Intro

Power levels are something that not every genre has to deal with but, if you’re writing sci-fi, fantasy, or superhero, it may be one of the trickiest things you’re going to have to tackle.

For those of you who don’t know what I mean by “power levels”, I’ll explain. In many sci-fi, fantasy, and superhero stories, you have some characters who are more powerful than others. Like, you might have a character who’s literally an immortal god with crazy magical powers that could undo reality. And then, at the other end of the spectrum, you might also have a character whose abilities are more like those of a real person. (If they’re a fighter of some sort, they’re typically trained to use a weapon or trained in some form of real-world martial arts.) And, between the immortal god and the person using a bow and arrow, there will likely be more characters who are more powerful than the regular old archer, but less powerful than the immortal god, creating that spectrum I mentioned earlier. A character’s power level is based on where they fall on the spectrum.

So, why is this important, and why does it torture so many writers? Because characters of different power levels typically need threats and conflicts that match their specific capabilities. The goal has to be something that the character would struggle to achieve, but that they could achieve if they play their cards right. If your protagonist is an immortal god, you can’t have the big bad guy be some regular old street thug that the hero could smite without any sort of struggle, or else there would be no conflict. And, if your “ordinary” swordsman goes off to pick a fight with a god, things probably aren’t going to go well for him unless he has some serious help. (I’ll get more into details on that sort of thing later.) These are the sorts of problems that could arise if you don’t consider your character’s power level.

Today, I’m going to talk about how I deal with characters of varying power levels and how I create appropriate conflicts for them. So let’s get to it, shall we?

Determine Your Protagonist’s Power Level

The first step, of course, is to figure out where your hero falls on the power level scale. Are they a skilled fighter who relies only on their combat training and their wit to carry them through their battles? Or are they a superpowered mutant who has crazy powers that could literally unmake reality? Where they fall on the scale will bring you one step closer to figuring out what sort of threat you can set them against, without that threat being too easy or too hard for them to overcome.

You can come up with an actual scale, if you want—just decide on some basic power levels and number them, with the lowest number being the lowest power level and the highest number being the highest power level—but I, personally, find it easier to just compare my character’s power level to those of other fictional characters from things I like. Like, take my fighter example; they sound to me like they’d be about the same level as Black Widow from The Avengers. And, still sticking with the Avengers examples, my superpowered mutant seems like a solid Scarlet Witch. By using existing characters as a reference, I can more clearly imagine what my character’s probably capable of, which is going to be super helpful for writing them in general.

Build Your Conflict Around Your Protagonist

Once you have a solid idea of what your protagonist’s power level is, the next thing to consider is what sort of conflict would best suit someone of their abilities. Something that would be a challenge, but that they still have a fighting chance at. (Unless, of course, the plan is for them to lose. But, even then, I still think you should make it look like they have a chance of victory.)

If your main conflict is going to be a struggle between the protagonist and an antagonist, it’s a good rule of thumb to make the antagonist at least the same power level as the protagonist. If your hero can reshape reality in their image, the villain should either be able to do the same, or be able to do something else that’s equally powerful. If your hero is more of a warrior type, your antagonist should have abilities of their own that can compete with that in a (relatively) fair way. That way, you know that one person isn’t going to be able to just decimate the other, and you’ll get an actual fight.

But, of course, an antagonist isn’t the only thing that could cause conflict in a story. (It’s just probably the most common one, in the genres I mentioned.) Another common conflict in these genres (particularly fantasy and superhero) is the struggle against inner turmoil or a fatal flaw. This sort of conflict is great because it’s usually pretty easy to make it work, regardless of how powerful the character is—I mean, neither being an expert swordsman or being a physically invulnerable superhero could help you overcome something like guilt or an over-inflated ego. 

Obviously, it’s not as visually exciting as having an antagonist—that’s one reason why an emotional conflict is usually paired with an external one—but it can really add some drama and tension to a story that would otherwise lack both. And it’s far from impossible to make an internal conflict the main one, completely independent of an external one; you just have to ensure that that internal conflict is enough to cause some serious damage to the protagonist’s life, and is enough to drive them into action, be it good or bad.

Dealing with Protagonists and Antagonists of Different Power Levels

But, of course, some stories are going to require a protagonist and antagonist with power levels that aren’t balanced. Maybe you’ve got an idea for a fantasy story with a regular old assassin as the protagonist and a fire-breathing dragon as the antagonist, or a superhero story with a Superman-level protagonist and a powerless antagonist. You can still make these stories work—you just have to be willing to do things to help the “weaker” side out and even the odds.

Having an antagonist that’s more powerful than the protagonist is very common, and it’s usually not too difficult to make it work. In stories like this, the “quest” of the book is usually how the protagonist prepares to confront the antagonist. Going with my assassin vs. dragon example, maybe the protagonist has to build a team to help them slay the dragon. Individually, maybe the members of this team wouldn’t be a match for the dragon but, together, they have a fighting chance. Or maybe the assassin has to go on a quest to retrieve a magic sword or something that they could use to slay the dragon. Quite possibly, maybe they have to do both, and even then, their chances of victory might still seem slim.

Having an antagonist that’s more powerful than your protagonist adds immediate tension and presents a very obvious challenge; readers know that victory isn’t going to come easily for the protagonist, assuming it comes at all. This helps keep things exciting, which is a big reason why this sort of imbalance of power is so common. It can also be very empowering and inspiring to readers, because it shows characters overcoming seemingly impossible odds through their own resourcefulness.

Having an antagonist that’s weaker than your protagonist, on the other hand… that’s usually a lot more difficult. By themself, the antagonist doesn’t pose much of a threat to the protagonist; if they ever come face-to-face, the protagonist could sweep the floor with the antagonist without the slightest bit of a challenge, which makes for a very boring story. But it is possible to avoid this—you just have to be willing to get creative.

To me, the most well done villain-who’s-weaker-than-the-hero is Zemo from Captain America: Civil War. In the movie, his goal is to destroy the Avengers, because he blames them for his family’s deaths. (That’s a whole debacle that we don’t have to get into the details of here.) But he has no superpowers, and the Avengers are…the Avengers. What he does have, though, are resources and drive, and he uses them with devastating efficiency, successfully turning the Avengers against each other and ultimately achieving his goal. So, even though he certainly couldn’t take on even the least powerful Avenger in a fight, he still managed to do what no other Avengers enemy before him could—and those other enemies were much more powerful than him.

You can have your less powerful antagonists use similar strategies. Maybe they can turn the heroes against each other like Zemo did. Maybe they’re masters of deceit, or know how to exploit the protagonist’s greatest weakness. Or you can help them out by using the same strategies I mentioned for the weaker heroes, where they have to get a specific item or build a team before they can be a match for the protagonist.

Before I send you off, though, I do want to warn you about one common—and often poorly done, in my opinon—way that writers even the odds between a weaker antagonist and a stronger hero. If you’re at all familiar with comics, you probably know about Superman and his deadly weakness to Kryptonite, a green crystal that weakens him and strips him of his powers. There are many other fictional materials that affect powerful protagonists in similar ways too—the first other one that comes to mind is iron and ashwood in a lot of books about fey or fae. (Different spelling, same thing.) While I don’t think it’s inherently bad to include these sorts of materials in your story, I do think that a lot of writers kind of…overuse them, and depend on them a little too much to cause conflict. Often, it winds up being that pretty much every antagonist has whatever this weakening material is, and the protagonist is constantly under its effects—which can get really repetitive and tiresome really fast, taking the dramatic impact out of using them. 

So, if you’re going to include one of these types of materials in your story, my advice is to be mindful of how often you’re using it. Maybe you should have this material be super rare—and then stick to that as you’re writing, meaning that very few characters have it, and only in limited supply. I’d also say that you should make sure that it’s not the only thing that could cause a conflict in your story—even if your character is physically invulnerable to everything but that specific material, there should be other, maybe more emotional things, that could keep them from their goal too. By limiting your use of materials like this, you both strengthen your story and don’t risk taking the excitement and tension out of having the antagonist suddenly whip out the Kryptonite.

Outro

Balancing power levels can be a tricky task, and it often requires you to be flexible and get creative. But hopefully, by keeping the things I talked about in mind, you can make it a little easier for yourself. Thanks for reading!