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* ''Der Clown Payday'': One of the heroes, wearing a police-grade body armor, holds a [[Mook]] in front of him as another [[Mook]] shoots him. The [[Mook]] in front of him is pierced by more than a dozen high-velocity rounds shot from a [[More Dakka|machine gun in full auto mode]] while the hero doesn't even have his shirt damaged.
* This trope is played completely straight and completely serious ,as it is literally the superpower of Eli in ''[[The Book of Eli]]'', due to him being protected by {{spoiler|God Himself}}. And while it may sound silly, it [[Badass|really]], [[Curb Stomp Battle|really]] [[So Cool Its Awesome|works]]
* Played straight in ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]'', especially the second film, wherein the main characters' ship is attacked by the Kraken, who kills most of the crew ''except'' for every single main character who board the lifeboats {{spoiler|except for Jack Sparrow, who is left at the ship and then killed by the Kraken as it sinks the boat. He comes [[Back
* In ''[[The Last of the Mohicans|Last of the Mohicans]]'', Alice, Cora, and Major Duncan are the only survivors of ''two'' giant massacres.
* The eponymous ''[[Mystery Team]]'' has tremendous luck for the fact that they're inexperienced detectives.
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** {{spoiler|Catelyn Stark}} doesn't let death get in the way of remaining in the series.
** {{spoiler|Brienne of Tarth}} faces death several times, but somehow always survives at the end.
* The ''[[Warhammer
** Since the death of {{spoiler|Bragg in book 5}} and {{spoiler|Corbec in book 7}}, it's been pretty clear that [[Anyone Can Die]]. Indeed, less than 10 characters named in the first book remain alive at the end of the twelfth, with another looking likely to go before the end of number 13. Poor, poor {{spoiler|Doc Dorden}}.
* Seen all the time in ''[[Discworld]]'' novels. Savvy characters sometimes just outright give up/run away because they recognize the plot armor the other guys have.
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** Also, in the last season, Lapidus {{spoiler|survives an exploding submarine}}, which is absolutely necessary for the plot because he's the only pilot. Parodied in "How Lost should have ended".
** This trope is actually [[Justified Trope]] in-story as the island itself protecting them. Characters can only die [[You Have Outlived Your Usefulness|when the island is done with them]]. Applies even more so to the main cast, {{spoiler|who are candidates to replace Jacob and have literal plot armor. Jack even figures this out and exploits it. He actually [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|lights a stick of dynamite and lets the fuse run out. Nothing happens]]}}.
* In all the ''[[Star Trek]]'' series, the weekly evil alien menaces have killed dozens of [[Red Shirt|redshirts]] but only two major characters. And one of them kind of [[Back
* All four main characters in ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'', but especially Bobby. The general rule is that Bobby is invincible, Sam, Dean and Castiel can die fairly frequently but will always be resurrected, and nobody else makes it through more than a season or two at most. {{spoiler|Both Castiel and Bobby die in season 7, with an entire episode dedicated to the latter. Although of course, a return through resurrection or haunting hasn't been ruled out.}}
* ''[[Doctor Who]]'' is notable for its extensive use of Plot Armor throughout its long run. It is also, oddly enough, notable for the occasional loss of plot armor for the Doctor when he actually does fail to get out of a situation "alive." (Of course, it returns soon enough for his [[Bizarre Alien Biology]] [[The Nth Doctor|to kick in]])
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** Chips in ''[[Deadlands]]''
** ''[[The World of Darkness]]'' games generally don't have this but in ''[[Kindred of the East]]'' [[Half Vampire|Dhampyr]] actually do have Plot Armor in the form of Passive Joss, which is a form of involuntary luck that sometimes stops them being hit by throwing freak events in the way.
* The first edition of ''[[Dungeons
** This is still true as of the game's ''fourth'' edition, which also (a) gives starting characters (though, to be fair, standard monsters as well) rather more hit points than ever before and (b) introduces the concept of 'minions' -- adversaries that [[Red Shirt|specifically exist]] to be taken out by [[One-Hit-Point Wonder|the first hit]] to be scored against them and thus explicitly lack any plot armor whatsoever.
* The Games Workshop ''[[Lord of the Rings]]'' game gave major characters Fate points, allowing them to shrug off wounds just ''because'' they're major characters. The number of fate points a character gets is determined by how good their final fate in the films and books is—for instance, Aragorn, Sam, Gandalf the White etc. have high fate point counts, whereas Boromir, Denethor, Grima Wormtongue etc have low counts.
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* ''[[Shadowrun]]'' has a "karma pool" for each character. You can "burn" one or more dice to give yourself a bonus to some challenging roll at a moment of dire need. The karma is gone once used, but survive long enough and you'll get more.
** ''Shadowrun'' also has a related rule called Dead Man's Trigger. The character will still die, but by using up their entire Karma pool, they can enact one last action before expiring. This can result in the last hero standing shooting the [[Big Bad]] dead just before succumbing to all the wounds taken during the final climactic battle, making it literal plot armor... it protects the plot, even if it doesn't manage to protect the character.
* Invulnerable saves in ''[[Warhammer
* The newer d20 ''Star Wars RPG'' has "Force points" which can be spent on temporary bonuses.
** The older Revised Edition d20 ''Star Wars RPG'' had vitality points to represent hits as tiring near-misses, and critical hits could very well kill you since they bypassed them.
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** As for ''Morrowind,'' plot-critical NPCs were capable of dying just as everyone else was, and since the game had no "dynamic targeting reticule" that turned into a crown whenever it was pointing to someone particularly important, the player had to make sure he or she understood who was important. Hopefully no one [[Wide Open Sandbox|came across a character]] he or she was not meant to at the time, before knowing if or why this character was important.
*** However, if a character important to the main plot was killed, the game was decent enough to inform you that the "thread of prophecy has been severed" and suggest that you might want to re-load.
* ''[[Grand Theft Auto IV]]'': If a plot-critical NPC is "killed" during gameplay, outside of [[Plotline Death]], they will later come [[Back
* ''[[Warcraft]] III'' hero units took less damage from most forms of attack. Even though they could be slain non-plot, they could be [[Back
* In ''[[Wing Commander (video game)|Wing Commander]]'' and ''[[Wing Commander (video game)|Wing Commander]] II'' (and associated [[Expansion Pack|add-ons]]), the home bases for the character are able to take damage far exceeding the defensive stats in the manual. In the WC2 add-ons, the ''Bonnie Heather'' is pretty much unkillable by anything. Attempting to destroy it using the "Finger of God" option in [[Debug Mode]] crashes the game.
* ''[[Prince of Persia|Prince of Persia: Sands of Time]]'' lampshades this with the Prince telling the story of his adventures. When you die in-game, he comments that it didn't happen that way and that he should start again. Though how you relate a story to someone and mistakenly add a bit in where you died is beyond me.
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* [[Order of the Stick]] lampshades this in [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0251.html the last panel of this strip]. Miko is shown to hold her own against the Order with Durkon doing nothing, and is very strongly implied to only have this ability in bad weather, which acts against V's magic and Haley's shooting. But in the linked strip, she beats and captures the entire Order between panels, not even merely routing them.
** Lampshaded when two injured redshirts announce that they have names and are instantly cured. One also reveals her last name, the other says he is saving his "for an emergency."
* Shelley Winters of ''[[Scary Go Round]]'' is indestructible. She survives several catastrophes that should have killed her, and even a few that ''did'', but she came [[Back
* ''[[Homestuck]]'' gets hit with this pretty hard; while the series doesn't shy away from the main characters dying, there's usually a loophole to get them out of it. Dream selves, time hopping doubles, and alternate timeline duplicates are all fair game though. In fact this is so prevalent that when {{spoiler|Bro and Davesprite}} were [[Killed Off for Real]], the predominant fan reaction was [[Like You Would Really Do It]]. {{spoiler|Turns out only one was actually killed.}}
** Andrew Hussie is also prone to giving characters temporary plot armor by way of the series's weird time mechanics and flash-forwards.
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== [[Real Life]] ==
* [[Real Life]] examples will tend to be due to the [[Anthropic Principle]] - if they hadn't survived, they wouldn't have made history. Of course, this logic can be used to [[Hand Wave]] most of the above fictional examples as well - if they hadn't survived, there wouldn't have been a story.
* It's almost creepy the way the military career of [[George Washington]] seems to follow this trope. To wit, during his service in The [[Seven Years' War]] (more commonly known Stateside as the French and Indian Wars), Washington had several horses shot out from under him, his uniform was damaged by musket balls at the limits of their range that failed to pierce his skin and he participated in some of the most disastrous routs the Colonial forces would suffer during the conflict and lived to tell the tale, all without ever taking a single bullet wound. This wouldn't be so strange, if not for the fact that Washington, by most accounts, was not especially competent in his early career, in fact he was even directly responsible for some of said routs (though largely due to his superiors piling responsibilities on him that were far beyond his level of experience). It is almost as if history itself knew it could not afford to lose him for the massive role he would soon play in it.
* In a darker vein, [[Adolf Hitler]] was so [[Lucky Bastard|lucky]] that he managed to shrug off a [[Hitler's Time Travel Exemption Act|puzzling]] [[Wild Mass Guessing/Other/The Ultimate Question of Life the Universe And Everything|42]] attempts on his life over the course of his career. These included such [[Ass Pull|ass pulls]] as him cutting a speech uncharacteristically short when unknowingly facing a time bomb, having a would be assassin interrupted when his bomb only had 50% of the planned explosives,<ref>experiments have shown little to no chance of survival if the bomb was fully armed.</ref> and explosives simply refusing to go off in the guy's vicinity.
** Most of these actually did result in deaths - the deaths of his impersonators.
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