Weaknesses I can give to this character.

(this is from my older drafts unrelated to, maybe, my original story so yeah, a separate thread)

Okay, I was shuffling through some of my old ideas folder, and rediscovered this guy.

He wears a semi-powered armor that weighs up to 500 pounds, but can run up to 300 MPH and the function of the armor? Slowing him down. The armor has restraints that can be removed and each time he gets faster and when all of them is removed and the armor comes off, he can run over 3 Mach (admittedly, this was written when I had no grasp on physics). His main attack is kick, which is strong enough to completely shatter a boulder and one time he kicked the main character, who himself is more or less an immortal, through seven highly reinforced buildings.

Oh, and if you get kicked in the face by someone who's running in that speed, would your body stay intact? Now that I look at it, he's THE most broken character in that story and he's The Lancer to boot. What kind of weakness would be appropriate for someone like him? How would your characters defeat him?

edited 31st Aug '11 12:59:20 AM by dRoy

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

He can run super-hero fast, but aside from that, he doesn't seem to have super-hero level strength, reflexes, or toughness. In fact, that might be something good to Fore Shadow - aside from his running, he's not tougher that Average Joe.

The best (possibly the only) way for the heroes/villains to defeat him would be an ambush - hit him before he can start moving, or string up something like piano wire across a path they know he'll be crossing.

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw

No.

Let's pull a little simple physics into the scene, shall we not?

This character can run at Mach speed, which is around a thousand odd kilometer per hour. Now here's the thing - assume that he attacks someone with a flying kick that, in an ideal condition, transfer his entire momentum to the target on impact. This will result in a massive deceleration, and by Newton's Third Law, he will be hit with a reaction force worth his weight times the aforementioned deceleration. I have not done the maths myself, but I am pretty sure this reaction force is enough to crush all his bones into a fine paste if he is just an average Joe in terms of strength and endurance, especially the latter. The power armor, depending on what its primary functions are, might make this worse.

This is also the principle behind the dreaded G-Force that spacenauts have to deal with on a regular basis. Needless to say, multiple precautions have to be taken so that a well-trained astronauts do not get squished into a cube of crushed flesh and bones upon takeoff.

So in conclusion, it is impossible to create a character that fast without himself being super tough, perhaps even literally iron-boned.

Though, I have not done much physics for a long time. If I did something wrong up there, feel free to correct me.

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Pardon me for assuming he was using Superhero Physics here rather than real-life science. A person running at mach-anything is already violating the laws of physics, because muscle mass simply can't move that fast.

Also, though perhaps not the best example, is an Aberrant game I played in, with a speedster who could do exactly this*

. Dodging a super-strength punch? No problem. Explosions? No sweat. Some two-bit mugger points a gun at him? Time to call an ambulance. It was due to crazy dice luck, not character design, but the dude could survive anything but gunfire, which inevitably tore him a new one.

edited 31st Aug '11 7:08:52 AM by BlueNinja0

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw

Yeah, like I said, I wrote this when I had really no understanding of physics at all. Okay, to recap,

• He wears power armor that protects him from side effects of physics (like I said, no understanding of physics) and restrains him.
• When wearing the armor, he can go up to 300 miles per hour and can use Flash Step like nothiing.
• Without acceleration, he can kick someone so hard that the victim would fly at least good several hundred yards.
• Without his armor, he can run up to mach.

See what I mean by broken?

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

I see your point.

Then again, we never know what sort of settings this is supposed to be. If it is a halfway realistic sci-fi setting, this character is a no-no, no ifs, hows and buts. But if it is something like Marvel or DC superheroes, then they are kinda sorta expected to be broken anyway.

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Nope. It's like your average DC or Marvel verse.

The MC wears 200 kg (that would be around 450 pounds) armor, wields 250 kg (over 500 pounds, I suppose) BFS and can take a tank round in the face without flinching.

What was I thinking?

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

In that case, you know what is the best most reasonable thing you can do?

Make the other characters even more powerful/broken. It will balance out.

edited 31st Aug '11 7:31:04 AM by ArgeusthePaladin

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Speed can be a weakness, you know. See April in Season 2 of Darker Than Black.

I've got new mythological machinery, and very handsome supernatural scenery. Goodfae: a mafia web serial

If there was any semblance to real life physics, he's going to have crazy inertia and won't be able to dodge something in his way quickly. Trains moving at their usual speed require something like a mile to come to a full stop. Your guy has much less mass than a train, but same principle.

^ It'd help if you actually explained what the issue was, since not all of us have the time and patience to go through 13 episodes of an anime we're not interested in.

edited 31st Aug '11 7:58:45 AM by Merlo

Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am...

Ever see the One Piece universe? Everyone and his brother is able to benchpress at least a ton and hold their breath for half an hour. Ussop, the weakest of the main characters by Word of God, can take a four-ton bat to the face and still stand. So long as the majority of people in this universe are about as powerful as your character, and quite a few are more powerful, there's no real issue.

You pretty much said it yourself, he's "broken" and needs to be fixed.

Aside from "power limiting" shenanigans dealing with holding back, which I really don't buy, I don't understand why someone would wear armor that negates their best strengths and abilities, unless it gives them something else, like defense. It doesn't seem like his powers are any danger to himself whatsoever.

In that case you'd need the rest of your characters to be able to mess him up brutally if he's out of the armor. As it goes he doesn't have any "weakness", only areas in which a different strengths can outdo him.

Forget the tropes until after you're done.

Perhaps his constant motion at Ludicrous Speed is damaging his molecular structure, even slowly transfiguring his brain chemistry. The possibilities there are endless, really.

I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.

I forgot to mention that the armor limits his speed because if he goes fullout, he can't control his directions and the damage when he hit someone would be much larger.

Still, doesn't change much.

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

...the armor would need Deflector Shields.

If you're moving at Mach-number speeds, a pebble can cause the equivalent damage of a bullet.

Also, why don't you just say that, you know, since usually we don't make technology to operate under that kind of stress, that the armor takes damage from simple motion, and so after so long it's less and less effective, until it's so damaged it can no longer function...

I am now known as Flyboy.

and : the universe is working under superhero logic.

Forget the tropes until after you're done.

Superhero logic doesn't have to mean no logic at all, though, and I've found a good dose of Reality Ensues is a nice way to handicap an otherwise-broken character in some cases, though I'm not sure if this is one of them.

edited 1st Sep '11 9:18:53 PM by nrjxll

@ the Darker Than Black thing: April (whose ability summons rain) taught another Contractor with Super-Speed a very painful physics lesson. As soon as the rain started falling... yeah.

edited 1st Sep '11 9:39:38 PM by KSPAM

I've got new mythological machinery, and very handsome supernatural scenery. Goodfae: a mafia web serial

You know, now that I look back at his design with more respect toward real life physics, everything about him is physically impossible.

Then again, my current story features a girl who can dodge a bullet point blank, so who knows, I might use him in my later stories. *shrugs*

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

Superheroes are physically impossible. Doesn't mean you can't write about them.

My advice: give him some vulnerabilities, or a better reason to wear the armor than "Oh, I do too much damage without it." Unless he's fighting tissue-paper badguys, it won't matter.

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw

Actually, it's because I care about physics and general realism too much for the most of the time.

Well, the armor's purpose is protecting himself by slowing him down because he lacks control of his power.

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.