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How would you beat hax

The_real_cal_howard

The_real_cal_howard

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Alright, so I'm on another one of my hax trips, but it's not negative this time. I was proud of myself for thinking around a way for infinite speed in my verse, and I wanted to see how other creative people would write around a decently haxxed character. By decently haxxed, I mean they at least have to be on the level of any self respecting Digimon, but you can go all the way up to GEoM level if you want. Extra kudos if you don't rely on resistances. Prep can obviously be a factor, and it probably will be.

Side question. I hear that Jojo's handles this really well. How do? Especially with Novel Kars, even though he's not canon.
 
Let me rephrase that:

How would you beat hax and not make the audience drop the series right there and then ovo
 
Power null. Seriously. Kharn can have actual fights due to having very potent power null and nothing else, forcing his oponents into basic combat. Other ways are having the characters not fight fair. Like say there's a 10B with emprah levels of EE, but he has to be able to be aware of his oppnent to use it. Have the other guy set up like a minefield or something, other geurilla tactics work too.
 
Stat reduction, durability negation, and power null are like the holy Trinity of anti hax abilities, and so long as you don't go too crazy with something like stat reduction you can mantain tension.
 
The real cal howard said:
Let me rephrase that:

How would you beat hax and not make the audience drop the series right there and then ovo
Click to expand...
Often within jojo stands have a primary hax ability that is usually the only ability of a stand . The user must use that ability within plenty batles because thats the only power the user must rely on . Eventualy a user gets a bunch of unconventional methods of utilizing the ability . Except early jojo . Pokemon type advantage unconventional think and outside of a box almost akin with chess essentially later jojo part .

Ultimate breaks the rule though and gets multiple stands cal .
 
I once wrote a character for a friend who's ability was to passively powescale to their opponent in terms of power, copy all their powers except as resistances, and train a ton in regular fighting techniques, with no limit to this. NLF type abilities work well for this, as you can write fine around them. It's only really annoying for vs debaters.
 
If a character has trully broken hax you could dedicate part of the story to them prepping some sort of resistances. You can still write well around the process of getting there.
 
JoJo just has really smart main characters. If you're anyone who is not Giorno, you're probably smarter than the above average human being. Just look at Josuke's fight with Kira.

Killer Queen became way more overpowered than Josuke's Crazy Diamond, but through smart thinking, he found creative ways to get around almost every upper hand Kira had.

But if you want a more cut and dry way of circumventing hax you can just do what I did. Make a dude who is bound by the laws of normalcy. Anything deemed abnormal, aka hax, is negated in his presence. Werewolves, zombies and stuff like that disappear in his presence as the general consensus for "normal" is that they do not exist.

It makes for interesting character fights, as you can break down the opponent and see his motivations and ordeals through having to fight someone who has no hax whatsoever whilst them having no hax as well.
 
Beating an antagonist with hax. It could be primary like Lucemon, or it could be a henchman like Gremmy.
 
Haxxy characters work fine depending on the setting. Look at Ahzek Ahrima for example. Yes, he's an incredibly powerful and versatile psyker in 40k of all verses, but his stories are written in a verse accomdating to that sort of thing. There may be times where he's destroying Titans with a thought, deleting stars and incinerating planets, but there are also times where he wins not due to how powerful he is but due to his smarts. Wizard duels in general in fiction tend to end up like rocket tag, with each side trying to out Gambit the other to find that one opening for the killing blow.
 
I don't know how else to answer this if you're just gonna call it "hax". It's like saying "how do I beat a good superpower". What's the power?

Now for any good series you need to have balance. Of course unless your character is intentionally a God Tier. In which case you most preferably shouldn't be having them directly fight people.

For this balance, you can bring that in the form of a weakness or limitation on the user's part, that a character will then exploit. The opponent you want to beat this person can have a hax or attribute that naturally counteracts the power (Like Fire Manipulation to fight off Ice Manipulation. Immortality to fight off Death Manipulation. Soullessness to fight off Soul Manipulation. Etc.)

Or you can go for a basic "they're too strong for this to work on them". It may seem like a lame and bare bones write off, but if executed properly it can serve as a really badass moment to show that this person is on a whole other level. (I wouldn't spam this explanation and only save it for a really big heavyhitter).
 
You could throw the audience for a loop, and have the villain legitimately win. Now depending on the tone of your verse this doesn't have to be permanent, but it takes the story in a generally unexpected direction and aleviates the issues of not trying to force a win through PIS randomly nerfing your villain or having your character pull random bullshit out of their ass.
 
just give me law manipulation lol. Heavily restricted id just give my self the ability to only die if someone can only kill me by meeting the requirements
 
Law manip is a very powerful hax in it's own right that's difficult to balance out. Cal basically wants to avert power creep like that. The difference between that and power null is that with power null you can still have a fight with tension.
 
Being totally invincible if you're opponent doesn't meet specific requirements is really strong though, especially since any smart person can just make those requirements unattainable or hard to. Basically, you're becoming a raid boss. Those are generally riddled with PIS.
 
Wokistan said:
Being totally invincible if you're opponent doesn't meet specific requirements is really strong though, especially since any smart person can just make those requirements unattainable or hard to. Basically, you're becoming a raid boss. Those are generally riddled with PIS.
Click to expand...
i can be defeated by being sealed lol. or turned to stone lol or frozen
 
There is always the fun route of having your protagonists find a way to use the villain's hax against them, or exploit some kind of weakness inherent to their character without confronting them directly, often utilizing more minor abilities to eventually emerge victorious.

I feel Doctor Strange did this pretty well in the final confrontation with Dormammu. Stephen was up against literal god (not something like Thor, but a universe-devouring eternal being from before the beginning of time) who could do pretty much anything he could with the potency upped a millionfold. One would assume he had no possible way to actually come out on top, and yet he did, by exploiting an extremely simple time loop. All because this little man from a meaningless mudball in one of infinite universes thought to exploit one of the only things this demon had yet to ever deal with. He made Dormammu retreat not through sheer power or overpowering Dorm's hax with his own, but because he was smart. After a while, the being realizes that while it held all the power, Strange was the one holding all the cards.

As the good Doctor himself said when told he couldn't win, "No. But I can lose. Again. And again. And again. And Again. Forever. And that makes you my prisoner."
 
If the weakness is that broad that's actually not a bad idea. You can have a secondary goal for the villain be finding out the caveat to your invincibility, for example. In general, if you're trying to write it's usually best to not think of it from a vs debating standpoint. NLFs are fine for storytelling, not everything needs to be 1-A in potency.
 
yeah I really like how Light and his death note functioned and how he used Kira to protect himself. It was hax asf but it could kill him also. So i based my hax around that. Hax that can only be used if certain conditions are met.
 
If there hax enough and intellegent enough you don't, you lose just like everyone else whos tried to fight that haxed broken character. Your not the first to know your opponents hax abilities, and assuming you can win where so many others have failed is redicoulous. If the character is hax enough and isn't a complete moron you lose and die.

Of course in stories the pis will take place and despite being as intellegent as you and more powerful you'll win due to reasons. Sorry what was the question? :p
 
Jojo handles the issue of hax through giving either the hax a weakness (Eg. Silver Chariot Requiem), giving the hax user a character flaw (Eg. Alessi) or via sheer galaxy IQ plays (Josuke vs Kira). All Jojo characters, even those who are labelled dumb, would be very intelligent in comparison to characters in any average verse. Especially in the later parts, fights turn into mind games with tactics, maneuverability, usage of the environment and outthinking the opponent having greater value than the amazingness of the hax itself. Araki also limits a lot of later Stand abilities in terms of range, so the one with lower range needs to find ways to close the distance in order to be able to do anything. A lot of the haxed Stands also ignore dura, so the stakes become that much higher as the potential to get 1HKO is very high. Often, a Stand battle leaves heavy injuries even on the winning side as the battle was a constant to and fro of intellectual oneupmanship.

All these factors are why Jojo fights are a joy to watch/read as they are set up like a puzzle to be solved and the watcher/reader will often invest themselves in trying to find a solution which our heroes with their limited moveset could maybe use to defeat foes with more haxy movesets.
 
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