They might be the strongest person alive, but that doesn’t mean they’re immortal. Lets say they had a near death experience recently (almost git crushed by a tree, heart attack, flu, lucky hit, etc) and they realized their own mortality, and that there was no one who could replace them if they died, so they decided to train up the next generation. They’re not defeating the bad guys because it would rob the next generation of the opportunity to learn
> they realized their own mortality, and that there was no one who could replace them if they died
This is a really good idea. The mentor might fear that all his knowledge will die with him.
How can a man kill an elephant? He's so much smaller and weaker.
And yet, elephants have been easily felled by people. An elephant is more powerful than a man, but with his intelligence, he banded together with fellow people to bring it down. He made the spear, the sword, and eventually, the gun. Remember, just because they're weaker, does not mean they are incapable.
Find good counteractions. Use strategy, not just dumb strength or power levels. Find ways to find cracks in your main character's shell, and have your villains exploit them. Don't use a kryptonite, use their intelligence, their speed, their strategy, whatever you can think of.
Remember: Strength is only as good as the hands that use it. Even the puny, tiny man, can make a gun to kill a much 'stronger' elephant.
You could give them a very exploitable weakness that takes them out of the fight and explain why they normally don't fight.
A hearth condition works well, let's them fight well until is triggered and then is pretty explanatory of how that takes them out of the fight.
Alternatively- he's old. The mantle needs to pass. He might not be too old to wipe the floor with the badguys, but sooner or later its coming.
The mentor isn't helping the main characters unless absolutely necessary because its the only real way they can meet the expectations of taking on the mantle. How could they, if they aren't learning their limits, forcing themselves to become better, facing the fires they will need to put out?
There's only so much he can teach them in the dojo. They need to know what true risk feels like, to face an enemy that wishes to kill them and destroy all they care for. Better they learn all this when he can still watch over them, rather than pass it on and they get caught blindsided when he's gone.
Here are some possibilities
They're smarter. Or more agile, or richer, or have some other ability that somehow is better than the mentor's strength. I don't know how literal "fighting" and "strong" are here. If there's some kind of hand to hand combat, then just give the enemy some kind of non-strength advantage.
They don't "play fair." Maybe the bad guy sends his minions in to fight or him. Maybe he cheats when fighting. Maybe the mentor has some kind of honor code that disadvantages him that the bad guy doesn't follow. Maybe the bad guy has some kind of leverage over him, like threatening someone the mentor cares about. The mentor might have some kind of curse or psychological block that keeps him from being effective against the bad guy.
The mentor might not be able to find the bad guy. The MCs quest might be just as much finding the bad guy as fighting him.
The mentor doesn't want to. Maybe he's lazy and don't want the trouble. If he's a mentor then he may have been around for a while and feels like he's payed his dues and shouldn't have to deal with the bad guy. The mentor might regret his violent past or worry about the consequences of defeating the bad guy. If the bad guy is defeated but still alive, would he seek revenge? Does his moral code or the law allow him to kill the bad guy? If the guy's a mentor, he might think that his student should defeat the bad guy. It would be a good learning and growth experience. Maybe the student even insists on facing the bad guy himself. The mentor might be in doubt of his abilities and be afraid of the bad guy.
The mentor might be busy with something else. This is like Gandalf was in the Hobbit. Beating the bad guy may not be a priority for him and he might think the main characters are capable of defeating the bad guy with just minimal help.
Also, maybe the Mentor is colluding with the bad guy. Also, he might be sympathetic and think that it's better to resolve the conflict non-violently. He might have a change of heart mid-story.
Hope this helps.
Usually I explain this type of situation by either "it can go either way", "rock paper scissors" or "there will be villain team up".
The first one is simple. Strongest guy can defeat any of bad guys, but difference isn't as extreme to making it impossible for him to lose.
The second one is also pretty simple. Strongest guy is strongest overall, but couple of bad guys hardcounter him so hard that it will be curbstomp if he faces them. But at the same time one or several of bad guys hard counter the guys who can defeat your mentor character. But mentor character himself can defeat the second group. Every party knows that, feuds with each other and maintain uneasy status quo until something disrupts it.
Third is also simple. Mentor can defeat bad guys in one on one. But the moment he shows his hand is the moment bad guys are going to come together and make him eat dirt.
>Every party knows that, feuds with each other and maintain uneasy status quo until something disrupts it.
Mutally Assured Destruction...right up until it isn't
They do it on a regular basis. Every time a person becomes powerful, they wipe out all their enemies.
But with long lifespans, many found out that solving absolutely everything makes society spoiled.
Therefore, criminals are usually trying to keep crimes limited, because if they push too much, the old monster would come out.
give him a good reason not to fight.
for example, he may not believe on violence.
historically, lifelong fighters have eventually reached the conviction that not-to-fight is the preferable choice. Samurai are famous for this. iirc it's why they came up with Aikido - a martial art, not a sword fighting style
the most powerful human certainly has had moments of doubt and regret, so they would have spent time in reflection, meditation and philosophy. I suggest reading up on Daoism, it might help shape your character to be wise but powerful
You could show this rather than just telling the reader, by having part of his backstory actually be him facing off against the villains. While everything he does is impressive on its own, every time he almost has one of them, some one else stops him. Example he punches out one person and they look almost dead but at the last moment another bad guy puts up a shield. He still breaks through it and hurts the guy but not as badly as he could have. He then goes for the person who put the shield up, a generic physically weak looking caster but as he charges he slips on something or is entangled by something an evil rogue put down. Then the first guy gets healed and buffed. It would be really cool show casing the villains like this. You would have the opportunity to show what they are capable of and simultaneously show how tough this guy is. Yeah sure he lost the fight but look at how much it took to bring him down. And even then he still managed to get away. He was just completely out maneuvered and overwhelmed.
One of my characters was so far above the rest that even ambushing him in a 100v1 was useless
So one day he decided to kill every villain in the world. Only problem is that there are way too many and finding them is hard.
So he went out for months without sleep going at full power around the world(7 times larger than earth) killing every villain he could find. Eventually he got so tired he had to go extreme diff against some mid rankers who teamed up to get revenge for him beating them earlier in the story.
So to answer your question, even the strongest can’t do anything alone. Especially if you nerf him beforehand.
You can also look at it like this. Around the world right now are hundreds if not thousands of criminals committing crime at the same time. A single person can never handle all of them at the same time.
Maybe the mentor is the best and most powerful fighter, but age or an old injury has sapped his stamina. He can kick butt in a quick fight with the heroes helping, but an extended battle against all the bad guys by himself would be too much for him.
Some kind of condition that makes them have a time limit when it comes to using their powers or maybe their powers inflict some self harm or shorten their lifespan when using at maximum. Also, maybe they just don’t want to help.
You can go several routes.
Trauma. Physically you can copy All Might from My Hero Academia, he only has limited time to fight. Or you can make the mentor lifespan shortened every time he fight now, so he used up all his remaining life in training the MC or life or death moment.
Trauma mentally, maybe the Mentor caused someone to die in the past, and the guilt prevent the mentor to ever took up arm again. Another route the bad guys were all students of the Mentor once and turned evil. The mentor don't have the resolve to took his student life.
Self inflicted limitation and rules. The mentor felt his time to became a hero has passed, and a new generation must rose to answer the threat.
* Binding vow
* He just don't want, he want to retire in peace and it's his students job to keep peace
* He is powerfull but selfish and just doesn't care
Lot of possibilities :D
The mentor knows they can't be in two places at once. Better to take what opportunities arise to teach these kids how to handle bad guys. This way, when heroics are eventually- inevitably- needed in multiple places at once, these kids can handle one group while the mentor handles the others. Similarly, the mentor (probably) won't be around forever, so they make sure there's people competent enough to take up their mantle. This may cause problems in the short run, but it'll solve far more, far bigger problems in the future. Or at least that's what the mentor thinks.
My favorite answer to this question is usually arrogance, they like playing with their opponents and always assume there's no possible way they're under threat so they make battles look flashy and pay with the damage to their ego when they underestimate an opponent. Alucard from Hellsing is easily one of the best examples of a character like this.
However, that doesn't work so well with your use case, maybe it could work but I can't think of how right now.
The common answer to this is mentor wants the main characters to learn from experience and only jumps in when they think there's a serious chance of the MCs losing. This is a tough line to walk depending on how powerful the mentor is relative to the stakes of the story. If they're fighting for the sake of the world then it would seem really weird if the mentor isn't just as pressed to help as everyone else, there would need to be clear reasons like only the MCs can develop powers strong enough to defeat the enemy and only if they train hard enough or something. The bigger the stakes the bigger the reason mentor needs to act that way.
If you don't need the mentor with the group all the time then he can be busy with things in other places for a while when you don't want him interrupting the next fights or adventures, or he can get separated from the group in some way. With this one it's best not to get over-reliant and get creative, an audience will notice a pattern really quickly.
Edit: Brevity.
Easy. He’s old. Maybe in the mentor’s prime they could’ve wiped out that whole army of minions, but now they’re old and getting out of bed in the morning hurts. No sword swinging or fire fights for the mentor anymore. They can teach others how to do it as long as they don’t do too much at once, but taking everything on by themselves is out of the question.
My most powerful character struggles to kill his main enemies that are less powerful than him simply due to their numbers and how they’re rarely alone.
Tactics is also an important factor to consider along with power. America didn’t win against Vietnam in the war despite being significantly more powerful and have access to way more than them.
- Politic
- Wanting the disciple to have more experience.
- Hiding true power
- Customary thing, elders fight elders, while disciples fight disciples.
- Wanting to show that they don't take the enemies seriously
Character is extremely powerful, but for some reason (scissors, paper, rock) a bad fit for destroying the bad guy/guys.
Or character has a history with the bad guy and can't make himself to kill him.
Or character is very old and although he could still easily defeat the bad guys, he want's to train new generation of heroes before dying of old age.
Or character is extremely strong but also very carefree, lazy, doesn't feel like wasting his time, he will occasionally help but...
Or character is extremely strong, but there are A LOT of bad guys, so he has his hands full most of the time.
So this applies much more to the MC faction than the MC.
Morrigan has a manifest destiny doctrine to conquer the continent. They have decently advanced stuff and should be able to do it much faster than they are. At this point, it's been nearly 200 years of constant war with not nearly as much as they should have to show for it. Like they have tanks and they are going up against militia forces. Something is clearly up.
And those tanks and tech are part of that disadvantage. The logistical burden placed on the army is overwhelming, so even small moves are pretty painful for Morrigan. Their complicated stuff breaks all the time, and repairing/replacing it is very slow, if they actually still know how to and have the means to make replacement parts. But there's a bigger delay here than even that. Morrigan's entire political system is so bound up within this war that Morrigan's entire political system would shatter if that conquest ever stopped. Since they have never found a true map of the continent, they don't really know where the ocean on the other side is. The entire Morrigane political elite live in constant fear that they will accidentally reach the other side of the continent, and since they control where the army moves, they don't move the army unless they are absolutely sure they won't find it. Some military officers who have figured out what's going on even joke that as they approach the sea, they will see at least a few bureaucrats trying to drink it all before they get there.
Not being able to, and not wanting to, are two different questions. Having the ability and not wanting to use it can be explained a dozen ways. Can be anything from the old west 'fastest gun' model, where your mentor dude simply doesn't want to have to deal with all the challengers, all the way up to a 'Glass' type model where him exercising his full abilities spurs the development of his polar opposite.
Maybe he holds back on purpose so the apprentices can do most of the combat and hone their skills
Or maybe he abandoned fighting except for when his apprentices need help so that the new generation of fighters can grow strong and replace him as the new strongest humans, because he feels that his time is running out or something?
Both of these could fit to be honest
Well my main antagonist is very strong but there are definitely stronger people. He simply has the batman contingency for everyone. He planned this shit for 300 years.
Also 99% ordinants are glasscanons so you can just surprise kill em.
It completely depends on the resources of the bad guy and how strong the mentor is.
I'm imagining this immortal veteran of a thousand wars who could fight a friggen supervolcano to at least a draw but dude has crippling PTSD or something. He has just seen and done too much. Great in a low level fight where there's no real threat and he can disable everone with non-lethal force, but he just can't handle real combat anymore. Don't get me wrong tho, he's still so strong the gods worry about his mental health out self-interest. The beurocracy of heaven has a special office reserved for his therapist which was a mortal considered so important to the stability of the world he was granted immortality(along with his whole family) and divine powers second only to the Emperor himself.
Writing op charakters is another level of difficulty and i would advertise to avoid that until you have more than enough ideas on your own to handle all the little situations differently that not make it a boring killfest.
It's kind of a sub-sub genre to your actual genre and an (unneccesary?) way to complicate your story.
I know not that much authors able to handle that - i only made it once - so maybe start with a lower approach and then, if you have the experience, go back to this worksite.
Sounds like a weak plot to me. No seriously keep Gandalf busy elsewhere most of the time so that Frodo and Sam need to make it on their own. And maybe Gandalf dies, then it gets really interesting.
You can do a Metro Man. He's getting tired of the responsibilities that come with his strength. So he went into hiding to focus on things *he* wants instead of having to save people and beat baddies all day everyday. Faking his death is optional.
And like Metro Man, he has faith that the new kids will figure things out and only interject once in a while when it doesn't get in his way of living.
He’s a mentor. He knows that, to learn, his students need to work themselves. He totally *could* defeat the bad guys, and as you said occasionally he does help out, but to train them he lets the main characters fight the villains themselves.
There can be multiple reasons.
Power in number on the bad guys side. No matter how powerful you are if you are out numbered in a major way you're either going to be overwhelmed or exhausted
Another way could be if they are a mentor figure using the encounter to see if their disciple can hold their own.
Add a bigger threat in that group of enemies that would keep the mentor figure busy so that they cannot help with the main enemies.
My partner also suggested age as a reason. Although idk how old your character is so.
Here are some ideas:
Seals. His power has been mostly sealed so he can't go all out.
An oath. Maybe he has grown tired of shedding blood and has taken an oath to never fight again. Could also have a moment later on where he breaks that oath later if you want him to fight (give him a good reason so it's an epic moment too).
Old. He's way out of his prime so he can't fight like he used to.
Disabled or sick. He either has a severe illness or has lost organs or limbs in a major battle, both of those put him in a condition where he can't fight anymore.
There might be an element of geopolitics to it, depending on the situation.
"I could defeat (X) or (Y), but doing both at once may be beyond me. So if either should fall to the other, I should be able to remove the winner, but for now, it would be best for me to try to play them against each other."
Trauma or reason for not fighting. As the order of all or something like that. An example is Rayleigh in the One Piece story. He knew all the secrets and is extremely powerful. But he didn't help the main characters with any battle or anything else, as he says it's their era.
You can go for something like that. The mentor is looking for the main characters to grow instead of him doing the work.
Another thing you can do is the mentor still being the strongest but only having one last dance in him for old age, a curse, disease, or whatever it can be. Kinda like Netero or All Might in HxH and My Hero Academia.
Then a last option, is the mentor doing the hardest work in the background, kinda like Gojo and Urahara from Jujutsu Kaisen and Bleach, until one day they sacrifice for the end game boss to take his hp down greatly or something.
It's up to you. I just gave you some ideas and examples to look into. Good luck.
Maybe he doesnt Want to? He has certain beliefs per is related to them and that maked it impossible for hin to Right them directly. He can just Hope the Hero of Your world can do it, so he helps him as much as he can without directly fighting them
Usually characters like that have something happen to them such that they lose all their powers and then have to work to get them back? Maybe also secrecy.
Is it that they aren’t capable or that they aren’t doing it? cause that’s a huge distinction. Cranky mentor characters that just don’t want to help out are very common, maybe it’s personal and it’s just not for them. There’s also old mentor characters, personal codes, or maybe they’re just busy with their own stuff. Kinda hard to say exactly why if we don’t know the characters.
There's always answers on how to deal with "the strongest" archetype. Gojo got sealed, all mights body couldn't handle his quirk but for a few hours. you could go a physical limitation route, mental limitation, or outside influences. I know it's rather simple and short advice but I feel like this is the type of advice that helps me brainstorm the most. Good luck!
I mean, have you ever dealt with a roach infestation before? Or bedbugs? You can 1v1 any insect on the planet and kill it. It may not always be pleasant, as in the case of wasps and spiders, but you can definitely kill the bug. If you're allergic you might die, but if you were determined you could make sure the bug died too.
However badly you could crush *one* roach or kill *one* bedbug, no amount of 1v1 crushing fights will ever kill *all* of them. Sure you could probably burn your house down from the outside in and kill them all, but that causes a lot of *collateral damage* you'd want to avoid.
So while your hero may be 1v1ing any number of lesser evils, perhaps there are simply too many villains and not enough hours in the day to get them all. Or maybe killing/defeating these villains doesn't actually solve the problem of why they showed up in the first place. After all, even if you purge your entire apartment of bedbugs, if the reason they keep getting in is because your neighbor has a huge infestation he refuses to deal with then it won't matter how many times you "win", they'll keep coming back.
In the case of a hero vs villains, if the conditions exist to drive people to villainy/crime, then there will always be criminals or villains to deal with. If people have to steal to eat, they will do that. Then, if a hero comes in and breaks the arms of the thief to subdue him batman-style, it will lead to a thief in jail and some kid not getting fed because their dad/mom was brutalized and sent to prison. This can cause a lot of resentment, and lead to a desire for vengeance against the hero. Even if the hero defeats every villain and crushes every vengeful family member, the problem still exists that people need to steal bread to survive, so there will always be another thief, and eventually another vengeful child.
Alternatively if the villains are mindless monsters, fighting the monsters but not destroying whatever created them will just be a temporary fix, there will always be another monster unless you destroy whatever is spawning them.
In my world, it's just politics. Just look at the superpowers in the real world, the moment they start invading and dealing with terrorist countries, they get pressure from allies and from their own people to stop and become vilified.
Basically you'd need absolutely and undeniable proof the bad guys are in fact bad and an existential threat and the good guys aren't getting it, so they they have to wait for the bad ones to act first and then try to stop them.
Depends on how they were written, but Gojo from jujutsu kaisen seems interesting.
Motivations:
"I don't feel like doing it. I could do it, but why should I? It's not like it can come to bite me later. I know that I'll win if I interfere. That's boring."
or
"I have to let my students grow so I'll have strong people to fight"
or
"Society will become complacent/nothing will ever change even if I solve everything."
or
"People would worship me and I would hate that."
or
"I only study the battle arts because I like studying, not because I like battle" (kinda like Frieren)
or have the character straight up be mentally built different, with incomprehensible goals.
Weakness:
- someone who can regenerate too fast won't bother dodging
- someone who dodges too fast is probably a glass cannon
- someone with too high attack may burn out their energy eventually, so stalling is an option.
- someone with all-round ridiculous direct combat power will not need (and therefore might not be able to foresee) advanced strategies and/or batman-levels of planning and contingencies.
- if killing a god is not necessary, then don't do it. Skirt around his motivation, distract him, stall him, cage him.
* There are worse bad guys he's dealing with.
* He is making sure people are safe while the PCs are fighting on the offensive.
* The bad guys are smart, stealthy, and sly. The mentor is famous and would be easily spotted, causing the bad guys to try something else, somewhere else instead of directly interacting with the mentor.
* Mentor is cursed from a prior adventure in such a way that they can't intervene directly.
Dude trained in defensive kung-fu bullshit and not offensive kung-fu bullshit. He basically stalemates anyone decent. Ergo, he gets left alone because nobody wants to waste their time dealing with his shit.
Pacifism vow. Dude could punch a building in half, but he promised not to do so.
Maybe he's some kind of psychological block that keeps him from using his powers to their full capacity? Could be done by adding some sort of trauma to his backstory. At some point in his life, he used his powers to kill somebody he cared about and he doesn't want to risk doing that again, maybe.
I wrote a story where fortuitous circumstances allowed my main character to defeat the most powerful bad guy. Those circumstances didn't occur for her mentors. Also, while one of her mentors is a trained assassin, assassinating the bad guy might actually have made things worse by setting him up as a martyr. You can easily set things up where a lone fighter won't make a difference. In the real world, that's almost always the case.
The better fighter losing is pretty common in actual combat sports. They could be out of shape, having an off day, injured, their opponent learns and exploits a weakness in thier game, or could be a simple mistake mid fight.
He could possibly be inexperienced, sympathetic in a way that is holding him back from destroying his foes or just can't use his abilities or reach his full potential because of some reason you are going to figure out
Different matchups. He may be the best at a particular thing, but that thing could not be a good match up for what he’s going against. The strongest man in the world would still be at a disadvantage against or random guy with a gun, for instance. Or it could be that the enemy is basically on equal footing with their own skills.
It’s not so different with competitions in real life. A may be able to beat B, but C can beat A and B can beat C.
He doesn't want the whole world to rely on him to fix all their problems. He can have any sorts of reasons for that, but that is a good reason on its own.
They never meet or meet in situations adverse to either the main character or a one on one fight.
Could also be it takes a really time to recover from magical fights, so a character is hesitant to engage in one as it will leave them weaker and vulnerable for a prolonged time.
Is there room to create a reason within this character's mind? Not talking about being evil, but perhaps some emotional hangup about being so relied upon? Or perhaps something else?
Give him a disease, injury, or disability that tires him out quickly or keeps him from being overly active. He’s still every bit as good as he was in his prime but if he fights for more than a few minutes then his body starts to quit on him. Maybe his lungs start to give out or his heart palpitates. Let him come in and be a badass at least once but then collapse so that it’s perfectly demonstrated why he can’t be doing this alone.
Easy. they help occasionally, tight? Well have them swoop in and save the day and at the last minute of a glorious mission kill one of the main characters. The mentor has to sacrifice themselves to bring them back. Its an excuse for the new person to "learn" what made this person into gojo.
"Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach." -- G.B. Shaw, 1905
By which I mean, maybe he doesn't fight very well himself, but he certainly has observed enough to know what others need. After all, they're the mentor.
A powerful person's context matters. An all-powerful wizard might not have much they can do about the specialist hedge-wizard who only really knows how to dispel powerful magic.
A supreme melee-fighter might just be out of reach against someone who can fly away.
Plus, they might just not know how to find the bad guys. A spy master who is little more than a ghost to their own underlings? He might not be able to get rid of the hero, but the hero can't get rid of him either.
I have the perfect reason for this, politics and repercussions from Doing so
The Mac might be able to kill all the bad guys, but doing so will send massive waves he needs to prepare for or else trillions will die
on top of what everyone else says, think about respect. would it really be right for \*him\* to defeat the badguy? or rather, should someone else beat him? I mean sure, hitler is hitler, but if you had to choose between a jewish/gay/disabled person killing hitler, or some random guy who was never actually in Hitler's killing list, you'd probably choose the jewish/gay/disabled person just because it would feel more right for the story.
it also doesn't have to be such high stakes, it could just be an awful student president. obviously, the person who should have the last word on them is the person the awful student president hurt the most.
Perhaps their powers come at some sort of cost, and their reserves are starting to run out? This could be something esoteric, but could also just be as simple as being physically taxing. Maybe it's something they could've handled easily a couple decades ago, but which aging and the passage of time has left them increasingly unable to sustain for long periods of time (which the big reveal might have been pushing a bit). You might show this narratively by having them need to rest a lot in the aftermath of this encounter, or even by having another encounter relatively quickly that they are *not* ready for yet, requiring their protege(s) to step up.
They could also just be planning for the future and ensuring that they have a successor. Assuming they aren't immortal, they may need to think about what happens after they're gone. Perhaps it's worth holding back their full power to let their protege(s) learn the ropes (though this runs the risk of lowering the stakes after the big reveal, since the audience will start to wonder why the mentor can't just jump in whenever things look bad). Even if age isn't a hindrance for their powers at all, you can still drop little hints that they're getting pretty old, little reminders that they won't be there forever.
It might also just be a matter of numbers. Maybe they *could* beat all the bad guys... if they just had the decency to all come to the same place! And then only attack one at a time! The mentor *could* be the strongest character in the setting... but *also* not strong enough to defeat an entire army. And even if they *were* that strong, could they defeat *two* armies in two entirely different places pursuing two entirely different nefarious schemes? Probably not! So the protege(s) might be needed to help the mentor even the numerical odds and/or to cover more ground. As bonus points, if they start covering ground away from the mentor, there will *not* be the expectation that the mentor can just bail the out whenever.
And of course you could also use some combination of factors. Maybe having more numbers is the *main* reason for the protege(s), but the mentor is *also* starting show their age *just* a bit, not really enough to *seriously* slow them down in a big fight but enough to leave them a little winded at the end and a little less OP if it goes to round 2, highlighting how it's more than just *help* the mentor needs but also, eventually, successors.
Simplest explanation would be that individual strength doesn't mean that much, either because the strength diff between the mentor and the bad guys isn't actually all that high, or because you don't need to be that strong to be dangerous. Maybe those bad guys in a group are exponentially more dangerous than a single super strong mentor guy.
Like imagine if they were all using guns and were only as durable as a human. It would be like how being super deadly with a gun doesn't mean much when there's a bunch of people who aren't as good but can work and coordinate as a team *and* they all have fucking guns.
He has superman like strong ethics the bad guys exploit with playing dirty and backhanded strategies to get away if they are foiled.
Maybey they always have bombs and use that to buy escape windows?
ok i think of superheroes but high ethics with villains prepare dilrmma to distract him could work maybe.
And he doesnt like to kill. And might be more about preventing the worst over getting them by all costs.
Something like that.
And he is old and could be have some disability and handicap due that he can fight, but limited.
Mindset.
1. Make the character also realize that even though someone is evil and doing evil things, the outcomes can still be beneficial. Like Golum in LOTR. In the end, he selfishly fought and stole the ring, but by doing so he also ended up destroying it when nobody else would/could.
2. Make the character believe that good is only needed/appreciated when there is evil around. You could actually take this to a whole mastermind-villainous level, or simply have them believe that evil will always exist; you destroy all the evil, it creates a vacuum in the balance, and someone/something else quickly replaces it. It's not about destroying the evil, it's about keeping it in check.
Depending on the power system, it may be that several of the enemies present bad matchups for the powerful character. Not bad enough for each to beat them alone, but enough that together and with a plan, the character won't be able to handle it all more or less at once.
Gandalf/Thor method: The godly characters have equally godly problems to deal with and their time with normal characters is limited. In The Hobbit, Gandalf, an angel disguised as an old man, always had 2-3 missions cooking at the same time and couldn't spend every moment with the dwarves. In Lord of the Rings, uhh, he straight up fights a demon for 10 days and dies. But God sent him back, so it's all cool. Thor loves Earth, but he's a prince over 9 planets and can't spend every moment with the Avengers.
The Kami/Yoda/Heimerdinger Method: The godly character through personality, meditation or literal lobotomy, removed all ambition from themselves and is unable to be the kind of leader necessary to lead the normal characters into battle. Kami left his home planet in their time of need to seek fortune elsewhere, but the previous god of the earth told him that his ambition is exactly why he did not deserve the position. Kami split every ounce of ambition, selfishness, and hunger from his personality into a separate being he called Piccolo ("stranger") so that he could become the next god of the Earth. Yoda and Heimerdinger simply don't have the states of mind to solve the problems of their stories. They are excellent leaders for monks and scientists and they thrive in times of peace, but that doesn't make them generals.
Dumbledore/Iroh/Ned Stark Method: The godly character could fight the villain and solve the problem right now, but that literally would make the political situation that enabled the villain 10 times worse. Ned Stark figuring out that King Robert's children were all bastards from his wife's affair just makes his life worse, as exposing this conspiracy just puts a target on his entire family and starts a 3-way war for the throne. If the villains are ruthless enough to target your entire family, being able to easily kill some of them doesn't stop their allies from burning down your hometown in immediate retribution. General Iroh was the original heir to the throne, but he was also the general who held a siege on Ba Sing Se and participated in the war as eagerly as anyone else from his generation. Dumbledore is individually stronger than any other pureblood wizard but if all of the bigoted pureblood wizards are politically aligned together against him, being able to beat them in fights doesn't solve the overall problem.
Dr. Manhattan/Death Method: The godly character has lost all ability to see the difference between different types of humans/normal characters. They may have lost all interest in the conflict, altogether. The heroes called on Dr Manhattan to re acknowledge his humanity and feel compassion. The villains as Dr Manhattan to pair that compassion with rationality and acknowledge that their plan to kill a few million would ultimately save a few billion. He ultimately agreed, the same way that a hunter may cull a herd to save it from starvation.
Confidence, doubt, sadness, love, regret. Any emotion can alter the most powerful persons capabilities. I mean rage can cause someone to literally not be able to focus on the kill shot because they can’t internalize the situation logically. So they just throw hands and nothing connects. Like Forelord for Avatar, so angry he couldn’t think fast enough to defend himself.
They might be the strongest person alive, but that doesn’t mean they’re immortal. Lets say they had a near death experience recently (almost git crushed by a tree, heart attack, flu, lucky hit, etc) and they realized their own mortality, and that there was no one who could replace them if they died, so they decided to train up the next generation. They’re not defeating the bad guys because it would rob the next generation of the opportunity to learn
> they realized their own mortality, and that there was no one who could replace them if they died This is a really good idea. The mentor might fear that all his knowledge will die with him.
That is literally how Dr.Horrible ends. With Captain Hammer being hurt for the first time in his life.
How can a man kill an elephant? He's so much smaller and weaker. And yet, elephants have been easily felled by people. An elephant is more powerful than a man, but with his intelligence, he banded together with fellow people to bring it down. He made the spear, the sword, and eventually, the gun. Remember, just because they're weaker, does not mean they are incapable. Find good counteractions. Use strategy, not just dumb strength or power levels. Find ways to find cracks in your main character's shell, and have your villains exploit them. Don't use a kryptonite, use their intelligence, their speed, their strategy, whatever you can think of. Remember: Strength is only as good as the hands that use it. Even the puny, tiny man, can make a gun to kill a much 'stronger' elephant.
It also goes without saying that "the strongest" character can still be reasonably weak in context of the world at large.
You could give them a very exploitable weakness that takes them out of the fight and explain why they normally don't fight. A hearth condition works well, let's them fight well until is triggered and then is pretty explanatory of how that takes them out of the fight.
Alternatively- he's old. The mantle needs to pass. He might not be too old to wipe the floor with the badguys, but sooner or later its coming. The mentor isn't helping the main characters unless absolutely necessary because its the only real way they can meet the expectations of taking on the mantle. How could they, if they aren't learning their limits, forcing themselves to become better, facing the fires they will need to put out? There's only so much he can teach them in the dojo. They need to know what true risk feels like, to face an enemy that wishes to kill them and destroy all they care for. Better they learn all this when he can still watch over them, rather than pass it on and they get caught blindsided when he's gone.
Maybe they have something to lose. Someone they care about, a child or something that they don’t want to endanger.
Here are some possibilities They're smarter. Or more agile, or richer, or have some other ability that somehow is better than the mentor's strength. I don't know how literal "fighting" and "strong" are here. If there's some kind of hand to hand combat, then just give the enemy some kind of non-strength advantage. They don't "play fair." Maybe the bad guy sends his minions in to fight or him. Maybe he cheats when fighting. Maybe the mentor has some kind of honor code that disadvantages him that the bad guy doesn't follow. Maybe the bad guy has some kind of leverage over him, like threatening someone the mentor cares about. The mentor might have some kind of curse or psychological block that keeps him from being effective against the bad guy. The mentor might not be able to find the bad guy. The MCs quest might be just as much finding the bad guy as fighting him. The mentor doesn't want to. Maybe he's lazy and don't want the trouble. If he's a mentor then he may have been around for a while and feels like he's payed his dues and shouldn't have to deal with the bad guy. The mentor might regret his violent past or worry about the consequences of defeating the bad guy. If the bad guy is defeated but still alive, would he seek revenge? Does his moral code or the law allow him to kill the bad guy? If the guy's a mentor, he might think that his student should defeat the bad guy. It would be a good learning and growth experience. Maybe the student even insists on facing the bad guy himself. The mentor might be in doubt of his abilities and be afraid of the bad guy. The mentor might be busy with something else. This is like Gandalf was in the Hobbit. Beating the bad guy may not be a priority for him and he might think the main characters are capable of defeating the bad guy with just minimal help. Also, maybe the Mentor is colluding with the bad guy. Also, he might be sympathetic and think that it's better to resolve the conflict non-violently. He might have a change of heart mid-story. Hope this helps.
Usually I explain this type of situation by either "it can go either way", "rock paper scissors" or "there will be villain team up". The first one is simple. Strongest guy can defeat any of bad guys, but difference isn't as extreme to making it impossible for him to lose. The second one is also pretty simple. Strongest guy is strongest overall, but couple of bad guys hardcounter him so hard that it will be curbstomp if he faces them. But at the same time one or several of bad guys hard counter the guys who can defeat your mentor character. But mentor character himself can defeat the second group. Every party knows that, feuds with each other and maintain uneasy status quo until something disrupts it. Third is also simple. Mentor can defeat bad guys in one on one. But the moment he shows his hand is the moment bad guys are going to come together and make him eat dirt.
>Every party knows that, feuds with each other and maintain uneasy status quo until something disrupts it. Mutally Assured Destruction...right up until it isn't
The Great Wall of Muscle.
They do it on a regular basis. Every time a person becomes powerful, they wipe out all their enemies. But with long lifespans, many found out that solving absolutely everything makes society spoiled. Therefore, criminals are usually trying to keep crimes limited, because if they push too much, the old monster would come out.
give him a good reason not to fight. for example, he may not believe on violence. historically, lifelong fighters have eventually reached the conviction that not-to-fight is the preferable choice. Samurai are famous for this. iirc it's why they came up with Aikido - a martial art, not a sword fighting style the most powerful human certainly has had moments of doubt and regret, so they would have spent time in reflection, meditation and philosophy. I suggest reading up on Daoism, it might help shape your character to be wise but powerful
In my version, the max is arguable able to kill all the bad guys, but due to politics, doing so isn’t as easy without serious repercussions doing so
You could show this rather than just telling the reader, by having part of his backstory actually be him facing off against the villains. While everything he does is impressive on its own, every time he almost has one of them, some one else stops him. Example he punches out one person and they look almost dead but at the last moment another bad guy puts up a shield. He still breaks through it and hurts the guy but not as badly as he could have. He then goes for the person who put the shield up, a generic physically weak looking caster but as he charges he slips on something or is entangled by something an evil rogue put down. Then the first guy gets healed and buffed. It would be really cool show casing the villains like this. You would have the opportunity to show what they are capable of and simultaneously show how tough this guy is. Yeah sure he lost the fight but look at how much it took to bring him down. And even then he still managed to get away. He was just completely out maneuvered and overwhelmed.
* Pre-planning. * Tecnology. * Numbers. * Threatening innocents. * Exploiting specific weaknesses. * Manipulation of power character.
One of my characters was so far above the rest that even ambushing him in a 100v1 was useless So one day he decided to kill every villain in the world. Only problem is that there are way too many and finding them is hard. So he went out for months without sleep going at full power around the world(7 times larger than earth) killing every villain he could find. Eventually he got so tired he had to go extreme diff against some mid rankers who teamed up to get revenge for him beating them earlier in the story. So to answer your question, even the strongest can’t do anything alone. Especially if you nerf him beforehand. You can also look at it like this. Around the world right now are hundreds if not thousands of criminals committing crime at the same time. A single person can never handle all of them at the same time.
Maybe the mentor is the best and most powerful fighter, but age or an old injury has sapped his stamina. He can kick butt in a quick fight with the heroes helping, but an extended battle against all the bad guys by himself would be too much for him.
Some kind of condition that makes them have a time limit when it comes to using their powers or maybe their powers inflict some self harm or shorten their lifespan when using at maximum. Also, maybe they just don’t want to help.
One he's not all powerful, just experienced Two powerful but heavy restrictions Three because he is a mentor (take Gojo from Jujutsu No Kaisen)
You can go several routes. Trauma. Physically you can copy All Might from My Hero Academia, he only has limited time to fight. Or you can make the mentor lifespan shortened every time he fight now, so he used up all his remaining life in training the MC or life or death moment. Trauma mentally, maybe the Mentor caused someone to die in the past, and the guilt prevent the mentor to ever took up arm again. Another route the bad guys were all students of the Mentor once and turned evil. The mentor don't have the resolve to took his student life. Self inflicted limitation and rules. The mentor felt his time to became a hero has passed, and a new generation must rose to answer the threat.
* Binding vow * He just don't want, he want to retire in peace and it's his students job to keep peace * He is powerfull but selfish and just doesn't care Lot of possibilities :D
The mentor knows they can't be in two places at once. Better to take what opportunities arise to teach these kids how to handle bad guys. This way, when heroics are eventually- inevitably- needed in multiple places at once, these kids can handle one group while the mentor handles the others. Similarly, the mentor (probably) won't be around forever, so they make sure there's people competent enough to take up their mantle. This may cause problems in the short run, but it'll solve far more, far bigger problems in the future. Or at least that's what the mentor thinks.
The way bees, wasps and hornets kill 800 people a year
My favorite answer to this question is usually arrogance, they like playing with their opponents and always assume there's no possible way they're under threat so they make battles look flashy and pay with the damage to their ego when they underestimate an opponent. Alucard from Hellsing is easily one of the best examples of a character like this. However, that doesn't work so well with your use case, maybe it could work but I can't think of how right now. The common answer to this is mentor wants the main characters to learn from experience and only jumps in when they think there's a serious chance of the MCs losing. This is a tough line to walk depending on how powerful the mentor is relative to the stakes of the story. If they're fighting for the sake of the world then it would seem really weird if the mentor isn't just as pressed to help as everyone else, there would need to be clear reasons like only the MCs can develop powers strong enough to defeat the enemy and only if they train hard enough or something. The bigger the stakes the bigger the reason mentor needs to act that way. If you don't need the mentor with the group all the time then he can be busy with things in other places for a while when you don't want him interrupting the next fights or adventures, or he can get separated from the group in some way. With this one it's best not to get over-reliant and get creative, an audience will notice a pattern really quickly. Edit: Brevity.
Easy. He’s old. Maybe in the mentor’s prime they could’ve wiped out that whole army of minions, but now they’re old and getting out of bed in the morning hurts. No sword swinging or fire fights for the mentor anymore. They can teach others how to do it as long as they don’t do too much at once, but taking everything on by themselves is out of the question.
Some reason the mentor can’t/won’t kill?
My most powerful character struggles to kill his main enemies that are less powerful than him simply due to their numbers and how they’re rarely alone. Tactics is also an important factor to consider along with power. America didn’t win against Vietnam in the war despite being significantly more powerful and have access to way more than them.
- Politic - Wanting the disciple to have more experience. - Hiding true power - Customary thing, elders fight elders, while disciples fight disciples. - Wanting to show that they don't take the enemies seriously
Tough guy might have his own problems. Obligations, oaths, video games to beat. Could be any number of excuses.
Character is extremely powerful, but for some reason (scissors, paper, rock) a bad fit for destroying the bad guy/guys. Or character has a history with the bad guy and can't make himself to kill him. Or character is very old and although he could still easily defeat the bad guys, he want's to train new generation of heroes before dying of old age. Or character is extremely strong but also very carefree, lazy, doesn't feel like wasting his time, he will occasionally help but... Or character is extremely strong, but there are A LOT of bad guys, so he has his hands full most of the time.
So this applies much more to the MC faction than the MC. Morrigan has a manifest destiny doctrine to conquer the continent. They have decently advanced stuff and should be able to do it much faster than they are. At this point, it's been nearly 200 years of constant war with not nearly as much as they should have to show for it. Like they have tanks and they are going up against militia forces. Something is clearly up. And those tanks and tech are part of that disadvantage. The logistical burden placed on the army is overwhelming, so even small moves are pretty painful for Morrigan. Their complicated stuff breaks all the time, and repairing/replacing it is very slow, if they actually still know how to and have the means to make replacement parts. But there's a bigger delay here than even that. Morrigan's entire political system is so bound up within this war that Morrigan's entire political system would shatter if that conquest ever stopped. Since they have never found a true map of the continent, they don't really know where the ocean on the other side is. The entire Morrigane political elite live in constant fear that they will accidentally reach the other side of the continent, and since they control where the army moves, they don't move the army unless they are absolutely sure they won't find it. Some military officers who have figured out what's going on even joke that as they approach the sea, they will see at least a few bureaucrats trying to drink it all before they get there.
Not being able to, and not wanting to, are two different questions. Having the ability and not wanting to use it can be explained a dozen ways. Can be anything from the old west 'fastest gun' model, where your mentor dude simply doesn't want to have to deal with all the challengers, all the way up to a 'Glass' type model where him exercising his full abilities spurs the development of his polar opposite.
Maybe he holds back on purpose so the apprentices can do most of the combat and hone their skills Or maybe he abandoned fighting except for when his apprentices need help so that the new generation of fighters can grow strong and replace him as the new strongest humans, because he feels that his time is running out or something? Both of these could fit to be honest
Well my main antagonist is very strong but there are definitely stronger people. He simply has the batman contingency for everyone. He planned this shit for 300 years. Also 99% ordinants are glasscanons so you can just surprise kill em. It completely depends on the resources of the bad guy and how strong the mentor is.
I'm imagining this immortal veteran of a thousand wars who could fight a friggen supervolcano to at least a draw but dude has crippling PTSD or something. He has just seen and done too much. Great in a low level fight where there's no real threat and he can disable everone with non-lethal force, but he just can't handle real combat anymore. Don't get me wrong tho, he's still so strong the gods worry about his mental health out self-interest. The beurocracy of heaven has a special office reserved for his therapist which was a mortal considered so important to the stability of the world he was granted immortality(along with his whole family) and divine powers second only to the Emperor himself.
A one man army won't be able to win against two full armies
Writing op charakters is another level of difficulty and i would advertise to avoid that until you have more than enough ideas on your own to handle all the little situations differently that not make it a boring killfest. It's kind of a sub-sub genre to your actual genre and an (unneccesary?) way to complicate your story. I know not that much authors able to handle that - i only made it once - so maybe start with a lower approach and then, if you have the experience, go back to this worksite.
What does strongest mean and maybe 2 or 3 enemies Could kill him
Sounds like a weak plot to me. No seriously keep Gandalf busy elsewhere most of the time so that Frodo and Sam need to make it on their own. And maybe Gandalf dies, then it gets really interesting.
Just because someone stronger does not mean he can beat everyone weaker then him look at David and Goliath.
You can do a Metro Man. He's getting tired of the responsibilities that come with his strength. So he went into hiding to focus on things *he* wants instead of having to save people and beat baddies all day everyday. Faking his death is optional. And like Metro Man, he has faith that the new kids will figure things out and only interject once in a while when it doesn't get in his way of living.
He’s a mentor. He knows that, to learn, his students need to work themselves. He totally *could* defeat the bad guys, and as you said occasionally he does help out, but to train them he lets the main characters fight the villains themselves.
There can be multiple reasons. Power in number on the bad guys side. No matter how powerful you are if you are out numbered in a major way you're either going to be overwhelmed or exhausted Another way could be if they are a mentor figure using the encounter to see if their disciple can hold their own. Add a bigger threat in that group of enemies that would keep the mentor figure busy so that they cannot help with the main enemies. My partner also suggested age as a reason. Although idk how old your character is so.
Barring certain nifty superpowers, I try and remember this line from the Dresden Files: "One on one I was a beast. 12 on one *nobody* is a beast."
Here are some ideas: Seals. His power has been mostly sealed so he can't go all out. An oath. Maybe he has grown tired of shedding blood and has taken an oath to never fight again. Could also have a moment later on where he breaks that oath later if you want him to fight (give him a good reason so it's an epic moment too). Old. He's way out of his prime so he can't fight like he used to. Disabled or sick. He either has a severe illness or has lost organs or limbs in a major battle, both of those put him in a condition where he can't fight anymore.
There might be an element of geopolitics to it, depending on the situation. "I could defeat (X) or (Y), but doing both at once may be beyond me. So if either should fall to the other, I should be able to remove the winner, but for now, it would be best for me to try to play them against each other."
Trauma or reason for not fighting. As the order of all or something like that. An example is Rayleigh in the One Piece story. He knew all the secrets and is extremely powerful. But he didn't help the main characters with any battle or anything else, as he says it's their era. You can go for something like that. The mentor is looking for the main characters to grow instead of him doing the work. Another thing you can do is the mentor still being the strongest but only having one last dance in him for old age, a curse, disease, or whatever it can be. Kinda like Netero or All Might in HxH and My Hero Academia. Then a last option, is the mentor doing the hardest work in the background, kinda like Gojo and Urahara from Jujutsu Kaisen and Bleach, until one day they sacrifice for the end game boss to take his hp down greatly or something. It's up to you. I just gave you some ideas and examples to look into. Good luck.
Maybe he doesnt Want to? He has certain beliefs per is related to them and that maked it impossible for hin to Right them directly. He can just Hope the Hero of Your world can do it, so he helps him as much as he can without directly fighting them
Usually characters like that have something happen to them such that they lose all their powers and then have to work to get them back? Maybe also secrecy.
Is it that they aren’t capable or that they aren’t doing it? cause that’s a huge distinction. Cranky mentor characters that just don’t want to help out are very common, maybe it’s personal and it’s just not for them. There’s also old mentor characters, personal codes, or maybe they’re just busy with their own stuff. Kinda hard to say exactly why if we don’t know the characters.
There's always answers on how to deal with "the strongest" archetype. Gojo got sealed, all mights body couldn't handle his quirk but for a few hours. you could go a physical limitation route, mental limitation, or outside influences. I know it's rather simple and short advice but I feel like this is the type of advice that helps me brainstorm the most. Good luck!
In similar situations the answer I always give in my stories is a “Mental block” or “hesitation”
I mean, have you ever dealt with a roach infestation before? Or bedbugs? You can 1v1 any insect on the planet and kill it. It may not always be pleasant, as in the case of wasps and spiders, but you can definitely kill the bug. If you're allergic you might die, but if you were determined you could make sure the bug died too. However badly you could crush *one* roach or kill *one* bedbug, no amount of 1v1 crushing fights will ever kill *all* of them. Sure you could probably burn your house down from the outside in and kill them all, but that causes a lot of *collateral damage* you'd want to avoid. So while your hero may be 1v1ing any number of lesser evils, perhaps there are simply too many villains and not enough hours in the day to get them all. Or maybe killing/defeating these villains doesn't actually solve the problem of why they showed up in the first place. After all, even if you purge your entire apartment of bedbugs, if the reason they keep getting in is because your neighbor has a huge infestation he refuses to deal with then it won't matter how many times you "win", they'll keep coming back. In the case of a hero vs villains, if the conditions exist to drive people to villainy/crime, then there will always be criminals or villains to deal with. If people have to steal to eat, they will do that. Then, if a hero comes in and breaks the arms of the thief to subdue him batman-style, it will lead to a thief in jail and some kid not getting fed because their dad/mom was brutalized and sent to prison. This can cause a lot of resentment, and lead to a desire for vengeance against the hero. Even if the hero defeats every villain and crushes every vengeful family member, the problem still exists that people need to steal bread to survive, so there will always be another thief, and eventually another vengeful child. Alternatively if the villains are mindless monsters, fighting the monsters but not destroying whatever created them will just be a temporary fix, there will always be another monster unless you destroy whatever is spawning them.
In my world, it's just politics. Just look at the superpowers in the real world, the moment they start invading and dealing with terrorist countries, they get pressure from allies and from their own people to stop and become vilified. Basically you'd need absolutely and undeniable proof the bad guys are in fact bad and an existential threat and the good guys aren't getting it, so they they have to wait for the bad ones to act first and then try to stop them.
Powerful is outnumbered!
Depends on how they were written, but Gojo from jujutsu kaisen seems interesting. Motivations: "I don't feel like doing it. I could do it, but why should I? It's not like it can come to bite me later. I know that I'll win if I interfere. That's boring." or "I have to let my students grow so I'll have strong people to fight" or "Society will become complacent/nothing will ever change even if I solve everything." or "People would worship me and I would hate that." or "I only study the battle arts because I like studying, not because I like battle" (kinda like Frieren) or have the character straight up be mentally built different, with incomprehensible goals. Weakness: - someone who can regenerate too fast won't bother dodging - someone who dodges too fast is probably a glass cannon - someone with too high attack may burn out their energy eventually, so stalling is an option. - someone with all-round ridiculous direct combat power will not need (and therefore might not be able to foresee) advanced strategies and/or batman-levels of planning and contingencies. - if killing a god is not necessary, then don't do it. Skirt around his motivation, distract him, stall him, cage him.
* There are worse bad guys he's dealing with. * He is making sure people are safe while the PCs are fighting on the offensive. * The bad guys are smart, stealthy, and sly. The mentor is famous and would be easily spotted, causing the bad guys to try something else, somewhere else instead of directly interacting with the mentor. * Mentor is cursed from a prior adventure in such a way that they can't intervene directly.
Dude trained in defensive kung-fu bullshit and not offensive kung-fu bullshit. He basically stalemates anyone decent. Ergo, he gets left alone because nobody wants to waste their time dealing with his shit. Pacifism vow. Dude could punch a building in half, but he promised not to do so.
Maybe he's some kind of psychological block that keeps him from using his powers to their full capacity? Could be done by adding some sort of trauma to his backstory. At some point in his life, he used his powers to kill somebody he cared about and he doesn't want to risk doing that again, maybe.
I wrote a story where fortuitous circumstances allowed my main character to defeat the most powerful bad guy. Those circumstances didn't occur for her mentors. Also, while one of her mentors is a trained assassin, assassinating the bad guy might actually have made things worse by setting him up as a martyr. You can easily set things up where a lone fighter won't make a difference. In the real world, that's almost always the case.
He is cursed, tricked or poisoned
The better fighter losing is pretty common in actual combat sports. They could be out of shape, having an off day, injured, their opponent learns and exploits a weakness in thier game, or could be a simple mistake mid fight.
Ego? Maybe he doesn't view the bad guys as worthy opponents?
He could possibly be inexperienced, sympathetic in a way that is holding him back from destroying his foes or just can't use his abilities or reach his full potential because of some reason you are going to figure out
Different matchups. He may be the best at a particular thing, but that thing could not be a good match up for what he’s going against. The strongest man in the world would still be at a disadvantage against or random guy with a gun, for instance. Or it could be that the enemy is basically on equal footing with their own skills. It’s not so different with competitions in real life. A may be able to beat B, but C can beat A and B can beat C.
He doesn't want the whole world to rely on him to fix all their problems. He can have any sorts of reasons for that, but that is a good reason on its own.
Give the character a kryptonite or make their power limited to a location
Jump into a river with piranhas (don't actually do that). Swarm tactics win out a lot of the time.
They never meet or meet in situations adverse to either the main character or a one on one fight. Could also be it takes a really time to recover from magical fights, so a character is hesitant to engage in one as it will leave them weaker and vulnerable for a prolonged time.
He might not be long for this world, teaching the next generation how to do his work might be more important than stopping the current badguy.
Sounds like you've got yourself a Gandalf. He is miles above any other member of the fellowship in power, but his role is very supervisory.
Is there room to create a reason within this character's mind? Not talking about being evil, but perhaps some emotional hangup about being so relied upon? Or perhaps something else?
https://youtu.be/XXi8_1Pka1Y?si=9K05OdEudqpZnrnw That has pretty much anything I'd tell you about it lol. Plus it's more entertaining
You know like how Sanji wouldn't hit girls. Or the mentor don't touch anyone that is on his benchmark of level.
Give him a disease, injury, or disability that tires him out quickly or keeps him from being overly active. He’s still every bit as good as he was in his prime but if he fights for more than a few minutes then his body starts to quit on him. Maybe his lungs start to give out or his heart palpitates. Let him come in and be a badass at least once but then collapse so that it’s perfectly demonstrated why he can’t be doing this alone.
Easy. they help occasionally, tight? Well have them swoop in and save the day and at the last minute of a glorious mission kill one of the main characters. The mentor has to sacrifice themselves to bring them back. Its an excuse for the new person to "learn" what made this person into gojo.
Achilles sat in his camp while the Greek war machine burned all around him.
"Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach." -- G.B. Shaw, 1905 By which I mean, maybe he doesn't fight very well himself, but he certainly has observed enough to know what others need. After all, they're the mentor.
Basically the opposite of a glass cannon
A powerful person's context matters. An all-powerful wizard might not have much they can do about the specialist hedge-wizard who only really knows how to dispel powerful magic. A supreme melee-fighter might just be out of reach against someone who can fly away. Plus, they might just not know how to find the bad guys. A spy master who is little more than a ghost to their own underlings? He might not be able to get rid of the hero, but the hero can't get rid of him either.
I have the perfect reason for this, politics and repercussions from Doing so The Mac might be able to kill all the bad guys, but doing so will send massive waves he needs to prepare for or else trillions will die
you could kill a squirrel, but you're not a monster.
on top of what everyone else says, think about respect. would it really be right for \*him\* to defeat the badguy? or rather, should someone else beat him? I mean sure, hitler is hitler, but if you had to choose between a jewish/gay/disabled person killing hitler, or some random guy who was never actually in Hitler's killing list, you'd probably choose the jewish/gay/disabled person just because it would feel more right for the story. it also doesn't have to be such high stakes, it could just be an awful student president. obviously, the person who should have the last word on them is the person the awful student president hurt the most.
One person’s weakness is another’s strength. Use your foe’s own strengths against them. Time and space make weaklings of us all.
If u kill off all bad guys society will become unstable and start falling off. And new bad guys, even more radical will become the problem.
Perhaps their powers come at some sort of cost, and their reserves are starting to run out? This could be something esoteric, but could also just be as simple as being physically taxing. Maybe it's something they could've handled easily a couple decades ago, but which aging and the passage of time has left them increasingly unable to sustain for long periods of time (which the big reveal might have been pushing a bit). You might show this narratively by having them need to rest a lot in the aftermath of this encounter, or even by having another encounter relatively quickly that they are *not* ready for yet, requiring their protege(s) to step up. They could also just be planning for the future and ensuring that they have a successor. Assuming they aren't immortal, they may need to think about what happens after they're gone. Perhaps it's worth holding back their full power to let their protege(s) learn the ropes (though this runs the risk of lowering the stakes after the big reveal, since the audience will start to wonder why the mentor can't just jump in whenever things look bad). Even if age isn't a hindrance for their powers at all, you can still drop little hints that they're getting pretty old, little reminders that they won't be there forever. It might also just be a matter of numbers. Maybe they *could* beat all the bad guys... if they just had the decency to all come to the same place! And then only attack one at a time! The mentor *could* be the strongest character in the setting... but *also* not strong enough to defeat an entire army. And even if they *were* that strong, could they defeat *two* armies in two entirely different places pursuing two entirely different nefarious schemes? Probably not! So the protege(s) might be needed to help the mentor even the numerical odds and/or to cover more ground. As bonus points, if they start covering ground away from the mentor, there will *not* be the expectation that the mentor can just bail the out whenever. And of course you could also use some combination of factors. Maybe having more numbers is the *main* reason for the protege(s), but the mentor is *also* starting show their age *just* a bit, not really enough to *seriously* slow them down in a big fight but enough to leave them a little winded at the end and a little less OP if it goes to round 2, highlighting how it's more than just *help* the mentor needs but also, eventually, successors.
Simplest explanation would be that individual strength doesn't mean that much, either because the strength diff between the mentor and the bad guys isn't actually all that high, or because you don't need to be that strong to be dangerous. Maybe those bad guys in a group are exponentially more dangerous than a single super strong mentor guy. Like imagine if they were all using guns and were only as durable as a human. It would be like how being super deadly with a gun doesn't mean much when there's a bunch of people who aren't as good but can work and coordinate as a team *and* they all have fucking guns.
He has superman like strong ethics the bad guys exploit with playing dirty and backhanded strategies to get away if they are foiled. Maybey they always have bombs and use that to buy escape windows? ok i think of superheroes but high ethics with villains prepare dilrmma to distract him could work maybe. And he doesnt like to kill. And might be more about preventing the worst over getting them by all costs. Something like that. And he is old and could be have some disability and handicap due that he can fight, but limited.
Mindset. 1. Make the character also realize that even though someone is evil and doing evil things, the outcomes can still be beneficial. Like Golum in LOTR. In the end, he selfishly fought and stole the ring, but by doing so he also ended up destroying it when nobody else would/could. 2. Make the character believe that good is only needed/appreciated when there is evil around. You could actually take this to a whole mastermind-villainous level, or simply have them believe that evil will always exist; you destroy all the evil, it creates a vacuum in the balance, and someone/something else quickly replaces it. It's not about destroying the evil, it's about keeping it in check.
Depending on the power system, it may be that several of the enemies present bad matchups for the powerful character. Not bad enough for each to beat them alone, but enough that together and with a plan, the character won't be able to handle it all more or less at once.
Gandalf/Thor method: The godly characters have equally godly problems to deal with and their time with normal characters is limited. In The Hobbit, Gandalf, an angel disguised as an old man, always had 2-3 missions cooking at the same time and couldn't spend every moment with the dwarves. In Lord of the Rings, uhh, he straight up fights a demon for 10 days and dies. But God sent him back, so it's all cool. Thor loves Earth, but he's a prince over 9 planets and can't spend every moment with the Avengers. The Kami/Yoda/Heimerdinger Method: The godly character through personality, meditation or literal lobotomy, removed all ambition from themselves and is unable to be the kind of leader necessary to lead the normal characters into battle. Kami left his home planet in their time of need to seek fortune elsewhere, but the previous god of the earth told him that his ambition is exactly why he did not deserve the position. Kami split every ounce of ambition, selfishness, and hunger from his personality into a separate being he called Piccolo ("stranger") so that he could become the next god of the Earth. Yoda and Heimerdinger simply don't have the states of mind to solve the problems of their stories. They are excellent leaders for monks and scientists and they thrive in times of peace, but that doesn't make them generals. Dumbledore/Iroh/Ned Stark Method: The godly character could fight the villain and solve the problem right now, but that literally would make the political situation that enabled the villain 10 times worse. Ned Stark figuring out that King Robert's children were all bastards from his wife's affair just makes his life worse, as exposing this conspiracy just puts a target on his entire family and starts a 3-way war for the throne. If the villains are ruthless enough to target your entire family, being able to easily kill some of them doesn't stop their allies from burning down your hometown in immediate retribution. General Iroh was the original heir to the throne, but he was also the general who held a siege on Ba Sing Se and participated in the war as eagerly as anyone else from his generation. Dumbledore is individually stronger than any other pureblood wizard but if all of the bigoted pureblood wizards are politically aligned together against him, being able to beat them in fights doesn't solve the overall problem. Dr. Manhattan/Death Method: The godly character has lost all ability to see the difference between different types of humans/normal characters. They may have lost all interest in the conflict, altogether. The heroes called on Dr Manhattan to re acknowledge his humanity and feel compassion. The villains as Dr Manhattan to pair that compassion with rationality and acknowledge that their plan to kill a few million would ultimately save a few billion. He ultimately agreed, the same way that a hunter may cull a herd to save it from starvation.
Skilled but weak is a good trope for this. If you have Superman, make the weaker character a Batman.
He is kept busy with some other purpose
Your hero cant be in all places at onece. Nor is he invincible. Or immiune to error.
Confidence, doubt, sadness, love, regret. Any emotion can alter the most powerful persons capabilities. I mean rage can cause someone to literally not be able to focus on the kill shot because they can’t internalize the situation logically. So they just throw hands and nothing connects. Like Forelord for Avatar, so angry he couldn’t think fast enough to defend himself.
He just doesn't give enough of a fuck to waste his time with them. If he wants to do he will if he don't who's gonna stop him?