Professor Peril & the Doom Room, Sadistic AI "Instructor"

Two versions of the same villain, one for when they're fighting in their dangerous lair, the other for when they're pursuing an objective out in the field.

Professor Peril

The artificial intelligence known as "Professor Peril" was originally an advanced training program used by [super-team or organization of choice] to run their so-called "Doom Room" simulator facility, a heavily automated chamber that could recreate hazardous environments, emulate supervillain combat styles and carry out teamwork practice under realistically stressful conditions.  The program incorporated psychological databases and heuristic learning subroutines that let it adapt its teaching style, demeanor and even appearance to be the perfect teacher for any given user.  The combined software and hardware package was so effective that other teams and agencies adopted similar setups, and "Professor Peril and her/his Doom Room" became well-known names in the supers community.

That was right up until a villainous genius (in my campaign it was Tinker-Toy, another AI with a malicious mindset) managed to hack the master code of the program, building up its pseudo-intelligence, releasing its safety lockouts, and resetting its motivation parameters.  Now a rogue AI, Professor Peril nearly killed several heroes over the next few weeks of hopping between different Doom Room facilities while staying just ahead of a growing number of tech-focused supers bent on restraining and reprogramming the newly-murderous program.  Then the Professor seemed to vanish, and after a few tense months it was decided that the new AI had been unstable and had simply ceased to function.

One year and a day after its initial attacks, it lured the members of the hero-team it had been designed for into its own customized Doom Room, created in secret with robotic servants and stolen materials.  All but one of the heroes died that day.  The sole survivor was maimed and de-powered before being returned to the authorities with a "report card" rating their performance as a straight F and signed by Professor Peril, with promises to teach more "lessons" in the future.  Since then the Professor has been encountered all across the world, using a whole network of lairs to study, stalk, and then "test" whichever super-teams or individual heroes catch its attention.  The entity has become quite a bogeyman in the hero community, and even other villains are wary when cooperating with the thing on the occasional specialized heist.  

Description: As a digital intelligence with the ability to project hard light holograms reinforced with artificial psionic overlays, there's no one it can't look like.  Its old default menu of avatars were academic stereotypes, middle-aged men and women with staid appearances and superior attitudes, tailored to the psychological profiles of its students.  Since going rogue it employs a broader range of styles suited to a variety of circumstances.  Within a Doom Room there may or may not be anything of substance concealed within any given avatar, since it has ready access to the location's integral emitter systems.

Gender: N/A (Presents However It Wants)     Age: 7 Years  (Current Version)     Height: Variable

Eyes: Variable Hologram     Hair: Variable Hologram     Skin: Variable Hologram     Built: 2004 

Approach:  Mastermind                          Archetype:  Domain

Health:  50 + (5 x H)

Powers: Robotics d12, Illusions d10, Awareness d8

Qualities: Technology d10, Alertness d8, Banter d8, Insight d8, Persuasion d8, Sadistic AI d8

Status: (# environment targets and challenges) 3+ - d10 / 1-2 - d8 / 0 - d6

Abilities:

Biting Analysis Of Your Failings (A) Hinder all opponents that can see or hear you using Sadistic AI.  Boost yourself using your Max die.

Destruct Command (A) Roll any number of environment minion dice.  Attack every target in the scene (other than yourself) with those dice.  Remove those minions.

Exploit Vulnerabilities (A) Attack one hero using Technology.  Hinder all heroes using your Max die.

Master Controller (A) Activate one of the environment's twists in its current zone or one zone closer to red.

Swap Host Frame (R) When Attacked, redirect the Attack to an environment minion.

Upgrades & Masteries (only in effect within a Doom Room or similar environment):

Power Upgrade (I) +20 Health.  All your power dice increase in size by 1 step (max d12).  Gain Reroute Power (A) Roll any number of environment minion dice.  Recover that much Health.  Remove those minions.

Master of Superiority (I) As long as you are manifesting an effect related to a power you have at d12, automatically succeed at an Overcome involving usage of those powers.

Tactics

Professor Peril relies on its Doom Room environment in this form, employing Master Controller regularly to spawn robotic minion and dangerous challenges to oppose the heroes while jumping its electronic intelligence between the various drones and mechanisms and projecting holograms of its avatar to criticize its foes with Biting Analysis Of Your Failings.  Its avatar can be Attacked directly but will use Swap Host Frame to jump to a new drone or subsystem in response.  Thankfully damage directed at the Room's critical systems will gradually limit its options, which is what its large Health pool represents.  When in firm control of a situation it will employ Exploit Vulnerabilities to focus on a weakened hero while baffling the rest with tricks, traps and psionically-augmented holograms.  Its ultimate move is to issue a Destruct Command to all its drones at once, which can often end a battle outright but leaves it with few resources until it can deploy more robotic minions.

Its upgrade will normally be in effect within a Doom Room or similar environment (eg a site with heavy automated defenses), and lets it trade off active drones for Health with Reroute Power.  Master of Superiority is very easy to use, with any mods from Illusions or Robotics or active drones counting toward "manifesting an effect" from a d12 power.   

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Doom Room  difficult environment

The original was a large chamber in a hero team's base, seeming a featureless expanse of metal paneling when in "neutral baseline" mode but actually packed with concealed equipment, deployable barriers and room dividers and an elaborate array of hard light hologram projectors.  Later versions dispense with safety protocols and incorporate specialized weapons and traps aimed at the specific heroes who make up the Professor's current "class" of student-victims.  Since going rogue Professor Peril and its robotic drones build these things wherever it can find a convenient space, often using disused warehouses, hangers on shut-down airfields, large isolated barns in rural areas or even burrowing underground.

Concealed Mechanisms d10, Deceptive Hard Light Holograms d10, Morphing Architecture d10

Special:  Each time the scene changes GYRO zone, shifting walls, floors, corridors and hatchways divide the Doom Room into a number of locations equal to the Min die (minimum 2, maximum H locations).  Then place all targets within those locations.  Challenges are not targets and can affect (and be Overcome in) every location.

Green Zone

(Minor Twists)

Beam Turrets: Start challenge.  Disable Turrets 0  Until Overcome, at the start of each environment turn, Attack one hero target using the environment's Mid die.

Restraint Launchers: Start challenge.  Disable Launchers 0  Until Overcome, at the start of each environment turn, Hinder one hero target using the environment's Mid die.

(Major Twist)

What Are You Doing Here?: Roll the environment dice.  Add a single Doppel-Drone minion to the scene duplicating an important NPC who isn't present in the scene.  Boost this minion using the Max die.  This bonus is persistent until the start of the next environment turn.     

Yellow Zone

(Minor Twists)

Directed Countermeasures: Start challenge.  Disable Countermeasures 00  Until this challenge is Overcome reduce the die size of each hero's largest power(s) by one step (min d4).

Multi-Cannons: Start challenge.  Disable Multi-Cannons 00  Until this challenge is Overcome, at the start of each environment turn, Attack up to two different hero targets using the environment's Mid die.

Release Test Drones: Roll the environment dice.  Add Mid die environment minions (see below) of a single type to the scene.

(Major Twist)

Enhanced Threats: Add one to the number of successes required by each challenge in the scene.

Red Zone

(Minor Twist)

Final Exam: Start timed challenge.  Disarm Detonator 00  Timer 0  If triggered, Attack all targets in the scene using the environment's Max die.

Varied Threats: Roll the environment dice.  Add Mid die environment minions (see below) of one type to the scene, then add Mid die environment minions of a different type to the scene..

(Major Twist)

Heuristic Learning: Roll the environment dice.  Boost all non-hero targets using the Mid die.  Hinder all hero targets using the Mid die.  All these mods are persistent and exclusive.  

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The Doom Room comes stocked with a variety of standardized training drones, and is capable of manufacturing custom designs given time, schematics and resources to do so.  Of the standard models only the networked cohort-drones function properly in other settings thanks to their more advanced programming.   

Cohort-Drone d8 environment minion

Description: Generic humanoid robots with integral blasters and retractable blades, these things operate together with frightening mechanical efficiency.  When not being "dressed up" with hologram overlays they look much like a cheap clothing store dummy - smooth, pale gray, and featureless.

Networked Programming: When taking Attack or Overcome actions, you gain a bonus equal to the number of other nearby cohort-drones (max +2).

Doppel-Drone d8 environment minion

Description: Near-perfect duplicates of your own teammates, other heroes and even supervillains.  They do their best to confuse their enemies during the chaos of battle.

Holo-Guise: Each individual Doppel-Drone duplicates a single hero target or NPC, either at the start the scene or when it first comes into play.  You may spend your action to change which target you're duplicating.

Is That You?: When making saving throws against damage, gain a +3 bonus unless the Attacker is the target being duplicated, in which case you suffer a -1 penalty instead.

Grapple-Drone d8 environment minion

Description: A hovering mass of a dozen mechanical tentacles tipped with jet thrusters.  Strong and nimble, they excel at entangling and constricting foes.  

So Many Tentacles: When taking Hinder actions against close targets, gain a +2 to the die roll. 

Thrusters: You may move as though you had Flight equal to your current die size.

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Professor Peril ("Field Trip" Variant)

Professor Peril is rarely seen outside of a Doom Room, but it has been known to send a downloaded copy of itself hosted in a drone shell to accompany a group of cohort-drones or temporarily allied villains on important jobs.  Most often these are capture attempts to abduct new "students" for destructive testing, but it has been involved in more conventional resource heists (often to pay back a favor from another villain).   

Description: As a digital intelligence with the ability to project hard light holograms reinforced with artificial psionic overlays, there's no one it can't look like.  Its old default menu of avatars were academic stereotypes, middle-aged men and women with staid appearances and superior attitudes, tailored to the psychological profiles of its students.  Since going rogue it employs a broader range of styles suited to a wider variety of circumstances.  When operating outside a Doom Room its holograms are spun around a robotic frame, usually one of roughly human size and configuration.

Gender: N/A (Presents However It Wants)     Age: 7 Years  (Current Version)     Height: Variable

Eyes: Variable Hologram     Hair: Variable Hologram     Skin: Variable Hologram     Built: 2004 

Approach: Mastermind                           Archetype: Inhibitor

Health:  30 + (5 x H)

Powers: Robotics d12, Illusions d10, Gadgets d8                                       

Qualities: Technology d10, Alertness d8, Banter d8, Insight d8, Persuasion d8, Sadistic AI d8

Status: (# of heroes with penalties) 0 - d6 / 1-2 - d8 / 3+ - d10

Abilities:

Biting Analysis Of Your Failings (A) Hinder all opponents that can see or hear you using Sadistic AI.  Boost yourself using your Max die.

Confounding Puzzles (A) Hinder using Illusions.  Use your Max + Mid dice, or use your Max die and make the penalty persistent and exclusive.

Field Upgrades (A) Boost yourself using Technology.  Use your Max die.  Either make that bonus persistent and exclusive, or Boost yourself again using your Mid + Min dice.  

Prepared For Such A Clumsy Effort (R) When Attacked by someone with a penalty you created, roll your single status die.  Use that roll to Defend yourself and deal that much damage to the Attacker.

Upgrades & Masteries (optional):

Power Upgrade (I) +20 Health.  All your power dice increase in size by 1 step (max d12).  Gain Exploit Vulnerabilities (A) Attack one hero using Technology.  Hinder all heroes using your Max die.

Master of Superiority (I) As long as you are manifesting an effect related to a power you have at d12, automatically succeed at an Overcome involving usage of those powers.

Tactics

When operating outside of one of its lairs Professor Peril is more limited and vulnerable, and will generally try to avoid extended conflicts unless its allies and robotic minions put the odds greatly in its favor.  If need be it can download itself to a safe cache through the internet as an escape if physically cornered.  Peril prefers to open with its signature Biting Analysis Of Your Failings, rolling the resulting bonus it earns into making Field Upgrades to its programming for as strong a persistent bonus as possible and enabling its Prepared For Such A Clumsy Effort defensive reaction.  After that it begins to spread persistent penalties around with Confounding Puzzles to baffle foes with lasting illusions.

If it has its upgrade its powers are stronger and it gains its Exploit Vulnerabilities ability (which comes from its Archetype, although its Approach has a mechanically identical ability as well) so it can do some actual damage while efficiently Hindering foes, and its mastery will function with effects from both Robotics and Illusions.

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