Main Villain Dilemma

[Flicker182]

Hi guys, I have come to a major GM block on how to design my main villain for the campaign I am going to run. I know he is a member of an alien race that is pretty much extinct (save him and he is trying to resurrect his people) and that he will have devices. My main concern is not knowing what powers I want to give him (if any) to show that he is leagues above and beyond his fellow species. The end of the story (if it gets to that point) will be the player characters coming back from prehistoric England with the main villain already having his species revived and taking over Earth.

I already have a mind controller and prober but I don't know what to do with him at all. What kind of powers have you given your main villains (or non main villain alien antagonists) and how have you treated these characters in your story arc?

[Shoe2]

This is something I have been contemplating lately as well. Mindcontrol. magic and tech all seem a bit cliche.

WHat a bout duplication. That seems like a cool BBEG power. Super smart planning guy and there are thousands of him all over the world executng various plans.

doesnt seem like a good fit for your game, but a cool idea none the less. Other cool ideas.....hmmm....

Other powers that are somewhat "broken" seem to lead to the most challanging villains...how about Precog/Postcog, Speedster, power mimic?

power mimic seems like a cool idea. Having him leech the powers off of the very fact that the heroes are nearby? Trying to stop him makes him stronger and all that....
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just thinking out loud...well not literally, but you get the idea

-Shoe

[Flicker182]

This is something I have been contemplating lately as well. Mindcontrol. magic and tech all seem a bit cliche.

Yes but the mind controlling prober is a fall guy for the Main Antagonist. He believed he was going to get something in return by helping the Main Antagonist but learns all too late that he was duped. He also is sent back into the past with the PCs and a NPC Superhero.

WHat a bout duplication. That seems like a cool BBEG power. Super smart planning guy and there are thousands of him all over the world executng various plans.

Actually something I was thinking of but in the end chose to go with something else. If he was trying to resurrect his dead race than even if he has this power than it becomes sort of useless.

Other powers that are somewhat "broken" seem to lead to the most challanging villains...how about Precog/Postcog, Speedster, power mimic?

power mimic seems like a cool idea. Having him leech the powers off of the very fact that the heroes are nearby? Trying to stop him makes him stronger and all that....
\
just thinking out loud...well not literally, but you get the idea

-Shoe

The mimic idea is something I had in mind for a device so that the heroes never really get an upper hand on him. It would allow him to identify their powers and use them against the players. It would make him more imposing but if they realized that if they get the device off of him it could stop him from learning their powers and can use it against him. Although making him a speedster may help. That would be super annoying for the players.

[gerbilattack]

rather than give him one mimic device, make him a proper inventor, researching the various superpowers and making devices that replicate them. He could also make armored suits for equipping his newly resurrected forces.

Imagine this "These heroes have foiled one of my plots carried out by a pawn"... mutters the shadowed figure, "but before i can allow them to capture the piece i ought to be prepared, countermeasures to nullify, copy and control their powers. I can only spend so much time on this though. I have studied human weapons technology, and my resurrected brethren will be adequately equipped, i have made sure of that, for all but these 'super- heroes'" A wicked grin is seen in the darkness, teeth like knives. "oh i just thought of a wonderful idea, why don't i make our elite forces have all the powers of the 'heroes' and 'villains', i have similar enough technology to replicate most of them. Muahahahahahahahahaha... It will be 'fun.'" (cut back to the heroes)

Or robots as aids. That can work too.

[Flicker182]

The whole idea of this race is that they are all supposed to have different powers. Most of them only have one but it's supposed to be that they're augmented due to the race being a technologically advanced race. The resurrection is supposed to bring back those that were last alive of this dead empire. They would get their skin back and immunization boosters to survive on present day Terra.

Basically the entire race realized that powered individuals are dangerous. In order to combat this problem they decided that all members of their species must have a power in some manner. This lead to the augmentation. Not all people got the exact same powers (and for the Main Villain the only immunity to disease and aging power). So what it boils down to is that all that are resurrected will have a power automatically, but the question is what to do with the Main Villain.

[WalkingChicken]

Well, for a main villain who is the last of his race some powers I would think of are:

Immortality: Plain and simple, unless you find his weakness(Needs one, got to have a conclusion) he can't die, giving him the whole unstoppable villain vibe and giving a reason as to why he survived, after all he can't die. Coupled with regeneration and if you make his resurrection fast,(and give him a good weapon) any and all encounters with him go from "stop this guy!" to "Stop his plans! We might not be able to kill him but we can still f$%# up his plans!" making characters avoid him like the plague if possible. The Biggest Con is if he isn't done right he can go from the scary boss to that annoying POS. Use this option with Care.


The Drainer: Another Scary Villain is one who can draw the life/powers/whatever out of anything he touches, made worse if he can also use them(to a lesser extent, don't want to be OP here and piss people off) one demon I made for a campaign sucked the life out of everything near him when ever he was injured(he couldn't heal otherwise), making the frail characters run for cover while the stronger ones hold him off. A CON for the drainer is power people(guys who spend 70% of there points in powers) hate Power Drainers more then anything and might throw a fit. So I recommend going for stat drain or skill or something off the beaten path. He could have survived all this time by devouring all in his path, seams a little bit evil...


Speedster: Need I say more? a speed freak is always unusual for a boss, made stranger if he used some odd way to move, like I don't know, time? if he can accelerate and decelerate his own time then he could have godlike quickness and speed or similarly 'stop' time, allowing him to effectively Teleport or make past duplicates of himself(all share DMG, being the same guy and all) allowing him to be more then one place at a time. If his race developed time travel(or worse, he did) and a horrible accident destroyed them leaving him the lone survivor, and the cause of his species doom, it could be reason enough for him to go to a new world and fix his mistake, reviving his race.


these are just idea's though take them with a grain of salt.

[gerbilattack]

The reason i thought tech would be good (super intelligence or just that the aliens already had better tech), was in part that unless his entire race will be an elite core of super-ed up individuals, they will have non-altered "pure" individuals who need to be protected.

If not He may want robots as a distraction or a way to bulk up his forces, such as with inflatable tanks in WW1 (also WW2). Even if he is just creating an armored uniform people of earth not knowing (initially) which ones are real and have powers, and which are just effective killbots will radically increase his odds of victory. Aslo he was probably plan B of the invasion force and needs to be smart enough to manipulate the heroes and make a vaccine in addition to a rez device.

How big is his army? After all, if he only has 300 super members (or even 3,000) he will be outnumbered by the combined forces of earth's supervillains and superheroes. (as well as weapons).

TL:DR He has the money and the smarts, why not make a robot army to aid in war/equipment to nullify newer weapons?

[Flicker182]

The reason i thought tech would be good (super intelligence or just that the aliens already had better tech), was in part that unless his entire race will be an elite core of super-ed up individuals, they will have non-altered "pure" individuals who need to be protected.

Well he is supposed to have super powered individuals in his race. What may happen though is it may take some time from the shock of being resurrected to become fully acclimated into the army. Maybe a few weeks or so whereas instead of right away they can get ready for the fight to take over Earth. I'll think that over.

If not He may want robots as a distraction or a way to bulk up his forces, such as with inflatable tanks in WW1 (also WW2). Even if he is just creating an armored uniform people of earth not knowing (initially) which ones are real and have powers, and which are just effective killbots will radically increase his odds of victory. Aslo he was probably plan B of the invasion force and needs to be smart enough to manipulate the heroes and make a vaccine in addition to a rez device.

I like the second idea where you have some as armored killbots and others not. That sounds like a good plan and may make the pcs having not only a more difficult time but an even more fun time as well. I might try that. He wasn't plan B. He became plan B by chance. They didn't see much use for him but he was smart enough before they all died out. He was essentially a lucky scientist outcast.

How big is his army? After all, if he only has 300 super members (or even 3,000) he will be outnumbered by the combined forces of earth's supervillains and superheroes. (as well as weapons).

His army is not his whole race, but his race is what he's bringing back. He will still be reviving his people by the time the heroes come back so they won't be fully alive yet. However, I'd say a good 3 million are alive again. About 50,000 are fighting as generals and admirals combined. The rest are machines. His race stood at 2 billion when they came to Earth. The only difference is that it blossomed to 4 billion by the time they ddied.

TL:DR He has the money and the smarts, why not make a robot army to aid in war/equipment to nullify newer weapons?

I may actually try a mix between the robot army and his race. So we'll see.

Also, please don't hesitate to comment on my campaign arc idea for the campaign where this villain will come out of under the thread, "How Does This Campaign Arc Sound?" Reading this in conjunction with that one may help your ideas because mine are continually developing as well.

[Unbeliever]

There's an arc in a comic book where the big reveal is that a character has a device that extracts powers from those he captures and puts in them. That would give him a bevy of abilities, which could be scary. It also might give you a nice reveal. Just make sure the powers are kind of distinctive, so that part of the arc can be the players discovering that this villain is using the distinctive powers of someone who is missing.

[Flicker182]

There's an arc in a comic book where the big reveal is that a character has a device that extracts powers from those he captures and puts in them. That would give him a bevy of abilities, which could be scary. It also might give you a nice reveal. Just make sure the powers are kind of distinctive, so that part of the arc can be the players discovering that this villain is using the distinctive powers of someone who is missing.

Technically there will be a lot of missing heroes. Very few of them will be out and even alive. Besides that one of the potential things I planned on doing was giving him a device that allows him to mimic powers by picking and choosing which ones to take. So in a way I had that idea but only halfway through. It also allows him to determine what his enemies are capable of doing. He's not worried about dying, but he needs to know what to do to stay out of incarceration. It's not that he can't die. It's that his race was a long living race and with his aging ability it's like he never can die.

The players will find out once they get to the end of the campaign what he can do or the smarter ones will research who he is and what are his abilities.