Trying Out Villain Creation

Games Sentinel Comics RPG
1

I’ve got a good handle on hero creation now; I could keep making characters forever, but they don’t do anything without some opposition. So it’s time I look at the villain creation rules, and start building some random nonsense villains that don’t have anything to do with anything, before beginning to actually tailor one to my players.

I should probably roll a d20 and just reroll 19 or higher to pick a random Archetype, but I’m going to pretend I didn’t buy a d20 because the SCRPG doesn’t otherwise use one, so even though it produces a skew toward the middle of the range, I’ll roll 3d6. I get 5, 4, and 1, so that’s 10; I’m building a Mastermind. (Because we clearly don’t have enough of those in this universe.) To make it easy on myself I’ll take the suggestions: d12 Inventions, d10 Powered Suit, d8 Lightning Calculator, d10 Technology, d8 Science, Insight, Investigation, Creativity, and a roleplay quality. My abilities are Prepared for Anything and Villainous Monologue; every turn he can roll Technology to Boost himself, then hinder every hero in the scene with Technology and Boost himself again, then take a Defend action the following turn with that Boost, lather rinse repeat every two rounds. 20 health so far.

14 possible Archetypes; this time I’ll roll d10 and d4. I get 4 and 7, so I’m an Overlord; I spam Minions and have 35 total health. Since I have no concept at all in mind so far, I’ll just use the illustration on page 231, and call my guy the Anchorite. His new abilities are Form Up, Get Back In There, and Rapid Deployment; on the first turn of combat he gains his boost and spawns minions, then on the following round he declines the boost so that he has his reaction free, does a combination attack and defense, and protects all surviving minions against multi-attacks. Rapid Deployment can give him up to 10 minions with a great roll, and if he’s got a d12 status die and is defended by 10 against all attacks, the heroes are pretty screwed that round. So he has 35+5H health, three Action options, and one Reaction for between turns if he doesn’t take his other Reaction at the start of his turn (so if he generates a Boost with his action and that Boost isn’t destroyed, he then gets to protect his minions the whole following round).

Not bad for a first try, I’d say.

1 Like
2

An overdue second effort, shall we say. No rolling this time, I’m just going to pick whatever I like at each step.

I have no concept, so starting with Generalist seems reasonable. D10 Materials powers sounds less generic; D8 Strength and Vitality, D6 Mobility. Since I’ve got a crazy Power, I don’t want to just be some mook, so I go with Conviction for my D10 Quality, with Close Combat at D8 and only D6 in Criminal Underworld Info. She’s got some connections in the underworld, but isn’t really a criminal; she has some kind of cause and is a true believer in something.

Health: 25

Action: Wracking Aura. Hinder multiple nearby targets using Vitality, boost with the max die.
Inherent: Tough Customer; reduce physical and energy damage by 1/2/3 G/Y/R.
Reaction: When an ally is attacked, defend them by rolling your single Materials die and Boost yourself by the same amount.

Approach: Bruiser. Green zone has D6/-1 health and armor, Yellow D8/-2, Red D10/-3.

Action: Lash Out. Attack using Materials. Green: Use Max. Yellow: Use Max+Min. Red: As Yellow, but attack a second target with Mid.
Reaction: Living Wall: When nearby ally attacked, may become the target instead; may take 1 irreducible damage to use this reaction again after first time each round.

So this is a villain who’s extremely tough and great at protecting another villain. I haven’t picked what the Material she has power over is, nor what cause she has Conviction in, but I’ve definitely got the skeleton of a great build going here.

3

Being no longer sophomoric, I’m creating a villain who’s intended to be super low threat, using the Underpowered Approach and the Fragile Archetype.

Powers: 8 Flight - 6 Wing Quills - 6 Speed - 6 Sonic
Qualities: 10 Ranged Combat - 8 Criminal Underworld Info - 6 (Spoiler) Knowledge - 8 Kind of a Loser
Health: 5
Status: Green D10 (5), Yellow D8 (4-3), Red D6 (2-1)

Abilities: Luck or Genius (Wing Quills), Still a Threat (Ranged Combat), Last Ditch Effort (Flight), Shrouded Attack (Criminal Underworld Info), Escape Plan.

Literally 5 health? Seriously? I can’t even compute his Zones with that; the table only goes down to 10! Well even against two heroes he won’t last long; I’d better give him a Power Upgrade, so that way his health is 25 and his power dice are d10 and 3x d8. But if two more heroes join the fight, I’ll drop the upgrade and have two other, slightly more robust villains appear. Apparently anyone with an Upgrade is also supposed to get a Mastery, so I guess his can be Mercenary.

New Status: Green D10 (25-20), Yellow D8 (19-10), Red D6 (9-1)

4

You add 5 Health to his base for every hero in the scene, just like any villain does. That’s why the chart bottoms out at 10. 5 base is as low as it gets and there’s always going to be at least one hero present.

Yes, being Fragile and Underpowered makes you fragile and underpowered. Go figure.

Let’s see, what did I do with this combo - oh right, Tom Thompson, aka the Incredible Flashbang. He got punched out at least four times back when I was still playing. Something of a running gag with one table of players.

1 Like
5

I missed that rule

6

Time for a new villain. I have to rebuild the last guy to account for his team status, but first I’ll build a member of his team.

Concept: War Hawk
Approach: Tactician
Powers: Flight d8, Powered Suit d8, Fire d6, Technology d6
Qualities: Ranged Combat d10, Leadership d8, Alertness d6, Roleplaying Quality d6
Archetype: Formidable
Status Die: d12 if no relevant penalties, d8 if they have both bonuses and penalties, d4 if penalty and no bonus.
Abilities: Joint Action (Action, take basic action using Leadership and use max die, one nearby ally uses reaction to take that same action), Working Together (inherent, reroll all 1s if an ally nearby), Share in Glory (Action, boost self with Powered Suit and use max die, boost a nearby allie with Mid and another with Min). Untempered Grit (Reaction, ignore all penalties and take irreducible equal to the total)
Health: 25

Here’s a blank to fill out with the revised version of the other guy:

Concept: Killjay
Approach:
Powers:
Qualities:
Archetype:
Status Die:
Abilities:
Health:

7

Your base health is too low. Tactician starts with 20 and Formidable adds 25, so that should be 45 before adding 5 x H to get the final figure.

Also, if you’re trying to write these for other folks to use, it’s good form to provide some idea of what the weakness is that defines Formidable’s status die. I could make guesses at what mods would be relevant (eg things that make it hard to communicate with allies or being caught without anyone to boss around) but it’s better to be clear about it. For ex, my own Tactician/Formidable pairing Intellect Alpha over here is the artificial second head of the refitted Ettin monster, and its status die is impacted by anything that messes with its ability to direct its giant host body.

1 Like
8

Technology is a quality, not a power. Perhaps you meant Inventions or Gadgets?

1 Like
9

Good catch. “Roleplaying Quality d6” is also both incomplete and incorrect at the same time.

1 Like
10

This is intentionally incomplete, as a game is ongoing and I don’t want spoilers.

11

Then why post them publicly at all?

12

It’s helpful to me for organization, and might be interesting to people in future (assuming this entire forum doesn’t get binned as a result of some snafu during the Hand-Elabroff.)

EDIT - and mere hours later it’s basically confirmed that won’t be a problem!

13

Above quote block should soon be edited with fully updated stats for Warhawk and Killjay, and here’s their pal Peafair.

Concept: Peacock the Fair Fowl
Approach: Prideful (25 HP base)
Powers: d10 Radiant, d10 Presence, d10 Vitality, d8 Awareness
Qualities: d10 Conviction, d10 Ranged Combat, d8 (Spoiler) Knowledge, d8 Imposing, and d8 “I’m Not Citizen Dawn!”
Archetype: Guerilla? (+20 HP)
Status Die: d10 if all four heroes, goes down if one removed and again if all but one.
Abilities: Sustained Mockery (Hinder using Boast, use max die, penalty exc/pers), I Know Your Weakness (React, a nearby hero rolls 1 during their turn, attack them with Light), My Greatness Cannot Be Denied (attack with X and use max+min; if target changes zones, gain pers-exc bonus from Mid due), Malicious Deflection (React, roll status die to defend and deal that much to another nearby), Even Odds (gain bonus at start of turn equalling number of opponents attacked by since last turn).
Health: 45 - Green (until below 32), Yellow (31-16), Red (15 or lower)

14

At last I got that trio of villains fully built. Other than their real names and the identity of Spoiler, all the info is there now; hopefully my players aren’t reading this.

1 Like