Salutations! New to this forum, nice to sail with you folks.
So I'm gearing up to finally run a 7th Sea 2E campaign soon, and the rules-lite approach to Villains has me confused on an important point. Sure they get Advantages, but how many? Just the 5 that a hero gets at creation? Is there a scale for Villainy level? Did I miss it, or is it intentionally left "As many as you wnt!" Deconstructing villains in Heroes & Villains didn't seem to help.
Also, sorry if this has been gone over here before. The search functionality seems broken for me. Thanks!
They get to take points in Advantages equal to their Strength + 5 (p195 in the Core rules)
And that's really only if you are creating a villain who sticks around longer than one scene. If you are just whipping up some flunky (<10 STR, no Influence), you really only need to decide if he's a duelist or a sorcerer, or maybe give him one advantage related to the scene.
Also, while it isn't explicit in the rules, you can give villains Monster Qualities as well. One of the active villains in my game is sort of a "dark mirror" version of the Knights of Avalon. I started out hunting for KoA powers that would suit him but then realized I could do everything I wanted by giving him 2-3 Monstrous Qualities. So while he isn't TECHNICALLY a monster, that made expressing him in the rules sooooo much easier.
Aha! My eyes kept glancing over that part; I guess I just kept expecting to see that nugget a page or two earlier. My mental organization expects that to be part of creating villain, not something fit for "What does Strength do?" Thanks!