Fighting Reality Warpers

I need an outside opinion on this matter.

In my universe, certain people have been gifted with Reality Warper abilities. These people, referred to as Paradigms, are posessed of a certain madness that defines them. The madness of law, of lies, of love, of truth, of chaos etc.

My two protagonists are an Action Duo, one of which is an Omnidisciplinary Scientist and the other The Gunslinger. Both of them qualify for little beyond Badass Normal. So how do they fight people who practically amount to gods?

I was thinking as such: While each Paradigm is for all intents and purposes omnipotent, their powers have a few restrictions

• Their powers are physically taxing, exhausting them and lapsing into actual physical damage if over-extended
• Their powers cannot be used in a larger area than they can manage. This is determined by their overall experience in using their abilities and will never extend beyond their line of sight even for the most powerful
• They cannot use their powers in a way that defies the way they see the world (i.e the madness of truth cannot use their abilities to create something that does not exist, as it would be an un-truth)

Keeping this in mind, wouldn't the most logical thing to do be to Talk The Monster To Death? Have the scholar talk them into submission, leaving them weak enough for the gunslinger to simply shoot.

Any thoughts?

edited 11th Nov '10 10:06:29 AM by KSPAM

Well, your heroes could always exhaust them, endure their attacks and strike as they are recovering energies. A bit too pragmatic but that sounds reasonable.

Or how about using their reality warping to their advantage? You said their effects depend on the mood of the Paradigm right? Or since you got a Gunslinger, he could always shoot outside his influence field

Your scientist could have many chances to study Paradigms and find a way to counterest their effects.

If you're asking for thoughts on how to fight such a character, a character who can think on their feet and dodge/sustain heavy damage would probably be the most likely to defeat a reality warping opponent. In fiction, defeating semi-omnipotent characters through sheer force almost never happens. The only time I could imagine this happening in the world you've described (a paradigm being defeated through force rather than scheming by a non paradigm) would be in an 11th-Hour Superpower type scenario.

What are their exact limits? As in, how much would they have to do to start causing themselves damage? What is the distance limits? Twenty feet? Fifty? A hundred?

Secondly, are they aware of their own limits? Hypothetical situation: They are capable of just saying "This person doesn't exist any more." Do they know that they can do this?

The Gods in my stories are reality warpers as well. Here's how I deal with them.

They are omnipotent within their sphere of influence (as far as they can see in every direction); when two Gods meet, they cancel each other out - unless they agree on something, which almost never happens.

Each God has one fatal weakness, which can be as simple as an allergy to cat bites or as elaborate has having to be cut into pieces, burned to ashes, sealed in a jar, and buried under a lake. The Gods are not aware of these weaknesses until they're dead.

And last, the Gods are too arrogant to believe that anyone could ever defeat them, so they don't bother to heal themselves when they take damage. The hard part is taking them by surprise, which is difficult because they are omniscient within their spheres.

edited 11th Nov '10 1:45:48 PM by nekomoon14

^^ Generally, the more experienced a Paradigm is, the greater the feats they can perform. Let's say an experienced Paradigm could, for instance, reverse a building collapsing. An inexperienced Paradigm would have far more difficulty with a task of this proportion. They would certainly place a large strain on themselves doing it, if not outright kill themselves.

For the most experienced Paradigm, they're only limited by what they can see. More experienced ones aside, the limit is generally a maximum of one hundred and fifty feet or so.

And they generally don't just will someone out of existence. Maybe it's for a sense of fair play or maybe they think of it as an abuse of their powers.

Are they capable of being head-gamed? About the only convincing way to beat a Reality Warper I've come across is to break their focus, either by confusing them, making them emotionally unstable enough to disassociate, or Heel Facing them. You can also force them into a corner, depending on how hard and fast their rules are, and how wily your characters are. You could even pull the guilt card depending on motives, or pull a The Game on them where they are compelled to think about something, thus making it so.

^ Exactly. Trick them, manipulate them, break them. It's like Warrior Therapist except the therapy ends with death.

You could also hypnotize them, depending on how you want to play it out.

Moocow beat me to proposing psychological warfare, and I'd agree that's the only surefire way to deal with such a creature. But if you want to, or are forced to, get physical, Schrödinger Fu would be your best bet. Keep them distracted, keep them confused, stay out of their sight, and above all, switch to the mind games as soon as possible.

Do they have to be able to see something to effect it with their powers? If not, are they generally immune to one round from a .38 pistol, to the back of the head? If not, that makes them not impossible to take down, although non-fatal takedowns would be dangerous that way. (since you then have a pissed off reality warper who knows where you are.)

Another option would be "don't." Even the most action-hero-y of action heroes can be outclassed. It sounds like, if I were a person living in that world, no matter how bad I thought I was, if I heard that a Paradigm was throwing a fit at Olive Garden, I might want to find a different place to eat. Or run. Or try to find someone who can handle it, ie, another paradigm.

One of my Trigger-Happy characters has to fight a Reality Warper who can freeze time. His limitation, though, is that he can only freeze it for about 30 seconds of his own time. So Trigger figures out that all she has to do to survive is keep far enough away from the guy that it would actually take him longer than thirty seconds to close the gap once he freezes the clock.

A good technique is to have your characters use illusory tactics: smoke and mirrors,blinding, or just plain hiding. the warpers can't hurt people they can't locate.

edited 9th Jun '11 8:48:40 PM by thatonedude

Taunt.

Sounds like getting them to turn on each other would probably be the best way to tire out strong ones while tiring weak ones. Also if you want to go in for a sudden kill you'd need something that would happen faster than they could react to like high power explosives or nerve gasses. Slow acting poisons could also work, but that probably wouldn't interest readers. Going for the sudden, over whelming force also opens up moral dilemmas like striking when they are in crowds to catch them off guard.

Those may work against low levelreality warpers but what asbout Yukari Yakumo, Q and Haruhi level foes?

Trick them into fighting each other until exhausted/dead, then kill the survivors.

Recruit another Reality Warper to cancel each other out.

Of course, a Face–Heel Turn would be likely, and dealing with an insane reality warper would be quite difficult.

If it's the "normal human level physicality, incredible mental strength" model, a series of fast deathtraps, poisonings, and sniping would fit perfectly for the characters' skill set.

The weak point of this sort of character is always the areas that are most human, reaction times, psychology etc. just determine where they aren't any better than people and exploit them.

I used to think that Reality Warpers are unbeatable but I didn't even consider those ideas.

edited 10th Jun '11 10:14:08 PM by GAP

I once created a Reality Warper for a superhero game whose motivation for villainy was that he'd been physically and emotionally bullied for years with no real support from family or friends before he suddenly got cosmic-level abilities. He was pretty much invincible physically (he gave himself mind shields and protection vs. Power drain, as well as superstrength, nigh-invulnerability and low-end superspeed.)

His weaknesses were largely psychological. He was both pettily vindictive and determined to show his creative superiority, so he reacted to the smallest slight and went for poetic justice transformations as opposed to just killing or vanishing people. He wasn't good at thinking ahead, so "gambits" tended to work well on him. And he was very lonely, so genuine sympathy and kindness would stop him in his tracks.

Wait until they are depressed, and then in their weakened state convince them that they don't exist.

Sure it is cruel and sad, but that is what the villain protagonists in my head would most likely do.

edited 12th Jun '11 3:45:54 PM by EldritchBlueRose