A Proposal

[CountArach]

I don't see that working to be honest, because by the end of it the enemies would not have progressed to harder enemies... if they did so you would be proportionally FAR weaker and in all likelihood couldnot defeat them. I would much rather something where you remain fairly static whilst the enemies grow stronger and smarter. That way you are proportionally weaker than your enemies, however you can overcome this with skills that you have honed in getting to that point.

[Azathoth]

I don't see that working to be honest, because by the end of it the enemies would not have progressed to harder enemies... if they did so you would be proportionally FAR weaker and in all likelihood couldnot defeat them. I would much rather something where you remain fairly static whilst the enemies grow stronger and smarter. That way you are proportionally weaker than your enemies, however you can overcome this with skills that you have honed in getting to that point.

Ahh, see, I thought of this.

An example (note that I'm not going to get on anyone's writing staff): you start out as an ultra-powerful godlord, but some guy casts a curse on you (you get weaker every time you kill someone personally). Then you get rushed by an army (you could choose to stand and fight, eventually being overwhelmed by thousands of enemies) or you can go underground to break the curse (you have to kill the caster, who now rules your realm). You manage to attract certain personalities to your cause, but most will be very hostile to you, and there will be constant fighting throughout the game.

Now, your allies are very fragile and can die during battle quite easily. Throughout the game you can overly rely on your allies, see them all get killed, and hope you can get through the game with diplomacy, or that you're already far enough to have a chance at the end. Otherwise, you can just power through the game and slaughter everyone who gets in your way. This means that, at some point, you will just be a regular guy up against the Usurper and his most elite forces. So the best choice would be to take a middle ground of trying to avoid cmbat and only intervening to help your party when things get really hairy. So the difficulty scales up reasonably, and maybe for the final battle you and the Usurper will be evenly matched, more or less.

Also, your allies will be very well characterized, which makes losing them painful (plus you miss out on all the exposition).

[drone]

It didn't make you weaker per se, but the "Big Head" mutator in UT2K4 did something like this. The more kills you made in a row, the bigger your head (and it's corresponding bound box) would get. Made you stick out like a sore thumb and more vulnerable to head shots.