NOTE: You are not required to read all of this or put your character's power classification in the character sheet; it is optional. Your character may receive classification during roleplay, it may be unknown, etc. However, if you're interested in the semantics of powers in this roleplay, here's an in-depth guide to power classifications!
Power Classifications
"Mover, Shaker,
Brute and Breaker.
Master, Tinker,
Blaster and Thinker,
Striker, Changer,
Trump and Stranger."
-A rhyme that Teen Heroes of America, and kids throughout primary school, often learn.
Power classifications and the accompanying number ratings are used by the PCRT to quickly identify parahuman threats and adopt strategies, although itâs used by others as well, including parahumans in other countries. There has been some scientific observation correlating certain power classifications to certain trigger events, but it is not always the case, just more likely the case that certain types of trigger events will lead to certain powers. Each classification is matched with a number 1-10, where higher numbers pose a greater threat. Remember that Power Classifications are not what give someone powers, but a way to describe someone's powers, especially so one can know what kind of offensive and defensive measures to take in combat. In modern day, the PCRT has twelve different categories, and do note that many categories have lots of overlap, and as a result, it is rare for even parahumans with simple abilities to only fall under a single category:
Mover: Has a power enhancing mobility, including but not limited to teleporting, flying, or super speed.
Shaker: Has a power with an area of effect, such as forcefield creation, aura effects, area of effect elemental attacks (like huge fire areas) etc.
Brute: Has enhanced strength or durability. Super strength, natural durability, natural armor, etc.
Breaker Can shift into another state, such as turn into water or gas. Breakers have the ability to alter themselves to a different state in which they maintain different abilities, although Breakers with permanently altered states also exist.
Master: Can control other entities or organisms or create minions, such as controlling bugs, dogs, or even suggest or control other people, or creating/summoning creatures, monsters, robots, etc. The ability to clone yourself also falls within Master.
Tinker Can create or alter devices with futuristic technology, Tinkers have the ability to fabricate alien or advanced technology. Tinkers are capable of making extremely advanced weaponry and technology, but due to it being because of their powers, they cannot teach others how it works or make it producible by machinery, because it is often times their powers breaking physics to allow the technology to work.
Blaster: Blasters are parahumans that have ranged offensive options. The majority of these powers are damaging, but this is not always the case. Includes shooting lasers, fire, acid, sonic blasts, or other projectiles.
Thinker: Focuses on information gathering. Thinkers have powers related to knowledge, skills and enhanced perception. Thinker powers do not necessarily make an individual smarter, although increased intelligence is considered a Thinker power. Powers can include enhanced perception, faster learning speed, extra senses, increased intellect, precognition/future sight, lie detection, and more.
Striker: Has a power that is melee-ranged or touch-based or close ranged ability. Includes tactile telekinesis, touch-teleporting, creating weapons, enhanced melee strikes, etc.
Changer: Can alter self form or appearance. Includes shapeshifting, creating bio-weapons on own body like claws, spikes, etc.
Trump: Can manipulate powers in some capacity. Trumps have powers that can manipulate powers in some capacity; altering, granting, strengthening, weakening or removing them entirely. Includes enhancing or debuffing other's powers, nullifying powers, changing powers. It also includes parahumans that can adapt new powers. Some Trumps have powers that solely interact with the powers of others. Trump powers are very rare: only about three to five percent of parahumans have a Trump rating.
Stranger: Focuses on stealth or infiltration. Strangers have powers related to stealth, distraction, infiltration, or subterfuge. Stranger abilities might allow the user (and sometimes their allies) to bypass defenses, mislead opponents, or to avoid notice. Includes invisibility/camouflage, silence, making people forget about you, obscuring senses, affecting target's mind, disabling equipment, etc.
Power Sub-Classifications & Information
Mover:
Trigger Events: Trigger events tend to produce Movers if they involve a drive to escape, flee, or run. The exact circumstances, the nature of what they are trying to escape, and relationship to the threat have a lot of influence on the type of Mover that arises from a trigger event
Takeoff, Transit and Terminus Movers
Produce effects on departure, arrival or while moving. Their trigger events involve the belief they are unable to endure further emotional, mental or physical harm, but they trigger well in advance or after the harm, often while a person or focus responsible is present.
Takeoff Mover: Produces an effect on departure.
Transit Mover: Produces an effect while traveling.
Terminus Mover: Produces an effect on arrival.
Slip and Hurdle Movers
Often have their body changed and altered to perform their ability, having faint Brute, Breaker, Stranger, or Changer component. Their trigger events involve an accumulation of small abuses and hassles.
Slip Mover: Maximizes maneuverability and avoidance but donât cover a great deal of ground.
Hurdle Mover: Capable of enhanced running, jumping or climbing or some combination.
Rocket, Run, Fly, Blink and Ride Movers
Movers with an emphasis on one type of movement. Their trigger events place a large amount of focus on the emotions of the Mover and the abstract nature of the problem they are trying to escape.
Rocket Mover: Rushes towards their destination, but often with little maneuverability.
Run Mover: Travels along the ground, emphasizing speed.
Fly Mover: Uses either physical means or some sort of mechanism to become airborne. Often also have Brute or Breaker powers.
Blink Mover: Capable of teleportation, moving between points without crossing intervening space.
Ride Mover: Uses something as a mount or vehicle to travel. Overlap with Shakers.
Setup Movers
Rely on something else to make the movement possible, requiring some kind of setup. Their trigger events tie into puzzling something out.
Gate Mover: Creates something that grants movement, often an emplacement, gateway, launchpad or similar.
Conveyance Mover: Requires a great deal of setup but act on a greater scale, often moving others or setting up for later actions.
Common combinations with other ratings
Mover is a common secondary rating, often in the form of flight. It's especially common in flying Brutes and flying Blasters. Takeoff, Transit and Terminus Movers have offensive potential through a Blaster or Shaker effect attached to their Mover power, while Slip and Hurdle Movers access their Mover powers through other enhancements. Tinkers, of course, express their Mover potential through their ability to create vehicles, or devices that replicate Mover effects, such as jet-packs or hoverboards.
Shaker:
Shakers use their abilities to control the battlefield. They use several methods to accomplish this, including, but not limited to:
⢠The creation and manipulation of forcefields in a variety of shapes and sizes.
⢠Blasts with an area of effect, combining Shaker powers with a Blaster rating.
⢠The manipulation of terrain, hampering the mobility of enemy forces.
⢠The use of auras, either aiding allies or debilitating enemies.
⢠The use of different forms of telekinesis.
⢠The creation of environmental hazards, such as gasses and explosions.
Trigger events producing Shakers often involve some sort of environmental or ambient danger, often non-human or only abstractly human.
Brute:
Muscle and Armor Brutes often fall close the Changer rating, have powers that morph their form and appearance. A rare subset of Transfiguration brutes is the Resurrection brute. Who are, as the name implies, able to come back from the dead when they die. however they usually lose something in the process. Flight is a common secondary power for Brutes. Brute powers might manifest themselves in variety of ways. Most Brutes are either some combination of big, strong, and tough or possess some other method of self-protection. Brutes can be divided in twelve categories, where individual Brutes can fall into multiple groups:
Muscle Brute: Relies on size and physical strength, often utilizing biokinesis or some sort Changer effect.
Armor Brute: Has a sort of shell around themselves, producing raw armor that will absorb blows until it is cracked or penetrated.
Shield Brute: Has a direction-dependent defensive feature or one that is based around an object or field moved around at will.
Intensity Brute: Has a very pronounced offensive lean using an 'element', with assisting defensive powers.
Field Brute: Maintains a personal forcefield, or durability that is very potent but temporary or readily broken.
Dynamic Brute: Has skill-based defensive measures or ways of redirection.
Sunder Brute: Has aggressive defensive measures that weaken foes.
Repression Brute: Has abstract or indirect measures used to moderate harm.
Negate Brute: Has access to all-or-nothing measures, often with matching offense.
Regen Brute: Has abilities that offer benefits over time and healing abilities.
Transfiguration Brute: Has abilities related to transformation and revival.
Immortal Brute: Offer one-time, massive benefits, but do not heal easily.
For Brutes, trigger events usually involve some form of physical harm, where the source and severity of the damage, combined with contextual factors, inform the resulting ability.
Breaker:
Nearly all powers have some small element of Breaker to them: the innate defenses of parahumans that keep their own powers from harming them are generally Breaker powers (such as a pyrokinetic being flame-resistant). Powers that earn a true Breaker rating are those that cause the user to alter their physical (and sometimes mental) state to something alien and power-generated. This altered state can have a singular benefit that breaks the defined laws of reality (as any power does, but centered around the parahumanâs capabilities) or a state that contains a suite of powers. The altered state may have costs when adopting it, costs to maintain it, or costs and complications in other forms. While all powers have some small element of Breaker to them, Breakers generally express other ratings through their alternate state. A Shaker classification is common, as is a Stranger classification. The Trump classification, particularly through edge cases, is also frequently combined with Breaker.
Breaker triggers are perhaps the hardest to define. On one hand, Breakers emerge from triggers that blur the line between physical and mental. It's not enough for trigger event to have a physical and mental element: The two must be indivisibly linked. On the other hand, Breaker powers emerge from abstract stressors, or from threats that are hard to define or explain. They often involve self-contradictory feelings. For a Mover, this might include things like wanting to escape on a physical level while mentally feeling that the situation is safe, the inverse, or something more abstract, like wanting to escape reality on a spiritual level and finding oneself unable, or wanting to escape a concept or wanting to escape something that cannot be avoided on a fundamental level. Drugs, poisons, medical conditions and mental illnesses very frequently involved in the unusual scenarios that make Breaker triggers possible.
Master:
Masters are parahumans that are either able to manipulate others or to create minions to do their bidding. They can do this through a variety of ways, including, but not limited to:
⢠The ability to create and control minions, with a large amount of variations in size, control, amount, and exact method:
⢠The ability to control and sometimes enhance existing creatures, such as bugs, rats, or dogs.
⢠The power to animate normally inanimate objects.
⢠The creation of duplicates of oneself.
⢠The power to create projections.
⢠The ability to control other people actively or passively, either directly or by manipulating emotions or attitudes.
Masters usually arise from trigger events involving isolation, alienation, exile or betrayal. It should be noted that the loss of a loved one can be considered a Master trigger, one with a singular, focused sense of loss and isolation.
Masters don't often have secondary powers, instead expressing them through their minions instead. One exception is the Master-Stranger combination: Master powers based around controlling or influencing others are often extremely useful for infiltration, while a more niche Master-Stranger can use self-duplicates as a distraction. Tinkers can often build drones or breed creatures, falling under the Master classification.
Tinker:
Tinkers are distinct from other parahumans in that their powers donât work through them so much as they enable them to fabricate things: They can create devices or alter existing devices well beyond usual restrictions of education, knowledge, resources, or physics. Most Tinkers have a specialty, an area of technology in which they operate either exclusively or better than others. Tinkers are among the most flexible parahumans, as a typical Tinker can artificially assume any number of other classifications depending on specialty, in addition to drawing inspiration from the powers of other parahumans or the work of other Tinkers. A main limitation to Tinker power is that only a Tinker can make such objects that can break the laws of physics, and as such, they cannot show humanity how to make these high-tech gadgets because it simply won't work if anyone else tries to follow their blueprints. This also stops Tinker-made gear from being mass produced, but doesn't stop Tinkers from making a small number of weapons to distribute, not unlike modern-day blacksmiths. Tinkers can be divided in twelve sub-categories:
Hyperspecialist Tinker: Has an emphasis on their specialty alone, often gaining an advantage in exchange for their narrow focus.
Focal Tinker: Focuses on a single item that build and rebuild, with multiple or very powerful functions.
Limit Tinker: Has a primary field in which they specialize, but can dip into other fields.
Binary Tinker: Has two specialties, possibly with some amount of overlap.
Combat Tinker: May be more flexible in specialty, but leans heavily or entirely toward applications on the battlefield.
Chaos Tinker: Doesnât have complete control over what they build, how, or over the end result.
Resource Tinker: Leans heavily on the question of materials for their creations.
Controller: Creates drones as part of their primary field of specialty.
Architect: Works primarily with large scale, time-consuming constructions.
Mad Scientist: Has more power or breadth of options but must pay a cost to obtain these things.
Magi: Focuses on utility or self-improvement.
Free Tinker: Can build anything they can dream of.
Tinkers trigger events usually arise from problems without solutions that take place over long periods, culminating in crisis moment. The elements of the trigger build up over weeks or months and are inexorably tied into the moment the character triggers. The exact nature of the problem informs the type of Tinker that emerges (see also the table above), while other key elements, such as surrounding features, context and details determine the Tinkerâs specialty.
A Tinker device is impossible for normal humans to recreate, reverse-engineer, or even maintain. Tinkers not only work with highly advanced technology, production and maintenance is also extremely precise, requiring the aid of the Tinkerâs power to get right. Even extremely minor factors that the Tinker isnât consciously aware of can have great effect on the end result: Examples include ambient temperature, radio waves and earth's superposition in the galaxy. Tinkers are often able to modify devices of other Tinkers, although even here the end-result will be of lesser quality. On the other hand, others â even ordinary humans â are able to use Tinker devices. Tinkers can equip teammates with items (although this is not customary), while some other Tinkers sell their goods on the black market. As Tinkers often place trackers on their gear, itâs generally unwise to steal it.
Blaster:
Blasters use their powers to attack their enemies from range, generally using deleterious blasts with a large variety of effects: Blasters involve one or more types, which determine the amount, range, accuracy and power, among other factors (essentially the 'gun' that the Blaster fires); and an 'element', which determines the type of damage and any special effects of the shots. Blasters can be categorized in twelve different types, where an individual Blaster can fall into multiple groups:
Damage Blaster: Emphasizes raw offensive power.
Ruin Blaster: Has a lot of destructive power, much of it turned toward using or destroying the environment.
Barrage Blaster: Produces a large amount of bullets, sometimes at the cost of accuracy or damage.
Range Blaster: More dangerous or accurate when attacking from a great distance.
Accuracy Blaster: Can produce bullets that either home in on the target or are very hard to dodge.
Effect Blaster: Emphasizes the secondary characteristics of the shot, sacrificing damage or other qualities.
Impact Blaster: Put an emphasis on big shots and massive impacts that send enemies flying.
Object Blaster: Operates with the blast originating from or being capitalized on by some power created minion, object, or field.
Versatile Blaster: Has high utility or a variety of attack forms, making them more competent in a variety of scenarios.
Beam Blaster: Produces lasers or stream attacks, making dodging hard or impossible.
Enchantment Blaster: Can imbue items, applying an effect that makes it effective as ammunition or, to varying degrees, as a melee weapon.
Conditional Blaster: Has additional requirements or traits pushed to an extreme, at the cost of other traits.
Blasters emerge from trigger events involving some sort animated, ranged threat: hostile others, approaching or attacking from a distance. The exact circumstances, and the nature of and relationship to the threat have a lot of influence on the type of Blaster that arises from a trigger event. At the same time, the âelementâ of the Blaster shot can also vary wildly, and covers a whole spectrum of possibilities. In most cases, the power will take ideas from surroundings, emotional state, themes, or personality traits. The effect is similar to how dreams pick up on little things that one notices throughout their day, making sense only sometimes, in retrospect, but rarely in the moment. Blasters commonly venture into the Shaker classification: Ruin Blasters through their ability to manipulate the environment, and Impact Blasters through the large radius of their blasts. Enchantment Blasters, on the other hand, cross over into the Striker classification. Flight is a common secondary power for Blasters: Blaster-Mover combinations with flight are so common they have their own name, often being called 'flying artillery'.
Thinker:
Thinkers have powers related to knowledge, skills and enhanced perception. Thinker powers do not necessarily make an individual smarter, although increased intelligence is considered a Thinker power. Thinkers might use their abilities to gather information. Their powers might manifest in variety of different ways, but currently only seven types of Thinkers are known:
Combat Thinker: Has powers that enable them to fight more effectively.
Environment Thinker: Are particularly good at using or reading the surroundings effectively.
Scan Thinker: Can effectively gather information about a subject or area.
Sense Thinker: Has enhanced or augmented senses.
Skill Thinker: Has powers that enhance their abilities to perform, learn, or execute techniques.
Social Thinker: Can manipulate, study, or control others, but do so purely through the right information or skills.
Esoteric Thinker: Can work with other powers or approach the types of Thinker listed above with an abstract angle or twist.
Trigger events usually produce Thinkers when the parahuman experiences large amounts of emotional and mental strain while a crisis point is reached in a short period of time. This contrasts with Tinkers, where issues remain unresolved over a large amount of time before they culminate in a crisis moment. Crushing revelations, moments of mental or emotional anguish, great fear, anger, and self-loathing are frequent causes of Thinker triggers. Thinker is an extremely common secondary classification, often in support of other powers, as such, Thinker is not truly tied to any other classification.
Striker:
Strikers are parahumans that have powers that are touch-based or melee ranged. This includes a large amount of different abilities, including, but not limited to:
⢠The ability to empower weapons or other objects, granting them unique qualities.
⢠The power to impart some sort of changed state on a target through touch.
⢠The power to create weapons.
⢠Abilities that enhance melee strikes with a variety of effects.
⢠Particularly short ranged forms of telekinesis, including pyrokinesis.
It should be noted that enhanced strength is usually not a Striker power, but part of the Brute classification. Trigger events for Strikers usually result from immediate, in-your-face threat, usually a singular object or individual.
Changer:
Changers can alter their form, appearance, or natural abilities through some form of manipulation of their own bodies. They exploit this in a various ways, including, but not limited to:
⢠The power to grow extra weapons or armor.
⢠The ability to streamline oneâs body, allowing for improved movement and evasion, often used for infiltration.
⢠The ability to alter once appearance or to alter one's human features, as found in the old Shifter classification.
⢠The use of self-targeted biokinesis, possibly to heal oneself.
The Changer rating does not include new powers beyond natural weapons, armor, or durability.
Changers trigger events usually arise from mental and emotional issues involving identity or body image, or from conflicts involving constraining social expectations.
Trump:
Trumps have powers that can manipulate powers in some capacity; altering, granting, strengthening, weakening or removing them entirely. It also includes parahumans that can adapt new powers. Some Trumps have powers that solely interact with the powers of others. Trump powers are very rare: only about three to five percent of parahumans have a Trump rating.
A notable characteristic of Trump ratings is that they will always be connected to one of the other eleven classifications, albeit the exact relation can vary. Some powers can have a small Trump note, while others have the Trump aspect as the most noticeable, where the other rating is only a method of expression or even just a complimentary factor. That said, the Trump rating covers an incredibly wide range of abilities, but can be roughly categorized in eleven or twelve different groups, where individual powers can fall in multiple groups:
Null: Reducing the effectiveness of other powers, sometimes outright nullifying or erasing them.
One: Powers with variable aspects, where one part of the power is fixed while other is flexible.
Two: Powers involved with partnering, bonding and gifting.
Three: Allows the parahuman to steal, borrow, or copy other powers.
Four: Abilities where one can pick between different options, but the powers are often slower, weaker or clunkier.
Five: Scrambling, disrupting, or altering powers in some manner.
Six: Powers that can effect large groups of people.
Seven: Powers that cycle between different variants, where unpredictability is rewarded with more raw power.
Eight: Abilities that can toggle between different modes, often expressed as different Breaker states.
Nine: Abilities that create minions or other vehicles with Trump effects.
Ten: Enhancing, granting, or boosting powers, often with a secondary effect.
Infinity: Power sets nearly limitless in both option and choice, but where other large drawbacks often apply.
Trigger events that lead to Trump powers are actually extremely similar to other trigger events, with one key difference: They involve powers. As such, Trump trigger events always match one of the other eleven classifications in terms of what kind of powers it might give. How the Trump aspect expresses itself depends on two factors. First of all, the degree powers are involved and the proximity of the parahuman using these powers. As powers become more involved and the parahuman gets closer, the Trump aspect gets stronger, relatively to other classifications. Secondly, the type of Trump power to manifest depends heavily on the relationship (level of focus, level of abstraction, and feelings) to the powers: For example, if the relationship is a positive one, the ability to gift powers becomes more likely, while the ability to steal them is indicative of a negative relationship.
The person triggering does not need to know that powers are involved in his trigger event
Stranger:
Stranger abilities might allow the user (and sometimes their allies) to bypass defenses, mislead opponents, or to avoid notice. Some effects may not be patently obvious and can potentially be used in civilian guise. They can work through a variety of ways, including but not limited to:
⢠Obscuring or altering the senses of others, including blinding, gas clouds, and holograms.
⢠Affecting the target's mind to distract or debilitate, using things like hallucinations and perception filters.
⢠Allowing the user to disable, deny or repossess enemy equipment (and objects in general).
⢠Granting invisibility, stealth or different forms of camouflage.
⢠Imitating others in appearance, voice and mannerisms.
⢠Enabling or benefiting surprise attacks.
⢠Granting or enhancing skills and abilities while unobserved.
Stranger powers are usually result of a trigger event involving a threat to emotional and mental security or social or collective pressure, often with a focus on unwanted attention. This attention can be from individuals, groups, or even the world itself. Stranger triggers often have a great deal of overlap with other categories: Masters and Changers in particular tend to find parallels with Strangers. On the other hand, the Brute-Stranger combination is a rare one: unwanted attention and personal bodily harm donât necessarily accommodate each other, and when they do the trigger event generally doesn't lean toward a Brute rating.
The most common classifications paired with Strangers are Master and Changer. The Master-Stranger combination is often based around controlling or influencing others, using things like emotion control or body puppeteering, while Changer-Strangers are often those whose powers involve changing oneâs physical appearance, mimicking others, or using an altered shape to slip in where an ordinary person couldnât get. Breaker-Strangers are also not uncommon, although the resulting power are highly varied: It tends to involve the alternate state enabling a Stranger effect.
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