How would you change power levels in the series?

[SSJ YUSUKE]

Dragonball has a major issue with power creep. Characters get stonger and stronger from Saga to Saga and quite frankly even for a fictional show it becomes really unrealistic for characters to keep on increasing their power levels exponetioallly all the time. Worst off certain characters are left in the dust and become irrelevant as the series goes on.
How would you change things?
Would the series have been better if the power levels were kept resnoable and the power jumps were incremental? (Especially during the Frieza arc)
Or do you think power levels should have been replaced with something else, like Tiers in Yu Yu Hakusho?

[FoolsGil]

Either don't make Freeza so powerful that Saiyan legends perks have to made to keep up, or have two to three arcs before dealing with Freeza.

[DragonBallKing]

I would have made SSJ1 the limit for the Z series, villains after Freeza are only marginally stronger than the last, and no SSJ goten and present trunks to name a few things

[Logania]

Freeza having 530,000 as a starting power level is ok. His Final Form being so big however is not ok.

530,000 to 1,300,000 to 2,600,000 to 120,000,000.

What the hell kinda power jump is that?! That's just absurd. Make that final form like...5,000,000 tops, the numbers just get too big.

[JulieYBM]

I'd make small gaps in numbers enough to overpower an enemy, like when with a battle power of 24,000 to Kewi's 18,000 Vegeta easily killed him. From there I'd just explain in dialogue that ki control got so good that they could concentrate mountain destroying jabs only on their foes.

[Hugo Boss]

I think Saiyan Arc numbers were okay until Goku returned from Kaio’s training with his powerlevel of 5,000. This is the point when I think Toriyama missed with powerscalling. Not to mention when he introduced the “multiplier” thing with kaioken. He even commented that as the creator he felt something odd about Super Saiyan power-up being so huge.

If getting rid of the concept completely wasn’t an option, I would probably have a more conservative approach about the “over 2,000” figures, discard the “multiply” factor of kaioken, and assign numbers only for starters, lefting vague the true potential of the character (like it was done in most of Nappa’s fight).

[sintzu]

I'd drop the whole Freeza's one million power level and have Ssj1 be the only Ssj form. I'd also have the humans do more training with King Kai so that they'd be a bit closer to Goku and the others.

[Thanos]

It doesn’t bother me for the most part, but I definitely would have liked for Saiyans to not have taken the power and ran with it. It’s kind of frustrating to see Piccolo, for example, get left behind. There’s no reason why he couldn’t have trained and gotten back to where he was, in comparison, to Goku and Vegeta in the Android arc. Things are more interesting when Piccolo stands a chance and doesn’t lose every single fight.

[Lord Beerus]

- Don't have Roshi or Piccolo blow up the moon
- Freeza's first form wouldn't have a BP of 530,000 (Iit's really fucing ridiculous for him to be that strong from the get go, when you think about it)
- The "near-death/beaten-up-very-badly" power up wouldn't exist
- SSJ1 would be the only form

[Dbzfan94]

Take the numerical system out. And nerf Freeza a bit. (and in turn nerfing everyone else after him)

[Analytical Delusion]

Well I think the power levels specifically kind of are what they are. If we’re talking about power scaling more broadly:

(1) Only users who can control their ki have growth in their power levels (this makes Goku’s gains in the originals Dragon Ball more believable as prior to training with Kami, he just trained his body).

(2) I would make stamina much more of a factor, to help decide close fights. Only really four times in big fights where fighters were close did stamina make the difference (Goku vs Piccolo 23rd TB, Goku vs 100% Freeza, Vegeta vs C18, Piccolo vs C17). Buu kind of had infinite stamina too but there were other factors at play in his fights.

(3) Have Piccolo no longer act surprised that Gotenks could transform into SSJ after fusion (him not knowing this was possible while also thinking Gotenks has a chance, if taken at face value, imply Goten and Trunks got 50x stronger from something like two weeks in the ROSAT).

Not touching Super for now, things are more complicated. Waiting for the manga to finish the TOP arc.

[Alruneia]

The first thing that comes to mind is to halve Frieza's initial power. Goku's max of 180,000 and up to 265,000 for 1st form Frieza is already enough of a gap, and 265,000 is certainly enough for Vegeta, Krillin and Gohan to struggle against. 2nd form Frieza would be the one to have that 530,000 number. Following this, Frieza would only breach 1,000,000 in his final form, a form which would also be nerfed.
I think Piccolo (fused with Nail) would have a power level of about 550,000, while Goku (having recovered) would have about 750,000. This is still an extreme zenkai boost, but I don't think that possible to avoid without changing how the story goes. Since Goku's power is now a quarter of what it was originally, Frieza's would be as well. It might not be much, but by this reduction we've gone from 150 million to 37.5 million.
Making Super Saiyan 1's multiplier x25 instead of x50 would allow us to halve that number again. So now, Frieza's full power is 15 million, while SS1 Goku is 18.75 million. (This would make the Kaioken x20 Kamehameha very dangerous for Frieza, as Kaioken x20 Goku would match his full power, but this can be fixed by simply adding weakness through fatigue.)

[dario03]

I would do something about Farmer with Shotgun. Either lower his level or raise everybody else by quite a bit. Or just not mention his power level or give it something non numerical.
No Roshi blowing up the moon. Would probably have Freeza be the first capable of destroying a planet and would need to be final form. Or at least final form for planet Vegeta, make him revealing that he destroyed it be a no way kind of thing.
Greatly reduce the gap between Ginyu and Freeza. Being literally 1000x stronger than the previous strongest guy (excluding full powered Ozaru Vegeta) just seems way to much. The gap from Ginyu to first form is ok I guess but after that, not so much.

[Robo4900]

or have two to three arcs before dealing with Freeza.

There were about 7.

It doesn’t bother me for the most part, but I definitely would have liked for Saiyans to not have taken the power and ran with it. It’s kind of frustrating to see Piccolo, for example, get left behind. There’s no reason why he couldn’t have trained and gotten back to where he was, in comparison, to Goku and Vegeta in the Android arc. Things are more interesting when Piccolo stands a chance and doesn’t lose every single fight.

- The "near-death/beaten-up-very-badly" power up wouldn't exist

- SSJ1 would be the only form

Kind of this, with the caveat that in its raw form, it's incredibly chaotic, nigh-uncontrollable. None of this "Goku can go Super Saiyan and be totally calm, all on command and pretty casually when Trunks showed up, and Trunks can do it too, equally casually."
Instead of Super Saiyan 2, the big deal is figuring out how to master the transformation itself, and figure out how to do it while calm, just like Goku and Gohan kind of did before the Cell games, except let's say when Goku and Gohan did that, they ended up sacrificing a lot of the power behind it so they could actually do the transformation without becoming an uncontrollable force of chaos. You can still do Trunks and Goku trying out the super-buff Super Saiyan, since the whole point is that that's just Super Saiyan, but with a crap attempt to boost the power, resulting in it just kind of not working. You could even make it even worse by having it take even more control away from the user than regular Super Saiyan, since more power likely means more chaos.
Gohan figuring out Super Saiyan 2 while fighting Cell can still happen, and in the same way as it was in the series, with the idea being that he's unleashing that full, unbridled power of the Super Saiyan, but with something close to the balance he and Goku and worked for, creating the same power as when Goku was fighting Freeza, but this time being piloted by someone with a somewhat level head, thus making it a lot more effective in battle.

Instead of Goku going Super Saiyan 3 in the Boo arc, he just does the Super Kaioken, which still has the same end result -- he's getting more power, but it's highly destructive to him, and drains his energy, and his already-limited time in the mortal world. And just like Super Saiyan 3, Super Kaioken basically doesn't work if you're actually alive, and even if you're dead, it takes years to figure out how to do it. (Yes, Goku used it against Paikuhan in the afterlife tournament. We'll say he was trying it out then, and that he was only able to use it for that tiny, short burst, with the years from then until the Boo arc having him learn to maintain it, and control it. Or, if you prefer, we can go with the "filler is non canon" fallback, though I'd prefer not to do that)

Honestly, I'm still okay with GT's Super Saiyan 4, since the idea is that it's what happens if an Oozaru goes Super Saiyan, but then the Saiyan gains control and self-awareness enough to balance themself out. But rather than it completely taking Goku and Vegeta to another level, it just brings him up to about the level of the Super Kaioken in a sustained manner, something Goku was completely incapable of even doing for a limited time in his child form. IIRC, Kaioken is about very precisely controlling the energy in its user's body, so you could come up with some fluff about the idea that a "Super Saiyan 4" has mastered their own biology, and the mechanics behind their transformations, so they effectively have mastered the principle behind the Kaioken technique, allowing them to amp up every attack they use, without screwing up their body and having to waste a ton of energy, effort, etc. just by passively moving around and such. It'd probably still be harmful to the user in long sustained use, but it would be more effective, and much more sustainable.

As for Super's Super Saiyan God, I would just have Goku and Vegeta work towads getting something akin to Gohan's mystic form. I realise this makes Gohan less unique, but given the insane power of that form, and the fact Goku and Vegeta will try basically anything to achieve greater power, it makes total sense they'd try to unlock a similar power to what Gohan has within themselves. Perhaps it's not as potent as Gohan's, if you want Gohan's to remain unique though, I suppose.
No Blue form analogue, though. It's stupid and makes no sense, and the design is boring.

Note that aside from Super Saiyan itself, all of this is stuff any of the cast could do, basically. I could easily imagine, say, Piccolo meditating and learning inner balance to a degree that he can effectively get a hyper-Kaioken similar to the variation of Super Saiyan 4 I'm describing. Goku and Vegeta have the easy power boost of Super Saiyan, but IIRC Piccolo fusing with God gave him a similar level of power boost.
Kuririn, Yamcha, Tenshinhan, et al would still be a notch behind the heavy-hitters, but presuming they learned Kaioken -- or some variation of that genre of technique -- they would at least be able to hold their own in a fight in, say, the Tournament Of Power to a degree that it would actually make some goddamn sense for them to be invited in the first place...

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Anyway, more generally, have much less specific discussion of power levels after Vegeta shows up, and put a pretty big emphasis on how pointless it is to actually track this stuff in the Saiyan and Freeza arcs; The techniques used by the main characters basically mean that their power level at any given time will fluctuate wildly throughout a fight, so they're useless. And basically, from the point the Ginyus are defeated onwards, not a single mention of power levels agian. Ever. Granted, that last part happened in the series anyway starting from about when Goku fights Freeza, but I just wanted to really hammer this home.

[Wizard Sesame]

Everything is fine (albeit it's tough to fit in a lot of the Dragon Ball levels pre-Saiyan Arc) until Namek. To fix that, I'd make Goku be at around 48-55,000 range against the Ginyu Force. Powerful enough to defeat them easily as Zarbon did to Vegeta, but still near them; the Zenkai he gets from Ginyu would simply double his power to around 95-110,000. Ginyu himself would be at 90,000, and Vegeta would have easily been the second strongest in the universe as an Oozaru at 180,000, giving him a reason to be so arrogant. Frieza himself would have been 250,000, second form is 500,000, third form is 750,000, and final form maxes out around 1.5 million. Super Saiyan under these numbers would simply be a 20x increase (double Oozaru), and Goku's kaioken would max out at 10.

After Namek, I'd keep the relatively same power levels, but I'd make them more efficient in how they fight, meaning they can use more power like it is in the manga. Though, perhaps Super Saiyan 2 would be a 25x increase, which gives a substantial boost but not so much that others can't stay in the vicinity.



Otherwise, if I can't make drastic changes like that, I'd probably just revert the power levels to the mistaken 12 million Frieza power level that went around back in the day, as that kept the power levels someone believable.