Uses for power.

[Queshire]

So, I'm considering changing my main character's power. Originally I just had her have pretty simple telekinesis / levitation, but now I'm considering going with something different.

She has a pocket dimension she has access to. She can either shift entirely into this pocket dimension or just reach into it with her arms to pull like a weapon or something out of it. She can also sense what's going on in there. The pocket dimension is a bit unstable so it's possible to physically break out of it. Basically, while it can be used as a prison it's a pretty bad one and that's where all her stuff is. Physically, her hidey hole is about the size of a little girl's room because, well, it was a little girl's room. It was originally based off her room when she was ten, though she has significantly redecorated since then. Ummm.... I figure that later on in the story she'll learn how to alter the physical settings of her hidey hole, maybe one day increasing to the point that her hidey hole takes the form of a small tropical island.

Her other power is related to that, she's not limited to shifting to and from her hidey hole, she can shift between different world and alternative reality, though it's a whole lot harder than shifting to her personal world. She needs to concentrate and it takes a good bit out of her. This isn't unique to her, part of my story is that the walls between worlds and alternative realities have broken down, however most people need to use specially designed world ships or portals to travel between realities. Being able to shift freely is unusual but not rare.

NOW THEN!

What I would like from you guys,

1) What do you guys think of this power? Does it seem interesting? Is it generic? Can you guys see imagine any problems or challenge I might run into with this power?

2)How can you guys imagine this power being used? How can you see it being used in battle? How can you see it being used in every day life? What's the most crazy awesome use for it can you think up?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[teacup]

I think it could be really good. It reminds me of games like Zelda and GTA, they get loads of items, and put them into pockets and they just disappear. It could be good, say she's chained up, she could reach in and get something to break free. She could be losing a battle, and whip a knife out of nowhere You could do a lot with it, even have her jump to it when she was about to get killed. I would put some bigger penalty than it just taking it out of her, because then it would be very easy for her to stay alive and win near every battle, but that's just my preference.
I suppose she could even transport things, if she liked. Battle a monster and throw it into the room, when you're fighting a villain, set the monster loose

There's loads that can be done with it, you just have to try and not make it seem cheap, like her jumping to it every time a knife comes at her.

 

[gowph3ar]

My question is, if she goes into this hidey hole can she decide the location in which she comes out or will she always come out in the same physical place she entered. If she can teleport herself via the hidey hole then she could basically become a God and no one could kill her. In a tight spot? warp away!

 

[wordwalker]

It's a nifty power, especially with the background that worldwalls are already coming down. Some questions to consider (and plan limits for) are:

Like teacup and gowph3ar said, how much of a free-pass teleport is it? You want to think very hard about things like how fast can she open it, how far can she open an exit from where she entered it and how well can she aim (or are these related, appearing a mile away is likely to end up a hundred miles off-- still a great escape, unless she risks landing up in the air or in the ground). A high-powered teleporter really is godlike, as long as she's inventive and very careful; read the awardwinning Jumper (before Hollywood replaced, well, all of the book).

Plus she may have other advantages simple teleporters don't: can she peek out of her dimension to plan her reappearances, or just to spy? Can she open a portal to suck in enemy arrows (or drain a lake), or snap it shut to cut off someone's arm? You've already thought out how it's not a very good prison, and she'd probably be very reluctant to put an enemy in what amounts to both her storeroom and her Happy Place. But really, you may want to make all teleporting tricks almost impossible for her, so it doesn't overshadow its other uses, including the very difficult worldshifting you mentioned.

Storing material in it is probably the most original side of the concept. Of course it depends on how much tech/magitech the world (or different worlds, hey!) have to see how useful a toy she can have access to. But the concept begs for her to spend some time as a thief, sneaking in to equip herself-- even without much classic teleporting it's fun to make a hundred-pound Precious Something just disappear, and maybe duck out herself and reappear an hour later in different clothes to just walk out. Or get into how much easier travel is with a half-ton of food stored, and maybe no need to spend the night at camps or inns. Think how well she'd do as a trader with all her weightless wares, let alone a smuggler with invisible ones.

In open battle... the obvious uses would be logistics (need to haul a cannon up a steep hill? move food through a swamp?) and stealth ("pocket" a squad of men, or horses for two or three to escape afterward, then sneak into position for a raid). Or there's always: trap an angry tiger just before confronting an enemy, and release it right on him. Or if you can't find a suitable beast, a roomful of lake water should hit pretty hard too.

 

[Zero Angel]

I like it. Pocket dimensions are always cool and not overused, although they are used regularly. Any sort of extra dimension in space is usually described as a pocket dimension by fandom even if not canonically.

Usually pocket dimensions that someone has constant access to are a little smaller than that, so it's interesting that it's so large.

 

[Alexandra]

Were not these things called Bags of Holding in Dungeons and Dragons? They make life very easy.

 

[Queshire]

Um..... ok. Wow, a lot of responses, and a lot of what you bring up are good points. Ok, so I'll try to cover it one by one.

1) Shifting into / out of her hidey hole isn't that difficult, about as difficult as climbing a flight of stairs. Shifting to other worlds / alternative realities is what tires her. I think about describing it as like sprinting full out for a mile, that might be unrealistic, but I think it's descriptive enough to get across that it's not easy no matter what your personal fitness level might be.

1.5) Alternatively, I'm considering having some form of shifting sickness. After shifting worlds / realities she's disoriented and queasy for a time.

2) One limitation I'm considering is to require her to have some kind of opening to access her hidey hole. For example, she could reach into her hidey hole through her pockets to pull something out, but to travel to or from it she has to use something bigger like a door. I figure this would largely be a pyscological barrier on her part, just like the one that limits her hidey hole to the shape of her old room.

3) For siccing a monster on a villain, well, like I said before her hidey hole is a very bad prison. Maybe when she learns to alter her hidey hole she can turn it into a prison, but more than that, she just doesn't like other people traipsing around in her hidey hole so she would be resistive to transporting allies or monsters in it.

4) She has to leave through the same door she enters from. If someone else is in the hidey hole, they aren't limited to the same door, but they're restricted to Sera letting them in / out. If the door is destroyed or someone inside forces their way out, they're transported somewhere randomly close by, generally within a mile. This forced exiting has the same effect on the person existing as shifting described earlier; either physical exhaustion or disorientation. Um.... I figure this is also mostly a mental block on her part, she should be able to enter / exit at will, but doesn't.

5) Just as a note, warping away isn't as safe as you might think. With the weak walls between dimensions in my story, powerful explosions / earthquakes / etc and so on can be felt in the hidey hole, though lessened by having to go through the dimensional walls. Furthermore, being able to warp away isn't very effective against sneak attacks or a sniper round to the head.

6) She can't really teleport, just shift between worlds / realities and shift her or stuff to / from her hidey hole. In time she may learn to teleport, there's no reason why she shouldn't be able to do it, but for now it remains out of her reach.

7) I figure another limit to world shifting would be inaccuracy. When she shifts she appears anywhere within 20 or so miles of her target with the more time she takes to focus and concentrate the more accurate it gets. There’s no risk of telefrag though, you’ll appear someplace that isn’t immediately life threatening, though that said, there’s no saying that you’ll be comfortable where you appear, just that it won’t be life threatening.

8) She can’t sense what’s going on outside of her hidey hole unless it’s something super powerful like an explosion in which case it’ll shake her hidey hole as well. However, she can do stuff like connect the door or window in her hidey hole to one in the real world and peek out through that. Of course, connecting it like that means that any attack that could go through the door could, well, go through the door and hit her.

9) With my change requiring her to connect her hidey hole to something in the world she could, but it would require her to catch the arrows, which is pretty difficult. Furthermore, the momentum remains so there’s a risk of mucking up all her hidey hole. Same with a lake, it would be limited by the size of her hidey hole and it would ruin all her stuff.

10) Well, if they do get an arm cut off like that then it would be a result of something on either side of the connection to her hidey hole and not the connection itself. This isn’t a mental block like many of her other limits, most thinking beings have a sort of bubble around themselves that provide some resistance to the effects of shifting through worlds. That said though, you’re still pretty much ****ed if you’re stranded between worlds.

11) I’m thinking about having bags of holding as well, but the difference would be that with a bag of holding the inside is bigger than the outside while her hidey hole is a tiny little personal world.

 

[Zero Angel]

Um..... ok. Wow, a lot of responses, and a lot of what you bring up are good points. Ok, so I'll try to cover it one by one.

11) I’m thinking about having bags of holding as well, but the difference would be that with a bag of holding the inside is bigger than the outside while her hidey hole is a tiny little personal world.

1-10: cool

11: Actually, bags of holding were pocket universes too, not just bigger on the inside, but I think the big difference here is the size of the pocket dimension. Here's the wikipedia article on bags of holding, and while I'm at it, here's the wikipedia article on pocket universes.

For some reason I picture your character having some sort of magick pendant in the shape of a key that helps her focus her powers/access them at first.