Noodlebag

Well, the thing to focuse on to make it work would be the setback of choosing another power; the stronger power, the heavier setback.

And of course you wouldnt be forced to use this, plenty of people are perfectly happy with their villain/hero as it is.

The thing is i had an idea for a villain early on in CoX, and i couldnt create him. He would be a fallen angel, his mind, body and powers vile and twisted. He would wield a cursed, magic sword, and he would defile the spirits of the dead, summoning them as zombies and force them to fight for him... and no archetype fit with this. I could go for the Mastermind (which i intended), but then i would be unarmed, and a ranged fighter whos throwing black goo-balls on his targets... I could have gone with the Brute to get the in-your-face with a cool weapon... but with no defiling of the dead

Anyway, I think the setback should be pretty heavy to avoid leading to a potential cookie-cutter build. For me this would be purely to fit with the theme and story of the villain/hero, and to give a boost to the diversity of CoX

The temporary powers got me thinking about this... having some sort of mission at higher levels that would allow you to customise your archetype with a power from ANY other powerset, if you would succeed the mission (kinda like the cape-mission).

I know, I know, it would be insanely imbalanced... but it shouldnt come without consequenses. You would get part of the weakness of the archetype that the power belongs to as well, for instance a Brute picking Zombie Horde would get considerably more squishy, kinda like a mix between Mastermind and Brute. Plus he wouldnt be able to upgrade his zombies, since thats a different power.

This would be so cool, but its not very likely to happen, the work and balancing of this would take a huge effort... would still be cool though