From: "Kevin Wilson" Subject: [GM-7thSea] How to Build a Villain, Lesson 1: Timing a Villain Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 14:08:45 -0700 Ok, some folks sound like they're having trouble building Villains that are challenging, but not deadly. Here's a crash course, with some light statistics involved. Lesson 1: Timing a Villain When I send a Villain at my Heroes, I know how long he or she will last in combat and how much damage they'll dish out in that time. At least, I know the most LIKELY answer to these two questions, barring a Hero dropping all his XP in a berserker frenzy, or the like. I do this by figuring out how often the Heroes will hit him, and how often their hits will do damage. That answers how long he'll last when I take into account the # of Heroes. Then, I work out how often he'll hit the Heroes, multiplied by how long he'll last, and that gives me how much damage he'll do to the group. Now, remember, I'm speaking in vague statistical terms here. When I say "The Villain will last 3 Rounds before being beaten." I mean, "AROUND 3 Rounds". Now, here's how I do this: [Quick and dirty math follows. If you want to cut to the chase, or don't know what the heck I'm blabbering about here, skip down to the ***'s] ------ First, a quick and dirty look at how tough TNs are to hit... A Hero will be able to hit a TN of 5 pretty easily for every point in his Trait. Thus, a Finesse 3 can pretty much always hit a 15. A challenging TN is about 7-8 per Trait point, so a medium Finesse 3 roll would be a TN 25. Mind you, with Drama dice, Knacks, and Free Raises, that can inflate things upwards, sometimes dramatically if a Knack is high enough, but this is a reasonable estimate to start with. Below is a quick chart. Easy will be hit most of the time, medium a fair amount of the time, and hard, well, some of the time. Trait Difficulty 1 2 3 4 5 Easy 5 10 15 20 25 Medium 7-8 15 20-25 30 35-40 Hard 10 20 30 40 50 ------ Now to figure out how long the Villain will last.... Most starting 100 HP Heroes I have seen start with a 2 Finesse and a 3 Attack Knack, for 5k2. It is safe to say that this will hit a TN 10 pretty much all of the time, a TN 15 a lot of the time, and a TN 20 a bit less than half of the time (the Hero needs an exploding 10 to succeed, which happens 50% of the time when rolling 5 dice). A TN 25 is pretty hard for this Hero to hit, since even with an exploding 10, the 10 reroll + the highest other die must add up to 15. (a 6 on the re-roll at least, which, in that instance, reduces your odds to a mere 25% chance of success or so. The real odds of success are likely closer to 15-20%.) When you factor in the usual 2 Panache, a TN 25 means each hero will hit the Villain once every other Round or so (generally speaking). ------ Now to determine how much damage the Villain will do... Most Heroes I've seen get 3's in their important Defense Knacks, for a TN of 20. I want the Villain to hit them fairly reliably, so I'll give him a Finesse of 3, and a Panache of 2. About 3/4 of his attacks are going to hit, so he'll hit 3 times every 2 Rounds. This lets him hit the Heroes once or twice a turn, dishing out 4k2 damage (typically about 10-17 Flesh Wounds, which a Hero with a 2 Brawn can usually shrug off once, but not twice.) I'll give him a Brawn of 2, so, if 1/2 of his Hits do a Dramatic Wound, and he gets 3/2 Hits per Round, then he'll inflict 3 Dramatic Wounds every 4 Rounds. ------ *** ------ So, in conclusion, to time my Villain... In order to have a challenging, but not terribly lethal Villain, (versus Heroes with 2's in their Traits) I give him a TN of 25, a Finesse of 3, and a Brawn and Panache of 2. To Sum the Reasoning up: The Heroes can hit the Villain every other Round, probably inflicting a Dramatic Wound every other hit (1 Dramatic Wound / 4 Hero Rounds). The Villain can hit the Heroes 1-2 times per Round, inflicting a Dramatic Wound every other hit (3 Dramatic Wounds / 4 Villain Rounds) It is now possible to 'time' the combat by adjusting the Villain's Resolve. (This is the amount of time before the Villain becomes Crippled, on average.) Resolve 1: 4 Rounds / # Heroes Resolve 2: 8 Rounds / # Heroes Resolve 3: 12 Rounds / # Heroes Resolve 4: 16 Rounds / # Heroes Resolve 5: 20 Rounds / # Heroes etc. If I have 4 Heroes in my campaign, and I want the fight to last about 4 Rounds (inflicting 3 Dramatic Wounds to the Heroes, remember the 3/4 ratio) then I give the Villain a Resolve of 4. After that, the Villain will be crippled and will want to flee, since his hit rolls will suck somewhat more than usual. Mind you, that's if the Villain is alone. If he has Brutes and maybe a Henchman, I'd probably bump his Finesse down by 1 to reduce the amount of punishment he dishes out. (He'll hit 1/2 the time, for a 1/2 ratio of Dramatic Wounds...ie, he'd inflict 2 Dramatic Wounds by himself in the 4 Round combat mentioned above. So, at the end of Lesson 1, we have good starting Traits and Defense Knacks for the Villain: Brawn: 2 Finesse: 3 Wits: 2 (arbitrarily assigned, I've built his defense into him. If I want him to parry more, I'll lower his TN and raise his Panache and Wits. It's all a style thing.) Resolve: 4 Panache: 2 TN: 25 (Ie, a 4 in Parry, Footwork, and maybe Balance. If the Heroes get him into a bad situation through ingenuity, let it go down to about a 15, but if they try to rules-monger you, keep it at 25.) ----- Let me reiterate one last time, these are approximations, and don't reflect the endless ingenuity of players, nor do they reflect exact statistics. It's just a starting point, and is meant to show you that it's possible to always build a Villain who is a challenge, but not lethal, no matter how 'weak' the starting characters might seem. Lesson 2 will discuss Stupid Knack Tricks. -- Contents Copyright (C) 1997,98,99 by ALDERAC ENTERTAINMENT GROUP, INC.