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.

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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.

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5

I missed that rule