So before I get to my issue I'll explain the bare bones you need to know about RWBY-verse. Long Ago (like centuries before canon starts) there was magic, and every person had their own unique magic. That magic ranged from controlling wind currents to any number of things you'd need magic to control. At a certain point, a cataclysmic event happened that pissed off the two gods, so they wiped out mankind and what was left was started over. In Modern times we have Semblances, it's a lesser form of magic and but power wise nowhere near as strong as legit magic. If you're familiar with anime, Semblances are a lot like the Quirks from My Hero Academia Power Scaling in RWBY is a bit weird, it's not like DBZ where we have flat numbers, but one thing is certain. Magic, actual magic is like comparing a human to a small animal. Semblances CAN be powerful some straight up warp the flow and speed of time, but it's not on the level of ease that magic can. I have a character who's from the time period where Magic was still a thing, he just barely misses the genocide event before he time travels. His magic allows him to absorb light itself (he kind of 'eats' it (not literally) and converts it into raw power) and control it a good deal. he can also use dust (basically magical crystals) to augment his light for different effects. Unlike a semblance, which usually has a drawback (typically some form of physical exhaustion) Magic has next to no limit other than the user's personality and drive to improve. What are some methods I can use to keep him from growing too powerful. It's already canon that he's squared off against other magical beings in his time and managed to eek out a draw.
Yeah, he's a protagonist, though his DND Alignment (if you're familiar with those) is somewhere between Chaotic and Neutral Good He's willing to cross lines (the dude built a solar powered satellite laser to power himself up with as a panic button) and can be pretty brutal when motivated to do so, but he's not exactly what you'd call evil. He has an antagonist but I'm more talking about like, keeping his power scaling in check with the rest of the series. Magic is insane, but in his current state he's not at full power, maybe like 50% of his full capacity.
Hm, I don't know what your plot is. Depending on how important his powers are to the plot of the story, there are different ways to solve this. First of all it's hard to appreciate a character that's just strong. If we don't see them struggle, they almost seem like a god. Anyway I have a few suggestions: 1. Make him one of the weakest magic users of his time. -> When magic is already way more powerful than Semblance, then it's not really necessary to send a powerful magician. A weak one should still be way stronger. So make it so he might have all those abilities you describe but he is not able to use them adequately. He fails at important times but it motivates him to work in order to become stronger. He could even lose to a Semblance which is absolutely disgraceful for every magic user. 2. Make the Semblances stronger. -> Having that big of a power indifference turns your characters to a godlike being. So why not give the Semblances anew hidden ability that he doesn't know about. I doesn't even have to be magical. It could be an invention that they created with the knowledge they gathered over the decades. Show that magic isn't the strongest thing in the world. 3. Give his magic a weakness. -> I forgot the story's name but there was a character that was able to use blood magic. He was able to create powerful portals but first of all he had to kill someone for his magic to work. Secondly the blood rush made him go absolutely insane. Maybe that's something to consider. 4. Make his magic strong but his character weak. -> What can power really do if the character doesn't suit it? Maybe he's a magic user to despises magic, so he just refuses to use it. Maybe he's so confident in his other abilities (ones he doesn't excel at) that he is too arrogant to use magic. Honestly there are a lot of options. You just have to be willing to make this character flawed and weak. It doesn't mean he has to stay this way but it means he has to work to become strong enough to win. Your character at the start of your story should not be able to win against the antagonist force. They must learn. So you must be willing to make them weak.
To be honest there really isn't a right or wrong way to go about this. It's just more about how you apply the rules and logic of your world without breaking them. Anything could logically end up in making him weaker in the future setting. You basically make the rules. But here are some if you are stuck and need inspiration: 1. He has to draw magic power from the world which has thinned as magic practitioners have faded out. This means he's only powerful if certain conditions are met. Either he has to be in an area of high natural magic density or since he's a sunlight user he's useless fuck at night. Or he could be subpar as he can use some moonlight as a mediocre form of light. 2. Time travel is taxing on the body and he has lost a lot of his mana pool or damaged it in some capacity which means it doesn't work properly. 3. Complexity tends to increase as human society changes. So you can just say that semblences are more efficient in their magic usage and they can be more complicated in application. Or people are just more inventive in applying their little bit of magic power that they still end up a threat. I.e. magic bullets is a fusion of both which can threaten the mc's life. 4. Mc has too much power which derails any plans he sets out to do. Like he will need to do delicate spells but all he can do is hulk smash. That's all I got for the top of head.
In my WIP I have blood magic but it has to be the casters own blood used. That limits the magic quite nicely, if I do say so myself. As for limitations, the fact that there is one of him and a much larger population of sembalance users should keep him in line. Yes he could nuke the unholy hell out of a bunch of them but he knows in the end he could never survive all of them going against him. Kind of like a nuclear bomb vs. 10,000 cruise missles.
Hm, then let me ask differently. What is his weakness? What makes him vulnerable? I don't know if it's me but if I need 10.000 people to defeat one guy, then he's basically a god by my standards. I don't think there's balance in this. So he's basically strong and a normal, good person? Then why should I root for him? He's not gonna fail anyway. He's strong and has all other assets to win against all antagonistic forces.
Think of it in a simpler fashion. Orks from WH40K, are incredibly dangerous and invasive species in the galaxy. Basically a few factors keep them in check from completely dominating everything. They are not the brightest bunch of gits, and they tend to like beating the hell out of each other just as much as anyone else they encounter. So long as there are some balancing mechanisms in place that can keep things in check from completely nerfing every one else, then things can still be insanely wild and over the top. "Purple is the stealthy color... Cause have ya eva seen a purple Ork?"
Well, 10,000 cruise missiles vs a nuke were just an illustration (probably a bad one). Maybe it takes 3-4 quite powerful semblance users vs one "godlike" magic-user. As far as a counter, if he is in any way "good" I would say he doesn't need one unless it is the intent to have him move toward full neutral or evil at some point further in the story. No one questions why "good" wizards have power because they don't go around incinerating people for amusement. Even if he is chaotic good I don't think anyone would mind. Marvel and DC comics have been selling this story for decades. Usually, you have to make the antagonist nearly as powerful so it seems a semi-fair fight, equip them with a technology that disables the magic, or introduce a "kryptonite". Part of the story is overcoming the disadvantage so they can still win. But everyone reading a comic book or watching one of the movies knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that the good guy wins. It is one of the biggest reasons I don't care for comic book movies, but judging by the box office numbers, I'm in the minority.
Couldn't that result in a weakness during periods of darkness or is he able to store it? Or is that too obvious? This is what I would do: maybe make it to where he can absorb light, but the bad guys learn a way to direct enormous amounts of light at him, so much if he even tries to absorb it, he will die. Or maybe he has no problem absorbing and using sun (white) light, but the bad guys find a way to bombard him with an array of different colored flashing lights that just confuses and disorients him, becoming powerless. You could even have the scene where he visits a guru that gives him the old "your problem is you never learned to respect and focus on the light around you. Even white light is multicolored, you just never noticed it. Only by truly focusing can you harness the power of the light around you blah blah blah".
His main struggle isn't one of power and physical growth, he's got that in spades. But using his power can break him. going with DBZ example again, using his light magic gives him immense power, but at a cost. He can use the energy to empower himself, but at a cost, if his physical body can't keep up he starts breaking down. Towards the end of Volume 1, he can do a sort of 'running defense' and keep up with one of the instructors, but using his power is basically like the Kao Ken technique. The more he 'forces' it, the more it breaks up his body. So it's not like he can go straight from a basic Kao Ken to SSJGod. Not without fucking up his body in the process. His struggle is much more personal, he's a natural born stoic trying to convert into a non stoic. He's also very logic oriented and trying to become more spontaneous and (in a positive way) emotionally motivated. Other than his power potentially being self destructive if he forces his body to do stupid things beyond his abilities I hadn't thought of ways to balance him. Against other students he's pretty good, but against a fully trained hunter, it takes a lot out of him to even do a running defense. I'm really liking some of the suggestions in the thread. Overloading him with light sources and lights of different colors (possibly even different types, like ultraviolet lights) sounds particularly interesting one.
To pick a minor nit: if the two gods wiped out mankind, there wouldn't be anyone left. If there's anyone left, they didn't wipe out mankind. Now ... as to the question of controlling the MC's power: Aren't the two gods still alive (or whatever best describes the existence of gods)? If they have the power to [almost] wipe out mankind over abuses of magickal power, surely they can control one dude who previously escaped their wrath.
That detail in the lore is a tad fuzzy, I think that they incited a cataclysmic event that nearly wiped out humanity and much of the world was 'broken' (Half of the moon is literally in shatters) and the canon story is about what's left, that's why the world is called Remnant. Humanity basically had to 'start over' I was thinking of possibly involving them at some point, but it takes a LOT to piss off these two gods. They are pretty chill with humanity, it took a mortal man trying (and succeeding) to make his wife immortal to piss them off. While MC is powerful (compared to other students) and frequently challenges people far stronger than himself, he's not an idiot. You have to do something pretty drastic to wind up pissing these gods off. There's actually a stupid amount of 'vagueness' in general when it comes to RWBY. We know time passes between episodes, but not how many days/weeks. We know semblances have some kind of drawback, but they're rarely shown.
I would consider giving him limitations. Not necessarily the magic but give him some mental or emotional barriers that might make it harder to use sometimes. The reason most magic systems have limitation is not just to make them magic more interesting, but to keep the users from becoming too powerful. Maybe he can't control his power when he's distracted. It's really hard to think for other people because no one knows their world better than they do, so I always think, with these kinds of questions, that if you can't think of anything I'm not sure how others can. I hope this was helpful in some way.
Or like Tom Bombadil from Lord of the Rings...he was powerful enough to put on the One Ring and not be effected by it, command Old Man Willow and banish Barrow Wrights with a song.....but he had so little interest in the world around him other than his home in the woods that the Council of Elrond didn't even bother asking him to come. Just because a character has tremendous power does not mean that they have to have an urge to use it. Maybe your godlike wizard can prefer to grow herbs and write books, their tremendous power insulating them from being forced to participate in current affairs because there is no one actually capable of forcing them. It is a tad trope-ish but you can use it as a device to make a plot where they have to be involved. Maybe a half-elf child runs up to their door with the king's guard in hot pursuit because mixed-blood are considered abominations and killed on sight. Now he has to either defy the king's orders and protect the child or hand the child over.
I'm confused. From this, I thought your MC was the only living person who has the "old" magic. That should (to my logic) make him more powerful than any of the semblances -- and he's so powerful that you are concerned about how to limit his powers. And then you hit me with: Does ... not ... compute.
He challenges them to test his current strength to see how far he's 'fallen' from his potential might. Even in his original time he did this, challenging stronger mages to prove his worth to his mentor. He doesn't always win (it's usually either a stalemate or a loss) and when he does it's more of an endurance thing rather than power. Semblances can occasionally be 'as strong' as magic (one semblance one of the instructors have is straight up time mage) but conventionally magic was stronger, the time travel weakened him severely, he suffered amnesia for a full year as a result of it. I don't really have a metric to show how strong real magic is against a semblance because there's so few examples of it in canon. The only examples of the old magic we have in canon are the four maidens (Spring summer fall and winter) and he challenges them and can't 'beat' them. My wish is to keep him in balance against Semblance users too, hence the question.
Yes and no. If we talk about this, we need to talk about expectations in different genres. Superhero comics indeed have this trope. But your argument only applies to superhero comics. If I pick up a comic like this, this is my expectation. Most other genres do not share this expectation. Therefore we need to be careful about including this trope in other works. It‘s not impossible or wrong to do so but it needs to be done very carefully because it can destroy a story. Kinda like romance novels (if marketed as such) need to end with the couple getting together. Does that mean this always has to be the case even in a fantasy novel or in a horror story? No because that is not expected in either of those cases. In fact it makes the story more predictable in most cases. So you should be careful about these tropes outside of their respected genres. You can use them but make sure you make it interesting.
Everything that you wrote is cool, but two nuances remain. 1) Indicators of transmission through themselves. 2) Indicators of retention in oneself. Thus, you can imagine the abilities of this guy as a balloon. You described the gas cylinder. But the tube and the ball itself remained. 1) This determines how much it can absorb and use. if the ability is used too often with each time and the amount of absorbed and energy that the character can use as the path of absorption would be damage from too frequent use. (Trying to inflate the balloon through a leaky hose.) 2) Determines how much energy the character can absorb and how long he can keep in himself. The character has both a limit of possibilities and a limit in time during which he can use his abilities. (An example is the same balloon. If you inflate too much it will burst. If you do not block the air outlet, then a significant part will come out.) So the character will have to constantly be in a tense state in order to have maximum strength at all times, as we understand it is impossible. With these two character traits, he won't be too strong and he will have to always consider his own weaknesses.
You can have this trope in nearly any genre. Take Mel Gibson's The Patriot for example...A reluctant hero who when provoked wins nearly every fight by skill at arms or outsmarts his enemy finally meets the antagonist in a knuckle-dragging fight to give it the appearance of a fair fight but ultimately sticks a bayonet through the antagonist when it looks like he's beaten. You know for the entire movie he is going to win but you still root for him. He's not gonna fail. He's strong and has all other assets to win against all antagonistic forces. And that is an example based (very very loosely) on real life, no magic involved. I think it can be done in most genres...sometimes I think a trope is sometimes more like a skeleton on which you hang the flesh and organs of your story. Badly done, you see the bones and a protruding kidney and scream "TROPE!" but when done with the touch of a plastic surgeon, most casual readers won't even notice and the writers who read it will probably be impressed that you managed to disguise it so well.
I mentioned in OP that the story is for RWBY, which is an anime (technically) the universe I'm writing the fic in is not my own so I can't really bend the rules too much. I'm already bending rules by having time travel involved, I do plan to drop off into AU territory but until that point I'm trying to keep things close to canon as possible. Those both sound like good options. One of the rules he has is that he can only absorb so much within an amount of time. and how much he can retain depends on the amount he's absorbing at once. In small regular amounts (say, soaking up sunlight like a normal person) he can absorb and store a generous amount and use that for small power boosts. If he absorbs an enormous amount (say he fires his solar powered satellite laser at himself and absorbs the light from that) he can fight like a god or close to it, but only for a short while (like a couple minutes) before his body breaks down.
I'm sure "RWBY" means something to some people. You need to remember that not everyone here is into the same things you are into. When asking a specific question to a general audience, it would be helpful to provide some background up front rather than relying on "insider baseball" acronyms to convey the parameters. Obviously, I have no idea what this RWBY universe is all about, so I can't be of any assistance.
That may be true, but other people in the thread were perfectly able to offer ideas with or without canon knowledge. I explained the required information about the character in a way that would work for an original fiction that followed the same basic principals as RWBY. As I've said before, there's a lot of...Vagueness in RWBY lore, that cataclysmic event I mentioned isn't elaborated on at all until season seven. (and what we do get isn't related to my MC's powers at all other than being from the time period where magic was there) There's lots of 'unexplained' things in RWBY (One character's weapon is a freakin handbag that turns into a full sized minigun, have fun with the physics of that) either unintentional or by design. The actual relevant information was explained well enough that I think even uninitiated readers could (and have) help with. @Whitecrow 's suggestion in particular was quite helpful. Until they pictured it like that I hadn't thought of a way to put a hard limit on my guy's power level. Though a balloon might not be the right wording, (a pressurized gas tank with several release valves might be better) it makes more sense than anything I might have tried to work out on my own. That's like, I don't know a lot about My Hero Academia, but I know the basics of how their 'Quirks' work enough to offer ideas. General superpower logic, magic or otherwise would serve just as well in RWBY as it would in X Men (which is honestly kinda similar)
