Steve

Writing that last post reminded me: In many RL magical traditions, the powers are also persons. The magician isn't a scientist or engineer, confident that if they use the right tools on the right materials in the right way, the desired result must inevitably happen. Magicians deal with forces that have wills of their own. They negotiate, cajole, bribe, browbeat, bully, grovel, or outright lie to get their way. This is most explicit in dealing with spirits, of course, but may be implied in other cases.
 
In HERO terms, this might supply alternate Skill Rolls for magic. Like, the Chinese sorcerer needs a Bureaucratics roll to make his magic work. (Or Bribery -- spells often involve burning an offering of gold-paper. As with mortal bureaucrats, the spirits are supposed to do their duty to you when appealed "according to the statutes and the protocols," but act with greater alacrity when you grease their palms.) A Hermetic summoning a demon to extort a service threatens dire consequences for failure to appear and obey, delivered not merely by himself but by Almighty God -- Interrogation, perhaps (if seen as intimidation or outright torture rather than shrewd questioning). Shamanic negotiations might suggest Trading. If not a Magic Roll itself, such Skills might be complementary; or perhaps be called upon when the Magic Roll fails, in hopes of mitigating or redirecting the Side Effect of an angry spirit's appearance.
 
Dean Shomshak

I sometimes chide people for ragging on D&D in ways I think are unfair. Nevertheless...
 
For me, magic in D&D feels utterly un-magical. One reason is that despite multiple sources and modes of magic, it all works exactly the same way. Another is that while great effort is made to describe the tactical effects of every spell, the game remains sketchy and incoherent about what magic is and why it works. (Maybe setting books go into this. I've only read the Forgotten Realms Gazetteer, which has some blither about a "Weave" that left me unimpressed.) Maybe I'm unusual, but I don't find resource management enhancing my sense of wonder. Well, what do you expect. D&D began as a wargame, and that remains written into thre game's DNA.
 
I hope I have at times achieved sense of wonder in my own D&D games, but it came from my work, not that of the game designers.
 
For me, at least, part of what makes magic feel magical is the context. Like, let's take Incantations. Fine: It's a -1/4 Limitation, because if something prevents you from talking you can't use the Power. But what are the incantations? For an example, let's say the mage is conjuring that stereotypical fireball.
 
The Hermetic or Kabbalistic magus uses secret names of God to invokes Gabriel, angel of fire, and Phaleg, angel of the fiery planet Mars, to burn his enemies.
 
The Satanic sorcerer calls on Xaphan, who fans the flames of Hell, commanding him by Lucifer and Beelzebub as well as divine names such as Elohim Sabaoth and the Tetragrammaton -- blasphemously treating names of God as arbitrary tokens of power that don't actually mean anything. Or he just uses "barbarous words" -- pure gibberish, void of meaning, but you have to speak it all letter-perfect anyway because you're embracing pure superstition.
 
The Hindu sadhu chants a short mantra that distills both a prayer to Agni,m god of fire, down to a few sacred syllables. He has told the prayer 100,000 times, and the force of his ascetic meditation and ritual is such that even a god cannot deny his will.
 
The shaman has met a spirit of fire in his visionary journeys and made a treaty with it. Tapping his drum, he chants an appeal to the spirit and reminds it of their bargain.
 
The Taoist mystic writes the name of Yan Di, the Blazing Lord and Minister of Fire, on a spip of paper and stamps it with his seal of authority. As he holds it up, he demands that a lesser spirit of fire work his will: "By imperial order, in accordance with the statutes and the protocols!"
 
The Finnish sorcerer sings the story of how fire came to be. Knowing its origin asserts his power to command it.
 
In Earthsea, the graduate of Roke knows the true name of fire. In fact, he knows the specific true name for an explosive ball of fire, and by saying that name he calls it into existence.
 
And so on. Whatever the system of magic, the magic words mean something. Not that the player and GM have to come up with anything. It's enough to extablish that that the mage character is indeed calling on some special knowledge to access something deep and powerful in the world.
 
Dean Shomshak

The Change Environment ability seems to fit the bill. Just need to tack on appropriate limitations and advantages. For example, you could have a big bad that has a massive adjustment going on as a megascaled one, but it is dependent on the fear level going on.

After seeing Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool, I keep having him voice Foxbat in my head now.

Well, with skill rolls, attack rolls and damage rolls involved, I would submit that a spell is very limited in its repeatability.
 
Other than Ars Magica and the various versions of the Storyteller system, the Amber system was the only other one that seemed mysterious to me.

Just rolling dice makes it inconsistent.
 
Some form of triggered side effect might make things interesting.
 
Example: Cast a fire spell defined as doing a certain number of damage classes, but side effect triggers if you rolled too low on the damage. The side effect is that the difference between the average of the damage classes and what you rolled affects the caster. Like a kind of rebound effect if you don’t project enough energy away (rolled too low on your damage dice).
 
Something like this would make a wizard less eager to hurl a fireball, as they could burn themselves up if they minimum out on their damage roll.
 
I’m sure creative minds can come up with other creative side effects for different spell effects.

We did this for a short campaign. It worked really well! 
(It seems really, really odd that we did very similar things. We even called it Manan. Weird.)

We added two things: 
1) Concentration limitations
2) The Skill roll defined how effective it was. Making the roll by 2 or 3 points meant the spell effect went as expected. Making it by more actually increased the effects a bit. (I think we doubled the effects when someone made their roll by 8 points once,) Making the roll by only 1, or exactly, made it less effective. Missing it by 1, made it half effect.
 
Using extra time and more elaborate gestures and incantations gave a +1 or +2 to the Skill roll. Which made all the extra trappings important and added a bit of suspense. We ended up calling it “Cinematic Magic.”
 

I’ve usually had him show up with either some robot henchmen or a few of his team. I only ever had him show up solo against a single hero.
 
I also used him in a Dark Champions: The Animated Series game that ran a few sessions amidst a small team of suitable villains that could be converted to a street-level setting.

Man, I could write a thesis on what makes fictional magic systems 'feel' like magic.  It comes up all the time in fantasy fiction discussions.  There, it boils down to whether magic is repeatable, whether it is known, and whether it is knowable.  At some point, alchemy became chemistry; where your magic system is on that continuum determines how 'soft' or 'hard it is, IMO.
 
Keeping magic magical is even harder in RPGs where it needs to be systematized for playability and balance.  Fortunately, as Steve mentioned, we're already throwing dice, so that helps.  Drastically increasing the complexity of spellcasting is absolutely required--I've spent decades fighting this battle with Hero critics who whine that magic 'feels like superpowers'.  Not if your spell requires a skill roll, incantations, gestures, concentration, thirty seconds, and multiple foci, it doesn't.  I use Doctor Strange as the minimum example here.  At least in the comics Strange has to contort his fingers, sit crosslegged, recite various invocations, and carry several magical artifacts, and even then he's still a borderline superhero.  MCU Strange drops the incantations and is basically wuxia.  Conversely, in literature it takes three witches chanting while they drop all kinds of weird and creepy ingredients into a cauldron to cast a precog spell.  It takes three days of fasting and concentration while painting a single room-sized rune for Elric to summon Arioch for the first time.  Potterverse wizards can be like unto gods but must use a wand.  Magic circles.  Pointy hats.  Staves and wands.  All these accoutrements are what flavors the magic. 
 
And for unpredictability, as I see it there are three ways for a wizard to screw up: magnitude, control, and effect. 
 
Power: Usually this manifests as a failure to generate enough magical power.  Luke can't lift the X-Wing.  Ron can't leviosa.  It's also possible to overpower a spell--this might not matter if you're trying to kill a dragon, but could be bad if you're casting a love charm.  Some Hero powers already have dice rolls here, but not all. Control: Power is nothing without control.  Ron casts a slug curse with a busted wand and it backfires on him.  He later Disapparates without a license and leaves an arm behind.  Hermione successfully transforms herself... into a cat.  Ged summons Elfarran, but also summons a shadow creature that almost kills him on multiple occasions.  To-hit rolls cover some of these instances but not all. Effect: Sometimes magical mistakes have completely unrelated results.  The Potterverse almost has a monopoly on this trope.  Harry loses his temper while casting a spell and... accidentally inflates Aunt Marge into a balloon.  Neville accidentally transplanted his ears onto a cactus.  Luna Lovegood's mother cast an experimental spell and simply blew herself up.  This is the hardest thing to randomize without just having the GM make something up. This really cried out for a much more fleshed-out Side Effects system.  As it stands Side Effects is entirely situational--in fact without GM intervention it's possible for the Side Effect to be better than the original spell.  But using the above it should be possible to set up a system to randomize spell failure without leaving it to the GM to make something up.
 

Well, with skill rolls, attack rolls and damage rolls involved, I would submit that a spell is very limited in its repeatability.
 
Other than Ars Magica and the various versions of the Storyteller system, the Amber system was the only other one that seemed mysterious to me.

Like Mental Blasts that effect the caster if he/she fails to hit their target.

Just rolling dice makes it inconsistent.
 
Some form of triggered side effect might make things interesting.
 
Example: Cast a fire spell defined as doing a certain number of damage classes, but side effect triggers if you rolled too low on the damage. The side effect is that the difference between the average of the damage classes and what you rolled affects the caster. Like a kind of rebound effect if you don’t project enough energy away (rolled too low on your damage dice).
 
Something like this would make a wizard less eager to hurl a fireball, as they could burn themselves up if they minimum out on their damage roll.
 
I’m sure creative minds can come up with other creative side effects for different spell effects.

I am 100% behind you on this list and it does not need all of those things to be true in any particular game but they are indeed some of the things that make magic magical.
 
So SFX are inherent here.  i think that there should also be some kind of social element to it.  Magicians are often either revered or reviled.  Sometimes Wizards are revered and Witches are reviled but open use of magic, unless you are in a magic heavy environment (at which point you might as well go with the magic as pseudo-science approach) then people should notice and react when you cast a spell.
 
The biggest question is how you pack all of those things into a game, where not only might you want players to use magical characters, you dont want the magic use to take up a whole session or leave you, as GM, being castigated for being arbitrary or biased.  There needs to be an element of system in there around which you wrap the trappings of magic in the setting.  A player wants to have an element of understanding, a feel they can at least push the chances of things working in their favour and to have a reasonable expectation of knowing what should happen if things go well.
 
THAT element of gameability is what I am hoping to talk about.
 
 
That feels like an SFX solution.  How would it work in game?  Simply finding out the true names of things and then having absolute control over them? Degrees of control?
 
What would the mechanics be?  Anything outside of the RAW?
 
As you might note from my post in the other forum - I think I am reaching towards an Ars magica style solution here.  Ars magica however, for me, had all the trappings of Magic with the underlying philosophy of science.  I have always wanted to play a decent length campaign of Ars Magica but never had the time or the group (or the GM willing to run it for me!).
 
Doc

Mmm...that reminds me of something you might want.  It's damage-based END costs for defenses...AVP I, page 62.  You trade off END for STUN...so, ok, your head's not spinning per se, but after a while you just get beaten to exhaustion.  It's a -1/2 limitation if it's 1 END per 5 STUN or fraction thereof, by the book...so it doesn't use the rounding rules.  6 STUN blocked?  2 END, not 1.  It's a -1/4 limitation if it's 1 END per 10 STUN.
 
You could use this with negation or reduction...at least to a degree.  You might want a complex combo like this...I'm assuming 12d6...
10 defense
2 Negation (no limits)
then 5 or 6 dice of negation that's STUN only, and damage based END cost;  OR, 50% DR that's at least damage based END cost...may or may not be stun only
 
The DR has the advantage that you don't get stunned...as long as you have the END to burn.  When that's gone?  Uh...oh..............
 
If you go with the DBEC on the negation, the trick would be, you'd want to count the pips, not just the BODY, because that can alter the END you have to spend.  This isn't a case where I'd use "standard effect" principles.  If that'd be a pain, then go with the DR.  DBEC actually feels like it was made for DR.
 
Note that there are details about how DBEC works that I haven't mentioned....

I created a spreadsheet that you can change the base DEF to compare an equal amount of points in DR vs DN.  
DRvDN.xlsx

An issue I have with Hero is, there's not much stun-only defense.  There's ways to do it, but they start out expensive.  One of my preferred methods is some Armor, for the BODY, and then Damage Negation, STUN Only;  that's not bad.  Something like 8 armor + 4d6 Negation, STUN only, is 25 points, for 22 total defense.
 
The 2 starter questions:  
--how much BODY defense do I need?  OK, I'm biased as heck here.  It's not 12d6 normal...it's 4d6 killing I want to address.  14 BODY is average, so my target range would be 12-18 resistant, total.  (If you have, say, 3 dice of Negation, I count that as 3 BODY.)  
--stun...how often should I get stunned?  I'm REALLY biased here...because my preference is the more realistic one...just because you go down is a *better* reason to target you...so you don't get back up.  NOT the most common comic trope that a hero that goes down, gets ignored.  So...getting stunned, for me, is VERY, VERY BAD.  
 
So...we start with the damage.  12d6...ok.  What's my CON?  Let's go with 23.  By my lights, a 10% risk of getting stunned is dangerously HIGH.  Anydice.com is a great help here.  On 12d6?  50+ happens 10% of the time.  51+ happens 7.6% of the time, 52+ happens 5.4% of the time.  So for me...I need to block 27 STUN, with my 23 CON...minimum.
We can use other stun frequency numbers easily.  12d6, the damage percentages look like this:
    DEF Needed to avoid STUN Dice Total T % chance >=T CON 18 CON 23 30 98.34 12 7 31 97.46 13 8 32 96.23 14 9 33 94.57 15 10 34 92.4 16 11 35 89.64 17 12 36 86.24 18 13 37 82.17 19 14 38 77.44 20 15 39 72.08 21 16 40 66.19 22 17 41 59.89 23 18 42 53.33 24 19 43 46.67 25 20 44 40.11 26 21 45 33.81 27 22 46 27.92 28 23 47 22.56 29 24 48 17.83 30 25 49 13.76 31 26 50 10.36 32 27 51 7.6 33 28 52 5.43 34 29 53 3.77 35 30  
And obviously, you can tweak the 2 right hand columns easily, as that defense to avoid being stunned is just Damage - CON.  So if you only want to be stunned by 1/4 of the full-strength strikes...you're looking at 23 total DEF with a 23 CON.
 
The 3rd question is more complex...how many hits can I take?  Note that the 27 total defense vs. STUN there...I'm taking 15 STUN per average attack.  Well, am I easy to hit or hard to hit?  Am I likely to be a focus of multiple attackers, or just 1 or 2?  If we're outnumbered, how many of em will have real, worrisome attacks...if there's 3 grunts on me, but they only have 8d6 attacks, well, they're barely gonna affect me.  Also note that the ease with which you can take an extra recovery is a factor...how easy is that for you?  SPD is an issue, but what, if anything, do you have to drop, since you can't take a recovery if you're spending END.  BUT, note that if you're taking 20 STUN a pop, you're not lasting very long unless you've got a LOT of STUN.  And getting KO'd is extra bad.
 

I have to disagree with DR 25% being useless.   It is less effective vs low dice attacks, but more effective against high dice attacks.  25% damage reduction and 3 DC’s of damage negation will both mean that a character with it will take a 13d6 attack to stun a character with a 23 CON, given 12 PD.  UP to about 16d6 the results are fairly similar, above 16d6 the damage reduction provides better defense. 
 
If we go up to 50% DR and -6 DC of damage negation the dynamics change.  The Damage Negation provides near absolute protection up to 9d6, but reaches the stun point at 16d6 vs 17d6 for the 50% DR.  Above that point the DR gives much better protection than the DN.
 

I thought I would have another go at this.  It has been playing in my head as something I want and, if I do, then surely HERO can accommodate me.  I reckon the big thing is whether you can introduce an element of uncertainty and "magic" without imposing an undue time or complexity "tax" in game terms.
 
 
I think the key dichotomy of this issue is that the player has knowledge the character does not (the game rules), that the character has knowledge the player does not (the rules of the universe, and living in a world where mortals wield such power).  I am sure the characters are entirely unaware of their "level" and why, when they cast their six first level spells, they must only cast more powerful spells.  🙂
 
What is missing here is that neither of them know what the GM (and thus the universe) knows.
 
I was, to my surprise, reaching toward Ars Magica as that, tome us the epitome of magic as science.  But the game tries to provide a core game-comoatibkeway of codifying magic.
 
Before I start, this is only worth the (GM) effort if you want to introduce an element of doubt and uncertainty to magic and that is only worth it if it adds depth and colour to the magic and the world.
 
 
To me, the question is not whether Chris might gave an idea but whether Belzeboim, his magic-wielding character in the world, knows or can find out. 
 
In Glorantha, everyone is aware, they understand how the world works and they do not pine for a world of bacteria and viruses, nor for a world where metals are inert chemicals with no link to the mythic history of the world. The player can learn the rules of the world but cannot expect their knowledge of this world biology is chemistry to deliver insight into that nautical world, or that the scientific method will reign supreme as it does in this world.  It us a different paradigm.
 
In HERO, this is all bound up, I think, into the (boring) magic roll. The magic roll adds an element of unpredictability but no magic, wonder or setting colour.  I think it would be valuable for the world to introduce variety and colour to magic in the setting. I would make the magic roll a straight 10 or less but not allow people to but bonuses to the roll, that all comes from the cloud of knowledge, skills, and materials available to the wizard.
 
So, players should have knowledge of what characters know (which is what they have been taught).  If the character is from a hedge witch tradition, they will have knowledge such as Plants, Weather, Animals, the Winds etc., and may have charms, potions and fetishes that enhance their magic.  If the character is from a wizardly tradition, then they will have knowledge such as Thaumaturgy, Evocation,  Illusion etc., and may have a staff, symbols and scrolls that will enhance their magic.
 
The Fantasy Hero source book delivers a lot of the detail on which this stuff could hang. The question us how it might work in game.  Would a hedge witch trying to cast an "unseen" charm in a field have the same chance as a wizard casting an "invisibility" spell in the same field?  That is where the GM knowledge comes in. 
 
The environment is an "unknown" to the player.  That unknown is what introduces variability, the difficulties the player will not know of (and character might be able to find out).  As such, I think there will be two approaches, prepared and unprepared. 
 
In a prepared situation each spellcaster might use various skills to understand the environment, or it may be the home territory of the caster and thus "known".  That may counter some or all of the difficulties. The player might also proffer a skill and item that will deliver a bonus to the roll.
 
In an unprepared situation only skill and item will help.
 
The GM should have a range of environmental issues such as "wild magic area", "local nature spirits", "on a ley-line" and a variety of other things that have a variety of +/-2 modifiers.   It is subjective rather than objective.  The GM sees the hedge witch, in an area known to them, and decide that the "local nature spirits" are friendly and provide a +2 to their magic roll.  The GM might decide the same spirits deliver a -2 to the wizard, or perhaps are neutral to the wizard casting invisibility but might be unfriendly to them changing the environment.
 
This should be a discussion with the players, the casters will be aware of positive or negative influences.  These should not be subject to rolls at the time of casting.  However, the player might seek to better prepare for magic by getting to know their environment ahead of casting (meaning more opportunity for either role play with active environment such as nature spirits or lore exploration with passive environment such as ley-lines or wild magic areas). Such preparation can turn neutral or negative elements into positive ones (and may entail rolls to "persuade" or "understand" the elements).
 
This also means it is much more dangerous taking on a spellcaster on their own ground, all the environmental elements will be positive for the home-caster and likely, at best, neutral to other casters (unless they are of a similar tradition and know the location).
 
I would also be open to a system where the magic roll delivers boons or complications.  I think that every six rolled in a successful cast delivers a boon to the caster while every one rolled in an unsuccessful cast causes a complication. These things do not change the spell but deliver additional benefits or complications to the caster, such as gaining a positive relationship with the nature spirits or understanding of the magical ambience of ancient ruins.
 
I think this begins drawing the players into the setting by giving them game-relevant reasons to do that.  It also means that casting lightning bolt on the site of an ancient battlefield might be more unreliable than wgen cast in defence of a prepared campsite.
 
All-in-all, I think this would begin to make magic more magical, as the unknowns of the environment have the potential to make things more unreliable, while the boons and complications blur the edges of success and failure.
 
Doc
 
Edit: I will cross post this in the Fantasy HERO forum where it probably belongs...

Terzo's friend Bertuscio, lawyer with a night job of vigilante. The portrait was him 20 years ago, so the Beard of Awesome is no longer ginger.
 

Pathfinder - Hell's Rebels : A Song Of Silver
 
Rajira’s player: I must say I’m impressed by this module - not many reuse maps in a sensible fashion.
Terzo’s player: Well, it’s probably going to be a museum of the Rebellion once everything settles down
Rajira’s player: At least that’s a step up from tourist trap.
Ayva’s player: It’s been a headquarters for evil cultists twice. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it’s happened twice. 
 
Terzo and Rajira press their ears to the next door, and can hear some shuffling and invoking of verbal spell components. We all rush in before they can set up anything as nasty as we would in their situation. The remaining cultists have already retreated into the adjacent chamber, but that doesn’t stop Rajira neatly sniping somebody messing with a component pouch. They probably shouldn’t be gushing green blood, but that's more likely to be the result of Rajira’s venom rather than anything inherent in their own biology. Mahat rushes it to apply some more close-range violence and discovers that one of the spells the enemy were casting was Invisibility on some of the Skinsaw Cultists. The fight rapidly devolves into massed spellfire in and out of the doorway, and our respective combat monsters get into a scrum. Combat monsters like a Summoned Dire Tiger. 
 
Civilla OoC: I summoned a Shadow Blender.
 
One of the people on the other side looks familiar - we may have met her at that dinner party in Vyre. Mind you, she is currently in her Hybrid Wererat form, so we don’t know for sure.
 
Shimza: I want to go home, I've got a craving for souls of the damned. Or pickles.
Rajira: Why not both?
 
Terzo does have to uncomfortably close to the melee to apply medical aid. Mahat certainly needs it.
 
Mahat: I get by with a little help from my friends.
Terzo: That may well be, but do you get high with a little help from a Euphoric Cloud?
Rajira: Probably not, he’s got a racial resistance to Poison effects.
 
Mahat: Set kukri to ‘frappe’.
 
The mysterious wererat woman from Vyre does try to flee, and we catch up with her as she is frantically trying to open the door that Civilla Arcane Locked earlier.
 
Hei-Fen: *rattle rattle rattle* SH**!
Terzo: Have you tried ‘pull’ not ‘push’?
Dire Tiger: BIG RODENT *POUNCE, CLAW CLAW BITE RAKE RAKE*
 
Civilla abuses a few magical tricks to try and get some answers out of the Vyrish rat-lady, since the Dire Tiger got a bit enthusiastic with the gut-raking, but her departing spirit seems unwilling to co-operate.
 
Hei-Fen’s Corpse: F*** yoooooou… *blegh*
 
Shimza hands out little pieces of paper to everybody still bleeding from our various wounds.
 
Shimza: Hold this until I tell you to open it.
Ayva: This just says ‘Feugo-’*FWOOM*
 
Having a Phoenix-blooded changeling in the party is so useful sometimes. Even though it’s always startling when a fireball goes off in your hand and you feel better afterwards.
 
Shimza: What do I do with the other hundred of these Fire Traps?
 
Maybe they’ll be useful in her and Civilla’s long term plans to become the Immortal Witch-Queens of Kintargo. They’re already attracting a coven. When these are the kind of characters playing on the 'good' side of the Rebellion, you're already right to be concerned by the players' plans for the Hell's Vengeance campaign, when the PCs are working the Chellish side of events.
 
We’ll have to cart all these bodies downstairs to decapitate and bury (read: feed to a giant chthonic amphibian) anyway - it’ll make it much harder for anybody to interrogate them, for one thing. Especially if we dispose of the heads elsewhere. Of course given how many people we’ve got rid of down here previously, the psychic signature of the Hidden Monastery must be getting a bit polluted.
 
Civilla: There may be a haunting problem here later. 
 
We do find something of particular interest on Hei-Fen’s body. A contract, signed by Barzillai Thrune himself, promising that the Inquisitor and his underlings will turn a blind eye to the cult’s activities, as long as they use their ritual murders to destabilise the situation in Kintargo.
 
Rajira: Oh ho, we’re going to get SO much use out of that.
Ayva: Chelaxian bureaucracy wins again. They record EVERYTHING.
 
Barzillai will probably guess that the Silver Ravens or most accurately the Ghosts of Kintargo are at it again when the entire Skinsaw cult vanishes off the face of the planet. Certainly, without the threat of horrible murder and mutilation for anybody breaking curfew his grip on the city crumbles still further.
 

Why are you shouting?

I question the premise, I have no problem running low powered games with Hero and have done so for 30+ years.

With Superboy, you could go back to the 1945 version, where leaping over a barn or outrunning a deer were amazing feats. He was weaker than the 1938 version of his adult self. Even the world's greatest superhero has to begin somewhere...

The Smallville TV version is a more modern (and powerful) take.

I thought about the Marvel family, but omitted them to keep things short. Still, Captain Marvel, Captain Marvel Jnr and Mary Marvel are all potential teen heroes.

I skipped the Legion, because they are such radical outliers. Still, there were enough stories where individual members came back in time and did things, that they could be used as a source. In the first appearance of Ultra Boy, he only had (used?) his vision powers. His full power set wasn't mentioned until his second(?) appearance. The result was Cyclops with X-ray and telescopic vision. (And a flight gizmo, because the Legion.) Perfectly fine.

The best literature example might be Tolkien’s Fellowship of the Ring. Gandalf and Aragorn on one end of the scale and Frodo and the other hobbits on the opposite end.

However, I think it could be said that the top end in power characters didn’t seem to gain as many XPs over the course of the campaign as the four hobbits did. Sam and Frodo both showed quite a bit of growth. Aragorn seemed to be mainly gaining perks along his storyline. And Gandalf didn’t seem to be more powerful, but more like he had his restraints removed.
 
Maybe not quite pointless, but fantasy seems to favor growth in power and ability more than superheroes seem to emphasize. Peter Parker hasn’t seemed to change a lot in his powers from when he was a teenager, but Frodo and Bilbo both changed in their abilities over the course of their heroic journeys.

The best literature example might be Tolkien’s Fellowship of the Ring. Gandalf and Aragorn on one end of the scale and Frodo and the other hobbits on the opposite end.

However, I think it could be said that the top end in power characters didn’t seem to gain as many XPs over the course of the campaign as the four hobbits did. Sam and Frodo both showed quite a bit of growth. Aragorn seemed to be mainly gaining perks along his storyline. And Gandalf didn’t seem to be more powerful, but more like he had his restraints removed.
 
Maybe not quite pointless, but fantasy seems to favor growth in power and ability more than superheroes seem to emphasize. Peter Parker hasn’t seemed to change a lot in his powers from when he was a teenager, but Frodo and Bilbo both changed in their abilities over the course of their heroic journeys.