There are all kinds of ways to get superpowers, with some common examples including genetics, chemistry, and being influenced by otherworldly beings. While some superpowers might come from Another Dimension, they are often usable even outside of that dimension. In other cases, a character only has their powers in a specific dimension.
The reason why some powers are only usable in a specific world can vary. Some of them might rely on energies that only exist in said otherworld. Some powers might be derived from creatures that can't survive or exist outside their home dimension. Since different dimensions often have different laws of physics, another explanation could be that their powers are only accessible because of the different physics in the otherworld.
While some stories might simply have a character be a Muggle outside of a specific dimension all the time, other works could play with it in certain ways. Sometimes, a character might discover a way to use their powers outside of the dimension. In some downplayed cases, a character might be able to use their powers outside of the otherworld in a diminished state. Some stories might have a character with superpowers in both the otherworld and normal world, but have certain powers that are only usable in the other world.
Otherworld-Exclusive Superpowers often appear in concert with the Phantom Zone, and they are especially common in works that revolve around the premise of Wake Up, Go to School, Save the World or similar. As these works focus on both the characters' mundane responsibilities and their fantastical adventures beyond "real life", this trope helps further segregate the two for the sake of the Law of Conservation of Normality. It is also a good way to justify why they cannot use their powers to shake up the status quo outside of the otherworld.
Super-Trope of New Life in Another World Bonus, where a character Trapped in Another World is given new special abilities when they're sent there and Domain Holder, where a character controls the otherworld. A form of "Magic A" Is "Magic A". Compare Place of Power, for when said powers come from another physical location rather than another dimension. Also compare Super-Powered Alter Ego and Field Power Effect. Contrast Your Magic's No Good Here for the inverse. Will overlap with Virtual-Reality Warper if the character with said powers is a user of the computer system and not part of it. Overlaps with Dream Weaver if the Dream Land is treated as another world rather than a mindscape.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Corrector Yui: Yui is only able to transform into Corrector Yui while inside ComNet. Not only that, but she's only able to transform by having IR upload her into ComNet through the verbal command, "Corrector Yui, enter!". If she enters ComNet normally, via VR headset, she can't transform, leading to several instances where the villains attack while she's hanging out with friends and she has to log out and then back in again before she can do anything.
- In Digimon Tamers, the main characters obtain the ability to Fusion Dance (called "Biomerge") with their partner Digimon in order to reach their Mega levels. They can only do this in the Digital World, but fortunately, the Digimon Sovereigns send a messenger (Dobermon) to grant them the ability to Biomerge in the human world.
- Dreamland (2006): Travelers, unlike common dreamers, when they sleep in Dreamland, where they have lucidity and powers based on a fear they conquered through a nightmare.
- El-Hazard: The Magnificent World has a mostly accidental example. Of the four characters who gain powers when they are transported to El-Hazard, three of them have powers that would be functionally non-existent back on Earth.
- Makoto's power to interface with ancient El-Hazard technology seems to be limited to just that, not even working on more recent devices in El-Hazard, preventing him from being a general-purpose Technopath.
- Jinnai (and the TV version on Nanami) can communicate with the Bugrom which don't exist on Earth
- The OAV version of Nanami can see through the illusions of the Phantom Tribe who similarly exist only in El-Hazard (though may have once existed somewhere else and gained their illusion powers upon coming to El-Hazard in the same way)
- Gundam Build Divers: In the world of Gunpla Battle Nexus Online, players can obtain and use various abilities either unique to this world or connected to other Gundam-based series and even style themselves however they want. EL-Divers can even switch from their regular bodies to their mecha bodies. In the real world, players are normal humans and EL-Divers can only function in their six-inch figurine bodies. However, the strange connection between GBN and Eldora allows players to take their avatars into the real world, something they don't realize until partway through Gundam Build Divers Re:RISE.
- Magic Knight Rayearth: Hikaru, Umi, and Fuu only have their Magic Knight powers when they are in Cephiro. Otherwise they are ordinary girls with no supernatural abilities.
- Zatch Bell!: In the Human World, Mamodo can only use their spells when their human partner reads them from their spell book. In the Mamodo World, they can use their spells freely. In addition, the anime only In-Between World allows Mamodo to use their spells simply by using their own spell book without their human partners.
Comic Books
- X-Men: During The Krakoan Age, in books Excalibur (2019) and Knights of X, Jubilee's human adopted son, Shogo, transforms into a large blue dragon in Otherworld.
Films — Animation
- Heavy Metal: On Earth, a scrawny science nerd gets teleported to Neverwhere, an alien world in the midst of revolution. Right away, the nerd notices he's grown muscles galore, becoming a Walking Shirtless Scene. Then he notices a human sacrifice underway, and decides to rescue the screaming girl from a moat monster. During the rescue, he discovers he's developed Super Not-Drowning Skills, and swims submerged for more than a minute until emerging in a clearing. Lastly, Den (his new name in Neverwhere) discovers that he has become an excellent melee fighter, taking on armed rival mooks barehanded without taking a scratch. His closing line sums his new form neatly:
Den: On Earth, I'm nobody. But here, I'm Den.
- Mune: Guardian of the Moon: Young Mune and Glim venture into an otherworld inside the moonbeast, seeking to chisel out a replacement moon. Not only do the two characters undergo an Art Shift, but Mune and Glim can now fly around in the otherworld. Further, Mune's arm dander, normally a mild sedative, has a powerful knock-out effect on some adversaries they encounter. Thanks to their new powers, Mune and Glim succeed in crafting a fresh moon to replace the old one which has disintegrated at that point.
- My Little Pony: Equestria Girls: Sunset Shimmer ''acquires a magic geode in the human world granting her Touch Telepathy, a power never seen in Equestria. But even when bringing the geode in her various returns to Equestria Sunset never displays this power despite regaining her unicorn magics.
Films — Live-Action
- Cool World: Jack Deebs is a comic artist, the author of the Cool World comics. Jack gets pulled into the Cool World by Femme Fatale Holli Would, but he remains a normal human. It's not until Jack touches Doc Whiskers' spike that he's transformed into a top-heavy Flying Brick, complete with spandex bodysuit. Once the spike has been returned to its rightful place and the barrier between the real world and Cool World is restored, Jack finds he's retained his Flying Brick superhero form.
- Jumanji: In Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and Jumanji: The Next Level, the characters gain certain abilities in the Jumanji video game via the avatars they inhabit. For example, those who became Smoulder Bravestone (Spencer, Grandpa Eddie) have enhanced strength, speed, and fighting skills, while those who became Mouse Finbar (Fridge, Milo Walker) have instant knowledge of animals, and later can understand them as well. This causes some conflict for Spencer, since at the end of the first film, Spencer asks Martha to stay in Jumanji so they can stay badasses instead of the nerds they are back on Earth, and in the second one he gets so desperate to be Bravestone again that he attempts to fix the game.
- The Matrix: Humans who know The Matrix to be a vast computer simulation of reality can pull off feats that would be impossible in reality, including Super-Speed, but only within the simulated reality of The Matrix. Agents, computer programs that maintain The Matrix, can also pull off these feats. But when an agent manages to exit The Matrix by taking a human host, he also has no special abilities in the real world.
- A Nightmare on Elm Street:
- Played with. Freddy Krueger is a Reality Warper in the dream world, but can be dragged out of it into the real world, where he's supposedly a baseline human...who is still Made of Iron.
- Invoked in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors and A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, where Nancy Thompson helps Freddy's latest targets develop their own superpowers in the dream realm to defend themselves against Freddy via lucid dreaming.
- Space Jam: While Toon Physics applies to Toons regardless of where they are, real world humans who are in Looney Tune Land also have Toon Physics apply to them as well, with Stan Podolak only getting Squashed Flat when he gets crushed by one of the Monstars, and Michael Jordan being able to stretch his limbs to score the winning goal during the last ten seconds of the game.
- Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over: All the characters gain power-ups in the alternate reality video game, but most apparent is when Juni brings in his wheelchair-bound grandfather for help. Valentin not only gains full use of his legs again, but the Toymaker specifically gifts him stronger abilities as an apology of sorts for costing him his use of legs to begin with, and at the end of the film, he even asks Valentin to stay in the video game world because of what he can do there. Valentin, however, refuses the gift in favor of what he learned and gained because of his accident.
Literature
- Always Coming Home features a legend about a man who went into the "outside world". While crossing a road, he was driven over by cars thrice; apparently, while there, a person has Resurrective Immortality up to nine times.
- Animorphs: The Animorphs all have morphing powers in any dimension where they got them, or that split after the first book, but morphs they acquired in a sario rip or the like are not retained once they get back to the original timeline. For example, none of them can morph dinosaurs after coming back from the Cretaceous in Megamorphs 2.
- The Flight of the Whale short story is set between two dimensions that are accidentally "glued" together, and there are now trans-dimensional flights between them and regular interactions no different from vacations in an exotic location. The main character is a cat burglar on Earth but counts as part of a Mage Species in the other dimension. This is something that's unheard of, and she deliberately keeps it hidden from the world, as it makes her job easier (magical artefacts literally call her to themselves), and she has a handy ace in the hole when being double-crossed by her magically gifted clients, who assume she's just a muggle.
- Haruhi Suzumiya: Itsuki Koizumi is an esper who, for the most part, is left completely unable to use any of his powers. However, upon stepping into Closed Space, Koizumi gains magical abilities used to defeat the Celestials contained inside.
- Subverted in The Isekai Returnee is Too OP for the Modern World. Morishita assumes this would be the case after returning from the fantasy world. But he's stunned when he realizes he still has all of his fantasy hero powers and that those powers make him outrageously strong back in Japan.
- The Legends of Ethshar: Warlocks derive their magical abilities from an external source. The setting also has pocket dimensions to which one can travel through a Portal Picture; within these dimensions warlocks lose contact with the source, and hence their powers.
Live-Action TV
- In the Buffyverse, vampires are subjected to either limitations or additional abilities based on what dimension they are in. On Earth, they have typical mythological limitations, such as burning in sunlight, no reflections, and their "vamping out" only changing their facial appearance. In certain hell dimensions, such as Pylea, they both have the ability to easily walk in the sun, have reflections, and vamping out causes them to turn into a demonic evolutionary throwback, which enhances their already considerable strength, durability, and speed, but their minds become more bestial as a result.
- Kamen Rider:
- Kamen Rider Ryuki: The Kamen Riders can only use their power within the Mirror World, and their Transformation Sequence has them transform using a nearby mirror or mirrored surface to enter the Mirror World.
- Kamen Rider ZEZTZ: Baku can only use his Rider powers in the dream world most of the time, though he can use them in the real world if a Nightmare successfully takes over its host and breaks the barrier between the real world and the dream world.
- Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad: Sam Collins is a Henshin Hero who transforms into the program Servo by entering Cyberspace to fight Megavirus Monsters.
- VR Troopers: The eponymous heroes can transform using their Virtualizers within the Virtual Reality world. They use alternative forms in the "Battle Grid", which serves as a conduit for the Skugs to enter the real world.
Tabletop Games
- Beast: The Primordial: Downplayed with the titular Beasts. While they can use some powers, such as their Atavisms and Nightmares and manifest some of their Lair traits in the physical world, they can only transform into their true, monstrous forms and manifest their full lair traits inside their Lairs.
Video Games
- Deltarune: In contrast to Deltarune's sister game, Lightners are inherently weak, incapable of using any magical powers. However, once they step into a Dark World, they gain the capability to use magic.
- Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice: The Geomancer's unique spells can only be used inside of the Item and Chara Worlds.
- Dragon Age: Origins: During the Circle Tower questline, the Warden and party are forced to sleep by a demon and wake up in the "Fade", the realm of dreams and spirits. The Warden must then become a Collector of Forms Shapeshifter including a mouse, a burning man, a spirit, and a golem, to navigate a series of puzzles to escape the Fade. Once you're out, these shapeshifting powers are gone.
- Kingdom Hearts: In the first game, Sora, Donald, and Goofy only have Super Not-Drowning Skills in Atlantica due to the aquatic forms they gain while there, and they can only fly in Neverland after being taught how by Peter Pan, while outside of Neverland the closest things to flight they can do are the abilities Glide and Superglide.
- Legacy of Kain: Raziel is a wraith with the ability to exist in both the Spectral Realm and Material Realm, with some of his abilities only functioning in one or the other — for example, he can phase through certain objects such as grates or broken windows, but only when he's in the Spectral Realm.
- Mario & Luigi: Dream Team: In the Real World, Mario and Luigi's Combination Attacks take the form of Bros. attacks that simply involve them attacking in tandem, while in the Dream World, Mario instead uses Luiginary Attacks to summon copies of Dreamy Luigi known as Luiginoids to form tools like giant hammers and walls.
- Persona: In Persona 4 and Persona 5, the heroes can only summon their Personas in specific worlds, the TV World and the Metaverse, respectively. Persona 4 Arena also has the cast of Persona 3 summoning their Personas in the TV World when in their own game their Personas could only be summoned during the Dark Hour, with it being stated that it's much easier to summon their Personas there than in the real world.
- Saints Row IV goes with the "computer sim" variant from The Matrix, where The Boss has access to powers like super strength and speed, the ability to both leap extremely high and glide around the map, telekinesis, etc. Whenever you exit the sim, you're back to relying on running, dodging, and using conventional weaponry again at least until the Final Boss, where The Boss gets a suit of Powered Armor that gives them all of the powers they had in the virtual world. As a consolation prize, you do at least regain access to your humorous variety of Groin Attacks on the outside, giving the Zin at least one extra reason to fear taking you on.
- Sea of Stars: The miniature world of Horloge uses a different form of magic, where the two Solstice Warriors' Sun and Moon magic is not effective based on Horloge's rules. This involves them using spectacles in battle and gaining new classes: Juggler for Zale and Acrobat for Valere.
- Viewtiful Joe: The V-Watches turn their owners into Henshin Heroes, but they only work while in Movie Land. In the second game, it's revealed that V-Watches can function in the real world if there is an audience cheering for the owner, and in Double Trouble, a magic camera called the V-Cam that lets allows V-Watches to be used in the real world if they are pointed at the owner of a V-Watch.
Web Original
- Relentlessly Mundane
: Tharsia had been able to use magic in the magical world of Porphylia as a teenager, but those powers disappeared when she returned to the real world. Now she basically copes with the loss of her powers by making a living as a Fortune Teller.
Jane admired her a great deal for the way she had coped in Porphylia, for how hard she had worked to channel the magical energies she alone could handle, for how she had risked her own life in single combat armed only with magic while Jane and Mark held off the knights of the Doomguard and Kay lay on the floor at Tharsia's feet, turned to stone. Jane would always remember standing in slick blood fighting for her life against men twice her height and weight and hearing Tharsia's declaration, "You can't hurt me, you can only kill me." It made up for a lot of tacky unicorns and madrigal door chimes. She just wished Tharsia could find some better way to cope with losing all that magic than pretending she still had it.
Western Animation
- The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3: In "Super Koopa", Kooky invents a device that allows King Koopa to create power-ups, but it only works while in the real world. Koopa tries to exploit this by luring Mario and Luigi to the real world, where their power-ups don't exist, but Toadstool and Toad simply bring some from the Mushroom Kingdom and give them to the Mario Bros.
- Code Lyoko: In the real world, the protagonists are ordinary boarding school students. When they are virtualized into the digital world of Lyoko to fight X.A.N.A., they gain superpowers that they use to stop his plans. Unfortunately, X.A.N.A. doesn't have this limitation, being able to manifest various supernatural-like abilities in the real world, which sometimes leads to the heroes being vulnerable when X.A.N.A.'s attacks end up endangering them when they aren't in Lyoko, resulting in situations where only some of the heroes can be in Lyoko due to X.A.N.A. leaving the others unavailable.
- Danny Phantom: In the Ghost Zone, humans can pass through solid objects just like ghosts. Interestingly, it is presented as though Ghosts cannot use intangibility in the Ghost Zone, with the power being somewhat of a tradeoff between humans and ghosts when switching worlds, making it an odd case of this trope where the otherworld in question is Earth.
- The Fairly OddParents!: The climax of Channel Chasers takes place in the in-universe anime Maho Mushi, a Dragon Ball parody. Characters within it gain Ki Manipulation powers that aren't the result of Fairy Magic, with Cosmo at one point shooting energy blasts by accident and Timmy and Vicky having powers without Timmy having to make any kind of wish and even after Timmy loses his fairies.
- The Owl House: While in the Demon Realm, Luz discovers that she can perform magic with certain glyphs; in “Young Blood, Old Souls”, upon a return to Earth, she finds the glyphs don’t work there since they’re empowered by proximity to the Titan.
- The Real Ghostbusters: In "Flip Side", the City of Boo York is a Mirror Universe full of ghosts where the rules for ghosts and humans are reversed, which means that any humans who enter it can fly and pass through solid objects while ghosts cannot.
- Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM): In "The Void", it's revealed Robotnik trapped an evil wizard, Naugus, in the titular alternate dimension years ago. One effect of the Void is that it gives Naugus' magical powers a huge boost, making him a Reality Warper. He claims that while he's in the Void, his powers allow him to do anything (except escape, much to his frustration).
- Twelve Forever: On Endless Island, Reggie has super strength, Todd can shapeshift, and Esther can create ropes made of light, while on Earth they are normal kids.
