[Sarai and Samiel]

2. Invulnerability (And/or high durability)

Invulnerability. It has to be among the most common ‘super’ abilities for a character to have- right up there with super strength and enhanced senses. Also, because of this, it is one of the ones with the most unusual additives that are commonly considered part of the ability itself. Top that off with the frequent misunderstandings of the word, use of odd or sometimes silly weaknesses to offset it, and it’s near-permanent association with super strength, and you come out with what ought to be one of the most simple and basic super abilities turning out to be a huge mess to deal with.

So- where to start? Well. Probably the best point to start out with is what invulnerability is. It could be argued that what it isn’t should be the focus but then, face it, you’d be sitting there all night. What is invulnerability? It is the state of being invulnerable. Invulnerable, as defined commonly in a dictionary, means ‘incapable of being wounded, hurt, or damaged’- or ‘proof or immune against attack’. Both of these pretty much agree with the common use and application of invulnerability on or to peoples’ characters in roleplay, so that’s fairly straightforwards. However, that still leaves the question of what it means.

As commonly accepted, an invulnerable character takes no physical harm from attacks. This is all well and good, and more or less easy to portray or represent accurately- if one keeps in mind what one is doing. A character who has only invulnerability is only protected from harm by attacks. Thus, spraying them with magma will not burn them, nor will it bludgeon them. However, invulnerability does not provide proof against the magma proceeding to cool and lock the character in place. It does not prevent the inertia of the magma, the effect of a firehose-stream of rock, from shoving them away from the impact. There is no reason your character cannot have some sort of defense against these effects, but that defense is not a part of invulnerability.

On the other hand, absolute invulnerability such as this is generally considered to be pushing the borders of ‘cheap’ and ‘godmode’, because it prevents direct physical attacks from being effective at all. This is partially an effect of many players not wanting to, or not knowing how to, use their imaginations to overcome this difficulty. It is also partially an effect of total invulnerability actually being somewhat ‘cheap’. Mostly, though, it is an effect of the immense number of ‘rider’ powers that are typically added on to invulnerability.

A partial list of these powers (in no particular order):
Ignoring leverage. (Because I’m invulnerable, I can hold up this thing that extends fifty meters to my right and one inch to my left and keep it balanced)
Ignoring pushes of any sort. (Because I’m invulnerable, I can stand still when a train crashes into me, even though I only weigh 100 pounds)
Immunity to pain. (Did you feel a breeze?)
Ability to anchor to a surface. (See ‘ignoring pushes’)
Ability to prevent the surface anchored to from in any way being altered/ripped apart. (I’m grabbing this, and even a team of wild horses can’t pull me off of this water barrel- or it off of the ground, for that matter....)
Mental protection. (I’m invulnerable to EVERYTHING!)
Super Strength. (I’m invulnerable, so I get to crash through walls!)

Most of these powers are actual riders, but the last one, super strength, is somewhat iffy when looked at properly. No, a character who is invulnerable does not automatically gain the ability to lift several tons. However, given that the human body (the assumption being that the base for the character is human or at least very similar to human) is capable of exerting more force itself than it can safely withstand, invulnerability or high durability does permit seeming super strength, by allowing the character to exert all of their strength without endangering themself. This strength, though, will still usually be within human norms, and generally won’t allow multiple-ton lifting, or punching through blocks of steel, or the like.

At any rate, removing these riders from invulnerability, one comes up with a fairly simple basis- at first. However, then one arrives at application of the invulnerability. This is an important step that many people with invulnerable characters do not seem to ever take into account. Namely- how is the character invulnerable?

Is their skin impenetrable? Their bones unbreakable? Is their whole body made of some ludicrously durable substance? Are they surrounded by a skintight forcefield? Is their skin incapable of being affected by anything but them? Do they absorb all the inertia from any blow they receive? Is the character incredibly dense (and if so, why aren’t they a black hole instead of a character?)

The removing of the ‘rider’ powers and application of this question combine to provide reasonable faults in invulnerability. The character is invulnerable, but hit him with a hand grenade, and he’ll still be tossed around, maybe stunned. The character’s skin is invulnerable, but if you hit her hard enough, she can take internal organ damage. The character is invulnerable, but cannot physically feel anything. The character is invulnerable, but it’s ‘only’ physical.

The other way in which invulnerability is made less ‘broken’, but sometimes in a way that requires even more suspension of disbelief, is through the addition of weaknesses. Characters who are invulnerable to everything but fire. To everything but metal. To everything except when in the presence of a certain element. To everything they are aware of. To everything sharp. And so on and so forth.

Personally, I advise against this alternate method of making invulnerability more palatable and acceptable, because unless it’s done very carefully (only invulnerable when touching rock, because he draws on the power of stone) and with worked-out reasons, it can become very silly or strange, which will make the character harder to accept in any particular forum. (HOW much kryptonite landed on Earth????)

Additionally, the effects of the ‘method’ invulnerability allow many more options for character development, providing hooks to hang many things on (invulnerable character who eats a lot, because he can’t feel anything through his forcefield), and may even guide you towards other powers that would be appropriate for your character to have (if the character absorbs inertia, can they then redirect it or store it?), or other weaknesses.

In the end, all that invulnerability really does is make a character physically unharmable to a certain degree, or by a certain manner, and any further abilities are ‘riders’. An invulnerable character can’t neccessarily stop a train by standing in front of it- even if they are strong enough, what’s to prevent them being shoved along the ground for miles and miles? That’s another power entirely. By keeping these limitations and potential qualifications in mind, you can use the invulnerability to make the character more believable, without giving up the unbelievable power to ignore damage.

Similarly, everything that applies to invulnerability applies to extreme durability, if to a somewhat lesser degree. It should be fairly easy to trade off invulnerability with simple resistance to damage and injury, so long as you keep in mind the limits of the durability as well as the other notable aspects that also apply to invulnerability.

To give some examples of invulnerability being applied, I will list a few characters from various places who have invulnerability or extreme damage resistance.

Juggernaut: A classic example of true invulnerability. Cain Marko is literally invulnerable, thanks to the Ruby of Cyttorak. As ‘rider’ powers, he also needs neither to breathe nor eat, and he got the addition of super strength. However, his invulnerability is very basic. It affords him no protection against mental powers, which is the reason for his helmet, it doesn’t provide him with the ability to ignore or alter leverage (nor does his super strength, one of the few cases where super strength AND invulnerability are both not given that particular rider), and it certainly wasn’t too much help when Spider-man managed to sink him to the bottom of a pit full of wet concrete.

Superman: Perhaps *the* classic example of invulnerability. It is hard to figure out the actual effect and extent of Superman’s defensive ability, because it combines with so many things. His ability to fly, thereby anchoring himself at any point he likes, allows him to ignore leverage and inertia to an incredible degree, which combines very well with his invulnerability. However, it is apparent that he is not completely invulnerable- after all, Doomsday was able to bruise and cut Kal-El. Taken individually, Superman’s extreme durability is a great power. Compounded, however, with his near-unlimited seeming list of other powers... well, Superman’s a nice fantasy, but as a character, there are some rather writer-unfriendly limits there.

Kouryou Yume: Okay, yes, this is one of my characters. She is also, however, an example of how I practice what I preach. Yume has extreme durability- she is very resistant to physical blows. She is also invulnerable to cold and cold-related things. However, she is still burned (to a degree) by fire. Radiation is still poisonous to her. She can still be shoved around by inertia (though it’s harder when she’s not in midair, due to her ability to stick to surfaces with her hands and feet). And because it is primarily her bones and skin that are durable, she has various weak points (eyes and mouth, for instance), and potentially could be badly hurt by internal organ damage from some source or other. This leaves limitations on her resilience that leave her considerably more believable than she would be without them, because all the limitations are ones that both make sense, and make her less than ‘uber’.

Unus the Untouchable: This is probably the best example of invulnerability really not working out. Unus had only one power- the ability to cover himself in an impenetrable forcefield. At a glance, this looks great, but with no other powers, it really wound up rather wimpy. He could still be knocked over by shoving on the forcefield, picked up by grabbing the forcefield, et cetera. In the end, he was discarded, though his companion, The Blob, stuck around.

The Blob: Originally having appeared with the one-trick pony Unus the Untouchable, the Blob actually managed to be a vague threat. Certainly not on the level of Juggernaut, the Blob has always possessed two abilities in addition to invulnerability- first off, if he does not want to move, he will not be moved. Very useful for stand-ins, but not so good for much of anything else, unless you like performing as a freeway support post. However, combining invulnerability (or extreme toughness, depending on what decade the Blob is being referred from), the ability to become immovable, and a decent level of super-strength, the Blob manages to be at least competent, which is a lot more than could be said of poor Unus.

Mr. Incredible: You’ve seen that movie, right? Mr. Incredible is the classic, one of the most basic super-heroes. Two powers- super strong, and incredibly durable. If you pay attention, though, you notice that he really only has the two abilities. To a certain extent, he seems to ignore leverage, but that capability is rather heavily limited (it takes a lot of effort for him). In this manner, he is made very much more believable as a character- he’s really tough and strong, but the applications are limited to a certain extend, which is why he functions better alongside other heroes. I call him extremely durable because he is still cut (by the machine encountered early on), he still can be electrically shocked, the wind can be knocked out of him, and he seems to become a bit bruised (though it’s not visible). He also can throw his back out. ^_^

So, with all of this in mind, some suggestions for invulnerability:

How about a character who is invulnerable, but because nothing can move their skin aside from themself, they have no sense of touch? They would then have to be incredibly careful around anything the least bit fragile, and furthermore would have probably some emotional problems having to do with being separated from the world to a degree... they might indulge very heavily in visual, audible, or taste and smell related pleasures, in an attempt to make up for not really being able to touch anything. Or, they might be very obsessed with physical pleasure due to their lack of it. They might become careless, believing that they cannot be hurt, or extremely careful, being sharply aware that others are vastly easier to hurt than them.

What about a character who is invulnerable only when touching metal, because they absorb some properties of it? They would likely take to toting bits and pieces of metal around all the time. They would do great in a space-age area, and have severe trouble in stone-age environs. Maybe they would have a piece of metal implanted somewhere?

Invulnerability is a very tempting power, but there are always ways around it- and there are a number of ways to come short of it, while still having an enjoyable degree of the capability. It is also very tempting to tack on any or, more often, all of the ‘rider’ powers that tend to come with invulnerability, and while it’s a nice thought, it’s not always a reasonable one, and can lead to people having difficulty believing in your character. At its basis, invulnerability is both the most believable and most unbelievable power, because it is so basic, and so easy to overdo.