Super Villain looking for Revenge

[BigKahuna]

I'm pretty sure none of my players read this board, but just in case, if you are playing in a Mutants and Masterminds 3e game set in Los Angeles at The Hardy & Raze Detective Agency...

Please Stop Reading

So, with that out of the way, last session my players stopped a villain (Baron Von Burgstaller) in a zany time travel adventure. He had stolen a time travel device and was going through time stealing from the richest men in history. He then used this newfound wealth to found his own empire at the beginning of time. Unfortunately for him, the PCs stopped his eternal reich by grabbing his time travel device and hitting the reset button.

Only two of the PCs passed their will saves to remember what happened, but so did Baron Von Burgstaller and he is pissed off.

Basically, I'm looking for suggestions of ways he could get revenge on the players. Baron Von Burgstaller is essentially Doctor Doom if he was also the leader of HYDRA, so he has a lot of resources at his disposal. Ideally I'd like to stretch this out to a multi-session conspiracy running in the background, but all ideas are good.

Suggestions?

[noob]

Classical stuff(it is so much ridiculously simple and efficient it is shocking):Pay 3000 assassins with the best ranged weapons with also the longest range(and various mods) and have some of them with burst attacks(probably rocket launchers) for destroying cover and also a bunch of helicopters(preferably 80) with dozens of high rank missiles.
Send this army after the heroes in one bunch and see the players dies hit by 150 critical attacks at once (if they attempt a front faced attack because they are each individually an assassin and so none of them is a minion)only attempt to flee but then since you have a lot of choppers they are going to have an hard time.
Of course you can recruit this small amount of assassins without being found by creating another box swapping money stealthily with a terrorist organization.
The players already knows he is the villain so he does not fears to have his cover blown up.
Then if he really likes pointless revenge he could send groups of 200 assassins for each friend/family member of the hero group.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

They were able to hurt him because they knew too much about his plans, so he can take revenge by using knowledge of their plans.

The next encounter could be something small, like a minor dragon themed powersuit wearing villain destroying a mall or something. The villain may or may not be connected to the bad guy, it's not important. What is important is that the villain gets a way to discover some kind of information about them somehow. Ideally they'd rescue a likeable NPC in need of help they then take to their lair or otherwise stay in touch with. This then turns out a spy. Or maybe they pick up a cool bugged gadget, or one of them gets shot with a tranquilizer rifle that had nanotransmitters mized in with the tranquilizer fluid. Maybe they just get caught on camera and the images can be used to find their secret identity (if they have one). Let them run around for a while, make it look like the bad guy is temporarily gone, licking his wounds. Or better yet, make it seems like they're on the edge of defeating him ones and for all. And just as they're about to strike, blow up the bat cave and let the ninja's drop from the ceiling. Drive them all the way in the corner, and then let the villain come out to start monologueing. You need to drop enough hints that you can afterwards say "o come on, there were like a ton of hints to that one". Maybe they'll even figure it out, smash the bug, run from their lair and start their own assault before the villain can strike, works just as well.

[Kantaki]

What should the Baron (or any other villain seeking revenge) do:
- Destroy the heroes' hideout
- Buy and close their favorite restaurant/ cinema/ bar/ whatever
- Spread rumors about the heroes
- Support other villains with mooks and/or Equipment
- Become a politican and make superheroes (or at least those guys) illegal.
-Alternately make them controlled by the government and make sure you are in charge.

Whatever you do: Make sure the heroes know what happens. Leave hints, put your logo on things, make mooks use certain phrases, announce to the heroes that they will regret insulting Baron von Burgstaller.

Even better? Let everyone else think that the heroes are crazy for thinking you are behind everything.

Is there are reason the guy is more or less named "Castlestealer" (Burg= Castle Staller sounds similar to stehlen= stealing) ?That family has to have a interesting history.

[L Space]

Can the villain gain access to another time machine? If so he could start targeting them though their timelines. Maybe have some of their past successful cases suddenly be remembered as unsuccessful, with them being disliked for being the part of some screw-up that they weren't originally a part of. Depending on your faith in the player's roleplaying abilities have them play as if they had been part of the original screw ups, maybe with allowing 1 or more of them to make another check to see if they remember the original timeline. From there they have to start investigating something that never happened and stop a major disaster that they're suddenly heading towards.

[awa]

personally my opinions is that unless stealing time machines is the guys thing or time travel is a core element of the game I would avoid another time travel scheme.

Framing the heroes for something is always a good choice its very personal and basically requires the heroes to figure out the true villain to stop it

[BigKahuna]

Thanks for the suggestions, I'm definitely leaning towards him throwing his weight behind discrediting and inconveniencing the players. A spy sounds good, and the players did just pick up a stoner lab tech NPC by getting him fired from the police.

Also, time travel is probably out. It is illegal in the setting and the scientist who was experimenting with it this time has been forced to destroy his devices by the PCs.

What should the Baron (or any other villain seeking revenge) do:
Is there are reason the guy is more or less named "Castlestealer" (Burg= Castle Staller sounds similar to stehlen= stealing) ?That family has to have a interesting history.

Nah, no particular reason, I just thought it sounded cool. That is really cool to know though, as it fits right in with his backstory. He moved himself up the line of succession through a series of "unfortunate accidents" then, once he became a Baron, he founded B.A.N.E - a criminal organisation whose main goal is to found a new world order with Baron von Burgstaller at the helm.

[Drakeburn]

Well, a spy would be an okay idea. It is a matter of how far you wanna go with the idea.

Note: I took this idea from Young Justice (now that I think about it, Ultron had a similar plan in the Runaways).

Spoiler: Secret Evil Plan

Show

The Baron could just genetically engineer a hero to oppose his organization. This hero could be a clone of an old hero, a "biological" child or grandchild of an old hero, or just a completely brand new hero nobody has ever seen or heard of before.

This hero would be good enough to stand against the Baron on his/her own (if B.A.N.E. let that hero win on purpose or not, that is up to you), they might become a helpful ally for the PCs, or even join the team of PCs.

The catch however, is that this hero is made to be a sleeper agent, either he/she knows it or not. So when the PCs rush to stop what is supposed to be one of the Baron's greatest plans for world domination, he can just make the sleeper agent do his/her thing by stopping the PCs.

[SimonMoon6]

Best ways to find plots for supervillains? Read more comics, especially Silver Age comics (Bronze Age will do as well).

For example, one of the early Doctor Doom stories involved him turning the HQ of the Fantastic Four into a rocket which hurled itself into outer space. There you go, there's a plot.

[Cealocanth]

Well, a classic solution would be to set up a ridiculous death trap which involved hanging from a slowly burning rope over a tank of genetically enhanced lava breathing sharks, fighting your way through a death chamber with saws coming out of the walls and ceilings and a laser grid moving in interesting ways, and fighting off an army of atomic super-mutant zombie nazis. Then you lure the heroes into a trap, capture them, and place them in the middle of this death trap so you can watch them slowly die as they fail to overcome your genius. Make sure to take time while they are attempting to escape to explain the intricacies of your evil plan, your clear mental superiority, and how inevitable their defeat is. Throw in periodical maniacal cackling for good measure.

[Arbane]

Classical stuff(it is so much ridiculously simple and efficient it is shocking):Pay 3000 assassins with the best ranged weapons with also the longest range(and various mods) and have some of them with burst attacks(probably rocket launchers) for destroying cover and also a bunch of helicopters(preferably 80) with dozens of high rank missiles.
Send this army after the heroes in one bunch and see the players dies hit by 150 critical attacks at once (if they attempt a front faced attack because they are each individually an assassin and so none of them is a minion)only attempt to flee but then since you have a lot of choppers they are going to have an hard time.
Of course you can recruit this small amount of assassins without being found by creating another box swapping money stealthily with a terrorist organization.
The players already knows he is the villain so he does not fears to have his cover blown up.
Then if he really likes pointless revenge he could send groups of 200 assassins for each friend/family member of the hero group.

Good plan. Nothing says "Comic Book Superhero Adventure" like a few dozen insta-kill headshots.

If this guy's running the local HYDRA equivalent, he's probably interested in seizing political power for its own sake, but using some of that power to harass the PCs is always a good start. Frivolous lawsuits from people who got property destroyed in superfights, new anti-vigilanteism laws proposed, the ever popular Mutant Registration Act (backed up by giant purple Death Robots, of course)....

[SkipSandwich]

I would go with Drakeburn's sleeper agent plan, but take it one level deeper.

The new helpful NPC is both a deliberate plant by the BBEG but also not the sleeper agent and an unwitting pawn in the Baron's scheme. The Real sleeper agent is actually a clone of one of PC's who murder and replaces said PC off screen (or the PC is afflicted with a discreet Mind-Control device, whatever, the point is that after the BBEG is defeated the PC in question can continue to play the 'same character'). Of course obtain said player's permission beforehand, but I know a lot of players who would Love the chance to play as the 'evil mole' in a story arc, especially under circumstances that let them return to status quo afterwards (more-or-less in the 'replaced by clone' version).