Character Superpower Workshop

Then just have a character that can negate that power with their own power.

And the protagonist having the hurdle to convince this one to help them take this "waste of air" out.

Like "A painter with the ability to turn the portraits he makes into voodoo-dolls of the person they depict, allowing him to either patch up the injuries they receive, shown in the portrait, or end their lives by himself, through burning up the picture for example."

That way, he could end this Hive Mind-doctor in one single stroke.

How?

By bleaching the entire portrait completely blank and by doing so, eradicate him and every single "life-line" he is connected to all at once in one fell swoop of non-existence. Together with his ability.

Like popping a soap-bubble.

Edited by TitanJump on Mar 25th 2022 at 7:47:50 PM

It's an interesting idea, but I don't think someone with a power like that would fit in this setting. That said, using someone else's power to negate his power might work, just have to think about what kind of power would be suitable...

Edited by Mimic45 on Mar 26th 2022 at 12:24:07 PM

In that case, I got the perfect one.

Healing Hands

A person with the power to accelerate cell-division in order to accelerate recovery, at the expense of the one getting healed's lifespan (as cells have a limited set of divisions)

The character you described, is basically no different than a cancer-cell, one with infinite divisions on automatic.

So what happens when that division gets accelerated?

The cancer-person morphs into a shapeless blob of cancer-cells, void of any coherent structure or physical bodily functions. Only capable of remaining in one spot and doing absolutely nothing at all but just existing in a brain-dead state forever as a research sample. Incapable of hurting anybody or even itself since any arms or legs have, well, turned into bio-mass in the lump of cancer-cells it has become.

After all, cancer is neither an "injury" or a "wound", but a cellular-function overdoing what it is supposed to do as a malfunction.

And the sheer irony that a cancerous "doctor" gets done in by the heroes' healer with the power least suited for direct combat or any combat at all, of all people, is too good to pass up.

Edited by TitanJump on Mar 26th 2022 at 12:48:12 PM

Honestly, I find this idea quite interesting. Actually, I even already have a character who has Healing Hands as a power... Unfortunately, Dr. Xoyd is able to steal the health of his victims as well, so he's pretty much immune to diseases. Still, thank you for the help.

In that case, my last advice is this.

Your villain is too overpowered. Nerf him and give him some weaknesses instead.

Yeah, I was afraid it would come to this...

The thing is, in this setting, the older a character is, the more time he's had to master his power and become more powerful. Since this character is supposed to be immortal and old enough that everything in life bores him except pain, I can hardly make him justifiably weaker...

On the other hand, I suppose I can give weaknesses or drawbacks to his power, but I don't really know what would fit for a power like his. Any ideas?

Edited by Mimic45 on Mar 26th 2022 at 1:55:54 PM

Several:

1. Decreased assimilation-success the older he gets.

For example: Out of 100 attempts, only one truly succeeds while the rest 99 failures just wears it off like a bad hangover for a day after the attempt.

Reducing the number of his victims greatly the older he gets.

(Explaining why he keeps trying to infect other people all the time, his success-rate has drastically decreased compared to when it was in his prime.)

2. Dementia-demerit when using the power.

As in, he can't replenish his brain's synapses, no matter how many victims he gets, and the older he gets, the more and more of his brain's vital system rots away despite what he think he can do to stop it.

(Which could explain his demented behavior of inflicting pain upon himself constantly.)

These are two examples.

I know some more as well.

I like the second example. Indeed, this character is supposed to be completely nuts.

What are your other ideas?

3.

Assimilation Backfire: In case he managed to connect with someone that does have a serious illness and underlying genetic disease within them, he suffers the full accelerated effect from those diseases when trying to siphon off the life-force from those diseased people.

Meaning that if someone got a cancer-tumor at the size of a pea in their brain, he gets one too at the size of an apple due to accelerating the process through his powers.

And that is just one example.

Bone-disease, blood-disease, poisoning, tumors, diabetes, allergies, pre-existing conditions, psychological illnesses, organ-failures in progress, high cholesterol, obesity, malnourished conditions, the harmful effects of drugs/smoking/alcohol etc...

He might be immune to those things in regards to getting them "himself" due to drinking from a "well of health" but if that well is severely poisoned, then he will get poisoned from drinking out from it as well...

Yes, I also thought about doing an Assimilation Backfire, but I'm not sure how to pull it off (given that logically, if assimilating one of his victims causes him problems, then he just has to switch to another one). Thanks anyway for all the help.

Easy.

Hoist by His Own Petard

Once he tries to siphon off health in a dire situation, repeatedly, despite the well being all but dried out from abusing that power, he ends up getting every single injury, wound and pain that he inflicted on himself and just "swept under the rug upon others" at the time and not thinking about it.

Only this time, there is nowhere to stash it away anymore, and he ends up with the full harm of all his self-inflicted damage combined at the worst moment possible, (for himself).

The character getting back all the wounds he inflicted on his victims would indeed be a fitting punishment. However, this would require that he has already sacrificed all his healthy victims and only has the unwell ones left...
Unless his sanity has deteriorated so much that he can no longer tell the difference and finds himself assimilating the unwell victims without realizing it? Yeah, that could work

Edited by Mimic45 on Mar 28th 2022 at 1:53:18 PM

That would be one of his weaknesses.

He don't get to choose where to siphon his health from.

When he uses it, it's a game of "Russian roulette" every time he does so, with more and more bullets in the chamber the more times he uses his power in rapid succession.

He will get shot eventually, just a question of "how badly" and "where".

Edited by TitanJump on Mar 29th 2022 at 2:20:48 PM

That isn't how I originally intended his powers to work, but yeah, this idea can work. Thanks a lot!

One final tip that might help you write the randomness of when the power hurts him or heals him when used.

If he needs to use the power, you (the author) go and find a dice, keep it where you write the story, and roll it when the character is going to use the power.

The result on the dice determines the outcome of that usage of power.

This is the list:

4, 5, 6 = "Healthy Person/ Health Boost."

1, 2, 3 = "Sick Person/ Health Demerit."

Or any other pattern you might like more.

...

Hope this advice will be of help for future writing...

Usually, I try to think about what would work best for the story, but I guess if there are scenes where I'm hesitant I can totally do that (or flip a coin).

Thanks for everything!

Hi, it's me again.

I didn't talk about this before because I didn't want to hog the conversation in case someone else needed help, but since it's been over a month and no one has posted anything, I guess I might as well go for it. There is another villain in my stories whose powers make him difficult to fight and I have no idea how the protagonists can defeat him:

This character is a criminal who has the power to blow up any part of his body. He usually fights by ripping off some of his own body parts (his fingers, his ears, his nose...) and throwing them at his enemies to make them explode. He can even blow up vital parts like his head or internal organs without dying or suffering any discomfort. After exploding, his body parts take a few minutes to reconstitute themselves. If he blows up his whole body, then it will be reconstituted from the largest remaining part (like a chunk of finger for example).
In general, this character is smart enough to always leave a finger or something at his house when he goes to kill someone. This way, he can kill whoever he wants wherever he wants by blowing up his body, and then he'll reconstitute himself at home.

The problem is, I don't see what solution the protagonists can use to defeat him. His power makes him pretty much immortal, since if someone tries to kill him, he can simply blow up his body and reconstitute it as good as new. The character doesn't really have any specific weaknesses, except that, like most characters with powers in this setting, using his power too much makes him tired. However, if the characters try to force him to use his power too many times to tire him out, it might cause a lot of destruction... Also, even if it worked and he was successfully arrested, I suppose he could still recover his strength in his jail cell and blow up his body to reconstitute himself at his home (or, if the protagonists took care of that, he can probably blow up the walls to escape). BTW, the protagonists usually refrain from killing their enemies, especially when they're defenseless, so they won't kill him while he's too tired to use his power.

I should probably mention that this character is a rather minor villain whom I haven't developed much at the moment (I didn't even give him a name yet). I thought of solving the problem by having the protagonists eventually convince him to make a Heel–Face Turn, but honestly I don't really like that idea, because his power offers far more opportunities in the hands of a bad guy than a good guy.

Anyone got any ideas?

Have him frozen alive, or perhaps stuck in cement. Maybe acid, burning off his flesh and muscles might not activate his powers. Drowning, that's an option. Burning him to death. Chocking him to death. There aren't many non-lethal ideas I can come up with. Sorry.

I don't think most of these solutions would work. If he gets trapped in cement, sprayed with acid, burned alive, drowned, or choked, all he'd have to do is blow up his body and reconstitute himself at home. On the other hand, freezing him alive is an interesting idea, it would allow the protagonists to neutralize him without killing him...

Does anyone else have any other ideas?

Edited by Mimic45 on May 7th 2022 at 8:16:06 PM

It depends how the exploding part of his power works, but placing him in an oxygen poor environment could hinder it (an explosion is basically a very fast combustion, and no oxygen=no combustion). Otherwise, drugging him or putting him into a coma could also work.

I guess drugging him might theoretically work, but only if it acts very fast, otherwise he'll probably blow himself up and recreate a new body (one that hasn't been injected with any drugs).
I like the idea of the protagonists trapping him by putting him in an oxygen poor environment so he can't use his power anymore, but... how exactly can they do that?

Edited by Mimic45 on May 8th 2022 at 1:53:05 PM

A creative use of superpowers might allow removing the oxygen from the air (depending on the skillset of the heroes). Otherwise, a more mundane solution would consist in drawing him into a sealed room where the pressure is either lower or the air already contains less oxygen. For instance, have him cross a series of airlocks on the way, each reducing the pressure slightly so that he does not notice it, or draw him into a small room that is contained into a much larger one where the air has been removed, and break the windows of the small room once he entered it.

So basically, this guy is an explosive Ajin and nothing else?

In that case, shove him into a grave-hole's worth of fresh, fluid, cement, let it dry, cover the top with dirt, and then just leave him there to rot without a tombstone to his name from there on.

Problem solved.

Alternatively, have one character that can convert energy into something harmless instead, neutralizing him that way.

Like turning the energy he uses for his explosions into soap-bubbles or something.

Problem solved.

Or a character with power to "set timers" on everything, and disarms this walking bomb by setting its timer to "This time, he will explode eighty years from now." Postponing the massive blast and prevent him from ever using that power again for the next eighty years to come.

Problem solved.

Edited by TitanJump on May 9th 2022 at 2:52:17 PM

I thought of another one, but it may or may not mesh well with your setting. Perhaps one of the heroes can have the ability to temporarily stop someone's power like Eraserhead or perhaps a drug could be made that destroys someone's power, which could lead into another arc. I dunno... just a suggestion.

I don't really have any characters whose powers would allow them to take away the oxygen (well, not in this story anyway). However, trapping the guy in a room wihere the oxygen is removed seems feasible - like luring him into a vault or a safe or something...

Again, burying him alive in cement wouldn't work because he can blow up his body and reform a new one at his home from his severed finger. Also, the protagonists don't kill their enemies, except maybe in extraordinary circumstances.
Using a character with the power to modify energy isn't a bad idea, but I don't have any characters in this story that would fit (I do have a character who can change fire into water and vice versa, but he's long dead by the time this story takes place). And if I create a new character with just the right power who shows up at just the right time, it would be a blatant Deus ex Machina.

I actually do have a character who can temporarily steal the powers of others, unfortunately he's a villain so it wouldn't work...
The idea of the power-suppressing drug is potentially interesting, but the creation of something like that would have a lot of ramifications for the setting and it would make the story go in unexpected directions... I'll try to think about it.

Thanks to everyone for the help anyway!

Edited by Mimic45 on May 9th 2022 at 1:36:13 PM