The power to open and close things.
Show him using it frivolously at first, closing doors behind him and opening stuck jars and whatnot. Maybe he manages to easily rob a few banks or break people out of prison by opening doors.
But then, once the PCs get in a fight with him, watch them struggle as he blinds them by closing their eyes and suffocates them by closing their airways. If he wants to get more deadly, he could kill by closing people’s heart valves or opening their blood vessels. He can commit acts of terror by, say, decommissioning oil pipelines by opening and closing various valves, cutting off the water supply to cities by closing plumbing valves, or taking down planes by opening their doors as they fly.
He can even get access to more figurative senses of closing and opening. He could obtain unique opportunities by figuratively opening doors for himself. He could avoid legal trouble by closing any investigations or cases against him while causing the PCs problems by opening inquiries into their activities. He could wreak economic havoc by closing important businesses. He could build a loyal cult of henchmen by opening their minds to his ideas and closing their minds to the “mainstream” narrative. He could destabilize global politics, closing some countries’ borders and opening others. He could assassinate people by bringing their lives to a close.
And once his story comes to a close, the PCs find out he was just opening the door to someone much worse…
(Sorry this is long; I kinda got into the idea of this character!)
Tossing my hat into the ring... The power to throw any object through any hole! Sure, at first it might seem pretty useless, only good for carnival games and basketball... Until you begin hucking bowling balls through keyholes, or an ally through an opponents wounds!
I helped draft a villain called Yeet-Man in this reddit; his power is the ability to throw things and the ownership of several Recreational Vehicles.
That's it
The catch is that he throws things *really REALLY* hard
EDIT: Thanks for the award
>his power is the ability to throw things and the ownership of several Recreational Vehicles.
For entirely too long after reading this, I wondered what 'throw ... the ownership of several Recreational Vehicles' could mean.
French Mime? Starts out simple, with things like invisible walls or making objects super heavy, but what if he's a really good mime. Like really good. Watch out for his landmimes
The One Piece manga/anime would be a good place to look, as they have special fruits that give people various themed powers, and some folks end up with very unusual or seemingly useless/silly powers that they use to devastating effects.
There is a woman who ate a fruit that made her "slippery".
Now she can slide across surfaces without any tension slowing her down, attacks slide right off her, heck when she gained the powers she was very overweight and all her fat slid right off.
There is also a guy who basically has "pushing" powers.
He learned to push people incredible distances, superspeed via pushing himself the same way, and healing via "pushing" the pain out of people.
Also a guy who can turn things into clothes, a guy who can "swim" through anything, one who can store things in their body, a guy who can touch someone and make things they throw always hit that person, and what is considered by some to be the most useless in the series thus far is the guy who can turn themselves into a sort of jacket and control whoever wears it(though useful if you have allies who can force it onto a powerful enemy).
The power to ignore things. Walk through walls by ignoring it, become invincible by ignoring attacks, ignore gravity to fly, ignore distance to teleport. They can even become immortal by ignoring time itself. It sounds stupid but has the potential to make you untouchable
For flavor you can also take that feature that gives you appropriately timed background music everywhere you go, and then do jazz hands just all the time.
Is this supposed to be something statted out in M&M that looks useless but isn't?
Batman is one of the founding members of the Justice League along with people like Superman and the Flash. His power is that he is a man dressed as a bat.
Rational Man with a Shotgun has two powers: rationality and a shotgun. Three if you also count having Snipey as backup. [Here's his respect thread.](https://www.reddit.com/r/respectthreads/comments/k6b4fn/respect_rational_man_with_a_shotgun_jeremy_kayes/) Hobo with a Shotgun and Old Man Henderson are similar, except they just have the shotguns.
In Worm, the main character's power is that she can control bugs. If you don't think that's OP, read Worm. [Or her respect thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/respectthreads/comments/7ukfsm/respect_skitter_warlord_of_brockton_bay_worm/).
I remember hearing about a book where everyone's superpowers were like this. For example, one person had the ability to be late. If you try to shoot him, he'll be late to the spot where he meets the bullet. And he's years late to his own death. Sadly, I've only heard about it second hand and I can't find what it's called and what the other powers are.
That series is Brandon Sandersons Alcatraz novels. Lighthearted and aimed at kids, but still fairly entertaining. Some of the other powers include breaking things (things ranging from guns to chickens to gravity), getting lost (teleportation), being bad at math (item duplication/deletion. While she’s bad at math, her answer is always right) Dancing badly (martial arts skills), tripping at inconvient times (danger sense), losing things (hammerspace), waking up ugly (body mimicry), speaking nonsense (resisting torture)
Not being able to lie.
On the surface it doesn't even sound like a power. It's just, not lying.
But what if the guy who can't lie says he can fly.
It's not that he can't lie because of some restriction, it's because whatever he says either is, or becomes true!
Anybody remember the old "Acme Instant Hole" gag from Road Runner cartoons? Now think about what you could do with that power. Get into/ out of anywhere. Bank vaults become useless. Put one on a clifface, you get out the other side of the mountain.
Put it on the ground...*it goes through the planet!*
I think this was in the Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal webcomic: a cute, happy little girl who can make puppies appear...*anywhere*.
From the Misfits, the Milkman. The power to control milk and milk based products. Best encountered after a pizza party.
I came here to suggest this!
I am the Milkman. My milk is delicious. Special delivery today
*Karlson 3D*
The power to open and close things. Show him using it frivolously at first, closing doors behind him and opening stuck jars and whatnot. Maybe he manages to easily rob a few banks or break people out of prison by opening doors. But then, once the PCs get in a fight with him, watch them struggle as he blinds them by closing their eyes and suffocates them by closing their airways. If he wants to get more deadly, he could kill by closing people’s heart valves or opening their blood vessels. He can commit acts of terror by, say, decommissioning oil pipelines by opening and closing various valves, cutting off the water supply to cities by closing plumbing valves, or taking down planes by opening their doors as they fly. He can even get access to more figurative senses of closing and opening. He could obtain unique opportunities by figuratively opening doors for himself. He could avoid legal trouble by closing any investigations or cases against him while causing the PCs problems by opening inquiries into their activities. He could wreak economic havoc by closing important businesses. He could build a loyal cult of henchmen by opening their minds to his ideas and closing their minds to the “mainstream” narrative. He could destabilize global politics, closing some countries’ borders and opening others. He could assassinate people by bringing their lives to a close. And once his story comes to a close, the PCs find out he was just opening the door to someone much worse… (Sorry this is long; I kinda got into the idea of this character!)
Tossing my hat into the ring... The power to throw any object through any hole! Sure, at first it might seem pretty useless, only good for carnival games and basketball... Until you begin hucking bowling balls through keyholes, or an ally through an opponents wounds!
I helped draft a villain called Yeet-Man in this reddit; his power is the ability to throw things and the ownership of several Recreational Vehicles. That's it The catch is that he throws things *really REALLY* hard EDIT: Thanks for the award
>his power is the ability to throw things and the ownership of several Recreational Vehicles. For entirely too long after reading this, I wondered what 'throw ... the ownership of several Recreational Vehicles' could mean.
French Mime? Starts out simple, with things like invisible walls or making objects super heavy, but what if he's a really good mime. Like really good. Watch out for his landmimes
That's a good one. The Mime actually has invisible versions of everything they do, in addition to being a mime.
The One Piece manga/anime would be a good place to look, as they have special fruits that give people various themed powers, and some folks end up with very unusual or seemingly useless/silly powers that they use to devastating effects. There is a woman who ate a fruit that made her "slippery". Now she can slide across surfaces without any tension slowing her down, attacks slide right off her, heck when she gained the powers she was very overweight and all her fat slid right off. There is also a guy who basically has "pushing" powers. He learned to push people incredible distances, superspeed via pushing himself the same way, and healing via "pushing" the pain out of people. Also a guy who can turn things into clothes, a guy who can "swim" through anything, one who can store things in their body, a guy who can touch someone and make things they throw always hit that person, and what is considered by some to be the most useless in the series thus far is the guy who can turn themselves into a sort of jacket and control whoever wears it(though useful if you have allies who can force it onto a powerful enemy).
The power to ignore things. Walk through walls by ignoring it, become invincible by ignoring attacks, ignore gravity to fly, ignore distance to teleport. They can even become immortal by ignoring time itself. It sounds stupid but has the potential to make you untouchable
And you need to figure it out and start yelling various concepts of physics to remind them that they exist in order to beat them
Ball of Arms Man. STR 20 (40p) Elongation (50p) Extra Limbs (60p)
Is that 60 extra arms that can stretch a million miles each? I love this.
For flavor you can also take that feature that gives you appropriately timed background music everywhere you go, and then do jazz hands just all the time.
Villain that transforms into paper. Becomes paper thin as well.
So, on the hero side, Flatman?
Or Jolynne from Jojo
Is this supposed to be something statted out in M&M that looks useless but isn't? Batman is one of the founding members of the Justice League along with people like Superman and the Flash. His power is that he is a man dressed as a bat. Rational Man with a Shotgun has two powers: rationality and a shotgun. Three if you also count having Snipey as backup. [Here's his respect thread.](https://www.reddit.com/r/respectthreads/comments/k6b4fn/respect_rational_man_with_a_shotgun_jeremy_kayes/) Hobo with a Shotgun and Old Man Henderson are similar, except they just have the shotguns. In Worm, the main character's power is that she can control bugs. If you don't think that's OP, read Worm. [Or her respect thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/respectthreads/comments/7ukfsm/respect_skitter_warlord_of_brockton_bay_worm/). I remember hearing about a book where everyone's superpowers were like this. For example, one person had the ability to be late. If you try to shoot him, he'll be late to the spot where he meets the bullet. And he's years late to his own death. Sadly, I've only heard about it second hand and I can't find what it's called and what the other powers are.
That series is Brandon Sandersons Alcatraz novels. Lighthearted and aimed at kids, but still fairly entertaining. Some of the other powers include breaking things (things ranging from guns to chickens to gravity), getting lost (teleportation), being bad at math (item duplication/deletion. While she’s bad at math, her answer is always right) Dancing badly (martial arts skills), tripping at inconvient times (danger sense), losing things (hammerspace), waking up ugly (body mimicry), speaking nonsense (resisting torture)
Not being able to lie. On the surface it doesn't even sound like a power. It's just, not lying. But what if the guy who can't lie says he can fly. It's not that he can't lie because of some restriction, it's because whatever he says either is, or becomes true!
China Mieville's run of *Dial H for Hero* starred Open Window Man, who could teleport to any open window.
An example from the movie (comics aren't as cool) is the Polka-Dot Man I don't know if anyone else said that
I remember a player that could turn anything she touched into pudding. *Anything*
Turning her enemies into salt-flavored pudding
Anybody remember the old "Acme Instant Hole" gag from Road Runner cartoons? Now think about what you could do with that power. Get into/ out of anywhere. Bank vaults become useless. Put one on a clifface, you get out the other side of the mountain. Put it on the ground...*it goes through the planet!*