In society:
Peasants
Commoner
Nobles Baronet through Duke
King/Queen/Pope
Emperors/Empress
Dragonkin
Dragon
Gods.
On the magic side of things, the amount of magic a person can use is intrinsically tied to their level of stamina and endurance. The types are tied to their intelligence and understanding of what they are attempting. So you can have to people with similar magic stamina cast flare, but if one knows how fire works his will be more powerful. To nerf this, spell take a toll on a human, using fireball more than 3 times feels like running a marathon. Dragons and Dragonkin don't have that limitation as dragons are the first children of the Gods, and Dragonkin are the children of Dragons. That said Dragonkin can cast fireball about 10 times before it affects them, mostly due to how powerful the power ball is. I've designed an energy potion that can be drank, but it can cause major issues as an overreliance on them can burn out your ability to use magic. In my world, golems can exist, but again someone from our, or a more advanced world would have an advantage. As an overall nerf, magic is altering the State of reality in an area, so like Newton said, equal and opposite reactions and actions.
I'd like to leave that to the readers because it's amusing. (Tfw every baseline human gets wanked to multiversal because their minds were compared to worlds with infinite possibilities)
Anyways, general rule of thumb. A dotted line means there is no way someone below the thing can even touch it. Unless they come downstairs using an avatar.
Omnipotent Thingy - May or may not actually be real. No one is known to have ever perceived, interacted or even comprehended it. Everyone just came to a consensus that it probably exists because everything down the scale came up with a representation of it one way or another. Rather than being on the top of the powerscale, you can say this thing is the whole damn power scale
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Library(?)/Well(?)/Garden(?)/Tower(?) Of Babel and its inhabitants - Another thing that may or may not actually be real. No one in the narrative actually mentions it, outside of those that are inside of Babel. It's can be the representation of the reader's headspace or just the collective delusion of some insignificant critters. Either way it supposedly contains every configuration of reality, represented by objects that are purely fictional from their viewpoint. They can teeeechnically interact with the objects, but that interaction will become fictional too.
This is basically just how I will connect all my stories together.
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Finally, we have things that actually exist. Or actually no, because they may just be made up by the things above them
Horrors - Yes, I took this straight from Lovecraft. They're basically cognitohazards Sparked and above may face. (Ir)rational Fears, boredom, self-terminating ideas. They end things by making them off theirself or denying that they ever existed to begin with. They're practically unkillable, but avoidable if you have an idea what you're doing
Everything in between - There's a lot here and no one's reading allat. Also massive spoilers for my planned novels lol.
Sparked - in Xianxia terms they're the ones who gained enlightenment and ascended to a higher realm. They're practically capable of anything that doesn't violate the cosmology above them. Though most focus on a single concept. The feats of characters here include literally cutting the words of the narrative to obliterate thoughts, emanating an aura that makes the writing quality degrade and creating things that are much, much stronger than they can ever be.
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Droplets - Based on matrioshka dolls except everything is a universe and it never ends. They each have their own rulesets that dictate how things work. These are representative of my potential stories, so each one would have a power scale of its own. Everyone here is completely unaware of the things above them, and even the Sparked who come down have to momentarily degrade themselves into actors within the droplet.
Now, refer back to the top of the list :)
Anyways, this was a fun exercise. But screw powerscaling, it rots my brain too much.
My power scaling is pretty low for an urban fantasy on a pseudo-earth Most people do magic with semi-sentient items that copy and preserve the memories and personalities of their users, and in case of death by magic basically functions as a 1-up Mushroom. Some people have magic genes and don't need those items to do magic, but they get more mental with each generation of magic gene parents. Think medieval inbreeding but magic.
What you can do with magic depends on how creative you are and how many resources you want to dump into it, it's exponential, tho. Creating a planet is possible, but it would need the power of multiple universes to create. So people quickly figured out the border of "too much buck for bang" and stuck with it.
MC is pretty high in the personal power scaling though, since he got forced through PMC training in his youth. By the worst drill sergeant of them all, his own mom. The only higher central characters, at least without preparations, are his worst friend/sidekick and his later boss/sidekick's GF. With preparations though, the girl MC likes wins in 100% of cases, no matter the enemy. MCs mom and sister would wash the floor with the whole main cast, tho. But luckily they're minor characters, at least for as far as I've written.
The political power scaling is weirder. We have The Guild, a global non-profit organization that pretty much controls everything magical, which is internally split into bureaucrats and law enforcement. Then we have global powers that are pretty much conglomerates or "nobles", which are too powerful or bothersome to suppress if antagonistic or too useful to absorb if not. Next comes the black market, where everything shady happens, but The Guild tries to have their hands in that as well. Then it comes down to city level and from there it's pretty much the same as here.
Later on I'll introduce The Organization (name pending, members are still discussing names that aren't puns or too cringe) which is pretty much a bunch of rogues trying to force The Guild to clean up messes they ignored for whatever reasons. Pretty much cloak-and-dagger stuff, but they do it as publicly as possible.
As an answer to The Organization the corrupt and not-so-morally flexible team up and create The World Council, an organization that wants to establish itself as a counterweight to The Guild, but they're pretty fishy from the start.
Writing a magical girl story with a modern military setting.
There are characters with magical powers of course, some of which are really strong, but the top of the food chain is nuclear missiles. One country has a nuclear powered drone aircraft that can fly for 3 years without landing, and of course has nuclear cruise missiles, which that country uses to pretty much hold the rest of the world hostage.
- Step 0 Mortals - Non-cultivators/those who haven't began their cultivation. Rank 0 'Apprentice' - Those who have started on cultivating their foundation.
- First 'step' Rank 1 'Official' - Those who had become a true cultivator. Rank 1 Mage would have permanent defensive barrier, etc.
Rank 2 'Lord' - Having in-depth understanding of their path, a master. The radiation from a rank 2 Mage can alter the battlefield to suit their need.
Rank 3 'Legendary' - Become a grandmaster of their path, forming a core. Rank 3 Mages can perform 'elementalization', allowing them to transform their body, mind, or soul into their respective 'element'. They can also mimic or replicate the effect of other paths through their own. (An earth-path mage can reproduce the effect of fire-path through high-pressure earth, producing magma.)
- Second 'step' Rank 4 'Paragon' - When a cultivator had formed their core and detonate them, achieving ascension. The detonated core become a miniature inner world. The difference between rank 3 Legend and a rank 4 Paragon is further than a rank 3 to a mortal. Each difference in 'step' is a qualitative change. Paragon Mage have theoretically botomless mana because their inner world can be used to store energy.
Rank 5 'Epic' - The internal world has better dimensional laws, allowing to nurture life up to a certain extent. The quality and quantity of 'botomless mana' that they can tap into increase significantly.
Rank 6 'Sovereign' - The peak of a world, or a civilization. The internal world's dimensional laws is complete, rivaling the external world. Sovereigns have limited immortality and killing each is a difficult process.
- Third 'step' Rank 7 'Beings of Laws' - A conceptual being who had ascend and mastered a single Law. Their existence itself is a rule of heaven and earth. As long as their concept still exist under the heavenly dao, they are unkillable. (e.g. A Being of Laws that mastered the law of Lightning will exist as long as the concept of lightning still exist). Beings of Laws is also known as 'God' in certain world.
Rank 8 - Beings of Laws whom have mastered a few Laws and combined them to forged their own 'path'.
Rank 9 - Exist outside the scope of Heavenly Dao.
Note: Rank 8 and 9 beings are merely a theoretical concept, as there are none of my characters have reached that step yet.
Keeping this very vague. There is pretty much these three.
Everyone -> That actual crazy shit -> existence itself.
Pretty much every human and monsters character in my story is in the 'Everyone' tier.
Besides that, I do have scaling within that tier. But it is purposely a little confusing. I just really love the idea of human created scaling, people try to measure what they do and don't understand.
So for humans, they try to measure them in a scale from Z3 -> A1, the gap between each tier gets progressively bigger. But different organisations have their own measuring system which adds to the confusion.
'That actual crazy shit' also has a tier, but that's more related to their form than anything else.
I don't have a rigid power scale in my stories, but what I have instead is something I call axes, those related to dimensions not chopping. There are four of them, but only one can be properly pinned down with the knowledge I have.
First is power. It's just the raw power an entity (a physical being by default, but not limited to them) has, and that can be divided into physical strength and any kind of magic power, bundled into one, or what I often do I count only the supernatural, as the body is just the vessel for a soul that truly holds that power.
This here is where a vast majority of power scales are placed, but for my story I didn't make any universal scale. There can be scales like apprentice/mage/archmage, lesser demon/greater demon/archdemon/demon noble, and a ton of similar scales, but those are limited to something specific (species, professions, etc.) and all would correspond to a certain point at that power axis, so they could be grouped together and compared.
Important note, that axis doesn't have to be one-dimensional, and yes that sounds weird, but I'm not sure how else to call it; plane would be misleading since position on a plane isn't typically associated with amount of two different somethings. The closest proper comparison would be complex numbers, because both dimensions would have different units you cannot swap at will, but that's got a lot of baggage we don't need, so for simplicity, a being can be on multiple places on the power axis in regards to different kinds of power.
The second one is what I tentatively call ability/capability axis (I don't have a proper name yet), which is basically the complexity of the mind (this is on an assumption that a brain and a metaphysical mind are two separate things that either combine or overlap), and that's greatly related to what a being can do with their power. For simplicity, a worm the size of the solar system and a goddess may have the same amount of raw power, but the latter has much more complex mind and can utilize that power with much greater precision and subtlety as well as can achieve what the former cannot by understanding the power and how it works. Important note, because this isn't limited to the physical brain, it also extends to non-physical entities.
For simplicity you can consider that it's the ability to practically control and apply the power they have, though this lacks a lot of nuance that's difficult to explain. And guess what, this axis can also have multiple dimensions.
The thing is, it's very debatable if what most stories call talent, affinity, and some other things fall under the purview of power axis, this axis, or yet something else. I, for simplicity, group only what can be quantified into the power axis, and everything else into the second or third. It's not all finalized yet.
And speaking of, the third axis is the mind axis (or maybe I should call them mind and soul? Hell if I know). This is basically how advanced the mind of being is, although it's not its complexity, but more like its... concept? Level? This here does not just assume, this requires that a brain and a metaphysical mind are two separate things that either combine or overlap, and how it works is already a little difficult to explain, but an oversimplified analogy is that of a regular computer and a quantum computer. No matter how complicated the first is, it's inherently different and in multiple aspects much weaker than the second. It probably wouldn't be such a jump on the axis, but the idea is pretty similar... though similarly lacks a lot of detail.
This, most importantly, has a lot to do with a sort of mental power, what I like to call Will, the measure of which is how much power and influence a being can exert onto the world with their mind/thought (there's a lot of ways to define that, I'm not sure which is the best). And that's... well, that's a bit of a slippery definition, but I'm not sure how to explain it better without an obscene number of analogies and examples.
It's difficult to explain properly, but the thing is, typical elemental manipulation for example is just that, manipulation. It utilizes a mechanism in the soul that allows control of some energy. But that's all it is, it's just manipulation. What this axis actually does is not constrained by rules, and while manipulation is the simplest application, it also encompasses transmutation, creation, destruction, though is often limited to some aspect of reality, such as motion, or concept, such as blood, and most importantly, it has no proper rules. Creation from nothing becomes possible.
The fourth axis, which I'm debating if it should be swapped with the third, is what I call a presence axis. I don't think there is an actual word for that, but this is actually pretty simple. It relates to how much reality, that is not constrained to some 4 dimensional spacetime, does the being exist in. So for example biblically accurate angels or eldritch gods, that are a bit extradimensional, would be further ahead in this regard. If you think about it a bit, you'll probably realize that while the idea is simple, actually trying to describe this fully is pretty much impossible. Because... well, how am I supposed to describe something I don't understand?
And an important thing. Our 4d reality doesn't have to be the base one. There doesn't have to be a base at all.
And, well, that's the gist of it. And granted it's pretty long, but this is a damn complicated subject that extends far beyond a simple scale (tho it doesn't compare your fully described one in length, but it's a different kind of complexity there).
Edit: Yep I know I said nothing about what of it actually matters in my story (and I'll note just in case, the one I'm talking about isn't published yet). There's not much I can say about that, because I didn't write a lot yet, but there is a few characters for whom the third and fourth axes matter.
There's The Goddess (The is important, capital G is important) - she's not absolute, but for all you know she may as well be, there's Clara, also known as Amaranth, who is one of the strongest beings that have not progressed much in the presence department (it's difficult, you guessed it) and
the source of the mc's power as well as one of the big mysteries of the story.
The rest of the characters as of now are either very normal across the two latter axes or not actually relevant to the story, which concept in itself requires it's impossible to list them all.
The notable mentions though are the main character Aria, currently entirely human, her teacher that's got some power and some intelligence in the grand scheme of things, and the Empire, which goes well into the fantastical realm in the power department.
KISS (keep it simple stupid) is the best policy IMO. I remember reading he who fights with monsters and there is this scene where the MC gets hard countered by a prepared group while he's alone and not prepared. However he still pulls it off. What's the point of a complicated system if at the last moment someone's going to pull something out of nowhere and defy all odds?
The power scale for my only non-fanfic or IF story is the older the soul, the stronger the creature. I wanted to keep things simple even if it makes the main character seem like an underdog compared to the others she interacts with. Of course, normal humans are still the cannon fodder of power level but that's how all supernatural/monster stories kind of work.
Since my writings is heavily inspired by the Nasuverse and DnD, there are a lot of technicality and situational involved.
And in this example, it will involve a solar system.
The Original One: the thing that created and maintain the balance of the universe as a whole, but also attempt to destroy all of creation every time it wakes up.
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Eldritch God: each star has their own Eldritch God, and the Sol system has one called The Pale Court. They have authority over everything inside their solar system, there is no exception to this rule.
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Ego of the World: each planet has their own Ego, that can manifest a physical body whenever they want. Earth's Ego is Tiamat Abzu, The Black Dragon of Conflict.
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Heralds: they are beings appointed and granted power by an Eldritch they are native to, as such they are the representatives of Eldritch Gods. The Heralds of The Pale Court are called Juries of the Pale Court, terrible people given a chance to redeem themselves (somehow, there is a dinosaur in this group)
Records: beings made to carry the weight and memories of the Civilization of entire worlds. Currently, the Sol system has three representing Mercury, Venus, and Mars.
Visitors: foreign Eldritch Gods travelling to a planet for unknown reasons. Why they are weaker than the Heralds is due to the fact that the further they are away from their Star, they get weaker (though there are exceptions)
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Gods: not Eldritch Gods, but gods, they are under the direct rule of the Ego of the World. Functionally immortal, but still can be killed (only a handful of gods still remain after the Purge of the Divine)
Gem Holder: people who obtained fragmented power of the gods after the Purge of the Divine, which some fragments of different gods had combined to become even stronger than the original.
Unique Human: people blessed by Fate and Destiny. They are likely to be able to wield weapons called God Slayers, crystalized hatred of human, or humans.
Reality Benders: people with special properties, capable of bending the world around them. Though within the limit set up by the Ego of the world.
No specific power scale for my story, but things range from mutated flowers all the way up to deities. And even the deities have differences in power, the weaker ones resembling the species that best represents them, the stronger ones just balls of raw power.
Due to the effects of mana, commoners in the capital are the weakest humans in the world, soldiers from there are just a bit better. The average villager with farm tools and leather clothes could easily take down two or three soldiers from the capital without having any training simply due to the mutations mana causes strengthening their body. Mages, even apprentices, are considered superior to most nobles, and can simply walk into a village and become the leader unless another mage is living there. Inversely from normal people, the strongest mages live in the capital, with the job of regulating ambient mana and defending the city.
Beyond humans, there are large mutant beasts, often bigger than houses, with armor and weaponry to match. Some have symbiotic creatures, some spit acid, some produce toxic gas, it is all kind of random based on the life the creature has lived. Deep in the wilds are utterly immense creatures, reaching scales where movement should not be possible, but supported with vast amounts of mana. Once in a rare while, one of these creatures may attack the human settlements, leading to what can be put nicely as absolute disaster.
