Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment Group

Willpower · Novice Joined: 24 Sep 2012 Posts: 3

I like some of what I've seen here as this has always been something that bugged me to about the system, my only complaint. Another thing you can do though is make the big bad a multilayered bad Guy, like you see in a lot of video games. They do enough to take the boss out and then he gets pissed. He gets bigger and badder. Maybe even growing a second head, who knows. That way the boss ends up being a real hard fight, equal to three wild cards, changing slightly each time.

Willpower · Novice Joined: 24 Sep 2012 Posts: 3

Oops, guess I missed being the first to suggest this by a few hours. One thing you could do is invent the mastermind as a different form of wildcard. They have the three forms as suggested. One way to make this not TOO powerful is to make that wildcats type only have 2 wounds. I really like thus option and make call it mastermind/monsterous foe wildcard.

Dracones · Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2012 12:00 pm Post subject:

I personally don't like it when NPCs are dramatically rules different than PCs. I also don't think the Big Bad has to be a fight in and of itself. That's very D&D thinking IMHO, where you put 1 foe against the party and everyone whittles down a big bag of hit points.

Consider the ending to the old Flash Gordon movie http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sa_p9Up9DFg

Pretty much a 1 hit kill on the big bad. But it's the scene that's epic, not the kill. Lasers flashing, people running everywhere, another PC attacking a room to get the lightning shield and defenses down, the ship crashing, etc.

If I did an evil clown villain I'd build the scene, not the foe. They see posters of the clown as they go through the carnival. Come onto scenes of death, and run into minions twisted and warped by his insanity. Every now and then an evil laugh would follow the PCs, but they could never quite track it down. And in the "final" encounter just have lots of minions, maybe some situational timed thing going on(dramatic task to solve) or some sort of new evil trained monsters he finally lets loose on the PCs.

The big bads aren't big because they're tough in SW, but because they surround themselves with a twisted mess the PCs have to push through to finally take them down. And even when they do take them down their legacy can linger on.

Even if they cap the evil clown in 1 shot in the 1st round, so what? His minions are still rushing forward and the missile full of his Make People Insane chemical is still counting down to launch at the city.

manifold · Posted: Sat Sep 29, 2012 5:33 am Post subject: wow.

This:

1. The climax doesn't revolve around killing the big bad, it revolves around stopping his plan. Killing him doesn't stop the plan.

2. The climactic fight is mostly a delaying action until the big bad CAN be hurt.

3. The Climactic fight is a large battle, not one on one. So, killing the big bad may be great, but you still have his 30 minions to wade through as well.

4. Variation of the last. The Big Bad isn't a single wild card, its like an octopus, with the main body being a wild card, and the 8 tentacles being extras, that regenerate.

is the best list of ways to make a final fight in SW that I've seen. I'm about to print this and put it in my GMing folder, and I'd like to see it in any "How to GM SW" threads from here out. In fact, I'd like to see it in future versions of the core rules. This comes up so often, and a little list like this is such a clear, easy solution to the "How come my villains are so easy to kill?" question. Especially the first point: genius.
_________________
My online portfolio:

http://manifold2.deviantart.com/