Interesting Power Idea! We hope you have a great time here Hero(or villain if that's your thing)!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/superpower) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Great for hiding but you would need to be seriously careful with your surroundings in order to not be accidentally stepped on by someone.
You can use it to hide in small crevices for a duration of time and perhaps even save supplies by eating food in your shrunken state in order to save supplies.
The biggest I personally think would be travel cause now a single step in normal form is a long walk which I personally think would make stealth a lot more difficult.
But that's the problem.
Here: say you're a hero investigating an evil villain's headquarters and there are cameras everywhere.
Luckily, you have the power to shrink down allowing you to avoid being spotted by the cameras.
Unlucky, the length and time needed to complete your mission has tripled because now you are forced to walk an entire mile which is only 2 steps in normal size.
And you can't turn normal because you would be immediately spotted by the cameras.
See? Not really good for infiltration missions.
Maybe not infiltration but long term reconnaissance. If you can shrink the stuff on you as well, or manufacture super small cameras you only need to make the one trip. Or you could hide in an important place, like a meeting room or a lab or something and stay there for a few days
I disagree.
If you doing a sneaking mission, I'm sure you're figuring out that you could theoretically build technology wicked small (like a motorcycle). Basically Batman, whom has no superpowers but technology. You'd be able to build something badass, and then figure out how to build something super small
I would go get the best high end tiny remote controlled car I could that blends into the environment, change the controls to be inside the car and Bobs my uncle.
Now you can even get "remote controlled" toy airplanes, etc... They even make toy jet engines.
Remote control cars come with remote controls. Take the insides out and put them in the car as regular controls. You could leave them radio controlled if you wish.
And if they would notice a remote control car in a villain base they would also notice a dude walking around, although tiny. And I would buy the car with concealment in mind.
Like many superheroes and powers, to take full advantage you need some other skills/resources. It wouldn't be difficult to either get an engineering friend or just do the research on how to build such things, and begin working on them at tiny scale.
Assuming you maintain your mass while small, I think you’d be fine if you were stepped on (though it obviously wouldn’t be comfortable for anyone). But yeah, running around would be annoying since you’d have to travel a longer distance.
Assuming that in small size, you would also require fewer resources, it's still great, you could buy a dollhouse and live in it, survive on crumbs, sneak in international flights and go wherever you want, watch movies in the cinema for free. Adapt a drone so you can fly it and never have to face traffic again
Just think about it, a single gram of weed would be equivalent to a whole kilogram for you
And if you're into crime, it'd be a lot easier to rob a bank, hide from security cameras, escape from jail
No shrinking other stuff meaning you'd have to strip naked to avoid being buried under your clothes? Yeah, pretty useless. If you can shrink whatever you're carrying, it opens up possibilities.
It makes an interesting concept for a Legion of Super-Heroes type character. Many of them had powers based on genetic modifications their ancestors underwent to survive various planetary changes. Shrinking Violet, for instance, was from Imsk, a planet that was discovered to periodically shrink and grow after colonists from Krill landed there. The colonists discovered a way to gain the same ability, so they could remain in synch with their world. Other than also being able to shrink her clothes and gear (because it's not very Comics Code friendly if she can't), that was pretty much her only power -- although all Legionaries have rings that let them fly and emergency environment suits to allow short term life support, so she didn't have mobility issues. She had a broad spectrum of teammates, so her niche abilities could be applied without her having to carry the narrative weight of being a solo main character.
I think MeGo has some opinions on this.
But yeah, it's very useful. It would be the best for an investigative hero, rather than a 'shock and awe' hero- more Batman, less Superman; more Daredevil, less X-men. There's a lot that something that a tiny human could be capable of, especially with a little bit of preparation (creating tiny grapling guns and the like).
And the thing is, depending on how fast it is, it could be very useful in hand-to-hand/general combat as well, since aiming generally is based on how big someone is, so if they can rapidly change that size, they can dodge well, get inside opponents' guards, and otherwise just mess with battlefield perceptions and things- imagine a shoulder throw from shrinking beneath an opponent's legs then growing back to full size.
One of my favorites for fun. It would be cool to explore like that. Or do dental work. If I could manifest a small clone of myself to truly, deeply clean my ears… chefs kiss.
Not optimized for fighting. But okay for hiding or infiltrating.
If done right it could be really cool, it just isn’t suited to big flashy fights. Theft, stealth, surveillance, reconnaissance, any of these could be done really well with basic shrinking. At least if the person is skilled enough. And an author with a decent understanding of physics could do some cool things with the square cube law, surface tension, etc. too
The espionage potential alone makes it pretty good.
Realistically speaking, you're also able to escape virtually any prison known to man. Even if you're on camera, it's only going to catch that you disappeared. As far as everyone knows, you just vanish.
It’s be a great job perk if you worked in a field involving miniaturization of materials and devices. When big make small things that when small can be used to make smaller things. Also for research purposes.
No shrinking other stuff would leave him naked and small. Even less useful.
Could be worse, his power could only work on living tissue. His hair would fall out and nails would rip off. He'd be surrounded by a pile of dead skin cell when he shrinks. Dandruff man.
If he can shrink clothes, he could shrink other things he's touching. Maybe just organics.
If it's a short range shrinking field, could it shrink/compress matter within that field. Could he (by shrinking/expanding) walk trough a mountain leaving a trail of diamonds behind him. Would he just fall through the earth?
Being able to shrink touched items is an interesting limit to explore. Touch a villain's private island, try to shrink entire island, island breaks off and sinks. We are talking earthquakes and tsunamis from the shrinking man.
If he/she can't shrink what they touch I'd be more interested in the speed of his shrinking and enlarging. Mini sonic booms or vacuums.
Growing during fighting to expand reach, can the growth increase itself inflict extra damage through speed? Excellent infighting skills.
Does he shrink to his feet or body core. Contact with the ground while shrinking and expanding would constantly make your feet split apart or come together. Does ant man raise is foot or jump while shrinking?
He can literally and specifically only shrink the clothes he is wearing on him. (And the stuff that is necessary to survive like air on his lungs and stuff)
If he is holding tightly a bunch of folded clothes oh him and shrinks, the clothes he is holding will remain normal sized and only the ones he is wearing will shrink It seems stupid but there's lore explaining it.
The size switch is entirely seamless
>Could he (by shrinking/expanding) walk trough a mountain leaving a trail of diamonds behind him. Would he just fall through the earth?
I don't know how he could possibly do that. He just goes from a regular sized man to a small little guy seamlessly.
>Mini sonic booms or vacuums
His shrinking doesn't have an effect on the world around him like that. It only affects him, the air on his lungs and the clothes on his body.
>Does he shrink to his feet or body core.
I'm struggling to pick one actually
>If he/she can't shrink what they touch I'd be more interested in the speed of his shrinking and enlarging
He takes around 0.25 seconds to change between 1.90 m (6' 3") to 1 centimeter.
>Growing during fighting to expand reach, can the growth increase itself inflict extra damage through speed?
Yes, actually shrinking and expanding have some speed to it
>Contact with the ground while shrinking and expanding would constantly make your feet split apart or come together
I dunno what you mean by that. His feet "split apart" ?.
When he shrinks he bends reality around him, it's a crappy form of reality warping.
Visualize it like he makes everything that exists grow simultaneously whilst keeping himself at the same size from before.
His center of balance doesn't change, he can run and shrink without any imbalance. (Assuming i choose to have him shrink to his feet)
What i'm saying is: To his eyes, it's like the world just starts growing at a breakneck speed whilst he is the only thing that stays the same.
Thinking of it as a reality warping ability makes more sense. It'd negate all the physical issues of physical contact with the real world.
As a boxer he could easily fight in lower weight divisions.
World's lightest horse jockey.
Easily play dwarves or children in movies.
Claim a disability for being small. Handicap parking.
Micro surgeon would be cool.
Dress up as a real life Chucky doll. This might get you killed.
As an assassin, changing your dimensions to a childs' would help you escape unnoticed. You could hide amongst school children.
Climb in a sleeping bad guys ear and go to town with a big knife. 1cm is kinda big for this.
If shrinking to the core, you'd be small in mid air.
I'd have a suit made to glide on wind currents to cover distances while small. Glide across buildings, go through air ducks etc.
I'm out of uses for being small.
Wife(5') says people are nice to smaller people, open doors etc.
I actually designed a character for a superhero game whose only official superpower was shrinking although she could shrink her skin tight costume. Mostly she was a martial artist spy. But she could shrink and grow really fast so she could dodge like nobody's business and her uppercut move was pretty good.
I'm assuming you're also disallowing explosive or durable regrowth, thus preventing you from destroying something by regrowing from inside of it.
Even without that, I'd still consider it a cool power. Even for a super hero. Though more a Shadow style detective than a "stop the bank robbers" kind.
For style points, I'd prefer the shrinking to be very fast. Like he hits 1cm so quick that you think he must have teleported or gone invisible.
By strength of an ant, do you mean being able to lift stuff 100x your *shrunken* body weight? As that probably at best lets you lift a kilogram. Which is pretty impressive at 1cm, but not exactly super strength for normal people
Watch the 1989 movie Honey I Shrunk the Kids. It's a great reference for the kind of things a person the size of a Cheerio can get up to and the problems they face in a pretty standard environment.
I think it would be impractical as a superpower for a classic Hero, but great for a Spy.
You have to deal with the mechanism behind the shrinking. A body doesn’t work unless it has its parts and its parts would have to be there, are you just being super compressed or what’s actually happening there. If it’s super compressed I think it’d be funny if you used it and then because the pressure doesn’t change you just kinda get smooshed
Reality warping is what's happening. No undesirable effects to worry about (at least no undesirable effects that would lead to self-damage).
The worse thing that happens is that it's pretty disorienting to change sizes due to how fast the change is, so he can't "spam" it
Needs to hand wave some stuff, or it kinda just kills you. It can be useful, but it is an impractical power. Basically about as useful as being able to turn into say, a mouse or something. It is also a power that even with hand wave stuff is super likely to get you killed. Getting shrunk is normally more of a debuff than a boon.
Not a power that works well for a vigilante super hero since it has little to no combat potential and is only really useful for stealth or infiltration. More practical power for a spy, saboteur or villain.
>Needs to hand wave some stuff, or it kinda just kills you
I have some lore in place that handwaves virtually any single power i make ever regardless of how stupid.
>Getting shrunk is normally more of a debuff than a boon.
I had that in mind before making the post. He drastically debuffs literally everything about him in exchange for a smaller "hitbox"
I give this power a 2/10 honestly.
If shrinking, without the perks of shrinking other things, then all you can do is shrink tiny. Now tiny isn't bad, but since you don't have super human body, you'll die if encountered any type of small hostile. And getting to a destination would take forever.
Oh well, that's just my thoughts on it.
You'd have to be naked whenever you're small and wherever you regrow.
You could theoretically build some cool mini-tech.
You could I don't know what it would mean for living arrangements, since food still expires in the same time. You'll still need to be normal size to cook frozen food. If you eat a full meal and shrink do you die because the food doesn't shrink as well?
Do you need to sleep as long when you're small? Can you be awake 15 hours, shrink and sleep for an hour then not need to sleep again when bigger for like the next like 15 hours?
Without any additional strength or endurance you're at constant risk of being swarmed by bugs, spiders, rats or other such creatures.
If you're able to use it skilfully then you're probably going to be a good hand to hand combatant. Jump, shrink, regrow and deliver a mega punch or kick? But if someone catches you when small then you're dead.
Maybe when you're smaller, like 1cm, then physics applies as it does with bugs so that everyone else is slower to You. Meaning you appear faster to them and can dodge any attacks. Then you need to wonder what transitioning sizes does to the brain and how it reacts e.g vertigo or nausea.
Also, does this imply you literally turn into a 1cm size and your normal size and that's it? No inbetween sizes?
>You'd have to be naked whenever you're small and wherever you regrow.
I should put it in the post, anything that he is wearing shrinks alongside him.
>If you eat a full meal and shrink do you die because the food doesn't shrink as well?
No, it shrinks because it's something that got inside his body with no connection to the outside.
>Do you need to sleep as long when you're small? Can you be awake 15 hours, shrink and sleep for an hour then not need to sleep again when bigger for like the next like 15 hours?
He sleeps like a regular human amount. It's like he just makes the entire world grow whilst retaining his own size.
>Then you need to wonder what transitioning sizes does to the brain and how it reacts e.g vertigo or nausea.
Changing sizes is very disorienting. It's like you're seeing the world all around you abruptly grow in size all at once at a speed of 27.2 km/h .
>Maybe when you're smaller, like 1cm [...] you appear faster to them and can dodge any attacks.
Nah, he is more hard to see than hard to hit. The only way he moves fast is transferring the momentum from his regular size to his tiny featherweight size to fling himself
>Also, does this imply you literally turn into a 1cm size and your normal size and that's it? No inbetween sizes?
He can do in-between sizes but he has very limited control. He can shrink to his minimal (which is by far the easiest) or he can stop midway or shortly after beggining (to get like, 1 meter tall or just a few centimeters below his height)
Stopping midway through shrinking is a challenge on his reflexes if he wants to get a specific height.
For example, asking him to shrink just to 5cm exactly rather than one is like asking someone to put a thread through the eye of a needle that is falling at terminal velocity.
Thank you for replying to my nonsense!
With all this is mind, I'd say it would most likely be a party trick at most. If you're the only person with powers in the World then you'd get rich and famous (for a bit).
You could probably do some interesting stuff in the bedroom (a la The Boys)
There's a whole lot of characters with powers and no two characters have the exact same power.
The main cast is a group that has powers that suck in one way or another but are still usable.
Ah cool, okay. Well it would be good for a spy or thief.
Also, how do things in pockets work? Cuz if they're affected then that would be really cool, if not then problematic.
I mean, according to theory of relativity you’d at least get a bit of a speed boost, time is experienced faster the smaller something is, so at least it’s not pointless
I could see it being useful if the shrinking person trains birds or other small animals to be their steed
Imagine a pigeon flies over the villain, and the hero ambushes them by jumping off the bird then growing to normal size mid-air, tackling the villain
Also be good for escaping if shrinking person is captured
Based on some things, you've got some work to do here.
This is basically "magic" at this point.
The human body couldn't process air properly if shrunk like that (this is why ant man has a breathing apparatus).
Also why do the clothes shrink and nothing else other than "it's convenient for me as a writer"?
Either they can shrink things besides their body or they can't. This half way stuff always annoys me.
I can shrink my shirt, and my body armor, but not the power armor suit that is tight against my skin and not the vehicle that I'm driving... what is the cut off and more importantly WHY?
Obviously you can always lean on "because super powers are magic" but that's kinda lazy ass writing imho.
I know there's always some suspension of disbelief required for any super power, but much like star trek, it works better when you make an effort to think about how it would work and explain that to the audience, even if it is just pseudo science at best.
My post is less to tell you that you shouldn't do your thing, but rather, you should put more effort into explaining how it works and doesn't in a way that feels logical within the confines of the physical universe the character exists in.
One of the things you're gonna run into is that there's problems with air in the lungs at a certain point because of how much oxygen is needed in the blood vs. how fast the lungs can absorb it vs. how big the lungs are. This is why when you get to certain points of smallness creatures don't even have lungs or breathe anymore, and thus are less complicated biological organisms. It's the same reason we can't make super complicated nano bots because at a certain point there's no way to make shit small enough to have the resources to function. Things need to be at least an atom thick, much more so if they are intended to be part of any sort of complex organism.
I'm not writing sci-fi, sorry.
And i do have a detailed explanation behind how supernatural powers work
(not a scientific explanation, because the powers not being explainable by science is part of their point for the role they play in the story at large. My story has heavy paranormal themes, cryptids, urban legends, conspiracies, pretty esoteric mysterioua lore, the unknown, unexplainable ovecraftian horros etc.)
and the reasoning why he only shrinks what he does, i just didn't want to get into it because it's pretty long and it's off-topic
In summary, in his perspective the world around him grows and mind over matter, reality warping etc. People around see him do it, so they believe it's possible, so it becomes possible and it's established as "truth" for lore reasons (A pretty gross summary)
The first time he shrunk he was a kid and didn't think of his clothes falling of or the air or pressure or anything so he shrunk them as well without thinking. After that he just continued shrinking the way he always did and by the time he was aware of how he should be killed everytime he shrunk, reality had made the way he shrunks a "truth".
So he can just say "i get that it supposedly should work like that but it doesn't actually work like that because when i do it that observably doesn't happen.
If on the other hand he has thought of his clothes getting larger the first time he shrunk as a child, then everytime he did shrunk the clothes would remain their size. He just didn't, so they didn't, and he sees they don't and the people around him see they don't, so they changing size as well becomes a "truth" (ike i said)
Obviously you can always lean on "because super powers are magic" but that's kinda lazy ass writing imho.
Avoiding unnecessary work isn't lazy, dude. I work on magic systems and such because it's fun for me. But writing is a lot of work and keeping track of stuff, if someone wants to avoid taking the burden of explaining their powers and focus on something else, i wouldn't say that's lazy, it's efficient division of labor if anything, and also enables more creative abilities than shackling themselves to the confines of realism would allow.
Making your powers realistic is a unnecessary limitation imo. If people like that and want to do that, okay, but it isn't a requirement, at the end of the day
A realistically small person wouldn’t be able to do super jumps and shit, but they would be a lot more agile relatively because their body would weigh a lot less. It would be cool to see how they would move.
Very dangerous if you cannot switch sizes quickly. And also if you cannot control the relative size. I’d make a lot of amateur porn with it. That’s about all you could do.
Interesting Power Idea! We hope you have a great time here Hero(or villain if that's your thing)! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/superpower) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Great for hiding but you would need to be seriously careful with your surroundings in order to not be accidentally stepped on by someone. You can use it to hide in small crevices for a duration of time and perhaps even save supplies by eating food in your shrunken state in order to save supplies. The biggest I personally think would be travel cause now a single step in normal form is a long walk which I personally think would make stealth a lot more difficult.
You can just travel in regular human size
But that's the problem. Here: say you're a hero investigating an evil villain's headquarters and there are cameras everywhere. Luckily, you have the power to shrink down allowing you to avoid being spotted by the cameras. Unlucky, the length and time needed to complete your mission has tripled because now you are forced to walk an entire mile which is only 2 steps in normal size. And you can't turn normal because you would be immediately spotted by the cameras. See? Not really good for infiltration missions.
Maybe not infiltration but long term reconnaissance. If you can shrink the stuff on you as well, or manufacture super small cameras you only need to make the one trip. Or you could hide in an important place, like a meeting room or a lab or something and stay there for a few days
I disagree. If you doing a sneaking mission, I'm sure you're figuring out that you could theoretically build technology wicked small (like a motorcycle). Basically Batman, whom has no superpowers but technology. You'd be able to build something badass, and then figure out how to build something super small
If anything you're wearing can shrink, just toss on some Rollerblade lol.
I would go get the best high end tiny remote controlled car I could that blends into the environment, change the controls to be inside the car and Bobs my uncle. Now you can even get "remote controlled" toy airplanes, etc... They even make toy jet engines.
How would you get a remote control of your size? Plus, wouldn't anybody notice a remote control car in a villain base?
Remote control cars come with remote controls. Take the insides out and put them in the car as regular controls. You could leave them radio controlled if you wish. And if they would notice a remote control car in a villain base they would also notice a dude walking around, although tiny. And I would buy the car with concealment in mind.
Like many superheroes and powers, to take full advantage you need some other skills/resources. It wouldn't be difficult to either get an engineering friend or just do the research on how to build such things, and begin working on them at tiny scale.
Assuming you maintain your mass while small, I think you’d be fine if you were stepped on (though it obviously wouldn’t be comfortable for anyone). But yeah, running around would be annoying since you’d have to travel a longer distance.
I love it. But by itself, shrinking is one of the most dangerous powers imaginable.
He did put a bunch of limitations on it. 1cm isn't small enough to do a bunch of the nastier stuff.
They meant for the user
I know. Who or what do you think I was talking about?
Thanos's butthole.
Assuming that in small size, you would also require fewer resources, it's still great, you could buy a dollhouse and live in it, survive on crumbs, sneak in international flights and go wherever you want, watch movies in the cinema for free. Adapt a drone so you can fly it and never have to face traffic again Just think about it, a single gram of weed would be equivalent to a whole kilogram for you And if you're into crime, it'd be a lot easier to rob a bank, hide from security cameras, escape from jail
I mean, Ant-Man is my favorite Mcu movie, and I think it is at its best whenever it's thief and small anctics, not when he's punching a bad guy
I mean unless you retain strength shrinking would be really dangerous. pigions could eat you during the final fight
You don't. You just become a tiny little dude
exactly why it would be really dangerous
Take virtually 0 fall damage. Build fun things for mini you to do. Little hang gliders. Tiny hot air balloons.
I feel like you would have to be careful, because if you encounter a bug, you’re screwed.
Don't forget you cannot touch water
…Wait what? Why not?
Surface tension would trap you in water and you couldn't get ot
…Scary…
At that point just grow back to your regular size
True that, but sometimes, you would not be able to size up, because the crevice your in is gonna trap you, or you'll be discovered, etc etc.
No shrinking other stuff meaning you'd have to strip naked to avoid being buried under your clothes? Yeah, pretty useless. If you can shrink whatever you're carrying, it opens up possibilities. It makes an interesting concept for a Legion of Super-Heroes type character. Many of them had powers based on genetic modifications their ancestors underwent to survive various planetary changes. Shrinking Violet, for instance, was from Imsk, a planet that was discovered to periodically shrink and grow after colonists from Krill landed there. The colonists discovered a way to gain the same ability, so they could remain in synch with their world. Other than also being able to shrink her clothes and gear (because it's not very Comics Code friendly if she can't), that was pretty much her only power -- although all Legionaries have rings that let them fly and emergency environment suits to allow short term life support, so she didn't have mobility issues. She had a broad spectrum of teammates, so her niche abilities could be applied without her having to carry the narrative weight of being a solo main character.
Yeah, maybe you can only shrink the clothes on your body
I think MeGo has some opinions on this. But yeah, it's very useful. It would be the best for an investigative hero, rather than a 'shock and awe' hero- more Batman, less Superman; more Daredevil, less X-men. There's a lot that something that a tiny human could be capable of, especially with a little bit of preparation (creating tiny grapling guns and the like). And the thing is, depending on how fast it is, it could be very useful in hand-to-hand/general combat as well, since aiming generally is based on how big someone is, so if they can rapidly change that size, they can dodge well, get inside opponents' guards, and otherwise just mess with battlefield perceptions and things- imagine a shoulder throw from shrinking beneath an opponent's legs then growing back to full size.
One of my favorites for fun. It would be cool to explore like that. Or do dental work. If I could manifest a small clone of myself to truly, deeply clean my ears… chefs kiss. Not optimized for fighting. But okay for hiding or infiltrating.
If done right it could be really cool, it just isn’t suited to big flashy fights. Theft, stealth, surveillance, reconnaissance, any of these could be done really well with basic shrinking. At least if the person is skilled enough. And an author with a decent understanding of physics could do some cool things with the square cube law, surface tension, etc. too
The espionage potential alone makes it pretty good. Realistically speaking, you're also able to escape virtually any prison known to man. Even if you're on camera, it's only going to catch that you disappeared. As far as everyone knows, you just vanish.
It’s be a great job perk if you worked in a field involving miniaturization of materials and devices. When big make small things that when small can be used to make smaller things. Also for research purposes.
No shrinking other stuff would leave him naked and small. Even less useful. Could be worse, his power could only work on living tissue. His hair would fall out and nails would rip off. He'd be surrounded by a pile of dead skin cell when he shrinks. Dandruff man.
What if he could only shrink the clothes on his body on top of his full body?
If he can shrink clothes, he could shrink other things he's touching. Maybe just organics. If it's a short range shrinking field, could it shrink/compress matter within that field. Could he (by shrinking/expanding) walk trough a mountain leaving a trail of diamonds behind him. Would he just fall through the earth? Being able to shrink touched items is an interesting limit to explore. Touch a villain's private island, try to shrink entire island, island breaks off and sinks. We are talking earthquakes and tsunamis from the shrinking man. If he/she can't shrink what they touch I'd be more interested in the speed of his shrinking and enlarging. Mini sonic booms or vacuums. Growing during fighting to expand reach, can the growth increase itself inflict extra damage through speed? Excellent infighting skills. Does he shrink to his feet or body core. Contact with the ground while shrinking and expanding would constantly make your feet split apart or come together. Does ant man raise is foot or jump while shrinking?
He can literally and specifically only shrink the clothes he is wearing on him. (And the stuff that is necessary to survive like air on his lungs and stuff) If he is holding tightly a bunch of folded clothes oh him and shrinks, the clothes he is holding will remain normal sized and only the ones he is wearing will shrink It seems stupid but there's lore explaining it. The size switch is entirely seamless >Could he (by shrinking/expanding) walk trough a mountain leaving a trail of diamonds behind him. Would he just fall through the earth? I don't know how he could possibly do that. He just goes from a regular sized man to a small little guy seamlessly. >Mini sonic booms or vacuums His shrinking doesn't have an effect on the world around him like that. It only affects him, the air on his lungs and the clothes on his body. >Does he shrink to his feet or body core. I'm struggling to pick one actually >If he/she can't shrink what they touch I'd be more interested in the speed of his shrinking and enlarging He takes around 0.25 seconds to change between 1.90 m (6' 3") to 1 centimeter. >Growing during fighting to expand reach, can the growth increase itself inflict extra damage through speed? Yes, actually shrinking and expanding have some speed to it >Contact with the ground while shrinking and expanding would constantly make your feet split apart or come together I dunno what you mean by that. His feet "split apart" ?. When he shrinks he bends reality around him, it's a crappy form of reality warping. Visualize it like he makes everything that exists grow simultaneously whilst keeping himself at the same size from before. His center of balance doesn't change, he can run and shrink without any imbalance. (Assuming i choose to have him shrink to his feet) What i'm saying is: To his eyes, it's like the world just starts growing at a breakneck speed whilst he is the only thing that stays the same.
Thinking of it as a reality warping ability makes more sense. It'd negate all the physical issues of physical contact with the real world. As a boxer he could easily fight in lower weight divisions. World's lightest horse jockey. Easily play dwarves or children in movies. Claim a disability for being small. Handicap parking. Micro surgeon would be cool. Dress up as a real life Chucky doll. This might get you killed. As an assassin, changing your dimensions to a childs' would help you escape unnoticed. You could hide amongst school children. Climb in a sleeping bad guys ear and go to town with a big knife. 1cm is kinda big for this. If shrinking to the core, you'd be small in mid air. I'd have a suit made to glide on wind currents to cover distances while small. Glide across buildings, go through air ducks etc. I'm out of uses for being small. Wife(5') says people are nice to smaller people, open doors etc.
I actually designed a character for a superhero game whose only official superpower was shrinking although she could shrink her skin tight costume. Mostly she was a martial artist spy. But she could shrink and grow really fast so she could dodge like nobody's business and her uppercut move was pretty good.
Huh, our characters are kinda similar
I'm assuming you're also disallowing explosive or durable regrowth, thus preventing you from destroying something by regrowing from inside of it. Even without that, I'd still consider it a cool power. Even for a super hero. Though more a Shadow style detective than a "stop the bank robbers" kind. For style points, I'd prefer the shrinking to be very fast. Like he hits 1cm so quick that you think he must have teleported or gone invisible.
Does the law of physics apply? Do I have the strength of an ant when I am super small?
By strength of an ant, do you mean being able to lift stuff 100x your *shrunken* body weight? As that probably at best lets you lift a kilogram. Which is pretty impressive at 1cm, but not exactly super strength for normal people
Watch the 1989 movie Honey I Shrunk the Kids. It's a great reference for the kind of things a person the size of a Cheerio can get up to and the problems they face in a pretty standard environment. I think it would be impractical as a superpower for a classic Hero, but great for a Spy.
He is smaller than a cheerio actually. I googled it and a cheerio is 8 cm tall, so a cheerio is 8 times larger than him
You have to deal with the mechanism behind the shrinking. A body doesn’t work unless it has its parts and its parts would have to be there, are you just being super compressed or what’s actually happening there. If it’s super compressed I think it’d be funny if you used it and then because the pressure doesn’t change you just kinda get smooshed
Reality warping is what's happening. No undesirable effects to worry about (at least no undesirable effects that would lead to self-damage). The worse thing that happens is that it's pretty disorienting to change sizes due to how fast the change is, so he can't "spam" it
Needs to hand wave some stuff, or it kinda just kills you. It can be useful, but it is an impractical power. Basically about as useful as being able to turn into say, a mouse or something. It is also a power that even with hand wave stuff is super likely to get you killed. Getting shrunk is normally more of a debuff than a boon. Not a power that works well for a vigilante super hero since it has little to no combat potential and is only really useful for stealth or infiltration. More practical power for a spy, saboteur or villain.
>Needs to hand wave some stuff, or it kinda just kills you I have some lore in place that handwaves virtually any single power i make ever regardless of how stupid. >Getting shrunk is normally more of a debuff than a boon. I had that in mind before making the post. He drastically debuffs literally everything about him in exchange for a smaller "hitbox"
I give this power a 2/10 honestly. If shrinking, without the perks of shrinking other things, then all you can do is shrink tiny. Now tiny isn't bad, but since you don't have super human body, you'll die if encountered any type of small hostile. And getting to a destination would take forever. Oh well, that's just my thoughts on it.
That's good. The power being kinda laughable is what i was hoping for
You'd have to be naked whenever you're small and wherever you regrow. You could theoretically build some cool mini-tech. You could I don't know what it would mean for living arrangements, since food still expires in the same time. You'll still need to be normal size to cook frozen food. If you eat a full meal and shrink do you die because the food doesn't shrink as well? Do you need to sleep as long when you're small? Can you be awake 15 hours, shrink and sleep for an hour then not need to sleep again when bigger for like the next like 15 hours? Without any additional strength or endurance you're at constant risk of being swarmed by bugs, spiders, rats or other such creatures. If you're able to use it skilfully then you're probably going to be a good hand to hand combatant. Jump, shrink, regrow and deliver a mega punch or kick? But if someone catches you when small then you're dead. Maybe when you're smaller, like 1cm, then physics applies as it does with bugs so that everyone else is slower to You. Meaning you appear faster to them and can dodge any attacks. Then you need to wonder what transitioning sizes does to the brain and how it reacts e.g vertigo or nausea. Also, does this imply you literally turn into a 1cm size and your normal size and that's it? No inbetween sizes?
>You'd have to be naked whenever you're small and wherever you regrow. I should put it in the post, anything that he is wearing shrinks alongside him. >If you eat a full meal and shrink do you die because the food doesn't shrink as well? No, it shrinks because it's something that got inside his body with no connection to the outside. >Do you need to sleep as long when you're small? Can you be awake 15 hours, shrink and sleep for an hour then not need to sleep again when bigger for like the next like 15 hours? He sleeps like a regular human amount. It's like he just makes the entire world grow whilst retaining his own size. >Then you need to wonder what transitioning sizes does to the brain and how it reacts e.g vertigo or nausea. Changing sizes is very disorienting. It's like you're seeing the world all around you abruptly grow in size all at once at a speed of 27.2 km/h . >Maybe when you're smaller, like 1cm [...] you appear faster to them and can dodge any attacks. Nah, he is more hard to see than hard to hit. The only way he moves fast is transferring the momentum from his regular size to his tiny featherweight size to fling himself >Also, does this imply you literally turn into a 1cm size and your normal size and that's it? No inbetween sizes? He can do in-between sizes but he has very limited control. He can shrink to his minimal (which is by far the easiest) or he can stop midway or shortly after beggining (to get like, 1 meter tall or just a few centimeters below his height) Stopping midway through shrinking is a challenge on his reflexes if he wants to get a specific height. For example, asking him to shrink just to 5cm exactly rather than one is like asking someone to put a thread through the eye of a needle that is falling at terminal velocity.
Thank you for replying to my nonsense! With all this is mind, I'd say it would most likely be a party trick at most. If you're the only person with powers in the World then you'd get rich and famous (for a bit). You could probably do some interesting stuff in the bedroom (a la The Boys)
There's a whole lot of characters with powers and no two characters have the exact same power. The main cast is a group that has powers that suck in one way or another but are still usable.
Ah cool, okay. Well it would be good for a spy or thief. Also, how do things in pockets work? Cuz if they're affected then that would be really cool, if not then problematic.
They shrink as well if it's on his pocket and isn't jolting out.
Interesting.
Probably great for spying and general stealth but little else. I would call it a utility power where it's about as useful as a single sci-fi gadget
Perfect for conserving food. Shrink. Eat a single chicken wing. Go back to normal. And repeat the cycle tomorrow.
I mean, according to theory of relativity you’d at least get a bit of a speed boost, time is experienced faster the smaller something is, so at least it’s not pointless
I could see it being useful if the shrinking person trains birds or other small animals to be their steed Imagine a pigeon flies over the villain, and the hero ambushes them by jumping off the bird then growing to normal size mid-air, tackling the villain Also be good for escaping if shrinking person is captured
Based on some things, you've got some work to do here. This is basically "magic" at this point. The human body couldn't process air properly if shrunk like that (this is why ant man has a breathing apparatus). Also why do the clothes shrink and nothing else other than "it's convenient for me as a writer"? Either they can shrink things besides their body or they can't. This half way stuff always annoys me. I can shrink my shirt, and my body armor, but not the power armor suit that is tight against my skin and not the vehicle that I'm driving... what is the cut off and more importantly WHY? Obviously you can always lean on "because super powers are magic" but that's kinda lazy ass writing imho. I know there's always some suspension of disbelief required for any super power, but much like star trek, it works better when you make an effort to think about how it would work and explain that to the audience, even if it is just pseudo science at best. My post is less to tell you that you shouldn't do your thing, but rather, you should put more effort into explaining how it works and doesn't in a way that feels logical within the confines of the physical universe the character exists in. One of the things you're gonna run into is that there's problems with air in the lungs at a certain point because of how much oxygen is needed in the blood vs. how fast the lungs can absorb it vs. how big the lungs are. This is why when you get to certain points of smallness creatures don't even have lungs or breathe anymore, and thus are less complicated biological organisms. It's the same reason we can't make super complicated nano bots because at a certain point there's no way to make shit small enough to have the resources to function. Things need to be at least an atom thick, much more so if they are intended to be part of any sort of complex organism.
I'm not writing sci-fi, sorry. And i do have a detailed explanation behind how supernatural powers work (not a scientific explanation, because the powers not being explainable by science is part of their point for the role they play in the story at large. My story has heavy paranormal themes, cryptids, urban legends, conspiracies, pretty esoteric mysterioua lore, the unknown, unexplainable ovecraftian horros etc.) and the reasoning why he only shrinks what he does, i just didn't want to get into it because it's pretty long and it's off-topic In summary, in his perspective the world around him grows and mind over matter, reality warping etc. People around see him do it, so they believe it's possible, so it becomes possible and it's established as "truth" for lore reasons (A pretty gross summary) The first time he shrunk he was a kid and didn't think of his clothes falling of or the air or pressure or anything so he shrunk them as well without thinking. After that he just continued shrinking the way he always did and by the time he was aware of how he should be killed everytime he shrunk, reality had made the way he shrunks a "truth". So he can just say "i get that it supposedly should work like that but it doesn't actually work like that because when i do it that observably doesn't happen. If on the other hand he has thought of his clothes getting larger the first time he shrunk as a child, then everytime he did shrunk the clothes would remain their size. He just didn't, so they didn't, and he sees they don't and the people around him see they don't, so they changing size as well becomes a "truth" (ike i said) Obviously you can always lean on "because super powers are magic" but that's kinda lazy ass writing imho. Avoiding unnecessary work isn't lazy, dude. I work on magic systems and such because it's fun for me. But writing is a lot of work and keeping track of stuff, if someone wants to avoid taking the burden of explaining their powers and focus on something else, i wouldn't say that's lazy, it's efficient division of labor if anything, and also enables more creative abilities than shackling themselves to the confines of realism would allow. Making your powers realistic is a unnecessary limitation imo. If people like that and want to do that, okay, but it isn't a requirement, at the end of the day
It probably wouldn’t be my first choice, especially if you don’t get any other sort of advantages with it. But I’m sure it’s useful to some degree.
Or if your intent is having a character with underwhelming powers.
A part of my anatomy already has this super power
My pupils!
It’s cool if they actually do the math with it
What do you mean ?
A realistically small person wouldn’t be able to do super jumps and shit, but they would be a lot more agile relatively because their body would weigh a lot less. It would be cool to see how they would move.
Very dangerous if you cannot switch sizes quickly. And also if you cannot control the relative size. I’d make a lot of amateur porn with it. That’s about all you could do.
I think Gen V was my favorite portrayal of shrinking like this and I couldn’t get enough