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Powerful, but Inaccurate: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
At attack that has trouble hitting the broad side of a barn, but if someone ''does'' hit it with this attack, you'll need a new barn.
In the spirit of [[Competitive Balance]], there has to be a drawback for everything. In this case, it means that a powerful attack is more likely to miss its mark than a weaker one. Now, the reasoning behind this can vary wildly; ranging from discouraging the usage of a particularly powerful move to simply encouraging people to try something else. But sometimes, this trope can be driven to the point where one's [[Improbable Aiming Skills]] can't provide a remote opportunity of landing an otherwise fatal hit. <small>*cough* ''[[Fire Emblem]]'' *cough*</small>
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{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* In ''[[Attack on Titan (manga)|Attack on Titan]]'', most of civilization is sheltered behind a network of enormous walls in order to protect them from the occasional Titan. The cannons that are mounted on the wall have fixed aim, and can easily cripple the enormous Titans with their ordnance if they hit. The problem is that said cannons tend to miss a lot. One of the defining traits of a Titan is [[Healing Factor|regeneration at a fast rate]], so the only way to truly kill one is hitting the neck... which is nearly impossible to do against an 80-foot-tall giant.
== [[Film]] ==
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== [[Literature]] ==
* Rocket-powered artillery in the ''[[Sharpe]]'' series are so inaccurate that they're used as an instrument of terror rather than to actually kill people. However, the titular character gets around this by using them at close range in order to get their destructive results.
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* The Power Attack feat in all [[D20 System]] based games allows a character to raise their damage in exchange for lowering chance to hit. Since in most games using the system, accuracy raises automatically each level while damage does not, and two-handed weapons get a better than one-to-one conversion (getting 1.5 points of damage for every point of accuracy lost), it's considered mandatory for anyone who wishes to seriously engage in melee combat and doesn't have some alternative source of damage.
* Enforced by ''[[Mutants and Masterminds]]''. The combined accuracy and power of an attack can't exceed twice the series power level. The primary way around this is to make an attack also have an effect that also weakens the target's defenses (like a fire blast that also melts armor) since Weaken effects aren't touched by the cap. As a D20 game, Power Attack also exists and can be done by all characters by default, though there is no bonus for two-handed weapons.
* ''[[GURPS]]'' has an "extra effort" mechanic that allows you to trade skill for power: pay 1 Fatigue, and for every point by which you lower your skill
== [[Video Games]] ==
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** The three saws that Shuriken Shot fires don't cause a lot of individual damage, and it's extremely impractical for long-ranged attacks on the basis that two of the saws will completely miss their target. However, their combined damage exceeds most of the secondary weapons.
** Dorothy's Toto Blaster fires a wave a bullets in a wide arc: Somewhat impractical in a gunfight, but perfect for dealing heavy damage to a Gunner (which has a massive weak point on its back).
* Gaige from ''[[Borderlands 2]]'' has a skill tree that begins with gradually increasing the damage dealt while decreasing her accuracy by a similar amount. And it can reach to the point to where she's hardly hitting anything, but the bullets that ''do'' hit can easily offset the accuracy penalty.
* ''[[Fire Emblem]]'':
** Generally speaking, the stronger a weapon is, the less accurate it becomes. This is particularly noticeable in ''[[Fire Emblem Elibe|The Binding Blade]]'' since in that game player units are underpowered and most weapons are quite inaccurate in the first place (e.g., a steel axe has a base 50% chance to hit, but 65% in the next game).
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** The Stoneborn from ''[[Fire Emblem: Fates|Fates]]'' tend to miss by a mile due to their abysmal Skill stat, but '''when'' they hit, it's enough to easily put someone out of commission.
* Pad from ''[[Nostalgia]]'' can learn a [[One-Hit Kill]] ability called "Dead Shot," which is significantly less accurate than the rest of his offensive attacks.
* True to their namesake, the Power Missiles in ''[[Twisted Metal]]'' hit harder than the Homing and Fire Missiles, but they're noticeably the least
* ''[[World of Tanks]]'':
** SPGs (self-propelled guns) are prone to missing by an wide margin, on account of their shells harmlessly landing in front or behind their targets. But ''when'' they directly hit an tank from a favourable angle, the results can range from [[Scratch Damage]], simply taking a sizable chunk out of a vehicle's health, killing a tank with one hit, and even a [[One-Hit Kill]] or [[One-Hit Polykill]].
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** One particularly extreme example is High Jump Kick, which is very powerful at 130 attack (in [[Pokémon Black and White|gen V onward]]) and 90% accuracy. In exchange, if the user misses they lose half their total HP.
** And there's also the [[One-Hit Kill]] moves like Horn Drill, which generally have an accuracy of 30%, gradually become more accurate if the user is a higher level than the target, and automatically miss if the target is a higher level than the user.
== [[Real Life]] ==
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[[Category:Combat Tropes]]
[[Category:Power At a Price]]
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