your Seeker Missiles, especially after one temporarily turned the team mentalist into an Aussie ninja.

I can do worse than that. Wait till they get hit with my Unlock Missiles.

 

And yes, I do mean Unlock, not Unluck. Imagine everything latched upon them coming off them. Mahahahaha!

 

Now my other master plan...to ruin everyone's childhood by turning The Banana Splits into a horror...what? Warner Bros. has beaten me to it? Bolo!

[steriaca]

And I have new and improved Seeker Missiles ready to spread havoc on our heroes. Heck, instead of Transformation, I wrote them up as Summon.

 

Honestly, I don't need them to be slavishly loyal. Why do you ask?

 

[Sketchpad]

When I ran games in the CU, Foxbat served as both a solo and team villain. In one group, he had a team of misfits, which included The Exo-Skeleton Man, Panda, Raccoon, and Darkon. They would show up at random during the campaign to annoy commit crimes. In a smaller group, he was more like a Batman Rogue's Gallery member who was more goofy gadget oriented. In both cases, he had the ability to break the 4th Wall and interact not only with the heroes, but also with their players. 

[Greywind]

2 minutes ago, Sketchpad said:

...he had the ability to break the 4th Wall... 

 

Which is one of the main reasons I don't like him.

 

...or Deadpool.

[Lord Liaden]

I appreciate Foxbat in principle as a comic-relief character, and I think it's good he exists for gamers who want that. But I never liked any of the "silly" supers -- Deadpool, Ambush Bug, Squirrel Girl, Creeper, etc. -- and I've never used Foxbat in my games.

[Sketchpad]

19 hours ago, Greywind said:

 

Which is one of the main reasons I don't like him.

 

...or Deadpool.

 

To each their own. I used it in moderation. On one particular adventure, after Foxbat was captured, he pleaded with the players for some extra points to spend while he was in "The Clink". One of the players actually donated a few points, which was rewarded with a Favor with Foxbat. Fun stuff.  

[dsatow]

I generally don't use him and I think my players wouldn't want me to, so at some point, I'll have to use him. >:D

 

[Spence]

The only time will use him is in a fully established campaign.

 

Then he is introduced as a non-lethal nuisance/nutjob convinced he is a Master Villain while getting underfoot during the "real action" so the Heroes wind up trying to prevent Foxbat and minions getting themselves killed while trying to stop the real villains. 

 

And then I will only use him with the "right" mix of players. 

 

Foxbat is like Clown.  They have a very narrow utility range.