Character Superpower Workshop

They can buy their own swords and shields, for starters.

To clarify, in order for one of them to stay as a human, the other one has to stay as a weapon.

And the weapons they transform into have magical property, the shield is physically indestructable and the sword is anti-magic.

Would it be OP if a character could control shadows and phase through objects?

Depends on what you mean by control shadow, because shadow themselves pose no threat unless you can make them physical objects.

And phasing through objects can be dangerous if you don’t have a fool proof safety measure.

For the shadows I'm going to make my character be able to make them tangible, like doing punches and kicks.

And what do you mean phasing can be dangerous? Is it because it's too OP? If that's the case I was thinking I can just have my character phase every x minutes or get exhausted after so many phases.

Not directly related to the thread, but something I thought the thread as a whole might find interesting:

The podcast Writing Excuses put out a new episode today titled "Magic Systems". This week they're talking about "hard" magic systems ("where there are well-defined rule sets (even if the reader isn’t shown them explicitly") with next week being focused on "soft" magic systems, which I assume are the more loose kind.

If anyone wants to give a listen, here's the link.

Telefrag

Speaking of Teleport power, i surprise that rarely i see any one try to use teleport power to teleport themselves and their enemies to outer space, drop them in the vacuum and watch them suffocate to dead.

I have an idea to weaponize enlargement-ray, just use it on someone and let square–cube law take care of them.

I'm a little worried about my unkillable, living weapon character - Deadpool kind of unkillable (although we won't be going into the territory that showed nothing killed Deadpool even when you chopped him up small - she will only die three times)

Let me get this straight - she's not the main character. She's the muscle in the team but shows up later in the story; part of her role is as the Anti-Hero's bodyguard but she's also got plenty of stuff to do.

The idea is that if you kill Iota, say, six bullets to the chest, about an hour later she'll be waking up (although she surprises everybody the first time). She returns with the confirmation that Hell exists and while you can escape, every moment that passes for the living is an eternity for the dead - so she doesn't want to go to Hell again. However she didn't find out what the requirements are for heaven.

She therefore is concerned that if she does a Heroic Sacrifice (while uncertain on just how heroic this sacrifice has to be) or does too much good, she risks going to Heaven (and you wouldn't want to leave heaven) while if she dies in other ways she goes to Hell, which she can escape but Hell is not nice. But she isn't actually a bad person, more Lawful Neutral.

Is this an interesting kind of unkillable?

Edited by Tightwire on Apr 3rd 2019 at 1:12:02 AM

I need to know the applications of altering the past of an object (read: not a person), like the user is not actually Time Traveling, but they are altering the history of an object, making it so it has always been that way.

Pre-alteration: Massive planet-killing weapon is sufficiently close to indestructible that only the power of plot can scuff the paint job.

Post-alteration: A resistance cell has managed to introduce a fatal flaw into the design which could allow the entire system to fail catastrophically. All we have to do is shoot one blast down the exhaust pipe.

I know you specified things and not a person, but I was still reminded of Delirium's threat to Mazikeen (Sandman, Issue 68):

I have an alternate version of Felicity Smoak who's a Technopath supervillain. My explanation is that her MIND is connected to the internet. She can browse the internet inside her mind, and can mentally hack anything within a 100-foot radius so long as it can be accessed through the internet.

I'm wondering if this is at all viable or, on the opposite end, too overpowered. Thoughts?

I do have an idea where a character with other, separate powers (Implausible Fencing Powers and Combat Clairvoyance) also has the power to cheat death exactly one time. The setting has a lot of bloodlines that affect powers and temperaments, and one of the bloodlines is connected with hope and life and happiness. As a result, they don't get any powers like fire breathing or weather manipulation, their bloodline mainly displays in an optimistic, kind and generous nature. And the few families (five at most throughout the entire world) that have a particularly strong bloodline of this type can resurrect once if they die before their time.

The challenge would be to make this a surprise reveal at the point when he uses this 'free life' and not make it seem like an ass-pull.

Edited by GoldenKaos on Jul 9th 2019 at 3:43:55 PM

I had a character, Becky (surname not yet decided) who is human (inspired more along the lines of inhumans from Series.Agents Of SHIELD from Franchise.Marvel Cinematic Universe, which I'm writing Fan Fic of, and Series.The Flash 2014 who call them metahumans, but they're similar, aren't they?) and can Time Travel.

This is from an Alternate Timeline part of the MCU, where the term "X-Men" does not exist, at least in terms of superheroes, and Inhumans are the term for X-Men. In this timeline, Thanos never committed the atrocities seen in recent movies, and Spider-Man does not exist.

This is in a setting focused on street-level heroes, rather than cosmic beings as an antagonist.

She can "die" but always reincarnates in a new body that's Always Female, but I'm intending on making it different to Doctor Who's concept of regeneration.

So she's technically immortal, yet her body "dies", if that makes any sense.

Becky is a No Celebrities Were Harmed Identical Stranger to Dutch actress Lotte Verbeek, yet it won't veer into Real-Person Fic territory at all (and some aspects of her appearance are changed, along with age). Becky is Canadian, not Dutch like Lotte is.

Her character is meant to be Plucky Comic Relief, yet can be badass when she needs to.

Personality-wise, she's a Girly Girl who likes raves and dance music (unless you count her love of automobiles and computing, so would that make her a Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak or not?) yet she hates being seen as a Tomboy, it's a berserk button for her. The Ms. Fanservice aspect of her wearing rave-wear is a downplayed trope.

I've developed her personality and backstory, it's just ensuring the powers make sense for her.

Edited by Merseyuser1 on Jul 10th 2019 at 10:50:42 AM

And what does her time-travel abilities have to do with her character and backstory? And how it interacting with her 'reincarnation'? Just wondering if there's any connection between both of her powers.

What would be a good Fate Worse than Death using only Combat Medic related superpowers?

A bit cliched, but maybe make victim's cells regerate unstoppably and essentially give him/her a cancer?

Cut and stitch them back up into the shape of an animal.

(Trust me, it's more horrifying than it sounds.)

I would say I'm reviving this thread...but seeing how this thread is still in the first page of this subforum, I wouldn't quite call this a necro. XD

One of the most common powers in fiction featuring superpower is the super hard body or armor that can shrug off any attack, and thus there are many counters against such power.

Strangely enough, I don't think I've seen suffocation among them in fiction. Like, strangle them from behind, put them in airtight place, or drown them in water.

...Maybe it's just my morbid preoccupation with suffocation in general, because I thought one of the villains in Legend of Korra killing a person by using his air control ability to suck out all the air out of the victim's lungs was pretty darn cool.

In Worm Taylor kills a Flying Brick that's invulnerable to pretty much anything by stuffing all her orifices full of bugs and suffocating her. Getting around the invulnerability part is coming more in vogue these days.

That's a horrifying way to kill someone. I love it.

Alright, so what exactly can I do with Pressure Manipulation?

Well that is a little broad, admittedly, but it does come awfully handy at times.

Like, imagine your character with this power is locked up. They can apply a huge amount of pressure to the lock, or the door, or the bars, huge enough that the material would give way and they could be one step closer to escape.

On the most mundane level, this may mean they can control their own blood pressure to keep it in the healthy levels, and no migraines due to weather front/no problems on a plane either. As long as they have oxygen, they can dive as far and as fast as they want to, and come up as fast as they want to as well.

If the power can control biological pressure, it can be utterly lethal. For instance, the user can remove internal pressure within human body, leaving the poor victim to be crushed to death by atmospheric pressure. Also, there's this thing called intracranial pressure, referring to pressure within human skull. Yeah, let that sink in.

Edited by dRoy on Feb 11th 2020 at 6:26:12 PM