Standard Status Effects: Difference between revisions

For some reason, the effects of hazardous status effects, within the rules of the game, almost never change. Poison is going to slowly sap your HP. Silence is going to block your magic. Paralysis is going to keep you from moving. And the same status effects will show up in every game. It may be that gamers are [[The Coconut Effect|so hardwired]] to expect certain effects from certain conditions that trying to change them is more trouble than it's worth.

 

 

Games with these effects will usually feature a spell or item that cures each one individually, as well as another item, encountered later, that will cure all of them. By some inexplicable homeopathy by design, monsters that cause these effects will frequently [[Randomly Drops|drop]] the [[Carrying the Antidote|item that cures it.]] Don't [[Fridge Logic|think about it too much.]] Then again, anti-venom in [[Real Life]] is actually made from the venom itself so there may be some kernel of [[Truth in Television]] in that aspect.

 

 

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[[Universal Poison|Slowly saps your HP]]. In turn-based games, it will deal a set amount of damage at the beginning (sometimes end) of each turn. If the game in question doesn't automatically cure status effects at the end of each battle, this effect almost always lingers until cured, often draining a bit of HP even outside of battle with each step you take. Some games (''[[Tales of Symphonia]]'', ''[[Pokémon]]'') have both regular poisons and stronger, more potent poisons that sap more health at a time. This can sometimes get hilariously out of hand, as evidenced [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4272418.stm here].

 

* In ''[[Castlevania]]: [[Castlevania: Chronicles of Sorrow|Aria of Sorrow]]'', the Poison status reduces your stats and attack power considerably, but otherwise does no HP damage. Reversed with the Zombie soul - when equipped, you actually get ''stronger'' while poisoned.

** In ''[[Castlevania]]: [[Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin|Portrait of Ruin]]'', not only does poison severely lower your stats, but it also drains your health.

* In ''[[Light Crusader]]'', poison switches around controls instead of sapping health.

 

** Additionally, if Olimar throws a white Pikmin at an opponent and hits them, they'll take constant damage until the Pikmin is knocked off.

 

* ''[[Team Fortress 2]]'' has a few weapons that inflict Bleeding, which deals damage over time much like Afterburn, but can only be stopped by picking up a Medkit. Otherwise, it wears off on its own.

* ''[[Borderlands]]'' has corrosion, which works like a poison. The enemy loses their shields' power and then their health over time and if they get killed by the corrosive effects, their bodies turn green and disintegrate! Enemies that have armor (man made or natural) are highly vulnerable to this effect. There is also an electrocution effect that works the same way.

 

* ''[[Diablo]] II'' has a poisoned status that continuously drains health and may prevent or counteract attempts at healing. It doesn't drop a player's health below 1 HP, though mobs and NPCs are not so lucky.

 

* There's actually a type of MMO based around the Plague status effect, it's called a "Virtual Plague", and is used in pathology studies.

* ''[[Guild Wars]]'' has Poison, Disease, and Bleeding. Overall, some status effects in the game get their own mechanic, "conditions". Only one condition of a particular type can be on a character at a time, and conditions effect and are effected by certain skills, separate from other buffs and debuffs.

* [[World of Warcraft]] Has this all over. The Affliction Warlocks and Feral Cat Druids are desgined to take down enemies his way.

 

* Introduced in Patapon 3, poisoned units will have purple bubbles floating over them. Some items can be used to prevent or cause this status.

* [[Pandemic]] is about seeing how many people you can infect with Plague, and choosing the symptoms, infection vectors, and making it deadly without being especially noticeable.

 

* In ''[[Nethack]]'', poisoning is always fairly serious. It may result in permanent or semi-permanent loss of attributes. Food poisoning is fatal unless treated very fast.

* In ''[[Dungeon Crawl]]'', poison slowly damages hitpoints. There is also rotting, which damages one's ''maximum'' hitpoints, leaving a far more enduring hit on one's character. There's also the curare poison which is far more deadly because it has additional effects over the standard poisoning.

 

* ''[[Pokémon]]'' has a couple of variants on poison (which is the only status effect to continue to take its effect outside of battle). Normal Poison just removes 1/8 of the Pokemon's HP every turn. A Pokemon that's ''badly'' poisoned by moves such as Toxic will lose [[Hit Points]] at an accelerating rate (starts at 1/16 and increases by 1/16 each turn). Poison and Steel-type Pokémon and ones with the ability Immunity can't be poisoned.

** Also, pre-Generation V, Poison damages Pokémon outside of battle as you walk (1 HP every 4-5 steps) until it faints or is healed. In Generation IV, the poison wears off on its own outside battle when the Pokémon is at exactly [[Critical Existence Failure|1 HP]].

** There's another status condition called "Leech Seed", which only removes 1/8 of the victim's health each turn; however, half of the amount of health lost to Leech Seed will be bestowed upon the opponent. Grass-type Pokemon are immune to this. Some have an ability called "Liquid Ooze" which will cause Leech Seed and other moves with health-draining effects to instead ''reduce'' the HP of the Pokemon that would otherwise benefit from them.

*** Speaking of Toxic and Leech Seed, in [[Pokémon Red and Blue]] both moves' HP-draining effects are controlled by the same variable in the game's memory, meaning that if both moves are in play, [[Good Bad Bugs|Leech Seed's damage goes up with Toxic's.]]

* In the early ''[[Phantasy Star]]'' games poison only prevents the afflicted character from healing damage (until PSIV, where it does damage.)

* The later ''[[Wizardry]]'' games featured both plague and poison, but poison worked conventionally while disease operated like Cursing (see below), and was the most dangerous status effect in the game.

* ''[[Final Fantasy IV]]'' introduced the smaller-but-faster HP drain in the form of Sap for the ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' series, which was used again in sequel games such as ''[[Final Fantasy V]]'' and ''[[Final Fantasy XII]]''. It acts in a similar manner to Poison, only instead of causing damage after actions or set intervals, it drains your HP constantly. Particularly deadly if you're inflicted with both Sap ''and'' Poison. The only saving grace of Sap is that it wears off after battle (except in [[Final Fantasy XII|XII]], due to the way the battle system works).

** ''[[Final Fantasy VI]]'' had a variation of Sap called Seizure. This is notable because, unlike [[Revive Kills Zombie|Poison]], a [[Good Bad Bugs|bug in the game]] caused Seizure to hurt the undead as well as the living, with some major unintended consequences like humorous battles with undead monsters who would slowly kill themselves.

* ''[[Final Fantasy IX]]'' had not only the standard poison effect, but also a nastier version referred to as 'Venom'. It did proportionally more damage at a time than poison, [[Mana Burn|reduced MP]] along with the HP damage, and even prevented the afflicted character from moving (as though afflicted with 'Stop')! And this in a game where you lose if every character on the party is rendered unable to act...

* ''[[Black Sigil]]: Blade of the Exiled'' includes a standard Poison effect that drains your health a bit every so often.

* There are two varieties of poison in the ''[[Dragon Quest]]'' series: poisoned and envenomed. The difference between the two? Poisoned characters are only damaged when walking outside of battle. Envenomed characters take damage both in and out of battle.

* The ''[[Golden Sun]]'' RPG series has two kinds of Poison Status effects. One is called poison, which shows as cloud puffs that look like green skulls to appear as if it is leaking from your opponent's head, and inflicts about 10% of the victim's max HP in damage each time they act (which gets even more dangerous to bosses that move two or three times each round) as well as Venom Status, which shows pretty much the same as Poisoned, only it does twice the damage and instead of the skulls being green, they are a sickly-looking orange-red.

* Standard in ''[[Shin Megami Tensei]]'' games. Notable in that it's rather easy to poison enemies (as easy as it is for them to poison you), it deals very considerable damage, and that left untreated, you ''will'' die. Sometimes it comes paired with ''[[Game Breaker|Pestilence]]'', an attack designed ''specifically'' as a [[One-Hit Kill]] for poisoned characters.

 

* ''[[Minecraft]]'' has a poison status of two flavors. The first one is the standard poison that reduces your health every second until the effects wear off. The poison can't kill you and only drops your health to half a heart if it gets that low, but that will leave you open to be killed in one shot by anything else in the area that can hurt you. The second flavor of poison is food poisoning, which may occur when you eat rotten flesh or eat uncooked meats. Food poisoning will reduce your hunger meter at a faster rate until it wears off.

 

* ''[[Resident Evil]]'' has had poisoning since the very first entry, requiring blue herbs in order to cure it. Some later entries also introduced bleeding out, with much the same effect and requiring a hemostat to heal.

* ''[[Dino Crisis]]'' uses the bleeding-out variety in the first two titles.

 

** There's another condition, Disease, that does ability damage every day until the victim has successfully made two saving throws against it. A few diseases (well, at least one, anyways - the name of it was "devil chills") required the victim to make ''three'' consecutive successful saving throws to get rid of them. And then there were a few diseases, like "mummy rot", which could only be stopped with magical assistance, regardless of how well the victim resisted them. There were even a few diseases (and poisons) which caused ability drain, which is just like ability damage except that it does ''not'' go away over time, and requires certain spells (namely "restoration" and its more powerful variants) to reverse. As should be obvious by now, D&D had a ''lot'' of different poisons and diseases, which mainly varied in what they attacked, how much damage they caused (usually, but not always, to ability scores,) and how difficult they were to resist. The common thread was the requirement to make Fortitude saves to resist them and their penchant for causing repeated damage.

* ''[[GURPS]]'' poisons are modeled fairly conventionally, in that they damage you in cycles of a defined length, and wear out after some number of cycles. However, while poisons ''normally'' deal the "toxic" damage type, there is nothing stopping them from dealing burning or crushing damage, and they can have other effects linked to them, frequently in the form of a temporary disadvantage.

* ''[[Pokémon (game)|Pokémon]]'': Poisoned Pokémon get a poison counter. They lose 10 HP at the end of every turn. Some attacks that cause Poison will say that the Poisoned Pokémon will take more than 10 damage each turn (usually 20 instead of 10).

 

* In ''[[Kid Icarus: Uprising|Kid Icarus Uprising]]'', poison constantly deals around 1 HP of damage for some time.

 

 

* In ''[[Odium]]'', characters/monsters who are poisoned receive damage for three turns, receiving 15, 10 and 5 damage each subsequent turn.

 

 

A fire-based status effect, but it is otherwise a wild card that can have a range of effects (sapping the user's HP is a popular effect). If the game also features a Freeze status effect (and chances are good it already does), the two may even cancel each other out.

 

* Some ''[[The Legend of Zelda]]'' games have enemies that can set Link on fire. Link will lose hearts periodically while immolated, but this can be treated by rolling or some attacks.

 

* "Afterburn" is the Pyro's trademark ability in ''[[Team Fortress 2]]''. It deals damage over time, wears off eventually and can only be stopped by picking up a Medkit, diving into water, being doused by a friendly Sniper's Jarate, being doused by a friendly Scout's Mad Milk or being airblasted by a friendly Pyro. The Pyro [[Viewer Gender Confusion|himself/herself]] cannot be set on fire and thus doesn't have to worry about Afterburn. The Soldier's Cow Mangler 5000 weapon can, with a charged-up shot, inflict Afterburn and if a Pyro puffs their Flamethrower at a friendly Sniper who is carrying a Huntsman, the Sniper's arrow [[Arrows on Fire|will be lit up.]]

* ''[[Borderlands]]'' has guns and grenades that can cause burn damage to enemies and can set them on fire, chipping away at their shields and health.

 

** Thermal Shock, maybe?

* ''[[Guild Wars]]'' has burning cause a large amount of health degeneration (7 arrows vs. 4 for poison and disease). Burn effects usually last for shorter times to compensate.

* Fire Mages and Destruction Warlocks in [[World of Warcraft]] both get abilities that tick away at the targets HP.

 

* Patapons (and enemies) can get burned in all 3 games.

 

* In ''[[Dungeon Crawl]]'', sticky flames (cast as a spell of breathed by a dragonoid) will damage the burning character quickly while damaging their scrolls. Stepping into water cancels the flames. Burning sheeps have an unique property - they may spread the fire to other sheep.

 

 

* [[Pokémon]] lose 1/8 of its health a turn and also have their Attack halved while on fire - due to physical burns all over you, you may suffer from weakened attacks. Fire-types and ones with the ability Water Veil are immune to burn. The ability Heatproof reduces the damage taken from burns, and the ability Guts instead raises attack while burned.

** Strangely enough, there is a Water-type attack (Scald) and an '''Ice-type''' attack (Ice Burn) that can inflict this.

* In some of the ''[[World of Mana]]'' games (such as ''[[Secret of Mana]]''), being on fire results in continual, persistent damage in which your characters can't do anything until the flames stop.

* Characters can be set aflame in ''[[Black Sigil]]: Blade of the Exiled''. It acts similarly to Poison, draining health over time, but generally wears off after a while whereas Poison tends to last the whole fight unless cured. Not so bad in itself, but it can actually deal good damage should you be Poisoned ''and'' on fire.

* "Ignite" in some ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'' games, which is functionally the same as poison, chipping away a fixed amount of the victim's health periodically. It's represented by the player character being literary set on fire. It's particularly amusing to see Axel with the effect, given that he's a [[Playing with Fire|fire user]] who could absorb fire damage in boss fights against him.

 

* A normal damage type in ''GURPS'', "burning", will set human flesh on fire if it deals at least 30 points of damage in a single hit. That much damage would normally kill a character right out, but if it's dealt to a limb, the limb is now disabled ''and you're on fire''. Take 1d6-1 damage per turn.

* Several cards in [[Shadow Era]] can set enemy allies and heroes on fire, doing one damage a turn.

 

* The Burning status in ''[[Kid Icarus: Uprising|Kid Icarus Uprising]]'' basically has the same effect as Poison, but deals slightly more damage in exchange for wearing off faster.

 

* In ''[[Odium]]'', characters/monsters set on fire burn for three turns, receiving 15, 10 and 5 damage each subsequent turn.

 

 

 

* Some ''Zelda'' games have enemies with electrical attack that will zap Link either through contact or through electrified projectiles. Link will be unable to act until the electrical shock disperses - in ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword|The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword]]'', it is possible for Link to take an electrical attack, spasm uncontrollably, and be smothered by sinksand, in that order. Watch your step, and deal with electrical enemies before committing to a crossing.

 

* Characters can be stunned in the [[Street Fighter]] series if hit with a large number of attacks without blocking. Street Fighter III even has a stun gauge that induces stun if filled.

 

* ''[[Guild Wars]]'' avoids this confusion, replacing it with the simple and logical "knocked down," which is [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|exactly what it sounds like]].

* ''[[City of Heroes]]'' feature a pretty clear "stun vs. immobilize" mechanic, only stun also tends to limit the speed at which stunned characters can move at down to pretty much the slowest a character is allowed to move. Still just about fast enough to move out of a fire burning under your feet, but not nearly fast enough for you to get anywhere, or get away. Immobilize on the other hand allows the character to fight, either using ranged attacks or meleeing with an enemy close enough, but cannot move from their position.

* ''[[Spiral Knights]]'' has the Shock status, which causes the afflicted to be paralyzed for a second (and take damage, although this is blockable) due to spasms from electricity going through their bodies. This is probably the most notorious status effect later on, due to enemies being able to constantly reapply the status leading to death via infinite spasm-lock.

 

* In ''[[Nethack]]'', paralysis prevents all actions and lasts for an uncomfortably long period of time. "Killed by a newt, while helpless" (i.e., while paralyzed) is a common ending for many a new adventurer.

 

* In ''[[Pokémon]]'', Paralysis is permanent until cured, cuts Speed by three quarters, and has a 25% chance of preventing an attack from working.

** In the card game, Paralyzed Pokémon can't attack or retreat during its owner's turn. It's cured at the end of that turn.

** Case in point, ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics]]'', at least the original, has "Don't Move/Immobilize" And "Don't Act/Paralyze" which are exactly what they sound like.

* ''[[Shin Megami Tensei]]'' has Stun, which has an excellent chance at stopping the afflicted party from moving at all. Another version is Paralyze, which may be the result of an Electric attack that is not repelled, absorbed or nulled: the victim remains convulsing for the rest of the turn, leaving it defenseless and open to physical revenge (all attacks it receives while paralyzed count as Criticals, netting the enemy, either the player or the computer, more Press Turns).

* Depending on the game, paralysis in the [[Tales (series)]] either prevents action until cured, prevents action for a short time, or perhaps most annoyingly, causes the afflicted character to flinch at random intervals.

* A Paralyzed character or enemy in ''[[Black Sigil]]: Blade of the Exiled'' will be totally unable to move or act, as their time bar is frozen for the duration of the effect.

* Paralysis is relatively rare in the ''[[Dragon Quest]]'' series, but it can be particularly annoying, especially if the paralyzed person is the only one who can cure it with magic, or if you don't have moonwort bulbs. More common are "shock" attacks that cause a character to lose their turn.

** ''Origins'' replaced it with Stun, which worked a bit differently from most paralysis; the character could move and attack, but any damage resulted in instant knockdown.

 

** Third Edition characters could also be stunned (with basically the same effects as 4e), as well as Dazed, which prevents the character from taking actions but doesn't hinder his defenses.

* Several in ''GURPS'': Stunning is a common side-effect of major wounds, being knocked down, and the Affliction advantage. You have to make a health roll to break out of it, and until then, you can't take any action. The Binding advantage doesn't knock its victim out, but holds them in place, meaning they have to win an opposed contest of strength with whatever supernatural gobbledygook is keeping them down, or else they can't move. And the Terror advantage forces your victim to make a Fright Check, which will probably inflict Stunning, but maybe also drive the victim crazy.

 

* In ''[[Kid Icarus: Uprising|Kid Icarus Uprising]]'', being paralyzed slows you down considerably, and often halts movement altogether, though it wears off quickly.

 

* [[Nippon Ichi]] games' paralysis stops movement (but not actions) and reduces the affected character's speed to 1 (meaning that every attack against it automatically hits). An exception is made for ''[[Phantom Brave]]'', where paralysis halves speed (which affects how many turns the character gets) and movement range.

** Note that, since fist weapons (from game 2) and guns (game 3) also run off speed for their damage formula, this effectively cuts their attack power in half.

 

 

 

* In [[Super Smash Brothers]] characters can be put to sleep. Interestingly, it can only be caused by a pokemon, either one from a Pokeball (Bellossom, Togepi) or it is a cause of Jigglypuff's Up B move, sing, which causes sleep in her games. It usually only lasts for a couple of seconds, but it's possible to put characters in sleep lock where they doze off immediately after waking up using the aforemented pokeball pokemon. Jigglypuff however, needs to time her move so they don't wake up before she stops singing

 

* ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' has potions that make you sleep in a healthy way, restoring health and mana rapidly. A more traditional Sleep effect is also in place, but can generally only be used on animals (and druids in animal forms). For players that is, monsters with the spell have no problems putting ''you'' to sleep.

** Before it got nerfed, the 'x% chance per received hit to put melee attackers asleep for 30 seconds (any damage will wake them up)' level 30 leather chest, obtained with crafting, was great fun in pvp and handy in pve. It used to put anything to sleep, regardless of level difference. It was very useful in the right situations for tanks, ranged classes and druids for some extra crowd control. It might still be useful now, but it's not as powerful as it used to be. Limited to sleeping enemies under lvl 55 and only 5 or 10 seconds sleeping time i checked.

* ''[[Spiral Knights]]'' has the "regenerate health while asleep" version of this status, although the reason you'll see the status is if someone needs to clear space for a better status vial, due to the only area with sleep-inducing monsters not being in the game (as of 5/15/11)

 

* In ''[[Warcraft]] 3'', neutral monsters sleep during the night, making them easier to ambush. Since there's no separate 'sleeping' animation, trolls can actually do ''backflips'' in their sleep, just as they do when awake.

** The Dread Lord heroes also have a 'sleep' skill that does what it says on the tin.

* Patapons (and enemies/bosses) can be put to sleep with the right units and weapons, although it's rare to see a boss fall asleep.

 

* ''[[Pokémon]]'' uses this, which prevents attacking for 1-7 turns. Pokemon with the abilities Insomnia or Vital Spirit are immune to this. Amusingly, you can wake them up with a reusable flute item in some versions, and in ''Coliseum'' you can just ''yell at them''.

** And then there's the move Rest, which forces your Pokemon to sleep for two turns (not counting the one used doing it), but fully restores its health and removes other status effects. It's a key component in many tournament players' lineups.

** There's also a move called "Snore" that could be used while a Pokemon was asleep. There's also "Sleep Talk" where the Pokemon will use a random move while asleep. Either one of these will likely be found on a Pokemon that knows Rest.

** In the card game, sleeping Pokémon can't attack or retreat. Between turns, its owner flips a coin. If it lands on heads, the Pokémon wakes up.

* ''[[Lost Kingdoms]] II'' had this, but the target in question stops moving and recovers health slowly. Plus, as to add some realism, Tara kneels down while asleep. The sequence she does to fall asleep and wake up immobilizes her, as if playing with Tara wasn't hard enough as it is.

* In ''[[Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne]]'', you will actually beg to be put to sleep. It immobilises you but restores HP AND MP. Anyone who plays this knows that mana is like gold dust in this game, what with the critical macca shortage one starts experiencing early on due to having to pay considerable sums of money that increase the more you need healing, as opposed to the typical '[[Trauma Inn|100 gil full rest]]'. Of course, this is only for the first part of the game, until the spellcasters doing this couple this with ''Eternal Rest'' - an unavoidable [[One-Hit Kill]] which only will kill sleeping people.

** In ''[[Digital Devil Saga]]'', [[The Load|Cielo]] has a move tailored to exploit his weakness to ailments: ''Null Sleep'', which will effectively ''null all attacks he receives'' when he's sleeping. ''Very'' useful against the [[Bonus Boss]].

* In ''[[Black Sigil]]: Blade of the Exiled'', being put to sleep stops a character from acting for a few turns, but being attacked will wake you up, physical or magical. Tends to be undone by angry monsters before you need to bother curing it, unless the only creatures present like reinflicting Sleep over and over.

* Sleep in the ''[[Dragon Quest]]'' series tends to last for several turns, and it usually cannot be interrupted by physical attacks.

* Appears in ''[[Xenoblade Chronicles]]'', where the victim is unable to act for a lengthy period of time, and is guaranteed to be critically hit, but will wake up upon taking damage.

 

* One powerup in ''[[Backyard Sports|Backyard Football]]'' makes the other characters fall asleep, allowing the player with the ball to easily score a touchdown.

 

* ''GURPS'' Afflictions can incapacitate their target in a variety of ways. To get the effect that "sleep" usually has in RPGs, you want to Daze them; Unconsciousness makes them fall over, and they can't be woken up until it wears off, other magic effects notwithstanding.

 

* [[Disgaea]]'s version of sleep immobilizes the character. Said character can be woken up with any attack, but in return the attack will be treated as a [[Critical Hit]].

 

 

 

** The Silence skill is also one of the Dark Ranger's ability's in ''Warcraft3''.

** Marksmanship Hunters get an ability called Silencing Shot. Guess what it does.

** Since Cataclysm, pretty much everyone can interupt and silence a casting target.

* ''[[Guild Wars]]'' has a particularly nasty status condition called Dazed. Characters suffering from it take twice as long to cast their spells and said spells can be interrupted by any attack that hits them.

** "Interrupt" is a mechanic which does [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin]] and can be thought of as active Silencing: it requires very good timing, but a player with a bar full of interruption skills can prevent their enemies from successfully casting any spells. Doing so is known ingame as "[[And I Must Scream|shut-down]]", and there is an entire class devoted to it. (Ironically, this class barely has any skills which apply the Dazed condition. They don't need it.)

 

* Silence is a fairly common debuff in ''[[League of Legends]]''. It prevents the use of ''all'' abilities, including items with active effects and summoner spells.

 

* You can tell when characters in ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]'' have been silenced because they have a large speech bubble filled with [[Visible Silence]] over their heads.

* Ward from ''[[Final Fantasy VIII]]'' and Garnet/Dagger from ''[[Final Fantasy IX]]'' lose their voices for segments of the game, and can still cast magic (though, during that segment, Garnet will occasionally fail to do what you ask her to do). They're also still susceptible to the Silence status ailment. [[Fridge Logic|Go figure.]]

* ''[[Persona 3]]'' refers to this as '''Panic''', where a character, well, panics and can't concentrate on using magic or summoning their Persona.

** The [[Shin Megami Tensei|main series]] also has the ailment, as Mute.

* "Stopspell" from the first ''[[Dragon Quest]]'' games does [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin]], blocking your opponent from using his spells. It can be a lifesaver if you're facing a spellcasting enemy and want to stop him from using his nastier magic (particularly if he can also cast Stopspell) on you. It's known as "Fizzle" in the recent translations, and it affects a whole group of enemies to boot! Needless to say, it gets annoying when enemies start tossing it at your entire party.

* ''[[Exile]]'' has {{color|lightgrey|''Dumbfounded''}}, where the character forgets their spells. This is to avoid the whole "Why can they speak?" issue.

* In ''[[Mother 3]]'', if you get inflicted with "forgetfulness", you won't be able to use any skills/PSI.

** The game also has a ridiculous variant, ''fleas''.

* The Arts Seal status in ''Xenoblade Chronicles'' prevents you from using any attacks or abilities other then basic auto-attack.

 

* ''[[GURPS]]'' has both Mana Damper and Neutralize. The former acts on the mana level of the area, perhaps an area consisting of only one person (if you take appropriate enhancements). Neutralize disables an advantage; this is something innate to the character, rather than a spell they learned. Neutralize is meant for use against ''psionic'' powers, which are ostensibly different from magic in that they're something a character does entirely with their mind, not requiring mana or magic words or any of that stuff; but if the GM allows it, there's nothing really stopping you from using Neutralize to cancel a sorcerer's ability to generate mana.

 

* However, in ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics Advance]]'', being silenced will only block off abilities that would intuitively require speaking - magic spells, but also abilities like "Cheer" and "Advice."

** Its cousin, Addled, blocks ''everything'', but it barely ever shows up.

 

 

Either totally stops or sharply decreases the accuracy of physical attacks, much as Silence does for magic. In the ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' games, this often has a strange tendency to not be a very large accuracy drop... (Well, if your enemies are all standing neatly in a row waiting patiently to be attacked...)

 

* ''[[Ragnarok Online]]'' has blindness not only decrease accuracy and dodge rate, but also limits the actual area a player can see.

* ''[[Guild Wars]]'' has this condition as well, giving physical attacks a 90% chance to miss.

* If there's one thing that rogues in ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' are known for, it's that they can be righteous dicks. Especially with their ability "Blind" which, in this case, renders the user completely useless and wandering around for a good 10 seconds. Any damage will cause the the afflicted character to "see" again by knowing where their opponent is and cancel the wandering effect.

* ''[[City of Heroes]]'' does have a "blinded" effect, but all this typically does is reduce player perception, making enemies either completely invisible, or only visible when they are very close to the character. However, powers that apply blind effects typically come with accuracy-reducing effects anyway, so it's relatively safe to say that blindness makes seeing and hitting enemies harder. Oddly, it does not make seeing TERRAIN harder, causing many an instance of running into a seemingly empty, clearly visible room, only to be insta-killed by enemies which were there, but you just didn't see.

 

** However when used on a 'Detector' it becomes unable to see invisible units that aren't in it's now limited field of vision, even with a spotter.

* Some champions in ''[[League of Legends]]'' can apply the "Blind" debuff on enemies, causing all attacks to miss. It's usually short-lived, but it can mean a world of difference when facing an enemy that relies heavily on basic attacks to deal damage, especially if they also rely on lifesteal to maintain health.

 

** Blindness also prevents the character from seeing what's on the ground, forcing them to use their hands. Woe be to the adventurer who just killed a cockatrice and isn't wearing gloves! Scrolls can't be recognized or read (instead of "a scroll labeled AXLDFKJ" you just get "a scroll"), gemstones are all "stones", and in general a blinded character will learn that [[The Dev Team Thinks of Everything]].

 

** In later titles, it limits your field of vision to a tiny circle around your character. In the case of enemies, it just makes them attack in random directions at random times.

* And on the opposite end, games like ''[[Wizardry]]'' also include characters with terrible directional hearing. How the heck else can one explain the tendency to be surrounded by enemies and accidentally shoot someone ''standing right next to you''?

* ''[[Final Fantasy VI]]'' unintentionally averts this trope in the original with a glitch making the evade stat useless, thus making blind, which makes evade 0... completely harmless. And, thus, the item that prevents blindness, [[Goggles Do Nothing]]

** Well, actually, there is still ONE thing Blindness does: Strago can learn any Lore he ''sees'' [[Death Is a Slap on The Wrist|(whether or not he survives seeing it)]], so if he can't see anything, he can't learn any Lores.

* ''[[Radiata Stories]]'' actually blurs and pixelates the screen when your character is afflicted with Blind, so neither the character ''nor the player'' can see what's going on.

* In the ''[[Mega Man X Command Mission]]'', which replaces standard statues effects and spells with robotics-themed counterparts, not only does this status reduce the character's accuracy, but their evasive ability as well (can't dodge what you can't see, right?).

* ''[[Golden Sun]]'' has the Delusion status, which reduces the affected creature's accuracy.

 

* A possible effect of a ''[[GURPS]]'' Affliction. Generally, this gives a -8 penalty to all attacks, which is enormous in ''GURPS'' terms.

 

 

 

* There are lots of ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' mobs that go berserk when their hit points fall below a certain percentage. Conveniently, they're often called "Foo Berserkers".

** Some ogres have a particularly silly version of it: it increases their attack power, but also slows their attack speed so much that it's basically canceled out ''and'' slows them down so much that ranged classes have an even easier time dealing with them.

* Lord Knights in ''[[Ragnarok Online]]'' can purposely go Berserk. It ups their attack speed, hit chance, and overall attack power for the duration. Unfortunately, their defense drops, and Berserk mode slowly zaps away their HP. Oh, and they can't even chat with guildmates until it wears off... or they die, whatever happens first.

 

* Many ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' games have the player capable of casting berserk on enemies as well as themselves. Perfect for preventing [[Squishy Wizard|weak enemy mages]] from casting their powerful spells.

** ''[[Final Fantasy XII]]'' treats Berserk as a positive status trait. It's cured by Dispel, the positive effect remover, enemies often use it on themselves, and it speeds up attacks greatly. Just don't use it on your lead character, or you won't go anywhere until it wears off.

** ''[[Final Fantasy IV]]'' has the berserk white magic spell, which does just what it says above. In addition, the "Avenger" two-handed sword, when wielded by Cecil, causes him to go into a permanent Berserk-mode, and the ultra-rare Pink Puff enemy has a "dance" that both changes the battle music and causes the whole party to go berserk.

** ''[[Final Fantasy V]]'' had the Berserker job. Simply ''being'' that job makes a character constantly berserk, and one of the abilities you can learn from that class allows you to carry that trait over to other jobs. Interestingly, they still have [[Mana Meter|MP]], allowing them to wield runic weapons at full power (they drain the user's MP).

** ''[[Final Fantasy VI]]'' didn't have that much use for it, but one particularly nasty boss becomes trivial if Berserked-instead of hammering the party with powerful magic, he attacks for pathetic damage.

* In the ''[[Persona]]'' series, Berserk actually ''is'' a negative status effect, since it also halves the afflicted character's defense power. And of course, [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard|an enemy's ailment spells will nearly always hit you while yours rarely work]]. So if your dedicated healer, who usually has the lowest max HP of the group, is hit with Berserk...

** However, there is a boss in the game whose strategy revolves around Berserking your characters and decimating them with powerful physical attacks. But the boss is also weak against one of the three physical weapon types, specifically, Pierce! So equip your Main Character with a spear, bring Aigis, Ken, and Yukari and then watch the boss get torn apart. One is advised to keep at least one person free of Rage, however, because the boss also uses Megidolaon, and you need someone who can heal.

*** For bonus points, that boss is ''the final Tartarus boss''. What a way to end the dungeon.

** The [[Shin Megami Tensei|series]] also has a form of [[Practical Taunt]] which greatly boosts enemies' Attack while dropping their Defense to nothing.

*** [[Digital Devil Saga]] has a boss fight against Ravana ({{spoiler|Varin Omega/Colonel Beck}}), who uses an attack called Hunger Wave. This causes the party to sink into a form of Berserk that is actually gnawing hunger - either they lose health from starvation or turn on each other. None of your items or skills can cure it; only Sera's song can do so. Fortunately, she's watching the battle and will run in at the start of any round where a party member is suffering from it, using her song to cure one member of the party; unfortunately, since she has no combat ability, she can't risk staying for longer than necessary, and thus can only cure one party member at a time.

* ''[[Pokémon]]'' has several attacks that work like a temporary version of Berserk, causing the user to automatically keep using that one move repeatedly for a certain number of turns (somewhere from 2 to 5, usually randomly chosen). There's also the move Encore, which forces the 'opponent' to use the same move they used last repeatedly until it wears off.

** The second generation games (Gold/Silver/Crystal) introduced Swagger, a move that increased the opponent's attack power and confused the opponent, thus increasing the amount of damage they take when they hurt themself. They also had the Berserk Gene item, which is found where Cerulean Cave used to be, and does the same thing as Swagger to the Pokemon that uses it.

** Also there is the move Taunt which prevents use of non-damaging moves.

* ''[[Shadow Hearts]]'' has a slightly different version of Berserk that works a little bit like the Confuse status (see below). It's not a status that can be directly inflicted; however, stay in battle too long and your characters ''will'' go Berserk once they run out of Sanity Points. Also, if you want the protagonist to learn his most powerful abilities, [[Guide Dang It|you have to let him go Berserk.]]

* In ''[[Black Sigil]]: Blade of the Exiled'', a Berserk character doesn't get any significant boost to their power, but cannot be controlled and will physically attack as they see fit. Most of the time, they manage to attack enemies, so it's not so bad until you find monsters that love to inflict Berserk while only being vulnerable to magical damage.

* ''[[Breath of Fire III]]'': While not so much a curable status effect, having Rei {{spoiler|transform into his Weretiger form}} will cause him to become ''much'' stronger but uncontrollable, having him only attack physically, and becoming increasingly likely to attack allies every turn he stays in that form. Luckily, you can easily fix this by using Influence, which is normally [[Useless Useful Spell|pretty useless]]. With it, however, you can use Influence to target a boss monster and have Rei [[Game Breaker|only attack them]] [[Useless Useful Spell|for the whole fight]].

** Given that it's possible to avoid every single attack with good timing, this can easily be [[Cursed with Awesome]]

* ''[[Suikoden III]]'' treats Berserk as a buff more than a [[Standard Status Effect]]: Berserked characters have amped-up attack and the rune that gives them the amped attack takes up a slot and...that's it. They can still be controlled normally and suffer no other hindrances. As a result, most players actively seek out the effect for as many characters that can spare the slot.

 

* You can take this as a ''character flaw'' in ''[[GURPS]]'', in which case you have to roll to avoid flying into a rage during a fight. Affliction attacks can give temporary disadvantages like this one.

 

* In ''[[Fire Emblem]]'', the berserk effect forces characters to attack whoever is closest to them, which usually means their own allies. This is especially problematic late in the game.

 

 

Characters will act unpredictably. They may strike enemies, their companions or even (inexplicably) themselves. Or they may just do nothing and skip a turn. Often, the computer takes complete control of confused characters and [[AI Roulette|selects commands at random]], although in some cases the player will still be able to issue commands and the computer will merely select the target at random, and in other games, "Confusion" may actually be just another word for "Charm". There are many instances of this being only usable by female Party members, cast with a [[Fan Service]]-laden dance.

 

* ''[[Perfect Dark|Perfect Dark Zero's]]'' Psychosis Gun (in a rare non-RPG example) negates all forms of team-coloration and enables the victim's friendly-fire. When everyone is the same dull gray color, it's surprisingly easy to panic at an approaching teammate...

 

* In ''[[Phantasy Star Online]]'', one of the status effects that is probably confused causes the player's character to run in random directions - gunners will fire in about every direction but what you want them to and run into enemies so it's best just to stay very still and wait.

** Confused enemies will attack whatever is closest.

* While fairly rare in ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' a fairly notorious confuse effect came from Blackheart the Inciter, who confused the entire party for 15 seconds every minute or so, then just sat back and watched the fun. Apart from using everyone's cooldown abilities the actions taken were pretty random, and one of the more notorious ones was a druid who woke up from their confusion to find they'd teleported themselves to Moonglade. Which is in another dimension. Probably not what the programmers intended.

 

* In ''[[Nethack]]'', many scrolls will have a different effect if the one reading the scroll is confused.

 

** ''[[Final Fantasy VI]]'' wins the award for "Best [[Fridge Logic]] as a Result of a [[Standard Status Effect]], EVER" - Sabin, while zombified (which is similar to muddle, but can't be cured by attacking the victim), can use Bum Rush on himself. Bum Rush is an attack that does damage by ''running around the target''. The attack animation for this is ''weird''.

** Confusion in ''[[Final Fantasy]] X'' means that they ''can'' attack the enemy, but usually don't; this can lead to [[Hilarity Ensues|much hilarity]] when Wakka hits ''himself'' in the head with a petrifying blitzball and dies instantly.

* ''[[Pokémon]]'' uses this. When confused, a Pokemon has a chance of hurting itself rather than the opponent each time you try to attack. After a few turns the Pokemon can snap out of it, or it can leave battle to do so.

** Confusion is pretty much the only status ailment in the Pokemon series that can stack with other status effects, and it's also one of only a few that couldn't be cured by some sort of item (at least not in the first generation of games; Full Restores, Full Heals or Max Revives can cure it in subsequent generations). It also seems to have the largest number of moves that can cause it, at least when fighting computers...

** In the ''[[Pokémon Mystery Dungeon]]'' games, confusion makes you move and attack in random directions until it wears off. However, you can still throw items in whatever direction you want, including projectile items.

** In the card game, if a confused Pokémon tries to attack, its owner must flip a coin. If the flip lands on tails, it does 30 damage to itself. Like in the games, switching it out cures it.

* Frenzy from ''[[Elder Scrolls]] [[Oblivion]]'' can be used to turn enemies against each other and even their own summoned creatures. Custom spells can have entire towns killing each other.

* In ''[[World of Mana]]'', confusion temporarily [[Interface Screw|reverses your controls]].

* Confusion in the ''[[Dragon Quest]]'' series isn't ''just'' "randomly attack an ally." Confused characters and enemies can wind up doing some pretty funny things, such as trying to run away but failing, trying to attack but not being able to keep up with your body, and sometimes getting paralyzed for no good reason. Ironically the paralysis is actually ''beneficial'' to the player, as it prevents the character from attacking his allies!

* In the ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'' series, confusion simply reverses your controls for the duration. In the case of enemies, it makes them attack erratically, and allows them to hurt friend and foe alike.

* A particularly annoying variant of it is present in ''[[Xenoblade Chronicles]]'', where it causes the afflicted characters to run around aimlessly and uncontrollably. They're also completely incapable of doing anything else until it wears off.

 

* Fright Checks in ''[[GURPS]]'' can sometimes be changed into Awe or Confusion checks, which are mechanically similar, but roll on a different table for their effects. The Terror advantage, appropriately modified, can cause any of them.

 

* In ''[[Kid Icarus: Uprising|Kid Icarus Uprising]]'', confused players will wander uncontrollably in various directions and randomly attack.

 

 

Your character gets controlled by the other side and often can attack you with both their basic attacks and as well as their spells and special abilities. If the person taken over can cast healing magic they may even use the magic to cure the members of the enemy party. This can sometimes be one of the harder to cure effects, although sometimes simply [[Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!|attacking the charmed person can break its effect]].

 

* ''[[Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin]]'' has one boss do this; if you're playing as Jonathan (or have both characters out at once) she blows a kiss that can charm him into attacking Charlotte. A potential pain since Jonathan has the higher ATK. If Charlotte gets hit by the heart, she just takes a tiny bit of damage and flinches.

 

* Once again, there are several different versions of this in ''[[World of Warcraft]]''. The most famous is the Priest spell "Mind Control", which lets you control a hostile enemy or player. In [[Player Versus Environment|PvE]], it's used as a form of crowd control. In [[PvP]], it's used to make enemy players jump off cliffs. Mind Control is also used by certain enemies, probably most effectively by [[Cosmic Horror|Yogg-Saron]], who casts an unbreakable Mind Control spell on any player whose Sanity Buff hits zero.

** And of course the warlock demon pet Succubus has a spell, called Seduce, which will stop an enemy humanoid in their tracks with infatuation (complete with floating hearts) until they are hit or the spell runs out.

* ''[[City of Heroes]]'' has charm-like powers in the form of confuse used on NPC characters. The confused enemy will not just attack at random, it will specifically and exclusively target its own allies and ignore the players. If all of its allies are down and players are all that's left, it will idle until killed or until the effect wears off. However, confuse effects will not prevent the enemy from using beneficial powers on its allies at the same time, leading to the bizarre spectacle of a zombie master killing his own zombies, resurrecting them, then killing them again, or a sorcerer alternating between blasting and healing his friends.

 

* The ''[[SaGa]]'' series from the ''[[Romancing SaGa]]'' trilogy onward is notorious for this ailment, especially at certain bosses.

* ''The'' worst possible effect to suffer in ''[[Persona 3]]'' and by extension the ''[[Shin Megami Tensei]]'' series, especially if one of your healers gets hit. One of the most famous screw-yous in the game is if the final boss of the former hits your healer with Charm, and the healer in turn casts the full-heal Diarahan on it. To put it in perspective, the final boss's last form has 6000 hitpoints. Characters in your party should at this point deal about 150 damage per hit. And the charm-reheal cycle can theoretically go on forever.

** Other games in the series have physical or potent magical attacks that will additionally slap everyone on your party with this, adding insult to injury.

* A handful of enemies in ''[[Final Fantasy VI]]'' (Barb-E, a basic enemy and Goddess, one of the last bosses, both of which look like human women) have the incredibly annoying spell Love Token, which causes the affected character to leap in front of any attacks aimed toward that enemy, taking the damage instead. They will even jump in the way of their ''own'' attacks if commanded to attack that enemy. Generally, the simplest way to deal with this is to kill the affected character and revive them, and hope that the enemy doesn't use the move again.

 

** On the other hand, the "Dominate" spells have the charmer actually taking over the mind of the victim, thus making these more like the standard Charm status effect from other games.

* ''[[GURPS]]'' has Mind Control for the usual, temporary version of this; it comes in degrees, so if you have to decide every last little thing your new puppet does, the advantage is worth fewer points. For vampires, zombies, and the like, the Dominance advantage will infect your enemy and make them your thrall, although to ''keep'' them as your thrall, you have to pay Character Points to get them as an Ally.

 

 

Characters are unable to act. Like sleep, this condition tends to stick around, but if the enemy is dumb enough to use a fire attack on a frozen character, that will often cure the effect. [[Harmless Freezing|Don't expect it to have any lasting effects]].

 

* Characters can be frozen in [[Super Smash Brothers]]. Most of the time it's the result of the Freezie item, though the ice climbers can induce it for a split second and it's a possible effect of Game and Watch's Side B. They're encased in a large chunk of ice that can't be knocked back very far, but still allows the character to take damage. Mashing is required to break out, and the more damage a character has, the longer they stay in. Fire based moves break the ice instantly, however.

 

* In ''[[Diablo]] 2'', the Frozen status severely slows down those afflicted. When killed, there's a good chance the target will explode, destroying the corpse.

 

* Being frozen in ''[[Ragnarok Online]]'' is easily cured- just get hit. The biggest problem is that it changes the character's element to Water for the duration of the effect, increasing damage from Wind based attacks.

* ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' has three versions of being frozen; one simply renders you unable to move (but does not prevent other actions), while the second is this trope. In most cases, it immediately wears off upon receiving any damage. Mages deserve special mention for being able to freeze ''themselves'' in a block of ice, clearing all debuffs and becoming invulnerable for up to 10 seconds, at the cost of being unable to act. The third type, used primarily by bosses, encases the target in a block of ice that must be destroyed via attacks to free the player. If not broken, the player will stay in there more or less forever (or at least until the encounter ends).

* ''[[Spiral Knights]]'' has a bit of a merciful Freeze: You may not move or change direction but can still attack and shield, and recovery is as simple as being hit by anything or thawing naturally. A great crowd control status, though, as frozen monsters are effectively out of the fight, and monsters actually take decent damage if they thaw.

 

** This is probably more realistic than it seems for sufficiently-frozen things (and it would have to be ''cold'' to freeze something that quickly), since the bonding breaks down at low temperatures. If you ever get the chance, dip a piece of something soft like an orange or a rubber hose in a tub of liquid nitrogen and throw it at the wall.

* In ''[[Warcraft]] 3'' certain units can freeze buildings, preventing them from producing. Inexplicably, the same attack does not affect normal units.

** It ''does'' slow them down, but presumably they are moving too much to freeze solid.

 

* In ''[[Final Fantasy IX]]'', being frozen additionally makes you [[Literally Shattered Lives|die if you are hit by a melee attack]].

* Certain Fire type attacks allow the frozen ''[[Pokémon]]'' to free themselves... but freezing moves are unlikely to be used on them in the first place. In fact, Freeze is the least seen standard status effect in the Pokemon games, as it has no dedicated high-accuracy move and is only found as a low-percentage side effect of most Ice moves.

** An alternate way to defrost a frozen pokemon is to trick your opponent into hitting them with a fire type attack by switching pokemon. Of course, you want to be sure that your pokemon will survive the fire attack before you try this.

** As of Generation II, there's also about a 10% chance of your Pokemon thawing out by itself on its turn.

* ''[[Shin Megami Tensei]]'' games using the Press Turn system make the Frozen effect a godsend when it affects enemies. Frozen enemies will have their Agility reduced to zero, and all physical attacks will ignore their defense and will always hit critical, which gives you an extra turn. A high-level spell called Cocytus (and its upgraded form, [[Game Breaker|Niflheim]]) will almost always inflict this status. It's the only feasible method of killing [[Boss in Mook Clothing|Arahabakis]]. Of course, the effect is just as devastating when ''you'' are affected.

* ''[[World of Mana]]'' calls this the "Snowman" ailment; in ''[[Legend of Mana]]'', this results in massive damage while frozen.

* In ''[[Phantasy Star Universe]]'', ice technics and bullets can produce this status at random. Characters will be trapped in ice and unable to move for a short period of time, making them easy targets for other attacks.

 

 

 

 

 

* Gorgons can turn you to stone in ''[[God of War (series)|God of War]]''. Wiggling the joystick will break you out of it (and you have to do it fast before somebody breaks you). But if Kratos is in midair when he's petrified, he shatters on hitting the ground - Game Over. In each game, you acquire a means of petrifying your enemies as well.

 

* Stone Curse in ''[[Ragnarok Online]]'' has the traditional effect, as well as changing the target's element to Earth, causing double damage from Fire effects.

 

* In ''[[Warcraft]] 3'' this is a beneficial ability which can be used on undead gargoyles. While petrified, the gargoyle is unable to act, but its armor goes way up and it regenerates health rapidly. A similar situation occurs with gargoyles in the ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' raid instance called Naxxramas Necropolis.

 

 

* There is also at least one instance in ''[[Final Fantasy X]]'' where a boss can attack a petrified party member, shattering them and leaving you with only two available character slots for the rest of the battle. Being petrified while underwater instantly shatters the victim, on account of the character sinking to the floor and breaking on impact, rather logically.

** Actually that would be the "Eraser" attack of the Monster Arena boss Shinryu. Not even [[Death Proof]] or [[Stone Proof]] armor will stop it. (Which is an even bigger pain in the ass) Since you can't swap anyone in for this fight (Since only three of the PCs can hold their breath indefinitely or fight underwater) you can't even let an aeon take the hit. So, if you don't kill him before his first attack (Or he uses one of his other two weaker attacks first) you will be healing one person back to full afterwords.

* In ''[[Paper Mario (franchise)|Paper Mario]]'', the stone cap does this. Like the tanuki suit in Super Mario Bros 3, It dramatically increases your defense.

* In ''[[Baldur's Gate]]'', two of the most powerful spells where Stone to Flesh and Flesh to Stone. One specific NPC in the game is trapped in a petrified state. If you use a Stone to Flesh spell on the "Sta tue" she will be extremely grateful and wish to join your party.

* In ''[[Lufia]]'', petrified characters can still be attacked, but they take zero HP damage until cured.

* ''Very'' frustrating in ''[[Shin Megami Tensei]]'', since being Petrified is basically a one-hit kill as all attacks on the Petrified character are instantly treated as Criticals, which, depending on the mechanics of the game, may give them extra turns or the chance to inflict devastating combos. Since [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard]], it'll probably only be a matter of time until [[We Cannot Go on Without You|your main character is hit]]. Did I mention that depending on the game, [[Blow You Away|Force attacks]] or a single physical attack will ''instantly'' [[Literally Shattered Lives|shatter any Petrified victims]]?

* The ''[[Shadow Hearts]]'' series also features Petrification. It turns the afficted character into a sitting duck that can be killed in one hit.

 

* Petrification is essentially the same as Freezing in ''[[Kid Icarus: Uprising|Kid Icarus Uprising]]'', except that the petrified target's defense is increased while afflicted, although it does last a little longer. You can try breaking out of it faster by moving the Circle Pad in different directions.

 

* Gorgons will do this in ''[[Fire Emblem]]: The Sacred Stones''. The first turn a character has been petrified, any creature that attacks the character has a higher chance of scoring a [[Critical Hit]].

* ''[[Ogre Battle]]'' features Cockatrices and Gorgons, whose breath and gaze carry a high chance to petrify. Once petrified, the victim may as well be dead for good, given how rare the curing item is. And if it hits an important character...

 

 

Causes a character to attack and possibly move slower. Shows up more often in games without a turn-based combat system, as the effect is more suited to real-time action. (The turn-based variant usually involves causing the affected character's turn to come up less frequently, or cuts your [[Action Points]] in less primitive games). Usually appears in games with a Haste spell, and the two effects will usually cancel each other out.

 

* ''[[Team Fortress 2]]'' has a movement-slowing effect that can be inflicted by at least one weapon. It doesn't last for long, though.

 

* A-gears in ''[[Air Rivals|Ace Online]]'' have this as one of their exclusive skillset. It's possible to snare ''yourself'' if you're not careful...

* ''[[Phantasy Star Online]]'' had Slow Traps cause this. This was a big problem since the trap appeared out of nowhere for non-androids and those without Trap Visions and it didn't last long enough to warrant a Lv.6 Anti spell.

* ''[[Spiral Knights]]'' stun causes lowered movement and attack speed. Generally caused by massive hits, and even has a gong sound when inflicted.

 

* This is the passive ability of Mordred's Noble Phantasm Clarent in ''[[Fate Nuovo Guerra]]''. Flynning with it lowers enemy AGI by making their weapon feel heavier with each stroke exchanged.

 

* Slows are one of the most common crowd control mechanics in ''[[League of Legends]]''. They typically only reduce movement speed, but abilities that also slow the enemy's attack speed are not unheard of.

 

* In the ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' series, after ''[[Final Fantasy IV|IV]]'', it makes the ATP bar fill up a lot, well, slower. In the DS remake of ''IV'', this is absolutely ''necessary'' to survive all the bosses, and most of the late game random encounters. On that note, in several games in the series it's one of the only status effects bosses are vulnerable to.

* There are a few attacks that lower your ''[[Pokémon]]'''s speed, the most notable of these being String Shot, a move found on most common Bug Pokemon. A more frustrating example (as the bugs are pathetically weak anyway) is the powerful Bubblebeam move, which deals damage and has a chance of lowering your speed. Misty and her Starmie back in the first games loved this move, and the speed-lowering meant that Starmie could quite easily hit you with two Bubblebeams in a row, knocking out most pokemon. Only two types resist the water-type Bubblebeam, and one of them is Water itself. If you didn't pick Bulbasaur, you're in for one hell of a battle.

* Present in later games in the ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'' series. It turns your enemies into sitting ducks, as it slows down all of their animations, including their flinching from taking damage. Not terribly threatening when it's used against you, as it increases the length of your defensive actions, thus making it easy to wait it out with minimal or no harm.

* ''[[Bastion]]'' has an enemy called the Gasbag, which leaves a noxious trail behind that damages you while in contact and cuts your speed significantly. You can still attack and block the same, but dodging and walking are slowed.

 

 

* Some ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' enemies use a Time Stop spell, but the in-game effect is identical to being Stunned for the duration.

 

* Early RPGs treated this as a sort of high-end Paralyze, but later games attribute it to time magic, in which case time stops for the target, but they can still be affected normally.

* In the ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'' series, it has the typical effect of stopping the victim's movements, but all of hits and damage the target takes will only register once the stop effect wears off, which can potentially result in them being immobilized for quite some time even after it wears off.

 

 

 

 

* In the board game ''[[Talisman]]'', you may get turned into a frog temporarily. You lose all your items and companions, and you're very weak while this is in effect.

 

* In ''[[Diablo]] II'' you can socket a helm with some runes and wear it, giving you a 1% Chance To Cast Level 50 Delirium When Struck (morph). When this happens, you temporarily transform into a tiny weak demonling carrying a spear.

 

* This is a fairly rare instance of player characters having useful access to such an ability: in ''[[World of Warcraft]]'', a mage's ability to "sheep" mobs is a vital aspect of crowd control. However, it does have a downside: the target rapidly restores health and mana, whereas the monster version of this or similiar spells do not (anymore).

** In more recent patches, Shamans have been given a similar ability; Hex, which turns the target into a frog. The major difference is that Hex does not regenerate health OR break on damage, with the trade off being that it can be cast much less often.

 

* ''[[Kid Icarus]]'' gives a rare platformer example in the Eggplant Wizards. If Pit gets hit with one of the eggplants they toss, the upper half of his body gets transformed into an eggplant, rendering him unable to use any weapons or items. Oh, and he has to backtrack to the nearest available hospital in order to remove the curse, which may mean dodging MANY monsters if you intend to get there alive.

** The Eggplant status is back in ''[[Kid Icarus: Uprising|Uprising]]'', although now it simply wears off after time, and it can be caused by players themselves when using certain powers and items. There's also a newly introduced transformation; being turned into Tempura. It's very similar, but you lose stamina more quickly. And if you're caught by a Tempura Wizard in that state, it will ''eat you'' for a [[One-Hit Kill]]!

* Every [[Ratchet and Clank]] game has one weapon that you can use to turn your enemies into game-specific animals. From Chickens to penguins. Stronger versions of the weapons usually make the transformed foe explode when near other enemies.

 

* ''[[Final Fantasy VI]]'' has the Imp status where stats are severely lowered and all special abilities are locked except for the Imp spell. However, there are Imp equipment found in the game that are completely useless on regular characters but godly when equipped on an Imp. There is also the "Zombie" status effect, which overlaps this with "confuse". the character turns green, is counted as "dead" and only attacks hand-to-hand.

** Many games in the ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' series feature a Frog or a Mini status which blocks all actions except a very weak physical attack (and sometimes the Frog spell as well). Oddly enough, ''[[Final Fantasy IV]]'' features the Frog Status, the Mini Status, and the one-time Pig Status. The Pig status effect prevents magic and also cuts attack power, the Mini status effect cuts the target's defense, attack, and evasion to zero while doubling the amount of damage the target takes, and Toad is the same as Mini, but it also prevents the target from using magic that isn't the Toad spell.

** ''[[Final Fantasy IX]]'' didn't include this status effect in the battle system, but an important NPC suffers from the classic Toad (in this case a Frog actually) transformation. It's effect on his mind (limiting his intellect) is an important plot point later on. Trying to create an item that will cure him is a rather annoying [[Fetch Quest]] with nebulous guidelines.

* In ''[[Secret of Mana]]'', the Lunar element spell, Change Form turned enemies into weaker monsters of the same type, permanently. The utterly whimsical, Lunar Magic, however, afflicted enemies with the "Wimp Out" effect which would greatly weaken them in a similar manner, but only for a limited time.

* ''Shiren the Wanderer: Mysterious Dungeon 2'' features an enemy that at low levels turns your items into rice balls, but at its maximum level turns YOU into a riceball! You're able to move around but do nothing else until it wears off.

* In ''[[Elder Scrolls]] [[Oblivion]]'' an item called the 'Wabbajack' causes enemies to turn into a random animal for a short time. As this restores their health and can result in less-than-friendly bears and demons being created in place of a possibly weaker enemy, this item is rarely used. On the plus side, [[Good Bad Bugs|it works on an otherwise invincible god-incarnate in the endgame, letting you kill him if you get lucky and end up with something harmless.]]

* ''[[Heretic]]'' and ''[[Hexen]]'' both have items that launch projectiles that do that - the [[Nobody Here but Us Chickens|"Morph Ovum"]] and the [[Messy Pig|"Porkalator"]], respectively.

* In ''[[The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past|The Legend of Zelda a Link To T He Past]]'', golden star-shaped flashes of light inflict this status effect on Link should he come into contact with said entities. When affected, Link temporarily assumes a bunny form, stripped of his normal abilities.

* Dalles in ''[[Ys]] II'' turns Adol into a blue-green monster, and you must go on a long [[Fetch Quest]] to return to form. Bammy in ''Ys IV'' can also turn Adol into a demon.

* These occasionally pop up in ''[[Shin Megami Tensei]]'' games, though they are ''much'' rarer than other ailments. Examples are ''Bael's Bane'' from Baal Avatar in ''[[Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne]]'' and ''Zotzilaha's Bane'' from ''[[Digital Devil Saga]]''.

 

Causes a character to run away, perhaps even completely fleeing the battle. Otherwise, the character may be unable to take any actions due to fear, or may suffer lowered attack and defensive scores.

 

* Warlocks in ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' are well known for this ability, but a few other classes have limited versions; priests have Psychic Scream and warriors Intimidating Shout, both of which will scatter an entire group.

* ''[[City of Heroes]]'' has two types of Fear effects, owing to its development history. One type causes NPC enemies (and NPC enemies only) to simply drop what they are doing and run away. This does not work on players, as it is an order to the AI. The second type of Fear affects both NPC and player characters, causing them to tremble with fear and be unable to take any action. Characters trembling in fear, however, can still lash out at attackers, essentially getting one free attack to retaliate with when attacked, though this is only doable every once in a while, rather than full-time.

** Dread reduces effective level, maximum morale and power. At high strength, it forces the player to cower helplessly, while reducing morale to 1% of normal. In the worst cases, the Eye of Sauron fills the screen, blinding the hapless player.

 

* El Cid's Noble Phantasms in ''[[Fate Nuovo Guerra]]'' focus on this, particularly the attack/defense-lowering effect. Servants with high Bravery are unaffected.

 

* Some champions in ''[[League of Legends]]'' can inspire Fear in enemies, slowing them and causing them to run around randomly for a short period. Although less reliable than a straight-up stun, it does mean that they can walk closer to danger. Or further away.

 

* ''[[Elder Scrolls]] [[Oblivion]]'' has two such effects: ''[[Turn Undead]]'' for less fresh enemies and ''Demoralize'' for everybody else.

* In ''[[Pokémon]]'', the move Roar scares the opponent into fleeing the battle (or switching out in trainer battles). The mysterious ghosts in Lavender Tower (pre-Silph Scope), make your pokemon "paralysed with fear" and unable to do anything.

* Fear in ''[[Super Mario RPG]]'' halves the victim's attack and defense, making their attacks weaker and making them take more damage from hits. It's a pain to deal with when it happens to you, but you can inflict fear upon enemies too, primarily with Bowser's Big Boo spell.

* ''[[Persona]]'' has two versions: Fear and Distress. Fear will sometimes cause a party member to freeze up, stealing their turn, and sometimes makes them run away outright. Distress weakens them, and any attack that hits them while they're distressed is an automatic [[Critical Hit]]. An additional [[One-Hit Kill]] move, Ghastly Wail, will infallibly execute any enemy and ally inflicted with Fear.

** ''[[Shin Megami Tensei]]'' games also occasionally have Intimidate as a conversation skill.

* Fear was another status effect used in [[The Legend of Dragoon]]. It cuts attack and defense in half, and the afflicted character is shown to have blue skulls floating around them, and visibly shivering.

 

* ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'' has a keyword for Fear: It makes the creature with it unblockable except by artifact creatures (no emotions) and black creatures (who, presumably, would not be afraid of what other things are afraid of.) A newer ability called Intimidate makes a creature unblockable except by artifact creatures (again, no emotions) and creatures that share a color with that creature (why would one be intimidated by something familiar?)

 

* In a double example of Weird Transformation and Fear, in ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics]]'' reducing a character's brave to minimal levels will transform them into a chicken; they automatically flee every turn and regenerate their brave.

 

 

A condition which interferes with [[Interface Screw|the player's control interface]] somehow, such as by obscuring parts of the screen or, yes, reversing the controls. Hard to [[Justified Trope|justify]] with the context of the game world, so it often gets folded in with Confusion, curses, or sanity somehow. Most of the "sanity effects" in ''[[Eternal Darkness]]'' are of this type (such as having the screen blank, the sound mute, or the controlls not work, and even deleting the mem card [thankfully falsely] and putting up a [[Sequel Hook]] card).

 

* The genedisruptor beam in ''[[Evolva]]'', which has two effects: on your party members that you're not controlling at the moment, it makes them attack each other, something like Confusion; on the directly controlled partly member, it inverts the controls.

 

* Some versions of ''[[Mario Kart]]'' have an "oil" weapon that splatters a player's screen with dripping black spots, making it extremely hard to see where you're driving.

 

* ''[[Borderlands]]'' has the Daze effect for enemies and players. A character who is dazed moves slower and their accuracy drops.

* ''[[Team Fortress Classic]]'' gives the Spy Gas Grenades, which cause players who are hit by it to experience severe hallucinations, which include seeing enemies and teammates, among other things. The Medic and Scout get Concussion Grenades, which cause those hit to have their view sway uncontrollably, making it harder to aim.

 

* While usually not a status effect per se, ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' characters can get drunk, which obscures the players vision of the game and makes movement rather uncontrollable. This is usually done intentionally for fun (ingame holidays often serve free alcohol), but a few instances of it being inflicted by monsters exist as well. Unfortunately, characters sober up from those much faster. It also simulates impaired judgment when your character is "totally smashed", by making anything with a level look up to five levels lower than it actually is. A very subtle side-effect of being drunken is that your depth perception actually is slightly off.

** Getting your character drunk in ''[[The Lord of the Rings Online]]'' works mostly the same way, with the addition of your character eventually passing out and [[What Did I Do Last Night?|waking up somewhere else]]. A number of ingame holiday quests require that your character are drunk while doing them.

** [[Guild Wars]] has this too: drinking alcohol will give your character the "intoxicated" effect, causing the screen to blur (with the effect becoming more pronounced the more you've had) and make your character randomly emote (/sit, /moan etc) and mutter amusing things ("I love you man!", "I think I'm gonna be sick"). This is mostly just for fun, but a handful of [[Player Versus Environment|PvE]]-only skills in the game require that your character be intoxicated to get the full effect from them.

 

 

* ''[[Nethack]]'' has the hallucination effect, which causes the symbols representing monsters and items to constantly shift, makes it impossible to distinguish whether a monster is hostile/neutral/friendly, makes the game give humorous alternate message, and in the Slash'EM variant makes the contents of your pack look different every time you examine your inventory. Combat messages from monsters while hallucinating even list things that aren't even part of the game, such as [[Star Trek|Klingons]] and [[Pokémon]].

* In the [[Real Time Strategy|RTS]] ''[[Star Trek]]: Armada'', the [[Star Trek|Borg]] have the nanites ability. When cast on one of your ships, your control panels and minimap run around the screen. Not only does this obscure half of the battle, but hotkeys are disabled too, you have to find and click on your moving command bar to issue orders. Just hope it isn't hiding behind something else!

 

* In ''[[Baten Kaitos]]'', you select the "spirit numbers" on each magnus card to make combos. These numbers typically appear in the corners of each card, and the numbers stay in the same place every time the magnuss card is used. However, the status effects Headache and Confusion change this. Headache causes the numbers to shift to the center of each edge, rather than at the corners, and the numbers are switched up. Confusion makes the numbers to actually ''spin around the card'', which makes getting good combos much more difficult.

* ''[[The Elder Scrolls]] III: [[Morrowind]]'' has the effect ''Blind'' reduce visibility by the power of the effect. 100% ''Blind'' literally makes the screen completely black. One rare item called "Boots of Blinding Speed" increases your speed by 200 (the normal max is 100) but makes it impossible to see where you're going. If you cast a magic resistance spell before equipping the boots, you can negate the blind effect while keeping the full speed boost.

* "Confuse" status in the ''[[Ys]]'' series reverses your controls.

 

* You can blind opponents in multiplayer by using a power in ''[[Kid Icarus: Uprising|Kid Icarus Uprising]]''. It completely blacks out the screen for a few seconds. There's also the Spinning and Shaking status effects. Spinning causes the camera to wildly spin around at high speeds to disorient you. Shaking causes the targeting reticule to erratically move around uncontrollably, ruining your accuracy.

 

 

 

* ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' likes to give bosses [[One-Hit Kill]] abilities, but special mention goes to Archimonde. Anyone who has had to learn this encounter will be ''very'' familiar with his Finger of Death ability, which he uses to mop up the raid when things go pear-shaped. Under certain conditions he uses Hand of Death instead, which does five times the damage (five fingers, geddit?). To everyone at once. Ouch.

** The description for the Finger of Death move strays into [[Large Ham]] territory. ''Inflicts 20,000 Shadow damage to you, your children, and your children's children!''

** Let's not forget Yogg-Saron's berserk ability, which is really straightforward. ''Extinguishes all life. Kaput.''

* ''[[City of Heroes]]'' has what's known as the "one-shot code," which basically prevents a player character from being taken down to no [[Hit Points]] if he started from full [[Hit Points]]. However, a character starting out damage can very much be taken out in one hit, and attacks that deal multiple "ticks" of damage will get around this safeguard anyway. That said, some very powerful bosses can and will use large-scale, incredibly devastating attacks that have the potential to kill every player in the vicinity, often using circumstances to sidestep safeguards.

** It also subverts the [[Useless Useful Spell]] a little if a Force has it at level 30. (Which is a 100% chance to work... modified by Enemy EDK.) There are quite a few enemies that you could use it on with great effect, but most enemies have an extremely high EDK stat, making it useless agenst other enemies.

** The special attack for weapons, 'Hell' does the same thing, but with one diffrence. A unit called V502 doubles the chance of it working. If you have a high ammount of accuracy and a V502 unit, you can use the Hell special on just about any non-boss enemy.

* [[Ragnarok Online]] has the Coma status, whick doesn't kill you outright but reduces your HP to 1, meaning that the slightest poke will kill you.

* A variant known in ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' games in the level-based Death spell, which kills any enemy whose level is multiple of 5 and always hits those enemies at 100% accuracy.

** ''[[Final Fantasy I]]'' had Poison, a Black Magic spell that killed any enemy instantly but often missed, and Reaper, a spell only usable by bosses that instantly killed one of your party members.

** It should be noted that using X-Zone in this manner to kill the randomly-appearing boss Doom Gaze would result in not getting the Bahamut Esper upon his defeat. Not a good call; use Doom instead.

* Such moves in the [[Pokémon]] universe only work if the target's level is lower than or equal to the user's, except in the first game(s) where it was Speed. The moves also have 30% accuracy.

** Even without such a move or ability, each level difference between the two Pokemon increases the success rate by 1%. Hence, a level 71-100 Pokemon could use 100% instant-kills (however, unless the opponent is a master of EV points and has an Event-Only Legendary, you're unlikely to need them).

* ''[[Shin Megami Tensei]]'' games enjoy providing even [[Goddamned Bats|lowly]] [[Mooks]] with instant-death spells like the [[Light Is Not Good|Hama]] and Mudo categories. More infuriating when they happen to miss everyone in the party but [[We Cannot Go on Without You|the Main Character]].

** However, SMT makes the skills also useful against a good many enemy monsters, with only a handful being really immune or even repelling them. In addition to that, there are actually bosses who can fall by using these spells on them (though those are rare).

** And [[Final Boss|Giygas]], who uses it liberally. Night/Sea/Star Pendant required.

** It's more than just that. The regular enemies Conducting Menace, Conducting Spirit, and Wild n' Wooly Shambler and the bosses Evil Mani-Mani, Thunder and Storm, Kraken, Diamond Dog, Ness's Nightmare and Giygas can use at least Flash Beta or its non-PSI (read: non-blockable) equivalent, Glorious Light/Summoned a Storm. And absent protective pendants, all of the Player Characters are * very* vulnerable to Flash and will frequently be paralyzed or KO'd by even the Beta level.

* ''[[Dragon Quest]]'' games have the spells Whack and Thwack, formerly Beat and Defeat, that can cause death to individuals or a group. Like most of the game's status-causing spells, these have a better chance of working in general than their equivalents in other RPGs, but Whack and Thwack cost a lot of MP, and they're still not extremely reliable. Dragon Quest IX adds Kathwack, which can kill all enemies, even if they are in multiple groups - but it's unreliable as ever!

* Some enemies in the ''[[Golden Sun]]'' franchise have attacks that either do 1 point of damage or 1 hit KO.

* Present rather uncommonly in ''[[Xenoblade Chronicles]]'', and only towards the end. Perhaps the most notable example is a superboss that causes instant death if you ''so much as hit it without protection''.

 

* Some bosses in Patapon have an attack that will decimate your ENTIRE army (Even Hatapon) unless you dodge.

** Even further: Some bosses have attacks you can't dodge, meaning you have to defend and hope for the best.

* ''[[Sacrifice]]'' has the Death spell which summons a shadowy figure that instantly kills every unit it can reach. However its double edge as it will attack the summoners own units as well.

 

* You can add Instant Death to your attacks using a power in ''[[Kid Icarus: Uprising|Kid Icarus Uprising]]'', but only in single-player mode.

 

 

The character's body is reduced to ashes or otherwise destroyed. It may not always be [[Deader Than Dead]], depending on the game, however it differs from the standard KO in that it is ''much'' more difficult to revive them.

 

* ''[[Might and Magic]]'' has ''Eradicated'', which happens if a character takes way too much damage.

* Characters in ''[[Ultima III]]'' could be turned to ash. Thankfully, the most powerful cleric spell could reverse this.

** It would also happen if you got petrified underwater.

* In [[Final Fantasy VIII]], [[Final Boss|Ultimecia]] has the effect of "Absorbing into time", which is cast on any dead player character, dissolves them and prevents them from being revived.

* The ''[[Pokémon]]'' variant of this is Self-Destruct or Explosion, though no one actually dies per se. Both OHKO the user, while severely damaging or OHKO-ing the opponent as well. Ghost Pokemon are immune to this. The most common user of both moves is the Geodude/Graveler/Golem line, but Voltorb/Electrode is well known for it as well.

 

 

* Not that its possible to recover from normal death in ''[[Paranoia]]'', but if you roll a "Vaporised" result on the damage table... guess what happens to you.

 

 

Similar to Instant Death, but activates after a set amount of time or turns instead of instantaneously; usually accompanied by some sort of indicaiton of the time left. It can sometimes be cured before this by standard status-removing magic; otherwise by ending the battle before the counter reaches zero.

 

* Some poorly programmed games will even continue the countdown through victory animations, possibly [[Kaizo Trap|wiping out the final party member]] [[Victory Pose|mid-boogie]].

 

** More familiar is the Warlock's "Curse of Doom" spell. It does nothing for 60 seconds, but when it expires, it inflicts a very high amount of damage on the target. If the damage from the curse is what strikes the killing blow, a Doomguard will be summoned from the corpse. (However, since he isn't under the Warlock's control, he either needs to be shackled, or the curse can be worse than the cure...)

 

* ''[[Nethack]]'' has a "sick" (food poisoning) condition which is fatal if not cured within a few turns, and a delayed-effect petrification status caused by {{spoiler|hearing a cockatrice hiss}} which can be cured by {{spoiler|eating an acidic food}}.

 

* The Perish Song attack in ''[[Pokémon]]'' works this way, combined with Mean Look it makes a good strategy against stallers. However, using it when both players are down to their last Pokemon in tournament play is illegal.

* Some Psynergy in the ''[[Golden Sun]]'' franchise puts an eight-turn counter on a certain character, after which they die. This is denoted by four flames next to their head which gradually go out. If a character is hit with this, the game's battle text exclaims that "The Spirit of Death embraces _____"!

 

* In ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics]]'', an additional Doom counter comes into being after a character dies. If that counter reaches 0, the character is [[Lost Forever]] (unless it's an undead, in which case it might revive instead.) If this happens to Ramza, [[Game Over]].

 

 

== Critical ==

 

* Videogame bosses are practically guaranteed to [[Turns Red|become stronger]] when low on health.

 

** Several classes have "[[Finishing Move|Execute]]" abilities (including the [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|warrior ability Execute]] and the [[No Kill Like Overkill|hunter ability Kill Shot]]) which can only be used when the target is below 20% (sometimes 25%) health. Even more classes have talents that cause their normal abilites to be more powerful against low-health enemies.

** Many classes also gain benefits when their own health is reduced far enough; Rogues that have trained Cheat Death gain a powerful damage reduction ability [[One-Hit-Point Wonder|instead of hitting zero health]], although it only lasts a few seconds and can only activate every minute. Some casters automatically activate shields or self-heals at 50% health.

* [[Guild Wars 2]] has the "downed" state: when your HP reaches 0, your character will fall to the ground and their skill bar will be replaced by a handful of "downed" skills. If you manage to kill something using these skills before your consciousness meter runs out, you will "rally" and return to form. Otherwise, you will die. If this happens underwater, you will go into a "drowning" state instead, which works in much the same way, except that you can also swim to the surface to rally.

 

* Starting from the third generation, certain abilities (Overgrow, Blaze, Torrent, and Swarm) can have a bonus to attacks of a ''[[Pokémon]]'''s type when their HP is below 1/3 of their maximum.

** Certain berries only activate when the Pokemon is 'in a pinch' (1/3 health or lower) as well. Couple that with certain attacks that do incredible amounts of damage when your pokemon is near death (Reversal, Flail), and ''letting'' yourself get beat up by the opponent only to turn the tables seconds later becomes a viable option.

* ''[[Paper Mario (franchise)|Paper Mario]]'' is a good example of how this can be a beneficial effect, as many badges provided great benefits to Mario when he was at 5 or less (or even only 1) HP. Being probably the most ubiquitous example, Mega Rush increased your attack power by FOUR TIMES if you had a single hit point remaining. This, coupled with an infinitely-comboable Powerbounce attack (and good timing) led to monumental amounts of damage being dealt. This could take out just about every boss that didn't start out invulnerable until a certain event happened (which happened far too often for this to be TOO abusable) before it even had the chance to attack, making it a staple tactic of speedrunners.

** Thus spawning the Danger Mario technique. Basically, there's an NPC in the game that can lower one stat (either HP, [[Magic Points|Flower Points]], or [[Powers as Programs|Badge Points]] and boost another. Mario has a base 10 HP, and using the NPC will make it 5, putting him in Danger status. Stacking lots of Power Rushes (the aforementioned badge that increases Attack) creates an incredibly [[A Worldwide Punomenon|dangerous]] attacker, especially when using Powerbounce.

* If a party member other than the main character is knocked into Critical in ''[[Persona 3]]'', they may ask you to let them leave the fight. This can get annoying if they have healing magic, because if you tell them to stay, they'll tell you off... then heal themselves. You suffer no penalties for ordering them to keep fighting, incidentally.

* In ''[[Sands of Destruction]]'', when a character gets to critical, they get a unique "critical" pose. Morte uses her double-bladed sword to support herself, for instance, and Kire slouches. Taupy gets two, in one, he becomes unsteady on his feet, in another, he pulls a crutch out of [[Hammerspace]].

* Characters in the most of the ''[[Resident Evil]]'' and ''[[Dino Crisis]]'' series clutch themselves and walk with a limp when low on health. Some of the games also have bleeding out, as mentioned above.

 

* There are actually ''two'' Critical condition levels in ''[[Kid Icarus: Uprising|Kid Icarus Uprising]]''. The "In-Peril" condition refers to when your life bar is low enough that it starts flashing. But in single-player mode you can also take enough damage that your life bar shatters completely and you enter "Crisis Mode", where you're basically one hit away from death. However, if you manage to hold out in Crisis Mode, you will eventually recover a small portion of your health. You can customize weapons so that they grant attack boosts or automatic dodging bonuses when you are In-Peril, and the Trade-Off power can be used to purposefully sacrifice all but a sliver of health in exchange for temporary invincibility and massive movement and strength increases.

 

 

Cause the forces of darkness/light to send upon you a series of horrible magical hexes that will screw you up basically. Ranging from reversed movement to severe attack and defense debuffing. You can still fight but will do so at suboptimal levels, some may even prevent you from healing yourself until a healer comes in and gets rid of it.

 

* Curse works differently in the ''[[Castlevania]]'' games:

** ''Rondo of Blood'' and ''Harmony of Dissonance'': Slows down character's movement.

** ''Lament of Innocence'': Character is unable to perform combos.

** In ''Castlevania64'', being bitten by a vampire renders the character unable to attack or recover health, and they eventually [[And Then John Was a Zombie|turn into a vampire themselves]] unless you find a Purifying Crystal.

 

* One particularly potent one is from ''[[Guild Wars]]'': [[Nightmare Fuel|Spectral Agony.]] [[One-Hit Kill|80% slowed movement and attack speed, and 100hp loss/second (base max hp is ~500).]]

** On a less severe note, a major type of debuff in the game is the "hex". Most spellcasting classes can apply hexes, but Necromancers and Mesmers in particular excel at them. Necros even have a skill line called "Curses", while mesmers can dip into "Domination" or "Illusion Magic".

* ''[[Spiral Knights]]'' has a rare but powerful curse effect: A cursed player has certain weapons and items marked by the curse, and attempting to use them causes damage. At endgame, this can easily be the entire inventory of the player. At the status lasts 30 seconds (compared to the 7 seconds of everything else). For the enemies, it just damages them every time they do something. The only non-vial method of inflicting the status is the (Gran) Faust. Both yours and that Phantom's.

 

* Another nasty one is Disease from the later ''[[Wizardry]]'' games, which while technically a Plague, operates like a curse, and will steadily destroy a character from their skills to permanent stat damage, from which there is no recovery-not even death and resurrection will restore the character.

* In ''[[Final Fantasy VIII]]'' & ''X'', a Cursed character is unable to perform Limit Breaks or Overdrives.

** It didn't help in ''[[Final Fantasy X]]'' that the aeons were immune to all status effects BUT curse. Of course, [[That One Boss|those select bosses]] have status effect causing attack with a myriad of effects. If one's really unlucky, one of the characters will be Cursed. If an aeon gets hit by said attack, they '''always''' get cursed.

* In ''[[Treasure of the Rudras]]'', Curse is called Pollution: character cannot cast Mantras until Purifier is used or a Costly MP Mantra is cast that can Purify it {{spoiler|PERSUAN}}

* An odd case in [[Pokémon]]. The move Curse works differently depending on the type of the pokemon using it. Ghost type Pokémon remove 50% of their own HP to inflict a poison-like status on the enemy that cuts 1/4 of their HP every turn. Any other type will lower their speed to raise defense and attack.

* ''Super Mario RPG'''s version of the Fear status would fall under this category, as it halves the target's attack and defense stats. Players probably recall [[That One Boss|the animated cake that has an attack to inflict Fear on the whole party at once]].

* Individual characters can become cursed in ''[[Golden Sun]]'', but by two totally different ways. The first way is for a spirit to become bonded with some character, which normally doesn't do much except cause [[Scratch Damage]] every odd turn. The second way is to equip something that is cursed (the game will always tell you what equipment is cursed, and the equipment usually has foreboding names, like Devil's Plate and whatnot). Cursed equipment normally has resoundingly high bonuses, but in exchange you cannot remove the equipment, and your character will occasionally be unable to move during battle. Both curses cannot be removed by any item or spell, and you must visit a healer to fix yourself.

* ''[[Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne]]'' has the Magatama-imparted curses - they weaken you, make you randomly attack allies, and is generally a horrible nuisance. However, being affected by a curse changes the rules in Demon Fusion, making it more likely to inherit better skills and stats - as long as the result of the Fusion is a demon of the darker races, such as Fiends, Fouls, or Fallens.

** ''[[Digital Devil Saga]]'' uses another form of Curse, which inflicts upon you the same amount of Physical damage you deal to enemies.

* In ''[[Dark Souls]]'', Basilisks can inflict a 'cursed' status upon you if you stay in their steam for too long. Not only does it instantly turn you to stone and kill you, it also '''permanently''' halves your health bar until you use a Purging Stone or go to the healer in New Londo, which requires trekking through a dangerous ruin filled with ghosts. Before patch 1.05, the halving effect even ''stacked'', meaning you could end up with a tiny sliver of a health bar if you were cursed multiple times.

 

* The Weakening status effect in ''[[Kid Icarus: Uprising|Kid Icarus Uprising]]'' is much like a cursed effect (notably, the only weapon that has a built-in Weakening status is the Great Reaper Palm). When afflicted, your life bar is halved for short time.

 

 

 

* ''[[Final Fantasy XI]]'' features "Weight", which lowers evasion and movement speed.

** Also, "Muddle" prevents you from using items, under "Zombie" you cannot be cured, "Encumberance" removes all your gear and prevents you from re-equipping for a time, and "Amnesia" prevents you from using job abilities and weapon-skills.

** Corpses, of all things, get their own status effect: "Exploited". Once a corpse is exploited, it will turn black and cannot be exploited again, nor can it be unexploited (except through resurrecting and then dying again). This differs from the "Destroyed" effect mentioned above in that it doesn't affect the corpse's ability to get resurrected; instead, it's used to limit certain Necromancer skills which use corpses as a resource.

 

* ''[[Company of Heroes]]'' uses two sets of status effects, one for infantry and one for vehicles. High concentrations of fire, like from a [[More Dakka|MG42 or Browning .30cal]], can {{color|yellow|suppress}} and eventually {{color|red|pin}} enemy infantry, slowing their movement to a crawl and reducing their firepower drastically. Vehicles can suffer critical hits to various components, like engine or main gun {{color|red|Damaged}} or {{color|red|Destroyed}}, in addition to being {{color|yellow|buttoned}} up by Bren gun fire. The ones that both infantry and vehicles both suffer from are {{color|gray|stun}} and burn damage (no text color to indicate this, but then again it's rather hard to not notice the flames).

** ''[[Dawn of War]] 2'' (which runs on the same engine) uses a similar but simplified system the resembles it's [[Tabletop Strategy]] counterpart. Infantry under fire from heavy weapons or special attacks can be suppressed (glowing red unit tag), cutting movement and attack. Vehicles can be disabled (can't do anything for a few seconds), suffer rear armor hits (increased damage, or any damage at all from small arms fire) or go out of control (roll forward swerving wildly and damaging anything it runs over until it hits a wall and explodes), all shown by brief text tags.

 

* ''[[Final Fantasy IX]]'' has several, including Heat (a particularly brief ailment that kills the afflicted character if they take any action whatsoever), and Trouble (which, if the afflicted character is attacked, hurts the rest of the party for roughly half the damage taken).

* ''[[Final Fantasy XII]]'' has Disease, which, rather than damage taking from your current HP, it takes from your maximum HP as you receive damage. Granted, your full HP cap is returned upon clearing the status, it's still a malady you don't want to dilly-dally about clearing up.

* ''Sonny'' has some ''ridiculous'' status effects, which are too many to list. Being knifed in the face is one such example. Really, some get ridiculously odd, it is odd-ish that ''zombies, insurgents, renegade combat medics, and blade dancing female zombies'' have to obey the orders of the [[Boss Battle|Mayor of Hew]] to ''sit down'', and why the heck (even ''with'' magic) several things that should have little or ''no'' relevance to combat make appearances.

* ''[[Xenoblade]]'' has a whole slew of different status ailments, with the caveat that the duration is measured in seconds, though combat is fast-paced enough that those few seconds spent helpless can hurt. It also has examples of some statuses requiring ''prerequisite'' status effects - for instance, the 'Break' status does bupkis but make the target vulnerable to attacks that cause 'Topple' (target is knocked on their backside, can't move or act and loses special shielding) and a target must be toppled before Daze can be applied (same as topple, but extends the duration and prevents the victim from accumulating aggro, allowing squishier party members to pour on the hurt.)

* ''[[Chrono Cross]]'' had Fatigue, which had a ''massive'' impact on stamina; regeneration is slowed and attacks take more stamina. Thankfully, it's very rarely seen; it's probably the most dangerous status ailment if you don't have a Purify or WhiteOut element allocated.

* ''[[Final Fantasy XIII]]-2'' has Wound damage, which reduces your character's max hp. It goes away after battle, and can be healed by a Wound Potion. Not dealing with wound damage can be pretty dangerous in some of the harder battles.

* ''[[Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates]]'' and ''[[Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time]]'' Has Gravity, which prevents you from jumping.

 

* Nippon Ichi games such as ''[[Disgaea]]'' have the "Deprave" status effect, signified by a black swirl over the victim's head. Depraved characters earn no experience, which of course is far more effective against the player than it is the enemy. Worse, it's also said that a depraved character doesn't ''give'' experience either, meaning you don't want to inflict it at all.

** Also in some Nippon Ichi games is an effect they call "Critical", but is unlike the Critical above (though some units do have low HP effects). This Critical is an effect on Geo Panels in ''Disgaea'' and a room in ''[[Soul Nomad]]''. If you're standing on a Critical Geo Panel, any attack that hits (doesn't miss) kills you. ''[[Phantom Brave]]'' had a proto-critical effect in the "Gamble" status condition, which made the odds 50/50 of missing or killing the Gambled character.

 

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[[Category:Videogame Effects and Spells]]