Infraestructuras generadoras de aguas residuales domésticas

Intelligently applied numbers of Grunts can make up for their inherent weaknesses with Tension bonuses, stacking Advantages through the Assist Action, and various utility Upgrades and Weapons used to support each other. Because two Grunt Units are the recommended challenge for one PC, they can get complicated to manage if you are fielding them in large numbers and with enough variety in their ranks. There are several ways to simplify them, like the Squadron Feature - Not only does it suit their nature as disposable mooks, it means you no longer have to worry about tracking Maimed Areas. It is a win-win!

Active Defenses are ideal for the Grunts not meant to be destroyed easily, with the combo of dual Custom Barriers or Absorbing Armors being the most straightforward.

Then there’s Weapons. of which your best bet would be to give them around 15 MP worth of those. Some of the most powerful Weapons you could field in large numbers include Stun Rod, Bombardment, Radiant Fist and Reactor Overdrive. Useful harassment Weapons to mess with PCs would be Finger Net and Superheavy Machinegun. If you want to keep things simple you can stick to Arm Guard- ian, Jackhammer Stake, Assault Rifle and Anti-Air Missiles which don’t need Energy or fancy tactics.

Finally, you can also save yourself time and effort by keep- ing a recurring cast of Grunts. Instead of coming up with new ones for every other Operation, you create a few and enhance them as the Season goes along. This is what the sample Grunts provided in the next chapter assume you are going to do, and the Attribute templates in the previous page will even do their part of the work for you.

If you want to deploy hordes of Power Level 0 Grunts, you would do well to split them between waves. Having too many out at once can pause the game for a long time whie you have them all take their individual turns. Your PCs can take out a multitde of them with a single strike, so you don’t want a lucky Initiative result to mean they get to decimate your armies before any of them have even moved.

If you make it so that replacement Grunts spawn to take the place of the ones the PCs destroy (with the same position- ing and Initiatives and all that) you make it that much more likely that a few of them will survive to see their Turns.

Rivals

In fiction, Rivals are usually well developed characters, who are just as relevant as the protagonists to the story. In fact, they tend to be more popular than the main characters! Trying to replicate this is at the table is a noble goal, but an RPG is fundamentally different in that the PCs need to be the center of action at all times. You cannot afford to con- stantly cut to what the NPCs are doing for the sake of their characterization, so what you need to do is to make them part of the PC’s lives.

The simplest of methods is to have them and the PCs meet during an Intermission. Allies turning traitor are ideal to this end, though maybe they just meet on neutral ground and have a chance to chat it up before realizing they are en- emies. The point is that they should establish a relationship with each other, so that later you can pull the surprise twist that they’re actually enemies and proceed to shout at each other like good rivals ought to do.

This is assuming that the Rival is a decent human being who has a difference of opinion with the PCs. The more cartoonish and irredeemably evil Rivals do not need much in the way of a relationship. Such Enemies are the kind that will be fine if they’re met once to establish that they are hateful, horrible people and get to do a dastardly deed or two. Low blows like using hostages or destroying their sup- ply chain are all effective at communicating this is someone the characters will love to hate.

Since they have the same Power Level as the PCs, they’re ideal for singling out one of them in a Duel while the rest deal with the Grunts or a Boss.

Mechanically speaking, they’re perfect for Active Defenses suited to countering the favorite Weapons of the PCs. They also do pretty well with gimmicky loadouts like spamming One-Shot Weapons or Support Upgrades with support from Grunts offering them a Resupply when necessary.

No one says they can’t change Mecha while offscreen anyway. Should a Rival end up with a strategy that is easily countered, you can have them switch to a different giant robot. You would do well to at least keep a recurring motif or theme for their Mecha if you do this, though.

For example, Selena the Blue Meteor uses high-speed blue Mecha with lots of guns and a transformation into a plane form. While Bruno of the Cleansing Flame always has flamethrower-themed Beam Weapons and prefers Mecha with heavy armor and a large frame when possible.

Bosses

A Boss is around the equivalent of two PCs, that means you can expect them to knock one character out and the second to beat them just barely. Because the effectiveness of Boss Powers relies on their endurance, you should give them all above average Ranks in their Guard and Threshold Attributes. Other than that, you should look for abilities that wok well together. Below are a few combinations to get you started:

Behold my True Power, Nanoskin Shell and Final Beam: At its best when employed with a Dynamic or Destroyer

template, this combination is about constantly releasing obscenely powerful Beams in rapid succession. Nanoskin Shell grants protection to weather strikes (even your own!) for a while even if the base Defense is kind of low.

Come Forth, my Minions, All Become One and Suicide Swarm: This Boss will swarm PCs with an army of minions

while dealing massive Damage. If the Boss waits until it gets to the last Level of Threshold to respawn them, it can keep itself going for a loooong while until its Genre Points are used up. It is naturally at best with a Shield template.

You are too Slow, Three Times Faster and Needle Storm: Particularly vicious with an Eagle template, this Boss will

increase its attack and defense while repositioning itself to avoid Melee-centric PCs. Needle Storm essentially guarantees it will win any one-on-one matches, making focus fire obligatory to beat them.

Bosses do not have as much variety in their abilities as Grunts and Rivals do. If you stick mostly to using Bosses instead of mixing up all three types of Enemies, this can lead to repetition. There is one way to work around this, and it is to re- place some of their abilities with that which is available to PCs, but in greater quantities.

Boss Powers: In place of a Boss Power, you can get any three other Genre Powers instead.

Boss Upgrades: In place of a Boss Upgrade, you may grant them a up to 30 MP to spend on Upgrades. Boss Weapons: In place of a Boss Weapon, grab a number of Weapons worth a total of up to 30 MP.

Expert Support can work very well with Overfreeze, sparing allied forces while blasting enemies from afar. Come at me Bro can make a Boss with the Eye for an Eye Upgrade a terrifying tank for its minions. Grunts spawned from Come Forth, my Minions! can keep you resupplied while you spam Bombardment mercilessly and essentially make the battle a race against time for the PCs.

You can also do the same for other enemies as well, consider using these guidelines to grant your recurring Rivals some Boss abilities to spice them up. Just keep in mind that some might interact in weird ways with one another, so you should do this after you have some experience with the system and are prepared to come up with ad-hoc rulings.

If you would like to have Superbosses capable of taking on entire Squadrons of PCs entirely on their own, you could increase their Power Level beyond 5, granting them 30 XP to spend on Attributes plus another Capstone for each Level. You could take a single Boss all the way to Power Level 10 this way. Consider also creating a few Rivals with the Compo- nent Unit Upgrade and having them combine with the Boss. This will give the Boss a Subpilot that can Boost or Maneuver as necessary, raise a few of its Attributes to skyhigh Ranks, and grant it several utility abilities like Restoration or Support Upgrades for the Subpilot to use. One or two Components should frankly be good enough for most circumstances - more than that and it gets too complicated to keep track of.

The existing variety of abilities should let you create nearly any kind of enemy, especially once you get the hang of re- skinning. Of course, no one is going to stop you from modifying the existing content or creating entirely new Upgrades, Weapons, Powers or Capstones.

Most Bosses won’t need detailed mechanics for Intermissions. But should you ever need to assign some ad-hoc, then for any activity that your Bosses are supposed to be moderately good at, it should be rolled at a +5 bonus and have one Advantage - such as an aquatic alien monstrosity using Athletics to swim. Their Defense should be of at least 10, and Plot Armor should be around 5 or so. For each Power Level they have beyond 0, you may increase these values by one. Yes, these numbers are assuming slightly above average ranks for all Attributes. That is because it is always safer to err on the side of caution. An NPC being more competent than expected is preferred, since it encourages PCs to put more effort into rising to the challenge.