Resistance

Resistance is the power to withstand the effects of certain abilities through varying means. Of course, simple resistance to one showing of an ability isn't enough to ignore all uses of that ability, as some applications may be far stronger, while others may work differently, meaning they must be resisted differently. As a result, when resistance is listed on a page, it's important to describe the specifics.

Specific resistances do not necessarily translate to broad ones, though resisting a versatile power with many applications (such as Mind Manipulation) may provide a similarly expansive defense. Even then, when the same ability is performed differently, resistance may prove futile. For example, a character may resist mind manipulation that targets the brain directly, but would be in trouble against a power that targets some incorporeal idea of the mind itself.

With some characters, resistances and/or immunities may need to be activated, rather than something that is constantly up and useful. In these cases, it should be mentioned - the same goes if the resistance only applies to certain parts of the user's body.

Immunity

A higher level of resistance is outright Immunity or Metaphysical Immunity, making the user in question completely unaffected by such abilities.

Qualifying for Immunity is difficult, as no simple show of resistance is enough, and statements could easily be hyperbole or only apply in-verse. Immunity should only be given when the user in question entirely lacks what would normally be affected. A being with Inorganic Physiology for example, has no components for Biological Manipulation to control or alter, an entity without a soul won't be harmed by Soul Manipulation, a being made purely of fire has no blood to manipulate, and so on.

A more robust version of Immunity is the ability to be immune to certain attacks, abilities, or more general effects due to lacking or not being able to participate in certain Metaphysical Aspects connected to that effect. An example would be the inability to be burned due to not being able to participate in the concept of being burned. As they can't participate in the concept of being burned, no matter how strong of a fire is directed at them, the result of being burned couldn't be realized. Frequently (although not always), this is also less formally formulated as "lacking a concept", such as an entity being immortal due to lacking the concept of death. This version of Immunity is referred to as Metaphysical Immunity, although it should just be listed as Immunity on profiles.

As a caveat, Metaphysical Immunity should only be granted to things that usually would be able to have the respective effect applied to them. E.g., minds and souls usually don't have such a thing as temperature and can hence, in the usual sense of the term, also not participate in things like being heated or burned. As such, beings composed purely of those materials wouldn't give them Metaphysical Immunity, as that is the expected state of existence for these things.

Additionally, Immunity is not an absolute defense. If an ability can force an aspect upon the character or they are forced to participate in an aspect due to similar reasons, they would no longer qualify for Immunity, as the core justification of non-participation is no longer being fulfilled. For example, a user of Conceptual Manipulation can force the character to participate in that concept when they otherwise wouldn't (such as forcing the concept of burning onto a being typically lacking that concept).

Resistance by Higher Levels of Infinity

As common sense dictates characters which have infinitely higher durability than another character has attack potency are immune to all regular forms of attacks from the weaker character. However, many kinds of durability circumventing hax exist. Whether or not they can affect infinitely stronger characters depends on the kind of hax and the fashion in which the target infinitely transcends the user.

It should be noted that, since it's more of a problem of the hax's mechanism not allowing the hax to affect the target, rather than a conventional resistance, resistances gained through such means are not listed on profiles.

Hax Categories

For ease of explanation, we sort hax into the following 5 categories. A hax could belong to multiple ones.

• Abilities which only circumvent durability to a limited extent: These are abilities which do not function completely independent of the scale of durability. This includes things like pressure point techniques, acupuncture and attacks on internal organs, as all those need to be able to deal at least a tiny amount of damage to produce their effect. Certain more exotic hax can also fall into this category, such as abilities that disintegrate molecules or atoms, as for a character with infinitely stronger durability the bonds between the particles making up their body would also need to be infinitely stronger.
• Abilities that need scale and range to work: These are fully durability circumventing abilities whose area of effect needs to cover all or a significant fraction of the character's body to have a lethal effect and, for that purpose, need to be able to target the respective parts of the characters. Examples for that could be Existence Erasure or Transmutation via Reality Warping. Poison also falls into this category, although it has the advantage that when hit the character's physiology might transport through the whole body.
• Abilities that just need range to work: These are fully durability circumventing abilities which target things that are not necessarily bound to physical size, such as the non-physical mind or the soul of a character. Note that depending on the fiction these could also be of the same dimension as the character in which case mind and soul manipulation would be of the previous type instead.
• Abilities that affect reality, not the target: These are fully durability circumventing abilities like law manipulation or concept manipulation, which affect reality, or part of a reality, as a whole instead of targeting just a character.
• Abilities where the target affects themselves: Fully durability circumventing abilities where the target does something to make them affect themself. The most typical example would be Madness Manipulation Type 3, where the act of perceiving the user is what "delivers" the effect to the target. Note that this only applies if there is no supernatural power reaching out (which could be limited by range), but truly just perception itself is what manifests the effect, for example, due to subliminal messages hidden in it.

Transcendence Types

With the categories of hax clarified, the following list offers guidelines for how the abilities may be assumed to interact with the respective types of infinite transcendence. Note that all of this is under the assumption that the abilities have no particular feats of affecting characters that are qualitatively superior to the user.

Exclusively Statistical

This could be called the most basic type. The target has Durability that is infinitely higher than the users Attack Potency, but otherwise doesn't transcend them. They have the same dimensionality, there is no layer of Reality-Fiction Transcendence between them and there also otherwise is no further superiority that is of relevance.

• Abilities which only circumvent durability to a limited extent: These would usually be assumed not to work, as the infinitely higher durability makes a limited circumvention of durability still meaningless. Even if the attacker only had to deal with a millionth of the character's durability, with the initial difference being infinite that is still beyond the attacker's power. Techniques like pressure points would also be unlikely to be triggered, as actually pushing the point is likely beyond the attacker's strength.
• Abilities that need scale and range to work: As the character is scale and range-wise not special those would work, as they would against a character with a finite stat difference.
• Abilities that just need range to work: Same as the previous.
• Abilities that affect reality, not the target: As long as the character exists within the same reality as the attacker these should in principle work as when used against a character with just a finite stat difference.
• Abilities where the target affects themselves: As the character has no specific protection against this, they would be affected the same way as when the ability is used against a character with just a finite stat difference.

Higher-Dimensional Existence

Characters which have higher-dimensional existence i.e. whose body extends through at least one more dimension than the attacker usually operates in. This is strictly in terms of proper mathematical dimensions.

• Abilities which only circumvent durability to a limited extent: As those characters also have infinitely higher durability, these would be ineffective for the same reasons as for this with an exclusively statistics-based transcendence. This might not apply to dimensions which are not tiering-applicable.
• Abilities that need scale and range to work: Such abilities would usually have no effect on beings of a higher dimensionality. That is due to such beings simultaneously having an infinitely larger "volume" than the ability's demonstrated area of effect as well as most of the body existing along a dimensional axis the ability has no access to, i.e. beyond the ability's range. It should be noted that one could argue, that a 2-dimensional plane of a 3-dimensional character being erased would bisect them and that analogue effects would happen for higher dimensions. However, it could just as likely just amount to cutting of a strand of hair, instead of down the middle, and no further damage could be dealt. It also would not work if the dimensional difference is more than one, as that would be like erasing an infinitely thin line of a 3-dimensional being. Furthermore, the cut would be infinitely thin, which would arguably mean the body does not actually fall apart, as it is like cutting something with a knife so thin that it misses all the atoms and hence ends up not shifting anything. So unless the fiction clarifies otherwise, even by such a cutting method it is unlikely to cause significant damage.
• Abilities that just need range to work: As established, most of the character's body would exist beyond the dimensional axis and hence be beyond the range of the ability. One could now argue that some non-dimensional thing like the mind or soul of the character could happen to still be in the same space as the attacker and hence within range. However, there is no particular reason that would be the case and the mathematical probability of that happening by mere chance is 0%. Hence such abilities should generally not work on higher-dimensional characters.
• Abilities that affect reality, not the target: This would be very similar to the previous two cases. Most of the character is outside of the abilities area of effect and range, making it next to impossible that it has a significant effect on them. One important difference to note is that any part that enters the reality, and hence the range of the ability, may still be affected. If laws or concepts were altered to erase the higher-dimensional character, them sticking their hand into the altered reality would still erase their hand, somewhat limiting their attack options.
• Abilities where the target affects themselves: As long as the ability does not need to contend with the character's scale these should be still effective. A higher-dimensional entity may still be affected by the subliminal messages in a movie it watches, for example. The usual range problem is circumvented by the target's own sensory capabilities leading to them perceiving the threat. It should be noted, however, that such entities sometimes have things like higher-order minds or generally very alien mental structures. These could under certain circumstances interfere with the effectiveness of such abilities.

Reality-Fiction Transcendence

As an example for how more qualitative transcendence systems may work, we will look at Reality-Fiction Transcendence.

• Abilities which only circumvent durability to a limited extent: As the attacker's attacks would appear entirely fictional to the target, they would not be able to deal even the tiny amount of an effect that would be necessary for these to be effective.
• Abilities that need scale and range to work: As such characters would typically exist completely outside of the attacker's reality the abilities are unlikely to reach them and even if they did, they would only be registered as fictional and hence incapable of having a real effect.
• Abilities that just need range to work: Same as the previous.
• Abilities that affect reality, not the target: These abilities would be incapable of effecting their target, as it would be outside of their range and the change itself would arguably be one fictional to them, possibly not even affecting their access to the reality. An exception would be if they enter the fictional reality by means that turn themselves fictional for that period. In such a case, they would be considered to be possible to be affected, if there are no feats or statements of the opposite.
• Abilities where the target affects themselves: Things like subliminal messages or social influencing may still be effective against such characters. While a movie with subliminal messages might be fictional to such a character, so was it to the original viewer. It being less real has no actual influence on whether the comprehension of the subject matter has an effect on the target. Another example could be if there, for example, is a reality-fiction difference between the attacker and target, in which the lower plane of reality is analogous to a virtual reality game and the target enters that game by transferring their consciousness into it. By bringing their consciousness to the level of the game, they essentially expose themselves to mind attacks, as they made the game "real" to themselves in that way.

Others

Several other kinds of transcendence exist in fiction. The exact way hax would interact with these types would need to be analyzed case-by-case. The arguments presented for the three types above can be used as a reference for which arguments may apply to such other types. Many cases will, for example, have targets exist in some other space than the people using the ability, in which case the abilities likely wouldn't work without feats of reaching that other space.

Smurf Hax

Besides hax that can make use of a gap in the resistances granted by infinitely transcending the user, there is also hax that can overcome the resistances directly. See here for more details.

Notes

Instances where Character A defeats Character B, Character B fails to defeat a Character A, or the like, aren't enough for Character A to have resistances to all the powers Character B has. Multiple factors such as Character-Induced Stupidity, Plot-Induced Stupidity and/or a Speed Blitz can be at play if no further details are given. Cases like this may include complicated, long fights Character B may want to win due to significant reasons, even if the details of the battle weren't clearly detailed. Exceptions include instances where it's explicitly indicated that "all of Character B's powers won't work on Character A", or equivalents.

Also, just because a character's other powers scale up in another key after a power boost doesn't mean their resistances do too.

Scaling resistances to abilities between different characters should be avoided when based on assumptions of how strong the characters are in relation to each other and how their level of strength or power or other statistics is related to the resistance. The reason behind how a character is able to resist an ability is important for proving whether other characters possess that same resistance.

Ideally supporting evidence should be used to prove that a resistance feat demonstrated by one character can be reasonably applied to other characters, instead of assuming that the resistance or the same level of resistance should be applied automatically.

Simply being stronger than a character with resistance does not mean the stronger character also has equal or higher resistance, unless the verse makes it explicitly clear that said resistance is based on the level of power.

For example, Monkey D. Luffy has a Resistance to Blunt Force Trauma only because of his Devil Fruit ability as it is an inherent property of the Nika-Nika Fruit. If another character uses the Nika-Nika Fruit they will also possess a Resistance to Blunt Force Trauma.

Discussions

Discussion threads involving Resistance