History CurbStompBattle / TabletopGames

* As per other games above, pretty much guaranteed in ''TabletopGame/AnimaBeyondFantasy'' if low-level characters fight high-level ones. To give some scale, here someone of around level 3 is considered, to give a comparison, the equivalent of an elite soldier (think of ''Film/{{Rambo}}'') and those of around level 6 equivalent to people who in RealLife are just a-few-in-all-history. Level 8 characters and higher are said to be able to [[OneManArmy single-handedly destroy an enemy army]], and it just continues going up from there... until someone finds that the game's most powerful entities (Beryls, the Shajads, C'iel, and Gaira) could kill the highest-level character someone could think of with just the equivalent of winking an eye.

** During the Amaris Civil War, battles were long, drawn-out affairs that tending to grind each side to dust. But during the Amaris Coup, the legendary Black Watch, [[Understatment somewhat upset about Amaris killing the First Lord]] they were [[PraetorianGuard sworn to protect]], decided to kill the shit out of the usurper, Stefan Amaris. Amaris has anticipated that, and nuked the hell out of the Black Watch base on Terra, leaving only eight Battlemechs standing (along with the palace guard, who were trying to kill Amaris and needed Battletech support to do it). Amaris sent an entire regiment, the 4th Amaris Dragoons, to destroy the remnants of the Black Watch; that is, some 120 Battlemechs to kill 8. The Black Watch savaged the Dragoons so badly that the Dragoons were forced to retreat and drop nukes on the Black Watch to kill them.

*** The Battle of Gyros-Thravian. Three Astartes Legions, the Imperial Fists, Space Wolves, and Death Guard under the command of their respective Primarchs, attempted to destroy the WAAAGH! of Warlord Gharkul Blackfang, and even with the combined might of three Legions found themselves on the verge of defeat. [[TheCavalry The Emperor soon arrived with 1,000 Custodes]] and set to work slaughtering the Greenskins, with only 3 Custodians lost and over a hundred thousand Orks cut down and Blackfang himself slain by the Emperor.

*** The Battle of the Blood Nebula. The Imperium, finally having enough of the [[OurElvesAreBetter Eldar]], decides to root them out at the source and destroy a Craftworld. Unfortunately, the one they chose was [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Biel-tan]]. Result: an entire Imperial sector fleet annihilated, with Biel-tan taking minimal loss. The defeat was so utterly crushing that it caused the Imperium to drop the whole "exterminate the Eldar" idea and simply deal with them as they crop up, although it didn't stop the Invaders Space Marines from delivering their own curb-stomp on Craftworld Idrahae later. In a three-fer stomping, the survivors of Idrahae [[SummonBiggerFish went to Craftworld Alaitoc for help]], and Alaitoc sent a force to the Invaders' homeworld; as a result, the Invaders were forced to become a fleet-based chapter.

* During the Time of Troubles of the ''TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms'', the gods were depowered as punishment for some of them having stolen the Tablets of Fate (and the guilty refused to admit it). The only exception was Helm, god of watchfulness, who was left to guard the gates to the Astral Plane (he's such a rules stickler that there's no way he'd ever steal anything). Mystra, goddess of Magic (usually the most powerful of the gods) wanted to plead her case with Ao, but Helm wouldn't let her in, so she attacked him out of frustration. Let's set the scene. Mystra in her mortal form was more powerful than a lv. 20 character, but she was still mortal. Helm was a god. The clash can't even be called a battle.
* In ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'', this is almost guaranteed to happen any time a Celestial Exalt goes in against mortals, or even Terrestrial Exalted. It's even possible to curb stomp ''gods'' if you have the right build.
** 'The right build', of course, meaning 'being anything stronger than a regular heroic mortal'. And even then, a heroic mortal with an artifact that allows him to hit dematerialised spirits...
*** Depends on the god. Lesser river god? Fuck, yeah. One of the higher-ups, i.e. The God of Southern War and Cattle, or the Celestial Incarnae? Not so much.
* The card Crushing Attack in ''TabletopGame/LegendOfTheFiveRings'' can only be played during a battle if you have more than double the strength of the opposing army. It immediately ends the battle, preventing any actions from your opponent that might have swayed the outcome, purely by overwhelming might.
* High-level characters in ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' can typically be counted on to wipe the floor with low-level characters in a straight-up fight. This is especially true if spellcasters are involved, as many high-level spellcasters have spells that can instakill characters below a certain HD level with no saving throw.

* ''TabletopGame/TheWitcherGameOfImagination'' has this stance as default toward random mooks and similar enemies and mechanics that actively support that. Characters with Poor or Average skills or stats, short of pure luck, stand almost no chance against those with Good or Excellent parameters, not to mention [[UpToEleven Legendary]]. Other than that, there are few in and out of universe examples that can turn really, ''really'' nasty:
** Being ambushed by dryads is considered this both in and out of universe. In-universe, they are race of bow-totting {{Cold Sniper}}s and {{Stealth Expert}}s, so when they attack, their enemies usually don't even know what hit them. In gameplay terms, due to all the things they get for [[{{Splat}} being a dryad]] is enough to make them scary - and they can obviously have better skills than the starting ones. Surprise attacks cause all the defenses, regardless of how high they are, being ''reduced to 1''. Even the worst dryad archer can auto-hit anything with defences of ''3''. This allows them to take a really good aim, adding extra modifiers to damage. Or just go directly for vital organs. Or, which is the worst that can happen, simply pour RainOfArrows. A few small squads of dryads can slaughter ''entire batallion'' as if nothing. Worst part? If a character ''somehow'' survives the first round, ''dryads still retain their stealth bonus''.
*** To a lesser degree, all kinds of encounters involving rangers play like this. Defense against projectiles only scales with Agility (everything else scales with Agility[=/=]Will and skills). This can be somewhat mitingated with shields, as they provide decent defense against projectiles (up to +3). But if rangers shoot from hidden position, they still have advantage of lowering defenses of their target(s) to 1, allowing to add further modifiers without fear of missing the shot.
** Ever heard how BearsAreBadNews? A single bear has more [[HitPoints Vitality]] than most of predators and magical monsters, so it can shrug off some of the most powerful attacks in the game and keep going. It can attack three times per turn, and all of those attacks must concern the same target. And while the rolls for damage already look vicious (a whooping 7d6 in total), the actual scary part is that each attack comes with 12 of ''fixed'' damage, giving 36 of damage, regardless of rolls. And ''maximum'' Vitality of a PC is 35. Oh, and for obvious reasons, [[OhCrap bears are pretty common]].
** High vampires are [[LightningBruiser quick and strong enough]] to kill in a single round ''at least'' 3 well-trained and equipped characters. They combine lighting speed with staggering resistance to [[NoSell absolutely everything]] - not even fire, a standard weakness of all tough enemies, can harm them. And if they will be ''somehow'' harmed, they can regenerate up to 2d6 damage per round. To put that into perspective, a decent melee character can deal about d6+9 with really, really good roll.
** A single dragon can take down a small army with ease. Being a huge, flying and fire-breathing lizard with natural armour capable of shrugging most of conventional weapons has a lot to do with this.

* ''TabletopGame/TheSingularitySystem'' models vehicle-scale and personal-scale combat with the same system. Unsurprisingly, cross-scale combats are usually {{Curb Stomp Battle}}s in favor of the vehicular-scale combatants. This is not always the case, though, especially when PoweredArmor come into play.
* Any time a traditionally equipped Martian army gets into a scrap with a modern force in ''TabletopGame/RocketAge''. The Deutsche Marskorps and their war-walkers in particular are the masters of this.
* In ''TabletopGame/RuneQuest'', it's established that attacking the dragonewt home city and destroying their eggs - the focus of their repeated reincarnation - is completely off limits. The reason lies in the last time it was tried: The true dragons got very, very upset and the resulting [[NameToRunAwayFromReallyFast Dragonkill Wars]] weren't so named because of anything the ''dragons'' suffered. Ever since, it has been understood that battling individual dragonewts is allowed, but attempted genocide is a giant no-no.
* As per other games above, pretty much guaranteed in ''TabletopGame/AnimaBeyondFantasy'' if low-level characters fight high-level ones. To give some scale, here someone of around level 3 is considered, to give a comparison, the equivalent of an elite soldier (think of ''Film/{{Rambo}}'') and those of around level 6 equivalent to people who in RealLife are just a-few-in-all-history. Level 8 characters and higher are said to be able to [[OneManArmy single-handedly destroy an enemy army]], and it just continues going up from there... until someone finds that the game's most powerful entities (Beryls, the Shajads, C'iel, and Gaira) could kill the highest-level character someone could think of with just the equivalent of winking an eye.
* For the first six months of [[TabletopGame/BattleTech Operation [=REVIVAL=]]], The Clans were continually on the giving end of these from a strategic standpoint due to the shock tactics, superior technology and unexpected weaponry (such as [[SuperSoldiers Eleme]][[PoweredArmor ntals]]). It wasn't until the Draconis Combine duped the Smoke Jaguars by creating an on-paper green force out of a couple of their elite units and taking advantage of the Clans' focus on HonorBeforeReason that the Inner Sphere started to realize how to beat the Clans, though it wasn't until [[HeroicSacrifice a Rasalhagian pilot crashed her fighter]] [[RammingAlwaysWorks into the bridge of the capital ship]] killing the Clans' leader that they had the breathing room to stop being on the receiving end of the Curb.
** This would lead to [=ComStar=] returning the favor on the battle of Tukkayid. The [=ComGuard=] challenged two task forces each from the seven invading Clans. The Wolves managed to take both objectives, the Ghost Bears took one. The other five Clans proceeded to get ground into the dirt due to them undervaluing logistics and expecting the typical short Clan trials. The Guards dragged the battle out over a month, stretching the Clans' ammunition and parts store to the breaking point.
** An amusing example of this was the defense of the Draconis Combine world of Sheliak. Without any military forces, the commissioner of the planetary (American-style) football league decided to confront the invading Ghost Bear forces with an all-star team of players, challenging the invaders to a game the Sheliak All-Stars hoped they didn’t know. Unfortunately, football is very popular among the Ghost Bears, and the Bears brought the [[SuperSoldier 78th Elemental Support Binary]] to play. The planet was handed over during the post-game show after an 84-3 annihilation of the home team. It was, however, one of the cleanest games in the Sheliak Professional Football League’s history.
** During the Amaris Civil War, battles were long, drawn-out affairs that tending to grind each side to dust. But during the Amaris Coup, the legendary Black Watch, [[Understatment somewhat upset about Amaris killing the First Lord]] they were [[PraetorianGuard sworn to protect]], decided to kill the shit out of the usurper, Stefan Amaris. Amaris has anticipated that, and nuked the hell out of the Black Watch base on Terra, leaving only eight Battlemechs standing (along with the palace guard, who were trying to kill Amaris and needed Battletech support to do it). Amaris sent an entire regiment, the 4th Amaris Dragoons, to destroy the remnants of the Black Watch; that is, some 120 Battlemechs to kill 8. The Black Watch savaged the Dragoons so badly that the Dragoons were forced to retreat and drop nukes on the Black Watch to kill them.
** Also during the Amaris Civil War, General Alexandr Kerensky, leader of the massive Star League Defense Force, decided that he couldn’t go directly to Terra to fight Amaris, and instead decided to attack Amaris’s empire, the Rim Worlds Republic, which had the largest military force other than Star League (they had, after all, basically just conquered Star League through military force). From the moment the SLDF jumped into Rim Worlds space, to the end of those hostilities three years later, there was zero doubt about who would win: despite the SLDF having literally no reserve forces or logistics, their battle experience, superior technology, and unmatched military planning and leadership meant that the Rim Worlds Republic forces could, at best, grind down the SLDF, and they didn’t even do that well, with the SLDF replacing losses from supplies captured from enemy outposts and bases.

* During the Spellplague of the ''TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms'', the gods were depowered as punishment for some of them having stolen the Tablets of Fate (and the guilty refused to admit it). The only exception was Helm, god of watchfulness, who was left to guard the gates to the Astral Plane (he's such a rules stickler that there's no way he'd ever steal anything). Mystra, goddess of Magic (usually the most powerful of the gods) wanted to plead her case with Ao, but Helm wouldn't let her in, so she attacked him out of frustration. Let's set the scene. Mystra in her mortal form was more powerful than a lv. 20 character, but she was still mortal. Helm was a god. The clash can't even be called a battle.

*** Primarch Sanguinius vs. Ka'Bhanda. After a short battle, the greatest of Khorne's daemon lords was sent back to the Warp with no wings, a broken back and a serious case of butthurt.

* Spycraft, and later D&D 4th edition, had separate NPC types for "minions" or "standard" characters and "special characters". The latter have hit points like the player characters, but the former die with a single successful attack. Needless to say, a combat encounter designed primarily around standard/minion characters tends to be this until players reach the 'boss'.

** In the ''30K'' version of the game, the Space Wolves Primarch Leman Russ is an absolute close combat monster who'll quickly kill anything that gets within arm's reach of him. Even Horus can't hold out for long against him.

* Pretty much any faction [[{{Splat}} Codex]] in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40k}}'' can be counted on to include accounts of several such battles to demonstrate the power of that faction's army or a specific unit in it. In the latter case, the narrator will often go on about how perfectly impenetrable the enemy position is, how the army's normal troops were dying in droves, and then [[ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman the specialist unit arrives]] and takes it apart effortlessly. Expects feats [[GameplayAndStorySegregation totally out of line with the unit's power on the tabletop]]. One particularly egregious demonstration is an anecdote dealing with [[AntiAir the Hydra flak tank]] vs. enemy [[ItsRainingMen drop troops]] which, evidently, ended in a ''99,999-to-1'' kill ratio.

*** The Battle of the Blood Nebula. The Imperium, finally having enough of the [[OurElvesAreBetter Eldar]], decides to root them out at the source and destroy a Craftworld. Unfortunately, the one they chose was [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Biel-tan]]. Result: an entire Imperial sector fleet annihilated, with Biel-tan taking minimal loss. The defeat was so utterly crushing that it caused the Imperium to drop the whole "exterminate the Eldar" idea and simply deal with them as they crop up, although it didn't stop the Invaders Space Marines from delivering their own curb-stomp on Craftworld Idrahae later. In a three-fer stomping, the survivors of Idrahae [[SummonBiggerFish went to Craftworld Alaitoc for help]], and Alaitoc sent a force to the Invaders' homeworld; there are only ''12'' Invaders marines left now.

*** To a lesser degree, all kinds of encounters involving rangers play like this. Defense against projectiles only scales with Agility (everything else scales with Agility[=/=]Will and skills). This can be somewhat mitingated with shields, as they provide decent defense against projectiles (up to +3). But if a ranger shoots from hidden position, they still have advantage of lowering defenses of their target(s) to 1, allowing to add further modifiers without fear of missing the shot.

* ''TabletopGame/TheWitcherGameOfImagination'' has this stance as default toward random mooks and similar enemies and mechanics that actively support that. Characters with Poor or Average skills or stats, short of pure luck, stand almost no chance against characters with Good or Excellent parameters, not to mention [[UpToEleven Legendary]]. Other than that, there are few in and out of universe examples that can turn really, really nasty:
** Being ambushed by dryads is considered this both in and out of universe. In-universe, they are race of bow-totting {{Cold Sniper}}s and {{Stealth Expert}}s, so when they attack, their enemies usually don't even know what hit them. In gameplay terms, due to all the things they get just from [[{{Splat}} being a dryad]] is enough to make them scary - and they can obviously have better skills than starting ones. When anything is attacked with surprise attack, all the defenses, regardless how high they are normally, are ''reduced to 1''. Even the worst dryad archer can auto-hit anything with defences of ''3''. This allows them to take a really good aim, adding extra modifiers to damage. Or just go directly for vital organs. Or, which is the worst that can happen, simply pour RainOfArrows. A small squad of dryads can slaughter ''entire batallion'' as if nothing. Worst part? If a character ''somehow'' survives the first round, ''dryads still retain their stealth bonus''.
*** To a lesser extent, all kinds of encounters involving rangers play like this. Due to the game mechanics, defense against projectiles only scales with Agility, unlike defense against melee or magic, which also scales with related skills. This can be somewhat mitingated by having a shield, as shields provide decent defense against projectiles (up to 3), but if ranger shoots from hidden position, they still have advantage of lowering defenses of their target(s) to 1, allowing to add further modifiers without fear of missing the shot.
** Ever heard how BearsAreBadNews? A single bear has more [[HitPoints Vitality]] than most of predators and magical monsters, so it can shrug off some of the most powerful attacks in the game and keep going. It can attack three times per turn, and all of those attacks must concern the same target. And while the rolls for damage already look vicious (a whooping 7d6 in total), the actual scary part is that each attack comes with 12 of ''fixed'' damage, giving 36 of damage, regardless of rolls. And ''maximum'' Vitality of a PC is 35 - on average, it's 29. Oh, and for obvious reasons, [[OhCrap bears are pretty common]].
** High vampires are [[LightningBruiser quick and strong enough]] to kill in single turn ''at least'' 3 well-trained and equipped characters. In a single round. They combine lighting speed with staggering resistance to [[NoSell absolutely everything]] - they are so resiliant, not even fire, a standard weakness of all tough enemies, can harm them. And if they will be ''somehow'' harmed, they can regenerate up to 2d6 damage per round. To put that into perspective, a decent melee character can deal about d6+9 with really, really good roll. Worst of all, high vampires function just like any other sentient race, meaning they will not just use their already absurdly powerful natural attacks, but can, for example, draw a sword or ''start casting spells''.
** A single dragon can take down a small army with easy. Being a huge, flying and fire-breathing lizard with natural armour capable of shrugging most of conventional weapons has a lot to do with this.

** Being ambushed by dryads is considered this both in and out of universe. In-universe, they are race of bow-totting {{Cold Sniper}}s and {{Stealth Expert}}s, so when they attack, their enemies usually don't even know what hit them. In gameplay terms, due to all the things they get just from [[{{Splat}} being a dryad]] is enough to make them scary. When anything is attacked with surprise attack, all the defenses, regardless how high they are normally, are ''reduced to 1''. Even the worst dryad archer can auto-hit anything with defences of ''3''. This allows them to take a really good aim, adding extra modifiers to damage. Or just go directly for vital organs. Or, which is the worst that can happen, simply pour RainOfArrows. A small squad of dryads can slaughter ''entire batallion'' as if nothing. Worst part? If a character ''somehow'' survives the first round, ''dryads still retain their stealth bonus''.

*** To a lesser extent, all kinds of encounters involving rangers play like this. Due to the game mechanics, defense against projectiles only scales with Agility, unlike defense against melee or magic, which also scales with related skills. This means average character will have 1 in defense. As defense is lowered by skill, even the worst archer around is perfectly capable of scoring an auto-hit. So while dryads are outright in TheDreaded territory when it comes to facing them, just a bunch of low-tier bandits can be a problem if they lay an ambush. This can be somewhat mitingated by having a shield, as shields provide decent defense against projectiles (up to 3), but if ranger shoots from hidden position, they still have advantage of lowering defenses of their target(s) to 1, allowing to add further modifiers without fear of missing the shot.

* In the backstory of the game FadingSuns, the meeting between the Vau and the Second Republic (nearly at the highest point of its power and technological advancement) is the conquest of a (unknown to the humans) Vau protectorate. A few days later, a Vau ship appears, destroy every trace of human presence in a matter of minutes, and leaves a message not to fuck with this star system. Of course, humans being what they are, assemble a combat fleet to attack the planet the Vau vessel came from. The only ship to come back had been spared to serve as a warning to the Second Republic.
* In the backstory of ''{{Planescape}}'', it's mentioned that Sigil's mysterious ruler/protector/overlord, [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast The Lady of Pain]], has killed ''gods'' in her time...and the confrontations were not the usual, cataclysmic, ground shaking clash of the titans one would expect from a duel between major powers. They were much more of the "angry Lady = dead schmuck" variety. The ''only'' entity that has ever so much as slowed her down is [[OurLichesAreDifferent Vecna]], [[TimeAbyss a millennia old liche]] and [[PhysicalGod greater god]], who was in the process of [[UpToEleven reshaping the multiverse]] at the time. Everyone else [[BoomHeadshot just dies]].

* In {{Exalted}}, this is almost guaranteed to happen any time a Celestial Exalt goes in against mortals, or even Terrestrial Exalted. It's even possible to curb stomp ''gods'' if you have the right build.

* TheSingularitySystem models vehicle-scale and personal-scale combat with the same system. Unsurprisingly, cross-scale combats are usually {{Curb Stomp Battle}}s in favor of the vehicular-scale combatants. This is not always the case, though, especially when PoweredArmor come into play.

* In ''RuneQuest'', it's established that attacking the dragonewt home city and destroying their eggs - the focus of their repeated reincarnation - is completely off limits. The reason lies in the last time it was tried: The true dragons got very, very upset and the resulting [[NameToRunAwayFromReallyFast Dragonkill Wars]] weren't so named because of anything the ''dragons'' suffered. Ever since, it has been understood that battling individual dragonewts is allowed, but attempted genocide is a giant no-no.