Power Up!

Create your hero.

Step One: Abilities to choose from:

Super speed Super strength Invulnerability Telepathy Telekinesis
Lightning Fire Ice Earthquake (Creature) power
High tech gadgets Blaster Magic ________ Power ring/gem Stretchy

Greater Ability 1: (Base: 4) Lesser Ability 2: (Base: 3) Random Ability 3: (Base: die roll)

In a battle, you choose which ability you’re using each round, and you have to . For one of your first two
abilities, roll one die, and that’s the exponent. Example: using ability 1, you roll a 3, which makes your effect
43=4×4×4=64. Ability 3 is trickier: you roll two dice and choose which is the base and which is the exponent.
Example: using the random ability you roll a 3 and a 4. Do you want 43 or 34 ?

Step Two: origin story.

Name:

How did you get your powers?

 Mutant Story:
 Alien
 Magic
 Science
 Other

Step Three:
Hero Villain
Step Four: (optional) Picture of your character.
Battle! Each battle you will use each power once. Note that it’s okay for heroes to fight heroes, as those
kind of misunderstandings happen all the time. Villains might fight another villain because they’re just so
darn evil. (Or misunderstood.)

Battles last three rounds. Roll to see who goes first.

Round 1: First player chooses an ability. Second player chooses an ability. Roll for the power level. Highest
total wins round 1.
Round 2: Switch! Second player chooses an ability they haven’t used. First player chooses an ability they
haven’t used. Roll for the power level. Highest total wins round 2.
Round 3: Both players use their remaining power: roll at the same time.
Tiebreaker: If the players are tied, they use their random ability one more time. (Also okay to end in a tie. “We
may have fought to a standstill, but I’ll get you next time, Snake Lady!”)

Example:
Captain Victory vs Snake Lady
1: Lightning base=4 1: Poison Bite
2: Super Strength base=3 2: Super Speed
3: High Tech Gadget base=roll 3: Stretchy

Round 1: Captain Victory chooses Lightning, Snake Lady chooses Super Speed. CV
rolls a 2, his power is 42. SL rolls a 3, her power is 33. 42=4×4=16<27=33. Snake Lady
wins the round.
Round 2: Snake Lady chooses Stretchy and Captain Victory chooses Super Strength.
Snake Lady rolls two dice and gets a 2 and a 5. She can choose 25 or 52 and she picks
25. Cap rolls a 4 so his power is 34. 34=3×3×3×3=81 > 25=32. Cap wins the round!
Round 3: Cap is down to his high tech gadget and will roll 2 dice. He gets a 6 and a 2.
Snake Lady rolls a 3 for her Poison Bite and scores 43. What should Cap do – 26 or
62? Can he win or does Snake Lady rule the day?

Variations:
• Player choosing their power rolls before the other player chooses. (Some kids did this naturally.)
• Team play: a team of super heroes fights another team of villains or heroes. Teammates multiply their
scores each round.
• Character design: players assign their power base. They choose the base (1 or higher) for each power
so that the three add up to 12. A Random ability costs 4 points. (So you can choose all random…
craziness will ensue!)

Teacher Use:
• Consider calculator use to support students with computation.
• This game can be used as an introduction to support the meaning of the notation. The connection to
make here is how we sometimes refer to the exponent as the power.
• This game can be tied into a writing project where students write more about a battle or about their
character’s origin.
• Discuss whether it’s better to use the larger number rolled as the base or the exponent.