Most powerful supervillains?

xcaligax

I'm looking for a list of Super Villains that "Lore wise" are extremely too powerful for any one hero to fight one on one.

A small bio with the list would be nice. Im not looking for all of them, but a list of some of the main powerful bad asses of the champions universe would be nice. Looking for ideas of another commission where Caliga is heavily damaged, and losing a fight, badly.

riltmos

Takofane's description says he is the strongest mage in the world, if I remember correctly. But other than that, I do not know.

iamrune

The major difference is, those are NPC heroes in backstory, not player character heroes using player generated character point totals.

There are many villians in Champions lore that are basically too powerful for any one hero to deal with, at the points values players are allowed / encouraged to use to make their characters with.

This of course does not count if any unusual weaknesses or similar exploitations are in effect as those can radically change possible outcomes.

A good example of which is a side-bar example of Mechanon vs Gravitar. Now, both are some pretty strong villains, but Mechanon is far, far more powerful in terms of points, active offense and defenses and so on.. However, he has a crippling weakness vs Gravitic attacks, and thus when they fought once, Gravitar got hurt but also dished so much damage to Mechanon he had to retreat. The only time he's ever had to retreat from a single foe.

Anyway, a more realistic short list not at all conclusive would have to include;

Dr. Destroyer
Shadow Destroyer
Istvatha V'han
Takofanes
Menton
Gravitar
Firewing
Mechanon [most incarnations]
any of the Kings of Edom's Avatars [unless it was an exceptionally weak avatar],

and possibly Ripper, Warlord, Dark Seraph [indeed all of the Crowns of Krim are potent even solo], Grond and a few other exceptionally high point total but not master villain level solo villains.

vorshoth

Pretty much most of the tougher enemies in the game as is are intended to be like this, too tough to take on alone.

Bleak Harbringer, albeit a monster animated from a thingy and not a plotting criminal mastermind, would easily be one, and that could look epic as a comission art piece.

... Tentacles!

Okay, seriously though, from what I know of other villains in the setting, Firewing would be the non-pervy option, where Caliga, from what I know of him, might be able to slow down Firewing, but not defeat him, so you can have the 'battle battered hero' look as in Spiderman 2, where the fight is allegedly just so intense that his suit is being torn apart, ala that one dojo scene in the movie Animatrix although less hawt.

My mind is very one-track today, apparently.

chimerafreek

If this is regarding what we where talking about last night, I STILL think Mention would be a decent choice given what you wanted and what you have written.

bulgarex

For a scenario in which a hero is totally over matched by a villain, I would look to Champions Beyond, which details the "alien/cosmic" side of the Champions Universe. It includes what I personally call the Cosmic Big Five, entities in the Thanos-Galactus power range. By their descriptions and PnP game stats each one could twist Dr. Destroyer or Takofanes like a pretzel. They are: Astron, a living asteroid field with an aggregate mass greater than the Earth's, who literally consumes whole planets; the Examiner, who puts beings of power through physical, mental, and ethical trials to test their responses; the Lawbringer, who passes judgement on the worthiness to survive of individuals or entire worlds; the Warmonger, who lives for combat, whether personal, as a leader of armies, or as a spectator (and he'll use his powers to foment "interesting" conflicts if there are none around); and Xarriel, tyrant of the alien planet Ashraal, the setting's analogue to Darkseid, arguably the mightiest villain actually given game stats.

Of that group, I would recommend the Warmonger for your commission. He's a Galaxar, the CU's analogue to Marvel's Elders of the Universe -- ancient immortal beings of vast power, who have devoted themselves to one activity or area of interest. Warmonger sometimes seeks out opponents he thinks could give him a challenging fight, so it's easy to justify confronting him. Physically he's stronger, tougher, and faster than anyone who's appeared in Champions Online to date, as well as an incredibly skilled fighter. Warmonger wields the most devastating hand-to-hand weapon in canon. He also wields cosmic energies that can do nearly anything and are mightier than the spells of Takofanes.

Perhaps best of all, his physical description (on Champions Beyond p. 47) is both dramatic and a nice contrast to Caliga's: "The Warmonger can change his appearance and shape at will. His usual form is that of a four meter-tall, broad-shouldered, heavily muscled humanoid with skin that's the color of blood for the species viewing it... A mane of shaggy black hair cascades from the top of his head midway down his back. His eyes are solid yellow and slightly slanted, his nose is slightly pug, and orange-yellow fangs are visible in his mouth, giving him a sort of bestial/demonic appearance. As his weapon he carries an enormous battle axe, Starsplitter." In his illo from CB he's shown wearing armor on his arms and legs; that and his axe combine sci-fi and fantasy esthetics.

If you'd rather use another character I can describe others of the Big Five, or we can explore other CU villains.

canadascott

I used Warmonger as a villain for an epic RP series a couple of years back. Here's the visuals.

iamrune

gradii wrote: »

I'm going to have to disagree. The only limits to player character power are directly based on the limits to how powerful you can make their opponents.

Even in the PnP, the more points you give the heroes the more points you give the villains in the campaign. there need not be an arbitrary limit.

The Sliding Scale Of Villain Threat

Gradii, this is where your lack of experience with the Pen and Paper RPG [as in actually playing it] shows.

From a narrative writing standpoint, there is indeed absolutely no correlation between a characters power level and capability, and his side or alignment. We are not talking about narrative writing exercises, though.

There may not be an "arbitrary limit", but there is a practical suggested limit, and that limit is set by the beginning points values of new characters and the suggested XP value gain from the adventures as set by the game masters advice section. And it is clear by these guidelines that in a typical game of Champions, PCs are by design much weaker than Master Villains. Sometimes by an order of magnitude or more.

In an RPG, it is often assumed that NPCs need to be individually stronger than a PC because a PC is tactically controlled by a single player who has the time to explore every useful option available to him at all times, whereas an NPC is controlled by a player who is also controlling an entire world of many other NPCs, and therefore cannot devote the full time to properly give that one NPC all the options available to him in combat he should recieve.

At least, that's the thing I once read about "Why some Champions Villains are made with thousands of points while player heroes are limited to hundreds [at most]."

I can only assume the final reason is so that there is a very real and necessary need for teamwork and teams to fight together. Also note that the Champions lore killed off their Superman Analogue. So now there IS no "One Hero who can do it all by himself [almost]."



Back on topic, I didn't even think of the Cosmic entity types, mostly because I think of them a cosmic entities, not foes one can fight effectively. Warmonger would be a pretty good choice then!

jonsills

My PnP experience was all the way back in 3rd Ed; back in the day, beginning heroes were usually built in the neighborhood of 250 points or so, and the more points you'd used the more Disadvantages you had. You could, potentially, build someone as powerful as Superman, should your GM allow it - but he'd be so weighed down with Weaknesses and Vulnerabilities and Psychological Limitations and whatnot that he'd wind up being permanently disabled the first time he went out his front door.

On the other hand, Villains would often be built with fairly huge Villain Bonuses, making the top-end bad guys far more powerful than any hero. The first writeup of Mechanon I ever read was in the 3rd Ed book; if the heroes ever managed to defeat him, the GM was strongly encouraged to rewrite him, with a larger Villain Bonus which would be used to purchase a defense against whatever stopped him last time. (And good Lord, can you imagine what he'd be like if that could be done in this game?)

So yeah, if you want to go by Champions lore, Bulgarex's list is excellent. Even Caliga, who doubtless has a metric buttload of XP to boost his powers, is going to have a hard time with any one of them. None of mine would last a minute solo against them.

xcaligax

Stop turning this into a discussion of "my point vs your point". I just wanted a friggin list with a small summary of each villain.


So gimme a friggin list.

novaninja555

I like the idea of Dr destroyer or Mechanon with an army of 500 mega destroids. Now that had be one hell of a fight... Be it NPC or player....

bulgarex

Deleted with apologies to forestall unnecessary topic drift.

novaninja555

bulgarex wrote: »

I hate to have to point it out, gradii, but you yourself introduced the PnP game as an evidential element in your argument, which makes it fair ground for rebuttal.

Jeez guys ... Calm down will ya? All this argument ain't helping Caliga...

bulgarex

Fair enough, nova -- I withdraw my previous comment with apologies to gradii, and will confine my input to the topic at hand.

xcaligax wrote: »

Stop turning this into a discussion of "my point vs your point". I just wanted a friggin list with a small summary of each villain.


So gimme a friggin list.

I'm afraid it's not quite that simple. There are dozens of official villains who could be considered "heavy hitters" in the setting, but they're very different in style and appearance, and not all would likely be suitable for the kind of art you describe. The majority of them are probably in Champions Villains Vol. 1: Master Villains, but some team and solo villains are real power houses, while some master villains are more behind-the-scenes schemers with plenty of followers and resources, rather than straight-up fighters. The five I mentioned in my earlier post are probably the top of the personal-power heap, at least among those presented in any detail.

Perhaps if you could describe a bit more what sort of scenario and imagery you want the commission to reflect, we could narrow the list down a bit. If you're in a position to rank Caliga's strength compared to NPCs in CO, that would also be helpful.

xcaligax

bulgarex wrote: »

Perhaps if you could describe a bit more what sort of scenario and imagery you want the commission to reflect, we could narrow the list down a bit.

"Hey I'm Caliga, I'm awesome and I'm pretty strong, but I'm seriously getting my **** kicked by this guy here!".

Hows that?

My armor will be damaged. My armor is made from thin neutronium plating lore wise. I'm sure most know what it is, but for the sake of saving questions: Neutronium is an extremely dense space metal in champions lore made up of basically, dead stars. It's VERY durable, and VERY heavy. Caliga has super strength, so it doesn't hinder him anymore than when a police officer is wearing body armor, for the sake of comparison.

I want a bad guy strong enough that can break it through some effort, whether by brute strength, or raw energetic power.

Just gimme your top 6.

Edit: You asked about Caliga's strength. I have stated in my primus database that he has strength roughly equal to that of 1000 men. Presuming it's earth men, the average strength of an adult human male of around 25 years old is roughly able to press 160 lbs. 160 lbs by 1000 is 160,000 lbs, or 80 tons. So if it were to measure strength through pressing atleast, Caliga is atleast strong enough to press 80 tons, but not stronger than 250 tons. Its a wide range, I know, but I am also using the scaling of strength measure of the Herobox developed by Reldin for the PDB.

smashykins

Vote: Loki

bulgarex

Okay, that was helpful. By those standards, my top 6 suggestions would be,

1) Warmonger (already bio-ed)

2) Xarriel (previously mentioned, product of a cosmic accident centuries ago, would-be universe conqueror/destroyer -- either option makes the point of his supremacy. More info available upon request.)

3) Lawbringer (previously mentioned, another Galaxar like Warmonger, carries a mighty staff in addition to his innate powers. More info upon request.)

4) Dr. Destroyer (do you need more info?)

5) Takofanes (do you need more info?)

6) Valak the World-Ravager (alien conqueror reminiscent of DC's Mongul, uses a devastating Cosmic Halberd. More info upon request.)

bulgarex

xcaligax wrote: »

Edit: You asked about Caliga's strength. I have stated in my primus database that he has strength roughly equal to that of 1000 men. Presuming it's earth men, the average strength of an adult human male of around 25 years old is roughly able to press 160 lbs. 160 lbs by 1000 is 160,000 lbs, or 80 tons. So if it were to measure strength through pressing atleast, Caliga is atleast strong enough to press 80 tons, but not stronger than 250 tons. Its a wide range, I know, but I am also using the scaling of strength measure of the Herobox developed by Reldin for the PDB.

Well, physical strength isn't always the best yardstick, but if that would be helpful to you, by his PnP stats Valak the World-Ravager, whom I mentioned above, can normally lift at least ten times as much as Caliga. The Warmonger can lift 16 times as much as Valak. But in HERO System the actual damage done to an opponent through strength increases linearly, while lifting capacity increases exponentially. It's a design choice to allow for the incredible feats of strength superheroes often display, while trying to still keep the Spider-Man type PCs relatively useful fighting along side the Superman types.

EDIT: What I meant by "strength" was overall power in all categories, not just physical prowess. As a way to ballpark which canon villains would be competitive with Caliga, and which would surpass him as greatly as you want. Sorry if I was unclear.

bulgarex

The reason I suggested the villains I did is that by their write-ups, they can all bring enough raw damaging force to bear that they would likely be able to shatter neutronium armor. Many other villains wield a wide variety of epic powers and are devastating opponents, but may be less focused or more subtle in how they fight. OTOH destructive entities in the Champions Uni run all the way up to beings who embody universal concepts, and aren't even statted because they're practically omnipotent compared to finite superbeings.

originalbaxter

How about a really nimble Gadroon with a poptart on a stick?

It's diabolical, Caliga would destroy himself!

MWAHAHAHAahahaha!

themightyzenith

I suggest the mighty sausage-legged-midget muncher. A foe made for defeating caliga :eek:

bulgarex

I'd just like to know if Caliga got what he needed, or could use more input.

pantagruel01

It's worth distinguishing between villains who are simply very powerful, and ones designed as master villains. For example, Grond is powerful but not designed as a boss -- all he really has is lots of strength and high defenses against normal attacks, and if punching it won't work, he's kind of at a loss, and he's not great at resisting exotic attacks either. By comparison, Mechanon in most writeups doesn't actually hit as hard has Grond, but he's got a wide variety of attacks and defenses and access to all kinds of resources, and is designed as a boss fight.

bulgarex

It's true. What Champions calls "master villains" are those with specific larger-scale plans. Some master villains are among the mightiest in the setting in personal power, while others are relatively weak and rely on underlings, wealth and influence, or other resources, which may be vast. Conversely, some villains like Firewing or Eclipsar are abominations of power, but are rarely motivated to do other than fight, destroy, or otherwise cause chaos.

There are villains such as Glacier who do less damage against specific targets than other major supers, but spread it over a wide area. While Valak the World-Ravager, for example, can't affect a large number of targets (in his current weakened state), but the amount of destruction he can dish out in hand-to-hand combat is terrifying. Then you have the likes of the Incubus, who is physically weak and doesn't actually have destructive powers; but he does have tremendous ability to alter reality itself.

A lot of factors weigh into ranking the "most powerful villains," beyond a straight capacity to break things.

vorshoth

gradii wrote: »

This is definitely true. that's what makes telepaths and mind-mages so scary. they don't actually break stuff. they can make OTHER PEOPLE BREAK STUFF FOR THEM.

And Necromancers! So long as there is still SOME population left as breeders, a necromancer's only limit is the literal hard limit of material on a planet from which food can be made to fuel the zombie creation process, both on the caster and recruit side of things.
Every person they kill becomes a recruit. Every recruit contributes to the horde. It grows in potential strength.
Given time and sufficient lack of resistance for a short space of time if you plan efficiently, a necromancer with brains could conquer the Earth or equivalent world in about a year, maybe two if there's a lot of ocean to cover without airplanes.

bulgarex

OTOH that sort of thing has always been Takofanes' standard m.o. Slaughter large numbers of people, then immediately reanimate them to add to his undead army. The ultimate press-gang.

bulgarex

One of the scariest mega-villains in the CU to me is Eclipsar. She's some sort of god or demon of darkness connected to the pre-Columbian cultures of the Andes Mountains region of South America, like the Incas and Moche. She's motivated by all-consuming hatred of the Sun, which she seeks to extinguish, either directly or by destroying what she believes to be its spiritual sustenance -- the lives of every human being on Earth.

Eclipsar is also an example of how plot-related circumstances can be used to scale a character's threat. Her power is terrible enough most of the time, but during certain celestial events, like eclipses and solstices, it can grow to staggering levels. In her first rampage, on the summer solstice of 2000, she blotted out the light of the Sun over most of South America, then started slaughtering whole crowds of people. It took the combined force of the renowned American superhero team, the Justice Squadron; South America's greatest heroes, La Brigada de Victoria; and a small army of UNTIL agents, to overcome her.

sannia1

Gravitar might be a good choice. Caliga's armor is made of neutronium, which is made by the intense gravity of a neutron star. One could justify her having either a penalty or a bonus against that material depending on the arguement used.

bulgarex

Gravitar can exert at least 25,000 tons of force on a human-sized object. I don't know enough about Caliga to say if he'd be crushed, but it doesn't sound like he'd be doing much beyond kissing the pavement.

ealford1985

gradii wrote: »

Maybe he should install some sort of powerful repulsor shield systems on his armor if he knows he'll be facing gravitar.

this is Caliga we are talking about ...not Batman.

foxyperson

gradii wrote: »

As powerful as villains are, theres really no reason to assume there won't be a hero somewhere equally powerful.

While it's "theretically possible" to bank enough points to reach Destroyer's numbers, the self-serving, Magneto-like BBEG-worshipping writeup on each of the top-tier villains makes it obvious that the author's intentions were rather for the GM to use the BBEGs to stoke his ego and curb-stomp the player characters non-stop while they play a neverending game of Keeping Up With The Joneses like hamsters on a wheel (the writeup, for example, flat-out tells GMs to inflate Destroyer's numbers as needed).

bulgarex

foxyperson wrote: »

While it's "theretically possible" to bank enough points to reach Destroyer's numbers, the self-serving, Magneto-like BBEG-worshipping writeup on each of the top-tier villains makes it obvious that the author's intentions were rather for the GM to use the BBEGs to stoke his ego and curb-stomp the player characters non-stop while they play a neverending game of Keeping Up With The Joneses like hamsters on a wheel (the writeup, for example, flat-out tells GMs to inflate Destroyer's numbers as needed).

To make Destroyer challenging to any group of heroes, yes. Not necessarily "curb-stomp." It also suggested you could reduce his points if necessary.

Not long after the most recent incarnation of Dr. Destroyer appeared in print, in Conquerors, Killers, And Crooks, one of the regular posters to the Hero Games discussion forums wrote that his tabletop gaming group's team of veteran, Justice League-level PCs killed -- killed -- Dr. Destroyer, run as written, after 5 game turns (one minute of game-world time).

After thirty years of Champions, some campaigns have legitimately reached that power level. They should have the option of villain write-ups that will give them a hard time.

bulgarex

The mega-hero and mega-villain are well-established elements of the comic-book superhero genre (although the latter are often the most powerful characters, to make them worthy foes for teams of the former). Some people enjoy playing characters at that level, including myself from time to time. Any game that purports to simulate the comic-book experience needs to be able to accommodate that level IMO.

queencesta

I've never been impressed by bad guys in tabletop games that are arbitrarily more powerful than player characters can or are designated to 'should™' ever be allowed to be.

Starting PC's certainly shouldn't be as powerful as established master villains or veteran heroes, but if no one can possibly ever be as powerful as Destroyer, how the heck did Destroyer get to be as powerful as Destroyer?

Does not compute. Or, rather, I reject the premise wholesale. In my tabletop games, what's good for the goose is good for the gander - NPC villains don't get special treatment beyond that I just make them up. They might have strange powers unique to them, but so might the PC's. They might have fancy toys and ermagerd-dangerous weapons, but so too might the PC's.

A villain better either be smart or just plain strong enough to survive themselves, or frankly, they won't be villain'ing it up for terribly long. That whole 'Evil is stronger so good must gang up on it' premise? Nerp, not in my games. Mechanically, its all a level playing field when I'm at the helm.

Consequently, the villains in my games that tend to be the most successful are typically smart, cunning, both or helpfully shielded by those that are (and made use of by those that are).

Weak, dumb dorks are the meat and potatoes on both sides, of course, but I personally find it diminishing of how awesome someone like Destroyer is when its casually set forth that he's a roughly 2600 point build.

He doesn't have to be very smart to blow up dang near everything if he just feels like it. Going by game mechanics, he should pretty easily be able to utterly annihilate most things on the planet very one-sidedly, very effortlessly and without ever being in any real danger irrespective of almost any sort of prevailing circumstance.

How inane. I prefer to interpret him as being very powerful, but that his greatest strength is his combination of brilliance and absolute conviction of his own correctness in the pursuit of his ambitions. He is relentless and intensely keen-minded, but I prefer to have it be that he -has- to be.

Not that he just happens to be as an also-ran but, if he felt like it, he could basically kill all of you, all at once, and the only real issue he might have doing it is that it'd take a while and he might get bored.

bulgarex

Well, IMHO part of the issue is the nature of tabletop superhero gaming. Most games are held with groups of players, which translates to a team of PC superheroes. The climactic battle between an entire hero team against a single "mega-villain" is a well-established comic-book convention. If you and your group want that experience, you need a villain who's sufficiently "mega."

bulgarex

Sure. Unless a gaming group wants to experience the classic comic-book "team gangs up against the single mega-villain" scenario. That doesn't play out the same way as team vs team.

IMHO there's no "wrong" preference in what a particular group enjoys in their games. And whenever practical, supplements for a game should offer something to satisfy more than one play style.