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Sorry for having this thread suddenly posted in the staff forum of all places, but since some staff members ive spoken to have expressed issues with how this is being handled, I felt it was appropriate to post here. I myself won't be participating much so that its kept staff only. Anyway, getting the point of why this thread's made.
Constructs like planets or universes being created/destroyed is one thing since your using a given amount of energy at your disposal to dispose or create of something on those given scales. But what comes about this when your sustaining them? As someone before once put it, It's like saying that the energy required to keep one individual domino from falling over is equal to the end result every domino in a chain falling over. We're going under the quick assumption that sustaining a given construct requires the same exact level of power that's put into creating or destroying said construct, and thats not always quite the case as it looks like on paper. It isnt as if sustaining the construct requires your given power to affect the total scale of what it makes up, not unlike creation or destruction where it does require you to do that. To create something, the given energy needs to be used to shape and establish the total scale of what it is. To destroy something, the given energy needs to be used to wipe out the total scale of what it is. But how exactly does sustainability play into this?
To add to this, there are even cases where sustainability does not require reserves of energy, power, or strength in the first place to keep whatever construct your connected to in check. The construct and what its connected to can and are sustained by other means in fiction that are independent to that of your strength statistics. But without a well defined standard of how we are to judge these feats, we immediately go with the highest interpretation that the character must be pushing out constant levels of energy in [insert here] tier to be relative to that construct and keep it in check.
To add even more salt to the wound here, lack of context mixed with assumptions can inflate sustainability feats to levels of power that your sustainability may actually not even cover. For example, lets say Character A's presence is able to stop multiple planets from going on a collision course with each other and crash into each other. Should these planets move and crash into each other, they will be destroyed in the process. Now for arguments sake, lets assume that Character A has to put in constant amounts of energy as "fuel" to keep these planets from so much as moving an inch towards or away from each other and can be granted a tier. Keeping the planets from moving is one thing, while the planets being destroyed is an entirely different circumstance that Character A's presence does not have dominion over. The job of Character A's sustainability over the planets isn't to directly keep these planets whole in existence, its job is to keep them from moving towards each other. If by any chance that they should fail, and they do start to move and crash into each other, Character A's job is done. They aren't holding any power over the planets anymore. So even if you can try to scale their sustainability to the movement of the planets and grant that a tier, you would certainly not be able to grant a tier to them for the destruction of the planets. But once again, we tend to take the higher interpretation that the characters sustainability would scale to the whole overall thing without actually giving credible evidence of that being the case. So this would need to be looked over at with a fresh pair of eyes.
In short, how we measure and quantify sustainability feats isn't 1 to 1 clear, nor is it clear on how they would be the same tier as creation or destruction. Of course, I am not saying that power sources used to stabilize something on a given scale should be thrown out entirely by any means. Its a valid general practice that we should keep. But at the same time, we should be more strict and analytical over these kinds of feats where context greatly matters in determining the end result.
As a matter of fact, the very nature of the feat and what it is would actually suggest another logical interpretation here. That we shouldn't first assume the power being put into sustainability would scale to your AP & durability due to one key fact: the characters power is being focused onto sustainability. It's a similar idea to how a power source powering something would in turn only be used to power what they are supporting. If a character's own power is being entirely focused on sustaining a construct and keeping that construct in check, that first implies that their energy cannot be used for any other action but sustaining the construct. Which in turn, would mean that we cant and shouldn't assume that their energy would be able to be normally transferred into regular attacks or durability, things that their energy wasn't made to necessarily do. It would be the burden of proof of the individuals to make a case for and prove they could with credible evidence.
After all, its universally agreed by majority of us here that we would need to prove power put into creation or destablizing something can scale to regular AP, so why wouldnt that be the case for feats coming from sustaining something?
Sustainability / Stability feats as a general practice is valid and is still very much okay to keep here. I am not arguing for it to be removed or no longer be a valid practice. But what I am arguing here is that, as things stand, sustainability feats have a fair amount of concerns and confusions to its name that should be looked at over again, so we can determine the general dos and don'ts for these types of feats.
Stability Type Feats Issues
We need to have a discussion about how "Stability" feats are to be treated here. To clarify, what I mean by "Stability" here are feats where a character's existence, energy, presence, or whatever given factor from them sustains or stabilizes something on a given scale, and by that, their stats are tiered to being at that level of power. You can refer to this under the footnotes on our Tiering System page as well. Whether it's:- Stabilizing a planet and ending up as 5-B / 5-A
- Stabilizing a star and ending up as 4-C
- Stabilizing a galaxy and ending up as 3-C
- Stabilizing a universe and ending up as 3-A or Low 2-C
- Stabilizing a multiverse and ending up as 2-C / 2-B / 2-A
Issue 1: Attack Potency Being Relative
I wont be mentioning specific names here of where these issues came up, and people know what their issues are themselves. But this first concern was brought up by someone in staff that I've spoken to about sustainability feats. Why do we consider sustaining [insert here] construct to be the exact same tier as said construct? Or if wanting to be more specific, sustaining said construct as the same thing as creating or destroying said construct? We've had the same song and dance about creation and destruction feats here many times over, and we know how they generally work here. Energy being put into a destructive action? Obviously AP is relative. Energy being put into a creative action? AP is also relative, and with more backing to it when compared to the former. But Stabilization feats? They're more of an odd case when compared to the former 2.Constructs like planets or universes being created/destroyed is one thing since your using a given amount of energy at your disposal to dispose or create of something on those given scales. But what comes about this when your sustaining them? As someone before once put it, It's like saying that the energy required to keep one individual domino from falling over is equal to the end result every domino in a chain falling over. We're going under the quick assumption that sustaining a given construct requires the same exact level of power that's put into creating or destroying said construct, and thats not always quite the case as it looks like on paper. It isnt as if sustaining the construct requires your given power to affect the total scale of what it makes up, not unlike creation or destruction where it does require you to do that. To create something, the given energy needs to be used to shape and establish the total scale of what it is. To destroy something, the given energy needs to be used to wipe out the total scale of what it is. But how exactly does sustainability play into this?
To add to this, there are even cases where sustainability does not require reserves of energy, power, or strength in the first place to keep whatever construct your connected to in check. The construct and what its connected to can and are sustained by other means in fiction that are independent to that of your strength statistics. But without a well defined standard of how we are to judge these feats, we immediately go with the highest interpretation that the character must be pushing out constant levels of energy in [insert here] tier to be relative to that construct and keep it in check.
To add even more salt to the wound here, lack of context mixed with assumptions can inflate sustainability feats to levels of power that your sustainability may actually not even cover. For example, lets say Character A's presence is able to stop multiple planets from going on a collision course with each other and crash into each other. Should these planets move and crash into each other, they will be destroyed in the process. Now for arguments sake, lets assume that Character A has to put in constant amounts of energy as "fuel" to keep these planets from so much as moving an inch towards or away from each other and can be granted a tier. Keeping the planets from moving is one thing, while the planets being destroyed is an entirely different circumstance that Character A's presence does not have dominion over. The job of Character A's sustainability over the planets isn't to directly keep these planets whole in existence, its job is to keep them from moving towards each other. If by any chance that they should fail, and they do start to move and crash into each other, Character A's job is done. They aren't holding any power over the planets anymore. So even if you can try to scale their sustainability to the movement of the planets and grant that a tier, you would certainly not be able to grant a tier to them for the destruction of the planets. But once again, we tend to take the higher interpretation that the characters sustainability would scale to the whole overall thing without actually giving credible evidence of that being the case. So this would need to be looked over at with a fresh pair of eyes.
In short, how we measure and quantify sustainability feats isn't 1 to 1 clear, nor is it clear on how they would be the same tier as creation or destruction. Of course, I am not saying that power sources used to stabilize something on a given scale should be thrown out entirely by any means. Its a valid general practice that we should keep. But at the same time, we should be more strict and analytical over these kinds of feats where context greatly matters in determining the end result.
Issue 2: Scaling Sustainability to Stats
This second issue will probably be the biggest concern to be had with sustainability feats, and this will be going under the assumption that a characters energy is 100% fully relative to the tier of the given construct they are stabilizing. This issue involves scaling that level of power into normal means of attacking and surviving on that level. As someone else here that Ive spoken to about this have suggested, sustainability / stability feats should only be able to really be scaled to the totality of a character stats IF it can be proven that the energy they use to sustain something is the same energy they can use to hit people, or survive opponent attacks.As a matter of fact, the very nature of the feat and what it is would actually suggest another logical interpretation here. That we shouldn't first assume the power being put into sustainability would scale to your AP & durability due to one key fact: the characters power is being focused onto sustainability. It's a similar idea to how a power source powering something would in turn only be used to power what they are supporting. If a character's own power is being entirely focused on sustaining a construct and keeping that construct in check, that first implies that their energy cannot be used for any other action but sustaining the construct. Which in turn, would mean that we cant and shouldn't assume that their energy would be able to be normally transferred into regular attacks or durability, things that their energy wasn't made to necessarily do. It would be the burden of proof of the individuals to make a case for and prove they could with credible evidence.
After all, its universally agreed by majority of us here that we would need to prove power put into creation or destablizing something can scale to regular AP, so why wouldnt that be the case for feats coming from sustaining something?
Tl;Dr
Sustainability / Stability feats as a general practice is valid and is still very much okay to keep here. I am not arguing for it to be removed or no longer be a valid practice. But what I am arguing here is that, as things stand, sustainability feats have a fair amount of concerns and confusions to its name that should be looked at over again, so we can determine the general dos and don'ts for these types of feats.
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