Game/Fantasy World Questions/Comments/General Musings

Let's talk about levels again. Now sadly, what we already discussed about levels has been lost in shoutbox (unless somehow Sieg came around and was able to dig through messages to find this topic in archives) but I feel we can still discuss this topic now without them.

My question now is about: what level separates normies from the elite? And what separates them from the superhuman? Even if I take @calmchaos 's point about skill levels being separate from overall level, I think we can find ways to determine what range normal humans and above might fit under. Now, since their can be 100 different level ranges depending on games, this might be difficult. So for simplicity, let's assume a standard 1-99 range.

I'm gonna say for normal people, 1-20 would be a good range. Maybe you've polished yourself up a tiny bit, maybe you can still improve, but the point is, you're not really outstanding enough that it draws attention.

For elites, I'll say 21-39. They've obviously polished themselves to a point where they can hold their heads up high, and stand out among the masses. Through constant training and improvement, they can take themselves to the limits of human ability. You might call these geniuses even.

Now all that leaves is superhuman levels, meaning they take up 40-99. A wide range, no? Well, my reasoning is that the greater the feats, the more superhuman they are. Some can fight for days without break or slowing, some can challenge the gods or devils with their skills and win, and some might even become indistinguishable from such beings. As such, I wanted to leave a lot of wiggle room in order to properly pin down the different feat-ableness within the superhuman levels.

Thoughts, addendums, arguments?

I'd love to go more in-depth at current, but I need to run some errands, for now I'd like to bring up a leveling system from Overlord - youtube com/watch?v=pEEi35hjO8E

Or more so in the fact that while you have your base level, it's not made up of a single type of "level"... now maybe not have it broken up between class and race levels, but more so on class levels. Or in this maybe have skill levels equaling part or all of your total level. Like take a look at this (light spoiler for stats and that a character exists in season 2 of overlord. Their overall power comes from a combination of their skills ranked in levels along to form a total level

Well from what I've seen
1-7 are average people
8-13 are people with training(not necessarily skilled but trained)
14-21 are soldiers or combat centered training
22-30 are elites or generals, approaching superhuman powerhouses. They're strength still falls within a range that could still be 'human'
31-40 These are limitbreakers. The few that have started showing "shonen levels" of power, Things like breaking the sound barrier or flickering(that cool ability where movement surpasses the human eyes ability to process.
41-50 Heroes/Demon generals. Not necessarily the hero but those who could take up the mantle.
51-57 Preawakeners. Heroes that are maxing the potential before divine interference.
58-60 World Limit. Most worlds don't have people walking around stronger than this when on a 99 scale. Its a soft cap of sorts the world seems to enforce to prevent its own destruction, anyone who exceeds this limit was granted it by the world or has shown perseverance and unbreakable will. Likely putting their lives on the line in insane and unconventional ways.

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61-70 "Hero"/Demon Lord, This is the threshold which dictates protagonist level strengths
71-75 EX. The individuals who convert the power they've gained into their personal weapon
76-85. Ascendants/Divine. Threshold for pre-god territory.
86-90. Demi-god. Can harm a god without outside interference but not necessarily strong enough to kill one
91-95. God Domain. Could be considered a god.
96-98.Harbinger, These guys can't even step into the worlds plain without shattering it accidentally. Always fighting at arbitray percentages to avoid pissing off the guys who don't wear levels.
99. World Law Hard cap. They either break through here destroying the world or leave the realm. Either that or they store this power for plot related reasons to try to live a normal life.

I was trying to take that into account when I was writing up my bit. But even for individual skills, the level can be mediocre to divine levels. I was thinking in particular about a myth from Greece about a woman who challenged goddess to a weaving competition, which I assume she won since she was turned into a spider. As far as I know, weaving was her only skill, so even taking one facet into account, a higher number should reflect that sort of skill, or if someone couldn't weave a way out of a wet paper bag, they should probably be lvl 1 (or 0).

Working from extremes is an interesting method. And I do love the specificity you gave with about 10 lvls for every range.

Your placement of animals on this scale I would like to bring up though. If I'm reading right, you place animals (distinct from monster level creatures) at highest a level of about 19. Considering you place elites above this, I find it a bit strange, since while tactics can't be improved for animals in most cases, in physical prowess, some animals, like bears, would outclass the peak of what I would consider a normal human, even well trained.

I take your point on other races outclassing humans though. That being said, the only one I could think of off the top of my head would be dwarves having a tendency towards strength over a human. Could probably use some lore research in this area.

As to whether or not anything 40 being beyond human, I suppose that depends on how tight or loose your definition of human is. Some apparently non-divine lineage legends have done some amazing things. Course, I doubt regular people would regard those people as the same as them regardless.

I would also like to add that my scale was somewhat weighted (at least in my head) taking into account how around 40 or so, going up in levels starts to grind to a halt, and stats can start to look a lot different for climbing beyond that point.

I'm just going to apply a world made of cardboard trope to your last 2 classifications.

And thank you for putting a divide in between warriors that improved to their absolute natural limits and those who received some form of assistance from outside super-forces. Another thing I hadn't fully explored when I put up my thoughts. Of course I would be curious to see what it would actually take for someone to actually cross that boundary without outside help.

The EX rank seems a little strange to me though. I would figure some of the earlier ranges might be able to do that. Figures that hadn't reached Hero or Demon Lord status. Or is it perhaps that you're saying that these weapons are the ones that are named in legends like Excalibur or Vijaya? (Thank god for drafts, I almost lost everything up to here) Or that these weapons take on some extraordinary properties from their reality bending wielders?

Yeah I probably should have explained the EX a bit more. The turning of there own strength into a weapon.

Examples: [FF8] Squalls Limit: Blasting Zone. [Persona 3-5] The main characters manipulation of their own soul/psyche to achieve power outside of the scope of reality.

This also includes physical weapons as well, with unnatural origins.

Examples: [DMC] Yamato, [Multiple Series] Ragnarok, Evolving Weapons like Soul Edge(I'd consider soul edge on this level because it can take any average joe to a demon lord just by wielding it.) [Soul Eater] Excalibur.