Who Could "YOU" Beat?

Been thinking about running a marvel campaign myself. What I originally thought about was taking "normal" everyday people and thrust them into a situation where they are dealing with heroes and/or villains. Instead of searching through tons of characters and jotting down which might be able to be defeated by normal people...I figured I'd turn it into a topic.

What heroes and/or villains could you defeat? With your current abilities, resources, weapons, etc....without powers, are there any you could defeat? If yes how and why do you feel this way?

I'm hoping to initially gain a list of heroes and villains the group of normal men/women can deal with. Perhaps an alternative timeline where not only mutants but all supernatural people are hunted by normal "mankind." I eventually see the group growing in power by stealing, taking, or using items, magic, or technology they encounter. Eventually allowing them to handle more powerful characters as the story unfolds.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/23/2008 04:41PM by Lafarallin.

I'm not going to try and BS... I couldn't beat anyone in real life, so how would I defeat anyone with powers or high tech gear? I'd just get myself killed.

I could beat any of them... at night..... when they were asleep......with a stick.

course when they woke up i'm a dead man, but that's besides the point.

"No where to hide. No place to run. Your village will BURN like the heart of the SUN!" - Richard, Head warlock of the Brotherhood of Darkness, Lord of the 13 Hells, Master of the Bones, Emperor of the Black, Lord of the Undead, Lord of the Dance.

Punstarr Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'm not going to try and BS... I couldn't beat
> anyone in real life, so how would I defeat anyone
> with powers or high tech gear? I'd just get
> myself killed.


Hahaha, okay what about normal people in the sense of "law enforcement, military, etc..."?

It depends on the damage resistance capacity of said villain. A bad guy with Remarkable or higher body armor and superhuman strength could wade through SWAT teams...

All you have to do is look back to the case of that well-publicized bank robbery years ago with the two guys in full body armor and a ton of ammo. They were like a couple of low-level supervillains with body armor and a ranged attack and the police were helpless with the weapons that they had. They had to raid gun shops to get weapons powerful enough to take the guys down. Someone with natural body armor and even modest super-strength would have easily escaped.

"A shared universe, like any fictional construct, hinges on suspension of disbelief. When continuity is tossed away, it tatters the construct. Undermines it."

-- Peter David

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I'm not a dangerous man out of principle--violence simply isn't a good solution for much of anything.

That said, thanks to a white trash upbringing and a slew of older cousins and jerk stepfathers, I'm far better with a rifle and handgun than a gun control advocate should be. I was always able to take lumps and dish out more in a fight.

Later, I went to college on a full ride wrestling scholarship, and I still coach a local adult men's league. For a workout that didn't involve free weights, I took a boxing class a few years back and became addicted. Three years of that, and now I'm taking krav maga lessons twice a week.

Mostly I do the fighting stuff because it's fun and great exercise that makes me stay engaged. I'm in better shape now at 35 than I was in college. And I'm more ruthless now than ever.

Bring the roided-out spandex monkeys on. Daddy's gonna leave a mark Ajax won't wash off.

Oh! I forgot what I really wanted to say. The theme of your game has been explored in the excellent-though-abruptly-cancelled Stormwatch: Team Achilles. It was basically a team of normals which would hunt & neutralize problematic superhumans.

As the series progressed, they brought on a few superhuman operatives to boost their effectiveness, but they largeyl remained true to their core values: superhumans will invariably start thinking of themselves in terms of the 'super' and forget about the 'human'; this makes all of them--hero and villain alike--inherently untrustworthy. Indeed, heroes generate as many dangerous issues and problems as the villains! So the team was formed to help neutralize significant threats.

You can get the TPB, and they come highly recommended.

WolfSpider 2008!

Bobby Zero Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Oh! I forgot what I really wanted to say. The
> theme of your game has been explored in the
> excellent-though-abruptly-cancelled Stormwatch:
> Team Achilles. It was basically a team of normals
> which would hunt & neutralize problematic
> superhumans.
>
> As the series progressed, they brought on a few
> superhuman operatives to boost their
> effectiveness, but they largeyl remained true to
> their core values: superhumans will invariably
> start thinking of themselves in terms of the
> 'super' and forget about the 'human'; this makes
> all of them--hero and villain alike--inherently
> untrustworthy. Indeed, heroes generate as many
> dangerous issues and problems as the villains! So
> the team was formed to help neutralize significant
> threats.
>
> You can get the TPB, and they come highly
> recommended.
>
> WolfSpider 2008!

Sounds like pretty good source material. What exactly is a TPB though? When I think of what a normal man can do with adequate firepower (Punisher?) I think this concept could work. Just trying to come up with a group of fairly low powered heroes/villains to test run them on.

TPB means Trade Paper Back, pretty much what you see when you see those collected volumns or storyarcs for a particular comic title or cross-title story arc. Same applies for say a limited series that gets compiled into one easy-to-buy volume.

"A shared universe, like any fictional construct, hinges on suspension of disbelief. When continuity is tossed away, it tatters the construct. Undermines it."

-- Peter David

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Yeah...I think baseline humans with specific training in defusing situations and team tactics could still present a significant danger even to genuine supervillain hotshots. The trick is to not get too close to your opponents, use strafing fire and terrain to your advantage, hit the target by surprise, and when it's going pear-shaped don't be afraid to drop some serious explosives.

I don't care how indestructible he is--if you hit him with a dazzle-burst grenade of some sort, he's gonna be blinded. If you follow that up with a taser designed for *actual* rhinos and elephants in the wild and shoot him in a sensitive spot (eyelids, nostrils, the inside of his mouth), he's not getting up. If you manage to put him to sleep, you could bury him neck-deep in concrete, and when he wakes up after its dried, even his ridiculous strength couldn't bust out because he lacks leverage.

If later on your normals take down a couple super-types, then they could recover and use their enemies' tech. This is a slippery slope, and it's entirely possible a supervillain could sue for trademark infringement or even unauthorized use of their private property. It would be an entertaining court case for sure.

Hope those ideas help.

WolfSpider 2008!

LOL, So you're a great fighter...

Don't know if you're being sarcastic or not, but it's a fun concept to break down either way, so I will...

Let's say you go up against a low-level super being with nothing extrordinary except say, remarkable agility, excellent strength, excellent endurance, remarkable claws, and feeble body resistance...

Even without the claws, this guy is going to give you everything you can handle, especially since your hits on him are going to feel like they were coming from a junior-high-school kid, where his hits on you would feel like Mike Tyson in his prime.

With the claws, he mops up the floor with you, and you die... fast.

There are so many holes in this plan...

You're assuming that his indestuctability comes from body resistance... any thing else and your plan fails...

Force field, can't tazer him anywhere...

Insubstantiabilty... can't hurt or contain him...

Combat/danger sense with hyper agilty/teleportation... you're done.

These are just off the top of my head...

Daredevil, a low-level superbeing in anyone's book, beats the crap out of you with this plan.

Essentially, any normal can defeat just about any superbeing that can be reasonably shot for effect (guys like spiderman and nightcrawler can technically be shot, but it would be colossaly difficult to do so). That's why my definition of a 'super'hero requires that the individual has some way of reliably avoiding getting shot by any given dude with a gun pointed at the hero.

test

I offered one idea. Against the Rhino. 'Off the top of my head', just like yours. At 1am last night.

You're right--in a lot of your examples, the tactics I mentioned wouldn't be very effective. But in the example I gave, they would. Rhino is slow moving, vulnerable to sensory effects, and has been shown to better take damage against sensitive tissues (the Wasp beat him by flying into his nose and 'stinging' away) repeatedly.

If we're playing this as "real people", fighting against supers in the "real world", we don't have the luxury of splitting hairs between Body Resistance, Body Armor and True Invulnerability. In this "real world", we'd just know that a guy is hard to put down. That said, just because a guy is tough to injure doesn't make him impossible to affect, overwhelm, or stun.

You're also right in that a lot of the powers you listed would be a challenge for a normal Joe to tackle. This is where being quick-thinking, and having a good arsenal, and learning about your target would be essential.

As an example, the normal Joe is going up against a guy they know can Phase. The Joe knows the target's Phasing powers disrupt electricity, often destroying computers and the like when he passes through them. So the Joe sets up a fight in a Power station, and somehow convinces the Phaser to chase after him by running through a massive generator.

Now, normally, the Phaser's molecules displace and disrupt the flow of electrons in standard technology. But when he's walking through a HUGE field of electrons, the Phaser's powers go all wonky because he can't displace all of the electricity--instead, his molecules are getting displaced, and it's difficult and painful. The Phaser manages to pass through the generator, but he's exhausted and has to solidify for a minute after he gets out.

The Joe is waiting, and places a bullet between his eyes.

Planning, my friends, would be the only thing that keeps a normal Joe alive. He doesn't have the powers to go toe-to-toe, so he has to out-think his targets.

Let's say you go up against a low-level super being with nothing extrordinary except say, remarkable agility, excellent strength, excellent endurance, remarkable claws, and feeble body resistance...

Let's say. First off, if I knew the opponent was a super with claws, I wouldn't be engaging him up close if I could help it. That's letting the guy play on his terms, and that's the last thing you want. So this is where guns--and lots of them--would factor in. A taser against claw guy? Yes please!

But for giggles, let's say he closed in and wanted to make with the living Cuisinart action. If I saw my punches not having any effect, I'd quit punching. Instead, I'd focus on applying leverage and wrestling him down. Controlling his wrists controls his hands, and so they'd be a priority.

Most super-types are flashy, and telegraph their moves and intent well before they even connect. This is how you know what's coming, and a smart Joe scrambles to adapt and move quickly.

I'm not suggesting I'm uber in real life. I've got plenty of flaws and yeah--I'm just a guy. But I am thoughtful and methodical, and I don't have any qualms about using an opponent's body against them.

The Punisher crippled the Rhino. It just took a big enough gun.

Which is a bit 'David Vs Goliath' considering the Hulk's never done that nor has reentry into the atmosphere and crashing into the earth like a meteorite.

"A shared universe, like any fictional construct, hinges on suspension of disbelief. When continuity is tossed away, it tatters the construct. Undermines it."

-- Peter David

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[www.classicmarvel.com] - Nightmares of Futures Past Ongoing Story

[www.classicmarvel.com] - There is no such thing as too powerful Forum Thread

The Hulk is also far tougher than the Rhino.