Friday, August 19, 2022

The Triple Threat Gang, Street-Level Foes

The Triple Threat Gang are foes for low-powered street-level heroes, and even then they're kind of pushovers unless they have numbers or a home field advantage working for them.  Basically an independent neighborhood gang, noteworthy for being led by the three young low-tier supers the gang is named for.  Their powers come from unexpected reactions to Supe (or Soup, or Campbell's), a new drug that's taking the city by storm.  There's probably a criminal syndicate or dodgy corporation or even a conspiracy behind the stuff, and they may take an interest in the Triple Threat when they notice them.

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Streetwise

Joe Manson is an out-and-out sociopath, and gaining psychic superpowers has let him "share" the darkness in his mind with the rest of the world.  He's an alarmingly powerful telepath and specializes in coercive mental contact, although his fine control is badly lacking and pushing his powers to the limit leads to burst blood vessels in his eyes.  Spending even a little time sharing his thoughts is a traumatic experience for most people, and long-term exposure has rendered previous victims catatonic.  He's a better planner than the rest of Triple Threat and might even go on to full-scale supervillainy at some point, but for now he's content to be a big fish in a very small pond.  

Description: A thin young man invariably dressed in grubby sweat pants and a classic rock tee shirt (he favors the Rolling Stones and the Who).  Seems nondescript until you feel his mind prying into yours, forcing the sewer of violence and hatred he keeps in his head into your memories.  His only ink is a small "3" on his right temple. 

Gender: Male              Age: Late Teens             Height: 5'7"           Eyes: Brown, Bloodshot

Hair: Brown                       Skin: Pale Under the Acne           Build: Slim

Approach:  Mastermind                              Archetype:  Fragile

Health:  15 + (5 x H)

Powers: Telepathy d12, Awareness d10, Deduction d8                                      

Qualities: Conviction d10, Banter d8, Criminal Underworld Info d8, Insight d8, Psychic Powerhouse d8, Persuasion d8

Status: Green Zone Health - d10 / Yellow Zone Health - d8 / Red Zone Health - d6

Abilities:

Brainstorm (A) Hinder all opponents that can see or hear you using Conviction.  Boost yourself using your Max die.

Get Clear (R) When Attacked, Defend yourself by rolling your single status die.  If the damage is reduced to zero, you may move to anywhere else in the scene.

Quick Thinker (R) At the start of your turn, if you have no bonuses in play roll your single Conviction die to Boost yourself.

Mind Break (A) Attack using Telepathy.  Use your Max + Mid dice.  Hinder yourself using your Min die.

Upgrades & Masteries (optional):

Mook Squad +0 Health.  Gain  Loyal Crew (A) Replenish your Triple Threat Ganger minions up to the number of heroes in the scene.

Master of Conquest (I) As long as you are in command of your own forces, automatically succeed at an Overcome to seize an area or capture civilians.

Tactics:

Streetwise wound up with psychic powers rather than physical ones, which led him to manipulate his way into a leadership role at the top of the gang rather than fighting his way there.  That said, he's quite capable of of inflicting crippling mental harm with Mind Break, especially when amped up with bonuses.  When using Brainstorm for mass Hinders he tries to use the resulting bonus on his Get Clear reaction before his next turn so he can still benefit from Quick Thinker.  With his upgrade he can telepathically call more gangers to the scene, and his mastery lets him exploit them for easy smash-and-grabs and kidnappings.

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Tik Toxic

Mack Michelson gained truly superhuman strength and durability from his exposure to the Supe drug, but also had his biochemistry altered so his bodily secretions and even breath are dangerously toxic to normal humans.  His appetite has been similarly altered and he can often be found chewing on technically inedible substances like tire rubber or rusted metal to satisfy his weird cravings.  Unsurprisingly, he's got a huge social media following under his supranym and may even pause in mid-fight to try to take some images of himself and his opponents. 

Description: A heavyset kid dressed in a tank top and torn jeans.  His skin is grayish and unhealthy-looking, covered in a web of bulging reddish blood vessels, while his eyes are pure red.  He has a "3" tattooed on his right shoulder, and a collection of skulls inked over most of his left arm that he claims are kill markings.  

Gender: Male              Age: Late Teens             Height: 5'9"           Eyes: Blood Red

Hair: Black            Skin: Sickly Gray, Prominent Blood Vessels       Build: Stocky

Approach:  Dampening                              Archetype:  Fragile

Health:  20 + (5 x H)

Powers: Toxic d10, Strength d8, Vitality d8

Qualities: Ranged Combat d10, Criminal Underworld Info d8, Fitness d8, Savage Street Fighter d8

Status: Green Zone Health - d10 / Yellow Zone Health - d8 / Red Zone Health - d6

Abilities:

Brutal Attack (A) Attack using Savage Street Fighter.  Use your Max die.  Hinder each opponent that can see or hear the target of that Attack using your Min die.

Crippling Toxins (A) Hinder using Toxic.  Use your Max die.  This penalty is persistent and exclusive, and while it is in effect reduce the size of target's highest power die of your choice by one die size.  Attack using your Mid die.

Get Clear (R) When Attacked, Defend yourself by rolling your single status die.  If the damage is reduced to zero, you may move to anywhere else in the scene.

Toxic Fumes (A) Attack using Ranged Combat.  Use your Max die.  Defend against all Attacks against until your next turn using your Min die. 

Upgrades & Masteries (optional):

Group Fighter (I) +20 Health.  When you take an action that lets you make an Attack, also make an Attack using your Mid die.

Master of Total Chaos (I) Automatically succeed at an Overcome when you throw out all the rules during a situation that is spiraling out of control.

Tactics:

Tik Toxic's powers manifested as superhuman strength and durability while also turning his biochemistry into something deeply toxic to normal humans.  He uses Crippling Toxins both in melee and (by spitting) at range to apply lasting debuffs to whichever hero has annoyed him most and Toxic Fumes to exhale choking clouds of poison that obscure him from sight.  Get Clear lets him avoid the worst of an incoming attack while hopefully repositioning at the same time.  Brutal Attack showcases his dirty fighting style, landing a hit so nasty even onlookers can feel it.  

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Mad Lad

Jackie O'Bryan is marginally the oldest of Triple Threat's supers, and his powers grant him Olympic athlete levels of physical performance, rapid healing, and the ability to harmlessly metabolize many types of energy, including kinetic, thermal, electrical, and EM spectrum emissions.  He mostly uses the latter to pull stupid party tricks like sucking on live wires or messing with cell phones.  His brain has also been rewired so that what should be pain registers as pleasure, which has led to him adopting a fighting style that involves blocking for his allies as often as possible.   

Description: An athletic looking young man with bright orange hair and striking blue eyes, wearing torn-up casual street clothing, usually with visible dried blood stains.  He has a fair amount of ink on display, mostly faux tribal markings.  His forehead and both his palms have prominent "3" tattoos on them.

Gender: Male       Age: 21, Says So Right On His Suspended License     Height: 5'10"    Eyes: Blue

Hair: Carrot Orange                  Skin: Heavily Freckled                    Build: Athletic

Approach:  Underpowered                          Archetype:  Bruiser

Health:  30 + (5 x H)

Powers: Absorption d8, Agility d6, Strength d6, Vitality d6

Qualities: Close Combat d10, Imposing d8, Pain-Fueled Lunatic d8, Criminal Underworld Info d6

Status: Green Zone Health - d6 / Yellow Zone Health - d8 / Red Zone Health - d10

Abilities:

Get In the Scrum (A) Attack multiple targets using Close Combat.  Defend against all Attacks against you until your next turn using your Min die.

Laugh It Off (I) Whenever you would be reduced to zero or fewer Health, prevent that damage and reduce all of your power dice by one die size.  If this reduces any die below d4 you are knocked out.

Scary Kind of Crazy (A) Boost using Pain-Fueled Lunatic.  Use your Max die.  Hinder using your Mid die.  Attack using your Min die.

Suck It Up (A) When a nearby ally would be Attacked, you may become the target of that Attack instead.  You may use this reaction any number of times in a round by taking 1 irreducible damage for each time past the first.

Take Your Best Shot (A) Defend using Close Combat.  Use your Mid + Min dice.  Recover using your Max die.

Upgrades & Masteries (optional):

Power Boost (I) +20 Health.  Increase all Power dice sizes by one (max d12).

Master of Total Chaos (I) Automatically succeed at an Overcome when you throw out all the rules during a situation that is spiraling out of control.

Tactics

Mad Lad recklessly throws himself in the path of Attacks using Suck It Up, often multiple times per round as he chases a better status die.  He uses Get In the Scrum for offense and some damage mitigation, shifting to Take Your Best Shot when he starts getting too beaten up.  Scary Kind of Crazy gives him a versatile way to gain bonuses for offense, defense or healing, and he'll often save them for the ideal moment.  Laugh It Off gives him one chance to survive a knock-out blow if he misjudges things, and his upgrade increases to two chances while also greatly buffing his health.

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Triple Threat Gangers d6 minions

Description: Petty street criminals with a random mix of illegal handguns and mostly-concealable melee weapons.  They're truly awful shots and mostly good for carrying loot and distracting heroes.  They usually have a "3" tattooed somewhere prominent.

Firearm Safety Is A Foreign Concept: If you roll an unmodified one when taking an Attack action, you deal no damage and instead remove one other friendly minion of your choice from the scene if possible.

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Triple Threat Street Soldiers d8 lieutenants

Description: More experienced thugs with slightly better weaponry.  They're only slightly better shots but that doesn't stop them from trying.  They're better at spotting danger in time to duck, and help the lesser gang members stay in the fight as well.  Their "3" tattoo is usually larger and fancier than regular gang members.

Firearm Safety Is A Foreign Concept: If you roll an unmodified one when taking an Attack action, you deal no damage and instead remove one friendly minion of your choice from the scene if possible.

Get Down: You and any nearby allied minions may reroll saves against damage.

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Mean Streets 

This environment represents the urban territory controlled by a street gang, in this case the Triple Threat Gang.  It could be used for other groups by changing which minions appear or benefit from the twists.  A more dangerous neighborhood would have larger die sizes, while a less dangerous one might have smaller dice or twists reflecting law enforcement or neighborhood watch assistance. 

Winding Alleyways d6, Derelict Buildings d8, Crime Dens d10

Green Zone

(Minor Twists)

Aggressive Drunks: Roll the environment dice.  Add the Min die worth of hostile d6 minions to the scene who takes their turns immediately.  They each Attack a random hero each turn until knocked out or Overcome to put out of action as a simple challenge.

Innocent Bystanders: Roll the environment dice.  Start challenge.  Evacuate Civilians 00  Hinder all heroes with the Min die until this challenge is Overcome.

(Major Twist)

Sniper: Roll the environment dice.  Deal damage to one hero using the Max die.  

Yellow Zone

(Minor Twists)

Human Shield: Roll the environment dice.  Start a challenge.  Free Hostage 0  Pick one villain and Hinder all Attacks against them using the Max die until this challenge is Overcome.

Trouble Comes Along: Roll the environment dice.  Add the Mid die worth of Triple Threat Ganger minions to the scene.  They cannot act until next round.

(Major Twist)

Hail of Debris: Roll the environment dice.  Hinder all heroes using the Mx die, then Attack all heroes using the Min die.

Red Zone

(Minor Twist)

Home Turf: Roll the environment dice.  Boost all Triple Threat members using the Max die, then Hinder all heroes using the Mid + Min dice.

(Major Twist)

Escape Route: Any active villains may successfully escape the scene and any immediate pursuit.


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4 comments:

  1. Love these guys and they're perfect for my game. I have a question, though about the environment (which I love): Do you only trigger twists on player twists, or every time the environment goes? If it's the latter, there aren't enough options for yellow, which would require four. How do you handle this? This is what I was talking about when I mentioned I struggle with environments. My players are frequently risk-averse, and I would need more options for them to roll overcomes than are presented here.

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    Replies
    1. Well, you can opt to use any kind of twist when a player triggers one including environmental ones, but I usually try looking at the Principles of their characters first and asking if they have any suggestions as well. A lot of my twists tend to be improv based on what the PCs are doing rather than scripted, but that does take more effort during play.

      An environment will trigger a twist each time it gets a turn, usually when the scene tracker advances, but if a twist advances the scene itself the environment doesn't act an extra time as well. You can re-use minor twists as much as you like and can always opt to take a twist from above the current scene status (eg a Green in a Yellow) as well, so when I ran it there were several occurrences of both Aggressive Drunks and Innocent Bystanders when one of the heroes threw Mad Lad into a neighborhood dive bar and the patrons came boiling out looking for either a fight or an escape route. Depending on how well your heroes can deal with minions you could also re-use Trouble Comes Along more than once, thematically there's plenty of gangers in the area.

      That said, I went a bit light on the variety of twists in this one, usually try to do at least three minors for Yellow and sometimes Green so there are more choices. If you want more variety and a slightly less awful neighborhood, stick in a Green or Yellow twist that models police assistance by adding Min die hero-friendly allied minions or even a badass lieutenant (Dirty Harry?), maybe also saddling the heroes with a persistent morale-based Hinder if the police allies get taken out of action.

      You could also throw in other urban twists like passing traffic making attacks more difficult for a round (Defend everyone with Mid die or something) or outright endangering pedestrians (anyone who rolls a 1 on a die this round takes Min die damage).

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    2. That makes sense. I usually use twists from the book tables or RP-based ones for my players but I know that the environment twists are there, too. Sometimes I think they were a bit too open about what to use when and where. I guess it always throws me when there aren't enough twists to match yellow turns. I've only run the Conspiracy of Clones scenario so far against my players, modified heavily for my world (Empire City). I have five heroes with two physical powerhouses, which was why I mentioned there's a bit of min-maxing for D12s.

      I'm going to slot this in for my next issue, because I have a drug I've labeled X-95 that fits the theme here. It ties in nicely with a villainous Japanese corporation I've created who have a disgraced sumo wrestler named the Ozeki in their organization. He's used the serum so he's huge and hard to kill, I think. That'll be the third or fourth issue...

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    3. Hope it goes well for you. With five players and some kind of min-maxed you shouldn't need to be gentle with the PCs. The three villains here aren't exactly the strongest ever but if you bring in enough of their gang as support (either as scene elements or through twists or Streetwise's upgrade) that can give a big team a bit of a struggle.

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