Continuing from yesterday's post, the last of the villain Approaches:
Tactician
Tacticians have well below-average Power dice and average Quality dice, average Health and two ability choices from the following list:
Group Up - Decent Attack that hits harder for each ally that Attacked the same target since your last turn. Can be quite strong depending on how the initiative goes and benefits a lot from hordes of minions. Obviously encourages ganging up on a single hero, which may wind up feeling like you're being singling them out for abuse - because you are.
I'll Back You Up - Reactive Attack ability triggered by an ally Attacking. Good for piling on extra damage.
Joint Action - Unusual ability that lets you take a Max die basic action, then have a nearby ally make the same basic action using their reaction. Obviously best used on villains who lack a reaction of their own, or on the strongest minion or lieutenant available. One of very few cases in the game where a reaction would use a full three die pool.
Organized March - Very efficient Boost whose bonus applies to every ally's action until the start of your next turn. Effect varies a bit based on how initiative goes, but this can be very strong. Worth noting that it only applies to an ally's action, not reactions or (for minions and lieutenants) saves against damage.
Try Again - Reactive dice fixer, you take trivial damage to reroll an ally's die pool. Given how erratic this can be with full die pools it might best be used on a minion or lieutenant who's whiffed. Most of the time you'll have much better odds of improving a one on a single d10 than you do of getting a significantly better result out of three dice.
Working Together - Innate ability that lets you reroll your ones as long as you have at least one nearby ally. This is pretty bad compared to other similar abilities from different Approaches that lack the ally limitation, but it's still a decent dice fixer and not really hard to keep working.
Pretty versatile support-oriented Approach, with an offensive reaction option, a very strong global ally Boost, dice fixing options for both yourself and allies, a versatile basic action option that lets an ally join in, and a single Attack ability that relies on allies to be good. Obviously terrible for a solo villain, but works well with pretty much any type of ally and better than most with minions.
Don't see much need to add homebrew tweaks to this Approach.
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Underpowered
Unsurprisingly, Underpowered villains have very poor Power dice, average Quality dice and the lowest base health of any Approach. They do get three abilities choices though.
Avoid the Inevitable - Innate ability that keeps you from being defeated once at the cost of reducing all your already-terrible Power dice by a one size. With the right upgrade it can actually work twice, but even with one use it's a decent insurance policy against your first KO.
Do Not Underestimate Me - Hard-hitting Attack that does some minor damage to you, which is still meaningful given your low base Health. If you roll doubles you can't use this ability again during the scene.
I Can Do Anything - Boost/Hinder/Attack bundle that uses all of your dice. Versatile and efficient, but don't count on it doing much damage.
Last Ditch Effort - Defensive reaction that stops some damage, with combined healing, Boost, and Hinder riders that only trigger if you reduce the incoming damage to exactly zero. The wording means you only get the riders on one specific result on your die, and the less damage you stopped the less impressive the effects will be. If the riders went off more reliably it would be pretty impressive. As it is, at least it stops some damage for you.
Luck? Or Genius? - Mediocre Attack that gets much, much better if you roll doubles or triples. Your small dice are actually a bit helpful here. Much easier to roll doubles on smaller dice than larger ones, although most likely you'll wind up with a mix of sizes in your pool. If nothing else it's hilariously unpredictable.
Still A Threat - Multi-target Attack with a weak Defend that does at least apply to all Attacks against you until your next turn. Pretty decent, especially if you can apply some bonuses to it.
The list's abilities play into the Approach's small power dice and low base Health in several ways, and certainly feels thematic in play. With three choices to use you can take one of the two more defensive tricks (the reaction and innate) and still have two action abilities to play around with. Many of your abilities are...let's be generous and call them a little erratic in terms of performance, but that's part of the theme.
There's a decent amount of build variety here, and your Archetype will hopefully let you add some more reliable tricks to the mix. Given how quickly Underpowered villains usually get knocked out there's not much point in adding more action abilities to the list, but I guess you could add a homebrew innate or reaction for a bit more variation:
Is That Your Best Shot? (R) When Attacked, roll your single [Power] die. Use the result to Boost yourself and Hinder the Attacker. If the damage from the Attack defeats you, increase the value of the of the penalty by one and make it persistent and exclusive.
I Won't Be Stopped! (I) At the start of your turn, destroy one penalty on you and gain a bonus with the same value.
So a reaction that won't actually help you stay in the fight but lingers spitefully if you get knocked out, and an innate that offsets how vulnerable your dubious dice pools are to Hinders.
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Continued in Archetypes part 1.
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