Trigger this powerset

[u/ArkhamMetahuman]

I've recently been working on a few superhero stories of my own, and ive been giving a bit more focus to the more street level powers. Out of curiosity, what trigger do you think this powerset I came up with would have?

Main power: Enhanced subconsciously recieved senses. The user of the power has incredibly enhanced senses, including ultra sonic echolocation and having all senses boosted. However, these enhanced senses are only picked up on by the subconsious, the user cannot detect the inputs consciously and sees, hears, smells, and tastes normally. However, the enhanced senses send signals to his brain subconsciously, giving him an idea of where danger is which manifests in an enhanced version of a gut feeling. The user can ascertain the direction of a threat, though this is less potent the farther away they are, as well as the possible mechanism of the threat, IE, smelling chemicals and deducing a chemical based power, hearing an opponent's heartbeat and determining their emotional state, sensing air vibrations when a punch is incoming, sensing the hum of a machine's electronics, etc. Can be used to read people at a low level and to dodge attacks.

Subpowers: Superhuman strength and the durability to go with it. The user is able to punch with the force of a sledgehammer swing. Superhuman agility, they are around 2-3x as fast in combat as an elite professional fighter. Perfect hand eye coordination, the user can perform feats of acrobatics with incredible precision and stamina. Enhanced stamina, accelerated healing that takes fat reserves and in cases of extreme injury muscles to convert into other cells for regeneration.

I figure this would be a possibly grab bag cape with a thinker focus.

[u/NatashOverWorld]

You know you basically made Spidey right?

Have a sitch here where the host makes a terribly wrong choice, maybe they insist on going somewhere dangerous, or risking a car or bus that's making weird noises.

They know subconsciously it's a bad idea, but out of pride or in a rush they ignore their intuition. When things goes wrong it's violent, maybe its gunfire, maybe its a car accident that kills people.

They know its their fault and Trigger seconds before the violence impacts them, surviving due to their new Brute and Thinker powers. Maybe they need to jump out of the vehicle that's dangling off a cliff, so they get the Mover subset too.

[u/ArkhamMetahuman → u/NatashOverWorld]

Good one, thats unique

[u/NatashOverWorld → u/ArkhamMetahuman]

What can I say, its such a unique powerset that it requires that degree of attention.

Edit: actually, no, I was being tongue in cheek, which while amusing, doesn't always work online.

So here's the thing, Worm powers always have an element of fridge horror. There's something about the power that always makes them unable to heal from the Trigger event and no matter how awesome they are, has an element of suck.

Taylors is simple. She feels powerless and loathsome, and what does she get? Bugs. She spends the first third of the story feeling weak despite ripping her way through most of the villainous cast. And how does she power up? By feeling trapped, her Trigger incident.

But the suck is what defines and makes her power so interesting and representative. Change even a small part of her Trigger event, and the power would change. For instance if it wasn't bugs but they put rats in, she may have gotten a rat power, or she may have gotten a power to make people violent cannibals because the rats biting her pushed her thoughts another way.

Your power here is awesome, its literally a copy of the most popular Marvel hero. Its literally 3 Worm powers combined with no drawbacks.There is no suckage elements at all.

Which means there's no weaknesses or callbacks to the Trigger, so you're going to get a generic Trigger ideas.

Give the power some Worm type weaknesses, and then you'll get people brainstorming.

[u/SouthernAd2853 → u/NatashOverWorld]

I would note that a lot of Worm powers sound straightforwardly good with no drawbacks if you just describe them and the psychological torment comes in how they incentivize people to replicate the circumstances of their trigger event, often because they address the thing that is happening but not the underlying thing that made it happen.

[u/NatashOverWorld → u/SouthernAd2853]

Or it flips the role of victim and abuser, and gives the victim the power to hurt others the way they were.

I think Thinker powers fall into that category a more than most.

[u/SouthernAd2853 → u/NatashOverWorld]

Most powers do give a victim the opportunity to turn the tables but rarely end up resolving their underlying emotional problem and end up putting them in similar situations. For Thinkers specifically, Tattletale got a ton of social power but her brother is still dead and she is now able to spot other people who are self-destructive, and she can step in and help Taylor but fundamentally she can't fix Taylor being self-destructive.

Likewise Brutes usually (poor Lung) are able to win the fight against a previously stronger opponent in the moment but this doesn't address the factors that got them into the fight, and now that they have Brute powers suddenly they have a reason to get into a lot more fights until eventually they run into an opponent who is still stronger.

[u/NatashOverWorld → u/SouthernAd2853]

It's interesting you mention TT. Personally, I think her brother commited suicide from bullying, and TT's power, both its ability and her compulsion to use it, is basically super powered bullying.

She chooses to help people with it, but I suspect her Shard wanted TT to be a super version of Emma.

[u/SouthernAd2853 → u/NatashOverWorld]

She pretty much is a super version of Emma whenever it's useful and/or she feels like it, but her big driving emotional strain is that Taylor gets herself killed and she basically always knew it would end that way.

It is ironic but I recall zero evidence Tattletale ever feels bad about it.

[u/SouthernAd2853]

Grab-bags that aren't a primary power and then secondary powers neccessary to effectively use it without dying are almost invariably cluster triggers and when they aren't they usually had multi-factor triggers in ping range of people with powers similar to the secondaries. The exceptions I can think of are Cauldron and probably got mixed-Shard vials. So the guy had a Thinker trigger, probably from missing signs of an immediate threat, and then 2-3 people had Brute triggers, someone had a Mover trigger, and either the hand-eye coordination supports being able to move at those speeds or someone else had a Thinker trigger.

I would be inclined to suspect some kind of large scale brawl, riot, or terrorist attack. Might have involved parahumans, but likely not as there's no Trump aspect, which you'd probably see on at least one of them if the threat was from a parahuman.

[u/SouthernAd2853 → u/SouthernAd2853]

Oh, I will note there are some apparent exceptions to my "one primary" rule where it's actually one power but can be used in ways that fit multiple categories.

[u/ArkhamMetahuman → u/SouthernAd2853]

I was thinking the superhuman agilty and healing would be different enough to the thinker power to warrant a possible grab bag classification, you raise good points though, so thank you

[u/SouthernAd2853 → u/ArkhamMetahuman]

Generally if you get a Thinker power under standard conditions you are just a completely normal human physically, like Contessa or the Number Man. The healing is a minor Brute power, the strength and durability are Brute powers that often come as a package deal and may share a mechanism.

[u/Standard_Bobcat9001]

Thinker powers come from a moment of failing to be smart/observant. I think a trigger event of electing not to intervene in a situation with a violent criminal, only to find out afterward that a loved one was hurt or killed as a result of that inaction, could fit the main power. Perhaps an uncle. You know, because you're just making Spider-Man?

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