I’ve seen some folks have trouble with how many conditions to give villains. Here are a few things to remember: > “When a villain needs to mark a condition, but can’t, they are defeated.” This means *one more blow than they have conditions*, in other words, 2 to 6. But it also… doesn’t just mean “Deal a Powerful Blow”. There are lots of other ways a hero could, in principle, get a villain to mark a condition. Be alert to them, they can really change up the pace and texture of a fight, moving it away from a series of Deal a Powerful Blow rolls. > “When you need to say what the villain does next, look to your GM moves, their villain moves, and the condition moves.” Remember: a villain does a condition move right after taking that condition… and any time later in the fight when you need them to make a move, that list of condition moves is now *on the table*. > “Villains can flee or give up long before all their conditions are filled—don’t think they have to fight to the bitter end.” Honestly, this is almost always how a fight ends for villains of four or five conditions (“dangerous” or “true arch-villain”) and even very frequently the case for villains of three (“threatening”). And that makes sense! When you think “true arch-villain”, think *the Joker*, or *Darkseid*, or *Vandal Savage*. You don’t square up against them and win! Even if you could do six conditions to them, they have contingencies and plans of their own. For villains you want the players to fight and win and clean up, stick to one or two, sometimes three conditions. For villains where a fight will be inconclusive until the finale of the entire campaign, and maybe even then? That’s where the four or five condition villains live. Put another way: the scale isn’t linear, though it looks on the surface like it is. One great way to make this feel really natural, of course, is to make sure you have an idea in every fight of what the goals are, and make neither of them “make the other guy stop moving”. This way, a villain can peace out with their own goals achieved, or the heroes can block them and they can flee to fight another day. As a small side note, I like to envision the villains of fewer conditions as *always* living in the emotional reality of any condition they don’t have. A villain with Afraid and Hopeless can sometimes *not* be those things, but is always feeling, at some level, Guilty, Angry, and Insecure. [Rich]([https://www.youtube.com/@RichardRogersorklord](https://www.youtube.com/@RichardRogersorklord)) adds: > *Have your villains talk trash. Not just "I'm gonna beat you up," that's trash talking for dummies. Have the villains mock the PCs, their costumes, their ages, their slang, any misses they make while trying to do things. It's pure gold when the villain makes it personal.*