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Gloating

While confidence and bravado are necessary, gloating is highly undesirable. Villains, by necessity, gloat. That is usually why they are undone, because they are so busy gloating and talking their opponents to death, the hero has time to recover. Gloating and humiliating a character is how a villain achieves his Karma. Magical villains, especially the Dread Dormammu and Baron Mordo, can gloat for 10 to 20 rounds at a time, if it appears that their victim is helpless.

If a hero tries to gain time by allowing a magical villain to gloat: that is, acts weak and defenseless, inquires about how the villain trapped him, and so forth, the villain is allowed a Reason FEAT roll. If the roll is successful, the villain will continue his normal actions (attacking or whatever). If the roll is unsuccessful, the villain will stop attacking and start gloating over the hero. This gloating will occupy the villain for no less than 5 rounds, plus 1 round for each level the villain has achieved. After this allotted time, the villain must make a successful Reason FEAT roll or continue gloating.

An evil sorcerer who gloats over his opponent receives 20 Karma as a reward. The reward is the same no matter how long the villain gloats.

In addition to eating up time, a gloating villain will not notice if the hero is using certain spells listed below (see the Gloating Table).
Gloating Table
Villain's RankRounds of Gloating
Novice
Disciple
Adept
Master
Sorcerer Supreme
6
7
8
9
10
The villain will continue gloating unless he makes a successful Intuition FEAT roll. This gloat check is made every round thereafter until it is successful or until the villain is attacked.

If a hero casts any of the following spells, a gloating villain will not notice the spellcasting until the spell takes effect. If the spell fails, the villain will not be aware that it was cast.

Apply a –1CS to the villain's FEAT roll to resist any of these spells.