What's the best way for a writer to handle the protagonist having a dangerously OP ability (unstoppable saw blades, disintegration beams, local reality warping, etc) While still making the villain a threat and allowing the character to use the ability in a productive way during the conflict?
It seams like too often the character's ability gets nerfed or downgraded.
Picture ABSOLUTELY related.
plot armor
Read Neil Gaiman's Sandman.
I will, but why so? What's so good about it?
Dream (the central character) is faced against antagonists that are nowhere near as powerful as him, but are still some pretty crafty sons-a-bitches. The comic opens up with this all-powerful being being accidentally conjured by a cult and contained in a glass bubble for about 70 years.
Besides that, it's just good, imaginative fun.
The foe would have to exploit the hero's weakness like using thier own power against them or fucking with their head, or attacking the thing the hero wants.
A villain who can't die, even if they are killed - due to transcendental nature, self-duplication, what have you. Not necessarily the best way but it's a way.
>antagonist gets deadly mind control abilities
>protagonists on the ropes, barely able to defend against such a dangerous foe
>lol, psychic shield/tinfoil hat. Never works on heroes again.
By having the villain stay out of reach, Jaws style.
If a character trivializes the plot, you've either written the wrong character or the wrong plot.
the sweet spot for the underdog villain dynamic would be for the antagonist to have around a third of the protagonist's strength. they would get their shit kicked in in a straight up fight, but could still realistically kill the hero under the right circumstances.
playing off of that, they could be some form of mastermind, or simply opportunistic.
this may get autistic, but in a similar vein, let's say the hero has these stats
>100 damage
>100 health
>100% speed
and let's say the villain has these stats
>100 damage
>20 health
>20% speed
then the hero would obviously outclass the villain in a fight. but hypothetically, if the villain were to land a hit, he could just as well end the hero. the villain would have to create circumstances to allow for that to happen. does he stalk the hero to attempt a cheap shot? does he set up a debilitating trap which the hero is forced to walk into? does he observe the hero day by day to catch him when he's tired, sick, or otherwise not in a fighting state of mind? that kind of meticulous obsession can lead to victory. making your enemy play by your rules trumps their natural ability, and villains often have nothing but free time to do so.
The hero can't be everywhere at once. Its like fucking with a guy with a gun. Sure, he COULD shoot you, but the circumstances have to be right.
>RPG stats outside of a game
>power levels
Kindly fuck off. You clearly don't have a narrative mind and your ideas would feel fake and disjointed to the reader/viewer.
The best way to deal with OP abilities is to NOT include them at all or, if you really, REALLY need to, create a big tax for using them. Something like draining all strength from the user and putting him/her in a coma for a few days/weeks or making him/her age rapidly. This, however, sets up the trap of nerfing bad side effects with time for plot convenience and therefore requires iron will and consequence from the author. Which brings us back to the simplest solution of "don't put OP powers in your story and have clear limits for everything".
>The best way to deal with OP abilities is to NOT include them at all
no you fuck off retard this thread is about bullshit powers
There was a question in the OP and I answered it. To make the villain a credible threat, not have to constantly nerf hero's powers or create characters with even more bullshit ones, the best move for the author is not to include OP powers at all or give them serious, taxing limits and never ever waiver - that last part being a thing only really good writers can pull off. Nowhere did OP say "bullshit powers thread!", so learn to read before you go offtopic, you sperging nerd of questionable sexuality.
Alternatively, you can put the hero against an enemy who makes his powers useless. Superman can be as strong as he wants, but unless he throws his morals out the window, Lex Luthor is untouchable because he is rich, clever and has an army of lawyers protecting his ass in a hopelessly bureaucratic system.
Le Hardcore Armchair Writer
Hello, fellow Redditor! Epicly memed!
Kienzan is not that OP, it's a slow technique, and both cell and Buu are essentially invulnerable to it. Also, it straight up bisects people, which is something good guys are naturally reluctant to do. I'd say it was handled properly in series.
Make the villain even more OP
Each and every time
Over and over again
For 30 straight years
have the OP ability be countered by another OP ability.
or
OP ability will kill the user too.
ever think if Some one just jumped over it and blasted the the center of those things it would be done?
Why not just shoot the guy trying to control it? They can also deflect blasts so you could probably slap the center of it off course. You might even be able to create a sword like Salsa/Goku Black/shitloads of other guys and just chop the thing in half.
I think that all the time.
Or just sanding still and delivering a well timed uppercut.
Give the villain an OP power too or just make the portag an idiot that doesn't realize just how powerful his ability is/how to use it properly
skill>power
Miroku did it the best I think.
>Wind tunnel oneshots everything ever and has 0 counters. No exceptions
>But it's dangerous and Miroku dies if he sucks up anything poisonous, so he feels the need to save it for the final showdown while the main villain keeps sending lackeys that will force him to overuse it, turning what should be an OP unstoppable force of nature into a ticking timebomb
No
Just have some poison bees show up
Don't give your characters retarded superpowers in the first place. Alternatively, roll the dice and follow their bidding: there's no such character that can withstand a critical 2d20 throw.
Just nuke them.
OP. I would suggest you give a watch to a show called Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. Anime, I know, but its basically an endless stream of building up dudes to be unbeatable before defeating them with crazy plans or creative uses of your power.
Part 3 in particular establishes pretty early on with Jotaro that if you get within range of his Stand, his Stand will punch the shit out of you two hundred times a second until you are sufficiently punched. But his stand only has a range of, like, 5 meters.
So if you get close to him, you will instantly lose. There are a lot of ways to attack someone from outside of that range, and a lot of enemy stand users use forms of attack that you can't just punch away. Like de-aging you into a child.
It also will redefine for you what counts as an OP ability. There's a guy who, by your definition, would have an OP ability: his stand erases things, even non-physical things like 'distance', so he can just turn it on and destroy the distance between you and the stand until you are in range to be erased directly, and erase you too. He is one of the *worst* stand users in the series.
You know whose ability is overpowered as fuck? The guy who can stick zippers on anything.
Its a weird show.
Think up of the scenario where they are defeated first, then work from there.
That's a mistake, you fool. Naraku wanted Miroku to keep using his wind tunnel so it would eventually consume all the heroes. The bees are the last-ditch effort, and Miroku sucked them up multiple times when he felt the need to.
give the villains dangerously OP powers that aren't just 'nuh uh, it doesn't work'
and make everyone actually decent at dodging. two folks struggling to get a clean hit on each other is just as tense, if not moreso, than two folks trading blows until one of them collapses
No? It's just a waste of everyone's time because you know the show won't end with everyone dying there and then.
Give all the villains/antagonists equally broken abilities
Make the character incompetent at using the power effectively, or make them abuse it and suffer for it by unforeseen consequences.
That was resolved by perfect cell completely no-sale’ing it to show how strong perfect cell was.
>Can insta-kill almost anything but is pretty slow
DBZ handled destructo disks pretty well imo.
DRAGON DRAGON
ROCK THE DRAGON
why do people say this like cell didn't just ignore getting hit in the neck by destructo disk? For some reason people think its some crazy move but it doesn't ever do anything
>why do people say this like cell didn't just ignore getting hit in the neck by destructo disk?
Cause that was from a FILLER episode and thus not canon
well thats retarded.
>What's the best way for a writer to handle the protagonist having a dangerously OP ability while still making the villain a threat and allowing the character to use the ability in a productive way during the conflict?
Villain can still huwt his feewings
no i answered it, you decided to be a smug pseud prick who avoided it
there can be overpowered protagonists who are still very much mortal and fallible like anyone else. they don't need to be neutered for them to be defeated, the circumstances just have to play in the weaker villain's favor. that bullshit 1HKO ability could still kill said villain, just as it should be able to. it doesn't need to be deleted because you can't think of a workaround.
one interesting way to go about the ability would be to make the character with the power to be a complete retard at using it
using JoJo's as an example, there's a character in part 4 that can manipulate space, but he's such a brainlet that he only ever uses it to pull enemies closer so that he can punch them.
>Picture ABSOLUTELY related.
Sure.