Character Superpower Workshop

Only as long as there is physical contact. And he doesn't have that precise control. Besides, if he can touch his opponent there are a lot easier ways for him to deal with them.

Let there be necro!

What can you do with the power to stop time for just one second?

A lot of things. If time is stopped, second lasts as long as power user wants.

Okay, okay, seriously though stopping time for one second could be perfect for melee combatant. Pretty much free hit or easy dodge. Assuming time can be stopped without gestures or incantations. If it needs something like that... yeah, it's pretty poop. How long is cooldown time between use of this power?

Hmm, currently the cooltime rule goes like (time stopped)^2. 1 second, 1 second, 2 second, 4 second, and so on.

It probably needs some more nerfing.

Probably. Twenty second cooldown doesn't matter if oponent got beaten to pulp in ten seconds.

If he stops time for ten seconds, the cool time will be 100 seconds, but yeah, that's enough time to beat pretty much anything. And he's varsity basketball player, so he can do fair amount of damage or escaping in just those time.

Hmm...I think 10 second cooldown for 1 second and 100 second for 2 second might make it a bit more fair?

Depends entirely on who he's fighting. Ten seconds of frozen time might let him manhandle a thug, but if his only power is stopping time, then it's going to do nothing for him against, say, somebody in an Iron Man suit.

Before you decide the power needs nerfing, consider if your antagonists simply need buffing instead.

Okay I have this Antagonist:

He basically won the Superpower Lottery big time. His powerset includes raising his rank or importance. Sounds weak? His ability allows him to be invulnerable to damage, be faster than anybody due to raising his rank in speed, be stronger than anybody, basically be better at somebody in anything.

He also has a truckload of power, has a passive ability that allows him to absorb magical power and it's always on allowing him to tank Kill Sat strikes of magic and gives him infinite mana from the environment, has access to all Elemental Powers, copy any spell he wants but his spells are nuke level, and to top it off resurrect the dead once with his blood.

What limits his power is that the basis of his power is his overwhelming ego and superiority of people and it's subconscious. In other words, he can be taken out if he feels his opponent to weak to fight him. And he can't absorb his own spells until the Mana that makes them up dissipates and is converted into the environment. And if you can get past his defenses he can be taken down like a normal person. Also, he has a weakness to dragon bones and blood, due to being a clone of basically the Dragon God Emperor in human form. In addition, his rank raises? It only gives him a boost in one area I.e. ridiculous speed, but no noticeable attack or defense, absurd attack power, but no noticeable defense or speed etc.

Can you think of anymore weaknesses?

edited 14th May '15 3:06:13 PM by SkyHavenPath13

Commencing Thread Necromancy!!

I kind of did talk. So what did you think of the above post on the powers I made?

edited 14th May '15 4:28:50 PM by SkyHavenPath13

Look. When you necro a thread, at least have something to talk about.

Now, how would a sword that can quickly freeze anything it touches (if you stab an adult man in the guts, it would take about 7 seconds for him to completely freeze over) be useful in a swordfight?

Sounds rather OP for 1-on-1 combat, and too weak to face down a group.

My first thought is that it could be very useful for a more Guile Hero type, who uses the freezing ability not on their opponent directly, but against the environment around them - patches of ice near/under their feet, etc. It also sounds potentially useful for whittling someone down; you inflict a minor cut, which freezes over, which probably hurts like hell, and then it starts bleeding more as it thaws out and the frostbite on the wound takes hold. Plus there's the utility bonus when the wielder is in an extremely hot environment - touch something with the blade to freeze it, and voila, temporary respite from desert heat, for example.

Not really. You see he can change his Stance System ridiculously fast and to give an example of how tough he can be, a bullet is shot at his eyes. The bullet shatters into smithereens without any damage to the eyes and only blinds him momentarily. Basically, Pedestrian Crushes Car. And there's no limit to how much he can raise his rank.

And he gets stronger from there.

edited 15th May '15 10:41:48 AM by SkyHavenPath13

Guys how strong would the power to replicate any natural event on Earth without the influence of humans?

Stupidly powerful. Earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes, and that's assuming you're not including things like replicating the evolution of life. Honestly, the best way to keep that from being a Story-Breaker Power is to keep hitting the character with things that are too weak. An earthquake is useless against bank robbers, because there's no way to turn down the power on shaking an entire tectonic plate.

Extremely powerful. I've seen an OC who could manipulate and create natural disasters, which is to say the least a very powerful skill.

As for the weaknesses of your villain... would Anti-Magic shut down his powers?

Well yes, it's a supernatural ability and the main character has Anti-Magic to solve that. And I think that the user should not be immune to their own powers.

Oh and the guy's a vampire, but not that kind of vampire. Think more along the lines of Alucard.

edited 15th May '15 8:00:02 PM by SkyHavenPath13

Another thing to think about here is whether your character is robust enough to survive their own ability's use.

Being able to cause earthquakes is a strong ability, but one that risks your own life with every use, barring an ability with exceptional range (at which point, your character is nearing god-level power).

[edit] upon further review, much of what I've written seems to have already been said, my apologies.

edited 15th May '15 10:14:24 PM by GlassPistol

The ability to cause natural disasters seems like more of problem than a blessing.

It's very binary. You're either making a hurricane or you aren't. It has very limited uses outside of wrecking stuff, and isn't that useful in an actual fight. You'd end up with a lot of collateral damage even if you make something useful happen.

And once people find out you can start earthquakes and forest fires.. Most people would probably be kind of terrified at best, though I'm sure certain governments would love to have your ability to rain destruction on other countries.

But that's probably not the best thing for you. I mean, what can you do with natural disasters that won't be horrible for people around you? Stop droughts and forest fires by conjuring flash floods?

I have a power I'd like to throw out there for the fun of it, maybe get some ideas I hadn't considered before:

The core of this character's power is the ability to mimic the powers of animals and other creatures (Think Gau from Final Fantasy VI). In its highest forms, a degree of transformation/hybridizing is also possible, but the girl using this power is very young (no older than 12/13) so she's not there yet or, when she does pull it off, it's only for a short period (a minute or two at most) and its extremely strenuous to her body. I'm debating giving her a Chinese zodiac range of powers, but mostly because I'd realized I'd done Cat/Tiger, Rat, Dog, and Dragon already without noticing. I'll list all the ones I have so far if anyone's interested but the one in particular I wanted some opinions on is the Rooster or, more accurately, cockatrice:

Cockatrices' in my setting don't precisely turn people to stone. Their gaze encases a victim within stone, potentially killing prey by suffocation or immobilizing potential predators and can not be done on a full body except for relatively small creatures, so they aren't a huge threat to humans. My girl gains the cockatrice gaze herself, and mostly uses it tactically in battle, throwing it on an enemy's feet to stop them in place temporarily or on a weapon or weapon-wielding arm or hand to throw off the swing. Or even on the mouth to stop magic incantations.

edited 18th May '15 9:33:29 AM by sgamer82

Well, does your setting have characters who can withstand such attacks?

If you're referring to me, then yeah. In fact, the crux of the setting/story is finding the means/power for the protagonists to permanently destroy enemies that have thus far only ever been sealed away temporarily. Also the cockatrice gaze is hardly permanent, it's more of a stone coating vs being actually turned to stone so it can be broken off without significant damage (figure with that it won't be too OP and gives the character with the power, Ruby, a reason to use it tactically/creatively)

Cockatrice's powers vary a lot, but usually its gaze does not petrify but rather just kills. In some variations it's not the gaze that has this effect but instead the touch or breath.

With your animal theme in mind, you might also be interested to know that weasel was believed to be the only animal that's immune to cockatrice's gaze and a rooster's crow was said to be instantly fatal to it.

Oh, and, like with all attacks based on gazing the enemy, a Deadly Gaze can be returned to sender with a good ol' mirror.

edited 20th May '15 8:02:51 AM by Paradisesnake

I'll read up a little more on cockatrices in that case. I was mostly only familiar with petrifying due to a few RPGs and a show or two mostly focusing on it. I remember the Basilisk in Harry Potter #2 had similar weaknesses, was HP basing it as a snake version of a cockatrice or are the two creatures just similar, I wonder. Or was Rowling just trying to make a snake-atrice?

EDIT: A quick wiki-search shows at first glance the two are very similar, to the point of having weaknesses to weasels and rooster crows. Encyclopedia Britannica's website even marks them as the same creature ("Cockatrice, also called basilisk") A little bit extra poking around suggests they're associated with both Deadly and Stone Gazes, so I should be fine in sticking with Stone Gaze.

As for mirrors, I'd had a thought in the other direction that I may or may not use. Tossing a lot of reflective objects (like coins) to turn it into a scatter shot (or turn it against both user and allies).

This also gave me an idea. Perhaps a risk in using more fantastic creatures like a cockatrice also entails their fantastic weaknesses (like roster crowing) to offset the power. A thought I had was another character of Ruby's race only ever using mundane animals as her mimicry. This could be a reason to justify that. Less raw power, but also less Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors to cope with

edited 20th May '15 10:25:41 AM by sgamer82

A thought came up.

When you need to defeat a character who is strong due to his/her power of strong defense, such as strong armor, regeneration, power barrier...drowning them works wonders.

Or suffocation/vacuum. Asphyxiation really can help against such opponents.

Anyway, I came up with a concept for a superpower but it just sounds WAY too broken.

Said superpower is kind of a ...reverse events/causality thing. The character that has it basically has an Arm Cannon, that when fired, doesn't shoot out anything. Instead, the bullets spawn inside and rip themselves out of the user's intended target (at any body part of choice) no matter how strong the target's defense is (autohit) and fly back into the cannon.

Of course, I know that this is very overpowered considering that it's a painful automatic hit to the enemy's weakpoints/internals. I'd like to know a counter to this (Said user is an Elite Mook and one of the few ways to avoid getting destroyed is to use stealth so it fails to see the stealthed character)

edited 12th Dec '15 4:18:23 PM by ironcommando