# Need a lame power.



## Queshire (Feb 21, 2012)

So, I'm trying to think up a special power for my main character, I want it to be something that on the surface looks stupid or useless, but by practicing with it and thinking about it he can pull of some crazy awesome stuff.

So far, some other characters & powers I have include;

A girl who can heal and buff, using these to give her superstrength.

A guy that can see... stuff through a camera lense, it works a bit wonky but generally shows him whatever he needs to see.

A guy that can do pretty much anything... provided he has the money for it. (Think general magic using money as mana, very versitle but not as individually powerful as a more specific gift)

A guy with... a very powerful gift, I still need to think more about it, maybe turning into light? This guy starts out as a decent guy but ends up being the big bad.

For my main character, I want him to be the type of guy that uses his head to deafeat his opponents, leaving the brute smashy stuff to his partner, the white magic girl.

Some options I've considered include;

-Creating... stuff. At it's most basic he can create swords or other simple objects without many moving parts, complicated objects are harder, and he cand adjust the parameters of the object, making the objects he creates soft or transparent, this is my original idea, but I'm worried it maybe to heroic.

-Manipulating the weight / density of himself and things he touches. This gives him a pesudo- superstrength effect by making say, a car weigh as much as a feather. But I'm afraid that falls under his partner's bailiwick.

-Manipulating heat. There was a part of one of the Dresden Files story where Harry pulls the heat from one mook, freezing them, then tossing it at another mook as a fireball. That really resonated with me. He could heat stuff, freeze stuff, create mirages, manipulate the weather (to a limited extent) etc, and so on.

-Creating barriers. Let's him well, create barriers, invisible mazes, swords, pressess... lots of stuff.

-Teleportation. Well, besides moving himself and others, he can shoot high pressure blasts of water or lava, utterly destroy something by teleporting it everywhere at once, bit too game-breakery though.

I'm currently liking the barrier warrior idea, but what do you guys think? Do you have any other suggestions for otherwise lame powers?


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## ThinkerX (Feb 21, 2012)

Steal a page from Niven.  The guy is a telekinetic.  Said ability manifests itself as an extra 'hand' - with *all* of the limitations a normal hand would have, except its invisible.  Pick up a wrench or a mug of coffee across the table?  No problem.  Pick up a heavy desk or car? No.  Pick up a pen across the room...probably not.


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## The Din (Feb 21, 2012)

How about fingernails that grow quickly? I've always liked that power.


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## Muqtada (Feb 21, 2012)

My roommate and I were discussing lame superpowers at length one night and came across the Holy Grail of pathetic powers: turning anything you touch into plywood (or the equivalent). On a normal person this power would be less than useless. On a carpenter with a good amount of education in architecture, set in a world where things are mostly made of wood, the character could potentially weaken and destroy entire structures by replacing firmer wood with the stuff that can't bear much weight.

Not really sure if it's quite what you're looking for though


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## Tau (Feb 21, 2012)

in one of the X-men movies there was someone who was taking notes by waving their hand over the page. I don't know if that was supposed to be part of something bigger or the entire power, but someone whose superpower is the ability to write without moving their fingers would seem pretty lame.


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## Queshire (Feb 21, 2012)

I'm thinking I'll go with the barrier warrior idea actually, but one of the main themes of my story is people being thrown into a life-or-death fight for all of humanity that are frankly unsuited for fighting, either due to their personalities or their powers, so keep the ideas coming! 

"It's easy to be a hero when you got Flight, invunerability, superstrength, and superspeed, less so when all you can do is make a spot appear on the wall"

I -do- like the plywood idea, but I think I'd change it to transforming whatever you touch into cheese. Mmm.... cheese...


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## Drakhov (Feb 21, 2012)

Probably something your MC can do with their 'powers', but which takes more effort to accomplish that way than simply doing it normally - like in ThinkerXs example, the characters third hand can only really accomplish what he could just as easily do with his regular 2.

I have 2 anthologies of short stories i got several years ago - wow just checked the copyright date, 1991! - i'm getting old! 

_Temps_ and _Euro Temps_ Edited by Neil Gaiman & Alex Stewart - the basics of these stories are that there are some people who have what are euphemistically called _Talents_ - in other words superpowers. In typical Euro / British Civil Service mentality, they have to register with a government agency in order to claim a small allowance, on the understanding they can be called on anytime the government requires them / their power.  While such an individual in the USA would be a a superhero and a celebrity, with their own action figures, TV shows and spandex costumes, their British counterparts are at best government drones or at worst layabouts on the dole who get an extra few quid a fortnight - Temps.

One of the stories - _Leaks_ by David Langford, concerns one such, who is seconded to the Ministry of Defence. Apparently there's a spy stealing defence secrets  (his power is that he can transfer liquids from one place to another, so long as the liquid contains alcohol - he generally uses his power to get free drinks in bars - quite why the agency thinks this would be useful in a spy hunt isn't made clear, but such is the way of British bureaucracy). Another thing is the liquid doesn't shoot across the intervening space, it simply transfers from it's source to his glass.

Anyway, he demonstrates his ability to his MOD handler during lunch.  Eventually it transpires that the handler is the spy, and the Temp is imprisoned in the MOD canteen storeroom. The handler believes that the Temp has greater potential and that he's self imposing the restriction of his power to alcoholic liquids - given sufficient motivation (in this case a little light torture provided by the application of electric shocks) he can accomplish greater things.  

Suddenly the Temp remembers their lunchtime drinking session - the handler had consumed several pints, and consequently he has a high blood alcohol content...


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## Muqtada (Feb 21, 2012)

Cheese would probably work better, actually


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## Ravana (Feb 22, 2012)

I thought you said "lame" power. Manipulating density, materializing barriers, teleportation? 

A lame power–by which I mean "not something people would automatically be impressed by": I can think of great ways to apply any of these–would be something like controlling perceptions of odor. Giving people the sensation of insects crawling on them. Inducing temporary dyslexia. Being able to make himself heard at a great distance, though only by one person at a time and only in a conversational (or whispered) tone. Mastery of garden-trowel fu. (Wait: that one's been used.) Being able to throw a rubber-banded newspaper so that it lands _exactly_ where you want it to every time. Perspiring dry-cleaning chemicals. The ability to stick to walls, ceilings or other surfaces, but only with hands, not feet… bonus points if it can't be turned off. Identifying any form of coffee or tea in the world from a mere whiff. Causing sexual arousal telepathically. Never having Windows crash. 

Okay, maybe the last one's a bit on the overpowered side, too. The rest should be okay.


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## MattBone (Feb 22, 2012)

Ravana said:


> I thought you said "lame" power. Manipulating density, materializing barriers, teleportation?
> 
> A lame power—by which I mean "not something people would automatically be impressed by": I can think of great ways to apply any of these—would be something like controlling perceptions of odor. Giving people the sensation of insects crawling on them. Inducing temporary dyslexia. Being able to make himself heard at a great distance, though only by one person at a time and only in a conversational (or whispered) tone. Mastery of garden-trowel fu. (Wait: that one's been used.) Being able to throw a rubber-banded newspaper so that it lands _exactly_ where you want it to every time. Perspiring dry-cleaning chemicals. The ability to stick to walls, ceilings or other surfaces, but only with hands, not feet… bonus points if it can't be turned off. Identifying any form of coffee or tea in the world from a mere whiff. Causing sexual arousal telepathically. Never having Windows crash.
> 
> Okay, maybe the last one's a bit on the overpowered side, too. The rest should be okay.



Hah, I'm dying to write something with all of these in it. Plus a guy who immediately knows the ending of any book / movie / play just by hearing the name. Then he tells you.


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## zizban (Feb 22, 2012)

Making someone sneeze at will. Guy concentrating to cast a spell? Sneeze to disrupt him!


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## Sheilawisz (Feb 22, 2012)

What about the power to create and breed little crazy creatures?? They would have low intelligence and usually would just run around the house crashing into stuff (difficult to train them) but if you can breed enough of them, you can eventually start an army of little creatures and be their commander =)


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## Benjamin Clayborne (Feb 22, 2012)

Always being able to find a parking spot exactly when needed.


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## Reaver (Feb 22, 2012)

Is the ability to sleep anywhere in your home/ workplace anytime, without being disturbed by even the noisiest neighbor/co-worker considered a super-power?


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## SlimShady (Feb 22, 2012)

Maybe he has an extremely good memory.  (He can remember stuff from years ago to the point where he actually relives it in his head)  This seems like a pretty lame super-power compared to the others.  

  Or maybe he can make people forget things for a short period of time.  The memory eventually comes back, but not until the character has left.


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## Anders Ã„mting (Feb 22, 2012)

I'm running a RPG where each player got to make a character with a single, very specific power. The only rule was that each power has to follow a single unifying principle or mechanic.

One of them picked "the ability to separate things." It's a type of telekinesis, but his character can only use it to separate things that are attached to each other. Even by the standards of the game this is an absurdly limited power, but the player has assured me that he's already thought of some very devastating ways of using it.

One of the craziest powers I saw in that game was a guy who could speak to inanimate objects. This power was a telepathic-psychometric-telekinetic combo, meaning not only could he have the inanimate objects relay information to him (mostly about events that took place in their vicinity) but he could also talk them into doing things, like moving around and performing simple tasks.


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## Ravana (Feb 24, 2012)

Anders Ã„mting said:


> One of them picked "the ability to separate things." It's a type of telekinesis, but his character can only use it to separate things that are attached to each other. Even by the standards of the game this is an absurdly limited power, but the player has assured me that he's already thought of some very devastating ways of using it.



Like mortared bricks? Body parts? Chemicals in solution? Molecular bonds? If he has any imagination at all, he's gonna gut your game… not to mention everyone in it. 

Hope he has a code against killing. And maiming. And that you limit his power to acting only on things he can actually _see_… which will, at least, take out the most devastating possibilities. 

Such as the binding energy within atoms, or the strong force.…


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## pmkava (Feb 24, 2012)

Ravana said:


> Like mortared bricks? Body parts? Chemicals in solution? Molecular bonds? If he has any imagination at all, he's gonna gut your game… not to mention everyone in it.
> 
> Hope he has a code against killing. And maiming. And that you limit his power to acting only on things he can actually _see_… which will, at least, take out the most devastating possibilities.
> 
> Such as the binding energy within atoms, or the strong force.…



yeah just imagine if the all the protons and neutron of all the atomic nuclei  of the atoms in any thing he saw just flew apart from each other... that would be awesome!


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## myrddin173 (Feb 24, 2012)

pmkava said:
			
		

> yeah just imagine if the all the protons and neutron of all the atomic nuclei  of the atoms in any thing he saw just flew apart from each other... that would be awesome!



Imagine what would happen if he separated them at the quark level... Scary.


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## topazfire (Feb 24, 2012)

Have you seen Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog? The first lame power I though of was 'Moist' (as played by Simon Helberg aka Mr Wolowitz) - completely useless, and gross, but hillarious!


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## pmkava (Feb 24, 2012)

how about being able to see through another persons eyes, but only when your eyes are closed, and you wouldn't be able to control the other person. so your MC could use this power to see what another person is doing at the time and then be able to direct the others he is with to attack targets.


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## Wiggles2021 (Feb 24, 2012)

Me and a couple of my freinds also had a lame super power conversation, but it was more of a "well, if you were a super hero, your power would be the ability to go back in  time for seventeen seconds." things of that nature. my favorite was the ability to move any object three inches. on the surface, fairly usless, you MIGHT be able to dodge a bullet, or you could make somebodies sword miss a block, but if you really get into it, you could move building foundations, the starter in a car, or just for the kill shot, move someones heart three inches to the left inside their body.


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## Anders Ã„mting (Feb 25, 2012)

Ravana said:


> Like mortared bricks?



Yes.



> Body parts?



No. Bodies count as single objects.

If someone had like an arm cut off and then stitched back, he could undo the stiches and make the arm fall off again. But he can't affect anything that is a single mass of matter. It has to be "an object stuck to another object."



> Chemicals in solution?



Uncertain.



> Molecular bonds?



Not really, no.



> If he has any imagination at all, he's gonna gut your game… not to mention everyone in it.



Yeah, well, it's not like I'm actually going to _allow _that. I do impose rules about power gaming.


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## Jess A (Feb 26, 2012)

Tau said:


> in one of the X-men movies there was someone who was taking notes by waving their hand over the page. I don't know if that was supposed to be part of something bigger or the entire power, *but someone whose superpower is the ability to write without moving their fingers would seem pretty lame*.



Not if you're a journalist. Trust me.


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## Caged Maiden (Feb 27, 2012)

If you're still having problems deciding, you could try starting with plot and then once you get rolling, finalize what powers would work best for the story.


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## The Grey Sage (Feb 28, 2012)

LAMEST POWER OF ALL TIME: Being able to feint on command.


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## Jess A (Feb 29, 2012)

The Grey Sage said:


> LAMEST POWER OF ALL TIME: Being able to* feint* on command.



Feint as in a fencing move or did you mean 'faint'?  -chuckle-


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## S.T. Ockenner (Dec 17, 2020)

Sheilawisz said:


> What about the power to create and breed little crazy creatures?? They would have low intelligence and usually would just run around the house crashing into stuff (difficult to train them) but if you can breed enough of them, you can eventually start an army of little creatures and be their commander =)


You mean the power of being a mother?


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## Electric Bone Flute (Dec 17, 2020)

You want something lame that can be levelled up through practice? I will supply some ideas:

If you setting is modern day or later in terms of tech, consider the ability to interface your own mind with any machine so long as it can receive what you are inputting (no mouse clicks to MS-DOS and no GET requests to a camera). Because this would feel like interacting with a body part, you wouldn't have to "learn machine language." You'd intuitively know what it feels like to send a data packet through IPv4; that part "just works" just like moving your finger "just works." Here's the catch: that's it. You can't send a million GET requests in a minute to a server you don't like to DoS them for the same reason you can't punch someone you don't like a million times in a minute. There's no programming language in your head for high-level concepts like "do this set of actions n times, or at trigger x." Everything that must be done must be done "manually." Furthermore, you need to know something about the machine you are interfacing with. You don't get implicit knowledge of how many DIP switches are in a slot machine or which ones you need to switch to get the jackpot just because you are in front of it. Same with that killer robot you need to shut down.
I once made a rabbi zombified by an entity from another dimension who could create throwing Stars of David that were energy constructs. Now that's not lame, especially since they were homing missiles, but the better (worse) idea is symbol manipulation. Creating symbols.
The ability to "equip" anything you touch, like the CalebCity's video "Super Human Interview 2" at minute 3, second 20. It doesn't say anything in the video about the usefulness of it, but judging by the way he stabs a hole through the solo cup, it implies that his insta-wear ability could be used simply to wear things that shouldn't be worn, like a skull, so long as he can touch them.
Similarly, his video "If you learned how to deflect in real life." shows someone with the power to just block things, but he can't control it. Maybe imagine a cool power that can only be triggered through external forces. That would make it lame, and the growth arc could concern coaxing the power.
Trivially, any super-powered boost to a skill that the protagonist doesn't already have, especially if the skill is intrinsically lame and only made combat-worthy by way of how the protagonist shoehorns it. Stage magic (aka card tricks and rabbit hats) could be made deadly if it involves eventually slitting someone's throat with a card with a previously unseen razor blade glued to it, but in the short-term, you'll be a fool.


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## Electric Bone Flute (Dec 18, 2020)

I got an idea for another power that is relatively weak but can be leveraged for greater power.
The ability to be magically unfireable. Incapable of being fired. This can be used to political ends by laying low, then getting a job in some low level, public-facing part of a company you don’t like. Be the absolute worst employee ever, do everything short of actual sabotage and illegal stuff, and yell at all the customers. Whenever that arm of the company must be cut off due to poor performance, because no one wants to go their, then get transferred and start again.


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## Thea__ (Dec 26, 2020)

Idk if this power would fit but heres an idea I had scraped from my own story:

Something like the *Midas Touch*.
This power allows the character to turn objects they touch into a specific material (in my original idea the power could turn things into rock).
There need to be specific rules ofc. Such as the object must be touched with hand for so and so long or the object can only be so big. 
As I had this power in mind, it starts of being for the character pretty useless since they had little control over it (they later could control it) and they turned things to stone that shouldn't be. And also that the character didn't know how to use the power most effectively in combat (because of the restrictions I gave them (time and size)).
As the story progresses however the character lerns to use it effectively and turns actually quite op, being able to make weapons out of everything (example: making needles and throwing knives out of a single hair strand, leaves and other things). 
It is quite a practical power that can be used in combat not only to attack but also as a shield to defend and in most situations the Character still needs to use their brain to figure out how to use this power most effectively.
I ended up giving the character in my story a different power since he was suposed to be only a side character and with this power would have turned way too strong for the main cast LMAO. 
If I am ever going to use it or something like it I would definitely use it for the main character haha. 
It is still a cool power tho.
I hope it gives ideas.


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## ConquerorWorm (Dec 29, 2020)

It seems to me that rather than lame you seem interested in giving your character a power that is, or at least appears to be, underpowered in comparison to the other characters. None of the examples you give, at least in my opinion, are lame. Of course they could be given a silly or lame twist, e.g. "create barriers made out of cotton" but it doesn't seem like that's the sort of thing you're going for.

I think one way of making something seem underpowered is to make it very specific. For example, you can create barriers, but their combined size can be no larger than the width of your arms squared, each barrier has the strength of a sheet of plexiglass, you can only create these barriers in a six feet sphere around your body. Obviously these sort of mathematical exactitudes don't fit all kinds of stories, but a nice thing about them is that it gives the author very little room to cheat. If we really understand the way an ability works then we can really believe it when the characters comes up with a new way of using it, like using the above ability to create several razor thin pieces of barrier in the air between him and an opponent who is charging him, or creating "barrier steps" to basically give him the ability to run in the air.


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