Discussion Do you think this sounds balanced or not too OP?

Bare with me there is a lot of info to read and I do ask you read at least most of it as some obvious questions or fixes are answered. Also, this might be a bit jumbled since I haven't finalized the skills yet because of the problem.

So I'm currently in the outline phase of the first arc of my story (chapter 1 ~ 60 or so) and I've realized I might have a problem, my MC's skill set might be a bit to OP for the early parts.

So his two skills are:

Shackle Soul - enslave the souls of the deceased, by doing so you have a chance to steal a portion of the stats or skills target soul have while alive. You will gain .01 to all stats for every soul.

Create Apparition - Create a loyal Apparition type monster to serve you by merging the souls that you have enslaved. The strength of created Apparition varies depending on how many souls are used.

Souls spending to get Apparitions:

2 souls = Wisp - no damaging abilities, slow, best used as a decoy or distraction (only used very early in the story and much later for one epic moment)

10 souls = Ghost - no damaging abilities, can turn invisible, basically a scout

50 souls = vengeful spirit - no damaging abilities, can possess object (flying weapons and stuff!!!), somewhat intelligent (can move on their own without command = auto attack)

250 souls = Phantom - no damaging abilities, can possess corpses (temporarily), gives boost to possess thing (varies depending on object), near human level intelligence

1250 souls = Revenant - can physically attack someone, has a paralyzing/damaging scream skill, can possess corpse (permanent), living beings (temporarily and level of possess varies by how power and/or intelligent target is) and high ranking items (others can not possess items above Rare rank), Human level intelligence (can't speak, but can communicate directly with creator), greatly improves possessed objects (very limited effect on living beings).

5000 souls = Unique Apparitions - has own skill set, usually very OP (only making 3 in the whole series because how broken they can be), capable of speech, can level and grown on their own

So at first, I thought of a few unspoken rules for Shackle Soul:
1. the amount of stats he gains depends on how many souls of the same monster type has enslaved, so no endless grinding.
2. if the level difference is too great (he is much stronger than the target, I'm thinking like 20 levels) he will receive no bonus.
3. The amount of skills he can store / hold is 3, but will increase with each mastery level (Beginner = 3, Apprentice = 4, Adept = 5, Master = 6, Grandmaster = 7)
4. Can't learn skills through skill books and the shop, basically he can learn them naturally like practicing blacksmithing for a month earns him the skill or by getting them from the souls he has enslaved

Also, I don't think that the whole + .01 stat bonus is that bad since, in the beginning, a number of souls the MC uses really doesn't let the bonus grow too much. I really added that part for later when he no longer gets too many bonus points from enslaving souls and he needs a way to keep his stat saturation up, cause, to be honest, he is really the underdog for almost if not all major villain fights. the major villains or antagonists of the story usually have the same type of Broken class as the MC (not the same class, but the same level of brokenness) and while the MC's class has the most growth potential, they are downright OP.

an example is first major villain's class focuses on speed and reaction time and whatnot. you think that is dumb? try fighting someone that you can't hit and can hit you 10 times before you realize he even moved and he doesn't trade power for speed. They only reason the MC can beat him is through tactics, cunning, the villians arrogance, and a well-timed destraction.

at this point it seems like it looks fair, however, the problem I am having is that at the start he might be to OP. for most people except a few Classes have to be bought. Classes can make or break a fight, they give several bonuses like extra stat points, skills that only that class can learn and special equipment. So, in the beginning, he has a huge advantage for like most of the first arc. later it balances out with there being some enemies that are obviously strong, though most people and monster are never a challenge for him.

In conclusion, is it ok that he might be a little broken early on until he gets his ass beat by the Big bads? I don't want the story to be an Op harem wet dream fantasy, but a dark tragic story with a splash of comedy (both dark and not), good romance (still be harem, but small and detailed), and epic battle to save(?) the world and I don't want the MC to break that.

 

Not the most OP unless he can already slay armys alone, but for the skill steal, it might be better if he has to be the killer directly to get the points.

 

If you want to minimize the OP part of the MC then how about making the stat boost from soul shackle temporary ? Like turning the captured souls into consumables ?

 

You could simply say that the beginning creatures are too weak for them all to have souls worth anything at all if you think he's too op.

 

"Tragic" lol

 

I did think of that, but the problem is that to keep that bonus for fights he would have to constantly kill plenty of things and the souls would give an imbalance since all his class skills (not just Create Apparition) rely on them so like i said the bonus is minial in the beginning ( the + .01 for every soul)

 

But his sandwich!!! it was so young and unfinished!!!

 

It's not OP I think, I would just categorized his skills as "tricky" -difficult and need decent planning type to use
My advise
- Try not making villain stupid or only have 2D but instead made them even smarter than him (You can give him 2nd helping character that give him advise, e.g legendary intellegent ancient spirit or something like that which lose its power).
- Make the MC only advantage is the 'info gathering' (since he got so many scout type).
- Make MC also has shortcoming as humans if you don't plan to have Over Powered MC.

PS: As long as he is not 'common sense' killer in your story world settings, then it's not that OP

 

It doesn't seem too OP. It certainly has a lot of potential to since it's like an army building skill as well, but the real problem is in the initial strength of the MC and enemies. Are souls easy to collect? Is he strong enough at the start to kill a like fifty or a hundred so easily? I think it is interesting, but the numbers and specifics are my main concern less than the powers themselves. If he was normal, taking the time to kill 2 or so goblins just to have a wisp is pretty much useless due to energy and time. I understand the, souls don't matter after past certain level, but what about less of souls instead uses soul force/soul points and adjust the numbers for each. This way liking a dragon might get you 3000 while killing a slime might be 1 soul point. Points can also vary like liking 1 goblin could get you from 2-4 soul force. The explanation for this could be that some monster are born with more or less force and some can acquire more through living/time or killing.

 

His powers aren't exactly OP. They do seem very cheat-like since it puts him above average, but it's more of a growing cheat like Limitless Growth or x10 experience points or skill stealing. It's nice since it starts weak, but can develop into being OP. I also agree with the make souls consumable like consuming 20 souls for light heal or small barrier like in seoul station necromancer where he uses souls for his armor, healing, strength, and equipment.

 

You can go another way. You want to make particular monster to have limited usefulness so he would switch. What do you think about dividing monster by tier, not by their race. And for every tier there will be something like hard cap. So for example from tier 1 monsters ( the weakest ones) he would get max of + 50 stats or something and won't get any boost from them later. Tier 2 would have better souls and will have another +50 - 100 stats hard cap. E.t.c. Also you can introduce unique souls which doesn't have hard cap and give better stats but are rare and make them needed to summon OP apparations. You can plan when he gets unique souls e.t.c. to have boost in power when needed.

 

Don't forget to get an editor for your story. It'll help a lot considering your grammatical mistakes here.

 

Villains are not overly smart, but they are by no means dumb. Most of the villians have an overconfidence in their fighting abilities, though that is understandable since they are stronger than most.

there is something like that as Elite and Bosses' souls are made of multiple compressed souls which is why they are stronger than others.

 

Yep totally agree

 

Not so OP.....unless he goes on a killing spree or is Hitler >.>

 

You could change the bonus stats from souls to just they're highest stat.

 

instead of .01 increase for soul shackle maybe make it like 5% of the highest stat with only a 25% chance of activation and a 1% chance at skill steal if he already has the skill it only gives proficieny (if your making skills level up) if he doesnt have the skill it adds it that way it would be very rare to get a skill and it wouldnt be a huge increase right away since it wouldnt give the entire skill proficiency say you steal a level 6 regen it would be level 1 for you and each time you steal again lets say it only gives 5-10% tops and as far as stats since you think its to OP at begining then 5% wont even give 1 if the target doesnt have atleast 10 can drop the percentage depending on how much 10 really is and if you dont put decimals behind the stats then not giving even 1 = no reward = have to train till other skill for souls without any stat boosts in begining

 

It is Op.
Why? Exp to level up in any game after 5 levels diference starts decreasing until 10 levels where you got nothing. But he can simple keep mass killin low levels mobs to get their souls and with this, stats.
If he gets level 10 and simple stay at the starting city killng level 1 rabbits he Will amass a huge ammount of stats to someone of the same level.

You Will need to put limits on him and force him to choose his build and not simple genocide something to get stats.

Second his classe is clearly to pvp, by what you described he should Just Focus on killing people to take their exp(souls) and steal their stats.
This would make every single one in the game hate him to the guts.

 

In my opinion, there's case about calling characters as villain. None wants to be villain, they just happen to be in front of the justified MC in the story
1. Dumb type villain. They're actually not villains. Situations and their lack for the brain made them to act as bad doers. If lead these guys to be good then they're not villain. (Basic your everyday thugs)
2. Smart type. They're know that they're doing bad things but still do it. These guys won't have overconfidence just because of their fighting abilities but more because they believe that they're have the upper hand on the brain department as well as info regarding the fights. (Most xianxia have these)
3. Insane type. Has complex and twisted value regarding bad and wrong. It's a challenge to made these kind of villain
4. "Everyone in the story is not your average". It's quite difficult to have these. I haven't read lot of online novels but e.g "Safehold" series that have these sets. In these sets, there is no villains. Everyone have their own good reason doing negative things. MC only regarded as better character in moral because he/she got better views on macro and micro standings.
5. 2D villains. Simple. It's very easy to make these type of character.

 

I guess most "villains" would fall under 2, smart, but can slip up. though most of them have a mix of mass murder, rape, hoarding food (BTW apoclyse story), abduction and selling of humans (and later other human level intelligent species {elves and stuff}). So no, they really are scum and evil.