History Main / BarrierWarrior

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* The Monk class from third edition DungeonsAndDragons has good defenses and various other abilities that let him protect, heal, or immunize himself from harm - but is capable of doing very little else that would actually be ''useful'' in an adventuring party (moderate offense, poor scouting abilities due to lack of stealth, mediocre damage and mostly ineffective debuffs). This is the subject of frequent flame wars on certain message boards.
** Three words: [[GameBreaker Vow of Poverty]]
*** The ability that actually makes you weaker than characters with level-appropriate magic items beyond the first several levels?
*** Note that, if you have a DM who ''loves'' to keep your party dirt-poor, {{VoP}} becomes a GameBreaker. Also a source of great glee, when he realises that he can't screw you out of abilities.
** A better example is the Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil PrestigeClass, which lets a wizard surround himself in multiple layers of different-coloured barriers, each of which blocks a different form of attack and has different effects on anyone who tries to pass through it. At higher levels they can shape the barriers into walls and bubbles.
** Both the swordmage and the wizard classes from 4e D&D have shielding capabilities. The shielding swordmage effectively absors one enemy's dealt damage every turn. The staff wizard, on the other hand, can use shielding type spells to boost his defenses in order to make attacks straight up miss him.
** The abjurer in 2nd and 3rd edition D&D is a specialist wizard who focuses on defensive magic, including spells that create magical force effects, such as ''mage armor'' and ''shield''. A 3E PrestigeClass, the abjurant champion from ''Complete Mage'', combined the abjurer's protective magic with a warrior's skill at arms to make a literal BarrierWarrior who relies on magical force barriers rather than physical armor.
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* Wallflower of the WhateleyUniverse: spherical shields, invisibility, and the psychic ability to 'see' when inside her 'invisibility' sphere.

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* Brainiac 5 of the ''LegionOfSuperHeroes'', who uses his force field and martial arts training to make up for no powers in the comics. In the show, he's a DoAnythingRobot and a TelescopingRobot, whose BeehiveBarrier is the least of what he can do.

* Bella in [[{{Twilight}} Breaking Dawn]] is able to protect herself and her allies from the mental powers of enemy vampires. OrSoIHeard...

* ''SuzumiyaHaruhi:'' Yuki Nagato tends to fight by slamming people with forcefields, although this may be due to the fact that both times we see her fight, she's also protecting [[NonActionGuy noncombatants]]. This is in contrast to her EvilCounterpart [[spoiler:[[YouShouldKnowThisAlready Ryouko]]]], who prefers various means of stabbing the hell out of people (spears thrown with telekinesis, [[KnifeNut regular ol' knives]], whatever.)

** Dr. Doom has stated, on a number of occasions, that Sue is easily the most powerful member of the team. This is backed up by a few of higher end feats, which include [[DidYouJustPunchOutChtulhu killing a Celestial, who are essentially space-roaming gods]]. She is, to date, the only Earth-based Marvel hero to accomplish this.

** Dr. Doom has stated, on a number of occasions, that Sue is easily the most powerful member of the team. This is backed up by a few of higher end feats, which include killing a Celestial, who are essentially space-roaming gods. She is, to date, the only Earth-based Marvel hero to accomplish this.

** Also, Hachigen "Hachi" Ushoda from the Vaizards, whose speciality is the casting of binding spells. [[spoiler: And yes, he "heals/repairs" Orihime's aforementioned attacking fairy, Tsubaki.]]

** ''Possibly'', Choujiro Sasakibe from the Shinigami. [[spoiler: He's the one who guarded the barrier over Karakura and later opened it to let the Vaizards pull their BigDamnHeroes.]]

** Katsuhito - Tenchi's grandfather, has similar shields, but he only uses them for defense, prefering the [[CoolSword Tenchi-ken]] for offense.
** Tenchi has similar powers, but do to his lack of training he rarely uses them. The only time we see him use them in the original series was wrapped around a fist to attempt a killer blow against Kagato while parrying his sword. However, Tenchi's ultimate power - the Light Hawk Wings - are massive shields that can block nearly anything. After unleashing them he fights with the Light Hawk Sword, which is really just one of the shields shaped like a sword.

* Let's not forget Beet the Vandel Buster's Cruss, a water using legendary hero whose shield protects the group as well as rebounding any attack back onto the attacker. Slightly subverted in the fact that shield can transform into giant flail.

** Actually, Poo can also use a similar shield setup to Ness as well, and infact a BETTER version which allows him to shield all his allies at once, whereas Ness's shields can only be added to one ally per turn.

* ''WorldOfWarcraft'' has several classes capable of becoming {{Barrier Warrior}}s. Priests can make protective barriers out of an allies' soul, with some priests actually enabling these shields to reflect damage. Paladins go one step further into the defensive variety, able to make themselves invulnerable to damage, make an ally invulnerable to physical (but not magical) damage, or sacrifice themselve to make an ally immune to absolutely everything but removing them from combat. Finally, Warriors can turn their shields into fully offensive weapons.

* [[TouhouProject Reimu Hakurei]] is a subversion. First her barriers are extremely offensive in nature. Second, she's the main character.

* [[spoiler:Future Kyle]] from ''{{Psyren}}'' can create dense pockets of air with his psy. Not only does he defend with them, but he uses the blocks to crush foes as well as a platforms for maneuvers.

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* TumbleBee of the ''GlobalGuardiansPBEMUniverse'' is a FlyingBrick whose "super-strength" and "invulnerability" are both based on generating force fields.

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* [[{{Twilight}} Bella Swan]] is immune to any mental-based vampire powers, because she has a mental barrier which she later learns to expand and project.

** In MassEffect 2, one class has access to the 'armor' ability, which projects plates of armor made of hardened light over your character. As your character takes more ranks in it, it becomes stronger, and lasts longer, to the point where you can pretty much reapply it whenever it goes down. Oh, and it also does the Macross "explode outwards and hurt everyone I don't like" thing when it goes down. Fun stuff.
* How {{Halo}} wasn't mentioned on here before now, I will never know. In Halo:Reach, a barrier armor ability is available that protects the user from ''all'' harm. It also bursts outwards in an EMP when it drops. Note; All harm means just that. Unlike the BeeHiveBarrier from Halo 3, Reach's shield ability can stop a speeding warthog like... Well, Superman, really. Going from a sitting duck to the man of steel in a split second really makes your day, as the jeep that was about to crush you ''explodes'' and goes tumbling away.

* [[{{Deconstruction}} Deconstructed]] in ''NeonGenesisEvangelion''. Each Eva and major villain fight through the use of [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic "absolute terror"]] fields, powerful forcefields that can deflect bullets and even nuclear weapons, and can only be reliably disabled through a stronger "absolute terror" field or through [[WaveMotionGun ridiculously big guns]]. Rather than being pacifistic team players, though, the Eva are frighteningly violent, and the strength of the absolute terror field comes from the desire for isolation.

* Komachi/Cure Mint in ''[[YesPrecure5 Yes! Precure 5]]''. In theory, somewhat limited in usage compared to other forcefielders, since she can only produce Mint Protection and Mint Shield around herself rather than just anywhere. In practice, they're strong enough to make Mint [[TheWorfEffect the team Worf]], can provide pathways for her teammates' powers, and have no apparent limit on range, and the Mint Shield in particular does damage on contact and has been used as a massive KamehameHadoken. In season two, though, she loses these abilities, which are replaced with the more traditional attack Emerald Saucer... which turns out to ''also'' work as a shield, making her still a BarrierWarrior in spirit if not in practice.