Any warnings for a new Watcher?

[Rick Danger]

[In every single session of Breakout I've run the players have always jumped right on top of Count Nefaria.

Exactly The session went very well and we had a couple of new roleplayers, which is always good. I do feel that you will always need some practice to be able to explain the game fully/clearly and this was only my second time as a Watcher.

Cool moment of the session: the Count was just pummeling 3/4s of the Fantastic Four before the Thing came late to the party and just one-shotted Nefaria with a godlike roll. Good times.

[salsa]

How do you guys use Nefaria? I might me missing something, he usually isn't that effective when I'm "watchering".

I end up with lots of shutdown powers to generate doom, the only effective way I found was to team him up with other villains.

Sometimes 1v1 is good too, but not in general. And all I read is that Nefaria is great, he's tough, etc. Maybe I'm unlucky at my dice roll.

[Spatula]

How do you guys use Nefaria? I might me missing something, he usually isn't that effective when I'm "watchering".

I end up with lots of shutdown powers to generate doom, the only effective way I found was to team him up with other villains.

Sometimes 1v1 is good too, but not in general. And all I read is that Nefaria is great, he's tough, etc. Maybe I'm unlucky at my dice roll.

I will echo this as well. I'm not really familiar with the character's history, but a search comes up with him being a major Avengers foe who has single-handedly beaten the team. And taken direct hits from Thor while smiling. The datafile provided certainly can't do that.

One mechanical issue is that he has one power set and doesn't have versatile or multipower, which makes his rolls on the weak side. But it's easy enough to give him multipower.

But the other thing is that "kinetic control" doesn't show up in any description of his powers that I've found. The closest thing I've read is that he can apparently create crude energy constructs, which doesn't seem very "kinetic" to me. What is he doing in MHR terms when he throws Spider-Man into the Raft during the comics version of Breakout?

[Cam]

Kinetic Control applies to telekinetic-like activity as well as the ability to move things about with force. The version of Nefaria in Breakout is a deliberately weakened version given he was locked up in the Raft and doesn't have his ionic powers charged up to their usual levels. It might be interesting to consider what he'd be like in other circumstances! But yes, he's tossing Spider-Man around with that power.

One thing to remember with Watcher datafiles is that they're even more "disposable" than hero datafiles are. They're written up for the Scene or Event they're to be used for, and don't necessarily represent how they ALWAYS work. You can tweak them easily, which means that if you'd like a more powerful Nefaria (or you want Graviton to be a Large Scale Threat, etc) you can do so.

Cheers,
Cam

[Spatula]

Kinetic Control applies to telekinetic-like activity as well as the ability to move things about with force. The version of Nefaria in Breakout is a deliberately weakened version given he was locked up in the Raft and doesn't have his ionic powers charged up to their usual levels. It might be interesting to consider what he'd be like in other circumstances! But yes, he's tossing Spider-Man around with that power.

Thanks for the clarification, Cam. The idea that he was weaker than normal because of being imprisoned didn't really occur to me until after I wrote that post.

[MidnightBlue]

Stop giving Spatula ideas Cam!

I don't think he's going to need any help kicking our butts when things really start rolling!

[MPOSullivan]

I like Nefaria in part because he will get his lunch fed to him in a couple of rounds. He's powerful, but he's not a long-lasting fighter.

Nefaria's cool for grandstanding. His base pool when he's got a couple of buddies for most actions will be 3d10+1d8 (Team + Distinction + Kinetic Control + Science Master) That ain't bad. Sometimes I'll even shut something down like his Superhuman Speed to boost his Kinetic Control to d12. I like to do that for the first round he's there, grandstand a d8 or d10 into my Doom Pool and fling some rubble around the place.

Round two is where I have a little something something that I like to do with Nefaria. It's fun for the whole family. I use Kinetic Control to accelerate the rain water falling from the sky to supersonic speeds, turning it into a rain of bullets.

Start off by Boosting Nefaria's Kinetic Control to d12 and throw in an Area Effect. That gets you 1d12+2d10+1d8+a couple of d6. I'll also grab that extra die I grandstanded into the Doom Pool and throw that in there for good measure. It's not the biggest dice pool in the world, but it's a good opening salvo. It's really fun when you use Nefaria's Energy Absorption to boost his power up even further.

Like I said, Nefaria isn't the strongest dude in the world, but he's a lot of fun to mess around with. Sure he'll be out by the third or fourth round, but his powers really let you manipulate things and create an impression.

[saintandsinner]

The first time we did this in the playtest Nefaria went down fast. The next time I run this I'm planning on holding on to Nefaria until the Doom Pool ramps up a bit first so he'll have a better 'punch'.

[Yancy Street Clown]

MPO,

I really liked your write-up. Good advice.

One thing that seems simple, but I found invaluable before running Breakout is to make sure to read it (the comic) before running it. It really helps put your mind in the mood for a lot of the scenes the system will guide you towards (the desperate mob, drugged villains, the Sentry, etc). I talked to someone who tried to run the scenario and it did not go well, turns out he didn't read the comic.

While not 100% necessary to run the game, I would strongly advise it. Reading comics is really the best way to understand the game conceptually.