PamelaIsley

" I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here."

Yeah, his bio falls totally flat to me too. A little too farfetched and weird.

So there's a pretty strange mistake in Holocaust's bio in the 6E Master Villains book. It doesn't appear in his 5E bio, so it's a little weird that it was introduced. In the Associates, Allies, and Adversaries section, it mentions that Geoffrey Haganstone knows Rep. David Sutherland (the villain Invictus) and can sense his energy powers. It goes on to say that he plans to blackmail Sutherland with this information. Except . . . everyone knows that Sutherland has energy powers. He's a famous superhero turned politician (who is actually a villain). There's nothing to blackmail. Invictus, in fact, has his own writeup just a few pages after Holocaust where this is spelled out. This might have been pointed out before but it isn't that easy to search this forum. On another note, just out of curiosity, what do people think of Holocaust's name? I hate to be too sensitive (or snowflakey), but I really like this character's background (particularly the Alliance storyline), but can't bring myself to use him in anything or develop any threads for him because I just feel a bit queasy about his villain identity. Am I just being too prickly?

Gravitar Total: 865 STR 18, 13-, 3 ½ d6 DEX 18, 13- CON 18, 13- INT 23, 14- EGO 23, 14- PRE 23, 14-, 4 ½ d6 OCV 8 DCV 8 OMCV 3 DMCV 6 SPD 6 PD 8 33 (25r) ED 8 33 (25r) REC 13 END 85 BODY 15 STUN 50 Total Cost: 224 Skills & Talents CS: Gravity Powers +3 (15) Computer Programming, 14- (3) Electronics, 14- (3) High Society, 14- (3) Inventor, 14- (3) CK: (Paris, Millennium City, New York, Tokyo), 11- (8) KS: Art History, 11- (2) KS: Literature, 14- (5) Language (English, Completely Fluent, French Native); (3) Language (Japanese, Fluent Conversation); (2) Language (Russian, Basic Conversation); (1) Mechanics, 14- (3) PS: Gravity Tricks, 14- (9) SS: Physics, 14- (5) SS: Gravitics, 16- (7) Stealth, 13- (3) Filthy Rich (11) Zero G Training (Environmental Movement); (6) Striking Appearance +2 (+2d6); (6) Total Cost: 103 Powers Gravitic Manipulation (Telekinesis 50 STR (10d6), 0 END +½ (112 Active Points); (112) Gravitic Pulse (Blast 8d6, AOE (16M Radius) +¾, Double Knockback +½, Personal Immunity +¼, ½ End +¼ (110 Active Points), No Range -½, Unified -¼); (63) Gravity Reversal Field (Telekinesis 40 STR (8d6), AOE (32 M Radius) +1 (120 Active Points), Limited (Only to Pull Straight Down or Hold Off Ground) -1, Unified -¼); (53) Gravity Shield (Resistant Protection 25 PD / 25 ED (75 Active Points), Costs End to Activate -¼, Unified -¼); (50) Gravity Shield II (Damage Negation -4 DCs Physical, -4 DCs Energy (40 Active Points), Costs End -½, Unified -¼); (23) Gravitic Point Defense (Deflection (20 Active Points), Only Works Against Physical Projectiles -¼, Unified -¼); (13) Gravitic Flight (Flight 50M, x4 Noncombat, ½ End +¼ (69 Active Points), Unified -¼); (55) Gravitic Field Awareness (Spatial Awareness (Unusual Group), 360 Degrees); (37) Detect Gravity (14-, No Sense Group, Discriminatory, Analyze, Range, Sense); (20) Gravitic Powers (Multipower, 90 Point Reserve (90 Active Points), All Slots Unified -¼); (72) 1. Gravitic Blast (Blast 12d6, 0 End +½ (90 Active Points)); 7f 2. Full Gravitic Blast (Blast 18d6 (90 Active Points)); 7f 3. Indirect Gravitic Blast (Blast 8d6, Indirect (Source and Path Can Vary Each Use) +1 (80 Active Points)); 6f 4. Crushing and Rending (RKA 4d6, 0 End +½ (90 Active Points)); 7f 5. Gravitic Drag (Drain DCV 6d6, 0 End +½ (90 Active Points)); 7f 6. Big Squeeze (Blast 8d6, AVAD (PD Force Fields) +1 (80 Active Points)); 6f Total Cost: 538 Matching Complications Distinctive Features (Mutant, Not Concealable, Noticed, Uncommon Senses); (10) Enraged (Insults and Not Being Taken Seriously, go 11-, recover 11-); (20) Psychological Complication (Bent on World Domination, Common, Strong); (15) Psychological Complication (Overconfidence, Common, Strong); (15) Social Complication (Secret Identity: Erica d’Montressart, Frequent, Major); (15) Total: 75 points Background: What happens when a teenager discovers they are one of the most powerful superhumans in the world? Erica d’Montressart is the pessimistic answer to that question. Rich, beautiful, and talented, Erica was part of an aristocratic French family that basically allowed her to indulge her every desire from a young age. Not only did this make the girl quite spoiled, it also convinced her that she was, in fact, better than everyone. And the manifestation of her remarkable ability to control gravity only reinforced that fact. It didn’t take Erica long to realize the depths of her power. Simple practice wasn’t enough, so d’Montressart donned a mask and makeshift costume and challenged Parisian authorities. She could defeat the police and gendarmes with ease. She didn’t actually commit traditional crimes; she just showed up at a monument or crowded venue, seemed to threaten tourists, and then easily defeated the responding forces. When Erica found that her powers were well beyond those of superheroes, she realized just how special she was. Erica decided that her raw power meant that she was destined to rule the world. The problem was how to go from wielding personal power to taking over countries. Gravitar was the result of Erica’s deliberations. She would become a supervillain, possibly the world’s most personally powerful supervillain after the destruction of Dr. Destroyer in the battle of Detroit. Once she demonstrated her abilities, and how helpless the remaining superheroes were against her, France, Europe, and then the entire world would have no choice but to surrender her. Anyone with more maturity than Gravitar could have pointed out flaws in her plan (although that hasn’t stopped villains like Geoffrey Haganstone from pursuing a similar strategy). Gravitar’s short supervillainess career has produced a number of impressive (though limited) victories over superteams like the Sentinels and even the French military and NATO, but it hasn’t brought her any closer to true political power. She has taken a small hiatus to rethink her approach, and the world is waiting for her next move. Personality: Gravitar affects a cool, poised, and regal demeanor, both as a supervillain and in her alternate identity. But this is at least partly an act. At her core, she is petulant and spoiled, and when she doesn’t get her way, or people insult her or don’t take her seriously, she can become enraged. She is very aware of how powerful she is and she expects others to acknowledge it. If they don’t, there are often dire consequences. As intelligent as she is, Erica has not really matured and her ambitions show a lack of serious planning. She doesn’t have an organization or followers. And she doesn’t really have a political agenda that she would like to accomplish. She simply would like to be acknowledged as ruler of the world. In some ways, it is a young girl’s conception of what rulership is, although she backs up her claims with a great deal of personal power, making her extremely dangerous. Since her last appearance, Gravitar has spent time reflecting on how to make her dreams a reality, and it is possible that she may spend some of her enormous wealth on building an organization or recruiting a team of supervillains. Gravitar is well-balanced for a supervillain, despite the flaws in her personality. She is usually not cruel or overly violent. She can be playful, even honorable, and usually keeps her word when it’s given. As Erica, very few of her negative traits are on display, except for perhaps her overconfidence and haughtiness. Powers: Gravitar can control and manipulate gravity. This often manifests itself as a form of telekinesis, which she can use in a wide area or against a selected target. She can shoot a number of different blasts or use gravity to try to crush and rend a victim’s body (a particularly lethal attack). Her gravity powers allow her to create shields around her, one of which can negate damage. She can fly, sense gravity, and has 360 degree spatial awareness. She can also affect the personal gravity of an opponent, reducing their ability to dodge attacks. Gravitar relies heavily on her gravitic fields, but can become simplistic in combat, simply blasting lesser opponents into dust. Appearance: Gravitar is a lovely young French woman in her mid to late 20s. She has long blonde hair, blue eyes, and pale skin. She speaks perfect English, although with a clear French accent. When out of costume, she wears expensive, tailored clothing, including a variety of cutting edge gowns and dresses. As Gravitar, her costume is a black dress with the skirt generously split up the sides. Her belt, gloves, and boots are dark blue. She wears a dark blue domino mask to conceal her identity. Many of her powers manifest with a light blue energy. Notes: OCV from 14 to 11; ED/PD from 54 to 33, Active Points from 150+ to 120, Points from 1,456 to 880 865; This is my conversion of Gravitar into a more "usable" format. To me, the master villains are out of whack with reality (they are built more like Gods than actual supercriminals). Others may disagree of course. In another thread, I argued that it is probably easy to scale them down. So I decided to start with the only master villain in 6E Volume 1 that I actually like: Gravitar. The changes are extensive. Some of them are summarized in the quick line above. I also adjusted her characteristics WAY down (she was built like Superman, for some odd reason). She lost her flight usable as attack powers because I think they abuse the rules (and the Telekinesis, to me, simulates any practical use of this power anyway). Anything left out was probably intentional. I altered her background to be more in line with someone who hasn't been a villain for decades and to remove some of the Silver Age components. Edit: Dropped her damage negation down to 4DCs each and added in her city knowledge skills. Gravitar.hdc

I just don't agree with this. But others do. It's simply a major divergence in opinion. I'm going to go with just a very powerful killing curse that isn't all or nothing. Whatever would be needed in an HP campaign is different from what I think a supermage would need to just evoke it.

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.

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

This should be a separate topic, but one thing that comes out when I read over the answers in the thread is that, wow, a lot of people really like the tactical combat angle of PnP a lot more than I do. I can just remember so many DnD 3.5 games when the instant the DM said "Roll for initiative", there was nothing but collective groans around the table. DnD, M&M, and Hero combat is just so . . . tedious. But as I've said repeatedly, everyone has their own definition of fun.

Kinetica Total: 400 STR 13, 12-, 2 ½ d6 DEX 13, 12- CON 18, 13- INT 13, 13- EGO 13, 13- PRE 18, 13-, 2d6 OCV 7 DCV 7 OMCV 3 DMCV 3 SPD 5 PD 8 28 (20r) ED 8 18 (10r) REC 11 END 60 BODY 10 STUN 40 Total Cost: 138 Skills & Talents Combat Skill (Kinetic Missiles +1); (3) Power Skill (Friction Control); (5) Breakfall, 12- (3) Disguise, 12- (3) KS: New York City Underworld, 11- (2) CK: New York City, 11- (2) KS: Superhuman Community, 11- (2) Lockpicking, 12- (3) Security Systems, 12- (3) Stealth, 12- (3) Striking Appearance +1 (+1d6) (3) Total Cost: 32 Powers Friction Control (Telekinesis (30 STR), AoE Accurate (1M Radius) +½ (67 Active Points), Only For Frictionless Effects -¾, Affects Whole Area -¼, Limited Range (40M) -¼, Unified Power -¼); (27) Momentum Compensation (Telekinesis (40 STR) (60 Active Points), Limited (Only to Throw Westward) -1, Instant -½, Unified -¼); (22) Frictionless Field (Change Environment (-5 to DEX checks and DEX skills), Personal Immunity +¼, AoE (16M Radius) +¾ (40 Active Points), Unified Power -¼); (32) Kinetic Deflection (Deflection (20 Active Points), Only Against Physical Missiles -¼); (16) Kinetic Absorption (Absorption 20 BODY (Kinetic to PD), Varying Effect +¾ (35 Active Points); (35) Kinetic Cancellation (Knockback Resistance -20M); (20) Kinetic Shield (Resistant Protection 20 PD / 10 ED (45 Active Points), Costs END to Activate -¼); (36) Kinetic Missile Multipower (60 Point Reserve, All Slots OIF (Objects of Opportunity) -½, Beam -¼, Limited Range (60M) -¼ ); (30) 1. Blunt Missiles (Blast 9d6, ½ END +¼ (56 Active Points)); (3f) 2. Sharp Missiles (RKA 3d6, ½ END +¼ (56 Active Points)); (3f) 3. Kinetic Volley (Blast 6d6, ½ END +¼ , Autofire (5 shots) +½ (60Active Points)); (3f) 4. Sharp Kinetic Volley (RKA 2d6, ½ END +¼ , Autofire (5 shots) +½ (60Active Points)); (3f) Total Cost: 230 Matching Complications Distinctive Features (Mutant, Not Concealable, Noticed, Detectable by Uncommon Senses); (10) Hunted (Sentinels, Infrequently, MoPow, Capture); (15) Hunted (Pharos Corporation, Infrequently, As Powerful, NCI, Watching); (5) Psychological Complication (Overconfidence, Common, Strong); (15) Psychological Complication (Greedy, Common, Strong); (15) Social Complication (Secret Identity: Alana North, Frequently, Major); (15) Total: 75 points Background: Alana North was a second-rate professional thief who barely stayed one step ahead of being captured by New York authorities. She was frequently employed by ARGENT to steal industrial secrets from rival technology firms. During a job for the insidious corporation, Alana was confronted by Pharos security personnel who clearly didn’t intend to take her prisoner. Cornered, Alana felt a surge of panic turn into some kind of strange energy. Suddenly the guards were thrown against the far wall, knocked unconscious. She gleefully escaped, still in shock. It didn’t take her long to figure out what happened. The rush of adrenaline from facing her impending death had suddenly awakened mutant abilities related to kinetic energy. Her powers were complicated, and it took Alana some experimentation and practice to discover them all (and a few she simply abandoned because they were too hard for her to understand or use). She realized she wasn’t going to be just a run-of-the-mill criminal anymore. She was now a supervillain. Calling herself Kinetica, Alana began a new criminal career commanding much more lucrative fees, both from ARGENT and others. Kinetica has enjoyed a run of success, even taking a few superheroes by surprise with her unusual suite of powers. She has faced off against the Sentinels and is now a known member of their rogues’ gallery. Personality: Alana North has never been afraid to abuse her skills, looks, and talent for her own benefit, and she has continued that as Kinetica. Greedy, overconfident, and manipulative, Alana has no virtually no moral scruples. Although she doesn’t go out of her way to harm people, she has no problem killing during the course of her crimes -- if deadly force will help her succeed or escape, she will use it without hesitation. She enjoys the fact that she doesn’t have to be as sneaky as Kinetica as she did as a regular thief. Alana’s love of a lavish lifestyle means that she hasn’t yet profited much from her crimes, and it also makes her prone to indolence. She hasn’t trained very hard to develop her powers, and she frequently falls into tactical patterns that are easy to guess. She doesn’t always make the best use of all of her abilities, instead relying primarily on her friction control and missiles. If she ever became more sophisticated or determined, she would be a lot more dangerous, and maybe even more powerful than she already is. Powers: Kinetica has a variety of powers related to controlling kinetic energy. She can affect the friction of objects, making it harder to stand on or grip them. She can stop a character’s momentum relative to the Earth’s rotation, the equivalent of a powerful telekinetic slam (although only in one direction). She has powerful defensive abilities, including a shield, absorption of incoming attacks (both physical and energy), and knockback resistance. She can deflect incoming physical missiles by stopping their momentum. Kinetica imparts kinetic energy to small objects, turning them into deadly projectiles. This is her favorite power, and the one she uses most often offensively. Alana does not work hard at developing her powers, leaving her without some abilities suggested by her framework (including many related to affecting movement). Appearance: Kinetica is an attractive white woman, with a top heavy figure that she uses to influence others and distract her foes during combat. Her costume is a very tight, blue one piece bodysuit that exposes her midriff and part of her bust while her covering her arms and hands. Her legs are bare, except for blue knee high boots. She wears a matching mask that covers her eyes, but leaves her long blonde hair exposed. As Alana, she favors expensive, form-fitting dresses and outfits. Since becoming Kinetica, she enjoys spending as much time in the superhuman community as possible, limiting her time out of costume. Notes: I wanted to build something other than an energy projector type villain so I tried taking a cue from Sebastian Shaw. The kinetic powers are almost all from Champions Powers. There are a ton of wild ideas in that section involving movement, so I slimmed them down to what I think is a more easily usable suite of abilities. Edit: Changed her multipower slightly based on suggestion below and added two Autofire volleys to it. Kinetica.hdc

You definitely could. It's just as easy, though, to modify the villains down. I think most people would probably enter any villain they intended to use long-term into HD (the condensed blocks in the books aren't that convenient for actual play; as I've learned doing sample combats with friends). Once it is in there, it's a piece of cake to modify them. Strengthening heroes is the opposite approach I would take. In fact, I think heroes should start at 300 points in order to make sure that "normal" people and weapons remain lethal and threats.

Snape was killed by Nagini. James Potter was killed by the Killing Curse and was one of the most powerful wizards of his day. We could debate Harry Potter forever (I wrote an enormous post here and deleted it). The source material is pretty clear. You can't block it and if it's cast correctly (Order of the Phoenix talks about this), it will kill you on contact. Harry's survival is an enormous plot point in the books. No one else would survive one based on the HP material presented so far.

Yep, you're exactly right about what I envisioned.

I sort of outlined in the first post that it all depends on your understanding of a superhero adventure. If the point is tactical combat, then I understand why people want more powerful villains -- demographics and suspension of belief be darned. Everyone has their own definition of fun.

The 400 point Champions presented in Champions 6E (or the versions in Champions 5E) are my benchmarks for most everything. I also use the Champions 6E recommended ranges. Unfortunately, as an astute poster above pointed out, the villains books don't use either. In my head canon, I would have just assumed that each of Champions would be more powerful than an individual villain (like a Batman, Spider-Man, or Flash would be in their individual books). Champions published materials takes the opposite approach. I just wanted to see how people felt about that.

Thanks! I actually have this book. I love DarkAngel. The villains though . . . are not my favorite conceptions. But it was a really great read otherwise.

@archer Your idea does save a point, but it doesn't fit very well conceptually. The running, swimming, and leaping are all related to his natural ability and the other two are related to his costume and equipment. They don't work that well as a multipower. I hate martial arts. I throw enough in some characters for flavor, but it's really annoying to track and play (the people I've used to test the 6E system with always even forget to use them). I will look into your suggestions and 6E builds them.

There are a few: Snowblind, Bulldozer, Exo, Vixen, and Alchemica all come to mind off the top of my head. But it's a very small percentage of the villains in the books. A few "starter" villains have been promoted right out of that range. Talisman is a big example of this.

Well, Harry Potter might not be the best universe for your (or most people's) conception for a PnP RPG. There's simply no other way to model it and be true to an important part of the source material. But I wasn't interested in the power for a HP campaign. I was mostly trying to build a Voldemort clone as a supermage. I don't think a Killing Curse of this kind is necessary and on reflection, it just doesn't seem to work.

I agree with this statement 1000%. It's what originally started me down this path. I was building 6E characters as practice based on Champions 6E (and what it said to do), and the villains book (where I looked for a lot of examples) was completely out of whack.

Except they ruined Icicle by turning her into Snowblind. Even if they had to change the name of the character, there was no reason to change her backstory into something that dark.

Depends on your philosophy of world building I guess. I like games that can simulate things that exist in genres and am not that concerned about balance (if you want a balanced combat game, play a miniatures game, in my opinion anyway). It would be hard to have a Harry Potter-themed Hero Game if Killing Curse was modeled like a blast power that you kept taking damage from until you passed out, and later died. It simply doesn't work that way. But the idea of this, while fitting with what I originally had in mind, doesn't seem to fit with a supermage concept as well as it would in a Harry Potter game.

Everyone has a different conception of what's believable I guess.

Awesome suggestion. It would have to be very powerful to work in a supermage / superhero universe to do about 30-40 body to kill superhumans. This might be something that doesn't work very well in practice.

Cateran's main problem, like many others, is just a casually absurd OCV.

The extra work is actually pretty minimal (beyond the thought exercise). You would need to re-enter all of these stats into Hero Designer anyway to get a usable sheet for a villain you'd want in the campaign. Once the data is in Hero Designer, scaling someone down is pretty simple.