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Dante Abigor · **09-09-2015, 10:44 AM**

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TL;DR'd cause it turned kind of ranty at the end.Personally I have a pretty wide range of tolerance for a character's skill level, as long as lore means said skills can exist and the character in question can actually function in a Rp community, then honestly I have no problem whatsoever.

The issues for me come into play when the character is so skilled that another character becomes meaningless. And By this I do not mean character A is skilled in X things so character B who is only skilled in Y things cannot really contribute. What I mean is that when a character is so skilled that the skills of another character contributing can be absolutely negated.

That probably sounds like a contradiction so I will explain. Within the lore, you have a range from being something as simple as a powerless homeless type stuck in the dumps, or a being as powerful as the Warrior of Light, which most people incorrectly assume there can only be one of typically because only one is portrayed as so famous and powerful in the story.

The Warrior of Light power level, if I can use it as such, is such that xe literally renders everyone else meaningless before their skill and power. They can deliver all of the food and crafts, kill demi gods, travel to alternate dimensions, gain the favor of planets and aliens, apparently stop an entire thousand year war, and save people from execution (Except for when the story decides they cant act cause REASONS), all while still having the time to go chocobo racing, win at the Cactpot, gather and use and be the chosen one for ALL of the soul stones in the game, befriend and have fun with moogles....the list goes on. The point is they can do whatever the F**k they want within a time bubble without any consequences things going wrong for them and without any real help from anyone else, as the story honestly shows time and again.

Realistically, you can write your character like this and get away with it with SOMEONE. The problem I would have with it rather than it being something you just should not do, is that that leaves no real room for anyone else to develop and contribute. If your character can do everything or anything without anyone else, even if my character WERE a super skilled dragoon or something, why would it matter in the face of your character? There would be no point in our characters interacting in the first place at that point, because your character is in need of NOTHING, and if they are, then they will immediately get whatever it is they need elsewhere, because that is how the character is written.

So basically, in my opinion, a character is too skilled when there is absolutely zero plausible room for another character to exist in their story. Just as the Warrior of Light does not truly have party members or characters that assist them with battles, if your character is so skilled they are not in need of anyone else ever in any way, then that is when they are too skilled, TO ME.

EDIT: Id also like to add that the older a character gets, naturally this line can get harder to maintain as naturally a character in a story might try to cover their weaknesses and bases. So I think having an established character "Existence" is important too, since your character having all of these developments off screen tends to make it less....realistic(?) for many people.

Beware, Rpers be a fickle and critical bunch at times, yar.

When is a character too skilled?

RPC has moved! These pages have been kept for historical purposes