Tell me about that one time your team defeated Dr. Destroyer/Mechanon/Takofanes/Etc.

[Tywyll]

Looking at the various stats of some of the world class villains, beating them seems nearly impossible (unless you are playing a super high point game). I'm curious to hear stories about times players have brought down these neigh-invulnerable super bads and how they did it, if anyone wants to share? 

[Tech]

For Dr. Destroyer, for our campaign, we use the original 500 pt version, although he's more expensive nowadays since all the heroes are more experienced. We did the Island of Dr Destroyer so long ago but since it's been so long a time, I plan to run it again using the updated version from Book of the Destroyer aka The Island of Dr. Destroyer 2.0. I'd tell you about the episode but all I really remember about that episode was the end: the fuel tank for the rocket got ruptured and then the base went on self-destruct. Destroyer got out of there, and our heros ran like bunnies. They took his jet and flew off the island before the big *boom* of the base exploding.

[Tywyll]

Thanks for that!

 

Anyone else out there take him on?

[segerge]

I had given a lot of thought for years on how Dr. Destroyer would be finally defeated when I originally plotted out the TASK FORCE timeline.  Rather than attempt to summarize the story "Leap Day" it would be better to link to the information article on the equipment and tactics which went into the final climax of that story.  Though it was written when the characters were in 6th Edition, it pretty much works the same way in 5th Edition as well.

 

Takofanes was temporarily driven out of our plane of existence west of Danville, IN in 1987 ("Heart of Darkness") between the actions of an old AT&T microwave relay tower hot-wired by Starforce into a giant anti-zombie maser, the US Army, and superhumans from across America.

 

Mechanon... the battle with him that I enjoyed writing the most was in the story "Mechanon, Inc." He got defeated by our heroes when he made the mistake of rebuilding himself on the fly into a Humongous Mecha form.  All I will say about how it ended is that the Square/Cube law can be such a bitch, sometimes.

 

If that isn't enough, the final battle of "The Island of Shadow Destroyer" featured our heroes, Shadow Destroyer, Mechanon, AND Takofanes in a four-way Mexican Standoff, finally resolved when TASK FORCE succeeded in sabotaging the reconstructed Mandragalore.

[Tech]

I'll mention a more recent Dr. Destroyer battle. He put into motion a genius plan:

 

At the public base of our premier superteam, he showed up, having robots attack the base. Of course the heroes came out and started attacking the robots and defending the base. Oddly, Destroyer wasn't attacking very steadfastly but was more defensive. One turn later, more robots show up attacking everyone, including Destroyer's robots. Destroyer's robots were wiped out and he backed off a little: Mechanon showed up and started attacking everyone. Dr. Destroyer took opportunistic shots at everyone but eventually left. Mechanon left as well eventually but not before activating an enormously powerful attack, damaging almost the entire front of the base.

 

What was the plan? Dr. Destroyer had lured Mechanon to the heroes base and knew Mechanon would attack them. If Mechanon was destroyed, he would have a victory; if the heroes were wiped out, it'd be a different victory. As it is, the heroes base was damaged and he got away - still something of a victory for him. Often, it's not how powerful a villain is that wins, it's how he uses it that matters. For him, it's his brilliance and planning.

[Jhamin]

Mechanon was a long running antagonist in my old 5th edition game (and thus used his 5th edition stats).  His origin was mysterious as this was long before 6th Ed gave him an actual one.

The game ran for over many years and the PCs had the points to tackle him, but his "return having been rebuilt to not go down that way again" shtick eventually made him even more of a monster.  By this point he was immune to their tricks and had enough experience fighting them he was predicting their tactics.  Then someone pulled out the *big* guns. 

One PC was an angel slumming it on earth & dealing with her newfound mortality after quitting the war between heaven & hell.  She was profoundly disturbed that Mechanon wasn't just a puppet gone wrong.  He had a mind and a soul (she could tell) but no idea where it came from.  And it wanted to kill everything organic the Creator had put on the earth. 

She still had a favor from her old buddy the Angel of Death AKA the Reaper AKA Thanatos.  She called it in claiming that Mechanon was an abomination and must not be allowed to exist.  The Reaper demurred that it didn't really work that way, he couldn't just take someone before their time, but he compromised (really owed her for a solid she had done him outside Gomorrah) and took away Mechanon's hatred of life.  It wasn't really kosher for him to do and they agreed not to discuss it with anyone immortal. 
Mechanon is now a hero of last restort in my world.  He is still as arrogant, paranoid, and vain as ever, but he actually kinda likes organics and has backed into being a reluctant hero.  He doesn't fight street crime or really care about Eurostar but if Istvanna shows up she has to get past his legion of War-Bots first. 

The Angelic PC has embraced her mortality and settled down with her old DNPC boyfriend, studiously avoiding Viborra Bay.

A current PC in my RavensWood Academy game is his "son" born of a fight between Mechanon and the Engineer (Still a villian) inside one of Mechanon's auto-factories.

[mattingly]

It wasn't the "real" Mechanon, but the heroes traced Foxbat to an abandoned Mechanon backup factory. There were 32 Mechanons in various states of disrepair.

 

A new guy had joined our team that session (or maybe the session before), and decided to wander off from the main group of heroes. He found the storage vault and ripped the door off with his superstrength. Inside were all the bots. They all blasted him at once, and killed him. Major negative BODY.

 

Thankfully, the new guy was Frankenstein, and his other major power was regeneration. So the player wasn't scared off the campaign, and the character got to show off his full power suite.

 

[Lord Liaden]

Back in my 4E Champions GM days, my group's penultimate encounter with Dr. Destroyer was over his attempt to blackmail the world with a universe-breaching weapon which could cast entire cities into alternate universes. Initially sneaking into, then fighting their way into DD's base, the PCs managed to reverse the weapon and bring back Cleveland, Ohio, before Destroyer arrived. DD had regained control of it and was kicking their butts, when one of the heroes shoved her whole belt of grenades through a rent that had been torn in one of the weapon's control panels. The resultant blast caused the weapon to dimensionally implode, and Destroyer appeared to be obliterated with it; but none of the players believed that.

 

About a year later (game-time), the PCs were contacted by the Bogeyman, the nightmare-creating monster from the Dreamzone, whom they'd previously fought. (See Champions in 3-D.) This time the Bogeyman had come to beg their help. It turned out Destroyer had been cast into the Dreamzone, enslaved its native Dreamshadows, and built them into an army per his twisted imagination. He was now on the verge of opening a portal for his army to enter the waking world.

 

The heroes had to trek across the Dreamzone, which DD had reshaped into a literal totalitarian nightmare, to confront him and his assembled army. Since awake beings physically in the Dreamzone have power to shape it to their will, the PCs focused their combined wills on taking control of the Doctor's portal device, using it to trap him in a pocket-Dreamzone in which he believed he'd succeeded in conquering the world.

[Tywyll]

These victories are interesting. Some of these seem more...narrative? Like I have a hard visualizing the mechanics that were used by the PCs or their powers that actually won the day. I don't have a problem with that, and the stories certainly sound awesome but...how many points is having the Angel of Death 'owe' you worth? How was overcoming Dr. Destroyer's will on his device handled? 

 

I think the interesting point here is that no one has mentioned slugging it out with these villains!

[Lord Liaden]

I remember around fifteen years ago, one of our long-silent forum colleagues, Lord Mhoram, claimed that his team of very experienced, Justice-League-ish PC heroes fought Dr. Destroyer solo as written in Conquerors, Killers, And Crooks, and killed him -- killed him -- in two Turns of combat.

 

Champions campaigns can range a lot in power level, and in where published NPCs compare.

[Hermit]

It's been over a decade since i got to game champions at a table regularly, so my memories are a bit fuzzy, but I do remember a player of mine who ALWAYS got at least one crit on Mechanon.

 

It didn't matter what type of character she was playing. Blaster, Brick, whatever.... the same character that would miss Foxbat one week, or even get challenged by VIPER agents, would meet Mechanon, and it was like her little dice became hatefilled luddites that wanted to destroy all robots! In one battle, she rolled Three ones THREE times... two of those in a row.

Now mechanon is supposed to become stronger as he improves himself IF his head can fly away etc etc.

But this is where the other players came in, and props to them.

At times they fried the tech in the area so Mechanon would have a harder time using it against them .They even faked powers or vulnerabilities they didn't have to feed false info to Mechanon (Garbage in, Garbage out). 

And then that head flew off...

and that third crit from that same player!

 

Ever wonder if the dice gods are telling you to not use that villain anymore?

[specks]

I have a similar thread about the master villains you're discussing if you want some ideas.

 

 

Hope this helps.

 

[Tywyll]

17 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

I remember around fifteen years ago, one of our long-silent forum colleagues, Lord Mhoram, claimed that his team of very experienced, Justice-League-ish PC heroes fought Dr. Destroyer solo as written in Conquerors, Killers, And Crooks, and killed him -- killed him -- in two Turns of combat.

 

Champions campaigns can range a lot in power level, and in where published NPCs compare.

 

Yikes!

[grandmastergm]

The team I played in that beat Takofanes were all in the 700 point range and we were all grossly overpowered- we had a SPD 12 speedster and I was the brick with 24 DC.  Some of the PCs got KOed, but we still defeated him.

 

I just ran a convention game where the PCs fought Mechanon.  They beat Mechanon by using coordinated attacks, and because I let the players "buy" critical hits with heroic action points.

[Cassandra]

Three words.

 

Three Card Monte.