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alt title(s): Power Level; Over Nine Thousand 
Ask me about Kakarott's power level. Go ahead... just ask.
Nappa: (about Goku) Vegeta, what does the scouter say about his power level?
Nappa: WHAT?! NINE THOUSAND?! There's no way that can be right! Can it?!
Goku: I think it's right. After all, I was trained in the art of Kaioken.
Vegeta: Kaioken?!
Nine thousand and one.
Some anime can use Stat O Vision to record or sense the magnitude of a character's strength, to an exact number. Units are rarely included, though — it's senseless enough as it is. In any case, this is mildly useful for comparisons, until said levels start getting silly and are dropped altogether, never to be mentioned again.
Sometimes, power levels are mentioned only in supplemental materials. A simpler system of ranks can suffer similar problems.
An advantage of Power Levels is that rating characters or other setting elements in real-world units inevitably falls foul of scientific-minded fans with too much time on their hands. Another is it gives an easy Distribution Of Ninjutsu for the audience to compare characters.
See also Mana, and Super Weight for actual power-levels. Please also note that this Over Nine Thousand, a redirect of it, is not about excessively high readings, but power level itself. The former trope, the numbers apparently too much to crunch, is Readings Are Off The Scale.
Examples:
Anime and Manga
Comic Books
- X-Men 3 introduced mutant "classes", but with easy numbers—1 to 5, with the only 5 known being Phoenix.
- Similarly, the comics used Greek letters to mark their power levels—Delta-Epsilon (latent), Gamma (almost nonexistent), Beta (weak powers, or powers that only affect the mutant in question), Alpha (powers of moderate to great strength that can affect others), and Omega (depending on the writer, powers that might be "theoretically unlimited" or "can affect the world as a whole"). There are only a dozen or so Omega mutants in the world, but unsurprisingly most of those are part of the primary cast.
- This has become more common with several comic publishers. As one example, in The Authority, Apollo is described several times as a "Majestic-Class" superhuman, people in Wildstorm's universe apparently classifying superhumans by notable figures of about the same power (Mr. Majestic, Wildstorm's Superman analogue, in this case).
- While the original Official Handbook Of The Marvel Universe tried to give exact, unit-specific measurements of strength and powers ("able to generate tempereatures of 28,000 degrees Farenheit", "Able bench press ten tons") the newer supplemental material uses a system of levels that are not often consistent with observation and are maddeningly vague— level 3 strength means lifting "somewhere between 800 pounds and 25 tons".
- Conversely, DC's ''Who's Who'' tends to take the deliberately vague, but understandable tack of putting everyone's strength levels (or at least the upper-tier powerhouses) as as strong, not as strong, or stronger than Superman.
- Powers, where ordinary detectives investigate superpowered crimes, has a rough and not very well defined set of power levels from 1-10 to identify how strong a Super Hero or villain is.
Film
- In a suspected Jump The Shark moment, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace made Force talent measurable via "midichlorian count". (Can a sub-cellular organism be The Scrappy?) More generous and creative fans have suggested midichlorians may simply be an organelle or parasite which is attracted to high levels of the Force and thus is useful to measure, rather than actually producing it.
- After measuring kid Anakin's Power Level, they are shocked by the fact how Over Nine Thousand it is (it's about twenty thousand, more than even Yoda).
- Most fans (and the EU) veiw midichlorians are more as the "middle man" that connects them to the force (which Qui Gon said)
- Used in Rocky IV. Ivan Drago's punching power is measured in PSI, and reaches ridiculous levels (2100, which would slam through iron if his arm didn't shatter first).
- In X-Men 3: The Last Stand, Mutants were inexplicably given power levels that everyone was aware of from 1-5 with Professor X and Magneto as 4s and Jean Grey being the only known 5. Apparently, one "speedster" mutant near the beginning can specifically "sense" these power levels- again having no prior mention in the movies or anywhere else in the X-men universe that this troper can remember.
Literature
Live Action TV
- Saint Seiya realistically measures fighting power in kilowatts
 ; IIRC, however, Ki Attacks are not measured.
- Saint Seiya does not use "power levels" as much as "power tiers", classifying the different level of powers in Bronze (at the start), Silver, Gold (Gold saints, Divine Warriors, Marina and Kyotos), and God (Thanatos, Hypnos, and Hades, this one surpassing even the former two). There are certainly variations between levels, as most Marina are significantly weaker than Gold Saints, but the tiers are pretty clear.
- Babylon 5 had P-levels for its telepaths.
- Officially the rankings count range and power, with P0 or P1 being all but useless. P2-P5 become commercial telepaths, P6-10 work with the government, and P10-12 work in the corps with P12 being the rank of Psi-Cops. P13 is the maximum rank are quite rare and tend to be experimented on.
- And then there is Lyta Alexander.
- And that guy that had multiple personality disorder, with like 4 personalities and a different P rating for each.
- In Heroes, there's some online viral bonus material that lists the "power levels" of several of the show's characters, in the form of "case files" listing "control index" and "biological, cerebral, elemental, and temporal/spatial" levels . Most of the files are on characters from the on-line comics, but a few of the show's main characters are listed. I.E. Matt's stats are "25% control, 25/90/45/20", Ted's stats are "12% control, 45/55/95/5", and Sylar's stats are "76% control, 40/85/45/20".
- Kamen Rider typically provides data for the abilities of each Rider, such as how hard they can punch and kick (measured in tons!), how fast their 100-meter dash is, how high they can jump, and other similar statistics.
- Kamen Rider Ryuki plays it a bit straighter by assigning AP (Attack Point) values to all the Riders' attacks, from their basic punches and kicks to their Final Vents.
- Kamen Rider Blade takes it one step further - the Rider's weapons start with 5000 AP, and cards swiped through them have their AP values subtracted from this. Special cards that add AP appear late into the series.
- The Whedonverse apparently has power levels for witches (and possibly mages in general)- in "Checkpoint", a Watcher asks Willow and Tara what their levels are, and if they'd registered under the names they provided.
Tabletop Games
- Psykers in Warhammer 40000 are ranked by Greek letters. An epsilon-class psyker can give you a mild headache, and an alpha-class can snap a titan in half with a gesture.
- Models are also given a 'point' cost to field - naturally more powerful models cost more to field. Thankfully, the tabletop game's individual model costs do not reflect the game's background. It would get ridiculous...
- Actually, the psyker rating system is a rough estimate at best, used mostly by the Administratum. Eldar farseers are typically around Beta, and Space Marine Librarians are usually Gamma, but toe to toe the Space Marine wins 2 times out of three.
- Very common in Role Playing Games such as Dungeons And Dragons, where monsters are rated on some sort of scale by how powerful they are or how much experience and treasure they impart. Very uncommon, however, is for this power level to be referenced at all in the game world (except in comedic, 4th wall breaking series), making it strictly a game mechanic.
- Power Levels for spells, however, do come up in-character from time to time. Well, it'd have to: either a spell is within your skills at a given point in your adventuring career, or it's not.
- Mutants And Masterminds uses actual Power Levels to constrain character to a roughly even playing field. All offensive and defensive powers must be at or under their character's PL. The only exception is that it is allowable to trade off on opposing traits like accuracy versus damage, or defense versus toughness. Powers like non-offensive teleportation and telekinesis lack such bounds except in house rulings. Like D&D, it's rare for this to come up in-character, however.
Video Games
- According to Gilgamesh's profile in the Fate Stay Night game, his main weapon has a base power of "4000 damage". Where as other weapons might be "anti-unit" or "anti-army", his (and only his) is classified as "anti-world". Of course, he's also listed as "Chaotic Good", so...
- Though what's actually meant by "anti-world" isn't "I can destroy the world with an attack from this!" but instead "With this weapon, I can challenge the combined forces of everything in the world at once."
- A Shout Out is made in Fallout 3, with the Mysterious Stranger (a Shout Out himself to Dirty Harry and cliched movie detectives) with his .44 Magnum Revolver, which has a damage level of Over Nine Thousand!
- Beings in Darkstalkers are ranked by letters. "D" being an average human, "C" being an average monster that could kick around a small army of humans, "B" being a trained monster capable of wiping their butts with "C-Class" demons, "A" is exceptionally strong and are the rulers of the demon world, and "S" being essentially a Physical God. Most of the playable characters are As and Bs, with a few exceptions. Baby Bonnie Hood is the only known human with the slightest capability of damaging an S-Class demon thanks to her insanity, intense training, and impossibly large arsenal of hidden weapons.
- As part of their Genre Savvy, characters in the Disgaea series can sense each others' levels.
- Supplemental materials also discuss how at least one character class has power ranked at over 100 Polga. There are no clues as to what this might actually mean.
- in the various Disgaea games you can actually level your characters up beyond level 9000, but more importantly with enough grinding you can have the stats needed to to bilions of damage easily, one-shotting the strongest bosses the games have to offer.
- The first three games in the Mega Man X series had listings of the robot bosses at the end, just before the credits. In X3, the images were combined with ratings for strength and speed. Most of the bosses topped at about 10,000 for one or the other, Sigma made it up to 16,000 both, and Battle Body Sigma reached 25,600 for both (despite the fact that he was slower than dirt). Interestingly, X and Zero both had ratings of "?", which is confirmed in X4 when Cyber Peacock proclaims that X's potential is limitless (though he immediately tries to discredit his readings by claiming it's not possible).
- D-Ratios in Breath Of Fire: Dragon Quarter: a 1/8192 is doomed to a life of grunt work, a 1/64 is a shoo-in for leadership, a 1/4 is close to being a Physical God.
- The D-Ratios were a measurement of a person's chance - assumed to be genetic - of 'linking' with a dragon. 1/4: 25% of that person linking with, and effectively becoming an avatar of, a dragon. 1/8192: .012% of the link occurring. Looking this stuff up is definite Low-D work.
- Before boss fights in Mad World, a screen with a "Death Watch" rating will compare the main character to whoever he's fighting.
- In the visual novel True Remembrance, power of Mnemonicide is ranked by Greek letter, like from Marvel, with something (other than Beta, Alpha, and Omega, other ranks aren't shown)...to Alpha, and Omega being the highest. Analye is one of the few Omega class operating. In fact, he and La are the only two Omega class operating, all the others never be able to live at all, receiving emotions so much they can't even move.
- Spoofed in Episode 4 of Umineko No Naku Koro Ni.
Web Original
- In the Whateley Universe, most powers have defined levels, at least they're defined by the powers testing guys. And the authors even wrote a bunch of them up on the website. Still, they're all WAY below Marvel or DC levels.
- Note that this possibly is one of the few times that this trope might actually be fully justified: Power levels are more for the purposes of classification, and are known to be really deceptive, as they're very much descriptive, rather than proscriptive.
Webcomics
- Flipside has a three-level system, but it's inherent to the system of magic; there are three barriers, or "seals", in the mind that must be broken to reach each level. The first seal can be broken by training under a master, the others require a life-or-death ritual at a magical location.
- The mage, Suspiria, broke all three seals at once. No one can figure out how she did it, Suspiria included. And the lack of practical experience shows. She doesn't let either fact stop her from considering herself a magical genius.
- Undoubted Shout Out in this strip.
Western Animation
- In The Real Ghostbusters, ghosts have "levels" which are measured by PKE meters; for anything above level 9, the proton packs and traps are totally ineffective, while level 1 is impossibly low. Certain ghosts who were victims of Ghost Dracula were ones and twos, and couldn't even fly and go through walls, being completely drained of ectoplasm).
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