JackValhalla

"Can't have bad things happen to my character", "can't crit fail, that's not heroic", blah-blah-blah. If they have them as a resource, the players will (ab)use them.
 
I had a player whose character was a Batman-type. Lots of gadgets and training. Wasn't adverse to using the guns of downed thugs when he could. Only downside was, every time he picked up a dropped gun, his dice hated him. Every time he shot, he missed. He missed badly. Up to and including hitting a hostage he was trying to save. Had we used hero points none of that would have happened.
 
Dice don't mess with your game flow. The dice ARE your game flow.

In a world with super villains and super-criminals, the Department of the Treasury has to make certain allowances. Most of the department works to keep itself free of powered individuals, but the Internal Affairs division makes an exception. For one thing, the rest of the Treasury hates IA already and can't hate them more if they've got mutants or freak-weirdos working in their ranks. For another, a world with mind-controllers, shapeshifters, and so much else represents a real threat to the integrity of law enforcement, the treasury, and the mint. One of their top agents was Inquest, a man or woman with the ability to fully imitate the shape, voice, mannerisms and memories of another person by touch. On their watch, the Department managed not to lose any information to moles, super-spies or villains for years. The perfect infiltrator, the perfect bug-hunter, Inquest was effective enough to find any sign of any impropriety. Eventually, the heads of the Department started asking "what if I've got something to hide that I don't even know about?", and Inquest was quickly reassigned to a dead-end job full of showboats, screw-ups, and anti-social types. The mutant known as Inquest is stand-offish with the rest of the team, treating this assignment like an unearned punishment, and barely even speaks to the rest of America's Best outside of fieldwork. This arrogance and stuffy demeanor make this agent a frequent target of scorn, pranks, and resentment from the rest of the team.

In a world with super villains and super-criminals, the Department of the Treasury has to make certain allowances. Most of the department works to keep itself free of powered individuals, but the Internal Affairs division makes an exception. For one thing, the rest of the Treasury hates IA already and can't hate them more if they've got mutants or freak-weirdos working in their ranks. For another, a world with mind-controllers, shapeshifters, and so much else represents a real threat to the integrity of law enforcement, the treasury, and the mint. One of their top agents was Inquest, a man or woman with the ability to fully imitate the shape, voice, mannerisms and memories of another person by touch. On their watch, the Department managed not to lose any information to moles, super-spies or villains for years. The perfect infiltrator, the perfect bug-hunter, Inquest was effective enough to find any sign of any impropriety. Eventually, the heads of the Department started asking "what if I've got something to hide that I don't even know about?", and Inquest was quickly reassigned to a dead-end job full of showboats, screw-ups, and anti-social types. The mutant known as Inquest is stand-offish with the rest of the team, treating this assignment like an unearned punishment, and barely even speaks to the rest of America's Best outside of fieldwork. This arrogance and stuffy demeanor make this agent a frequent target of scorn, pranks, and resentment from the rest of the team.

(so the game recently took a weird pivot and got very close to the tropes of the source fiction : ambushed by enemies, villainous monologues, knocked out, separated, one teammate breaks into enemy compound by force while the two powerhouses are sneaking their way in, one teammate captured and put in a deathtrap they escaped on their own, heroes wearing enemy minion armor to blend in, heroes faking being captured by enemy, unexpected trapdoors, gauntlet of villains)
 
Ace: *waking up in deathtrap* New Pulp Fiction 2: Kidnapped by perverts in Las Vegas by Ace Frehley.
Booming intercom voice: No Mister Frehley I expect you to die!
Ace: *blank silence*
Intercom voice: James Bond? No? C'mon!
Ace: Learn to read the room, man.
 
Enemy minion wakes up flat on his back with The Demon crouched on his chest.
The Demon: If you scream, I can just pull your head right off.
*Roll a 17d6 PRE Attack.*
Minion: I believe you.
Starchild: I was gonna roll Interrogation, but ...
 
character in form of housecat infiltrating the enemy base: A sneak-a sneak-a sneak-a!
 
Starchild: And get  your friend some medical care, he's in a coma!
Enemy minion who is literally a clone of the guy in coma: *running away* F**k 'im, he's an a$$hole!

This - 110%.  The old V&V modules were great at including a "what if the heroes lose?" note so they could come back and make that last-ditch effort to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.  Initial failure was not prescribed and baked in - it was a possibility accounted for in the scenario.

If you as the GM always always have a plan for what will happen if the heroes lose, and if that plan always always includes a way for them to win again, then the narrative down-then-up will always be preserved. Like GnomeBody I find that karma, inspiration points, fate tokens and whatnot tend to get spent when players are trying to avoid a fail. I used a system like that for a previous campaign, and the players were blowing them out to make ordinary Dodge actions in ordinary combat because a blast *might* Stun them for a phase. I eventually added a rule that you could only ever cash in a heroic token for one maneuver one time, and that worked somewhat better. The first time a character spent one on an EGO roll to push STR was the highlight clip for those tokens, but other than that they were clunky and disappointing.
 

Alaisingae are two female war goddesses of the Celtic/Germanic area. They have habbit of doing everything together, including finishing each others sentences. There goals are merely to have a good fight, and being "supervillains" are a good way to get what they crave.

Whiro
 
The Maori lord of darkness and embodiment of evil. He has finally consumed enough of the dead to escape the underworld. He has also brought forth Taiwhetuki, his House of Death, to this plane as well. It has enhanced all the dark magic used in the world, made diseases stronger and illnesses deadlier. His ultimate goal is simple, cover the world in darkness and devour it whole.

Nacon
Unlike most of his teammates, Nacon does not maintain a corporeal form. A creature entirely of spirit, this Mayan war-god is incorporeal and invisible, known only as a voice and a pervasive sense of malice in the air. He maintains the ability to possess a mortal and fill them with his spirit and knowledge. When he borrows the body of a normal mortal, the skills and battle-fervor he grants them make them the equal of most superheroes in combat. When he manages to overtake a powered body, he adds his power to its own and creates a difficult challenge for a hero team. 

(so the game recently took a weird pivot and got very close to the tropes of the source fiction : ambushed by enemies, villainous monologues, knocked out, separated, one teammate breaks into enemy compound by force while the two powerhouses are sneaking their way in, one teammate captured and put in a deathtrap they escaped on their own, heroes wearing enemy minion armor to blend in, heroes faking being captured by enemy, unexpected trapdoors, gauntlet of villains)
 
Ace: *waking up in deathtrap* New Pulp Fiction 2: Kidnapped by perverts in Las Vegas by Ace Frehley.
Booming intercom voice: No Mister Frehley I expect you to die!
Ace: *blank silence*
Intercom voice: James Bond? No? C'mon!
Ace: Learn to read the room, man.
 
Enemy minion wakes up flat on his back with The Demon crouched on his chest.
The Demon: If you scream, I can just pull your head right off.
*Roll a 17d6 PRE Attack.*
Minion: I believe you.
Starchild: I was gonna roll Interrogation, but ...
 
character in form of housecat infiltrating the enemy base: A sneak-a sneak-a sneak-a!
 
Starchild: And get  your friend some medical care, he's in a coma!
Enemy minion who is literally a clone of the guy in coma: *running away* F**k 'im, he's an a$$hole!

The Almighty, a band of six gods who are labeled as mere 'supervillains' by the mortals of this place and time. Each of them is a divine figure who was worshiped in the past but no longer. They don't necessarily share goals, some may be looking for new worshipers and others may simply want revenge against ancient enemies. They are banded together simply because each of them refuses to band together with 'lesser creatures', but each of them requires assistance in reaching their various goals.

(so the game recently took a weird pivot and got very close to the tropes of the source fiction : ambushed by enemies, villainous monologues, knocked out, separated, one teammate breaks into enemy compound by force while the two powerhouses are sneaking their way in, one teammate captured and put in a deathtrap they escaped on their own, heroes wearing enemy minion armor to blend in, heroes faking being captured by enemy, unexpected trapdoors, gauntlet of villains)
 
Ace: *waking up in deathtrap* New Pulp Fiction 2: Kidnapped by perverts in Las Vegas by Ace Frehley.
Booming intercom voice: No Mister Frehley I expect you to die!
Ace: *blank silence*
Intercom voice: James Bond? No? C'mon!
Ace: Learn to read the room, man.
 
Enemy minion wakes up flat on his back with The Demon crouched on his chest.
The Demon: If you scream, I can just pull your head right off.
*Roll a 17d6 PRE Attack.*
Minion: I believe you.
Starchild: I was gonna roll Interrogation, but ...
 
character in form of housecat infiltrating the enemy base: A sneak-a sneak-a sneak-a!
 
Starchild: And get  your friend some medical care, he's in a coma!
Enemy minion who is literally a clone of the guy in coma: *running away* F**k 'im, he's an a$$hole!

Burrow is the most and least public member of the Groundhogs. Unless scanned by mutant-detecting technology, she is completely indistinguishable from a normal human. She is the team fence and contact, the one that walks down the street in daylight and meets with clients that would like to hire the villain team. In the field, she is never seen, staying under several meters of stone and soil and never showing her face. She can sense vibrations through the earth with uncanny accuracy, and can open tunnels in the ground at will. For most of the Groundhog's enemies, the only defense is their mobility and maneuverability, but once they've been dumped down a forty-foot pit that fills in on top of them they are easy targets for the jaws, claws, and other weapons of Burrow's teammates.
(Desolidification, only through earth and stone, Flight only through earth and stone, N-ray vision only through earth and stone, Tunneling UAA)

Greatest Of All Time
 
Though his name is rather difficult for most, he strenuously objects to anyone abbreviating it to GOAT. Despite the fact that his main combat tactic is to charge people and hit them with the horns that project up from his scalp and skull, a blow that hits like a freight train, out of all proportion to his actual speed and strength. His only other known power is that he can bite through any material and digest anything he can fit into his mouth, destroying it utterly. It takes him seconds to eat his way out of a pair of handcuffs, or to disable an alarm system by consuming it. His limited powers are offset by an amazingly diverse and well-developed suite of skills and proficiencies, he seems to know how to do just about everything and he seems to know someone everywhere he goes. When the CZ goes traveling, he normally serves as their guide, handler, translator and go-between.

Greatest Of All Time
 
Though his name is rather difficult for most, he strenuously objects to anyone abbreviating it to GOAT. Despite the fact that his main combat tactic is to charge people and hit them with the horns that project up from his scalp and skull, a blow that hits like a freight train, out of all proportion to his actual speed and strength. His only other known power is that he can bite through any material and digest anything he can fit into his mouth, destroying it utterly. It takes him seconds to eat his way out of a pair of handcuffs, or to disable an alarm system by consuming it. His limited powers are offset by an amazingly diverse and well-developed suite of skills and proficiencies, he seems to know how to do just about everything and he seems to know someone everywhere he goes. When the CZ goes traveling, he normally serves as their guide, handler, translator and go-between.

"Art thine downeth to clowneth?"
 
(group of monsters show up, tightly clustered in a fireball-sized room. all the melee specialists in the party get initiative and run forward, engage enemies.)
Fireball sorceror: "Guys, my fireball!"
(melee specialists kill all but one of the monsters)
Fireball sorceror: *sigh* r i p my fireball, I guess.
 
(current story revolves around orcs that duplicate infinitely using sigils. we are bringing mind flayers in to help control the orc population.
Barbarian: Now we just need to worry about the mind flayers figuring out the sigils so they regenerate every day, too.
Whole Party: LOL that would be messed up.
Barbarian: Guys I'm serious.
 
Cleric of Bahamut: "Yes! We will guard the mind flayers and protect them all the way to the orc fortress. That is justice!"
Assassin: You keep using that word...
 
DM: Okay, so while those guys are defending the village from orcs, what are Druid and Arcane Knight doing?
Super Edgy Fallen Aasimar Druid who dresses from Hot Topic: I colored a picture of a frog. See? *holds up her tablet w/ coloring app*
Whole Party: Oh, yeah, wow, that's really cute.
 
(on Loxadon cleric healing a mind flayer without setting down his weapons)
"Touch his face tentacles with your face tentacle!"
"Oh, right, I keep forgetting I have that."

It's rare to find a reality warper whose powers manifest as a brick, but Brink is an unusual woman. Rather than affecting the larger world, her powers are limited to a thin field around her body. And rather than the sophisticated possibilities of her teammates, her powers only work against the base laws of physics, like gravity, inertia, friction, electromagnetic force, etc. She is more vulnerable than most bricks to power drains, suppression fields and mental attacks, but that matters little when her punches strike at several times the speed of light with no equal-opposite reaction. She made her reputation by shredding a wall that was physically impossible to damage, and there is literally no degree of kinetic force or conventional energy that can harm her. On her team of flexible, versatile powers, she is the big gun that holds the center line.

Next up, The Fateful Five. Each member of the team is a reality warper, and it is up to you to determine what that means to you. "Reality Warper" is an unusual description that means lots of things to lots of people, so it should be good for variety. Extra points for backstory and innovative power builds and power descriptions.

On January first, 1915, a German U-24 was lurking in the English channel. In its torpedo bay, an experimental weapon was ready to deploy. High-ranked scientists from Germany were present to see the effects their one-of-a-kind device would have when it struck the British ship. The payload was a bomb centered around a piece of hyper-dense material, which the scientists hoped would crack open at the atomic level and unleash truly unique devastation. Their science was not all worked out, and they had spent weeks haranguing about the right way to construct the device, but the rush to production had caused... shortcuts.
 
Jerry Stonedoubt was an engineer's mate on the night shift, and was more than annoyed at needing to be on his duty station without even time to take one drink of Ruther's smuggled gin when the clock had struck the beginning of 1915. He was leaning against the hull when the U-24's torpedo struck the HMS Formidable and gashed open the engine room, then activated.
 
The Formidable probably could have survived the torpedo. But when the atomic payload inside activated, it transferred its hyperdense properties to Jerry instead. His weight, multiplied by the density of plutonium, was enough to buckle deck plating and tear the hole even wider. He grew denser and denser, heavier and heavier, as he lay panting and recovering on the floor of the flooding engine room. In minutes, his weight was sufficient to drag the whole ship under the waves, lost and leaving all its crew floating in the ocean waiting for rescue.
 
All except one man, who was whisked away by Father Time to serve with the New Year's Evil. His mass is matched by his strength and toughness, making him an effective brick and a mainstay of the team, using the name of the ship he had dragged to its death. Formidable.
 

Okay, granted first of all that I'm a munchkin bastard. But... CVs of 15, DCs of 18, defenses 35-40.. I build that on regulation 350 pts with room left over for flavor, fluff and noncombat skills. What did you do with the other 650? What've I missed?
 
Anyway, the trick to challenging a team is in the team itself. For a combat challenge: look over their character sheets and see what they don't have. No precognition? Put them up against a master-planner who has a new trap and a new trick for every occasion. No life support? Enemies from space or from underwater who can strike with impunity and make the PCs find a way to overcome their liability. No STUN-only attacks? Put them up against a villain who is dangerous but fragile, who will die if they hit him even with a pulled punch. This should not come up every adventure- if you do that, the players are within their rights to feel like you're picking on them by tailoring enemies to their weaknesses. But, for a master villain, someone who has an entire campaign arc devoted to them? It's a great start.
For a more mental / roleplay challenge, look over the character sheets and see what they do have, in Disadvantages or Complications (whichever edition). A villain learns the PCs secret identity, but instead of threatening it directly he uses it to kidnap the DNPCs and start brainwashing them. If they have multiple Hunteds, form a Revenge Society and throw several of those Hunteds at them simultaneously. If all the characters have a shared origin, they probably have some shared Disadlications, so this may be pretty easy. And any villain with enough Contacts or Favors from the government or law enforcement is going to be a tough puzzle to beat. Most Perks- money, followers, networks of contacts and associates- are signs of a successful supervillain, and not for no reason.

Among the golem-animated toys, there is power and skill and strength. But the Melog System Construction Kit takes the cake for versatility. These plastic bricks can reshape themselves into thousands of configurations, scooting around on wheels or walking along. As spies they are not as effective as the Mannequin, as combatants they will never beat Soldier John, and they're not as generally useful as Rainbow Sprinkles. But they can shape themselves into whatever the team needs, and in a pinch they can just scatter themselves across the floor and inflict terrible damage on anyone who walks over them.

Brood is a dark, dystopic figure with a black-caped costume, a grimacing cowl, and an affinity for nighttime and rooftops. He is known for his edgy patter, his barely-restrained mental health issues, and his fighting skills, gadgets and theatricality. Also, his penchant for teen or child sidekicks dressed in flashy colorful costumes. Though the rumors of the underworld would make him out as a demon or powerhouse, among the super-powered set he is known to be basically unpowered, though certainly a very exceptional unpowered human.
 
He likes them to think that.
 
Under Stately Dayne Manor is a cave, a Brood-cave, where the hero does his work. All of it. All of him. Hundreds of Broods that design new costumes, assemble new smoke grenades, tune up the grappling swingline, work on the Broodmobile, and wait their turn to fight and die for justice. An exceptional athlete, a gifted inventor, and a superb detective, he is also a duplicator of the highest order, unbeknownst even to his own teammates. Whenever he fights for the USAT, and is struck by a lightning bolt or hovertank or carbide chainsaw, his teammates see him fly backwards and disappear in a cloud of smoke, only to reappear later from the shadows and attack the unwitting enemy. His fellows believe he is just that damn tricky, stealthy, and skilled. Rather, the Brood just lost another brother, and another reason to mourn and another reason to enact revenge on criminals everywhere.
 
His very most well-kept secret is the teen sidekicks: they are the results of his failed attempts to clone himself younger and sustain his career further. There have been rather a lot of them.

Brood is a dark, dystopic figure with a black-caped costume, a grimacing cowl, and an affinity for nighttime and rooftops. He is known for his edgy patter, his barely-restrained mental health issues, and his fighting skills, gadgets and theatricality. Also, his penchant for teen or child sidekicks dressed in flashy colorful costumes. Though the rumors of the underworld would make him out as a demon or powerhouse, among the super-powered set he is known to be basically unpowered, though certainly a very exceptional unpowered human.
 
He likes them to think that.
 
Under Stately Dayne Manor is a cave, a Brood-cave, where the hero does his work. All of it. All of him. Hundreds of Broods that design new costumes, assemble new smoke grenades, tune up the grappling swingline, work on the Broodmobile, and wait their turn to fight and die for justice. An exceptional athlete, a gifted inventor, and a superb detective, he is also a duplicator of the highest order, unbeknownst even to his own teammates. Whenever he fights for the USAT, and is struck by a lightning bolt or hovertank or carbide chainsaw, his teammates see him fly backwards and disappear in a cloud of smoke, only to reappear later from the shadows and attack the unwitting enemy. His fellows believe he is just that damn tricky, stealthy, and skilled. Rather, the Brood just lost another brother, and another reason to mourn and another reason to enact revenge on criminals everywhere.
 
His very most well-kept secret is the teen sidekicks: they are the results of his failed attempts to clone himself younger and sustain his career further. There have been rather a lot of them.

Next up, The Fateful Five. Each member of the team is a reality warper, and it is up to you to determine what that means to you. "Reality Warper" is an unusual description that means lots of things to lots of people, so it should be good for variety. Extra points for backstory and innovative power builds and power descriptions.

It's rare to find a reality warper whose powers manifest as a brick, but Brink is an unusual woman. Rather than affecting the larger world, her powers are limited to a thin field around her body. And rather than the sophisticated possibilities of her teammates, her powers only work against the base laws of physics, like gravity, inertia, friction, electromagnetic force, etc. She is more vulnerable than most bricks to power drains, suppression fields and mental attacks, but that matters little when her punches strike at several times the speed of light with no equal-opposite reaction. She made her reputation by shredding a wall that was physically impossible to damage, and there is literally no degree of kinetic force or conventional energy that can harm her. On her team of flexible, versatile powers, she is the big gun that holds the center line.