How would you add limits on superpowers?

Just the other day, a thought crossed my mind about making my superhumans in my urban fantasy setting weren't too godlike.

So far:

• there's a tier system:
  • alphas are the strongest of the tier and most rare

  • Betas are the most common and in the middle.

  • Omegas are the weakest of the tiers but can be skilled with their odd powers.

• You can't become another tier unless something happens that allows you to advance in level, with alpha being the cap. There is nothing beyond the alpha rank. Any entity that does is possibly a God or godlike being.

• Powers are unique to each person. However, people with similar powers do exist. But again, they use these skills differently.

• there's an energy called IO that is found in all latent and non-latent supers. It's rechargeable but can run out supposing the person over exerts their power. Doing so would render them powerless for awhile until their IO comes back.

That's all I have. I'm not very good at things like that so if your willing to do suggestions that'll be great.

Edited by ewolf2015 on Oct 14th 2018 at 7:58:12 AM

The title is how would you add limits to one's superpower...

I've been toying with the idea of activation limits. The idea is that you can be superman for an hour or two but after that you start loosing Required Secondary Powers.

The more powerful your ability is the shorter the activation limit is. Someone that can talk to squirrels and only squirrels might be able to keep her ability going all day while someone with influence over time might only get a minute or two per day.

Just watch Jojo, and you'll see.

Having a limited power source for superhuman abilities is a good first start. It lets you keep Captain Alpha from being too brokenly overpowered, since he has to take breaks from flying around the planet and bench-pressing skyscrapers to recharge his batteries.

Of course, I'd be careful with how much you quantify things. You can do all the world-building you like, but if you constantly take breaks from action and character scenes to exposit about how Wolverhulk only has fifteen thousand midifluorines left, it's going to get very boring very fast. You have to remember that internal consistency serves the story, not the other way around.

There are lots of works that have supers (whatever you call them: mages, psions, mutants, etc.) with limited power reserves, and running out at critical moments makes for good drama. However, it's narrative that drives this, not the author adding up on a spreadsheet.

Another way to limit supers is to play around with Required Secondary Powers. If a hero with Super-Strength doesn't also have a power that strengthens things she touches, she'll go right though them rather than lifting them whole, and getting around daily life without tearing everything to shreds will be quite the challenge.

Edited by Fighteer on Oct 23rd 2018 at 12:53:34 PM

One idea I've thought about is having a power break out into two sets of abilities common and unique. Though this might not work depending on how specific your superpowers are. However given a super power you probably have things you use it for consistently which should be easy to do. When in a tight situation you'll try and use your powers in unique ways that probably require a lot of effort to make work.

For example a person with telekinesis. They probably use it all the time to throw rocks at their enemies and should be able to do that all the time or without using too much energy as it gets practiced a lot. Using it however to disarm a bomb or catch specific things falling from the sky would require a lot more energy.

Having some sort of limits for number of or cost of common abilities and the amount of energy available for unique abilities would probably be a good way to go.

Also consider applying real life limitations. An Imagination-Based Superpower is going to be strongly limited by the fact that human thought patterns are not easily controlled and don't work like photographies, for instance.