Coolest Superpower for the Real World

[Nik Hasta]

Healing and related powers are great, except it's like winning the big cash prize in the lottery. As soon as word gets out, everyone is banging on your door begging for you to help them. Eventually you either have to make hard choices, choosing who lives, who stays sick, and who dies. That is a heavy burden.

This is a lot of personal responsibility you're applying to yourself.

You aren't making the call. If you choose to heal whoever you meet then that's what happens. You aren't to blame for who you don't meet.

[ShadowWarrior]

Just be careful, so you don't end up like this guy. :P

You're right. regeneration in of itself tends to have horrific side effects. Even worse if it's adaptive.

I'd take adaptive healing factor without the excessive mutations. If that's even possible.

Something in the lines of Heracles/Beserker with unlimited Godhand.

[Shai-Hulud]

Seems Teleportation, Telepathy, Telekinesis, Time Travel, and Healing are clear winners, followed closely by Luck/Probability manipulation.

Actually, Bio Manipulation is also primarily picked for healing, so most people just want to heal, it seems.

And the higher-level you are, the more your power kind of "overflows" into other powers.

For example, Exodus used his telekinesis reassemble Charles Xavier's brain and skull after he took a bullet wound to the head, resurrecting him. So higher level TK overlaps with bio-manipulation.

I don't recall from the OP what level of power we're getting here. I think it was left kind of open ended.

[The MunchKING]

But since I'm using this thread as an excuse to phrase things as single abilities that do all manner of things besides the thing they're supposed to do:

Oh, well if THAT'S what we're doing "Omnipotence". Possibly "to thread limits".

Or possibly "The power to duplicate any other power of any superhuman throughout fiction for as long as I want, and deactivate it whenever I want".

Depends on how you use it. Dump a couple of billion dollars into buying skyscrapers or other expensive items, then it could cause problems. Spend it a little at a time, maybe not so much so.

Meh, a bit of money would be within the amount they already adjust for assuming counterfeiting. The other major problem would be if you start throwing around money, the IRS (or local equivalent) is going to start asking POINTED questions about where you got all that money and OF COURSE you're going to report it on your taxes, right?

And you do NOT want to be stuck trying to figure out how to pay taxes on Infinity dollars. As happens when you stop using numbers and start using concepts, 33% of Infinity, is STILL infinity.

With a power like that you gonna mess around and end up in 1000 BC, stomp on a flower in panic and destroy the future attempting to get back.

And then the Speed Force will beat you up trying to bring you back. Probably involving turning you into some kind of intelligent Ape at some point, and also dumping you in a fascist future. It's pretty universal.

think I'd go for a movie-Domino style luck power. it's a good way to succeed in most things beyond my wildest dreams without having to worry about getting killed in a car accident the next day.

How good was Domino? I would think If I wanted luck powers they would be like Gladstone Gander, cartoonish over the top cosmic super luck powers

However, for Contessa, there's literally no downside. Her power is literally "I win". It's called the Path to Victory, and let's her know and perform the exact set of steps to achieve a given outcome. Pretty much anything you want to do, this ability will show you how and actually let your body move perfectly to perform the steps to do it.

The only problem with that is if there is literally no way you could win.

[The Chou Lives]

Munch: Mobie Dominio has honest to god probability altering to favor her in film. From surviving para Drop and well battle and so forth.

It was useful.

[Powerboy]

These kinds of threads are actually pretty interesting, because it really shows what people value.

For example, people would rather pick things in that are seemingly less effective in the real world, over things that would either already let them do the same stuff and more, or things that have vastly more utility.

If technology made it possible to sell super powers to people, you know how to conduct a market study.

Also, I can't believe I missed this, only saw it while summing up:


Just be careful, so you don't end up like this guy. :P

I also feel that, in these kinds of threads, choosing a power that has too much utility ("My power is really two dozen powers potentially or just say "Omnipotence" and be done with it") sort of bypasses the point which is what power I'd really be interested in in the real world as opposed to finding a means to have every power.

Even as it is, Time Travel back along the line of my own consciousness (which is what I chose) is time travel while sneaking in a form of healing. I have a back in jury from a car accident. Just travel back to before it happened and avoid it. It's also agelessness and potentially immortality. Just keep jumping back to earlier in life and keep reliving it or changing it. Or do a Biff and bet on events you already know the results of.

[Sol_M]

This is a lot of personal responsibility you're applying to yourself.

You aren't making the call. If you choose to heal whoever you meet then that's what happens. You aren't to blame for who you don't meet.

I can't speak for Tami, obviously, but I think she's trying to say that when more people come to you than you can reasonably heal, you kind of have to make a choice between the people you can save and people you can't.

Also, unless you want to give up your life to heal people 24x7, you'll have to make the choice to let people die so you can do other things. Which, I imagine, wouldn't be pleasant, even if it's perfectly justified.

Of course, this is only if your abilities become public, which really shouldn't be the case. Even if you shoot magic energy beams from your butt to heal people, you could keep it under wraps.

You're right. regeneration in of itself tends to have horrific side effects. Even worse if it's adaptive.

I'd take adaptive healing factor without the excessive mutations. If that's even possible.

Something in the lines of Heracles/Beserker with unlimited Godhand.

I mean, Crawler is actually largely capable of doing most things a human can. He's just big and ugly. I agree that tempering the excess mutations with less over the top adaptations is a good compromise.

And the higher-level you are, the more your power kind of "overflows" into other powers.

For example, Exodus used his telekinesis reassemble Charles Xavier's brain and skull after he took a bullet wound to the head, resurrecting him. So higher level TK overlaps with bio-manipulation.

I don't recall from the OP what level of power we're getting here. I think it was left kind of open ended.

Yep. Or Shaman Nate Grey being able to become intangible by moving his molecules around objects.

Or say, "The power to control the fundamental forces of the universe"=>perfect and infinitely precise gravity manipulation=>Class 100 telekinesis+ability to teleport via wormholes.

It depends on how far you're willing to stretch stuff.

Generally, this works better if you specify of list of abilities with known limits or you provide some kind of general limit, like "Nothing that can affect anything larger than a city block or smaller than a grain of sand".

Oh, well if THAT'S what we're doing "Omnipotence". Possibly "to thread limits".

Or possibly "The power to duplicate any other power of any superhuman throughout fiction for as long as I want, and deactivate it whenever I want".

You really should check the first post I made in this thread. :P

"Omnipotence to thread limits" is an oxymoron. Just "high end reality warping withing thread limits" will do. :P

Also, reality warping/omnipotence isn't really creative, that's not what I was going for. I was trying to take multiple completely unrelated powers and make a single power/theme that would encompass them all.

For example, want both telekinesis and teleportation? Just say "Gravity manipulation, letting you control objects remotely and creating wormholes to teleport". You get the idea.

Meh, a bit of money would be within the amount they already adjust for assuming counterfeiting. The other major problem would be if you start throwing around money, the IRS (or local equivalent) is going to start asking POINTED questions about where you got all that money and OF COURSE you're going to report it on your taxes, right?

And you do NOT want to be stuck trying to figure out how to pay taxes on Infinity dollars. As happens when you stop using numbers and start using concepts, 33% of Infinity, is STILL infinity.

I don't know where you live but some countries give really nice benefits to people who pay taxes greater than a certain threshold.

How good was Domino? I would think If I wanted luck powers they would be like Gladstone Gander, cartoonish over the top cosmic super luck powers

Why not go with an actual cartoon while you're at it.

Something like Droopy or whatever. Just passively teleport wherever you need to and have the laws of physics be your friend.

The only problem with that is if there is literally no way you could win.

Of course, but that's a limitation of every superpower.

At least with Path to Victory in the real world, you could perform any activity that requires knowledge or skill flawlessly, and also know exactly what steps you should take to achieve a desired outcome. Call it a form of omnicompetence, if you will, except better: you literally know how to win. It also gives you whatever knowledge you want. Want to speak and understand any given language? Done. Want to know the secret behind some mystery that no one knows? You got it. Want to persuade/seduce/intimidate/manipulate people in any way? No problem. Want to cure cancer? If it's possible, you can do it.

It's a no brainer that since it makes you 100x better in every way in addition to letting you know about the future, and has no chance of being detected, it's better or on par with anything else mentioned in the thread, and despite the fact that it's probably not that much better than comic book peak human in a straight, unarmed Rumble, who even cares about that in the real world? I mean, I already mentioned that I was surprised that no one picked it, but that's what makes these threads so fascinating: you get a glimpse of how other people are looking at the same thing you are but seeing something different.

Obviously, teleportation has the benefit of being able to go anywhere instantly, but that's all it does. You can still travel far and wide with Path to Victory, but you cant go anywhere, instantly. However, you can do a million other things that you can't do with teleportation.

Telepathy is an easy way to become powerful, rule the world, whatever. But Path to Victory adds a +1000 to all persuasion checks, and while it won't always work, you can do it without taking away anyone's free will. Also, fun fact, Path to Victory can be set to autopilot, making mind control much less useful against it.

Time travel is pretty good, but the ability to know and change the future as per your desires, is just as powerful, I'd argue.

Telekinesis and all that stuff is just straight up inferior in terms of utility, unless it's the "I rearrange molecules and do whatever I want" level of powerful. But that's seriously like comparing a street leveler to literal cosmics, at which point you might as well pick "reality warping" or something along those lines for all the difference it makes.

Now biokinesis, that would be a godsend for many people, and it makes sense to forego something like this in favor of that.

Just saying, this is the real world and not a Rumble. So abilities would probably be valued accordingly. Hence someone would pick the ability to heal, and not the ability to blow up planets. Not that you can't have both.

I also feel that, in these kinds of threads, choosing a power that has too much utility ("My power is really two dozen powers potentially or just say "Omnipotence" and be done with it") sort of bypasses the point which is what power I'd really be interested in in the real world as opposed to finding a means to have every power.

True, although some abilities inherently have more utility than others.

As I mentioned, it works better with specific hard limits or with a defined pool of effects.

Even as it is, Time Travel back along the line of my own consciousness (which is what I chose) is time travel while sneaking in a form of healing. I have a back in jury from a car accident. Just travel back to before it happened and avoid it. It's also agelessness and potentially immortality. Just keep jumping back to earlier in life and keep reliving it or changing it. Or do a Biff and bet on events you already know the results of.

I can actually think of two characters that have the ability to passively/reactively jump back in time to before they're damaged/killed, thought that's different from actual time travel.

But what interests me about what you're suggesting, is that this is all from your perspective. What happens from the perspective of people in the future that you just left behind to change the past?

Alternate timelines? Do they just stop existing?

[ShadowWarrior]

I mean, Crawler is actually largely capable of doing most things a human can. He's just big and ugly. I agree that tempering the excess mutations with less over the top adaptations is a good compromise.

I wonder how Doomsday got so ugly. Did Bertron spliced his DNA with the dangerous Kryptonian fauna?

At least Doomsday is the least ugliest compared to the Crawler and SCP-682 by far.

[Powerboy]

But what interests me about what you're suggesting, is that this is all from your perspective. What happens from the perspective of people in the future that you just left behind to change the past?

Alternate timelines? Do they just stop existing?

That's an interesting question and one I've considered although, from the first person point of view, it's impossible to know. Have I vanished from my original timeline and created or arrived in an alternate version? Is there another version of me that jumps into the timeline I left? Are there an infinity of realities and every version of me jumps into another reality at the same time, sort of musical realities? Or am I just rewriting the one reality? Does the future get erased and the present is whenever I am i n whatever reality I've made?

That's one of the issues I have with time travel in stories, especially episodic stories, is that how time travel works is not consistent.

[Arsenal]

When you really think about it having most superpowers would be super trash in real life.

[ShadowWarrior]

When you really think about it having most superpowers would be super trash in real life.

really? care to list.

I think having a healing factor would save anyone a ton of money.

[Arsenal]

really? care to list.

I think having a healing factor would save anyone a ton of money.

Which is why I said healing factor

1) Anything that would bring significant attention is out
- any thing that changes physical appearance
- flight
- super speed
- super strength
- teleportation


2) have no real world value:
- telekinesis
- shape shifting


3) Others are just dangerous and would be a burden:
- telepathy
- anything bio molecular related
- elemental powers
- weather changing powers

The only ones you’d want in real life are passive ones like healing factor or luck that don’t involve learning how to control it, fear of severely hurting others or have nearly no risk of being discovered.

[The Chou Lives]

really? care to list.

I think having a healing factor would save anyone a ton of money.

The issue is if not potent enough or if discovered. The rest of the world will dog pile you.

And if said power is not that big, your going to lose.

[Nik Hasta]

really? care to list.

I think having a healing factor would save anyone a ton of money.

I mean, we have free healthcare over here so it would more save you time than money.

[ShadowWarrior]

The issue is if not potent enough or if discovered. The rest of the world will dog pile you.

And if said power is not that big, your going to lose.

Not sure I understand what you mean by here?