Lord British Postulate: Difference between revisions

Contrast with [[Invulnerable Civilians]]. A [[Hopeless Boss Fight]] or [[Invincible Minor Minion]] is seen as a challenge to these people. [[I Thought That Was|This has nothing to do with]] the other ship from ''[[Gradius]]''.

 

 

*** It's also possible to use the Sneak skill to plant an item in their inventory, such as a ring, that does constant damage while worn. They put on the item, and it'll keep their HP at zero even when the "important" flag resurrects them.

*** Dropping them into lava, which always results in an instant reduction to 0 HP, will kill them permanently. [[Unwinnable|Just don't let this happen to Captain Burd.]]

*** Or you can use a weapon enchantment combination of Drain Health 100 and Weakness to Magic 100, each for 6ish seconds, to do over 25500 damage in 8 blows of a melee weapon (100+200+400+800 etc etc), including one blow of 12800 before the 6 seconds of Weakness to Magic runs out. Dagon has 10000 health which regenerates every second. The eighth blow will do just enough to reduce him to a reddish stain on the city floor (literally. He collapses into a puddle).

**** Or you can just [[Cherry Tapping|hit him until he dies]]. Takes a while, but totally possible if you yourself are not susceptible to being killed first.

*** That same game, however, follows the same "essential NPC" rules as ''Oblivion'' -- plot-critical characters do not die (and, since this is a ''Fallout'' title, they must and do have protection from possible dismemberment). Children cannot be targeted at all; they have no collision detection for attacks, melee or ranged, and they can't be targeted in VATS mode.

** In [[Fallout New Vegas]] however, while children remain invulnerable any other NPC can be killed no matter how important they are with the exception of Victor and Yes Man, the excuse being that as AIs they can simply [[Body Surf]] to another Securitron unit. Companions are also immortal unless Hardcore Mode is activated.

* In ''[[Fable]]'', your weapons are taken away from you in Bowerstone, which is merely cosmetic because you can't beat anyone to death there, either (naturally, that's where the game puts all the [[Hide Your Children|children]]). Unfortunately for the people of Bowerstone, the game is only nerfing ''your'' damage, and if you can bring in and subsequently protect a mercenary or two, you can murder your way across town all you like!

** In addition, you can always pick a fight with the guards and navigate the town in a way that gets the townsfolk killed by friendly fire.

** Fable II has so many Lord British-type [[NPC|NPCs]], it's [[Railroading|not even amusing]]. Notably, you cannot attack when anywhere near Theresa, and if you find a way to snipe her from range with Skill or Will, she will tell you that your weapons [[Hand Wave|have no effect on her]].

*** The game actually does hint that there may be [[A God Am I|a reason for why she's capable of doing that...]]

** Not only that, but players figured out ways to kill monsters that are immune to all elements, monsters that cannot even be ''targeted'' (tip: damage reflection) and even monsters that cannot be targeted ''and'' are immune to all damage ''and'' do not have any attack that would trigger damage reflection. There are even four different ways to do so: resurrect monsters with "burn" damage which bypasses resistances and attacks hit points directly; find the item that summons instakill reanimates on your side when you kill enemies; find the item that summons a certain boss whose [[Decapitated Army|death animation is coded to autokill nearby monsters]] on your side and let it "expire"; or use a bugged passive in combination with Open Wounds to cause the monster to take physical damage despite being immune to it.

* In ''Torneko: The Last Hope'': there are priests in Toro Ruins, and they are treated like monsters, except you can't attack them directly. But you can shoot arrows, magic thunders, or even turn them into items. When this occurs, though, a message appears and says: "Divine retribution!" and a giant lightning bolt drops your HP to 1. Oddly, this is [[Hundred Percent Completion|recorded on your adventure log]].

** Amusingly, it's also possible to level-drain two of the three until they become weak enough to enslave with Charm Monster. ''Now'' you're playing with power!

** Some players like to take this to the next level, and kill entire ''species''. This is easy for most monsters, as almost any monster that is created 120 times<ref>3 for the Erinyes, 9 for the [[Lord of the Rings|Naz'gul]], and never for the Keystone Kops</ref> is considered extinct by the game, and will never be randomly generated again. You'd think this wouldn't apply to unique monsters-- by definition, they are created only once, yes? But in fact, a monster that is brought back somehow counts as a new monster for extinction purposes. [[Taken for Granite|Stoning]] and unstoning a monster counts. For monsters that resist stoning, a wand of undead turning will resurrect the monster. For those few stone-resistant monsters that leave no corpse, an [[Auto Revive|Amulet of Life Saving]] will also increase the extinction counter<ref>gathering 120 of an already-rare item for each unique monster is an exercise in madness, but can be done-- by invoking [[Debug Mode|Wizard Mode]], if nothing else</ref>. But there is one monster, [http://nethackwiki.com/wiki/Juiblex Juiblex], who is unique, stone-resistant, leaves no corpse, ''and'' will never pick up an amulet, and thus cannot be made extinct. But even he can be killed again, just the one extra time, if he randomly spawned with the amulet in his inventory.

** [[Nethack|NetHack]] also gives us the [[Mailer Daemon|Mail Daemon]], who appears and disappears within the span of one turn and, therefore, can't normally be interacted with at all, much less killed. So, naturally, sufficiently [[Crazy Prepared]] players have found a way to kill it, [[The Dev Team Thinks of Everything|preventing further messages from being delivered]]; to do this, the player needs to {{spoiler|stone-to-flesh a statue of a mail daemon, which is not something that occurs naturally but needs to be wished for, and to be prepared to kill the resulting daemon in one turn as it otherwise disappears with a cry of "I'm late!"}}.

* The first ''[[Valkyrie Profile]]'' game has Brahms, Lord of Vampires. You are [[Hopeless Boss Fight|not supposed to beat him]]. If you do through luck, [[Level Grinding]], or cheating, the game just deposits you back into the Overworld without ever mentioning it again, and the game pretends that you had chosen the "don't fight him" option. He appears again in the [[Bonus Dungeon]], but by that time you are expected to be strong enough to match him.

* In ''[[Earthbound]],'' Giygas is supposed to be killable through one means and one means only: Paula's "Pray" command. While he does have a "real" HP value, calculational trickery otherwise keeps him alive. However, in the [[Game Boy Advance]] [[Compilation Rerelease]], using a Viper on Giygas can poison him... and the poison will eventually kill him. On the other hand, since the battle wasn't ended the scripted way, glitchery ensues and you end up in a world preconfigured for the game's ending... an ending which won't happen now.

** Master Belch is immune to damage of any kind until you use the Fly Honey on him. However, the Hungry HP-Sucker doesn't ''count'' as damage, because it's a draining effect. It's possible to kill him the long way by exploiting his vulnerability to status effects and drawing his hit points out the long way.

* ''[[Secret of Mana]]'' has Charon, the guide who takes you to the Moon Palace, who is actually just a common enemy called a Robin Foot locked into a position where he cannot attack the player. He can't be hit with weapons, but magic can kill poor Charon. Additionally, the final boss is ''supposed'' to only be damaged under very specific circumstances ( {{spoiler|having the hero hold the Mana Sword and having both of his sidekicks cast Mana Magic on him}}), but his defenses are not impenetrable to normal weapons when charged to sufficient levels.

* ''[[Disgaea]]'' has another example of this. [[NPC|NPCs]] are everywhere across the castle - Running the hospital, the shops, even the portal that takes you to the storyline maps. Now, you can't attack them in the castle.... or can you? (Here's a hint: You can.) All you have to do is call an assembly. If one of the [[NPC|NPCs]] shows up, you can happily beat the tar out of them. Then when you get back to the castle, you'll find a little gravestone where they were. Wait a minute.... you just killed the demon running the Hospital... how are you supposed to heal? Just save, reset, and they'll be back in their spots again.

* In the webcomic ''[[Kid Radd]]'' (which plays with and [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshades]] a number of videogame tropes) the final boss of the game ''Mofo'' was supposed to be only vulnerable to a special ability none of the characters had. It turned out that he just had a lot of hit points and regenerated them each turn, which allowed the team to defeat him.

** In an in-universe nod to the Postulate, this [[Multiple Endings|unlocks a tongue-in-cheek ending to the game]] where they are chided for "cheating".

* In ''[[Homestuck]]'', the leader of criminal gang The Felt is named Lord English, after a particular spin put on a cue ball in pool. Creator Andrew Hussie hadn't even ''heard'' about Lord British until later and, when he was informed about similarity between the names, decided to make Lord English a [[Lord British Postulate]], mentioning in a character's narration that he can only be killed by exploiting "numerous bugs and glitches in spacetime."

** This particular [[Retcon]] surprisingly fits very well within the [[Time Travel]]-related powers that the rest of The Felt possess.

*** Unfortunately, after too much of this, they became hostile and actually did begin attacking him; how he managed to fight off and eventually kill the entire species is a mystery not explored by the comic.

 

 

== Other ==

** Back in the 2D era, the Hidden Fun Stuff automatically killed you in just a short time after you mined the first [[Unobtanium|cotton candy]] ore. The 3D version remedied that problem. Now you can exploit this trope to the max.

*** Toady's stated design intent to make it possible to annihilate all life on a generated world, ushering in the Age of Emptiness, makes this the most complete aversion. (Versions 31.16-.18 have made this impossible, but may become doable under later implemented conditions.)

* ''Alter Aeon'' seems to enjoy tormenting players with this: in the starting city, there is an NPC called "The Captain of the Guard". The message for the area explicitly tells the player (paraphrased) "This is the Captain of the Guard. He cannot be killed. No matter how many players you bring, you will not kill him". Naturally, many see this as a challenge.

* In ''[[The Legend of Zelda Links Awakening]]'', chicke... er, [[Call a Rabbit A Smeerp|Cuccos]] and dogs can't be killed with the sword, attacking the former enough causes a whole flock of Cuccos to start swarming Link (as is the norm in Zelda games), and attacking the latter triggers a counterattack. Use the Fire Rod or Magic Powder, however, and not only can you kill them, but an active Cucco swarm will ''stop''. (There's loyalty for you!)