That’s a really good origin, thanks for the help! I’ll have him go to the Amazon or something with Tristram (his other friend, also a superhero) and Atalya (Tristram’s girlfriend, another superhero) as part of their annual school trip. Then a bunch of weird things happen around Tristram on the same day that Klemente gets his powers (the strange things around Tristram signal his own powers waking up).

I could write a really funny scene where Klemente runs screaming through the forest at night after seeing the shaman and runs into Tristram, who also starts screaming because he is tackled to the ground and can’t see what it is in the dark.

Then Atalya shines a light on them both and sighs, seeing that they’re both screaming like little girls and trying to fight the other off with bitch-slaps. That’d put a hole in Tristram’s pride if it was brought up later. Haha.

Then maybe Klemente accidentally shifts into a jaguar and scares the crap out of Atalya and Tristram while he keeps screaming, leading to one of the teachers investigating, who finds all three running around in a panic, swearing and waving their torches around like crazy. Talk about embarrassing. Haha.

Your shapeshifter could have been given his power from a dying shaman in the depths of an endless rainforest. The hero goes on a senior trip the rainforest with his biology class. After walking off to find a spot to relieve himself , he could fall into an ancient underground temple where a Shaman shapeshifter is desperately trying to hang on until he can pass his powers onto another.

Your shapeshifter could invoke the essence of whatever biological he needed from the spiritworld and draw it into himself to initiate the change. The reason his mannerisms are effected are because he has the spirit of the form inside of him which affects his psychology. The longer he stays in one form the more chance of the spiritual essence overwhelming him therefore making it difficult to hold on to his true identity…..

I believe the exact term would be “Spiritual Gestalt” which means that upon blending with the spiritual essence a new unique entity is formed from the two parts,namely the hero + the spirit.

Gestalt-: a structure, configuration, or pattern of physical, biological, or psychological phenomena so integrated as to constitute a functional unit with properties not derivable by summation of its parts.

Since shamantic spirit work is worldwide and culturally universal, you can really pick any part of the wold to encounter the shaman.

As an avid roleplayer in my youth, I became very aware of how to balance characters. The key to making a hero work is balancing his strengths and weaknesses. As I read above… The heroes can become tiresome if there isnt any real way to defeat them. Characters can become boring if they are using their powers in a stereotypical manner.

In my story, I have a cybernetic genius,a sorceress,and a brutish warrior type under the direction of a recluse anti-hero. Even when my characters do something outstandingly powerful, the repercussions always balance it out adding to the depth of the action. The most powerful characters have the most powerful disadvantages also.

I think , done properly, any power set can be fun and interesting.

But how many villains have access to airtight containers strong enough to contain them, poison gas, mental effects, etc.? Admittedly a lot more than could physically damage said hero, but still, that takes a large chunk of potential interesting villains out of the running.

‘Related to that, however, a superhero story has most amount of suspense when it’s not a question of whether the hero’s going to survive, but whether the hero’s going to succeed in saving the bus full of innocent people. Having the hero fail to save a person or fail to defeat a hero on occasion would be quite effective, I think, to give your hero a struggle without putting their life in direct danger. This is actually a bit of a variant on the above ‘indirect attack’. To quote the Green Goblin; ‘Attack his heart!’’ ‘

I’m going to have to disagree. While success in saving innocents and/or loved ones is very high on the suspense scale, ‘will the hero live?’ is always the highest on the suspense scale. No matter what the story or even what format (movie, novel, etc.), it is a near unanimous agreement among published authors and successful screenwriters. Which I wholeheartedly doubt you are, in my subjective opinion.

While that may be true in real life, if your character varies like this, it will confuse your reader. The reader wants to know exactly what the character can do, and if the reader doesn’t, he/she will not feel anxious when you lay on the suspense because the reader doesn’t know that this is beyond your character’s level of strength. It’s much more efficient to keep it uniform (even if that’s not quite realistic) than to have it vary all over the place, because the latter would take a good paragraph of straight infodump to explain all the various different surfaces he can or can’t punch through.

Just point out why a superhero who can lift a semi truck has trouble punching the other superhero across the street with a rather clever science-based hero starting off on some rant about Newtonian physics before being cut off as part of a joke. Just have it be pointed out that lifting super-strength is a different style of strength to punching super-strength. Or have a hero point out after a lengthy battle against a bigger, bulkier foe that the greater mass is working against him when it comes to actually dealing physical damage. And then, y’know, win the fight via what TV Tropes would call a Crowning Moment of Awesome.

Or even worse, ‘But he punched through a wall in Chapter 2!’

That’s just bad writing, or failing to point out that a plaster wall breaks far easier than reinforced steel.

I was aware of that, but it was to give a feel for the fact that the powers absolutely need to be limited somehow. Powers with a silly limit like that have a better chance of selling than unbridled powers.

I find that the silly limit will just lead the audience to think ‘wait, that’s stupid’ and ask for a refund on their ticket on their way out of the cinema. Also, I find that even the most unbridled and unlimited levels of power work with decent writing. Just from experience as a reader.

Or you could just take your hero down a notch? The higher they go on the invincibility scale, the less suspense and ‘need to read the next chapter’ drive there is. Why? The reader just plain isn’t worried about the character.

There’s a very small slice of villains that could obtain a grenade launcher, or worse, a tank. If one were to use the logic you presented, all villains would start looking the same once the options (quickly) ran out, and the fight scenes would most definitely look the same. Tank controlled by Villain A .VS. character. Tank controlled by Villain B .VS. character. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Alternatively, there’s always the fact that being practically immune to physical impact doesn’t necessarily equate to being immune to everything. You can always attack an invulnerable hero indirectly; putting them in an airtight container to suffocate them, using gas to poison them, hurling them into the water in an attempt to drown them, using mental effects (I love mentalist villains, it must be said), or even the sorts of direct attacks that their ‘invulnerability’ doesn’t extend to. Someone wearing a full bulletproof jacket will still burn (or suffocate due to lack of oxygen) if you set them on fire.

I really should have pointed out that approach earlier, come to think of it. And there is always the fact that an invulnerable, bulletproof character has friends, family and other such that aren’t necessarily bulletproof themselves. What does a bulletproof heroine do when the villain has a gun held to her boyfriend’s head? (Role reversal is fun!)

Related to that, however, a superhero story has most amount of suspense when it’s not a question of whether the hero’s going to survive, but whether the hero’s going to succeed in saving the bus full of innocent people. Having the hero fail to save a person or fail to defeat a hero on occasion would be quite effective, I think, to give your hero a struggle without putting their life in direct danger. This is actually a bit of a variant on the above ‘indirect attack’. To quote the Green Goblin; ‘Attack his heart!’

Perhaps, but both Mystique and Beast Boy, the two best-known shapeshifters, can shift as I described. While Beast Boy is from Teen Titans and is subjected to much more nonsensical occurrences than this, he turns from a tweety-bird to a tyrannosaurus rex in two seconds flat. Mystique’s is less dramatic, but she as well can turn into people of somewhat varying shapes and sizes. That’s why I didn’t account for ‘conservation of mass’.

You could, however, have pointed it out as a possible limitation. I’m just trying to offer alternatives as much as anything else; even two conflicting pieces of advice can be equally valid depending on context. To be honest, almost anything can work in the right context.

That is assuming the author is using the brawn .vs. brawn approach, such as in Eragon. In my opinion, most humans aren’t used to being mentally probed, so they’d have no way to resist yet. In terms of the B.v.B theory, they haven’t developed those muscles yet, that strength. Unless they’re used to it, they’d be subject to the intruder’s whim. That means that 99.99999% of the population at minimum would be completely and totally open to telepathy. The fact that ‘mental strength’ could keep the telepath out is only a weakness as far as a few people are concerned, and he or she is free to glean plot-ruining information out of just about anyone else.

It depends entirely on how the telepathy works. I haven’t read Eragon (well, I tried to; it was terrible), but I can say that telepathy can work via numerous different methods. Perhaps information is something that has to be coaxed out of someone’s mind rather than directly read? And resistance to telepathy is an automatic human reaction to that sudden feeling of mental intrusion?

Your points on consequences, which I left out on purpose in my article for space purposes, were very good. You’ve done your research, on this part at least.

Thank you.

Ultimately, however, I find that ‘what suits the story’ is a far better goal to aim for than absolute balance. It should always be about the story and characterisation first and foremost; we don’t read Lord of the Rings while wondering if the wizardly powers of Gandalf are overpowering, after all.

‘Time Travel is what we like to call a plot device, and each usage of time travel should be given its own story.’

However, that’s not how it’s often done. That’s why I included it in this article.

‘There’s a whole lot that you can explore just by invoking paradox alone.’

There are far too many time-paradox stories, including but not limited to Back to the Future and a section of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Both examples off the top of my head are very very popular, and there are far more that are at least well-known. It’s to the point where when time travel is mentioned, there’s an assumed paradox. It’s spoofed in an episode of Futurama, where Fry goes back in time and sleeps with someone he later realizes is his grandma, and it turns out that he’s his own grandpa. A bit of a crude example, but shows such as Futurama tend to make fun of only the most popular tropes.

‘Shapeshifting as you’ve described it violates conservation of mass; …’

Perhaps, but both Mystique and Beast Boy, the two best-known shapeshifters, can shift as I described. While Beast Boy is from Teen Titans and is subjected to much more nonsensical occurrences than this, he turns from a tweety-bird to a tyrannosaurus rex in two seconds flat. Mystique’s is less dramatic, but she as well can turn into people of somewhat varying shapes and sizes. That’s why I didn’t account for ‘conservation of mass’.

‘The one and only limitation for Telepathy that you really need is that it is the mental strength of the wielder versus the mental strength of the person who he or she is trying to read.’

That is assuming the author is using the brawn .vs. brawn approach, such as in Eragon. In my opinion, most humans aren’t used to being mentally probed, so they’d have no way to resist yet. In terms of the B.v.B theory, they haven’t developed those muscles yet, that strength. Unless they’re used to it, they’d be subject to the intruder’s whim. That means that 99.99999% of the population at minimum would be completely and totally open to telepathy. The fact that ‘mental strength’ could keep the telepath out is only a weakness as far as a few people are concerned, and he or she is free to glean plot-ruining information out of just about anyone else.

…

Your points on consequences, which I left out on purpose in my article for space purposes, were very good. You’ve done your research, on this part at least.

-Super-Speed; what are the side-effects upon your metabolism? Can you eat ordinary portions of food, and how much do you need to eat? Are you resilient enough to actually survive travelling at supersonic speeds, or do you impose a limit upon yourself exactly because travelling at full speed would kill you?

-Invulnerability; your skin is so hard that you can’t even feel the bullets deflect off of it, but can you feel anything at all? Are you completely lacking in tactile senses as a result of nothing being able to penetrate your nerves of steel?

-Time Travel; one of the most uncomfortable things to deal with is a paradox, wherein history cannot have been changed because you wouldn’t know to have gone back and changed it. Also; what happens when you try and change something, but ultimately make everything worse?

-Shapeshifting; how painful *are* the transformation sequences anyway? Do you go through endless torment and agony like your nerves are on fire whenever you change, making you highly resentful or even scared of actually using your powers? Does this pain herald any dangerous side-effects?

-Telepathy; instead of being able to listen in on one person’s thoughts with effort, you hear everyone effortlessly all the time without any ability to drown it out? Useful in a non-crowded room, but immensely painful in a crowded area where you’re given constant and chronic headaches that make you unable to live an ordinary life.

-Telekinesis; is there any level of feedback. Every action produces an equal and opposite reaction; would, say, lifting a tank via telekinesis flatten you as if you were hit by the invisible cartoon anvil? Maybe it just takes a lot of basic mental effort to manage, and one of the long term effects could be permanent brain damage…

-Limits to Super-Speed are basically ‘how fast are you?’ There’s a whole dozen leagues of difference between Quicksilver (about the speed of sound) and the Flash (about the speed of light). This is one of the only truly broken powers due to its applications, but if you were to put a significant obstacle in the path of a speedster, you’d likely do a lot of damage as speed does a lot more of the damage than mass when it comes down to it. A pea-sized object hurled at relativistic speeds could severely wreck the earth, but a mile-wide rock would probably just drift into orbit harmlessly if it moved at 1 mph.

-Limits to Invulnerability are basically ‘how durable are you?’ Even Superman will get hurt if you hit him hard enough; Icon proved that one in a recent issue of Justice League. You just need someone strong enough to hit and hurt your character; shooting the hero won’t hurt, but what about ramming the hero with a car going at full speed? Or a plane? How about a tank cannon? Or a grenade launcher? If your hero is immune to bullets, just give your villains bigger bullets.

-Time Travel is what we like to call a plot device, and each usage of time travel should be given its own story. Whether it’s going on a journey into history, going on a journey into the future, or changing the past mistakes, it ought to be given a whole lot of focus and treated as its own sub-plot at the very least. There’s a whole lot that you can explore just by invoking paradox alone.

-Shapeshifting as you’ve described it violates conservation of mass; you could use that as its own restriction, with a note that the hero needs to convert a significant amount of matter (typically oxygen, or maybe stored food) to transform into a larger form, and if he or she uses too much of it – he or she is in danger of suffering brief moments of suffocation or even the effects of starvation. Similarly, shrinking oneself ought to generate significant amounts of waste energy represented as heat. If in doubt, just consult science! It doesn’t need to be perfect – this is superhero stuff after all – but it does provide a ready and useful weakness.

-The one and only limitation for Telepathy that you really need is that it is the mental strength of the wielder versus the mental strength of the person who he or she is trying to read. You also have to be sure that the person is thinking about what you want them to think about; like all psychic powers, limitations are very, very easy to think up.

-As for Telekinesis, which you mentioned afterwards, just add a weight limit, and think about how much finesse your telekinetic has. If he or she can lift a car, but doesn’t have enough finesse to pick a lock, that’s a limitation. Making superpowers work is very, very easy. It just takes a little bit of thought about it.

Six words: The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy.

“Oh no, not again…”

- Wings