Instant Death Radius: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''"Oh, and this melee class is working just ''super''. [[Sarcasm Mode|I love getting wasted before dealing a single hit in]]."''|'''Leo''' of ''[[VG Cats]]'', see picture.}}

 

 

 

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== Tabletop Games ==

* ''[[Dungeons and Dragons|Dungeons & Dragons]]'' 3rd Edition was lousy with this, as monsters with reach (such as any monster that was ''larger than you'') could lay serious hurt on you with an Attack of Opportunity if you got within its radius, and unless the monster was using a reach weapon, it could threaten every square within its radius, meaning you could not charge or otherwise get close without sucking up an Attack of Opportunity and taking some heinous damage (because any melee monster worth its salt invariably has very high Strength, and high Strength = high attack bonus = high damage). A caster or archer could just hang back and blast them at range, but if you were a fighter or other class whose primary focus was on melee and wielding the weapons you would normally expect such characters to wield (swords, spears, axes, hammers and other weapons with normal reach), you could pretty much forget about actually doing any damage or contributing to the fight in any way other than being a "meat shield" for the others. Little wonder that the five-foot-step rule, which is called "shifting" in 4th Edition, was clarified in 3.5.

** The main thing though isn't the AoOs, but the full attack that follows. You can expect even the half-decent melee enemies to utterly annihilate you later on accordingly or at least beat you to within an inch of your life before you get another turn. Not sometimes, but every single turn. Dragons are infamous for this, as the higher age categories get six or more attacks per round. And the only way to stand up to regular melee enemies in close combat is to either be an Evasion Tank (see [[Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards]]) or just be heavily optimized...in effect, stuff that would normally be a [[Game Breaker]] is required for basic competency.

*** [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0216.html Attack of Opportunity! Attack of Opportunity!]

** It is an exceedingly bad idea to let a Carnifex near your tanks. not even your prized [[Nigh Invulnerable|Monolith]] will last the assault phase...

** Another oft-noted example is the Leman Russ Demolishor. With a 24" Instant Death Radius for it's Demolishor Cannon, most players give one a wide berth. Unfortunately, a Leman Russ also has at least one other weapon, so staying away from the big gun doesn't quite mean you're safe.

** The Eldar Farseer's [[Mind Rape|Mind War]] power is another example, it pretty much instant kills a single model within 18" unless they've got Ld 10 and a lot of Wounds (and sometimes even then) if you roll well. Also useful for 'declawing' a unit by removing it's heavy weapon trooper or [[Power Fist]]-wielding squad leader.

** The Eldar Revenant can unleash four strength Destroyer Large Blast templates in a single turn against up to two targets 60" away. Good luck surviving that, Space Marines!

** This also applies to the Gauss Rifle family and Clan ER-PPC weapons, both of which may hit only 75% as hard as the AC/20, but reach out to a range in excess of 20 hexes while being capable of [[Boom! Headshot!|taking off a 'Mech's head with a single shot.]]

 

 

* Pretty much every boss in ''[[Champions of Norrath]]'' is this. Doesn't matter if your class is supposed to be melee only, you don't go ''near'' these things. The sequel's bosses tend to be a bit less dangerous in melee, although there's still a few that getting close to will get you killed in a hurry.

* Many ''Forgotten Realms'' games, but the ''[[Baldur's Gate]]'' series in particular uses this trope. Sometimes the use of this trope is forgivable, as when you confront a powerful demon. Other times it's just somebody's random bodyguard who's so good at creaming that he causes the near-instantaneous Berserk "spell" to fail.

** Also, beholders are a lot less scary once you get all up in their business.

*** According to the official D&D Monster Manual, beholders are well aware of that fact.

** More literally is the final boss of the DLC story pack, A Crystaline Prophecy. The final boss is a stationary crystal. It has some hard hitting aoe spells, but nothing players haven't tangled with before. The problem? It also has an aoe attack centered on itself that charms all party members in range and turn them into a cute little plant monster (in look). Oh, and it can use Draw In to drag the current target of its ire right into proximity. Melee players have been screwed in trying to find parties for this fight, which is why it pays to have many spellcaster friends.

** Charybdis is a giant octopus who can multi attack up to six times per round. The only way to fight him solo is to either load up a ridiculous amount of evasion gear on a Thief so he can't hit you or to slow his movement speed as a Red Mage and run around the room until your damage over time spells slowly whittle down his hp over the course of several hours.

** Several Notorious Monsters have "aura" effects, status ailments that will apply to players if they are within range. While some of them are strictly annoying, some of them can kill you, such as Poison, Bio and [[Doomy Dooms of Doom|Doom]]. Yes, Square loves killing you so much that there are mobs that [[Everything Trying to Kill You|can kill you even if they aren't thinking about you]].

* Solvaring from ''Quest 64'' attacks with a powerful beam of magma if you stay at a distance. If you get in close, though, he attacks with an even more powerful and unavoidable rock spike attack.

*** Loken is a spiritual successor to Murmur in the Shadow Labyrinth, which had an inverse version of this trope active whenever he wasn't casting his nova attack in the heroic version, meaning that everyone had to stay fairly close to the boss and run away at the right time just outside the circle on the ground that marks the radius. A few other (mostly immobile) bosses had comparable abilities they only used when no one was near them, mostly to prevent players from trying to cheat.

** Certain outdoors raid bosses will apply "Mark" debuffs against players they kill which will stop the player from fighting them again for a while. This is done to prevent graveyard zerging. The four Nightmare green dragons place a Mark of Nature that puts you to sleep if you approach, the blue dragon Azuregos freezes you into an iceblock if you try, and the Outland [[Humongous Mecha|Fel]] [[Schizo-Tech|Reaver]] [[Doomy Dooms of Doom|Doom]][[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|walker]] has a Mark of Death. [[Instant Kill|You guess what it does.]]

*** Rom'ogg Bonecrusher pulls everyone into Melee Range and spawns an NPC called Chains of Woe that binds everyone to that spot. It must be quickly destroyed before Rom'ogg completes his attack and basically one-shots most players in range.

*** Ozruk has the ability ''Shatter'', which causes a visible radius to appear around him as he lifts a leg. If you do not run out of the radius in time, you pretty much die. To make matters worse, he paralyzes everyone before using it, so you need to have a [[Gradual Grinder|Damage over Time]] effect on you in order to escape. Luckily his mechanics do provide such options.

*** Assad has a sort of 'inverse death radius', in that everywhere but a designed safe zone is the death radius every now and then. To complicate matters, he casts ''Static Cling'' which you need to jump to avoid.

** As a panic button, administrators can spawn avatars that have a literal instant death radius.

** [[Two Words: Obvious Trope|One word:]] [[Everything's Better with Spinning|Whirlwind]]

* While playing ''[[Dwarf Fortress]]'' adventure mode, if you lose stealth within about 10 squares of a giant cave spider, no one will find your body.

* ''[[City of Heroes]]'' has quite a few bosses whose melee powers are much more formidable than their ranged attacks. Some even have damage auras, where if you are standing next to them, you'll get hurt, badly, even if you haven't drawn their attention yet. A melee character trying to take on such an enemy is going to be in a world of hurt without some serious support, and that's not even factoring in resistances on the part of the enemy...

** Such damage auras are also available to the players, so they can invoke this trope on lesser foes. Still, the archvillain versions are seriously amped up in the amount of damage they deal.

* The final boss of''Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits''. Unless you knew exactly what was coming (and the only way to do so is with a walkthrough) and equipped your melee fighters with all the normally-useless elemental protection you can get, getting in close with him is a deathwish.

* Many very large enemies in ''[[Serious Sam]]'' like the huge lava golem, Ugh Zan III or reptiloid highlanders have deadly melee attacks which can kill player almost instantly.

** On higher difficulties or [[Difficult but Awesome|against a skilled human player]], you do '''not''' want to get within grab range of [[Mighty Glacier|Tager]].

** Ragna's Devoured by Darkness Distortion Drive bites off a lot of the enemy's health and gives it to him. Pity about it being so [[Awesome but Impractical]], starting from being limited to grab range and getting worse from there.

* ''[[Team Fortress 2]]'' has the Sentry Guns, and the Engineer getting ready to build said gun can actually see the range of the weapon via a translucent colored sphere with the radius measured out from the barrel. Needless to say, anyone on the opposite team who comes within this range will find themselves on the wrong end of a lead barrage. Though luckily for the other team, attacks to buildings suffer no [[Short-Range Long-Range Weapon|damage falloff]] and thus most classes can destroy an unguarded one with ease if they can hit it from outside its range.

** The Pyro is a [[Kill It with Fire|blazing deathball]] within a space of about [[Video Game Flamethrowers Suck|five meters]], and also possesses a rather effective array of melee weapons as well. Any further out however, and nothing in the Pyro's arsenal but secondary weapons will be able to hit you at all.

* Every boss in [[Valkyrie Profile Covenant of the Plume]] other than the first one can automatically use a special attack at the end of their chain of attacks against you, even if they wouldn't be able to do so had you taken another story path and recruited them. Unless you have a ''lot'' of HP or you're using one of the main character's unique abilities, this is for all intents and purposes an automatic knockout. What's worse, if your characters attack en masse and the counter manages to KO one of you without the use of a special, they'll use the special on a second attacking character, typically knocking them out too. Against sword-using bosses like Darius, this means you shouldn't let anyone other than the main character get within reach of the counter, and maybe not even him until you've worn your foe down a bit. Against mages like Liselotte, well, here's hoping you've got at least five revival items on hand. And then there's the final boss of the good path, whose counter targets every character who attacked her and has a chance of stunning anyone who survives it.

* ''[[Ninja Gaiden]]'', Xbox remake, has the Gleaming Blade move and its [[Limit Break|Ultimate Technique versions]]. They do a number on normal enemies and can punish even [[Harder Than Hard|Master Ninja]] bosses significantly.

* Any ''goddamn'' flying enemy in ''[[Final Fantasy XII]]''. Especially the Esper in Zertinan Caverns, which is also immune to magic (and raises a Paling around itself at one point). Unless you have a ranged weapon equipped, you will be [[Curb Stomp Battle|trounced]].

** That is, until you get the Technick allowing you to attack from a range with any weapon. But that is only available later in the game or by rushing through a high-leveled area and hoping you don't die.

** The Torturer in ''II'' will ventilate you instantly with his M60 machine gun if you get in his sights at close range. Ditto for Sanchez, who you have to take out by throwing a grenade into his hiding place.

* Likewise, in ''[[Kane and Lynch]] 2:Dog Days'', taking a bullet at point-blank range usually results in an instant death.

* In ''[[Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine]]'' multiplayer, getting in line-of-sight of someone with a braced heavy bolter or melee range of someone with a Thunderhammer and Killing Blow is instant death, but only if they're looking at you.

* The Flowsand Lord in ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics A2]]'' has an attack that works like this: Enemies within its massive range get pulled onto tiles right next to him and get hit with a large amount of damage, which he absorbs to heal himself. And its range is so large that once you're hit with it, it's next to impossible for a character to move out of range before he uses it again. There are only five classes in the entire game that can hit him from outside the range of his attack, and you fight him early enough that you're unlikely to have any of those classes.

* Used to ''ludicrously'' unfair effect in ''[[Devil Survivor]]'', where one late-game boss, Belberith, has an Instant Death Radius of ''[[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard|the entire map you fight him on]]''.

** In the sequel, ''[[Devil Survivor 2]]'', the final boss, {{spoiler|Polaris}}, has this in it's first form and with one of it's components in it's third form as well. Said component follows up on this with the [[Sarcasm Mode|wonderful]] attack Multi-Strike [[This Is Gonna Suck|that can potentially hit everyone in the party two to seven times for 200+ physical damage per hit, where you'll most likely have about 500 Hit Points for the main characters by that point, if not lower]]. Thankfully though, equipping Null/Absorb/Repel Physical will stop the nightmare.