Advice/Help Which power should I choose for my character?

[fei]

I’m really stuck on this CS because I can’t choose which superpower to give my character and I’d like some opinions. If you also have some ideas for powers, feel free to tell me.

1. Aura Manipulation
• You can sense auras of people, the most common ones are a black aura symbolizing imminent doom/death and a golden aura symbolizing good fortune but everyone else’s aura is unique and can mean different things. These auras can help you guess what will happen to them in the future or what is happening to them. You can also manipulate people’s auras and change them. (Ex. Bad luck to good luck) You can also swap auras with someone else. You can also steal someone’s else aura w/o giving them yours (which will kill them) but this would take a lot of energy.

2. Controlling the dead
• You can summon the dead to do your bidding. The more they consume, the more power you get too and you can use that power to give you enhanced strength, speed, agility, etc.

3. Controlling other’s body and being able to paralyze them

4. Self Multiplication
• You can duplicate yourself

5. Conjuring
• You can store as many objects as you want in a pocket of space that nobody else can see. You can summon the objects whenever you need to. (Ex. When a skyscraper is about to fall on you, you force it into the pocket of space and then you drop it on some enemy you’re fighting)

 

[Idea]

Can you maybe tell us more about this RP?

 

[Lioness075]

I would need context for the setting and story to best decide what power may be the most suitable. I also know nothing about your character and certain powers go really well with certain backstories and personality types.

Alternatively, you could decide on a power first and then create the character from it. I do it either way, power first then character or character first and then a suitable power. I've made a number of powered characters in the past, but I always decided on their power first.

For example, I've made a shapeshifter before and then after finalizing how her power worked and her limitations, I then created her archaeology backstory to go with the power.

 

[Crayons]

Well I think this is mostly down to your personal preference, but I would sound a note of warning with Power Idea 1.

Having an aura reading/future reading power can lead to difficulties in roleplay, because if you use it on another player character it can cause serious complications and trouble. Suppose your character reads my character's aura and she discovers that my character is going to win it big on the horsies tomorrow (or anything else really). Then I have two choices: either let you take away my free will by making your prophecy come true OR deciding I don't want your prophecy to come true and making my character lose on the horsies to spite you. Which renders your power ineffective. So, either my free will is ineffective, or your power is. And ... that's going to piss one of us off.

Secondly, anything that involves you reading the mind, emotions or anything else of another character absolutely would have to be agreed with them in advance. Mind-reading is considered god moding and/or metagaming in a lot of RPs and is banned for this reason. It takes away agency from the other characters, and is not really fair. This is unless you have a loooong conversation with the GM and the player who's character you will be targeting with your power. Not all players are going to want to let you do this, which again, limits the effectiveness of the ability.

Any of the others you're probably fine with as long as your GM (if you have one) is OK with it.

Good luck!

 

[zippy]

Usually I just eliminate for different reasons until only one or two remain, then evaluate the RP (and characters so far) to determine how I should contribute.

1. Aura Manipulation
• You can sense auras of people, the most common ones are a black aura symbolizing imminent doom/death and a golden aura symbolizing good fortune but everyone else’s aura is unique and can mean different things. These auras can help you guess what will happen to them in the future or what is happening to them. You can also manipulate people’s auras and change them. (Ex. Bad luck to good luck) You can also swap auras with someone else. You can also steal someone’s else aura w/o giving them yours (which will kill them) but this would take a lot of energy.

Crayons talked about the possible issues with this one.

2. Controlling the dead
• You can summon the dead to do your bidding. The more they consume, the more power you get too and you can use that power to give you enhanced strength, speed, agility, etc.

This one is interesting especially how the added consumption clause is something I haven’t heard. However, I think it needs a worthy weakness to avoid becoming over powered. Maybe if there are too many killed it can significantly affect your character’s power or ability to summon the dead? Or it takes significant focus and strength to summon the dead so your character is impaired during and for a short time after summoning them (impaired as in she can’t defend herself).

3. Controlling other’s body and being able to paralyze them

I’m not exactly a fan of this one as it relies too much on affecting other characters. If you’re fighting NPCs maybe it’s ok? But if you have to fight other characters in the RP controlled by players then I would just avoid it.

4. Self Multiplication
• You can duplicate yourself

Short and simple but i think the uses of this are often overlooked. Maybe consider further how her duplicates behave? Do they mimic your character or can they act semi-autonomously? Can they do both but under different conditions? How is your character’s mind affected while she has multiples out in the world? How long do they last for? If they simply mimic I think it’d be fine for her to be able to multiply into a large number of herself. But for balancing purposes, if they have autonomy then maybe setting an upper limit would be useful.

5. Conjuring
• You can store as many objects as you want in a pocket of space that nobody else can see. You can summon the objects whenever you need to. (Ex. When a skyscraper is about to fall on you, you force it into the pocket of space and then you drop it on some enemy you’re fighting)

This is an incredibly strong power and as such I’m not exactly a fan of it. It’s a bit of a deus ex machina as it can be used to solve a very large amount of issues and in my opinion that takes the fun out of many situations and interactions in the roleplay.


I prefer self multiplication, but summoning the dead is a close second.