Non-conventionally powerful Super Powers

[Silent Wayfarer]

JJBA is probably the king of crazy powers which are also insanely powerful.

Jolyne Kujo can turn things into string-like substances. This lets her make animated smart ropes out of her body, physically compress herself and her friends by turning them into strings and stuffing them into orifices, and when confronted with an enemy with complete control over gravity who can also turn things inside out by touch, she turns herself into a moebius strip which is immune to this by only having one side.

Bruno Buccarati can open zippered gaps in objects and people by touch. This means he can rip things to pieces and put them back together reversibly, which is in turn used to creatively dodge attacks, extend his reach, bypass obstacles, hide things, conduct surgery and of course, shred opponents by touch.

All of the Steel Ball Run arc's characters have weirdass powers which are nevertheless nasty.

[Longes]

JJBA is probably the king of crazy powers which are also insanely powerful.

Jolyne Kujo can turn things into string-like substances. This lets her make animated smart ropes out of her body, physically compress herself and her friends by turning them into strings and stuffing them into orifices, and when confronted with an enemy with complete control over gravity who can also turn things inside out by touch, she turns herself into a moebius strip which is immune to this by only having one side.

Bruno Buccarati can open zippered gaps in objects and people by touch. This means he can rip things to pieces and put them back together reversibly, which is in turn used to creatively dodge attacks, extend his reach, bypass obstacles, hide things, conduct surgery and of course, shred opponents by touch.

All of the Steel Ball Run arc's characters have weirdass powers which are nevertheless nasty.

Which all boils down to precision you have with your powers.

[Nachtigallerator]

Also, the "duplicate of her own brain" bit allows her to do insane calculation by means of putting a committee inside her head and get in 40 hours of studying every night.

Telekinesis is insanely lethal. It should only take a few ounces of force to give someone a fatal aneurism.

Weak telepathy or mental influence becomes impressive if you understand how to manipulate people.

Illusions are a classic example of creative powers.

Just to pile another internet pet peeve on top this: You're thinking hemorrhagic stroke, not aneurism. An brain aneurism is a preexistant anatomical structure that looks like this. While judicious application force could conceivable cause the growth of one, that would take months.

If an aneurism is beyond a certain size, it could rupture in a week, in a few months, or some time in ten years, but it is not at all lethal in combat time. And if an aneurism in the brain does rupture, the condition is an intracerebral hemorrhage of some kind - the fact that the bleed came from a really ugly artery that was prone to rupture is secondary.

There's also aneurysma dissecans, which shouldn't be called aneurism in the strict place.

[Pixels]

Oh man, so many good ideas, thanks so much! I will definitely start to read Worm, it should be interesting for more ideas.

People mentioned Skitter's creative use of bugs, but I'll put in a word for my favorite power from the series: Tattletale's! She essentially has super-powered intuition. Show her the tip of the iceberg, and she will extrapolate the whole ocean. It makes her invaluable for intelligence gathering - she maps the layout of a bank from an overhead satellite image and a couple promotional photographs of the interior. She has cracked Protectorate (the primary superhero organization in North America) passwords by skimming the online profiles of its members. She can cold read like nobody's business, which actually has combat applications because she can deliver devastating Breaking Speeches. She is directly responsible for bringing the Undersiders together, and for starting Taylor on her slide down the slippery slope.

Superheroes often boil to who can punch people in the face harder, or who has a forcefield that prevents them from being punched in the face. It's nice to have a few mental powerhouses in the mix.

[virgil]

I'd rather have the power of Contessa/Fortuna

[Pixels]

I'd rather have the power of Contessa/Fortuna :P

Well yes. She has one of those Tome capstone abilities that simply reads "you win." The problem with it is that narratively it is bland. Thank goodness her ability was nerfed to not work against the end boss, or it would have been a really boring story.

[virgil]

Thank goodness her ability was nerfed to not work against the end boss, or it would have been a really boring story.

Considering the state of the end boss, one could argue that it did work.

[Occluded Sun]

'Remote vision' that can not only see the present but the past.

Consider what it means to have an enemy who can learn every secret you've ever had, retroactively, and that nothing can be kept from. Consider what it means to have an enemy who can find anyone and anything at all.

The amount of damage that can be done by learning passwords and private banking information alone is staggering. The damage that can be done by learning nuclear weapon launch sequences...

[Fwib]

Any sort of at-will divination is potentially plot-breaker level powerful.

[TheFlatline]

It seems if you're willing to let the power be 'unleashed', you can achieve similar effects with a number of different powers.

For example, if you have the ability to quickly raise the temperature of objects you could do some of the following

Defensively
-Projectiles fired at you heat up and break apart, like a meteor entering earth's atmosphere.
-People attacking you with melee weapons are damaged by the extreme heat
Offesnsively
-You can burn people. Duh.
Miscellaneous
-You can turn any object into slag by raising the temperature beyond the melting point. This allows you to walk right into Fort Knox and/or destroy the guns of the guards.
-You can fly by heating and exhausting normal air (no need for combustion)

Let's take that further- With enough heat and maybe a little bit of flux you can weld. With a *lot* of heat you can do all kinds of crazy shit up to and including fusion. Past around 2000 degrees you start getting UV from incandescence. If you have batman cape style gliding wings/capability, you can create your own thermals/updrafts and stay in the air pretty much permanently. Boiled water creates steam which can be superheated and turned into a pretty wicket weapon/wall/etc. You could have small canisters of simple water with a pinprick opening that can withstand high pressures (say, 4000 psi for fun) where you superheat the water into steam and increase the pressure as you heat the steam, and then use the steam as a cutting instrument (inspired by a story my friend told me about a high pressure steam leak in a nuke aircraft carrier: when looking for a leak you wave a 2x4 in front of you slowly and if the end of it gets cut off you've found the leak).

[Sajber]

Well, damn. That heat-power is looking better and better! I'm definitely going to use some variation of that. I kind of like idea the "able to transport heat from one thing/area/whatever to another", but I wonder if it'd be as versatile or as powerful as "able to heat things". Or maybe it'd be MORE versatile? What do you guys think?

[Maxus]

Well, damn. That heat-power is looking better and better! I'm definitely going to use some variation of that. I kind of like idea the "able to transport heat from one thing/area/whatever to another", but I wonder if it'd be as versatile or as powerful as "able to heat things". Or maybe it'd be MORE versatile? What do you guys think?

Well, when I was tinkering with the idea, it was "passively absorbs small amounts of heat all the time, bedroom is pretty damn chilly in the morning". It's an unconscious action that takes conscious effort to stop, like breathing. And like breathing it's uncomfortable to stop for an extended period of time. And also like breathing they can take a -deep- breath that they have to let out right after.

And also means they set things on fire periodically to vent the backup. Good guy for making campfires or cooking, I suppose.

Anyways, it'd be more versatile, since they could freeze one thing to notable brittle and then set something else on fire. Or melt a hole in it.

[Kaelik]

Well, damn. That heat-power is looking better and better! I'm definitely going to use some variation of that. I kind of like idea the "able to transport heat from one thing/area/whatever to another", but I wonder if it'd be as versatile or as powerful as "able to heat things". Or maybe it'd be MORE versatile? What do you guys think?

You could freeze things by just thinking about the vacuum of space. You could also burn anything by thinking about the sun. Given sufficient ability to move heat from things, you can "create" more heat than you will ever need, and also "destroy" heat as well.

[name_here]

People have suggested some pretty fun things you could do with just "keep objects at same temperature", like carry around a bag of sun and open it when you wish to roast something. That's specifically from A Certain Scientific Railgun, and also an illustration of Frank's point. The specific character is level 1 of 5, so her power basically just extends to keeping takeout warm for a trip across town.

[TheFlatline]

People have suggested some pretty fun things you could do with just "keep objects at same temperature", like carry around a bag of sun and open it when you wish to roast something. That's specifically from A Certain Scientific Railgun, and also an illustration of Frank's point. The specific character is level 1 of 5, so her power basically just extends to keeping takeout warm for a trip across town.

Considering that a large portion of making a mechanical perpetual motion machine is energy lost as thermal radiation, even a basic person with that power could arguably set up a perpetual motion machine or a significantly more efficient engine/motor than anything we could get now.

Imagine a combustion engine who didn't lose 40% of it's energy through heat loss because you just don't let combustion become hot.

[name_here]

Well, you see, her power only works on things she's holding, more or less. Also she doesn't stop things from radiating heat just because they're not losing heat to the environment. No that doesn't make any sense, but it happens anyways. So unless you have a reasonably compact fuel source that reacts at a decent rate at temperatures of, say, 60 Celsius, no luck there.

[deaddmwalking]

Well, damn. That heat-power is looking better and better! I'm definitely going to use some variation of that. I kind of like idea the "able to transport heat from one thing/area/whatever to another", but I wonder if it'd be as versatile or as powerful as "able to heat things". Or maybe it'd be MORE versatile? What do you guys think?

You could freeze things by just thinking about the vacuum of space. You could also burn anything by thinking about the sun. Given sufficient ability to move heat from things, you can "create" more heat than you will ever need, and also "destroy" heat as well.

The temperature of a vacuum is pretty tricky. Generally speaking, you could put your arm in a vacuum and not feel cold - there are no particles to transfer kinetic energy to. But a vacuum can also be very hot - electromagnetic radiation (which we feel as heat) passes through a vacuum extremely well - which is why we feel warm on a sunny day.

In any case, if you had the ability to transfer heat both to and from objects, you could do crazy things. Like, easily create super - conducting materials.

[Kaelik]

Well, damn. That heat-power is looking better and better! I'm definitely going to use some variation of that. I kind of like idea the "able to transport heat from one thing/area/whatever to another", but I wonder if it'd be as versatile or as powerful as "able to heat things". Or maybe it'd be MORE versatile? What do you guys think?

You could freeze things by just thinking about the vacuum of space. You could also burn anything by thinking about the sun. Given sufficient ability to move heat from things, you can "create" more heat than you will ever need, and also "destroy" heat as well.

The temperature of a vacuum is pretty tricky. Generally speaking, you could put your arm in a vacuum and not feel cold - there are no particles to transfer kinetic energy to. But a vacuum can also be very hot - electromagnetic radiation (which we feel as heat) passes through a vacuum extremely well - which is why we feel warm on a sunny day.

In any case, if you had the ability to transfer heat both to and from objects, you could do crazy things. Like, easily create super - conducting materials.

Um no... Look the "temperature" of a vacuum is completely bullshit, because it it literally an average of the thermal energy of all the particles, so a true vacuum actually has a temperature of null, and an imperfect vacuum in space has a temperature of infinity billion degrees because there are like 3 particles and they are all super hot.

But it doesn't actually matter if the vacuum is hot or cold, the point is that it is a thing with one particle, so you give that one particle all the thermal energy of anything you want, and you don't care, because then even if that one particle totally fucks up some asteroid by colliding with it, you give no shits. (And by the way, that total fucking up still won't even be that bad at all.)

[OgreBattle]

'Remote vision' that can not only see the present but the past.

Moody Blues
http://jojo.wikia.com/wiki/Moody_Blues

"Rebroadcasting: Moody Blues' primary ability is to repeat the past of anything or any person at a particular location.

By using a rebroadcast, Moody Blues can imitate the form of an individual for a limited time; at one point enabling Abbacchio to pilot a plane from observing the previous motions of the pilot recorded by Moody Blues."

For example, if you have the ability to quickly raise the temperature of objects you could do some of the following

Defensively
-Projectiles fired at you heat up and break apart, like a meteor entering earth's atmosphere.

Magician's Red
http://jojo.wikia.com/wiki/Magician's_Red



I've often wondered how to pull of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure in tabletop, considering so many powers have spontaneous applications

[TiaC]

You can make powers that sound unimpressive that end up being amazing.

For example, being able to distribute force evenly across your body. Doesn't sound that impressive, right? It makes you completely immune to damage from all impacts. Superman punches you, and every particle of your body gains the same velocity. You fly backwards, but remain unharmed.

[erik]

You can make powers that sound unimpressive that end up being amazing.

For example, being able to distribute force evenly across your body. Doesn't sound that impressive, right? It makes you completely immune to damage from all impacts. Superman punches you, and every particle of your body gains the same velocity. You fly backwards, but remain unharmed.

I imagine his punch could accelerate your entire body enough to kill you with g-forces. Certainly he could spin you around fast enough to do that.

I have an entertaining book on the physics of superheroes that I read years ago and IIRC they posited that Superman's main power could be control over momentum for himself or things he touches. He's able to fly this way, move super fast, accelerate exhalations into a huge gust, lift giant things (that otherwise would just fall apart if he was just gripping it), and be impervious to impacts. I just briefly rummaged around the house and couldn't find the book, so I only have that distant recollection.

[Foxwarrior]

But g-forces kill you because your organs are accelerating at different rates, fluid inside them pooling up to one side and whatnot.

[erik]

I guess I just have a hard time visualizing it. Sure. If you can accelerate everything evenly-perfectly then I guess it just makes you go flying without feeling the sensation of moving. You're essentially a statue.

I was erroneously still thinking of just distributing force externally across the body, despite that he said 'every particle'.

Like most super powers, it's also kind of a nonsense power. Your body is constantly exerting internal forces in every direction. Stopping that is like going into stasis.

[momothefiddler]

You could freeze things by just thinking about the vacuum of space. You could also burn anything by thinking about the sun. Given sufficient ability to move heat from things, you can "create" more heat than you will ever need, and also "destroy" heat as well.

The temperature of a vacuum is pretty tricky. Generally speaking, you could put your arm in a vacuum and not feel cold - there are no particles to transfer kinetic energy to. But a vacuum can also be very hot - electromagnetic radiation (which we feel as heat) passes through a vacuum extremely well - which is why we feel warm on a sunny day.

In any case, if you had the ability to transfer heat both to and from objects, you could do crazy things. Like, easily create super - conducting materials.

Um no... Look the "temperature" of a vacuum is completely bullshit, because it it literally an average of the thermal energy of all the particles, so a true vacuum actually has a temperature of null, and an imperfect vacuum in space has a temperature of infinity billion degrees because there are like 3 particles and they are all super hot.

But it doesn't actually matter if the vacuum is hot or cold, the point is that it is a thing with one particle, so you give that one particle all the thermal energy of anything you want, and you don't care, because then even if that one particle totally fucks up some asteroid by colliding with it, you give no shits. (And by the way, that total fucking up still won't even be that bad at all.)

Once you put the thermal energy into a single particle, it's just momentum, since the average and measure are identical with a single item.

How much energy can you put into a single particle? Can you accelerate a proton to 99.99% of the speed of light just by cooling a microliter of water by a fraction of a degree? Can you turn your heat control into momentum control the same way Magneto turned his magnetic control into telekinesis - by using hax levels of precision to take thermal energy out of an object and channel it into each of that object's constituent particles in a very carefully measured manner, or vice versa? Does this allow you to do what TiaC suggested, with the additional option of adding up all the "thermal energy" of each particle in your attacker's fist and transferring it to their brain?

[Laertes]

Could you even target a single proton or molecule? Human being physically can't perceive single protons - they're too small. We can detect their passage but that's an after-the-fact thing. On the other hand, if we can target stuff we can't see, then there's all sorts of stupid stuff you can do, limited only by your GM's patience for particle physics. Google "Maxwell's Demon" for an example of how to use it to make infinite free energy.