History Main / AsLethalAsItNeedsToBe

* ''Film/SpiderMan3'' has the Green Goblin's pumpkin bombs, which alternate between knocking Harry out, giving him amnesia, and vaporizing Venom.

* ''Film/CaptainAmericaTheWinterSoldier'' sees Cap's thrown shield knock out regular humans with no visible blood or cuts and break through the solid metal body of a VTOL S.H.I.E.L.D plane.

* Justified in ''Comicbook/ThePunisherPurgatory''. Punisher [[EmpoweredBadassNormal has been granted]] with divine weaponry which respond to his thoughts, making him able to just point and shoot as he pleases.

* CaptainAmerica's shield is like this, DependingOnTheAuthor. Sometimes the edges are portrayed as razor sharp, other times blunted.
* NikolaiDante's [[ImpossiblyCoolWeapon Huntsman 5000 rifle]] is like this. It fires the optimum ammunition to eliminate its target at any time, but Nikolai's used it to shoot to wound on occasion.

* ''MedakaBox'': Nienami, one of [[spoiler: Medaka's suitors]], is capable of cutting a battleship in half with her sword abilities. Yet in her fight against Zenkichi, she only succeeds in cutting him up a bit.

[[folder:WesternAnimation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/AvengersEarthsMightiestHeroes'': Wasp's stings are usually portrayed as annoying BeamSpam at best. But during the five-part pilot, she manages to whip off a blast that cut a railroad car in half (a railroad car that was being thrown through the air right at her). It didn't even seem to be a matter of concentration or energy use, because she went right back to her normal BeamSpam right afterward.
* ''ThundarrTheBarbarian'''s [[LaserSword Sun Sword]] could cut through inanimate objects and MechaMooks as if they were tissue paper. But the moment he tried to strike down a living foe, the Sun Sword inexplicably didn't work. (At least the writers lampshaded this by having Thundarr express surprise, dismay or both at this.)

* Sokka's boomerang in ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' is similar to the above Batman example. While it is used to cut and knock out, Sokka is often shown to be sharpening one edge of it while leaving the other edge dull. It can be assumed he chooses which side to throw it on.
** Earthbending rather infamously had this applied when Jet was injured fatally by Long Feng, because every other time somebody is hit with a rock thrown via Earthbending it doesn't do any lasting damage.
** In the sequel ''Series/{{Legend Of Korra}}'', [[EldritchAbomination Vaatu]]'s laser attack is frequently seen blasting through rock, yet human beings can survive it without any significant injury.
* WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack has a magical sword which will not harm those pure of heart - on the occasion where it was used against him, it merely bounced off, and when stolen and used against others, the best it can do is knock people away.

* The eponymous [[VideoGame/FireEmblemElibe Sword of Seals]] is, evidently, only as strong as the resolve of its wielder. When Hartmut, one of the generals of [[GreatOffscreenWar The Scouring]], found that the leader of the dragons had assumed the form of a frail girl, he didn't have the heart to kill her outright, opting instead to knock her out with the sword, and sealing her away.

* In the ''{{Manga/Berserk}}'' movies 'Guts' sword is sharp enough to cut falling leaves... he can also rest it on his shoulder with no problem.

** ''WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime'' sometimes run into this with characters built in guns. Typically they didn't do any significant damage, except against [[RedShirt Vehicons]], but in one instance Megatron's arm cannon is enough to [[spoiler:kill Dreadwing with a single shot]], and is '''NEVER''' presented as being that powerful again.

** ''WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime'' sometimes run into this with characters built in guns. Typically they didn't do any significant damage, except against [[RedShirt Vehicons]], but in one instance [[spoiler: Megatron's arm cannon is enough to kill Dreadwing with a single shot, and is '''NEVER''' presented as being that powerful again.]]

* ''VideoGame/{{Prototype}}'': Why you cannot deal a fatal blow to Specialist Cross when you first encounter him, no matter what you do on his last sliver of health.

* In ''GhostbustersTheVideoGame'', the proton packs and all energy-based add-ons ''should'' nastily burn any humans (especially Ghostbusters) who are in the way, but hitting your comrades only provokes an irritated "Hey, watch your aim!"

* In the ''{{Berserk}}'' movies 'Guts' sword is sharp enough to cut falling leaves... he can also rest it on his shoulder with no problem.

* Weapons in ''Left4Dead'' can take out most zombies with a few shots/hits, but attacking a teammate will simply result in an annoyed scolding by whoever you attacked (lopping off an insignificant portion of their health if friendly fire is on). Even if they're lying on the floor in a pool of their own blood, it can take dozens of shots to finish one of them off.

[[quoteright:350:[[VideoGame/SoulCaliburIV http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/421f9958387895d165b90bd756a5a765.png]]]]

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[[quoteright:320:[[VideoGame/{{Prototype}} http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lethalasneedbe_4093.jpg]]]]

* ''RolePlay/WeAreOurAvatars'': [[https://www.dropbox.com/s/ei1zmd4ccih7ue1/Deathless.jpg Deathless]]. Said [[CoolSword sword]] is made entirely out of unnatural darkness, and can be lethal or nonlethal, due to how it cuts.[[note]]If it's nonlethal, then all damage done to someone with the sword is done to the person's shadow, and making the person feel a severe cold where the cut was made. The worse the cut is, the colder it feels, making normally fatal cuts incapacitatingly cold. Making it lethal requires a trigger word, which makes all the previously nonlethal cuts happen all at once.[[/note]]

* ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'': The lightsabers. Although they are [[SwordOfPlotAdvancement extremely powerful weapons]] in both games (arguably the ''only'' powerful weapons in the first one), they generally do ''not'' behave like the lightsabers of the traditional Star Wars lore. They are more like normal swords, possibly to avoid the GameBreaker status. Possibly justified through the use of "cortosis", a material which [[CripplingOverspecialization blocks lightsabers and little else]]. Presumably, the overuse of cortosis in this era rendered it rare by the time of the movies.
* In ''[[VideoGame/SoulSeries Soul Calibur 4]]'', several playable characters wield lightsabers. They act similarly to lightsabers in ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'', though: they are more like normal swords, and clash against the mundane swords and other weapons wielded by the rest of the fighting roster.

* ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'': The lightsabers. Although they are [[SwordOfPlotAdvancement extremely powerful weapons]] in both games (arguably the ''only'' powerful weapons in the first one), they generally do ''not'' behave like the lightsabers of the traditional Star Wars lore. They are more like normal swords, possibly to avoid the GameBreaker status. Possibly justified through the use of "cortosis", a material which blocks lightsabers. Presumably, the overuse of cortosis in this era rendered it rare by the time of the movies.
** The novels, especially ''Literature/HandOfThrawn'', note that cortosis is so brittle that it's [[CripplingOverspecialization useless for anything but stopping lightsabers]]. The Jedi no doubt found countermeasures to exploit this weakness.

* ''VideoGame/{{Xenoblade}}'': The Monado is incapable of cutting sentient beings born from the Bionis [[spoiler: (At least for a while).]]

* ''[[WesternAnimation/AdventuresOfTheGalaxyRangers Galaxy Rangers]]'' did a ''nice'' [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar dodge]] on this trope. Early on, [[TheCaptain Zachary]] would sometimes explicitly order his team to "set blasters for stun." Later in the series, when they were trying to score a toy deal, they had a crook say that Ranger blasters didn't have a kill setting. Now, seeing as the source of the information was a ''very'' [[UnreliableNarrator dumb crook]], the writers could both have the kid-friendly "stun only" mention on camera and a wink to the more likely prospect that there was a kill setting. Likewise, Crown blasters also had stun and kill settings, but it was justified in that the Queen wanted humans (or other compatable species) as fodder for [[FateWorseThanDeath the Psychocrypt]], and you couldn't drain LifeEnergy from dead enemies.

* Weapons in ''Left4Dead'' can take out most zombies with a few shots/hits, but attacking a teammate will simply result in an annoyed scolding by whoever you attacked (lopping off an insignificant portion of their health if friendly fire is on). Even if they're lying on the floor in a pool of their own blood, it can take dozens of shots to finish one of them off.

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' has the Ultima Weapon, a sword that has the highest possible attack power (255), but does damage based on its wielder's current HP. It also has the Valiant Knife, which works in reverse - it grows stronger as the difference between the wielder's current HP and max HP gets bigger.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'':
** While all weapons have a random generator that modifies damage to a small degree, Quina's forks deal wildly fluctuating damage.
** Beatrix's Climhazzard and Stock Break attacks freely switch between doing normal damage and doing exactly enough damage to set HPToOne depending purely on the story.