Continuing from yesterday's post, more villain Approaches:
Bully
Bullies have average Power dice, the second-worst Quality dice array in the game, above-average base Health, and the usual two choices of abilities of its list. Its six abilities are:
Bust Their Heads - A dual-nearby-target Attack that has the unique drawback of any Defend working against both Attacks, making it situationally worse than it initially looks. Still pretty good though, as it applies all three of your dice.
Cruel and Unusual - An inherent ability that makes you and all your nearby allies much better at creating penalties. This is very strong with the right allies and a unique to this Approach.
Crush the Small - Average Attack that offers a good Defend against the target as well. Good for one-versus-one fights.
Injured Tantrum - Average Attack bundled with a good-to-great Hinder based on the target's current status die. It's a bit of a wall of text as written, but quite effective overall.
Punish Weakness - Variable Boost action that starts weak but gets stronger if there are any heroes with Health in the Yellow or Red zone. It's an exact duplicate of the Ancient's Out of Time ability, but works even worse thanks to the Bully's smaller Power and Quality dice. On the other hand, it's got less impressive competition on the Bully's list. And on the gripping hand, the Bully cares less about Boosts (and penalty removal) than some Ancients do, so there's less need for this. I'd consider adding "This bonus is persistent and exclusive." to the ability text as a homebrew variant to encourage actually choosing it over other options.
Thick - Innate fixed damage reduction, works on all damage types and very hard to bypass.
The list offers plenty of good offensive options with useful riders, solid damage reduction, a unique group-friendly Hinder augmentation, and one kind of mediocre Boost option. There are no reactions at all, which is probably a comment on Bullies being kind of dull-witted. You could always acquire one through your Archetype, though.
The Bully doesn't desperately need more abilities, but I'll still include a couple of homebrew ability options for more variety:
Rattling Blow (A) Attack using [Power]. Use your Max die. Then, remove one bonus on the target.
Take Your Best Shot (A) Defend yourself using [Power]. Use your Max + Min die. After the first time you are Attacked before the start of your next turn, Hinder the Attacker using the value of that Defend.
Gives you a way to strip bonuses that doesn't rely on Hinders, and a strong Defend option that punishes the person who swings into it, both of which fit the Approach theme.
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Creator
This Approach has pretty average Power and Quality dice, slightly below-average base Health, and the usual two ability choices out the following options:
Harvest Their Power - Reaction that heals you when one of your minions is destroyed. Very solid Health recovery in exchange for losing a fairly expendable asset. Doesn't matter what destroyed the minion, so deliberately doing it yourself (or having one minion kill another) is one way to heal a bit, assuming it makes sense thematically. This ability is unique to Creators.
Retributive Lash - Reactive "last gasp" damage produced when a minion is destroyed. Gets you a little more mileage out of your lackeys. This ability is also unique to Creators.
Powerful Ally - Yet another unique ability, this lets you create a new lieutenant. This can be very powerful, but doesn't synergize with all your minion-related abilities at all.
Shared Power - Boosts a minion, then either Boosts all your other minions or (if there was just the one) yourself. Effectiveness varies based on how many minions you have in play, but usually quite strong. Note that it lacks a "nearby" restriction on who it can effect.
Summon Mob - This is usually the bread & butter ability of any minion-maker villain, and puts a large number of minions into play all at once. Very die size dependent, which makes the status die you'll get from your Archetype important to consider.
Swarm Attack - Decent Attack power that gains extra damage based on your minion count. This can wind up being just average or incredibly hard-hitting.
The Creator list only includes a single Attack option along with a Boost that mostly helps your minions, so not really letting you act directly in combat much. You've got two different ways to add allies to the scene, and two conflicting reactions for use with dying minions. You're almost inevitably going to contribute to scenes with your created allies more than anything else, although your Archetype choice will define how narrow that focus is in the end.
The heavy commitment to minion-centric abilities while ignoring your lieutenant creation option suggests a homebrew ability for more variety and to allow a lieutenant-focused alternative build:
Mighty Bodyguard (R) When Attacked, Defend yourself by rolling the die of one of your nearby lieutenants. Reduce the die size of that lieutenant by one (minimum d4) unless the Attack's damage was reduced to zero by this Defend.
A somewhat limited defensive reaction, but better than the nothing found in the official list.
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