Random Superpower Generator

Every roll comes with the parts a story needs: where the power came from, how far the power reaches, what each use costs, the sign bystanders spot, and the counter a villain plans around. Lock what you like and reroll the rest.

Why every roll ships with a limit

Superman flew for years with nothing able to stop him. Kryptonite first showed up on the radio serial in 1943, and the comics picked up the green rock in 1949. Writers needed a way to put the hero in danger, and a rock from home did the job.

Fantasy author Brandon Sanderson turned the same lesson into his Second Law of magic: limitations are more interesting than powers. Readers cheer a hero who wins in spite of a price. A hero with no price wins on autopilot.

So the generator never hands out a bare power. Each card pairs the ability with four story hooks:

Origin. The event or deal behind the power. Your first chapter, written for you.
Limit. The price of each use. Pick one you are willing to show on the page.
Tell. What bystanders notice. Secret identities fall apart on this line.
Counter. The plan a smart villain brings. Matched to the class, so a mind reader loses to noise, not to acid.

Power level: set the scale before the power

Teleportation across one room and teleportation across a continent belong in different books. Pick the tier first, then roll.

Cosmic
Fits space opera, myth, end-of-the-world arcs.

Stakes planets, timelines, gods.

Watch for the limit. Without a hard one, the hero solves every problem in a page.
Global
Fits political thrillers, alien invasions.

Stakes wars, treaties, whole populations.

Watch for the question of why nobody else steps in.
City
Fits team books, workplace drama, secret identities.

Stakes a city's safety and a public reputation.

Watch for phones. A City hero gets filmed by Tuesday.
Street
Fits noir, crime, school stories.

Stakes one neighborhood, one gang, one missing person.

Watch for close-range powers which end fights in one move.

Running a tabletop game? Mutants & Masterminds starts most hero campaigns at Power Level 10, which lines up with City here. Pick Street for a gritty one-shot.

Six power classes and the counters built into them

Each class draws its counter from its own list
Class	Sample powers	Fits stories about	Typical counter
Elemental	Pyrokinesis, Hydrokinesis, Storm Calling	Disaster, survival, nature against the city	A sealed room with nothing to work with
Mind	Telepathy, Memory Editing, Lie Sense	Mystery, politics, betrayal	Noise, crowds, trained minds
Body	Super Strength, Rapid Healing, Shapeshifting	Action, sports, body horror	Range, sedatives, traps
Space & Motion	Teleportation, Time Freeze, Phasing	Heists, chases, escapes	Unfamiliar ground, sealed rooms
Energy	Kinetic Absorption, Force Fields, Technopathy	Tech thrillers, science fiction	Grounding, mirrors, decoys
Matter	Duplication, Size Shifting, Transmutation	Comedy, puzzle plots, workshop stories	Acid, freezing, magnets

Locking a power also holds the class, so the next roll pulls a counter from the right list. Pick Any to let the class float.

One roll, three passes

The card on first load is a real roll. Here is how a writer would work on the card before using the power in a draft.

Read the roll

Kinetic Absorption at City level. Nanites rebuilt the hero's spine after a car crash, and now every hit gets stored and released as one punch. Each release leaves the hero too weak to stand for ten minutes. Veins glow blue during use.

Test the limit against the power

The pairing works. The hero soaks a beating, throws one punch, and collapses. Every fight has to end on the punch, so timing matters more than strength. Lock the power and the limit.

Turn the counter into a character

The counter reads "a decoy target built to drain your stored charge." Give the line a face: an engineer who sends cheap drones to eat the punch before the real attack lands. Then reroll the tell if glowing veins expose the secret identity too early.

Where the generator falls short

Finite pools. 54 powers across six classes. Roll fifty times and repeats show up.
No balance math. A Cosmic reach beside a mild limit reads lopsided. Fix the limit by hand.
Not a rules system. No dice, point costs, or stat blocks for D&D or Mutants & Masterminds. Treat the card as a pitch and build stats in your own system.
Origins ignore the power. A Mystic origin beside Technopathy needs one sentence of glue from you.
The log lives in this tab. Refresh and the list is gone. Copy any sheet worth keeping.

Random superpower questions

Are these powers from Marvel or DC?

No power on the list belongs to a publisher. Telepathy, flight, and super strength are genre staples, and names like Kinetic Absorption describe the effect, not a trademarked character. The limit, tell, and counter are where the hero becomes your own.

How do I keep one part and reroll the rest?

Press the lock icon beside the line. Locked lines hold through every roll. Locking the power also holds the class, so the counter stays matched. Clear locks releases every lock at once.

What does the power level change?

Power level sets the Reach line, the meter, and the note under the card. Street keeps the effect to one room or one target. Cosmic reaches past orbit. The power name stays the same, so Teleportation at Street and at Cosmic read as two different heroes.

Why does every power come with a weakness?

A power with no cost wins every scene before the scene starts. Kryptonite exists for this reason. The limit and the counter give you the fights worth writing.

Will this work for a D&D or tabletop character?

As a concept, yes. Use the card to pitch the power to your GM, then build the mechanics with your game's rules. The generator has no stat values or point costs.

Does the generator save my rolls?

Only inside the current tab. The power log holds your last eight rolls until you refresh. Copy power sheet puts the full card on your clipboard as plain text.