Building a Villan, Collective Development Options

[stevebugge]

Ok here's the deal. I've got to run a game tomorrow and I'm behind buidling my villan. Basic premise is this is an Intra-Mob hit, the target is a Mafia Enforcer who really pissed off a Capo in another family who is having the runners hit the enforcer in exchange for arranging them some "no inspection transportation". As one additional stipulation they have to leave the enforcer's body in his apartment, in his bathtub, with about 3 dozen live crawfish, because nothing says "Hello from the Kozlowski Family" like a body in a tub of crawfish. So I've pretty much got everything but the villan actually built.

The basics for the target is that he is human, a physad, is a sadist with a short temper and is very sexually aggressive (which is what got him in to trouble). His name is Francesco Lucciano (or Frankie Loco on the streets, but not to his face if you know what's good for you) I'm thinking given the level of runners he should probably have about a 500-525 point build. I don't build/play physads often so any ideas on the crunch part would be appreciated.

[Bira]

You probably want to give him some sort of security detail (a few guards, tuned-up defenses in his appartment) if he expects trouble, or if you think your group should face a bigger challenge than this guy alone can provide.

As for his stats, you can always take one of the sample characters in the main book and tweak its stats accordingly.

[stevebugge]

Ok I should elaborate on this a bit, it's a solo run/side adventure for the guy that owes the favor the rest of my group is on vacation in Alaska at the moment. There would be at most two characters involved. Throwing in a goon squad isn't a problem.

[Ankle Biter]

I would suggest, If you run the gritty world style of game, that a few tied up and beaten ladies dotted about the place would add impact. Have one of them be his submissive phys ad bodyguard. Put her on three boxes of damage stun and physical, and give her high pain tolerance to cover it.

Then just give the party a couple of "sence motive" style rolls to notice she is faking the "thank you, thank you" angle in order to get close...

[hyzmarca]

If he were a masked Mexican wrestler I could hand you one of my villainous Los Quatro Diablos. Unfortunatly, the only SR4 characters I have ever built are masked professional Mexican wrestlers.


I'd recomending avoiding BP altogether. I never use BP for villiangen and I don't suggest anyone else do. Simply set the stats to whatever you feel is best.
If you do use BP I would assert that 525 is too much unles you also charge BP for initiations. Start with 3s in everything and adjust and eliminate untill you hae your character.

[Aaron]

When I'm preparing a game, I consider my most valuable resource to be time. Anything I can do to reduce the amount of time each task takes is highly useful to me. So, what I usually do in the case of a villain that won't be recurring, and in some cases will be recurring, is to take something that already exists and tweak it (incidentally, this is also how most hackers write their programs).

In the case of your Mob Enforcer, I'd start with the Gunslinger Adept from page 95. Change her to a him, switch from ork to human, but keep the stats the way they are; we're adding points, if you recall. If appropriate, I'd change the Firearms Skill Group to Close Combat, and also change the focus of the Improved Ability. I'd switch the native language to English and the secondary to Italian (Sicillian). Then I'd start adding points here and there to make up the point difference; maybe top off the Magic, add a couple skill rating points, and voila! One villain, in less time than it takes to read Dumpshock.

And if you're looking for somewhere convenient to keep this fellow, I humbly offer the NPC record sheet on my Shadowrun Resources page.

[stevebugge]

I was using SR4 Excel Character Creator Spreadsheet v0.991 to do the calculations, and not using skill groups, and am charging for initiations (which I have to do by hand because the sheet doesn't do it). I'm using the Build Points as a relative difficulty guage. The Character in this scenario is a fairly developed character converted over from our SR3 days and with a pretty hefty bit of Karma. I'm actually concerned that 525 might not be enough.

[Aaron]

[stevebugge]

That NPC Sheet is great. I will be using it.