Villain levels and Determination

What I'm submitting is an attenuated version of a post I wrote a few days ago - of course, right before posting, I had a system crash and lost everything. What follows is lacking the original at several points, but, hopefully, at least, gets the central message across.

One of the things that I enjoy so much about this game is that it leaves a great deal in terms of game-engine specifics up to the GM/players - one of those issues is Determination.

To start with, I'll introduce a concept that I'm pretty sure most of the gang reading this are already well familiar with: Villain/Adversary power-level. While what such a thing means in ICONS is totally up to the GM (could range from your basic Daredevil/Batman type stock heavies up to Thanos/Darkseid), I'll use City of Heroes designations as a basic level descriptor.

CoH used five categories to designate threat levels: Minion, Lieutenant, Boss, Elite Boss and Arch-Villain. I won't go into how many points and/or Attribute levels to give to any one of them, aside from what are pretty obvious suggestions, but what I do feel should be discussed is something that the original and AE rules strip away from bad guys and NPCs in general: Determination points. Aside from the villain using rule-designated powers that create flavour/atmosphere/general difficulties and/or problems, the heroes get a Determination point awarded when the villain would have used a Determination point. It's my belief that, the higher up the scale the villain goes, the more they should be given in terms of their own resources for such a game mechanic.

Minions, as the name suggests and the rules indicate, are pretty much there just to slow the hero down and to indicate the depth of resources the villain has at his or her command; as the rules state, one hit - Minor, Moderate, Major or Massive - and they're out of the picture. As most Minions aren't going to have more than 6 Stamina in the first place - notwithstanding certain specific GM-designed exceptions - they won't be using Determination, let alone handing any out.

Lieutenants are, at least what I figure, two or three to match one hero. They'll have, in many cases, at least some type or types of superpower/s and/or devices that make them a genuine threat, and thus candidates to use Determination (if they were allowed to). Therefore, when employing Determination equivalents, they will hand one out to the players, if the GM feels such is deserved. It's for the Lieutenant bad guy levels that I feel the rules as written are most applicable - such NPCs should probably have a nice serving of 4, 5, 6 and even the occasional 7 in terms of Attributes or superpower assignment (at the upper/cosmic point), depending on what role they fit in the lead villain's hierarchy, and the game's general power-level considerations as a whole.

Bosses are where, I think, the NPCs should start having access to their own separate Determination point banks. These guys/girls are usually at least two heroes per, unless, of course, one's running a solo game and the PC hero is taking on the Joker, Manta-Ray, the Kingpin or Annihilus by him- or herself. Regardless, I think said Boss should have some GM-assigned Determination that they can utilize without handing such back to the heroes as a matter of course. Dangerous? Yeah - but that's the reason they're the Boss in the first place. Obviously, the GM will have to make a judgement call on how many, if any, Determination points are villain-owned in the first place, and at what point the heroes will start getting them back as the Boss ends up scoring some pretty serious hits or edging toward total victory. I figure the Bosses shouldn't have any Attributes lower than 3 (in most cases), with 7 and 8 as a fair commonality, and superpowers and power levels that will certainly cause the PCs some cold sweat.

Elite Bosses will undoubtedly have several Determination points available for use, and I think these could be especially applied in situations that create somewhat more indirect problems - your basic death trap, influencing media to turn against the heroes, calling in law enforcement (corrupt and otherwise) to hunt them down - for the PCs. Again, I'd also give the Elite Boss several Determination points for use against the heroes in the march-to-the-finish scraps, watching out to make sure that, when it comes to the big ending, the PCs have some kind of even basis on which to reach victory as determined by straight dice rolls and Attributes/power levels, and it's not just a question of dueling Determination points for who gets the biggest push to the finish line. Elite Bosses, briefly, should probably have a raft of Attributes and powers/devices reaching into the 7-8 range, with a possible 9 working in there as well.

Arch-Villains are probably the easiest to identify, along with Minions, living at the other end of the power graph. Again, as with the other identifiers, exactly what an Arch-Villain is will depend greatly on what sort of power-level the campaign/world is established at - the Kingpin and the Joker certainly fit such criteria when it comes to street-level situations, where Darkseid and Thanos are at the cosmic end of matters. Regardless, I'd give these NPCs a whole bunch of Determination points for free expenditure, along with possibly awarding them one when the PCs employ their own. While in CoH Arch-Villains were clearly meant for group engagement - having powers that affected geographic regions as well as PBAoE - I'd suspect many of us perused at least one of those YouTube videos that had the single hero scrapping - interminably - one of the Arch-Villains. Again, these videos had the hero accessing a full bank of available Inspirations - CoH's version of Determination, essentially - in order to at least somewhat even things out against an enemy that would normally wipe the floor with anyone who dared to take them on solo. To make clear: a computer-generated game has got a defined set of algorithms to smooth out play and establish power levels and who can do what; a pen-and-paper RPG does not. Arch-Villains will, as Mr. Kenson suggests, very likely have a very substantial score in Invulnerability, as well as having Fast Attack and possibly something like Regeneration, as well as Attributes that reach well into the 8, 9 and possibly even 10 range (at least for Darkseid/Thanos types).

I know I've gotten on the soapbox major with this, but I do feel that the Determination issue is one that should be batted back and forth - Mr. Kenson's rules are established clearly, obviously, but I'd wonder if some house-ruling on this concept would be at all workable.

Black Talon