secretID Posted October 1, 2008 Report Share Posted October 1, 2008 Common situation. Here is a recent example: Heroes' assault on hideout of sorts. Early in, they take out 4 mooks and a big brick, and they want to keep going into the hideout w/o worrying about these guys or dragging the big brick around with them. I already have a house rule that mooks stay down, but I haven't said re real villains. One player (of a mystic PC) suggested that he be deemed in possession of magic rope, since this was really a convenience for all. The alternative, he argued/threatened, was that the heroes pound away on the poor villain until he was -1000 STUN or something. I'm surprised to say it, but I'm leaning towards his proposal. Thoughts? Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Egyptoid Posted October 1, 2008 Report Share Posted October 1, 2008 but the rope IS a good idea... the heroes (or team leader) should be minus 1 exp. for not calling the police in for backup.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreyGuardian Posted October 1, 2008 Report Share Posted October 1, 2008 Re: dealing with unconscious villains It depends. If you can milk the prisoner situation for drama and suspense then go with that. For example force the heroes into a co-operative agreement with an organization like Primus or UNTIL (so the agents follow when signaled with a SMDU (stronghold mobile detention unit). If your intent is for them to capture the villains and they've got a decent plan and behave reasonably then hand wave it with plot device cuffs, or villains that need hospital care before coming around etc. after -30 stun recovery is at gm's option anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
secretID Posted October 1, 2008 Author Report Share Posted October 1, 2008 Re: dealing with unconscious villains These are the first supers - there's no Primus, etc. Imprisonment is definitely an issue, but at the moment I think their main concern is having to fight the brick again 10 minutes later, when they're further into the hideout. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cygnia Posted October 1, 2008 Report Share Posted October 1, 2008 Re: dealing with unconscious villains Have these players made any connections with any sort of law enforcement agencies? Are they legally allowed to be there or does your game world frown on "vigilantes"? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
secretID Posted October 1, 2008 Author Report Share Posted October 1, 2008 Re: dealing with unconscious villains Have these players made any connections with any sort of law enforcement agencies? Are they legally allowed to be there or does your game world frown on "vigilantes"? They certainly haven't yet. In the current situation, they would have a real problem if they called the police. Their best bet right now is to find something so incriminating that their own indiscretions are overlooked. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cygnia Posted October 1, 2008 Report Share Posted October 1, 2008 Re: dealing with unconscious villains Since they're just starting out, this should stand as a trial by fire for them. In character actions have in character consequences -- and one of those consequences should be that these bad guys have the slickest, most media savvy lawyer in their pockets should your heroes go the "gratutious beatdown" route. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hugh Neilson Posted October 1, 2008 Report Share Posted October 1, 2008 Re: dealing with unconscious villains "Well, guys, you have KO'd the four mooks and the Brick. You have the abilities you paid points for - you want a mystic rope, pay the freight. You guys decide what you want to do. Oh, and it's likely that the villains will some day be faced with the same issue when one or more of you is down." Expect, however, that if you consistently have downed bad guys make nuisances of themselves again later on, the PC's will want to take steps to prevent that experience recurring. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vulcan Posted October 2, 2008 Report Share Posted October 2, 2008 Re: dealing with unconscious villains You'll want to think long and hard about this, and how you want the tone of your campaign to develop. The genre trope is for the Brick to wake up sometime later and either a) sneak up behind the heroes at the worst possible moment; sound the alarm (it it hasn't been already) - or worse, call the cops! or c) simply sneak away and escape. However, if you use a) or , then you set the stage for the players to want to beat the villian into the far negatives next time this happens. And the next villian this happens to might not be so durable, and the players kill him accidentally. (If they kill him on purpose, that's a different situation.) If you decide to allow the wizard-type to have a 'mystic rope,' make him go negative on XP until it's paid off. Or perhaps treat it as a 'team item' and have everyone go negative XP to pay it off. That's the fair way to handle that. Because if you think they're just going to use a 'mystic rope' to tie up captured villians, do you have a suprise coming! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lemming Posted October 2, 2008 Report Share Posted October 2, 2008 Re: dealing with unconscious villains These are the first supers - there's no Primus' date=' etc. Imprisonment is definitely an issue, but at the moment I think their main concern is having to fight the brick again 10 minutes later, when they're further into the hideout.[/quote'] Looks like Hugh covered it pretty well. Pretty much it will be you enforcing the consequences of the genre. Sure, leaving a guy behind may bite them, but unless the brick has some psych lims forcing him, he'd sooner just escape than be beaten again. You could always have the base blow up "NO ONE could survive that!" and not dust him off another encounter for a long time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bubba smith Posted October 2, 2008 Report Share Posted October 2, 2008 Re: dealing with unconscious villains that last idea is good Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tech Posted October 2, 2008 Report Share Posted October 2, 2008 Re: dealing with unconscious villains I generally have my the guys who've been defeated sneak away or try to get away. If the good guys give the bad guy a break, it will be returned someday. If the good guys leave the unconscious villain behind, he's already been defeated once, he'll leave unless he's got some real nutso psychological limitation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrosshairCollie Posted October 2, 2008 Report Share Posted October 2, 2008 Re: dealing with unconscious villains I, typically, just go for 'once they're out, they're out for the duration'. Only PCs get recoveries when they're at negative STUN. It's a perk of being a hero. One option might be to let the PCs do a Perception and/or Paramedics roll to gauge how long the bad guy will be out (aka whether he's recovering at end of turn, minute, or GM's option). If he's at turn or minute, they can then choose to give him a double-stun punch to the gut to make sure he stays down. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
casualplayer Posted October 2, 2008 Report Share Posted October 2, 2008 Re: dealing with unconscious villains Your players are going to feel awfully bad if the villain's defenses aren't Persistent and they paste them while they are down. Splat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Liaden Posted October 2, 2008 Report Share Posted October 2, 2008 Re: dealing with unconscious villains I generally have my the guys who've been defeated sneak away or try to get away. If the good guys give the bad guy a break' date=' it will be returned someday. If the good guys leave the unconscious villain behind, he's already been defeated once, he'll leave unless he's got some real nutso psychological limitation.[/quote'] To me this is part of genre enforcement. If a villain is just a hireling, he generally won't want to go another round with the heroes who just cleaned his clock. OTOH if said villain is a loyal follower of the big boss, he likely would attack the heroes again, if it would make difference to the outcome of the boss's scheme. A friend of mine worked this in when he GM'd a run of the classic 4E adventure Day of the Destroyer. The PCs attack Dr. Destroyer's island base to try to stop his world-devastating plot; have a tough fight with DD's forces led by his powerful security chief, Gigaton; reach Dr. Destroyer's control room, and after a vicious pitched battle which leaves half of them unconscious, barely manage to stop Destroyer and his scheme. As the heroes sprawl on the floor exhausted, the wall of the control room bursts apart to reveal a really pissed-off looking Gigaton. The players have a heart-sinking moment while Gig looks over them, the destroyed control room, and the crumpled figure of Destroyer; then he shrugs, says "Eh, he was a jerk anyway," and leaves. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheQuestionMan Posted October 2, 2008 Report Share Posted October 2, 2008 Re: dealing with unconscious villains This question has begun to haunt Nemesis. Subdued Criminals, Agents, and Supervillians currently suffer from another attack with the intent of Stunning them enough to keep them out of action for the scene. I have been thinking of getting a Utility Belt with Sedation Patches. Drain 2d6 Stun, Continuous, Unknown Number of Charges, Lasting 1 Hour. Gotta keep the bad guys down. QM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bubba smith Posted October 2, 2008 Report Share Posted October 2, 2008 Re: dealing with unconscious villains why not just tie them up and alert the law? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheQuestionMan Posted October 2, 2008 Report Share Posted October 2, 2008 Re: dealing with unconscious villains why not just tie them up and alert the law? Arrival time of Local Law Enforcement Agents 10 to 15mins, Number of Recovers per minute ??. The Criminals, Agents, and Supervillians awakening in time to escape, activate the self destruct device, or rejoin the fight... Priceless. (Insert UNTIL:AoF Grond picture of UNTIL Agents getting their butts kicked) When your Superhero needs keeping the bad guys subdued, use Sedation Patches... (Insert picture of Stronghold Agents taking Grond into custody.) Sedation Patches. Do not leave home without them. - Brought to you by McQuark's Superhero Supply Emporium. QM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tech Posted October 2, 2008 Report Share Posted October 2, 2008 Re: dealing with unconscious villains why not just tie them up and alert the law? The area you're in prevents it many times. Heroes can be in many places, not just cities or suburbs: in the mountains, underwater villain base, volcano, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nerdnumber1 Posted October 2, 2008 Report Share Posted October 2, 2008 Re: dealing with unconscious villains why not just tie them up and alert the law? Many villians have ways out of normal bonds. Flip on the damage shield, use bricky strength, desolidify, teleport, destroy the bonds in another way, etc. Unless the feds get there in less than five minutes, all they'll find is shreads of rope... if they're lucky enough to avoid finding a freshly awakened, grumpy Grond. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arkham Posted October 2, 2008 Report Share Posted October 2, 2008 Re: dealing with unconscious villains Once you're at -30, you don't get any recoveries until the GM says so. So once they are at GM's Discretion, it doesn't matter what the PCs do, the KOd bad guy will either get up, or won't, at the GM's discretion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hfergus Posted October 2, 2008 Report Share Posted October 2, 2008 Re: dealing with unconscious villains Punch them into negatives? Tie them up? Never! - "Hanging's too good for them. Burning's too good for them. They should be chopped into little pieces and buried alive.... Kill!" - First person to identify this quote gets rep if I can. I'm not sure if it's word for word, but I could identify it. To answer the question, mooks stay down or leave in my campaign. The rest depends on what I think makes sense. Hirelings tend to leave unless they are very loyal (disad or role-play). Also 2 heros in the campaign have NND's, so big negatives are easy with no danger of death most of the time. And I may allow inpromptu "entangles" that cannot be repeated, anf I have allowed "borrowing" points occasionally if it nakes sense to me. Otherwise... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrosshairCollie Posted October 3, 2008 Report Share Posted October 3, 2008 Re: dealing with unconscious villains Punch them into negatives? Tie them up? Never! - "Hanging's too good for them. Burning's too good for them. They should be chopped into little pieces and buried alive.... Kill!" - First person to identify this quote gets rep if I can. I'm not sure if it's word for word' date=' but I could identify it. [/quote'] What's his face from Heavy Metal ... Hanover Fist? Was that his name? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SSgt Baloo Posted October 3, 2008 Report Share Posted October 3, 2008 Re: dealing with unconscious villains What's his face from Heavy Metal ... Hanover Fist? Was that his name? Yes, I do believe that's the guy! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
secretID Posted October 3, 2008 Author Report Share Posted October 3, 2008 Re: dealing with unconscious villains Thanks for the suggestions. I've ended up with an announcement that: a) house rule says you can't pummel an unconscious bad guy w/o also doing BODY; bad guys, once out, will in general not come back to harm you; except c) if you left them unattendend b/c you were in a rush, then all bets are off; and d) escape is always a possibility if they're left unattended. An example of © is PC knocks out super-guard during mission to free kidnapped NPC, but while PC is working his way through the base to complete the release, super-guard wakes up and triggers self-destruct. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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