History Main / NecessaryDrawback

** The soldier's armor set gives some of the best physical defense of any armor in the game; it also makes a tremendous amount of noise, making stealth nearly impossible. By contrast, the barbarian armor sends Link's physical attack to its maximum level and the stealth set makes him move in near-total silence -- but both are made of tissue paper and provide little physical protection.

* All the more powerful gear in ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiDreamTeam'' comes under this in some way, with the increased stats being part of a tradeoff for some other drawback. The Crystal items raise stats massively but can break during use and be destroyed. The Dark items do the same but hurt the wielder for every attack. And the Legendary Wear boosts every stat you have by a pretty big amount... with the not so minor drawback that you automatically get [=KOed=] in two turns. There are also a few badge effects that have great effects for the user... 50% of the time, with the alternative being to potentially KO everyone on the field at once.
* In ''Franchise/MassEffect'', the ''Normandy's'' revolutionary stealth-drive relies on storing all outbound emissions in massive heat-sinks, thus making it virtually undetectable to other vessels. However the ship can only remain in stealth for a few hours at the most, or the massive buildup of heat will slowly begin to cook the crew alive.
** It also doesn't have any form of optical stealth, so even at maximum concealment, it's 100% detectable if the enemy so much as looks out their window. This is a non-issue in practice, however, since the vast distances of space mean that combat virtually never happens in visual range.
** The hybrid classes - Infiltrator, Sentinel, and Vanguard - make up for their talent flexibility with a lack of focus; a Vanguard won't have the nastiest talents a Soldier or Adept can bring to bear, for example. Then they got unique abilities, which gave them stronger definition but reduced flexibility - while neither a Soldier nor an Engineer can use a Vanguard's biotic charge, it does tend to push Vanguards into a tactical model of screaming and charging.
* ''VideoGame/PathOfExile'' has these with its super-powerful passive skills called "Keystone Passives." They balance excellent advantages with harsh disadvantages, to the point that choosing one may fundamentally change how the game is played. Among them: your attacks [[AlwaysAccurateAttack will never miss]] at the cost of never being able to deal a CriticalHit, your summons deal much more damage but you can't deal any damage yourself, and being unable to dodge but being immune to stun.
** Several unique items also balance traits impossible to get on the RandomlyGeneratedLoot with significant drawbacks. Immortal Flesh gives enormous life regeneration and physical damage resistance but also greatly lowers elemental resistance, Saffel's Frame can block spells but not physical attacks, Void Battery actually reduces your spell damage if you haven't optimized your build around power charges, and so on.

* A recurring theme in the ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'' construction rules is that equipment made of lighter materials than normal ends up being ''bigger'' than normal ([[MST3KMantra never mind the logic behind that]]) and thus eats up more internal space; classic examples are extralight fusion engines, endosteel structure, Ferro-fibrous armor, and double heat sinks. Where this principle isn't followed -- XL engines on aerospace fighters are notorious offenders, and double heat sinks arguably also qualify since, when done right, they can end up ''saving'' internal space as well as weight relative to the standard model, -- the items in question do acquire certain GameBreaker qualities. (InUniverse, these things may be to some degree balanced by the cost -- indeed, quite possibly the only reason internal combustion engines are still used at all is that they're notionally cheap and available, because they certainly have no actual in-game advantages whatsoever to compensate for their drawbacks, -- but in actual gaming practice certain pieces of gear are just flat-out preferable to others. The Battle Value system tries to help balance things out, but it ultimately remains an ''optional'' rule that even after a couple of decades of development cannot hope to account for everything and retains several bugs.)
** From a material sciences point of view it makes a lot of sense. It is very very rare for one substance to be just plain better than another. For example, steel is much stronger per unit volume than titanium, but we use titanium quite often in aerospace construction where a bulkier (you still need to pass certain mechanical limits) but the lighter structure is better. We rarely bother to use titanium in a tank.
* Goblin Contracts from ''Tabletop/ChangelingTheLost'' have powerful effects balanced by significant drawbacks, but there's one noteworthy [[InvertedTrope inversion:]] [[DangerousForbiddenTechnique Call The Hunt]]. It summons a Fae hunting party to your location without any drawback, ''because its effect is already its drawback.'' Needless to say, only Loyalists or the [[GodzillaThreshold truly desperate]] will use it.
* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' features characters with a balance between strength, power, speed, and durability. One of the character types, a Paladin, is one of the most powerful characters to be, but are required to be [[LawfulStupid Boy Scouts]] and cannot do anything immoral. And then 3rd Edition came along, and so did [=CoDzilla=], and suddenly everyone realized that playing either cleric or druid was like being a GodModeSue. [[strike: In fairness, much of the imbalance came from the myriad splatbooks and were not in the core ruleset.]] It only gets worse once the various splatbooks enter play.
** Fourth Edition has created a much better balance between the classes at the cost of the "Simulationist" part of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNS_Theory "Gamer-Narrativist-Simulationist"]] triad in role-playing games. Character classes are now clearly divided into roles that complement each other. The result is a game that is mechanically far cleaner but which has lost some of its fluidity. Fourth Edition characters built "rules as written" and following all errata are barely able to be above or below the intended power curve. You could put your stats where the game recommends and pick powers at random and wind up barely weaker than someone who painstakingly min-maxed their character. However, each character can only handle their role of Defender, Leader, Controller, and Striker. Put out of their element, each character class is weak. It's NecessaryDrawback for everyone. Some players love the playability and balance, while the others hate the movement from "rulings to rules." Neither side is right, as this is a personal preference, do ''not'' argue this with fans of one style unless you want a headache.
** ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'', a rebuilt 3.5 with a much better eye for balance, enforces the necessary drawbacks of the traditional classes. It does this by nerfing the abilities of the once high-tier classes to render their weaknesses moot and spectacularly upgrading the abilities of the formerly low-tier classes to make them far more capable - so players will pick them. For example, the CoDzilla era began when players learned a Cleric or Druid could buff themselves to outperform the Fighter in his role, so Paizo nerfed the more powerful CoDzilla abilities while also buffing the heck out of the Fighter.
* This is an explicit design rule of ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'', as stated by R&D director Mark Rosewater. A card can have only two of the following: a low mana cost, high power, or no drawback. An entire [[PlayerArchetypes Player Archetype]], "Johnny", enjoys building decks around cards with quirky drawbacks.
* Within ''TabletopGame/MutantsAndMasterminds'', every power has a point cost. Adding flaws and drawbacks reduces the cost. In addition, heroes can pull out related powers in a crisis by spending Hero Points; said power has to match the point value of the original power. Therefore, a common method is to take the regular power and add a flaw for the single-use such as the power taking longer to charge up, causing the power to tire out the user, adding a side effect, or preventing dodging while the power is being used.
* This is a gameplay mechanic in ''TabletopGame/MyLifeWithMaster''. All players possess a "More Than Human" power which allows them to do a certain action and automatically succeed; however, they can't use their power in a [[WeaksauceWeakness specific situation]] (they can move silently, except in presence of babies). Additionally, they possess a "Less Than Human" weakness that works in reverse: it makes them automatically fail a certain action unless they're in a specific situation (they can't talk except when in their Master's presence). Often, players make it so that the thing that prevents them from using their power is the same thing that temporarily suppresses their weakness.
* ''{{TabletopGame/Rifts}}'' is not known for its game balance, but you can spot a few of these. Juicers are fueled by PsychoSerum which makes them incredibly powerful, but it also means they have seven years to live before their hearts blow out. Crazies will eventually go irredeemably insane. Glitter Boys are usually seen as a GameBreaker, but they have one problem that others don't: they're a MightyGlacier class that ''everyone knows the weaknesses of''.
** Glitter Boys also have very little manufacturing support, and what little they do have is very centralized in one particular political power. Consequently, they tend to suffer a lot of wear and tear just [[DeathOfAThousandCuts by being used in engagements over time]], which can potentially shift then into AwesomeButImpractical territory for the pilot who does not want to risk adding a few more scratches to his paint job.
* InUniverse example, from ''TabletopGame/SeventhSea'': Every school of sword fighting has one flaw, which can be exploited if you're familiar with the school (represented in-game by bonuses if you're fighting someone of a school you know). For example, one school teaches its students to fight by playing a song in their heads and attacking in time to it. The flaw? The chorus - the only time in the song where your motions will always be the same.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' generally ''tries'' to have this, with the level of success varying, sometimes wildly, depending on who wrote the codex - one of the reasons a Space Marine bike list became powerful in late 7th edition was that bikes brought with them speed ''and'' durability ''and'' a decent amount of hitting power, without being all that expensive.
* In the ''TabletopGame/YuGiOh'' collectible card game, they have a handful of monsters that are obscenely powerful, but require quite a bit of set-up to accomplish, such as most Fusion and especially Ritual monsters. When the Chaos cards came out every player did a double-take, because they effectively changed the game forever with their GameBreaker status. Remove two cards from your graveyard (a mildly unused resource anyway) to bring out monsters that can obliterate almost anything. Ever since then the card restriction list has always either banned them or restricted them to one in a deck, to maintain some sense of limitation.

* The heavier head armor in the Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game protects your head and eyes (which is VERY useful) but hinders your peripheral vision.

If the drawback is that the enemies are more powerful because you have become more powerful, it can be factored into SoLastSeason and the SortingAlgorithmOfEvil. The KryptoniteFactor is also a part of this, as is WeaksauceWeakness. Characters such as {{Superman}} and [[OurVampiresAreDifferent Vampires]] will have these weaknesses automatically or else there is no drama involved, just an unstoppable force. Just giving someone a simple problem like "[[FlawExploitation They care too much]]" is enough.

* Most people, especially kids, find cough syrup to taste disgusting. This is an intentional trait so that nobody will overdose on it because it tastes good. They're also typically given strong or bitter flavors because society expects that effective medicines taste bitter. Studies have proven that flavorless medicines are ranked worse than foul-tasting medicines in terms of effectiveness even when they're the same drug/

* In ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros'', [[VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles Shulk]]'s [[StanceSystem Monado Arts]] grant him a useful buff for a short time, but each Art also has a drawback:

*** Users of the Guts or Quick Feet Abilities can boost their Attack or Speed, respectively, when they are affected by StandardStatusEffects; this is often taken advantage of by players deliberately burning or poisoning their Pokemon with the Flame Orb or Toxic Orb items, resulting in Pokemon being faster or stronger at the cost of taking damage each turn and using up their item slot.

There is a direct relationship between the power and ability of a device and the drawbacks attached to actually using the damn thing. This means that the more powerful something becomes, the more likely it is to seriously harm its user in the process.

In stories, this balance exists for several reasons, but especially for two important ones: to keep an audience interested and to [[OnlyTheAuthorCanSaveThemNow avoid making things difficult for the writer]]. Without this balance, it calls into question [[HoldingBackThePhlebotinum why someone doesn't use such a weapon in the first place]], or why ''everyone in the world'' isn't using it, if there is no drawback. For example, the invention of [[NeverBringAKnifeToAGunFight accurate, rapid-firing firearms killed]] {{Sword Fight}}ing outside of gentlemanly sports contests. One plausible reason why only one combatant would use a weapon or power is [[LensmanArmsRace if they're the first ones to find, invent or create it]]. Another plausible reason is that they are TheOnlyOne who has it, because [[NoPlansNoPrototypeNoBackup the blueprints have been destroyed]] or [[ItOnlyWorksOnce it can only be used for a short time]] before it's gone for good.

In games, this helps to create variety. For example, you might have a game system in which broadswords are powerful and have a wide range, but are slow and heavy, while daggers are quick and light, but with a short range. Perhaps the CombinedEnergyAttack and WaveMotionGun requires a few seconds of prep time to use correctly, and even then it is usually a [[ItOnlyWorksOnce one time deal]], or at most [[RuleOfThree maybe three.]] Guns likewise have range; but [[GunsAreWorthless have to be nerfed]] so that people would actually look at other weapon types out there. A GameBreaker is something that ''ignores'' this rule, which means that ''everyone'' either has to do it or they ''will'' lose.

There is a danger, however, that inept balancing can lead to too much drawback without enough benefits. If the drawback is worse than the effect, it can become AwesomeButImpractical. Drawback without added practical benefit can further slide into CoolButInefficient. At the other end is FakeBalance, where the developers thought they had balanced a character but [[AvertedTrope didn't]] [[DevelopersForesight have enough Foresight]] and failed to remove a GameBreaker aspect or two.

Compare the CompetitiveBalance character builds for how fighting styles and video game stats are evened out. See also the InverseLawOfComplexityToPower. DifficultButAwesome can be a subtrope; the thing works well, but the drawback is ease of use.

** Sage Mode; Whilst Chakra is formed from a person's Mental Energy mixed with their physical energy, Sage Mode adds in Nature Energy, adding even more potency, super strength, super toughness and the ability to [[SensorCharacter sense people]] for miles. It is however, [[DifficultButAwesome very hard to learn]], [[TheMentor Jiraiya]] has trained for fourty years yet still gets [[LittleBitBeastly frog traits]] whilst using it. Nature energy is far more potent then the energy a single person normaly generates, [[RequiredSecondaryPowers unless they have major Chakra reserves already]] the nature energy ends up overpowering them and turning them to stone, [[LiteralGenie making them 'one with nature' literally]]. Its biggest drawback however, is that in order to collect Nature Energy you are required to sit completely still and only lasts as long as you don't burn through your reserves. The title character finds a way around this, using a limited number of clones he prepared in advance refill his powers with, simply staying perfectly still as the clone bursts to send it's power to his real body. His weaknesses to these modes do go away: Naruto can enter Sage Mode near instantly and keep it active for a relatively long time later on.
** Naruto's Nine-Tailed Chakra Mode, power stolen from a duel with the fox himself. Not only was the amount stolen finite, but ran the risk was that the Kyubi would consume Naruto's own chakra to the point where he could die from chakra exhaustion. The fact was that Naruto's trademark technique Kage Bushin, divides his power into many bodies would accelerate the process, thus he could only use it sparingly. [[spoiler:However, after he and Kurama become partners there aren't any risks to the form, and it can even be used as a FantasticLightSource.]]
** The powers of the Mangekyo Sharingan have a drawback that they cost a staggering amount of Chakra to use [[spoiler: and they will eventually blind the user. The former doesn't affect Sasuke as much as it affects Itachi, who with his low chakra reserves can only use the MS three times a day if he doesn't want to collapse. Only way to get rid of the drawback is an MS transplant, which gives the user the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan-which only Sasuke and Madara have]]. Itachi doesn't have the drawback as an Edo Tensei due to unlimited chakra and regeneration.

** The original power multiplier are the Power Stressed forms, that increase one's muscle mass and power... And consume stamina much faster (in the original series Master Roshi managed to blow up the Moon, but completely exhausted his power in the process). Furthermore, if one goes overboard their muscles will become so large they'll obstruct movements, [[MightyGlacier making the user too slow to actually hit the enemy]].
** Before getting Super Saiyan, Goku also had the Kaioken technique, which is supposed to increase one's power. However, because of the strain it puts on the body, King Kai specifically states don't go over Kaioken x2. His fight with Vegeta forces him to hit x4 and it leaves him so sore he can barely move and still doesn't stop the Saiyan. He even pushes himself to x20 fighting Frieza and all it does is leave him a sitting duck.
** All Super Saiyan forms provide a''massive'' increase in power (the basic Super Saiyan multiplies it by ''fifty times''), but they also have drawbacks:

*** Super Saiyan 4 has a x500 multiplier... But requires the Saiyan to still have their tail to use it at will. Alternatively Bulma managed to come up with a way to achieve it without tail, but it requires a large device to be used for every tranformation, and it can run out without warning.

** Vegeta's [[KamehameHadoken Final Flash]] is powerful enough to present a serious threat to [[BigBad Perfect Cell]], despite Cell being so much stronger than Vegeta at that point it was borderline ridiculous. Given the size of the beam and the amount of damage a glancing blow did, it likely would've vaporized Cell and ended the arc prematurely had it hit cleanly. But it also took most of an episode to charge up, time Vegeta was able to get by appealing to Cell's BloodKnight tendencies and ''daring'' him to try and NoSell the attack. Cell realized at the last second that it was an actual threat and tried to dodge, but still lost an arm and a good chunk of his chest. Later against a [[EliteMooks Cell Jr.]], Vegeta tries skipping the long charge-up sequence but this makes the attack much weaker and thus ineffective.
** A filler arc in ''Anime/DragonBallSuper'' has Goku combine the Kaioken with his [[SuperMode Super Saiyan Blue]] form, which massively enhances the benefits of the former while temporarily suppressing the drawbacks. However, this has some ''new'' major drawbacks: besides requiring a very precise ''ki'' control, lest it misfires and kills the user (which is why Goku never attemtped this until he obtained Super Saiyan Blue, which comes with perfect ki control), it causes "[[HeroicRROD Delayed Onset Ki Disorder]]", aka a temporary loss of ki and control of the user's powers some time after turning back to normal - and, if the technique is used too mach, the power loss becomes permanent.

* ''Manga/HeavensLostProperty'': The combat angeloids are built to have 3 main attributes: Computational ability, Combat prowess and Emotional control. They are focused on two of them while lacking in the third one.

* The ZERO System from ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamWing'' provides speed-of-thought mecha control and predictions of enemy actions that border on prescience. However, absolute focus has to be maintained, because if one's mind wanders, the massive feed of battle data is then applied to whatever he thinks about - like his homeland, or his girlfriend - typically with bloody results, which makes his focus slip even more, which shows more horrifying images...and so on.

* Played with in ''Manga/HunterXHunter'', as the Nen users are able to intentionally give their abilities specific downsides or limitations, which directly results in a massive powerup to the ability. For instance, Kurapika Kurta made a Nen Contract to only use Chain Jail on the Phantom Troupe with a penalty of his own power killing him if he uses it on anyone else. The result is an ability that can restrain someone with SuperStrength [[PowerNullifier in addition to shutting down all their Nen abilities]], but it only works on a ''very'' small group of people.
* In ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'', most Quirks, being physical abilities, can cause exhaustion if overused. Some Quriks also have their own unique drawbacks. To name some examples:

* Luffy's "gears" in ''Manga/OnePiece''. Gear Second gives him a massive speed and strength boost, but it burns through the nutrients in his body much faster, so he's sacrificing stamina for it. Gear Third makes his attacks even more powerful and with a much wider area, but his ability to flow from one attack to the next is about as quick as a snail trying to drag a crate of bricks, so it's not much good if an attack misses and he has to go again, or if he has to attack more than one opponent that are nowhere near each other. Plus once he's done with his giant form, he has to spend an equal amount of time as a helpless chibi. After feeling the downsides of both of these abilities during their debut in Enies Lobby, though, Luffy has mostly gotten around them by limiting their use to short bursts.
** Then the TimeSkip happened and now Luffy has gotten around both of these weaknesses, having used Gear Second for several fights without concern (even though he doesn't really need to) and able to transition Gear Third techniques quickly and easily. Plus he's combining them with Haki. But now he's revealed the new Gear Fourth. Despite its power, this form is even ''more'' draining than Second Gear: it [[HourOfPower automatically deactivates after a short time]], leaves Luffy so drained that he is barely able to fight and temporarily unable to use Haki. Using it twice in succession leaves him unconscious.
** Trafalgar Law's Ope-Ope Fruit allows him to create "Rooms" where they can cut up and rearrange ''absolutely anything'' inside of it, including switching around people's souls. This would be a StoryBreakerPower if it wasn't for its drawbacks. First, he can only affect things that are inside a "Room" - which is stationary, and Law cannot mantain more than one "Room" at the same time. Second, he has to concentrate on what he's trying to affect, and if he's unable to (for example, if his target moves so fast he isn't able to follow them), he cannot affect them. Most importantly, unlike literally any other Devil Fruit, his abilities consume his stamina.
** Blackbeard's Dark-Dark Fruit allows him to control [[CastingAShadow darkness]], and also gives him GravityMaster abilities such as using a black hole to pull opponents towards him. However, while all other Logia-class Devil Fruits allow the user to [[NighInvulnerable turn their body into their respective element and let enemy attacks pass through it harmlessly]], Blackbeard's gravity does ''not'' allow him to turn incorporeal. In fact, the pulling force attracts enemy attacks towards his body, making them less avoidable and more damaging.

** This is basically the reason behind ComicBook/{{Cyclops}} needing his ruby-quartz visor to handle his EyeBeams. If he had complete control most any battle would be short lived or at least manageable through his involvement alone. The visor appears to focus the concussive blast into something with surgical precision and he can alter the exact power level, while once removed it becomes a random energy beam of destruction. This was explained that the nerve cluster in Scott's brain that would control the blasts was damaged in a head injury he suffered as a child before his mutation became apparent. And depending on the continuity if Rogue absorbs his power she might also be incapable of controlling it.

* In the ''Manga/OnePiece'' fanfic, ''Fanfic/ThisBites'', [[spoiler:Princess Vivi]] gains the power of the Sovereign's Will. The Sovereign's Will is a variation of Conquorer's Haki that [[CompellingVoice forces the listener to obey her commands for a brief period of time,]] but comes with an additional requirement to work. Like Conquorer's Haki, [[spoiler:Vivi]] has to impose her will on another, but that person must also ''respect'' her and her authority or her Will won't affect them.

* In ''Literature/CodexAlera'', each different type of fury crafting has several drawbacks, both the need for free contact with the element involved, I.E. some dirt or stone to earthcraft, trees to woodcraft, etc, but also tends to have lingering mental and/or emotional effects, which are stronger the more powerful the fury-crafter is. Water crafters, for example, are constantly inundated by the emotions of everyone around them. For weak crafters this is a minor annoyance, but for stronger ones, it can drive them quite mad.

* ''Series/BurnNotice'' has mentioned repeatedly about how to properly search a location and hide your own valuables. A hiding spot that would be difficult for crooks to locate also has to be difficult for yourself to retrieve easily. Thus hiding something in the wall will require straight up demolition to find. Most of the show is about learning where those drawbacks are and finding the most efficient advantage, thus Michael hid a key card in the door frame behind the hinge using a saw and then covering it up. No one would think to look there and recovery just required 30 seconds and a screwdriver.

* Cloaking devices in pretty much every incarnation of ''Franchise/StarTrek'' have two drawbacks: you can't fire weapons while cloaked (meaning that you have to reveal yourself in order to attack), and you have no shields while cloaked (meaning that if someone does manage to find you and hit you somehow, you're toast).

* A recurring theme in the ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'' construction rules is that equipment made of lighter materials than normal ends up being ''bigger'' than normal ([[MST3KMantra never mind the logic behind that]]) and thus eats up more internal space; classic examples are extralight fusion engines, endosteel internal structure, ferro-fibrous armor, and double heat sinks. Where this principle isn't followed -- XL engines on aerospace fighters are notorious offenders, and double heat sinks arguably also qualify since, when done right, they can actually end up ''saving'' internal space as well as weight relative to the standard model, -- the items in question do acquire certain GameBreaker qualities. (In-universe these things may be to some degree balanced by cost -- indeed, quite possibly the only reason internal combustion engines are still used at all is that they're notionally cheap and available, because they certainly have no actual in-game advantages whatsoever to compensate for their drawbacks, -- but in actual gaming practice certain pieces of gear are just flat-out preferable to others. The Battle Value system tries to help balance things out, but it ultimately remains an ''optional'' rule that even after a couple of decades of development cannot hope to account for everything and retains a number of bugs.)
** From a material sciences point of view it makes a lot of sense. It is very very rare for one substance to be just plain better than another. For example, steel is much stronger per unit volume than titanium, but we use titanium quite often in aerospace construction where a bulkier (you still need to pass certain mechanical limits) but lighter structure is better. We rarely bother to use titanium in a tank.
* Goblin Contracts from ''Tabletop/ChangelingTheLost'' have powerful effects balanced by significant drawback, but there's one noteworthy [[InvertedTrope inversion:]] [[DangerousForbiddenTechnique Call The Hunt]]. It summons a Fae hunting party to your location without any drawback, ''because its effect is already its own drawback.'' Needless to say, only Loyalists or the [[GodzillaThreshold truly desperate]] will use it.
* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' features characters with a balance between strength, power, speed and durability. One of the character types, a Paladin, is one of the most powerful characters to be, but are required to be [[LawfulStupid Boy Scouts]] and cannot do anything immoral. And then 3rd Edition came along, and so did [=CoDzilla=], and suddenly everyone realized that playing either cleric or druid was like being a GodModeSue. [[strike: In fairness, much of the imbalance came from the myriad splatbooks and were not in the core ruleset.]] It only gets worse once the various splatbooks enter play.
** Fourth Edition has created a much better balance between the classes at the cost of the "Simulationist" part of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNS_Theory "Gamer-Narrativist-Simulationist"]] triad in role playing games. Character classes are now clearly divided into roles which complement each other. The result is a game which is mechanically far cleaner but which has lost some of its fluidity. Fourth Edition characters built "rules as written" and following all errata are barely able to be above or below the intended power curve. You could basically put your stats where the game recommends and pick powers at random and wind up barely weaker than someone who painstakingly minmaxed their character. However, each character can basically only handle their role of Defender, Leader, Controller, and Striker. Put out of their element, each character class is weak. It's NecessaryDrawback for everyone. Some players love the playability and balance, while the other hates the movement from "rulings to rules." Neither side is right, as this is a personal preference, do ''not'' argue this with fans of one style unless you want a headache.
** ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'', a rebuilt 3.5 with a much better eye for balance, enforces the necessary drawbacks of the traditional classes. It does this by nerfing the abilities of the once high-tier classes to render their weaknesses moot and spectacularly upgrading the abilities of the formerly low-tier classes to make them far more capable - so players will pick them, flaws and all. For example, the CoDzilla era began when players learned a Cleric or Druid could buff themselves to outperform the Fighter in his role, so Paizo nerfed the more powerful CoDzilla abilities while also buffing the heck out of the Fighter.

* Within ''TabletopGame/MutantsAndMasterminds'', every power has a point cost. Adding flaws and drawbacks reduces the cost. In addition, heroes can pull out related powers in a crisis by expending Hero Points, but said power has to match the point value of the original power. Therefore, a common method is to take the regular power and add a flaw for the single usage such as the power taking longer to charge up, causing the power to tire out the user, adding a side effect, or preventing dodging while the power is being used.
* This is a gameplay mechanic in ''TabletopGame/MyLifeWithMaster''. All players possess a "More Than Human" power which allows them to do a certain action and automatically succeed; however, they can't use their power in a [[WeaksauceWeakness specific situation]] (for example: they can move silently, except in presence of babies). Additionally, they possess a "Less Than Human" weakness that works in reverse: it makes them automatically fail a certain action unless they're in a specific situation (for example: they can't talk except when in their Master's presence). Often, players make it so that the thing that prevents them from using their power is the same thing that temporarily suppresses their weakness.

** Glitter Boys also have very little manufacturing support, and what little they do have is very centralized in one particular political power. As a result they tend to suffer a lot of wear and tear just [[DeathOfAThousandCuts by being used in engagements over time]], which can potentially shift then into AwesomeButImpractical territory for the pilot who does not want to risk adding a few more scratches to his paintjob.
* In-universe example, from ''TabletopGame/SeventhSea'': Every school of swordfighting has one flaw, which can be exploited if you're familiar with the school (represented in-game by bonuses if you're fighting someone of a school you know). For example, one school teaches its students to fight by playing a song in their heads and attacking in time to it. The flaw? The chorus - the only time in the song where your motions will always be the same.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' generally ''tries'' to have this, with level of success varying, sometimes wildly, depending on who wrote the codex - one of the reasons a Space Marine bike list became powerful in late 7th edition was that bikes brought with them speed ''and'' durability ''and'' a decent amount of hitting power, without being all that expensive.
* In the ''TabletopGame/YuGiOh'' collectible card game, they have a handful of monsters that are obscenely powerful, but require quite a bit of set-up to accomplish, such as most Fusion and especially Ritual monsters. When the Chaos cards came out every player did a double-take, because they effectively changed the game forever with their GameBreaker status. Remove two cards from your graveyard (a mildly unused resource anyway) to bring out monsters that can obliterate almost anything. Ever since then the card restriction list has always either banned them or restricted them to one in a deck, in an effort to maintain some sense of limitation.
** Synchro Monsters are powerful and easy to Summon, but even they have a few drawbacks. One of the monsters needed to summon it has to be a Tuner. (Some Synchro Monsters need multiple Tuners to Summon, though XX-Saber Gottoms has the option of using more than one Tuner to Summon it.) Going even further than this are the Xyz Monsters, the third Extra Deck monster type. They have power comparable to Synchros, but their effects require monsters attached to them as a resource. This means they can only use their effects two or three times.[[note]]However, there are cards that give Xyz Monsters extra Xyz Materials so they can continue using their effects.[[/note]] Furthermore, a player can only have 15 cards in the Extra Deck (Fusion, Synchro, and Xyz), so the right monsters have to be chosen carefully, depending on the deck.
** In the early days of the game any high-attack monster that was also sufficiently low in level to summon normally without tribute was given some downside to make up for this, such as Panther Warrior requiring a tribute to declare an attack or Goblin Attack Force turning to defence position where it could be easily destroyed after attacking.
** Many powerful card effects are balanced by having them effect both players, for example Skill Drain shuts down the user's monster effects as well as those of their opponent. Players often find ways around these restrictions however, such as by using them in decks that don't care about the drawback or finding a way to negate the effect once their turn begins so only their opponent experiences the downsides.
* The heavier head armour in the Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game protects your head and eyes (which is VERY useful) also hinders your peripheral vision.

* Most [=RPGs=] fall into this same category with respect to weapons and armor.
** Powerful weapons are often slower or have longer recovery times, while more protective armor is almost always heavier and more movement-hindering. In reality, however, a two-handed sword is actually ''faster'' to swing and recover than a one-handed sword while also doing more damage (the weight difference between the two is minimal, while the power and maneuverability you can deliver with both hands increases considerably.) The real trade-off is that you can't carry a shield which, prior to the advent of plate armor, was a very risky proposition. This tradeoff is also regularly used in [=RPGs=] where weapons don't have speeds and a two-handed weapon uses up both hand slots. Beginner ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'' players will testify to how much harder the game is without a shield until you get your dodge roll timing down.
** Speaking of armor, plate armor is often depicted as being heavier and more hampering than mail armor (commonly called 'chainmail' in games), when in reality, a full suit of plate armor is not only ''lighter'' than full-body mail armor, it's also less encumbering for its weight because the weight of the armor is distributed evenly across the body and locked down to minimize shifting when the wearer moves. In terms of combat effectiveness, plate armor is superior to mail ''in every measurable way,'' including weight and maneuverability. The reason it wasn't more common was because it was expensive and time-consuming to produce, so only the wealthy could afford it.

** Specific examples for air-to-ground SP weapons: Precision Guided Bombs/Guided Penetration Bombs (PGB/GPB) have a relatively short lock-on range and a small blast radius in return for the player being able to "fire and forget" and deal high damage to a single target. Advanced/4-Target Air-to-Ground Missiles (XAGM or 4AGM) has a decent lock-on range and can hit targets that are further spread-out than a bomb could, but can be wasted against large groups ground targets clustered together which could have been defeated by a single Unguided Bomb (UGB). Long-Range Air-to-Ground or Air-to-Surface Missiles (LAGM and LASM) have extremely long range and high power, but with a much smaller explosive radius than bombs, the former deals less damage to naval targets, and the latter's unique flight path prevents it from actually hitting non-naval targets.

** The add-on parts in ''Skies of Deception'' almost always have trade-offs, such as armour throwing away speed for defense or engines that do the reverse.
** The [[EnergyWeapon Tactical Laser Systems]] have incredible range and power and will always hit what's in the targeting circle. However, that accuracy is also their greatest weakness; being unguided, if you can't keep the target in the circle then it is not going to get fried. Start working on your gunkills!
** In ''7'' this is a balancing mechanic for multiplayer. More advanced planes are faster, more agile and often (but not always) more firepower, but have fewer flares and lower upgrade part caps. For example, the sleek, bleeding-edge F-22 Raptor (described as "Creator/KimBasinger [[CoolPlane as a plane]]") has just two flares while the ancient [=MiG=]-21 Bis "Fishbed" (which first flew in TheFifties) has half a dozen. Going far up the TechTree gives you more performance, but you pay for that sheer power with less versatility and are expected to make up for the fewer "get out of explosive missile death-free" cards with better evasion skills.
* Most equipment in ''VideoGame/AlphaProtocol'' have this. A certain magazine type may increase ammo capacity but penalise stability. Armored joints increase Endurance but make more noise. Stealth armour has good sound dampening but inferior Endurance bonuses to combat armour. Even the stuff that is a straight upgrade over base gear, usually guns manufactured by Hamilton, usually has inferior stats in certain areas compared to other manufacturers' weapons that greatly improve one or two areas in exchange for penalising others.

** In ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedBrotherhood'', you can send novice Assassins out on missions by themselves. There is a chance that they can fail. The chance of success can be improved by sending multiple or more experienced Assassins on the mission, but doing the former means that the benefits of success are split amongst them, while doing the latter can result in the less experienced Assassins losing out on leveling opportunities.

** Weapons are divided into three types. One gives MoreDakka but is short-ranged, one has long range but poor rate of fire and the third offers a balance.
** Hull plating offers bonuses to [[CallAHitPointASmeerp hull points]], defence against normal attacks, defence against critical hits or a mix of two or more of those. The mixes give less of each individual attribute.
* ''VideoGame/DefenseOfTheAncients'' shows this: Early-/mid-game gankers and mages have strong spells that can kill enemies easily at first, but the damage is fixed and therefore as the enemy builds health, the spells become less powerful, plus they usually lack passives that scale well with items. Lategame carries are weak at first both in health and damage, but become very powerful with farming and usually have passives that scale with their growth. You do have some semicarries who can both gank and carry, but they can't do either as well as a hero dedicated to either archetype. Even within spells there are tradeoffs; for example ranged fire-and-forget (almost) sure-hit stuns like Storm Bolt have a low stun time compared to, say, Shackles that needs the user to stand still and channel, leaving himself open, or Elune's Arrow where the target needs to be led a certain distance in order to achieve a long stun and the projectile is rather easily dodged.
* In-universe example in ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins''. Mages have incredibly power literally at their fingetips. However, this power draws the attention of demons, meaning that anyone who shows signs of magical ability is sent to the Circle Tower to be trained as a mage — under the watchful eye of the Templars, who will kill anyone who shows even a hint of consorting with demons. On top of this, all mages must provide a sample of blood for their "phylactery", a device that can be used to track them flawlessly, should they escape the Templars. Even if a mage ''does'' completely break free, they are still in very real danger from the actual demons.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Earthbound}}'', the Casey Bat is Ness's most powerful weapon... until you account for its 75% miss rate. When it hits, it hits ''hard'', but as [[Literature/CaseyAtTheBat befitting its namesake]], you're just as likely to strike out.
* ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' games that use the Active Time Battle system usually couple powerful spells with longer wait times between inputting the command and the actual execution, in addition to the obviously higher MP costs. This can be deadly in a heated battle against enemies who like to spam powerful spells, since these restrictions [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard don't seem to apply to them]]; when your only option for healing is Curaja, everybody ''else'' will likely have had their turn before the casting is finished. [[note]] The cast time restrictions do apply to to the AI, but it uses inhumanly precise micromanagement to avoid common human mistakes so the point still stands. [[/note]].

* ''VideoGame/IntoSpace'': The better items are, the more they weigh, potentially slowing the rocket down slightly. Additionally, there are several items which tend to improve something at the cost of something else getting worse, for example Econom Mode that decreases both fuel consumption and engine power.

* ''VideoGame/Left4Dead2'' has three weapons that are extremely powerful, but also very limited as designed:

** The [[BFG M60]] is a heavy machine gun that can kill common infected in one shot, does a good amount of damage to special infected, and its beefy 150 ammo reserve means you can go full auto without needing to reload. The drawback is the M60's ammo reserves can't be refilled, making it a one time use weapon.

* All the more powerful gear in ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiDreamTeam'' comes under this in some way, with the increased stats being part of a tradeoff for some other drawback. The Crystal items raise stats massively, but can break during use and be destroyed. The Dark items do the same, but hurt the wielder for every attack. And the Legendary Wear boosts every stat you have by a pretty big amount... with the not so minor drawback that you automatically get [=KOed=] in two turns. There are also a few badge effects which have great effects for the user... 50% of the time (with the alternative being 'potentially KO everyone on the field at once').
* In ''Franchise/MassEffect'', the ''Normandy's'' revolutionary stealth-drive relies on storing all outbound emissions in massive heat-sinks, thus making it virtually undetectable to other vessels. However the ship can only remain in stealth for a few hours at the most, otherwise the massive build up of heat will slowly begin to cook the crew alive.
** It also doesn't have any form of optical stealth, so even at maximum concealment it's 100% detectable if the enemy so much as looks out their window. This is a non-issue in practice, however, since the vast distances of space mean that combat virtually never happens in visual range.
** The hybrid classes - Infiltrator, Sentinel and Vanguard - make up for their talent flexibility with a lack of focus; a Vanguard won't have the nastiest talents a Soldier or Adept can bring to bear, for example. Then they got unique abilities, which gave them stronger definition but reduced flexibility - while neither a Soldier nor an Engineer can use a Vanguard's biotic charge, it does tend to push Vanguards into a tactical model of screaming and charging.

* In the ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' games, the most powerful attacks either require a charging turn, a recovery turn, or have very low success rates. Recoil damage and one or two of the user's stats being lowered are also things to watch out for, the most powerful attacks in the game will likely disable the Pokemon or even you. Generally speaking as well, the more powerful an attack, the less [[CallAHitPointASmeerp PP]] it will have.
** The two moves with the highest Base Power out of all Pokemon attacks, Selfdestruct and Explosion, deal massive damage, hits all Pokemon on the field save for Ghosts, and halves the target's Defense on damage calculations,[[note]]that is until Gen V, where such attacks doesn't reduce the target's defense anymore, so instead of 400 and 500 BP as a result, it has only their mentioned values, 200 and 250 BP,[[/note]] [[SuicideAttack but causes the user to faint.]] The Damp ability also nullifies these.
** The two status moves Shell Smash and Belly Drum are this because they [[GlassCannon boost the users' offensive power but make them more vulnerable to attacks]]. Shell Smash sharply boosts the user's Attack, Special Attack, and Speed, making them much better sweepers, but also lowers their Defense and Special Defense. Belly Drum maxes out the user's Attack, but cuts their HP by half the maximum level (not current level, ''maximum'' level).
** The status move Curse works differently depending on whether or not the user is a Ghost-type, but operates on the necessary drawback principle either way. If the user is not a Ghost-type, it [[MightyGlacier boosts their physical stats but lowers their Speed]]. If the user is a Ghost-type, it causes the target to lose a quarter of their maximum health every turn, but cuts the user's health by half the maximum level.

*** Choice Items like Choice Band and Choice Scarf can greatly increase a Pokemon's power or Speed, at the cost of [[CripplingOverspecialization forcing the Pokemon into using only one attack until its switched out]].
*** Life Orb provides a power boost to all attacks, but causes the user to take damage with each attack (although Abilities like Magic Guard and Sheer Force can negate this).

*** Introduced in ''VideoGame/PokemonXAndY'', some Pokemon are capable of Mega Evolution, a transformation that changes the Pokemon's appearance, grants a huge stat boost (the stats of the Mega-form Pokemon are different from the original form, but almost all gain an additional 100 points on top of their original base stat total), and even grant new abilities and types that further boosts their power. The drawbacks? The Mega Stone takes up an item slot, and you can only have one Pokemon Mega Evolve in a given battle. If it faints, it reverts back to its original form and can't Mega Evolve for the rest of the battle, even if you revive it. The sole exception to the former rule is Rayquaza, who instead needs to know Dragon Ascent to Mega Evolve -- and this exception helped make it so powerful that {{Website/Smogon}} banned it ''from'' Ubers, something they had never done before.
*** There is also drawbacks mentioned in Pokedex entries that are not actually [[GameplayAndStorySegregation reflected in game play]] (nor the anime), such as it causing many Pokemon to become ''bloodthirsty,'' and, for some, to even to be ''in pain'' (Mega Glalie ''jaw breaks'' because of the power overflow.)
* The powers in ''VideoGame/{{Prototype}}'' show this: Claws are the fastest but weakest of the melee ones, Hammerfists are slowest but strongest, Musclemass trades some power for a boost to Alex's basic offense moves, Whipfist gives range but loses power and Blade achieves something of a balance. Meanwhile Shield can be broken after taking some punishment and needs to regenerate, whereas Armour gives a consistent damage reduction but lowers Alex's mobility.
* Traditionally, in the ''Franchise/ResidentEvil'' series, the various types of magnum are extremely powerful weapons, capable of killing multiple enemies in a single shot. However it has a very slow firing rate and ammunition is typically rare. In the few instances the game does start giving you more bullets to play with, [[SuspiciousVideoGameGenerosity it typically means you're gonna' need every bullet you have for whatever is coming next]].
* In ''VideoGame/RustyHearts'', bonuses to physical defence often come as the cost of penalties to magic defence and vice versa.
* In both ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' [=RPGs=], Kenny doesn't get knocked out; he outright [[TheyKilledKennyAgain dies]]. On the plus side, he always has [[ResurrectiveImmortality ways to come back]]; on the minus side, he cannot be resurrected by normal skills or items, and has additional drawbacks that make it easier for him to die.

* In ''VideoGame/SplinterCell: Conviction'', the various guns show this. The Five-Seven has the most number of Marks of all, but isn't the strongest for the chaos of CQC when you don't have time to line up headshots. Scope-attachable assault rifles like the G36 or AK have the best range but can't be suppressed. The [=SC3000=] is powerful and suppressible but its lack of a scope limits its range and has only a measly two Marks. So on and so forth.
* ''VideoGame/StarRuler'' uses this as a key part of the game design; new subsystems unlocked through research are not just incremental improvements on the existing ones but have their own flaws to balance the advantages they bring. To list just some examples:
** Heavy Hulls are better-armoured than other hulls but have less space on the DesignItYourselfEquipment screen.

* ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'': In ''VideoGame/JediOutcast'' you can switch among three lightsaber stances: the Strong stance has powerful attacks that can overcome the defenses of melee opponents, but is slow and defensively weak. The Quick stance has very fast but weak attacks, is strong defensively, and is the most effective at deflecting blaster shots. The Medium stance (the first one you learn) is a balance between the two, with better defense than the Strong stance and better offense than the Quick stance.

** Speed increase Shulk's running speed, but decreases his attack power.

** Weapons: The weapon higher up the TechTree may deal more damage and have better range but is costlier to mount, fires less often and may need a larger turret that tracks more slowly. [[ArmorPiercingAttack Armor piercing]] mass drivers suffer a loss in actual damage and [[BlownAcrossTheRoom knockback]] in order to get higher accuracy, range and less deflection off armour.\\

The sequel adds more complexity with the armour layer system. Some weapons deal incredible damage to ship internals but absolutely horrendous armour damage. Some weapons deal "deep" but "narrow" armour damage, meaning you have to get lucky but will quickly get to the innards when they hit the same spots. Others deal wide but shallow armour damage, meaning less penetration but you don't have to be as accurate. This is however averted with most lategame weapons that have deep ''and'' wide armour penetration and also greatly damage internals.
** FTL drives also have their own advantages and drawbacks. [[BugWar Hivers]] have to STL anywhere but can set up gates that enable one-turn movement. In Antimatter era they get the Farcaster tech that allows them to "teleport" to a system within 10 lightyears, but there is a chance of missing by up to two lightyears. Human node drive has the second highest stated speed but must follow the natural paths, which are rarely straight-line between any two distant systems. [[SapientCetaceans Liir]] Stutterwarp has a comparable speed and can move directly between any systems, but slow down severely near gravity wells. [[OurDragonsAreDifferent Morrigi]] Void Cutter can theoretically attain the highest straight-line speed but requires large fleets; single-ships move slow even with maxed upgrades. [[LizardFolk Tar]][[KillerSpaceMonkey ka]] Hyperdrive is the simplest straight-line system, no funny conditions or effects, but isn't very fast. [[AbsoluteXenophobe Zuul]] tunnel drive is similar to humans' but being able to form their own paths comes at the cost of not being as fast (their paths also collapse over time, accelerated by continuous use). Whew!
* ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' makes this trope a basis for every non stock weapon as a balancing factor, so that pretty much everything is designed to be more a sidegrade than an upgrade in general use.

** One notable subversion is the Third Degree, which is a straight upgrade to the Pyro's stock Fire Axe, being able to hit both an enemy and the Medic healing them, but this usually means [[InstantDeathRadius charging at an overhealed Heavy Weapon Guy]] and only with the strength of a regular fire ax. The Solemn Vow and Holy Mackerel/Unarmed Combat also provide upgrades without any particular downsides (StatOVision in the former and denying Spies who try FakingTheDead in the latter).
** ''Team Fortress 2'''s entire design philosophy is based around the idea that nothing can go without a flaw, even with stock equipment and classes. The classes with a OneHitKill are fragile and forced to play dangerously to do their jobs. The faster battle classes must go to close range to do damage and risk being counterattacked. The classes with the biggest guns are slow and easily targeted, but make up for it with higher health (or Sentry health in the case of the Engineer). The classes with the ability to deal widespread explosive damage are hampered by lower speed, self-damage, and long reload times.
** This can play hell with the meta however: Pyro used to have the "Puff and Sting" with the Degreaser flamethrower (which switches faster) and the Axtingusher (which has extra damage on burning enemies). Before this was ''the'' way the Pyro was supposed to get kills instead of using using fire and afterburn.[[labelnote: The reason]]Fire is extremely unreliable due to the hit detection going farther than the particles show and lag compensation makes it go farther along with the may ways to extinguish afterburn (or at least shrug it off).[[/labelnote]] In an effort to {{nerf}} the strategy the devs gave Axtingusher a ''75%'' slower switch-to speed (making it slower than molasses even with the Degreaser's 60% switch speed buff) and 20% slower attack speed (along with doing 1/3 less damage). This drawback was so severe that the Axtingusher stopped being the go to weapon for pyro, even as a sidegrade.

** The FEISAR Prototype starts off slow, but gains more speed by passing through boost pads, to the point that it becomes faster than the majority of the other crafts in the game. However, it loses a speed charge on a violent collision, and the bar resets to zero upon starting a new lap.
** The AG-Systems Prototype is the most maneuverable craft in the game and can pull off Double Barrel Rolls and Combat Spins outside of Eliminator mode. On the flipside, its shields are so flimsy you'll probably absorb almost all of your weapons throughout the race.
** The Auricom Prototype cannot be stunned by weapons and regains shield energy overtime, but cannot absorb weapons normally and cannot pick up defensive weapons either.

* [[UpliftedAnimal Bowman's Wolves]] in ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'' can react properly to human gestures and body language, because Dr. Bowman repurposed their mirror neurons. They ''can't'' react properly to the body language of their own species. The current population of the Bowman's Wolf species is 14, so reacting properly to humans is, at least, far more valuable.

* Torg's [[EmpathicWeapon talking sword]] Chaz in ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance'' is able to kill just about any supernatural creature in a single strike, but it has to feed on the blood of the innocent to pull this off. Torg, being a good person himself, is naturally against the idea of using the obvious sources of such a commodity.

* Shadows, the EliteMooks of the Order of Denderah in ''WebVideo/Lonelygirl15'', take a number of drugs that raise their awareness, build muscles and remove the need for sleep, but as a side effect, few can survive past the age of 30.

** The use of lightning attacks for firebenders is a powerful attack, but requires some prep time. Likewise, the technique to redirect lightning can be devastating, but has to be done fluidly or else it could kill you just the same.

* The ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'' Watchtower had a WaveMotionGun built into it, powered directly by its fusion reactor. Besides the political implications of having that thing pointing at the Earth, once fired it required a 1 hour downtime to reset the circuits and power back up. This became a major plot point in "Panic in the Sky".

* You can argue this about personality. Every persons strengths also leave them vulnerable to a specific weakness. If you're incredibly [[Heartwarming/ActsOfKindness kind and gentle]] you will be loved and trusted, but may also be used and have to deal with the pain that comes with caring too much. If you're incredibly determined, you can accomplish more, but at the risk of becoming stubborn and hard-headed. Having a strong imagination is great, right? It provides pathways to creative, entertaining careers and means you're rarely bored, but it's not so great when it's causing you to become paranoid over all the [[NightmareFuel horrible things you imagine]] happening to you, your friends and family.
* As mentioned above, just about any weapon or fighting style created will have to sacrifice some advantage in order to gain a more powerful advantage. When you've found something wherein the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, [[FollowTheLeader everyone will do their best to jump on it]], [[LensmanArmsRace thus necessitating something new be found or made for you to continue to be ahead]].
* Project management. The variables are budget, schedule and scope. You can fix only two of those variables at a time. If you have a fixed cost and timeline, you cannot know how much you can accomplish. If you know what to do and how much you can spend, you won't know how long it will take. It you have a schedule and a well-defined task, you will not know how much it will cost.

** Vehicles equipped with a nitrous oxide injector will give the engine a sudden burst of speed, but has to be in low doses and for short periods or else it will overheat catastrophically. Likewise, larger engines like a V-8, V-10, or V-12 will have more power but will suck up gas.

** Turbocharged engines have the drawback of turbo lag, the period of time between when the gas pedal is pushed and when the turbo kicks in (if the turbo only activates at high [=RPMs=], for example, then there's a noticeable difference in acceleration power until the turbo kicks in). Generally speaking, the larger the turbocharger, the more power it can achieve, but the longer it takes to kick in. One particularly ingenious design, first introduced in a BMW diesel sports car (according to ''Series/TopGearUK'') features a small turbo for lower [=RPMs=], and a massive turbo for higher [=RPMs=].

*** And on top of [=VGTs=], there are anti lag systems where there is a fuel injector (!) placed in the exhaust pipe before the turbo, strictly race use only. There were also some early anti-lag systems that had some type of "bleed back" system where the exhaust is piped back into the turbo. (Audi Quattro from Group B)

** [[UsefulNotes/TwentyFourHoursOfLeMans LeMans Prototypes]] are on a similar level of sophistication as UsefulNotes/FormulaOne, but they need to be able to withstand endurance racing so they don't have the same level engine tuning like in F1. They also have added weight from having lights so that they can race in the dark, and can't handle corners as well as an F1 car, but their top speed is typically better than an F1 thanks to their lower drag bodywork and their fenders.
* Investment funds. The high-return ones have quite the high risk of crashing and burning, while safer ones like saving deposit funds have low returns. Very low returns.
* Lots of good-tasting foods are awful for the waistline, while many health foods and products aren't tasty or are outright sour or bitter. This is due to the fact that the easiest way to make food taste good involves adding more sugar, fat, or salt.[[note]]Our bodies crave these nutrients on a very basic level, due to their vital importance and relative scarcity in the harsh world from whence our ancestors evolved. In a post-scarcity civilization, they're all readily available, but our bodies are still hardwired to keep craving them long after we've satisfied our metabolic requirements.[[/note]] There are exceptions that taste good and are good for you, but they tend to be more expensive and less profitable, leading to less variety and availability.
* A country's currency system can only manage two of three desirable outcomes: capital mobility, independent monetary policy, and fixed exchange rates. Most industrialized countries sacrifice the last of these via a currency with a free-floating value on the world market. Countries that don't have a free-floating currency usually sacrifice the second point, pegging their currency valuation to an external source (gold, the US dollar, etc.) outside their own control. Sacrificing the first makes international commerce horrendously difficult, so it's now exceptionally rare.
* Most people, especially kids, find cough syrup to taste disgusting. This is an intentional trait so that nobody will overdose on it because it tastes good. They're also typically given strong or bitter flavors because society has an expectation that effective medicines taste bitter. Studies have proven that flavorless medicines are ranked worse than foul-tasting medicines in terms of effectiveness....''even when they're the exact same drug!''

* A common truism in security work is that the harder you want it to be for bad guys to get things the harder it is for you to get them when you need them and anything you do to streamline the process also weakens security. For example: a randomly generated twenty digit password is tough to crack but hard to remember and if you write it down then anyone who can get at the paper can break security.

* The laws of aerodynamics and hydrodynamics mean that every airplane and yacht is a compromise. Fast, Dry, or easy to handle; Pick two, because you cannot get the third. For airplanes: fast - safe - manouevreable - pick two but not three. Except when you're just willing to spend more money, time, and resources on a design, which then becomes the drawback.

* In computer programming, you can make something faster at the cost of needing more (random access) memory, or decrease its memory needs at the cost of being slower. A ''lot'' of computer evolution, both in hardware and software, has been finding ways to improve the exchange rate or just straight increase the amount of resources available to fiddle with.

** Figure skates are wider and longer than Hockey skates, and are only curved at the front, which also has a series of sharp spikes, or picks, built into it for jumping, while the rear is straight and extends out further. Figure skating boots are lighter, and typically don't have as much ankle support, especially on the front, to enable the leg to bend forwards more, being designed for long, graceful motions and jumping. The pick at the front limits a skater's options and the overly wide blade makes higher speeds difficult to achieve.

* Cheetahs are known for being the fastest land animal, but that speed comes at the cost of being very fragile compared to the other predators in Africa. They also must stop and rest after a full blown run or they will die from overheating, so they can't even eat immediately. This means other predators commonly steal their kills.
* Warships and other military vehicles (e.g. tanks, aircraft, etc) have a "design triangle": You can have '''firepower''', '''armor protection''', or '''mobility'''; Pick two. This is because weapons and armor are heavy, so the more you add the harder it is to move the thing. Sometimes it's possible to get all three, but then the "triangle" becomes a "quadrilateral", because creating a vehicle that is heavily armed, well protected, ''and'' highly mobile will come at an extremely high '''cost'''. Some examples of the extremes:

** A pillbox or other small fortification is basically a tank featuring extremely strong armor and high firepower, but no mobility. Depending on construction methods they can also be fairly inexpensive.

** Extreme combinations of mobility and armor protection without firepower are rare, but this is because if you can add enough mobility, it can effectively ''stand in for armor''.
*** The [[CoolPlane/RealLife SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance aircraft]] flew so high and so fast that despite several attempts no one ever managed to shoot one down, because the aircraft and missiles sent after it ''simply couldn't catch it''. As a recon aircraft, it had no weapons.
** (In)famously, [[UsefulNotes/TypesOfNavalShips battlecruisers]] were an early-1900's attempt to create fast ships with heavy armament, by sacrificing armor protection to save weight. The concept was that they could outgun anything that could outrun them (e.g. cruisers and destroyers) and outrun anything that could outgun them (e.g. battleships). This would make them excellent fleet scouts and long-range commerce raiders that wouldn't need escorts. However, their battleship-caliber guns proved too tempting for most admirals and they wound up being used in the line of battle against much better protected ships on several occasions, leading to disastrous results and the rapid and complete loss of several ships with most of their crews in both World Wars.
** As with tanks, naval architecture eventually advanced to the point that it became possible to create a ship that was heavily armored, well armed, and fast--the Fast Battleship--but ruinously expensive. Besides the extremely long range and flexibility, one of the reasons for the eventual disappearance of battleships and the rise of naval air power was simply that airplanes were ''cheaper''.

** Since one major factor in a synthesizer's price is the amount of real-time controls on the panel, a cheap and powerful synth will be hard to use because the limited user interface will require lots of menu diving. This trend started in TheEighties with both analog and digital synths, the Yamaha [=DX7=] notoriously taking the cake before the Oberheim Matrix-1000 appeared. It continued with many [=ROMplers=], although what made early [=ROMplers=] expensive was the ROM rather than the controls. And it really got AwesomeButImpractical with small virtual-analog or analog synths from [[TheNineties the late '90s]] on, examples being the Clavia Micro Modular, the Alesis Micron/Akai Miniak and the Dave Smith Instruments Tetra.
** Synths that are powerful and accessible at the same time will require a big casing with lots of controls, and this will get costly. An example is the Schmidt Polyphonic Synthesizer, an eight-voice analog synth that was designed with "money doesn't matter" in mind. This was also one of the reasons why the Roland JD-800 started out as expensive as it did. And the six displays on the John Bowen Solaris make it both rather user-friendly and pricey.

* Tribute bands that imitate a more sophisticated original than, say, a guitar rock band, especially when synthesizers are involved, have to choose between very detailed faithful reproduction, everything being played live on stage and a band line-up and stage setup that doesn't get out of hand. But, again, they can only pick two.

** Some bands start out ambitious. They want to replicate the sound of the original to pain-staking detail and at the same time stay honest and play everything live. But they'll soon discover that this endeavor would take ''lots'' of musicians on stage with piles of instruments that are both expensive and too unwieldy for touring. Where other bands have one keyboardist with two keyboards, these bands would have something akin to mid-[[TheSeventies '70s]] Music/{{Kraftwerk}}, so they opted for half-playback or the "sounds close enough" route instead.

If the drawback is that the enemies are more powerful because you have become more powerful, it can be factored into SoLastSeason and the SortingAlgorithmOfEvil. The KryptoniteFactor is also a part of this, as is WeaksauceWeakness. Characters such as {{Superman}} and [[OurVampiresAreDifferent Vampires]] will have these weaknesses automatically or else there is no drama involved, just an unstoppable force. Just giving someone a simple problem like "[[FlawExploitation They care too much]]" is enough. {{Mary Sue}}s are often hated because [[InvincibleHero they don't have any drawbacks]]. To avoid that, authors usually build in a FantasticFragility to powers and devices.

** A pillbox is basically a tank featuring extremely strong armor and high firepower, but no mobility. Depending on construction methods they can also be fairly inexpensive.
** Modern main battle tanks have very strong armor, powerful guns, and are pretty highly mobile, but are very expensive to build, maintain, and fuel.

*** The SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance aircraft flew so high and so fast that despite several attempts no one ever managed to shoot one down, because the aircraft and missiles sent after it ''simply couldn't catch it''.

If the drawback is that the enemies are more powerful because you have become more powerful, it can be factored into SoLastSeason and the SortingAlgorithmOfEvil. The KryptoniteFactor is also a part of this, as is WeaksauceWeakness. Characters such as {{Superman}} and [[OurVampiresAreDifferent Vampires]] will have these weaknesses automatically or else there is no drama involved, just an unstoppable force. Just giving someone a simple problem like "[[FlawExploitation They care too much]]" is enough. To avoid that, authors usually build in a FantasticFragility to powers and devices.

If the drawback is that the enemies are more powerful because you have become more powerful, it can be factored into SoLastSeason and the SortingAlgorithmOfEvil. The KryptoniteFactor is also a part of this, as is WeaksauceWeakness. Characters such as {{Superman}} and [[OurVampiresAreDifferent Vampires]] will have these weaknesses automatically or else there is no drama involved, just an unstoppable force. Just giving someone a simple problem like "[[FlawExploitation They care too much]]" is enough. {{Mary Sue}}s are often hated because [[InvincibleHero they don't have any drawbacks]]. To avoid that, authors usually build in a FantasticFragility to powers and devices.

** The title character can't pull off Sage Mode without risking transforming into a frog; requiring frog oil from a mountain a month away from home; a reverse summoning to send his clones home to help in a timely manner; and he only prepared a limited number of clones to refill his powers with, for reasons probably related to lack of infinite summoning; he also needs to be motionless to get natural energy (clone) ''and'' mobile to use it (real Naruto) so only he can pull this particular method off because of his ability to keep clones going a very long time. His weaknesses to these modes do go away: Naruto can enter Sage Mode near instantly and keep it active for a relatively long time later on. For his Nine-Tailed Chakra Mode, the risk was that Kurama (the Kyubi) would consume his chakra to the point where he could die from chakra exhaustion, and his trademark technique Kage Bushin would accelerate the process, thus he could only use it sparingly. [[spoiler:However, after he and Kurama become partners there aren't any risks to the form, and it can even be used as a FantasticLightSource.]]
** [[spoiler: The powers of the Mangekyo Sharingan have a drawback that they blind the user and take an assload of chakra to use. The latter doesn't affect Sasuke as much as it affects Itachi, who with his low chakra reserves can only use the MS three times a day if he doesn't want to die. Only way to get rid of the drawback is an MS transplant, which gives the user the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan-which only Sasuke and Madara have. Itachi doesn't have the drawback as an Edo Tensei due to unlimited chakra and regeneration.]]

->''Cars: Fast. Reliable. Cheap. [[TheAllegedCar Pick two.]]''

** Lemans Prototypes are on a similar level of sophistication as UsefulNotes/FormulaOne, but they need to be able to withstand endurance racing so they don't have the same level engine tuning like in F1. They also have added weight from having lights so that they can race in the dark, and can't handle corners as well as an F1 car, but their top speed is typically better than an F1 thanks to their lower drag bodywork and their fenders.

** Lemans Prototypes are on a similar level of sophistication as UsefulNotes/FormulaOne, but they need to be able to withstand endurance racing so they don't go for outright engine performance like in F1. They also have added weight from having lights so that they can race in the dark, and can't handle corners as well as an F1 car, but their top speed is typically better than an F1 thanks to their lower drag bodywork.

* Vehicles equipped with a nitrous oxide injector will give the engine a sudden burst of speed, but has to be in low doses and for short periods or else it will overheat catastrophically. Likewise, larger engines like a V-8, V-10, or V-12 will have more power but will suck up gas.

*** Speaking of Group B cars, twincharger, supercharger for low [=RPMs=], turbo for high [=RPMs=]

** A pillbox is basically a tank featuring extremely strong armor and high firepower, but no mobility.

* In ''VideoGame/SplinterCell: Conviction'', the various guns show this. The Five-Seven has the most number of Marks of all, but isn't the strongest for the chaos of CQC when you don't have time to line up headshots. Scope-attachable assault rifles like the G36 or AK have the best range but can't be suppressed. The [=SC3000=] is a good, suppressible infighter but lacks a scope and has only a measly two Marks. So on and so forth.

->'''Cars:''' Fast. Reliable. Cheap. Pick two.\\
'''Jobs:''' Fun. Well-paid. Legal. Pick two.\\
'''College/University: '''Good social life. Good grades. Sleep. Pick two.\\
'''People in General:''' Intelligent. Nice. Ambitious. Pick two.

* You can argue this about personality. Every persons strengths also leave them vulnerable to a specific weakness. If you're incredibly [[ActsOfKindness kind and gentle]] you will be loved and trusted, but may also be used and have to deal with the pain that comes with caring too much. If you're incredibly determined, you can accomplish more, but at the risk of becoming stubborn and hard-headed. Having a strong imagination is great, right? It provides pathways to creative, entertaining careers and means you're rarely bored, but it's not so great when it's causing you to become paranoid over all the [[NightmareFuel horrible things you imagine]] happening to you, your friends and family.