When/if you upgrade a villain from an edition...

[Tech]

Some of you may not upgrade villains for reasons of GM style or campaign. However, I expect the majority of GMs take villains from various editions and upgrade them to the edition that you're using. I just upgraded a hold-out npc that was in 1st edition: the paper it was on was yellowing and the ink was fading. I'd forgotten about the NPC and now that I was going to have her show up in game and thought "Yikes! This is hard on the eyes." Her cost jumped about 100 points now that's she's been updated. Hmmm, I wonder if I have any others I forgot to update? Doubt it.

 

Do any other GMs find that you forgot to upgrade an older villain or npc to the current edition you use? Do the point costs jump or drop? For myself, I generally see the cost increase.

[drunkonduty]

Not a problem for me as I have as almost all the material I have is either 4th or 5th ed. The two are so close I don't feel a need to re-write things just to represent a small change in costs.

 

I have some 6th ed stuff (Champions Beyond and Book of the Machine) and if I ever get around to running a Champions game and needing stats from this I'd have to do some tweaking. But honestly, I wouldn't do much. For example I hate Damage Negation as a concept and would simply ignore it.

[segerge]

I can think of one time where I should have upgraded villains before writing them.

 

Reader's Digest Condensed Version: Starforce one-shots a GENOCIDE Rook and throws a Presence Attack on the Pawns present (the story "The Lady in the Lake").  When I turned to the character sheet in "The Mutant File" for GENOCIDE Pawns, my first reaction was shock.  My second reaction was "Who the H*&^^ designs agents in a superhero campaign with a PRESENCE SCORE OF ONLY  10?!?"

[BoloOfEarth]

52 minutes ago, segerge said:

I can think of one time where I should have upgraded villains before writing them.

 

Reader's Digest Condensed Version: Starforce one-shots a GENOCIDE Rook and throws a Presence Attack on the Pawns present (the story "The Lady in the Lake").  When I turned to the character sheet in "The Mutant File" for GENOCIDE Pawns, my first reaction was shock.  My second reaction was "Who the H*&^^ designs agents in a superhero campaign with a PRESENCE SCORE OF ONLY  10?!?"

 

LOL.  I'm guilty of that.  Even worse, I set myself up for a problem with it.  I wrote up a villain team, the Heavy Metals, and didn't realize that the speedster, Merc, only had a PRE of 10.  To make matters worse, I added an NPC hero (Rhode Island Red, a man-rooster) who was helping the PC heroes, and for the combat I had one of the players run him.  That player decided to start combat out with Red's "Crow of Justice," which was something like +30 PRE, only for Presence Attacks.  Merc spent the rest of the combat trying to escape from the building.  Okay, so it was freakin' hilarious to the players (well, to me too), but it did highlight a serious deficiency of the villains.

[Greywind]

Mooks shouldn't be jaded. Otherwise they wouldn't follow the master villains orders, either.

[segerge]

3 hours ago, Greywind said:

Mooks shouldn't be jaded. Otherwise they wouldn't follow the master villains orders, either.

 

I would at least give them +10 PRE only to resist Presence Attacks (-1 limitation).  If necessary, alter that limitation so that it applies to resisting Presence Attacks not from their Master (-3/4 limitation)

[segerge]

To add a little additional context to the Presence attack from "The Lady In the Lake", Starforce had a base PRE of 30.  He added +3d6 for incredibly violent action (critical hit on the GENOCIDE Rook), +1d6 for exhibiting his powers, +1d6 for good soliloquy ("If you start running now, I'll let you all live."), and -1d6 for being in combat.  He rolled a 40 on 10d6.  The dismounted Pawns were all running before the rest of TASK FORCE teleported in behind the remaining Rooks and Knight.

[Greywind]

You say that as if it were a bad thing.

[BNakagawa]

while it isn't a rule, I would imagine that it would be balanced to give groups of agents a bonus to PRE Def for each grouping of N where N is enough of them to challenge a Hero. +5 for every doubling beyond N.

[segerge]

14 minutes ago, Greywind said:

You say that as if it were a bad thing.

 

I used that phrase in the TASK FORCE story "What Happens in Vegas..."

[segerge]

2 minutes ago, BNakagawa said:

while it isn't a rule, I would imagine that it would be balanced to give groups of agents a bonus to PRE Def for each grouping of N where N is enough of them to challenge a Hero. +5 for every doubling beyond N.

 

That's actually an interesting concept, sort of like how you can emulate a fire team of agents as a four-shot autofire...

[Hugh Neilson]

13 hours ago, segerge said:

Reader's Digest Condensed Version: Starforce one-shots a GENOCIDE Rook and throws a Presence Attack on the Pawns present (the story "The Lady in the Lake").  When I turned to the character sheet in "The Mutant File" for GENOCIDE Pawns, my first reaction was shock.  My second reaction was "Who the H*&^^ designs agents in a superhero campaign with a PRESENCE SCORE OF ONLY  10?!?"

 

Doesn't seem like an edition issue, but I definitely agree with ensuring the published character will work in my game.

 

That said, how much self-confidence do you expect from someone who takes a job as a "Pawn"?

 

Do they have higher EGO?  Perhaps they were designed on the assumption of a game that allows EGO to be used to defend against PRE attacks.

 

8 hours ago, BNakagawa said:

while it isn't a rule, I would imagine that it would be balanced to give groups of agents a bonus to PRE Def for each grouping of N where N is enough of them to challenge a Hero. +5 for every doubling beyond N.

 

Isn't there already a modifier to the PRE attack for being at an advantage or a disadvantage?  I think it's a fixed modifier, but it seems reasonable that a greater perceived advantage would translate into a greater modifier.

[Lord Liaden]

I usually give agent-type characters specifically trained to fight superhuman opponents, such as VIPER or UNTIL agents, up to +10 Defensive Presence, with the Special Effect of, "I know what I'm up against."

[Greywind]

"Intelligence is too high. Almost normal." ~ Taskmaster when going over applications for his school of thugs.

[death tribble]

We had a high powered campaign so we had by necessity had to up the power level. And do new art as well but it was always worth it.

[Tech]

On 12/18/2019 at 8:04 AM, Lord Liaden said:

I usually give agent-type characters specifically trained to fight superhuman opponents, such as VIPER or UNTIL agents, up to +10 Defensive Presence, with the Special Effect of, "I know what I'm up against."

 

My opinion: I wouldn't. Actually experiencing something vs knowing "I know what I'm up against" are vastly different. I may know I'm in a forest where I might meet a grizzly and plan accordingly. If I meet the grizzly, I'm not gonna say, "Oh yeah?!"  Viper or Until agents can be trained to react in a given situation, I agree, but how much can an agent prepare to seeing his buddy get blasted back 50 feet, and now the Super is looking at him?

 

More practically, I don't think mook agents, particularly for supervillains, would have high PRE. If it gets too high, the villain might wonder if this agent thinks he's too good to follow orders.

[Duke Bushido]

On 12/17/2019 at 10:49 PM, BNakagawa said:

while it isn't a rule, I would imagine that it would be balanced to give groups of agents a bonus to PRE Def for each grouping of N where N is enough of them to challenge a Hero. +5 for every doubling beyond N.

 

 

Remind me to hit you with the Rep Hammer when I get reloaded; that's a _great_ idea!   I wish I'd stolen it.   

 

 

Oh wait!   I _did_!   

 

I like the way it almost maps out that false security of the "safety in numbers" myth, and I like the hint of mob mentality it suggests in its structure. 

 

Very well done! 

 

On the thread topic:

 

I rarely used published NPCs of any stripe; it's too much work to fit them into our existing universes.  On the occasion when I have used them, or when I've used homebrewed characters from other editions, I never re-write them to be "edition-specific" because it's just unnecessary: every edition is compatible with every other. 

 

As Hugh suggested, though, I do make sure the character himself is compatible with the game I'm running: tweak defenses or DCs and what-not, but swapping them from one edition to another just because?   The payoff just isn't there.  I rarely retotal them after tweaki g, unless I expect to them make  more than a smattering of appearances throughout the campaign (you know: so I know where to spend _their_ experience points.       ) 

 

 

 

[Lord Liaden]

6 hours ago, Tech said:

 

My opinion: I wouldn't. Actually experiencing something vs knowing "I know what I'm up against" are vastly different. I may know I'm in a forest where I might meet a grizzly and plan accordingly. If I meet the grizzly, I'm not gonna say, "Oh yeah?!"  Viper or Until agents can be trained to react in a given situation, I agree, but how much can an agent prepare to seeing his buddy get blasted back 50 feet, and now the Super is looking at him?

 

I see your point; but by that logic, wouldn't that make military and police training rather pointless? You can't really know what a combat situation is like until you're actually in it, but training conditions your responses to particular encounters, in ways civilians aren't.

 

6 hours ago, Tech said:

More practically, I don't think mook agents, particularly for supervillains, would have high PRE. If it gets too high, the villain might wonder if this agent thinks he's too good to follow orders.

 

 I agree; which is why I give them Limited Defensive PRE, rather than raising their straight Presence. I don't make it so large that they can ignore the PCs' Presence Attacks, just keep them from ending combat prematurely. And while I can't speak for you, not all the agents in my games are "mooks," nor are many of those in published Champions books.

 

But of course, you should do what works in your own games.

[Oruncrest]

On 12/19/2019 at 10:06 PM, Lord Liaden said:

I see your point; but by that logic, wouldn't that make military and police training rather pointless? You can't really know what a combat situation is like until you're actually in it, but training conditions your responses to particular encounters, in ways civilians aren't.

 

In The HERO System Almanac, the Average Soldier was given a PRE of 10, with the text specifying that the extra point came from 'an improved self-image and experience with acting under pressure'.

 

If the idea of an Average Human having Primaries of 8 took hod around this time then a Genocide Rook having a PRE of 10 doesn't seem so unreasonable...

[Ninja-Bear]

Tech, I do change characters to the edition I’m using. (FWIW is 6th). Like Hugh, I do also edit characters to the game I’m GMing. For example I’ve updated Laser to 6th but he has only a 3 slot multi power for his Laser Rifle. I do like that average Normals should be 8s though seeing less than a 10 can still trip me up. (I started in 4th ed.)