There's a part of me that enjoys knowing the upper levels of a character's ability and how that might compare to another, but I think it needs to be meaningful and reliable (not 100% of the time) assessment. Not just flavor text or a way for an author to just make a character look cool. I think if it's done right, it can illustrate what cleverness can do or how limiting assessments can be. When done wrong, the author gives up keeping track, like in dragon ball, or makes a fight a guaranteed outcome.
I also think it's cool if an author has the hard numbers in their head and uses that to inform a fight on the page.
On the other hand, I also like power levels to be somewhat vague. I don't like vancian style magic because there's a set number of charges in certain abilities. I get why that works in a game for the sake of balance, but it felt weird watching How to Train Your Dragon and having dragon abilities so codified that you could count how many times it could use its breath weapon. I think I'd have been more okay if numbers like that were an average instead.
Does that make sense? What about you? Where do you stand on the transparency of power levels and rankings?
I like it when it's naturally incorporated into the story instead of being a literal "power scale", like the bounties in One Piece.
In DBZ krillin has been shown to have a tiny power level but he has creatively used his power to hurt even impossibly powerful opponents. No one seems to care but it is cool that it works like that.
I think though, power levels are kinda weird. Because in real life everyone kinda has like 1d4 hp. So kinda anything can kill you. The real factors are ease of use and speed and stuff like that. Like, no need to make magic super swords because regular swords kills people just fine you know.
The enemies in late DBZ had to be insane regenerators to counter Krillin's Destructo Disk.
He could clip Vegeta's ape form and actually cut a piece off of Frieza. And Frieza was so impressed with the move, he stole it to use against Goku.
It is kinda funny. Like, I realize it would kill the vibe but just having krillin wreck a big bad guy by being an ice cold motherfucker would be awsome. Just like some god wrecks the sayans and krillin just cuts the god in half because they were too cocky to dodge.
It might be funny, but I'd love a story focused on Krillin. He's the strongest human by far. At almost every major fight, he showed up knowing full well he'd probably die. He has died several times and kept coming back for more.
He doesn't have the Saiyan gene (yikes) that makes him like fighting. He's been fighting enemies above his weight class since puberty. He invented a technique that could cut Frieza in half if it connected. He showed up to fight Frieza three times and lived two of those times.
He managed to act with compassion for someone like Android 18 (I'm choosing to not see it as a transactional thing that resulted in him marrying her.)
Honestly, Krillin deserves a chance to deal the final blow for once.
I'm not going to talk about Super making him into a cop though.
In that instance, and only that instance, am I okay with him getting the tar beaten out of him.
Imagine they did a movie where he scooped the dragon balls and wished for just five S-cells. Just little tiny hairs standing straight up in his head.
In one of the mad max movies he has a limited number of shotgun shells and part of the tension is that you know exactly how many he has left snd how he is runnimg out. So having a limited number of spell charges can also improve a story.
As for the power level stuff i thin diverse avilities were strategy is involved are mor fun. Lets say a》b》c》a Ane somtimes becase of a clever trick it can be reversed. It also takes enfasis away from quantification.
That's a good point. I think that could be achieved in a fantasy story by focusing on a mage who has a general idea of how many spells they can use before passing out. Maybe they know they'll be in trouble at 6, pass out at 7, and never dared to attempt 8.
I think I just have issue with the explicit quantification. I'd wonder why their magic was so separated from them and their body that they couldn't have a general idea of how much of an ability they have left.
I remebered the story rusalka by c. J. Cherryh. Where tension is generated because majic in unpredictable and mages have to take car of the unintended councequeses of their random tougths and desiers.
Yhea i agree that introducing explicit levels takes away from immersion. It makes it look like a videogame.
If it's in manga/anime I am way more accepting. I think Food Wars was a hilarious application of this because it took itself seriously. Haven't really seen power rankings in other mediums other than a throwaway line like "that's a class X threat" which has no other reference.
X-men was probably an early applier of this, but it only comes into play with the higher tier mutants.
Well, in real life we can’t tell we are running out of energy or stamina except for the feelings of exhaustion and symptoms like shakiness, irritability. I picture mages or wizards having the feeling of exhaustion, they start suffering actual physical harm instead of looking up into the sky and seeing their “mana stat” drop. But that can be hard to describe in fiction.
I'm not a big fan, I think they're mostly unnecessary. I really like in Jojo, how each stand has a standard array of stats that they're ranked on (speed, power, range, durability and adaptability), but its not really that important. What's more important is how you use your ability and what ability your opponent has. No matter what your power is, there's someone else out there with the perfect counter to it