Making Weak Skills Broken!

CaptainBoyHole

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Okay, So I intend to eventually make a story where the protagonist's limits are broken at the start of it but the thing is, he can only use weak general skills! Obscure and weird skills like:
[Spit Lv 1]
[Cook Lv1]
[Kick Lv1]
[Create Water Lv1]
[Regurgitation Lv1]
[Flip Lv1]
[Gargle Lv1]
[Grab Lv1]
[Drink Lv1]
[Breathing Lv1]


How could i go about making skills like these into skills that could compete with broken crap like fire spells, ice spells, swords, magical beasts that can tear through iron and steel, and heroes!?
THe way how i wanted to do it was like this, here is an example of how i would make spit useful as a skill.
  • Spit would allow him to spit better than any other human in the world. As the level increases the spit becomes more and more dangerous and allows more and more ways of using it. Like being able to spit through steel, spit burning/acidic spit, being able to increase the amount of spit his mouth can hold and spit like a tsunami sized, or like spit being able to heal/cleanse.

Any ideas?
 

K5Rakitan

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I see "create water" and think of how "make water" is a common euphemism for urination in literature about ancient cultures.
 

TotallyHuman

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For example, grab is so powerful that the mc can grab something despite defences. Like, fighting a super assassin, mc grabs their weapon, or somebody flees, mc grabs their ankle. Or going full-on subarashii, ainzu-sama:grasp heart of the enemy
 

MrTiemos

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[Spit Lv 1] Increase the ‘strength’ until the character is able to use it to make pseudo-projectiles. Add with [Create Water] to make a water cannon.
[Cook Lv1] Increase the potency until the character is able to make gourmet class foods out of nigh-inedible ingredients. Bonus if the foods give various boosts such as ‘increased strength’.
[Kick Lv1] Similar to [Spit], increase the ‘strength’. If you make it so the character can ‘kick the air’ then infinite jumps are possible.
[Create Water Lv1] Really? This is op as all hell! DROWN YOUR OPPONENTS by creating water in their lungs! Stop a dragon’s breath! Make a weapon of water and [Grab] it to never be unarmed!
[Regurgitation Lv1] Eat your opponent and regurgitate anything harmful to the body? Or make it so that the character can specify what they regurgitate as the level increases.
[Flip Lv1] At a high or max level, makes it so the character’s body is covered by a barrier while they’re flipping, allowing for them to parry any attack coming at them while they’re flipping.
[Gargle Lv1] Synergy with [Spit] to increase it’s power? Or maybe the character can purify any poison by gargling it.
[Grab Lv1] Increase until the character can grab the immaterial! Grab mana and fling it at their opponents! Or grab the curse (in the form of chains bound to the character’s soul) that’s going to kill them and break it with their hands!
[Drink Lv1] Two words: Drink souls.
[Breathing Lv1] Increase until the character doesn’t need air to breathe. How? Who knows! Add [Kick] at high/max level to let the character travel through space!
 

Yorda

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[Cook Lv1] - because it is only level 1 it has a tendency to spoil/burn everything. Targeting various parts on a monster cooks them, thus spoiling/burning them alive instantly.

[Create Water Lv1] - incapable of dying from dehydration despite being lost in a desert.

[Flip Lv1] - flips things at a distance. Target the opponent, they get flipped. Since it's only level one, the target is only flipped one time per use. Flip a dragon, flip a table, same thing.

[Grab Lv1] - capable of grabbing things at a distance. Grab the opponent's heart as suggested above, or grab their testicles. Very effective.

[Drink Lv1] - able to drink things at a distance. The MC can drink their opponents blood until it causes cardiac arrest. Can drink poison, thus nullifying it?

[Breathing Lv1] - the MC is able to breath. It doesn't matter whether they are underwater or being strangled to death, they can just breathe.

Combination,
Drink+Gargle+Spit - Capable of draining the opponents blood at a distance and spitting it on the ground.
 

halfbakedwriter

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If you've ever read LOTM, the Error Pathway can 'steal' anything. For example, Amon, an extremely high-ranking member of the Error Pathway, can literally 'steal' the distance between him and his target, making him 'teleport.' Or he once stole the day from the sky, making it instantly night. Or he stole the thoughts out of the main character's head, making him not want to kill himself.
You can apply this idea to 'grab' or 'flip' or pretty much any generic verb.
 

DragonMage18

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My gosl here is to make semingly usless skills, or just usless skils but finding ways to make them OP.

[Spit Lv 1]
Allows the user to produce more spit and increasing the acuracy while spitting. Allows for a certian ammount of control of the properties (clarity, slime/snot content, and others (just add random parameters here). With every level up the basic abilityes go up. PS! This skill draws water out of your body to produce the spit.

MC could use this skil to taunt opponents (how would you feel being in the middle of a fight, the opponent spits in your face? Spit you in the eyes? Or anywhere else for that sake?) There is also the option ofkissing the opponent and trying to drown them with your spit...


[Cook Lv1]
Allows for better handeling of equipment used for cooking, snd makes it easier to prepare ingredients.

This should be a skill usualy only held by chefs, housewifes/husbands, or just non combat profesions.
MC is able to use the kitchen equipment to dismantle enemies (ironicly enough while stil alive). At some point even able to remove their armor.
Can use frying pans as a shield, pots as helmets, cutting boards and strings as armour.


[Kick Lv1]
You are only able to attack by preforming kicks. Anny other way off attacking willl result in injuries and extrem pain. Becomes easier to attack and injure your opponent.

Only being able to attack by kicking (using your feet) is a big disadvantage, but what if the MC somehow or for some wired reason belives that any attack preformed with his body is a kick?
Well what's above is a what if senario, the pain is so great that after experiencing it a few times you would laugh in the face of almost any type of torture. It's the ultimate torture skill if used correctly.


[Create Water Lv1]
The ultimate desert suevival skill. Able to create pure drinkable water. Efficeny increases the more water there is in the surrounding area.

Top notch survival skill, also great synergetic effect with the spit skill.


[Regurgitation Lv1]
Here you could chsnge the name to [Regurgitate Lv1] and do something refering to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regurgitate_(band)
If not
Gives the user better control over their digestive system, and the abillity to vomit on comand.


[Flip Lv1]
Can flip anything with a wight less than 1kg, in direct contact with the users body at the time of activation. Leveling up the skill grants better control for how it flips. PS! Items keep the momentum they hadd at the time of activation. Lower skil level grant no way to control how items flip.

MC can flip arrows and other incoming projectiles, flip enemy wepons/equipment.


[Gargle Lv1]
Makes it possible for the skill owner to gargle. Gargeling cleanse the mouth and throath. Making it possible retain perfectly healty theet without brushing.

As said the skill provides the MC with unusualy good mouth and throath hygiene, if done reguarly. As an hidden effeckt the gragling water is perfeckt for neutralizing Acidic and Alcaline substances (provided that some of it got into MC's mouth before gargling). Can also be used for washing wounds provided that you make sure your mouth is clean first.
Effects should be small (barly noticable if at all) in the lower levels.
If I remember right then wounds in the mouth is the once healing fastest (don't remember where i heard it, but it might actualy be correct), so you could also add a hidden, hidden effeckt of it helping wounds heal faster.


[Grab Lv1]

Can't come up with a description that don't sound OP, but could also be used as a Steal type skill in addition to making it easier to holding something, might also work on intangible things. If MC also have the appraisal type skill he might even be able to grab skills or other kinds of information from other people, might even make it possible for the MC to change name, age, race and so on, ggrab other peoples level/experience.
So yeah, pretty OP if you aks me...


[Drink Lv1]




[Breathing Lv1]

Helps the skill holder breath more efficently and makes it possible to hold your breath a bit longer.

A combination of what @MrTiemos and @Yorda wrote. Could also make it possible to add some breathing technique, like those from Wuxia novels (just addapt it to the rules of that world, like after reaching a certian level it evolves into a skill thats the cultivation technique).


Sorry, but I need to sleep, so I will fill in the rest of the sills tomorrow...:blob_sleep:
EDIT: Filled in whatever I did not do Yesterday exept for Drink.
 
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Ral

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How are these abilities "weak" if they are like that? They are weak because you tell us so, in description only, but not because they actually are.

I don't think this is a good idea. The readers could see that you are just bull-shitting.
 

Megamink

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i dunno how to help but i'd say Breathing would be your ability to breathe. you can say that the skill will give you greater control and efficiency over your breathing. at level one it'd be like useless, but as it grows you can say that your breathing is better, allowing you to say continue to fight for longer periods of time, run for longer periods of time and maybe even hold your breathe for longer periods of time. that's all i can think of for the breathing skill honestly. if you max it you can say that he can maybe fight for like 24 hours or run for 24 hours. you are in perfect body condition and don't even break a sweat from tough and extrenous excersie.
 

Shirokuma

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Breathing is the act of pulling the elements into the atmosphere and transforming them into energy, basically make it transform everything that enters your body into energy.

Ps: Google translation.
 
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let's say with flip, you can flip the reality's laws upside down.

like making the earth flat.

with the plus side of making flat-earthers proud of you.

or you can flip gravity's laws so everything will fall upwards.
 

NotaNuffian

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Okay, So I intend to eventually make a story where the protagonist's limits are broken at the start of it but the thing is, he can only use weak general skills! Obscure and weird skills like:
[Spit Lv 1]
[Cook Lv1]
[Kick Lv1]
[Create Water Lv1]
[Regurgitation Lv1]
[Flip Lv1]
[Gargle Lv1]
[Grab Lv1]
[Drink Lv1]
[Breathing Lv1]


How could i go about making skills like these into skills that could compete with broken crap like fire spells, ice spells, swords, magical beasts that can tear through iron and steel, and heroes!?
THe way how i wanted to do it was like this, here is an example of how i would make spit useful as a skill.
  • Spit would allow him to spit better than any other human in the world. As the level increases the spit becomes more and more dangerous and allows more and more ways of using it. Like being able to spit through steel, spit burning/acidic spit, being able to increase the amount of spit his mouth can hold and spit like a tsunami sized, or like spit being able to heal/cleanse.

Any ideas?
Fyi I am more on offensive assault type.

You do know that spitting can be a powerful skill if you ended up shooting out projectiles like spit, blood, even broken molars at Mach 1?

Top it up with Regurgitation, by storing hard ammo inside one's stomach and regurgitate to chamber in rounds and spit it out.

I still don't have any idea on Cook, Gargle, Drink and Breathing. Unless it means that with a pot and pan allows the user to cook anything, if user can use Drink to swallow the target of any size into his mouth and Gargle to kill, or merge Drink that allows any kind of liquid to Spit onto target. Breathing is a vague one unless you want Hamon.

Kick itself is self explanatory, Bruce Lee's "I do not fear the thousand kicks trained once, I fear the one kick trained a thousand times."

Flip, to redirect a vector from its original course a 180 degrees. Nuff said.

Grab, an ability to hold onto anything, it itself is very OP.

Create water, have you heard of drowning and water poisoning?
 
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weakwithwords

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In Romeo and Juliet, they do this insult thing with their thumbs and spit.

Lots of isekai x cooking stories to plagiarize get inspiration from. In Garbage Brave, the skill/job that gets him ignored in the hero auction and deported is what makes him OP eventually. (However, in this forum context, the OP is FukinDeadBeat). In Toriko, we have something like HxH gourmet hunters and dark cuisine chefs.

In Ossan VRMMO, the kick skill becomes very effective in combat when leveled up enough.

During a drought, people were forced to turn wine back into water.

Bart Simpson regurgitating food for the injured bird was quite a memorable scene.

Shift was one of the few flash games I truly enjoyed during its time.

Gargle with holy water. "Add oil!" and it becomes gargoyle.

Ye old monkey-stealing-peach and Wang Lin's overleveled attraction force technique.

1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3 drink
Your eyes are chandeliers
...
Only I can breathe

See also Ultimate Novice from Ragnarok Online.
 

DragonMage18

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My gosl here is to make semingly usless skills, or just usless skils but finding ways to make them OP.

[Spit Lv 1]
Allows the user to produce more spit and increasing the acuracy while spitting. Allows for a certian ammount of control of the properties (clarity, slime/snot content, and others (just add random parameters here). With every level up the basic abilityes go up. PS! This skill draws water out of your body to produce the spit.

MC could use this skil to taunt opponents (how would you feel being in the middle of a fight, the opponent spits in your face? Spit you in the eyes? Or anywhere else for that sake?) There is also the option ofkissing the opponent and trying to drown them with your spit...


[Cook Lv1]
Allows for better handeling of equipment used for cooking, snd makes it easier to prepare ingredients.

This should be a skill usualy only held by chefs, housewifes/husbands, or just non combat profesions.
MC is able to use the kitchen equipment to dismantle enemies (ironicly enough while stil alive). At some point even able to remove their armor.
Can use frying pans as a shield, pots as helmets, cutting boards and strings as armour.


[Kick Lv1]
You are only able to attack by preforming kicks. Anny other way off attacking willl result in injuries and extrem pain. Becomes easier to attack and injure your opponent.

Only being able to attack by kicking (using your feet) is a big disadvantage, but what if the MC somehow or for some wired reason belives that any attack preformed with his body is a kick?
Well what's above is a what if senario, the pain is so great that after experiencing it a few times you would laugh in the face of almost any type of torture. It's the ultimate torture skill if used correctly.


[Create Water Lv1]
The ultimate desert suevival skill. Able to create pure drinkable water. Efficeny increases the more water there is in the surrounding area.

Top notch survival skill, also great synergetic effect with the spit skill.


[Regurgitation Lv1]
Here you could chsnge the name to [Regurgitate Lv1] and do something refering to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regurgitate_(band)
If not
Gives the user better control over their digestive system, and the abillity to vomit on comand.


[Flip Lv1]
Can flip anything with a wight less than 1kg, in direct contact with the users body at the time of activation. Leveling up the skill grants better control for how it flips. PS! Items keep the momentum they hadd at the time of activation. Lower skil level grant no way to control how items flip.

MC can flip arrows and other incoming projectiles, flip enemy wepons/equipment.


[Gargle Lv1]
Makes it possible for the skill owner to gargle. Gargeling cleanse the mouth and throath. Making it possible retain perfectly healty theet without brushing.

As said the skill provides the MC with unusualy good mouth and throath hygiene, if done reguarly. As an hidden effeckt the gragling water is perfeckt for neutralizing Acidic and Alcaline substances (provided that some of it got into MC's mouth before gargling). Can also be used for washing wounds provided that you make sure your mouth is clean first.
Effects should be small (barly noticable if at all) in the lower levels.
If I remember right then wounds in the mouth is the once healing fastest (don't remember where i heard it, but it might actualy be correct), so you could also add a hidden, hidden effeckt of it helping wounds heal faster.


[Grab Lv1]

Can't come up with a description that don't sound OP, but could also be used as a Steal type skill in addition to making it easier to holding something, might also work on intangible things. If MC also have the appraisal type skill he might even be able to grab skills or other kinds of information from other people, might even make it possible for the MC to change name, age, race and so on, ggrab other peoples level/experience.
So yeah, pretty OP if you aks me...


[Drink Lv1]




[Breathing Lv1]

Helps the skill holder breath more efficently and makes it possible to hold your breath a bit longer.

A combination of what @MrTiemos and @Yorda wrote. Could also make it possible to add some breathing technique, like those from Wuxia novels (just addapt it to the rules of that world, like after reaching a certian level it evolves into a skill thats the cultivation technique).


Sorry, but I need to sleep, so I will fill in the rest of the sills tomorrow...:blob_sleep:
EDIT: Filled in whatever I did not do Yesterday exept for Drink.
Filled in the missing skills exept for [Drink Lv1]
 

Assurbanipal_II

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I warn you, the abuse of seemingly weak abilities by MC who is somehow the first to somehow realise their potential will make your entire world and entire human race look like dumbasses. :blobtaco:
 

CaptainBoyHole

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How are these abilities "weak" if they are like that? They are weak because you tell us so, in description only, but not because they actually are.

I don't think this is a good idea. The readers could see that you are just bull-shitting.
Because his limits are broken like i said. Normally these skills are considered cursed or useless because they can't be raised to such obscene levels normally and only are wastes of skills.
 

Kldran

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Regarding Create Water: DnD has had to nerf this spell repeatedly because of how powerful it is. Normally, it's no big deal: Until players decide they want to flood an underground dungeon with it.

I'm pretty sure the ranged vomit attacks of zombies in some games would be considered Regurgitation. So that's something such a skill might lead to.

Cooking things that are still alive totally fits. Plenty of dishes involve starting with live ingredients because for good food, it can be important to ensure the ingredients are as fresh as possible. Would include things like, draining blood, removing guts, skinning, and properly searing things just the right amount for an excellent steak.

Kick isn't weak. It is straight up, a combat skill. It would only ever be seen as weak for reasons other than the fact that it's a kick skill (such as balance issues between different combat styles favoring some styles over others) and even then it'd merely be weak for a combat skill, and not at all comparable to non-combat skills in terms of how people perceive the usefulness of the skill. If you want to emphasize the idea of a main character being perceived as weak, having a true combat skill like Kick is not something I'd advise, even if it is at the weaker end of combat skills. (main exception being: if everyone in the setting has a combat skill, then giving them the weakest one makes sense)

One of the simplest ways to break a breathing skill is to introduce martial arts concepts. In many martial arts settings (especially cultivation ones) breathing properly is extremely important for maximizing physical ability, effectively turning a breathing skill into a general stamina and endurance skill, with the potential to also be a general boost to physical stats. Any setting where there is energy in the air, could be one where breathing skill enables a person to harvest that energy and fill themselves with it for self-enhancement or powering spells/abilities.

Personally, I might recommend something like: Rest as a skill. The main power of Rest? Being able to heal and recover at an absurd speed when resting. At lower levels, it'd mainly be a convenience, possibly letting people need less sleep at night, or making it easier to get good sleep, instead of poor sleep when in less than favorable conditions. At higher levels, it becomes video-game levels of healing overnight.
 

Ral

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Because his limits are broken like i said. Normally these skills are considered cursed or useless because they can't be raised to such obscene levels normally and only are wastes of skills.
Look at the OP description of Spit. It becomes more dangerous at higher levels. Say the level cap is at level 100, imagine how Spit works at that level. As you can see, it is already powerful, only that the protagonist's lack of limit can push it to an absurd level, maybe like level 500. At the normal level of progression, the way it works already make Spit powerful and dangerous. How is that weak? It isn't. As I said, the author said that these skills are weak but they aren't in actuality. Heck, some like Kick, Create Water, and Flip are obviously not weak no matter how you look at them (and Spit is just a variation of Create Water), unless the author deliberately nerfed them, which then would be quite obvious.

After all, it is a leveling system, which means the skills become more powerful at each level.

The only skill in the list I think isn't actually powerful is Gargle. Skill leveling doesn't make sense with gargling because it isn't a skill. It is like bending you elbows or blinking your eyes. It doesn't make sense that they have levels.

I don't know. It is just, this idea kinda feels contrived. It is weak but actually isn't.

Also, this reminds me of that manga/comic where the protagonist only has magic healing as an skill/ability. Apparently the author can't think of anything with just healing that the author butchers logic. Basically the author just add the word Healing after the any ability like Mind Control - Healing and Memory Reading - Healing. Now the protagonist can mind control and read memories but they are healing abilities because it has the word healing in their names.

Total bull-shit.

Some ideas here are quite logic butchering like this, though not that absurd. Still, there is so much butchering of logic and sense that I can take before I rage quit.
 

HURGMCGURG

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[Spit Lv 1] Put an iron ball in your mouth and spit it out at high speeds.
[Cook Lv1] Cook: prepare (food, a dish, or a meal) by combining and heating the ingredients in various ways. Do with that what you will.
[Kick Lv1]
Kick a ball at a person. Kick a person at a person. Kick a person. Kick the ground so hard you fly up. Kick the air to launch it at someone.
[Create Water Lv1]
Wow, that's a big lake you've summoned. Or is that water at such a high density that it explodes out in every direction instantly?
[Regurgitation Lv1]
[Flip Lv1]
Flip a table, flip a turtle, flip a coin, flip a person, flip a road, flip a house, flip a castle, flip just about anything.
[Gargle Lv1]
I dunno, this is a weird one I want to avoid thinking about.
[Grab Lv1]
Man, you sure do have a great grip. Whoops, you grabbed so hard you crushed whatever you were holding.
[Drink Lv1]
Drink the ocean. Drink a person. Drink a castle. Drink that acid. Oh shit, your stomach is melting? Gargle that acid and then spit it out.
[Breathing Lv1]
Breathe so hard you make a storm. Knock over a castle. Snort so hard reality collapses.
 

weakwithwords

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Round 2 coz I'm bored enough.

Cook the game on a spit. Make sure to flip it so you don't burn just one side.

Create water and gargle to make wine. Grab that drink.

Regurgitating like a cow is as easy as breathing until you kick the bucket.
 
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