About Powers and Overall Character Balance.

With my War and combat related peers in several discord servers, we have one type of balance when it comes to powers, I'm sure everyone also have their own type of measurements or goes on a free for all, after all the idea is to have fun with it. (2019... c'mon now...) When it comes to powers, there's three category of powers to go along with it. The realistic style - The style basically simplifies everything that a normal human being is capable to achieve through training, or special animal trait, like underwater breathing or above average physical or mental function. Can you get both mental and physical? sure you can, but it comes along something that will be explained later on, and it's called counter balance, and it's all about the weaknesses. Unless you pick only one of them, then you're free of any penalty that character may suffer, as they'll be already handicapped by not having one of the two. In other words, you can't be a bookworm with immense knowledge and the strength capable of bent someone's back like a pretzel, it's just not gonna happen... I mean you "can" do it, but it's not gonna be well looked as a story driven candidate. This category bases itself in common senses, an agile character cannot possess heavy strength, but could gain a fair intellect given how agility is bound mostly to the mind, the reflexes, the ability to read others, it's both physical and mental training. Just how a brute character cannot gain intellect but could still attain a certain degree of agility, due for it being a 50% physical type of training, it's possible. Whichever you pick, you can only tie up to two realistic stats to your character. Example: Maxh possess an immense strength / Straightforward agility, he may not bent or do some acrobatic stuff but damn if that boyo runs non-stop. He's not the best when it comes to think about something, thus ending with a very oblivious character when it comes to interaction (Do not mistake brute strength on being socially dumb, that has nothing to do with it, your type of speech doesn't automatically gets tied by your character's traits. It's literally tied to your personality.) If Maxh likes you he'll tell you straight away, he doesn't know what shame or embarrassment is, if he flirts with you it's his straightforwardness and obliviousness to notice discomfort from other's. And Intelligent partner may fool the big muscly ones to their own schemes, given their highly understanding on other's personality at first glance, but it'll be hard to do that on some agile / smarty character, as they could see past each other easily. Yet a strong character may charm the agile ones due to their straightforwardness being heavily overwhelming. I'm rambling now... that's speechcrafting. The Fictional traits. When it comes to traits that are bound to be world of fiction, yet traits that COULD possibly be real from history books or tales, you can only attribute one of this type of traits to your character, adding more must come to heavy cost. In this type of traits, we can find the most common of them all, magic. Magic is by far one of the most flexible styles of traits a character could have, it ramifies into several others, but have in consideration a wizard is only good with ONE type of magic. If you choose to have all of them, you actually can! however they're going to be not as skillfully as your main type of magic or they're bound to fail, be an elemental based magic like fire, an extrasensory type of magic, like Levitation or Illusionism (Magic specifically used by the mind to either move objects, teleport, invisibility, conjuration.) <--- extrasensory magic is actually my favorite, allows one to do a lot of fun things, or Dark magic (Cost one's lifeforce to use, and is the hardest to learn but oh boy once you learn and make good use of it, overpowers the others with ease for sure.) In terms of pushing one's physical power to the max, like heavy resistance to certain element, or immunity to ONE hazard, take only that one in pair with your actual character's trait. If you character is agile, then you may take anything that would be unique for an agile character, let's say, being heavily stealthy or highly sensorial like hearing anyone approach or sensing them approach, and many others to choose tied to agility. In the strength category well... it's self explanatory, but it's tied more at being incredibly resilient, resistant, the pappa wizards of muscles that can cast fist they're much easier to choose from. Maxh for example, he's highly resistant to punishment, making him an excellent shield wielding one, and given his already high strength, he can deliver quite the bone shattering horse kicks! as lifting heavy objects such as his shield, is only fitting for that type of choices. The Ungodly tier We recommend not using this type of traits, as possessing ungodly powers will basically tie your characters to interact ONLY with other ungodly beings, common senses, you see. Having immortality alone handicaps your character into so many cons than perks, if your character is immortal, it's already immune to magic, immune to hazards, immune to pain, there's no fun to be had there, and it'll be promptly discarded or mostly ignored, UNLESS you make it interesting, like being immortal but only a restrained idol, a prisoner, they have many opportunities to become highly respected if they play their cards well. Immortal beings belongs with other immortal beings where they can unveil fights worth to be told in history books. Make sure your character is fitting the right type of universe. Weaknesses and Balance - This is where everything boils down, you got your traits, and puts them in a blender. Have in consideration that it's not "actually" required for anyone to follow the (You can only take one trait) from point A and B on terms of ability. You can have as many as you like, but for every one you pick a weakness just sneaks in to counter-balance your choices. Are you a powerful wizard that knows every spell? Well good, but that only means you've grown very old. Wisdom is obtained through time, and by being called an Archmage, one must've been studying magic for decades. See what I'm trying to explain? if you wanna do it right at least that's how it works. HOWEVER! This is when everything gets interesting, you can turn weaknesses into traits, as a well applied weakness is the most interesting part of a character in my own opinion at least. Let's go back to the example of Maxh, I cursed him, I tied a whole story about the curse, and how it works. The curse basically strips him out of his freedom, and binds him on an ungodly being of immense power (A power that can only be used within her territory, as how the weakness part added, so she's basically a prisoner) Maxh gained the curse of the viper, giving him immunity to toxicity, which inclused venom or poison, he could walk through a field of toxic waste and be fine, where others could die in within seconds. BUT. The curse did more harm than it gave him perks, he cannot use this type of powers outside his homeland, means that everytime he's at Equestria or another neighbor continent, this trait deactivates automatically. His sight range is dramatically reduced as well. In other words, he's just a semi-blinded stronk horse there. Weaknesses are by far the most fun thing to tinker with a character, but too many of them only makes em bland, remember, balance it's all about balance. And that's about Balancing a character in our community, have a heavy reminder, this is just for explainative purposes, at the end of the day you do whatever you wanna do with your character, it's all about having fun, but this should somehow explain why some ideas doesn't get taken seriously by others with different ideas about balancing. If you wanna be a god, go for it, but don't expect fitting in other's ideas, that's basically it.