Continuing from yesterday's post, more villain Approaches:
Focused
Focused villains have strong but very narrow Power dice, average Quality dice and Health. They get three choices of abilities. Unusually for a villain, they're limited to using their big d12 power for a maximum of two of those choices, so the third ability has to use their weaker die if it uses a Power die at all. Their abilities are:
Elemental Absorption - Reaction that inverts the effects of both Attacks and Hinders using a specific energy/element type, causing damage to heal you and turning penalties into bonuses. Narrow but very strong when it does work. As a reaction it can be gotten around with timing or multiple actions.
Defensive Charging - Moderate Defend that lasts until your next turn. If damage gets through the defend it ends and deals damage to the Attacker. Can be very strong if you have bonuses to apply to it.
Perfect Alignment - Innate ability that lets you ignore all damage from an energy/element type. Does not combo well with the Elemental Absorption reaction since no damage equals no healing.
Pour It On! - Strong hard-to-counter Attack on one target followed by a weak multi-target Attack on nearby foes.
Sympathetic Shield - Fairly strong reactive Defend and self-Boost ability.
Vicious Entanglement - Strong Hinder with a moderate Attack bundled in. Pretty average for a villain ability.
The abilities here push you toward building some kind of energy projector villain, but it can work equally well for any character concept that will work with just a couple of different Powers, one very strong. The energy-resistant innate ability and damage/penalty inversion reaction do give you strong options for messing with heroes who rely too much on a single energy/element type, but you also have a good general-purpose defensive reaction, two decent offensive options, and a unique Defend action ability that can be very strong with bonuses or against multiple smaller Attacks. Two of your abilities will benefit from being tied to a strong d12 Power die, which slightly improves their performance over the average.
There are no duds here, just very different capabilities depending on your choices. It doesn't seem like you need more for decent variation between Focused villains, since your choice of d12 Power will help differentiate between user of this Approach.
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Generalist
This Approach has average Power and Quality dice, above-average base Health, and three ability choices off this list:
Bodyguard - Reactive defend for an ally with a self-Boost for yourself.
Dependable - Innate rerolls for any ones that come up.
Heavy Hitter - Decent Attack with minor Health Recovery.
Stalwart Combatant - Strong Boost and middling Defend actions bundled together. No restrictions on targeting, which is nice.
Tough Customer - Damage reduction that scales up as the scene tracker advances through GYRO zones.
Wracking Aura - Multi-target Hinder affecting nearby foes, with a strong self-Boost as a rider effect.
The Generalist options can make them strong team players, with a rare reaction that Defends for an ally, a freely-targeting Boost and Defend and a decent multi-target hinder. Alternately you have some dice fixing, an Attack with a bit of self-healing and damage reduction for a more selfish build. Mixing choices between the two sets of abilities lets the Approach be as versatile as it's supposed to be. There isn't much in the way of offensive power here, so that's something to look for in your Archetype.
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Continued in part 5.
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