History Main / StandardStatusEffects

[[redirect:StatusEffect]]

[[redirect:StatusEffects]]

%% Image selecter per IP thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1604312227083548200
%% Do not change or remove without starting a new discussion.
%%
[[quoteright:350:[[VideoGame/BraveFrontier https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/status_3.png]]]]
%%
In video games, status effects are any condition that hinders a character's abilities in battle. These are often caused by enemy attacks and can have a variety of negative effects. Over time, a number of specific types have appeared, usually with differing effects. For example, Poison is going to slowly sap your HP. Silence is going to block your magic. Paralysis is going to keep you from moving. They show up most commonly in {{RPG}}s, though they might also appear in RealTimeStrategy (to accentuate the "strategy" part), and even occasionally in [[ActionGame Action Games]], mostly those with RPGElements.

Games with these effects will usually feature a spell or item that cures each one individually, as well as another item, encountered later, that will cure all of them. By some inexplicable homeopathy by design, monsters that cause these effects will frequently [[RandomlyDrops drop]] the [[CarryingTheAntidote item that cures it]]. [[FridgeLogic Don't think about it too much.]] Then again, anti-venom in RealLife is actually made from the venom itself, so it may count as TruthInTelevision if you completely ignore all of the processes involved in making antivenom.

As documented in {{Useless Useful Spell}}s, these effects are almost always going to get used on ''you'', thanks to the fact that they tend to linger and continue to hurt you ''outside'' of battle; unlike you, enemies always show up for battle in full health.

Many of the status ailments have equivalent {{Status Buff}}s, with opposite effects. Note that despite what is said below, any status effect that prevents a character from taking any action may sometimes disappear on any hit (especially if there are no other party members in the game in question), and many of them will often fix themselves after several rounds, even if they're permanent until cured in other games. There's also the case of the OneCurseLimit in which one status ailment can be overwritten by a second entirely separate status ailment, or having one status ailment makes you effectively immune to getting another.

See also StockRPGSpells, StandardRPGItems.

----
!!Effects with their own pages:

[[index]]
* StandardStatusEffects/PoisonPlagueBleeding
* StandardStatusEffects/{{Burn}}
* StandardStatusEffects/ParalyzedStun
[[/index]]

!!Other effects:
[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Sleeping]]
The character under ForcedSleep won't be able to move or act, much like Stun. This effect usually lasts longer than paralysis, sometimes indefinitely if you don't cure it. Fortunately for you, striking a sleeping character will usually wake them up (although sometimes it ''must'' be a physical attack, and be warned that sometimes such an attack is considered an instant CriticalHit). If they don't get attacked, they might even [[RestingRecovery recover some health]] while under the effect.

[[AC:FightingGame]]
* In the ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros'' series, sleep simply makes a character incapable of action for a brief period of time, and they'll wake up after a single hit. It can be escaped from more quickly with button mashing [[ComputersAreFast (don't even bother with it against computers)]] and its duration is also dependent on how high the victim's damage percentage is. The only one who can inflict it at will is [[Franchise/{{Pokemon}} Jigglypuff]], who has its Sing attack, which unfortunately takes so long to finish that your opponent can usually wake up before you get a chance to do anything to them. It also suffers from the fact that only characters on the ground can be put to sleep.
** The Franchise/{{Pokemon}} Bellossom uses Sleep Powder when released, which puts any nearby characters to sleep except for the one that threw the Poké Ball. Peach's Final Smash in ''Brawl'', ''4'', and ''Ultimate'' can put all ground-bound opponents to sleep no matter where they're located.

[[AC:FirstPersonShooter]]
* Ana Amari from ''VideoGame/{{Overwatch}}'' can shoot a sleep dart to disable an enemy. Victims will wake up when the dart wears off or when attacked. This carries over into her ''Heroes of the Storm'' incarnation.

[[AC:{{MMORPG}}s]]
* ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' has potions that make you sleep in a healthy way, restoring health and mana rapidly. A more traditional Sleep effect is also in place, but can generally only be used on animals (and druids in animal forms). For players, that is; monsters with the spell have no problems putting ''you'' to sleep.
** Before it got nerfed, the 'x% chance per received hit to put melee attackers asleep for 30 seconds (any damage will wake them up)' level 30 leather chest, obtained with crafting, was great fun in [=PvP=] and handy in [=PvE=]. It used to put anything to sleep, regardless of level difference. It was very useful in the right situations for tanks, ranged classes, and druids for some extra crowd control.
** Druids get the ability Hibernate, though it only works on animals and dragonkin.
* ''VideoGame/{{Achaea}}'' characters sleep lying down, but can still see and hear almost everything going on around them while asleep. Sleep is used as per usual to regain hit points and sometimes to control opponents in combat — unusually, characters get tired, yawn, and spontaneously fall asleep if kept awake for too long.
* ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'' has a pretty standard sleep mechanic, in that characters put to sleep will sleep standing up, be unable to act, and stay asleep for a comparatively really long time. Sleeping characters can be woken up by dealing damage to them, which can create tension in teams when wide-area sleeps are followed by wide-area fireballs, or be woken up by healing them. Basically anything that alters hit points.
* ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter'' plays Sleeping a bit differently. Players have a brief moment to chug an Energy Drink before they go wholly to sleep, while monsters drop immediately. Any damage at all will wake a sleeper, but crafty players will set bombs or traps without disturbing the monster during this time, due to the monster taking triple damage from all sources on the hit that wakes them from Sleep. With this knowledge, Greatsword + Sleep agent (Drugged Meat, Sleep Knives, or another player armed with a Sleep weapon) = [[MemeticMutation GOTCHA BITCH!]]
* ''VideoGame/SpiralKnights'' has the "regenerate health while asleep" version of this status, although the only reason you'll see the status is if someone needs to clear space for a better status vial, due to the only area with sleep-inducing monsters not being in the game (as of 5/15/11).
* A big part of the ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic'' teamwork strategy is effectively using this. Some classes are insanely valued on certain Flashpoints (raids), because when you're facing [[QuirkyMinibossSquad boss squads]], leaving one of them dangling in the air with the force or short-circuiting a robot until damage breaks the stun can make intense battles much easier.

[[AC:{{MOBA}}s]]
* ''VideoGame/HeroesOfTheStorm'': This is a CC found on a few heroes, most notably Ana (who introduced the effect as it was carried from Overwatch), Deckard Cain, and Mal'Ganis. Mal'Ganis specializes in it, with his main peeling tool inflicting a sleep and other talents sleeping enemies or synergizing with enemies who are asleep.
* In ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'', the character Zoe has the ability "Sleepy Trouble Bubble". Upon hitting an enemy with this ability, they become drowsy and fall asleep. The next attack wakes up the enemy and deals bonus damage.

[[AC:RealTimeStrategy]]
* In ''VideoGame/WarcraftIII'', neutral monsters sleep during the night, making them easier to ambush. Since there's no separate 'sleeping' animation (except for ogres), trolls can actually do ''backflips'' in their sleep, just as they do when awake.
** The Dread Lord heroes also have a 'sleep' skill that does what it says on the tin. The unit can be woken up by attacking it.
* Patapons (and enemies/bosses) can be put to sleep with the right units and weapons, although it's rare to see a boss fall asleep.

[[AC:{{Roguelike}}]]
* This status is common in most games of this type, as some of the monsters are spawned in this state. They can be woken up by entering or leaving their room, or if anything affects them. Especially when entering a room full of monsters... they tend to wake up all at once.
* Sleeping enemies in ''VideoGame/DungeonCrawlStoneSoup'' can be easily {{Back Stab}}bed, which can reach OneHitKO levels of damage once your skills get high enough. There's also the spell Ensorcelled Hibernation, a hex that puts monsters to sleep so you can still stab them if they woke up earlier, though it's ineffective against creatures resistant to cold.
* In the ''VideoGame/IzunaLegendOfTheUnemployedNinja'' series, being Asleep renders you unable to move or attack for several turns. It wears off when you're hit, and possibly increaes your [[RegeneratingHealth HP regeneration rate]].

[[AC:RolePlayingGame]]
* ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' uses this, which prevents attacking for 1-7 turns (lowered to 1-3 or 4 in later games). Pokémon with the abilities Insomnia or Vital Spirit are immune to this. Amusingly, you can wake them up with a reusable flute item in some versions, and in ''Colosseum'' you can just ''yell at them''.
** And then there's the move Rest, which forces your Pokémon to sleep for two turns (not counting the one used doing it), but fully restores its health and removes other status effects. It's a key component in many tournament players' lineups.
** There's also a move called "Snore" that can only be used while a Pokémon is asleep. There's also "Sleep Talk" where the Pokémon will use a random move while asleep. Either one of these will likely be found on a Pokémon that knows Rest.
*** Or they'll be holding a Chesto Berry, which cures Sleep immediately; this pretty much lets the Pokemon itself use a Full Restore (full HP recovery and wipes any Status Effects).
*** Sleep also makes a Pokémon susceptible to the attacks Nightmare (which does damage each turn until sleep ends) and Dream Eater (which allows the user to [[LifeDrain recover half the damage they inflicted]]).
** In the card game, a sleeping Pokémon can't attack or retreat. Between turns, its owner flips a coin. If it lands on heads, the Pokémon wakes up.
* ''VideoGame/LostKingdoms II'' had this, but the target in question stops moving and recovers health slowly. Plus, as to add some realism, Tara kneels down while asleep. The sequence she does to fall asleep and wake up immobilizes her, as if playing with Tara wasn't hard enough as it is.
* In ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIIINocturne'', you will actually beg to be put to sleep. It immobilises you, but restores HP ''and'' MP. Anyone who plays this knows that mana is like gold dust in this game, what with the critical macca shortage one starts experiencing early on due to having to pay considerable sums of money that increase the more you need healing, as opposed to the typical '[[TraumaInn 100 gil full rest]]'. Of course, this is only for the first part of the game, until the spellcasters doing this couple this with ''Eternal Rest'' — an unavoidable OneHitKill which will only kill sleeping people.
** In ''VideoGame/DigitalDevilSaga'', [[TheLoad Cielo]] has a move tailored to exploit his weakness to ailments: ''Null Sleep'', which will effectively ''null all attacks he receives'' when he's sleeping. ''Very'' useful against the BonusBoss.
* ''VideoGame/EarthBound'' has this, rendering the character uncontrollable for several turns. It breaks with an enemy attack.
* In ''''VideoGame/BlackSigil: Blade of the Exiled'', being put to sleep stops a character from acting for a few turns, but being attacked will wake you up, physical or magical. Tends to be undone by angry monsters before you need to bother curing it, unless the only creatures present like reinflicting Sleep over and over.
* ''VideoGame/DragonQuest'':
** Sleep tends to last for several turns, and it usually cannot be interrupted by physical attacks.
** ''VideoGame/DragonQuestI'': Sleep is learned at level 7, and it is actually useful for once since it can be used on the FinalBoss.
* In almost every ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' game, sleeping could be cured with brute force, so you could have your SquishyWizard or WhiteMage smack the sleeping characters for little damage and wake them up.
** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI'', since you can't attack other [=PCs=], Cure spells wake an ally up instead. Even Cure I will do.
** Of note: In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'', monsters afflicted by "Sleep" actually ''do'' curl up and go to sleep on the screen, rather than just having "ZZZ" over their heads. The developers went above and beyond, there.
* ''VideoGame/LunarTheSilverStar'' puts a variation on the "sleep" status by making whomever is hit in sleep state take double the damage of any attack.
* Appears in the more recent ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'' games, in the usual style of being unable to do anything until struck or, more rarely, waking on one's own. Victims use the same animation they would as if they were stunned.
** ''VideoGame/KingdomHearts3DDreamDropDistance'' has a special focus on this status effect, as, because of the [[JustifiedTrope justification]] for the Drop system (that is, Sora is awake while Riku is asleep and vice-versa), the Sleep status effect will not only make you sleep but will also speed up the Drop gauge, which can only be slowed down in two ways: By Dropping (changing characters and making the fight you were in reset when you return to use the first one) and buying its slow down with Dream Points, or by using a Drop-Me-Not or Drop-Me-Never, which reset the gauge and slow it down, but takes up a command slot, which makes it [[AwesomeButImpractical impractical]] in battle. It is also the status effect-based spell with the second-most tiers, after Zero Gravity.
* Appears in ''VideoGame/{{Xenoblade}}'', where the victim is unable to act for a lengthy period of time, and is guaranteed to be critically hit, but will wake up upon taking damage.
** It returns in ''VideoGame/XenobladeChroniclesX'', which also features the "Soft Touch" weapon skill that gives attacks a chance of not awakening sleeping enemies.
* The "stun" status effect in the ''VideoGame/HarryPotter'' Game Boy Color games is closer to this than paralysis, as being damaged snaps both characters and enemies out of it.
* In ''VideoGame/LufiaCurseOfTheSinistrals'', Sleep immobilizes the afflicted character, is ''not'' broken by being attacked, and ''prevents the player from switching to another character''. While it has the shortest duration of all status effects by a large margin, getting hit with Sleep without an Awake or a Miracle to spare is going to hurt.
* Is a first level spell in ''VideoGame/TheDarkSpire'' and will be useful to the very end. Sleep not only has an extremely high chance of hitting, but ''it usually lasts the entire battle''. At least until you get to higher levels, at which point you'll still find it to be very useful in crippling an enemy group (or all enemies, with a later spell) for one turn at the least. The best part? Slept enemies have their defences completely shut down, meaning they're practically guaranteed to die if you target them. Enemies can use it as well, but by the time it shows up, you'll be able to resist it, making it less of an issue.
* ''VideoGame/OctopathTraveler: Sleep prevents the afflicted from doing anything for several turns, but they'll wake up immediately if they're hit by an attack.

[[AC:SportsGame]]
* One powerup in ''[[VideoGame/BackyardSports Backyard Football]]'' makes the other characters fall asleep, allowing the player with the ball to easily score a touchdown.

[[AC:TabletopGames]]
* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' has rules for being woken up either by the noise of battle or by an ally shaking you. Magical sleep is extra deep so the noise won't wake you.
** Also, if you're damaged during sleep, instead of waking you up, it most likely kills you – sleeping characters are considered helpless and are thus vulnerable to [[OneHitKill being Coup-De-Grâce'd]].
* ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'' has this. In First Edition it can be very effective (sleeping characters are helpless, and can thus be insta-killed with a Coup de Grace) or a minor inconvenience (an ally can easily awaken a sleeping character, albeit they still must use a standard action to do so). In Second Edition the Coup de Grace potential is gone, and the revamped action economy makes waking an ally less costly, so putting targets to sleep is mainly used for purposes of stealth.

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

[[AC:ThirdPersonShooter]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Warframe}}'' features two warframes that can put enemies to sleep: Equinox in her Night form with ''Rest'' and Ivara with ''Sleep Arrow''. Sleeping enemies are completely unaware of their surroundings, and will only wake up when their health drops below a certain threshold depending on the rank of the ability.

[[AC:TowerDefense]]
* In ''VideoGame/PlantsVsZombies'', all mushrooms will sleep during daytime levels, unable to perform their role. The only way to wake them up is via a Coffee Bean.
* ''VideoGame/PlantsVsZombies2ItsAboutTime'' has the tranquilization. When Boombox Zombie lifts his boombox to play love songs, all plants on the lawn except low-lying ones and Phat Beets get tranquilized for a while. The visual effect resembles Charm, however.

[[AC:TurnBasedStrategy]]
* ''Franchise/{{Disgaea}}''[='=]s version of sleep immobilizes the character. Said character can be woken up with any attack, but in return the attack will be treated as a CriticalHit.
* In ''VideoGame/FellSealArbitersMark'', Sleep makes the character skip their turn for three turns. It ends if the target takes any damage.
* In ''Franchise/FireEmblem'', the common status effect stave is the Sleep staff, which makes the unit completely helpless for a few turns. It is dangerous in some games like in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemRadiantDawn'' where it completely drops evasion, preventing the afflicted unit from dodging any attacks.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Silenced]]
They won't be able to use magic. This is a holdover from the classic fantasy trope that you have to say magic words (sometimes rhyming ones) or [[ByThePowerOfGreyskull chant a spell's name]] in order to use magic, so being muted would logically prevent that. However, the trope often gets carried over into game settings where magic clearly doesn't work that way, or where magic isn't even present. Particularly hilarious when the enemy silences a HeroicMime. Games with voice acting will sometimes have the characters [[GameplayAndStorySegregation still be able to talk]] even while "silenced".

[[AC:ActionAdventure]]
* ''VideoGame/DustAnElysianTail'' has enemies that can silence your SnarkyNonHumanSidekick Fidget, which leaves her unable to cast projectiles but also works in the literal sense. When this is explained to him, Dust is... not particularly upset about it.

[[AC:FightingGame]]
* Mute status in ''VideoGame/Persona4Arena'' disables all attacks that require summoning character's Persona — including several normal attacks, most specials and supers, and [[ComboBreaker Bursts]]. It can be "cured" by landing a hit on enemy. A more dangerous variant, Persona Break, is caused by letting your active Persona get hit too many times and can only heal over the course of five seconds plus the number of Persona cards the character normally has (Akihiko has two cards, so he recovers in seven seconds; Yu has four cards, so he recovers in nine, ect.).

[[AC:FirstPersonShooter]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Overwatch}}'' provides the sci-fi equivalent, as [[HollywoodHacking Sombra's hack]] disables the use of all activated abilities (including things like [[SuperSoldier Soldier 76's]] ''sprinting'').
* ''VideoGame/ApexLegends'': Revenant's tactical ability, the aptly named "Silence", fires a grenade that prevents the use of tactical and ultimate abilities.

[[AC:{{MMORPG}}s]]
* In ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'', Warlocks additionally have the so-called "Curse of Tongues", which slows down casting and makes the target speak Demonic — in the in-game chat! — as long as it lasts. The Warlock pet Felhunter, specialized in killing spellcasters, has an ability that interrupts spellcasting and temporarily stops the caster from casting any spells from the same school of magic.
** The mage Counterspell works much like the Felhunter Counterspell, but stronger.
** Shadow Priests get a Silence spell as well... although a Silenced enemy is prevented from casting spells, but not from '''yelling for help'''.
*** Or if it's a Warrior '''''Shouting'''''.
*** The Silence skill is also one of the Dark Ranger's abilities in ''VideoGame/WarcraftIII''.
** Marksmanship Hunters get an ability called Silencing Shot. Guess what it does. This skill is available to all talents since Pandaria.
** Since Cataclysm, pretty much everyone can interrupt and/or silence a casting target, at least for a few seconds.
* In ''VideoGame/AceOnline'', I-Gears can Silence enemy gears and block them from using their skills.
* ''VideoGame/GuildWars'' has a particularly nasty status condition called Dazed. Characters suffering from it take twice as long to cast their spells and said spells can be interrupted by any attack that hits them.
** "Interrupt" is a mechanic which does ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin and can be thought of as active Silencing: it requires very good timing, but a player with a bar full of interruption skills can prevent their enemies from successfully casting any spells. Doing so is known in-game as "[[AndIMustScream shut-down]]", and there is an entire class devoted to it. (Ironically, this class barely has any skills which apply the Dazed condition. They don't need it.)
* Silenis in ''VideoGame/SkiesOfArcadia''. [[spoiler:It's actually highly recommended for fighting Zelos, as it will mostly use Magic. (Zelos uses 5 elements; Silver magic cannot be used in Ship battles.)]]
* In ''VideoGame/RagnarokOnline'', when you're Silenced, your character gets a speech bubble with VisibleSilence and you can't use any Skills — magical or physical (apparently skills require you to [[CallingYourAttacks call your attacks]]?). For classes that rely mostly on magic, like Wizards and Priests, until this wears off, you're screwed... especially if your Priest, who can Cure it, is silenced.

[[AC:{{MOBA}}s]]
* Silence in ''VideoGame/Dota2'' prevents the afflicted units from using active abilities. There is also a separate status effect, Break, which disables passive abilities, and Mute, which prevents activating items.
* Silence is a fairly common debuff in ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends''. It prevents the use of ''all'' abilities, including items with active effects and summoner spells.
* Silence also shows up in ''VideoGame/HeroesOfTheStorm'', functioning just like in League. The name is a bit jarring, considering the game is a crossover between Blizzard's [[VideoGame/WarCraft fantasy]] [[{{VideoGame/Diablo}} franchises]] where silence is at home, but also its [[VideoGame/StarCraft sci-fi]] [[{{VideoGame/Overwatch}} games]] where "silencing" doesn't really make sense.

[[AC:RealTimeStrategy]]
* ''VideoGame/WarcraftIII'': The Dark Ranger has this as one of her spells; afflicted units have a bubble with an exclamation mark above their heads. It can also be used to interrupt a channeling spell.
* Justified in ''VideoGame/BrutalLegend''. The ''Silence'' guitar solo [[MummyWrap wraps the opposing hero unit in mummy bandages]], which not only prevents them from using their guitar properly, but also ''unable to speak'' and therefore cannot issue commands.

[[AC:{{Roguelike}}]]
* In the ''VideoGame/IzunaLegendOfTheUnemployedNinja'' series, the Sealed status prevents you from using Talismans (magic scrolls, basically), but doesn't prevent you from throwing them or sticking them to items. Shoulder Ache is a combination of this and Decover, preventing you from throwing items and raising healing orbs (unusually, including the {{Panacea}}).
* Casting Silence in ''VideoGame/DungeonCrawlStoneSoup'' creates a zone of pure silence around the caster; within this zone, no scrolls may be read, and no spells may be cast except by creatures that are innately capable of casting magic without speaking (mostly demons). However, the zone steadily shrinks in size before fading away — the caster is always left with a few turns where they are the only one silenced, which might be fatal if they didn't quite manage to kill that ancient lich before it regained the ability to cast spells.
** There's also a lesser form of silence in the Engulfed status, which is applied by the attacks of water elementals. While engulfed, creatures have the same penalties as Silence in addition to taking continuous asphyxiation damage... [[DevelopersForesight unless they can either breathe water or survive without breathing]].
* The ''VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeon'' games feature the rare "Muzzled" status, which prevents a Pokémon from using any moves involving its mouth. It blocks not just shouting moves, but also breath attacks, biting moves, and even eating and drinking.

[[AC:RolePlayingGame]]
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyII'' has Silence as the ''temporary'' version, wearing off after a few turns or when battle ends. Amnesia serves as the permanent version. These also prevent enemies from using bow attacks or items, since they're treated as spells by the game.
* You can tell when characters in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' have been silenced because they have a large speech bubble filled with VisibleSilence over their heads.
* Ward from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII'' and Garnet/Dagger from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'' lose their voices for segments of the game, and can still cast magic (though, during that segment, Garnet will occasionally fail to do what you ask her to do). They're also still susceptible to the Silence status ailment. [[FridgeLogic Go figure.]]
** They seemed to have learnt, seeing how in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'', being silenced prevents your character from using magic, abilities, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking saying their victory quotes at the end of the battle]].
** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'', Dadaluma whistles for help at one point as part of his AI script (it's not a listed ability). The game even plays a whistling sound effect. Silencing the boss ([[DevelopersForesight not that you can at that point without cheating, as you don't get Siren, the Esper that teaches it, until after the boss]]) prevents this.
* The ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII'' games refer to this status as "Fog" instead.
* Also used somewhat intuitively in ''VideoGame/{{Wizardry}} 8'' in that, of the four schools of magic, silencing does nothing to stop alchemists from using spells ("Sure, I can't talk, but that's not stopping me from throwing explosives"). However, while it makes sense for Wizardry and Divine spells (which require incantations and prayers) to be affected, Silence will also, bizarrely, affect [[PsychicPowers Psionics]]...
* In ''VideoGame/IcewindDale'', one of the first mini-bosses is an evil cleric who has things to say when she dies. If she is Silenced at the time, [[GameBreakingBug the game is locked in a during-event state and it is impossible to save the game at all]].
* ''Franchise/{{Persona}}'':
** In ''VideoGame/{{Persona 2}}: Innocent Sin'', there are certain bosses that can seal your Persona with a certain attack.
** ''VideoGame/{{Persona 3}}'' refers to this as 'Panic', where a character, well, panics and can't concentrate on using magic or summoning their Persona. One interesting twist on the status, however, is that Panic doesn't change the enemy's AI ''at all''. As long as they are in Panic, they will still try to use their spells... which will always fail, making them waste a turn.
** ''VideoGame/Persona4'' calls this ailment 'Silence'. Characters afflicted will have their voices muted, and are unable to call out their Personas. Another ailment called Enervation has a chance of making the afflicted forget how to summon their Personas.
** The ''VideoGame/PersonaQ'' series separates this into three different status debuffs known as 'Binds', based off the ones in the ''VideoGame/EtrianOdyssey'' games. Strength Bind is represented by an orange chain and disables the victim's physical-type skills, as well as severely lowering the power of their basic melee attack. Magic Bind is represented by a purple chain and disables the victim's magic-type skills. Agility Bind is represented by a green chain, halves the victim's hit rate, and renders them unable to dodge.
** ''VideoGame/Persona5'' calls it 'Forget', which causes the character afflicted to forget how to summon their Persona.
** The [[Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei main series]] also has the ailment, as Mute.
* ''VideoGame/WildArms'' games call this "Misery" and it affects all Force abilities.
* "Stopspell" from ''VideoGame/DragonQuestI'' does ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin, blocking your opponent from using his spells. It can be a lifesaver if you're facing a spellcasting enemy and want to stop him from using his nastier magic (particularly if he can also cast Stopspell) on you. It's known as "Fizzle" in the recent translations, and it affects a whole group of enemies to boot! Needless to say, it gets annoying when enemies start tossing it at your entire party.
* ''VideoGame/{{Exile}}'' has [[color:lightgrey:''Dumbfounded'']], where the character forgets their spells. This is to avoid the whole "Why can they speak?" issue.
* Some enemies in ''VideoGame/{{Earthbound}}'' can disrupt your senses, making you unable to use PSI.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Mother 3}}'', if you get inflicted with "forgetfulness", you won't be able to use any skills/PSI.
** The game also has a ridiculous variant, ''fleas'', which occasionally distract characters into missing turns or losing concentration.
* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'':
** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind Morrowind]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion Oblivion]]'' both have the Silence spell, which prevents the target from casting spells of their own for the effect's duration. ''Morrowind'' also has a lesser version of this effect called "Sound". It doesn't completely prevent the target from casting spells, but it makes them more likely to fail to cast it. (According to flavor text, the "Sound" distracts them from the act of casting.)
** It should also be noted that these spells ''only'' work on the actual casting of spells. A silenced character can still use scrolls, potions, enchanted items, racial powers, and birthsign powers (which all function very similarly to spells).
* ''''VideoGame/BlackSigil'': Blade of the Exiled'' -- Silenced characters cannot cast magic, but can still use physical techniques that consume SP as well as normal attacks. Combo-attacks are disabled if the Silenced character's half of the attack is magical-based as well.
* ''VideoGame/ChronoCross'' has element-specific silencing; the Anti-elements will prevent one character from using that color element until the battle ends or the status is removed, and there's one type of element that can seal all elements.
* The Arts Seal status in ''VideoGame/{{Xenoblade}}'' prevents you from using any attacks or abilities other than the basic auto-attack.
* ''VideoGame/GoldenSun'' has the Seal status, which is basically the game's version of silence. Characters that are affected by Seal are prevented from using [[MagicByAnyOtherName Psynergy]]. Enemies can be affected by Seal, but a lot of them have monster skills that aren't affected. Only enemies that "cast" their abilities rather than "use" or "unleash" them will be impacted. On the other hand, there's nothing stopping a sealed player character from unleashing Djinn and using SummonMagic.
* The three binding statuses (head, arm, and leg) in ''VideoGame/EtrianOdyssey'' prevent use of any skill that involves said body part, and all skills are blocked by one. Head bind is the closest to a traditional "silence" status, as skills without any obvious physical action involved, including most abilities you'd call "spells", require an unbound head. Each one also has a secondary effect: head bind lowers accuracy (but not as much as blind), arm bind cuts physical attack damage in half, and leg bind prevents escape, lowers turn order, and makes dodging less likely.
* ''VideoGame/MagicalStarsign'' has the "sickness" status where your character's too busy coughing and wheezing to properly chant their spells.
* Shows up in ''VideoGame/TheDarkSpire'' as a second level Priest spell, which you'll get far, far more use of than any enemy with it. Magic is ''incredibly'' dangerous, but spellcasters are vulnerable to the spell, meaning you're free to turn what would normally be a party wipe into a free kill. It also targets groups instead of individuals, so it's unlikely you'll need to cast it more than once.
* ''VideoGame/XenobladeChroniclesX'' has the Virus condition, which blocks ranged arts.
* ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' has a certain take on this, inflicted by the attack "Throat Chop". Any Pokemon hit by it can't use [[MakeMeWannaShout sound-based attacks]] for two turns.
* The Numbness status in ''VideoGame/IDOLAPhantasyStarSaga'' prevents the victim from using Skills or [[LimitBreak Elemental Blast]], but otherwise lets the victim use their normal attack.
* ''Videogame/MightAndMagic'' ''X'' has Feeblemind status, which prevents one from using any spells. Thankfully, there is a potion that cures it in case your healer gets afflicted with it.
* ''VideoGame/OctopathTraveler'': Silence prevents the character from using any of their job's skills.

[[AC: ShootEmUp]]
* The Weapon Failure status in ''VideoGame/{{Enigmata}}'' is an inversion -- it makes you unable to use your regular weapons, but you can use your skills.

[[AC:TabletopGames]]
* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' has the Silence spell, which works exactly as it says, creating a spherical area of total silence. Unlike many other examples, however, this does prevent all forms of sound, including normal speech, sounds of battle, etc. and even stops sonic attacks that would go through the area, even if they were cast from outside the area. It also doesn't prevent spellcasting that has no verbal components, including, notably, all of the Psionic classes. The best (or worst) part is that the spell only allows a save for the target-- whoever or whatever will be the source of the silence. So cast it on a willing warrior, get him next to the {{Squishy Wizard}} and the mage is automatically silenced. Or cast it on a rock, and have the warrior carry it into the midst of the enemy spellcasters, then discard it when it's no longer convenient. There's also a status condition called Deafened, which imposes a 20% failure chance on verbal spells -- on the reasoning that being unable to hear yourself speak makes it slightly more difficult, but not impossible, to control your voice.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'' First Edition has the same Silence spell from D&D, with all the same exploits. In Second Edition the base Silence spell requires a willing target and only affects them, making it primarily a stealth spell. The heightened version of the spell emits the familiar aura, allowing for the mage-killing tactics mentioned above. Both versions can only be cast on creatures, though, so the "silence pebble" tactic is no more. Both editions also borrow the Deafened condition and its 20% spell failure chance.
* ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}'' has both Mana Damper and Neutralize. The former acts on the mana level of the area, perhaps an area consisting of only one person (if you take appropriate enhancements). Neutralize disables an advantage; this is something innate to the character, rather than a spell they learned. Neutralize is meant for use against ''psionic'' powers, which are ostensibly different from magic in that they're something a character does entirely with their mind, not requiring mana or magic words or any of that stuff; but if the GM allows it, there's nothing really stopping you from using Neutralize to cancel a sorcerer's ability to generate mana.
* ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' has the card [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=205119 Silence]], which prevents players other than the caster from casting spells until the end of that turn. The art depicts this as [[WipeThatSmileOffYourFace magically removing the mouths of the affected planeswalkers]].

[[AC:ThirdPersonShooter]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Warframe}}'' has a roundabout sort of silence in Magnetic damage: It drains both shields and energy, which is used for abilities. Magnetic procs also stop Energy from being picked up or otherwise acquired for as long as it persists. Energy also does not regenerate on its own without a certain mod, and even then, it's a painfully slow regen. Magnetic is one of the more hated debuffs for this reason. Corpus and Corrupted "Nullifier" enemies have a large bubble shield that protects them from a certain amount of damage and stops all Warframe abilities within the shield, while Corpus Scrambus and Comba enemies can project an energy field that disables certain types of Tenno abilities.
** Played straight with Banshee's Silence ability when used in Conclave (the game's [=PvP=] mode). It stops enemy Tenno from being able to use abilities in its area of effect.

[[AC:TurnBasedStrategy]]
* However, in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTacticsAdvance'', being silenced will only block off abilities that would intuitively require speaking -- magic spells, but also abilities like "Cheer" and "Advice".
** Its cousin, Addled, blocks ''everything'' that isn't a basic attack and movement, but it barely ever shows up.
** Silence also blocks off certain physical abilities like the Warrior's Shout abilities. However, being silenced never actually makes characters or monsters unable to talk.
* In ''Franchise/{{Disgaea}}'', being hit with Amnesia from an attack (marked by red question marks floating over the victim's head) will result in the victim being unable to use anything other than regular attacks.
** In ''VideoGame/PhantomBrave'' and ''VideoGame/MakaiKingdom'', it prohibits all but a weapon's basic non-MP-using attack. The same can be achieved by standing on Silence GeoEffects in ''Disgaea''.
* ''VideoGame/FellSealArbitersMark'' has Mute, which prevents the character from casting spells, and Cripple, which prevents the target from using skills.
* In ''Franchise/FireEmblem'', silence was caused by the Silence staff, that renders magic and staff users useless as it seals up the targets from using magic. Additionally, it also prevents characters from talking and visiting villages. In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemHeroes'', there's a variant called the Isolation effect where it disables the heroes from using assist moves such as Rally Attack and healing skills like Restore.

[[AC:WideOpenSandbox]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Terraria}}'' has Silenced, which prevents the player from using items that require mana.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Blindness]]
Either totally stops or sharply decreases the accuracy of physical attacks, much as Silence does for magic. Depending on the game, the accuracy penalty can range from automatic misses to severe to negligible.

[[AC:FirstPersonShooter]]
* The Tranquilizer Gun in ''VideoGame/PerfectDark'' blurs the player's vision, and completely blinds enemies.
* Some missions of ''VideoGame/GhostRecon: Advanced Warfighter'' have jamming devices that blur your HUD with static and disrupt your EnemyDetectingRadar.

[[AC:{{MMORPG}}s]]
* ''VideoGame/RagnarokOnline'' has blindness not only decrease accuracy and dodge rate, but also limits the actual area a player can see.
* ''VideoGame/{{Everquest}}'' had blindness affect a player far more than a monster by making it impossible for the player to see by [[InterfaceScrew turning the visual field black]] (and if you were using the interface that had menus overlap the visual field, you couldn't see the menus either). Interestingly, though, you could still do anything as normal, such as cast spells, select targets, etc.; you just had to be able to do it without seeing (i.e. memorize the location of the mouse and try to navigate through menus without actually seeing them, or use macros).
* ''VideoGame/GuildWars'' has this condition as well, giving physical attacks a 90% chance to miss.
* In ''VideoGame/GuildWars2'', this condition causes a guaranteed miss, but only for the next attack.
* If there's one thing that rogues in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' are known for, it's that they can be righteous dicks. Especially with their ability "Blind", which, in this case, renders the target completely useless and wandering around for a good 10 seconds. Any damage will cause the the afflicted character to "see" again by knowing where their opponent is and cancel the wandering effect.
** In Mists of Pandaria, this skill lasts for about 60-90 seconds, making it an additional crowd control.
* ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'' does have a "blinded" effect, but all this typically does is reduce player perception, making enemies either completely invisible, or only visible when they are very close to the character. However, powers that apply blind effects typically come with accuracy-reducing effects anyway, so it's relatively safe to say that blindness makes seeing and hitting enemies harder. Oddly, it does not make seeing TERRAIN harder, causing many an instance of running into a seemingly empty, clearly visible room, only to be insta-killed by enemies which were there, but you just didn't see.
* ''VideoGame/EVEOnline'' sort of has three types of Blind. Players can use Tracking Disruptors to severely reduce the accuracy of turrets, Electronic Counter-Measures that have a random chance (depending on skills and the targetted ships) to completely jam the target and prevent them from locking on to anything, or Sensor Dampeners to reduce targeting range.
* ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarOnline2'' has Mirage, which occasionally causes the afflicted character's attacks to whiff. Depending on what weapon you're using, you may not notice that it's affecting your hit rate at all; Twin Machinegun wielders will probably refuse to acknowledge that it does anything at all, while Sword wielders will probably find a fifth of their hits not doing pretty much anything.
* In ''VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing'', "Temporarily Blind" is an effect that can happen from using certain potions, drinking really bad moonshine, or wearing items that cover your eyes. This doesn't affect your accuracy, but you won't be able to see what enemies you're fighting, all attack and familiar effect descriptions are replaced with generic "the X does something" messages, and you're not told what items you receive after each fight.

[[AC:{{MOBA}}s]]
* Some champions in ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'' can apply the "Blind" debuff on enemies, causing all attacks to miss. It's usually short-lived, but it can mean a world of difference when facing an enemy that relies heavily on basic attacks to deal damage, especially if they also rely on lifesteal to maintain health.
* ''VideoGame/HeroesOfTheStorm'' has a blind as well, which also causes basic attacks to fail. Cassia is entirely built around the concept, as she applies a nasty blind effect with an ability and deals bonus damage to blinded enemies.

[[AC:RealTimeStrategy]]
* In ''VideoGame/StarcraftBroodWar'', the terran Medic can use a flash grenade to blind enemy troops permanently. This becomes useless if you have the "Reveal Map" cheat activated, or if the unit has a spotter.
** However, when used on a 'Detector', it becomes unable to see invisible units that aren't in its now limited field of vision, even with a spotter.
* ''VideoGame/{{Warcraft}}'': Averted -- the spell that causes units to miss is called Curse, and is used by Banshees, who use their screams to disorient targets.
** Played straight with the Dragonhawk's Cloud spell, which prevents ''buildings'' from attacking.

[[AC:{{Roguelike}}]]
* ''VideoGame/NetHack'' does interesting things with blindness; when the main character is blinded, in addition to the usual effects, the player can't see any enemies on their screen -- unless they have the "Telepathy" trait, in which case they gain the ability to see virtually all enemies on ''the map''. There's even a "Blindfold" item which is supposed to be worn by telepaths. Blindness also prevents the character from seeing what's on the ground, forcing them to use their hands. Woe be to the adventurer who just killed a cockatrice and isn't wearing gloves! Scrolls can't be recognized or read (instead of "a scroll labeled AXLDFKJ" you just get "a scroll"), gemstones are all "stones", and in general a blinded character will learn that there's DevelopersForesight.
* In the ''VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeon'' series, blindness makes the entire screen black except for the Pokémon you control and causes the player's map to stop displaying the positions of items, enemies, and allies. In addition, while blind, your character can't map out the dungeon floor. Fortunately, nothing stops you from checking the layout of things from a teammate's viewpoint by opening the menu.
* Other {{roguelikes}} tend to limit the area which the player can see, though it is still possible to attack and hit enemies in the darkness.
* In the ''VideoGame/IzunaLegendOfTheUnemployedNinja'' series, Blindness both limits your visibility range to near-zero (it's just barely large enough to see a small amount of any enemies beside you) and decreases your accuracy.

[[AC:RolePlayingGame]]
* This is one of the status effects in ''VideoGame/KingdomHearts358DaysOver2''. It causes most physical attacks to miss, though magic attacks are unaffected. For who knows what reason, even ''[[spoiler:Riku]]'' is affected by Blindness, even though [[spoiler:he's ''blindfolded as it is'']].
** In later titles, [[InterfaceScrew it limits your field of vision to a tiny circle around your character]]. In the case of enemies, it just makes them attack in random directions at random times.
* And on the opposite end, games like ''VideoGame/{{Wizardry}}'' also include characters with terrible directional hearing. How the heck else can one explain the tendency to be surrounded by enemies and accidentally shoot someone ''standing right next to you''?
* In the ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' games, this has a tendency to be a not-very-large accuracy drop.
** Since the first three ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' games had characters swing multiple times for each attack, and the blindness effect was not generally severe enough to make you miss with all of them, it functionally just resulted in lower damage.
** In the SNES and PSX versions of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'', blindness is ''intended to be an accuracy drop... but a glitch makes physical accuracy (and therefore blindness) do nothing, with one exception: Strago can learn any Lore he ''sees'' [[DeathIsASlapOnTheWrist (whether or not he survives seeing it)]], so if he can't see anything, he can't learn any Lores.
** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII'', reaching the accuracy [[{{Cap}} cap of 255]]% renders a character completely unhindered by blind. Protagonist Squall Leonhart and his rival Seifer Almasy, two {{Gunblade}} masters, sport a natural 255% accuracy with their weapons by default. They're ''that'' badass. Selphie also reaches maximum accuracy and functional immunity to Blind if her nunchaku are upgraded to their ultimate model, the Strange Vision, while all other main party members bar Zell are capable of reaching 255% via junctioning.
* ''VideoGame/EarthBound'' wins the award for the most ridiculous name for this status effect, which it calls "uncontrollable crying".
* ''VideoGame/RadiataStories'' actually blurs and pixelates the screen when your character is afflicted with Blind, so neither the character ''nor the player'' can see what's going on.
* In ''VideoGame/MegaManXCommandMission'', which replaces standard status effects and spells with robotics-themed counterparts, not only does this status reduce the character's accuracy, but their evasive ability as well (can't dodge what you can't see, right?).
* In the ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' games, there are moves that reduce the opponent's accuracy, which usually involve throwing something in their eyes. Though like most stat modifications, this is canceled as soon as the victim is switched out or otherwise leaves the battle.
* In ''''VideoGame/BlackSigil'': Blade of the Exiled'', Blind results in a pretty standard reduction to your accuracy. This can be especially frustrating when it hits the DesignatedHero before he can use any magic.
* In the ''VideoGame/DragonQuest'' series, characters can get "dazzled" from a variety of moves. It can be very frustrating, as the only cure is patience.
* In ''VideoGame/BaldursGate'', Blindness offers a -4 penalty to armour class and [=THAC0=], and reduces sight range to 1. In layman's terms: You hit worse, you get hit easier, and targeting anyone outside of melee range, with whatever weapon or spells you have, is impossible. Enemy mages and archers struck by this spell cast defensive spells and then stand dumbfounded unless you charge them in melee, since their AI sticks in them into an illegal behavioural mode (i.e. try to target foes at range, find you can't due to the spell). [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard Several enemies completely disregard this penalty, however]].
* ''VideoGame/GoldenSun'' has the Delusion status, which reduces the affected creature's accuracy.
* In the ''VideoGame/MegamanBattleNetwork'' series, this effect makes you unable to see any objects or enemies, though you can still see incoming attacks just fine. When it's on AI-controlled foes, they either attack aimlessly or stop attacking entirely.
* In ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas: Lonesome Road'', Flashbang Grenades temporarily drain the enemy's and/or player's attack skills as well as [[InterfaceScrew literally]] [[BlindedByTheLight blinding them]], and also cause Tunnelers to be Frenzied (Confused).
** In ''Fallout 1'' and ''2'', characters could be blinded by attacks to the eyes.
* ''VideoGame/ParasiteEve'' has the Blind status reduce the range of your weapons to such a small amount that even being on top of the enemy won't guarantee a hit. ''VideoGame/ParasiteEve2'' doubles the effect of Blind with InterfaceScrew by darkening the screen while also preventing you from targeting enemies so that you can't auto aim with your guns.
* ''VideoGame/StarOceanTheLastHope'' has the Fog status that cancels any targeting ability of the character as the character pretty much becomes unable to see, most of the time causing said character to attack the air instead of the enemy.
* ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarNova'' not only blackens the area around the center of your screen, but it also tints the camera around your character an extremely dark orange that's difficult to see through. It also disables your lock-on so you don't cheat the effect.
* ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind'' has the Blind spell effect. When cast on the player character, it darkens the screen by a percentage equal to the spell's power. At max power, the spell blackens the screen entirely. Unfortunately, it is something of a UselessUsefulSpell against [=NPCs=], who are much less handicapped by the effects (even at 100%). One LethalJokeItem is called "Boots of Blinding Speed", which increases your speed by 200 (the normal max is 100) but makes it impossible to see where you're going. If you cast a magic resistance spell before equipping the boots, you can negate the blind effect while keeping the full speed boost.
* ''VideoGame/OctopathTraveler: Blind greatly lowers the accuracy of the afflicted character's physical attacks.

[[AC:TabletopGames]]
* A possible effect of a ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}'' Affliction. Generally, this gives a -8 penalty to all attacks, which is enormous in ''GURPS'' terms.
* Blindness in ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' of course affects whether you hit an opponent (in 3rd edition on, all enemies have total concealment, which gives a 50% chance of missing), but also affects your AC (You get -2 and lose your Dex bonus in 3E) and certain abilities that rely on sight (Spot checks automatically fail, and Search checks are a lot harder.)
* In ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'' First Edition, Blindness is basically the same as in 3.5 D&D-- 50% miss chance on all attacks, penalties to defense and you move at half speed. Second Edition makes the defensive penalties a little less harsh, but otherwise keeps it similar.

[[AC:ThirdPersonShooter]]
* In ''VideoGame/{{Warframe}}'', certain warframes can apply blind to enemies in their line of sight: Excalibur with ''Radial Blind'' (and the Umbra variant's ''Radial Howl''), Inaros' ''[[AHandfulForAnEye Desiccation]]'' and Mirage's ''Prism''. Gara's passive can blind enemies if she is standing in bright light. Blinded enemies cannot attack and will run away if they hear gunfire, and are open to melee finisher attacks.
** Corpus Denial Bursas can fire beams to blind Tenno, turning their screen white for the duration.

[[AC:TurnBasedStrategy]]
* In ''VideoGame/HeroesOfMightAndMagic 3'', Blind is a spell from the Fire school (because the game has no Light magic, but the spell graphics look like flashing stuff) that completely prevents affected units from ever getting a turn. Being attacked breaks the effect (whether or not they then get to retaliate depends on if it was an Expert-level Blind). In 5, this is changed, and Blindness, now in the Dark Magic school, essentially becomes another Paralysis and prevents the target from doing anything until attacked.

[[AC:TurnBasedTactics]]
* ''VideoGame/MarioPlusRabbidsKingdomBattle'' has the "Ink" status, where a character's head is encased in a large blob of ink for a turn, making them able to attack (but still able to move and use passive skills).
* In ''VideoGame/FellSealArbitersMark'', Blind halves the target’s accuracy for several turns.

[[AC:ShootEmUp]]
* One of [[VideoGame/{{Touhou}} Mystia Lorelei's]] spellcards restricts the player's vision to a tiny circle around them. In a BulletHell game.

[[AC:WideOpenSandbox]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'' has blindness from potions that reduces your visibility to just a block's distance. This doesn't affect mobs and the potion can't be crafted normally, but it is common in adventure maps and multiplayer servers.
* ''VideoGame/{{Terraria}}'' has three variants which reduce the field of vision -- Blindness, Blackout, and Obstructed -- the difference being that the latter two are more intense and can't be prevented by wearing a blindfold (as Blindness can).
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Berserk/Rage]]
Describes a character who can't be controlled, loses all of their abilities except their basic attack, though at least berserked characters are still attacking the proper side, unlike Confused or Charm. This is often accompanied by an attack power boost, and sometimes by a decrease in defense as well. This can sometimes be exploited to one's advantage, depending on whether the victim is a fighter or spellcaster; some games even classify it as a ''positive'' [[StatusBuff status effect]].

[[AC:FightingGame]]
* ''VideoGame/Persona4Arena'' copies this effect from the original RPG -- an enraged character deals increased damage, but is unable to block until it wears off. In ''Ultimax'', Rise actually inflicts it on herself during one of her SP Skills, making it extremely dangerous if it whiffs.

[[AC:FirstPersonShooter]]
* ''VideoGame/{{DooM}}'' has the ''Berserker Pack'', which disables all weapons except for the fist and buffs it to insane levels, and makes the player invincible. It wears off after a short while. You're still in the drivers seat, however.

[[AC:HackAndSlash]]
* In ''VideoGame/DiabloII'', the Barbarian class can acquire the skill Berserk. Using this skill increases their attack rating, damage, and converts said damage to magic damage instead of physical, but every time they use it, their defense rating is set to 0 for a short duration. A certain runeword item allows other classes access to the Berserk skill as well.

[[AC:{{MMORPG}}s]]
* There are lots of ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' mobs that go berserk when their hit points fall below a certain percentage. Conveniently, they're often called "Foo Berserkers".
** Some ogres have a particularly silly version of it: it increases their attack power, but also slows their attack speed so much that it's basically canceled out ''and'' slows them down so much that ranged classes have an even easier time dealing with them.
*** Very few mobs have an ability that deals severe damage, but also ''enrages the player''.
** Many bosses have a so-called '[[TurnsRed hard enrage]]', where after a certain period of time, their damage goes through the roof, killing everyone in seconds. A 'soft' enrage does the same thing, except here the boss gradually gets stronger throughout the fight until it becomes impossible.
** Additionally, warriors have both a talent called Berserker Rage and a fighting mode called Berserker Stance. The warrior Berserker effects will increase damage done but also damage taken, and a berserk warrior is immune to Fear spells.
** Feral Druids get an ability literally called Berserk. Depending on the form it's used in, it either halves the cost of your abilities (Cat) or removes the cooldown of one ability (Mangle-Bear).
** Warlocks used to have a Curse of Recklessness that made the affected target hit harder, but reduced defense. Its ''real'' purpose, though, was that an afflicted mob would not run away in fear and draw in more mobs into the battle.
** Death Knights have Unholy Frenzy, which increases attack speed but also causes the target to lose health.
* I-Gears from ''VideoGame/AceOnline'' have Berserk as their other [[MacrossMissileMassacre signature attack]], apart from frenzy.
* Lord Knights in ''VideoGame/RagnarokOnline'' can purposely go Berserk. It ups their attack speed, hit chance, and overall attack power for the duration. Unfortunately, their defense drops, and Berserk mode slowly zaps away their HP. Oh, and they can't even chat with guildmates until it wears off... or they die, whatever happens first.
* Blades in ''VideoGame/{{FlyFF}}'' have the Berserk self-buff, which increases their damage by a small amount, and more importantly their attack speed, but prevents them from using skills while active. This isn't generally a problem; since blades' skills run off a different stat than their standard attacks[[note]]Melee damage is based on STR, but blades' skill damage is based on DEX[[/note]], a 1v1 blade won't be using skills anyways, and the rare skill blade won't need the attack speed from Berserk[[note]]as attack speed is also based on DEX[[/note]].

[[AC:RealTimeStrategy]]
* Averted in ''VideoGame/WarcraftIII'', where several spells inflict a berserk-like status but the unit remains controllable. Bloodlust increases movement and attack speed (and size, for some reason), Unholy Frenzy causes continuous damage by accelerating the target, and the actual Berserk ability causes the unit to take more damage in exchange for increased attack speed.
** On some custom maps, the uncontrollable effect is duplicated by temporarily transferring the unit to the neutral hostile faction, which is, well, hostile to all players.

[[AC:{{Roguelike}}s]]
* ''VideoGame/DungeonCrawlStoneSoup'' features berserk as a somewhat risky status buff; when berserked, your character gains both the Haste and Might statuses, moving much faster and hitting much harder in exchange for being unable to perform most actions beyond hitting things and a period of debilitating slowness after the status wears off. Intentionally going berserk is generally considered a sound strategy so long as you account for the drawbacks; there's even a ''god'' for berserkers, Trog, who grants you the ability to go berserk for free and powers to support your rages. ''Un''intentionally going berserk (through either a detrimental mutation or the influence of a magical artifact), however, can be dangerous, especially if your character isn't really designed for physical combat.
** Certain enemies will go berserk themselves, which makes them significantly more dangerous. Then there are the moths of wrath, which can make other creatures (even you) go berserk.
* ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'' characters can randomly become enraged during combat, though this is more likely if the character's personality is prone to anger. An enraged character can only perform "wild" attacks, which are fast and PowerfulButInaccurate.

[[AC:RolePlayingGame]]
* Many ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' games have the player capable of casting berserk on enemies as well as themselves. Perfect for preventing [[SquishyWizard weak enemy mages]] from casting their powerful spells.
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'' treats Berserk as a positive status trait. It's cured by Dispel, the positive effect remover, enemies often use it on themselves, and it speeds up attacks greatly. Just don't use it on your lead character, or you won't go anywhere until it wears off.
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX2'' has an entire class devoted to the spell Berserk (aka The Berserker Dressphere), the spell in case can only be cast on the caster.
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV'' has the berserk white magic spell, which does just what it says above. In addition, the "Avenger" two-handed sword, when wielded by Cecil, causes him to go into a permanent Berserk-mode, and the ultra-rare Flan Princess enemy has a "dance" that both changes the battle music and causes the whole party to go berserk.
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyV'' had the Berserker job. Simply ''being'' that job makes a character constantly berserk, and one of the abilities you can learn from that class allows you to carry that trait over to other jobs. Interestingly, they still have {{M|anaMeter}}P, allowing them to wield runic weapons at full power (they drain the user's MP). Conveniently, only berserkers can wield axes, and one of the very few runic weapons is one.
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' didn't have that much use for it, but one particularly nasty boss [[LoopholeAbuse becomes trivial if Berserked]] -- instead of hammering the party with powerful magic, he attacks for pathetic damage. Furthermore, there were two characters who harkened back to the Berserker class from ''V'':
*** Gau the WildChild could use "Rages", where he would mimic an animal but be otherwise uncontrollable for the duraction of the fight. Each Rage used either a normal attack or an ability specific to the creature being mimicked, many of them {{Game Breaker}}s.
*** Umaro the yeti was a classic Berserker, uncontrollable 24/7, but by equipping him with certain relics, you could influence his behavior to include more attacks beyond simple club strikes.
** Berserk is a status effect in the ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTactics'' games, but it's rarely especially useful for either the player or enemies to inflict it on each other. ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTacticsA2'' featured the Berserker class, which had the ability to make itself Berserk if you felt like it.
* In the ''Franchise/{{Persona}}'' series, Berserk actually ''is'' a negative status effect, since it also halves the afflicted character's defense power, and just in case you're thinking "Oh well, at least you get a massive boost in attack", nuh-uh: the berserked characters will prioritize hitting the enemies that will be affected less by it (ie. ones that resist, reflect, absorb or null Phys) or just won't be killed in one hit by them. And of course, [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard an enemy's ailment spells will nearly always hit you while yours rarely work]]. So if your dedicated healer, who usually has the lowest max HP of the group, is hit with Berserk...
** However, there is a boss in the game whose strategy revolves around Berserking your characters and decimating them with powerful physical attacks. But the boss is also weak against one of the three physical weapon types, specifically, Pierce! So equip your Main Character with a spear, bring Aigis, Ken, and Yukari, and then watch the boss get torn apart. One is advised to keep at least one person free of Rage, however, because the boss also uses Megidolaon, and you need someone who can heal.
*** For bonus points, that boss is ''the final Tartarus boss''. What a way to end the dungeon.
** ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiStrangeJourney'' has the Rage ailment. You lose all control of the affected members of your party. You gain great attack power, but begin uncontrollably attacking ''anyone'' on the battlefield. Maybe it can kill the enemy, yes, but more likely to wind up killing your own party. Did I mention there's almost no way to cure it except extremely rare items? And that the FinalBoss also has it?
** The [[Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei series]] also has a form of PracticalTaunt which greatly boosts enemies' Attack while dropping their Defense to nothing.
*** Which is quite useful, as you can cast Dekaja on the enemy as well, which reverts the enemies' offensive power to normal, or if you are affected, use Dekunda and your defense returns to normal. So essentially it's a free Tarukaja (Offense up) for you and Rakunda (Defense down) towards the enemy.
*** VideoGame/DigitalDevilSaga has a boss fight against Ravana ([[spoiler:Varin Omega/Colonel Beck]]), who uses an attack called Hunger Wave. This causes the party to sink into a form of Berserk that is actually gnawing hunger -- either they lose health from starvation or turn on each other. None of your items or skills can cure it; only Sera's song can do so. Fortunately, she's watching the battle and will run in at the start of any round where a party member is suffering from it, using her song to cure one member of the party; unfortunately, since she has no combat ability, she can't risk staying for longer than necessary, and thus can only cure one party member at a time. The FinalBoss of the first game, Hari-Hara, is also capable of using Hunger Wave, but by then, you're practically NighInvulnerable if you prepare properly, which means that you only have to worry about Hari-Hara's unique [[NonElemental Almighty attacks]] and the health loss from the gnawing hunger.
* ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' has several attacks that work like a temporary version of Berserk, causing the user to automatically keep using that one move repeatedly for a certain number of turns (somewhere from 2 to 5, usually randomly chosen). There's also the move Encore, which forces the ''opponent'' to use the same move they used last repeatedly until it wears off.
** In the first generation games (Red/Blue/Yellow), the move Rage made the user go mad, refusing to do anything else (even let you use items or switch it out), and getting angrier and therefore stronger every time the user took damage. Strangely enough, only one PP was used up starting this -- subsequent attacks (also called Rage) didn't use any PP. It was not a very good attack. However, later versions changed it so that Rage was just like most other attacks and simply gained more power as the user took damage.
** The second generation games (Gold/Silver/Crystal) introduced Swagger, a move that increases the opponent's attack power and confuses the opponent, thus increasing the amount of damage it takes when it hurts itself. They also had the Berserk Gene item, which is found where Cerulean Cave used to be, and does the same thing as Swagger to the Pokémon that uses it. The third generation games (Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald) added Flatter, which is the Special Attack version of Swagger.
** There is also the move Taunt, which prevents the use of non-damaging moves.
* An [[http://www.mariowiki.com/Paper_Mario/Beta_elements#Unused_Badges unused badge]] in ''VideoGame/PaperMario's'' ROM data gives Mario this effect. His ATK increases by 2, and he automatically attacks with either a standard jump or hammer attack.
* ''VideoGame/ShadowHearts'' has a slightly different version of Berserk that works a little bit like the Confuse status (see below). It's not a status that can be directly inflicted; however, stay in battle too long and your characters ''will'' go Berserk once they run out of Sanity Points. Also, if you want the protagonist to learn his most powerful abilities, [[GuideDangIt you have to let him go Berserk.]]
* In ''''VideoGame/BlackSigil'': Blade of the Exiled'', a Berserk character doesn't get any significant boost to their power, but cannot be controlled and will physically attack as they see fit. Most of the time, they manage to attack enemies, so it's not so bad until you find monsters that love to inflict Berserk while only being vulnerable to magical damage.
* ''VideoGame/BreathOfFireIII'': While not so much a curable status effect, having Rei [[spoiler:transform into his Weretiger form]] will cause him to become ''much'' stronger but uncontrollable, having him only attack physically, and becoming increasingly likely to attack allies every turn he stays in that form. Luckily, you can easily fix this by using Influence, which is normally [[UselessUsefulSpell pretty useless]]. With it, however, you can use Influence to target a boss monster and have Rei only attack them [[UselessUsefulSpell for the whole fight]].
* In ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiBowsersInsideStory'', Bowser can be get hit with the Fury ailment if he takes too many hits (complete with him [[TurnsRed Turning Red]] and [[HighPressureEmotion steaming up]]). He's still perfectly controllable, but his Attack goes up and his Defense goes down.
** Given that it's possible to avoid every single attack with good timing, this can easily be CursedWithAwesome
* Most ''VideoGame/{{Suikoden}}'' games treat Berserk as a buff more than a StandardStatusEffect: Berserked characters have amped-up attack and the rune that gives them the amped attack takes up a slot and... that's it. They can still be controlled normally and suffer no other hindrances. As a result, most players actively seek out the effect for as many characters that can spare the slot. ''VideoGame/SuikodenV'' reduced its usefulness by making characters in this state uncontrollable.
* In ''VideoGame/PlanescapeTorment'', one of Morte's main powers was Litany of Curses, which caused him to spout a random insult at the targeted foe. If they failed the saving throw to resist, they were rendered unable to do anything for a short time except to attempt melee attacks against Morte. Unlike many versions of Berserk, this was a pure debuff -- the target not only took a penalty to their armor class for the duration, but also had a penalty to attack and damage. As Morte had an already good armor class, high hit points, and very good resistance to most forms of damage, this made it a very effective ability, especially if it was fully upgraded (each upgrade was gained by certain events that caused Morte to learn new insults, measured in-game by giving the target a larger penalty on the saving throw). [[DevelopersForesight The ability only worked on enemies that were smart enough to understand what he was saying, though]].
* ''VideoGame/SouthParkTheStickOfTruth'' has the Pissed Off status, which forces the afflicted to attack the person who pissed them off. It also disables special attacks, forcing them to use regular moves.
* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'' series has the "Frenzy" (sometimes called "Fury") spell dating back to ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind Morrowind]]''. [=NPCs=] afflicted by the effect will begin attacking any nearby targets, friend and foe alike.

[[AC:TabletopGames]]
* Not an official status condition, but several effects in ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'' give bonuses to creatures' combat abilities while preventing them from doing anything requiring concentration. The most well-known of these is the Barbarian's Rage class feature. Virtually all these effects are either self-only or require willing targets, so there's no way to enrage an enemy spellcaster to shut down their magic.
* You can take this as a ''character flaw'' in ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}'', in which case you have to roll to avoid flying into a rage during a fight. Affliction attacks can give temporary disadvantages like this one.

[[AC:ThirdPersonShooter]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Warframe}}'': Equinox can inflict Berserk on her enemies in her Day form with ''Rage'', which increases affected enemies' attack and movement speed but also increases damage taken.

[[AC:TurnBasedStrategy]]
* ''VideoGame/FellSealArbitersMark'' treats Berserk as a negative status. A unit affected by it will uncontrollably attack the nearest unit, whether they’re friend or foe.
* In ''Franchise/FireEmblem'', the berserk effect forces characters to attack whoever is closest to them, which usually means their own allies. This is especially problematic late in the game.
* In ''VideoGame/HeroesOfMightAndMagic 3'', the Berserk spell (Fire school) forces the affected unit to automatically attack the closest target, be it friend or foe. A very powerful ability at Expert rank (where it becomes an area of effect), as a hero with it can force some of the opponent's units to duke it out between each other instead of attacking his units. In 5, the Dwarven Berserker can cast it on himself, dramatically increasing attack power, but attacking friendly units if no foes are in range.
* In ''VideoGame/LostDimension'', characters who hit 0 Sanity in battle will go berserk. Berserk characters stop providing passive support to their allies, suffer a 50% drop in defense, gain a damage buff, and start attacking enemies automatically. However, they will continue to use their psychic skills, often with gay abandon. Considering said skills have a Sanity cost that contributed to this state in the first place, but skills used like this ignore the cost and carry no penalty for being used, intentionally berserking your characters is a crucial tactic.
* ''VideoGame/SouthParkTheFracturedButWhole'' brings back the Pissed Off status as an effect that can only be inflicted on enemies, forcing them to focus on attacking whichever character inflicted the effect. Moves that inflict this also tend to give the user the Blocking effect at the same time, giving them a shield which completely absorbs all non-knockback damage until their next turn.

[[AC:WideOpenSandbox]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Terraria}}'' has Tipsy, caused by drinking ale, which reduced defense but enhances physical stats. Despite being considered a negative status, the defense drop is barely noticeable on later stages of the game, while the physical buffs are quite important.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Confused]]
Characters will act unpredictably. They may strike enemies, their companions, or even themselves. Or they may just do nothing and skip a turn. Often, the computer takes complete control of confused characters and [[AIRoulette selects commands at random]], although in some cases the player will still be able to issue commands and the computer will merely select the target at random, and in other games, "Confusion" may actually be just another word for "Charm". There are many instances of this being only usable by female Party members, cast with a FanService-laden dance. When players use this on enemies, they are [[SetAMookToKillAMook Setting A Mook To Kill A Mook]].

A variation that often comes up in more action-oriented games randomly scrambles the player's directional controls, so if they try to move forward, they go left instead. More insidious games will also screw up button presses or re-scramble the controls periodically.

[[AC:FightingGame]]
* ''VideoGame/EternalChampions'' had one of the most insidious control-scrambles in video game history with Xavier's Confusion spell. Even the attack buttons got mixed up with the directional controls, meaning that a victim trying to attack could end up jumping instead, leaving them wide open.
* ''VideoGame/Persona4Arena'': Panicked characters will have their left-right controls reversed, throwing off the player's movement, block, and skill inputs.

[[AC:FirstPersonShooter]]
* ''[[VideoGame/PerfectDark Perfect Dark Zero]]''[='s=] Psychosis Gun negates all forms of team-coloration and enables the victim's friendly-fire. When everyone is the same dull gray color, it's surprisingly easy to panic at an approaching teammate...

[[AC:HackAndSlash]]
* The necromancer class in ''VideoGame/DiabloII'' can cause this effect on non-player enemies via one of their Curse skills. Certain items, such as the runeword "Dream", give a chance for the Confuse curse to be cast on enemies when the wearer of the item is struck by a hostile attack.

[[AC:{{MMORPG}}s]]
* In ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarOnline'', the Panic status effect causes the player's character to run in random directions. Confused enemies will instead attack whatever is closest.
* ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'' has a player-controlled version of this in the form of Confuse powers. When a player is confused, the player's powers lose friend/foe recognition abilities (so you can attack allies and heal enemies), and upon activating any power, the player's target shifts to a randomly-selected character, friend or foe, and the power is executed on that target. This is dangerous, because the character could potentially work anyway, or it could potentially backfire horribly. On the other hand, standing still and doing nothing is still an option. Because of player abuse, confuse effects from enemies have such short duration that they barely have any effect.
* In ''VideoGame/GuildWars2'', this condition does damage every time a skill is used.
* While fairly rare in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'', a fairly notorious confuse effect came from Blackheart the Inciter, who confused the entire party for 15 seconds every minute or so, then just sat back and watched the fun. Apart from using everyone's cooldown abilities, the actions taken were pretty random, and one of the more notorious ones was a druid who woke up from their confusion to find they'd teleported themselves to Moonglade. Which is in another dimension. Probably not what the programmers intended.
** When the computer takes control of a character, it seems like they just smash all the buttons randomly. This ends up doing things like a human using "Every Man For Himself" to break out of said mind control.
* ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarOnline2'' has Panic, inflicted by the Light element. The effect is mostly different on players, but on enemies, it causes them to target other enemies of their own race.

[[AC:PuzzleGame]]
* Confused pieces in ''VideoGame/ElementalStory'' strengthen enemy attacks when matched.

[[AC:{{Roguelike}}]]
* In ''VideoGame/NetHack'', you can't cast spells while confused, and attempting to move will cause you to move in a random direction, attacking any monster that happens to be in the way (even if the monster is neutral or friendly). Further, many scrolls will have a different effect if read while confused. Woe to the unfortunate who reads a scroll of genocide while confused [[note]]This results in an instant death[[/note]].
* In the ''VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeon'' series, confusion causes you to move and attack in a random direction instead of your intended one, and also enables FriendlyFire if you don't have the Nontraitor/Self Control IQ/Team skill. It's easily one of the most troublesome status ailments due to how common it is, and the fact that it drastically reduces your chances of hitting an enemy if you lack moves that hit every tile adjacent to you.
** Helpfully, you can still throw items in whatever direction you want, including projectile items.
* In ''VideoGame/DungeonOfTheEndless'', the confused status (inflicted by the Pepperspray module and Skroig's Red Plume) is more akin to a Charm effect that causes enemies to attack each other. Thankfully, it only affects enemies and not your heroes.
* In the ''VideoGame/IzunaLegendOfTheUnemployedNinja'' series, Confused causes both movement and attacks to go in random directions, usually (but not always) other than the intended direction. Throwing items is strangely unaffected, making it the preferred way to fight while confused.

[[AC:RolePlayingGame]]
* ''VideoGame/EarthBound'' has ''two'' versions of this ailment: the standard confusion (referred to as "feeling strange"), and "Mushroomization" which doubles as a [[InterfaceScrew Meta-Effect]] out of battle.
* Confusion in most games (most notably the ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' series) isn't really confusion so much as it is a disguised '''Charm''' effect: a temporary FaceHeelTurn in which your characters will do nothing but attack each other or themselves. However, a few games actually avert that description (namely ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTactics'' and ''[[VideoGame/FinalFantasyX2 Final Fantasy X-2]]''), where your characters' actions are truly random. However, this can actually prove to be ''worse'', especially when your Confused character uses that [[TooAwesomeToUse Megalixir]] you've saved up for so long [[WhatAnIdiot while your party is at full health/MP]]...
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' wins the award for "Best FridgeLogic as a Result of a StandardStatusEffect, EVER" -- Sabin, while zombified (which is similar to muddle, but can't be cured by attacking the victim), can use Phantom Rush on himself. Phantom Rush is an attack that does damage by ''running around the target''. The attack animation for this is ''weird''.
** Confusion in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'' means that they ''can'' attack the enemy, but usually don't; this can lead to [[HilarityEnsues much hilarity]] when Wakka hits ''himself'' in the head with a petrifying blitzball and dies instantly.
** And then you've got the infamous Malboros, who in most games ''love'' inflicting this status and '''Berserk''' together. On ''all'' of your party members. All you can do then is pray that the first character who gets hit can survive the blow (which they ''rarely'' do); if not, the combination turns into the status effect equivalent of a TotalPartyKill.
* In ''VideoGame/InfiniteUndiscovery'', if the player character gets confused, the game [[InterfaceScrew inverts your controls]] and turns off [[FriendlyFireproof friendly fire immunity]], but you aren't forced to attack anyone. Other characters will attack whatever is nearest as usual.
* ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' uses this. When confused, a Pokémon has a chance of hurting itself rather than the opponent each time you try to attack. After a few turns, the Pokémon can snap out of it, or it can leave battle to do so.
** Confusion is one of the few status aliments in the Pokémon series that can stack with other status effects, and it's also one of only a few that couldn't be cured by some sort of item (at least not in the first generation of games; Full Restores, Full Heals, or Max Revives can cure it in subsequent generations). It also seems to have the largest number of moves that can cause it, [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard at least when fighting computers...]]
** In the card game, if a confused Pokémon tries to attack, its owner must flip a coin. If the flip lands on tails, it does 30 damage to itself. Like in the games, switching it out cures it. In earlier rulesets, confused Pokémon had to pass a coin flip to switch out, too, and if they failed, they still had to pay the energy required to retreat.
* In ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'' games, confuse has a chance of making the affected character do something... well, really stupid. A common manifestation is inexplicably tossing macca everywhere or simply hurting themselves à la Pokémon.
** ''VideoGame/Persona4''[[note]]''Golden'' renamed it Panic[[/note]] and ''VideoGame/Persona5'' have Confusion where the afflicted character either "does nothing", "throws some money to opponent", "uses an item" or "throws an item to opponent". There's a exploit that involves confusing the sidequest bosses from Mementos and watch them drop absurd amounts of Macca to the point that you won't be worrying about money for the rest of the game.
* A confused character in ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'' will attack whatever is the closest to him, be it friend or foe.
* Suffering confusion in ''VideoGame/RadiataStories'' will make your player character control awkwardly, and your attacks can damage your allies.
* In ''VideoGame/WorldOfMana'', confusion temporarily [[InterfaceScrew reverses your controls]].
* ''VideoGame/WildArms'' will allow you to choose an option in battle, but not the target.
* Confusion in the ''VideoGame/DragonQuest'' series isn't ''just'' "randomly attack an ally". Confused characters and enemies can wind up doing some pretty funny things, such as trying to run away but failing, trying to attack but not being able to keep up with your body, and sometimes getting paralyzed for no good reason. Ironically, the paralysis is actually ''beneficial'' to the player, as it prevents the character from attacking his allies!
* In the ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'' series, confusion simply reverses your controls for the duration. In the case of enemies, it makes them attack erratically, and allows them to hurt friend and foe alike.
** Made nastier in ''VideoGame/KingdomHearts3DDreamDropDistance'', thanks to it enabling friendly fire for your dream eater allies who attack rather haphazardly and can cause significantly more damage than enemies.
* A particularly annoying variant of it is present in ''VideoGame/{{Xenoblade}}'', where it causes the afflicted characters to run around aimlessly and uncontrollably. They're also completely incapable of doing anything else until it wears off.
* In the ''VideoGame/MegaManBattleNetwork'' series, confusion either randomizes or reverses the player's movements, depending on the game. Against the AI, it causes them to move more slowly and makes their attacks not function properly, if at all (bombs become duds and boomerangs will fly off the screen instead of looping back, to name a few examples).
* Certain ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' and ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' enemies can be Frenzied by the crippling of a certain body part. The Mesmetron has this effect on human targets, if it doesn't cause [[YourHeadAsplode their head to asplode]] in the process.
* ''VideoGame/ParasiteEve'' has your movement controls reconfigured when you're affected by Confusion, while causing the same status effect to enemies makes them mindlessly spin in place and don't attack you. ''VideoGame/ParasiteEve2'' keeps the screwed up controls effect, but has it happen at random instead of being constant.
* In ''VideoGame/DigimonStoryCyberSleuth'' and ''[[VideoGame/DigimonStoryCyberSleuthHackersMemory Hacker's Memory]]'', Confusion is called Panic and causes the affected 'mon to use basic attacks on a random target on either side of the battlefield.
* ''VideoGame/OctopathTraveler'': Confusion causes the target to make a standard attack against a random enemy, ally, or itself each round.

[[AC:ShootEmUp]]
* Two variants exist in the WebGame ''VideoGame/{{Enigmata}}''. Engine Failure inverts your controls, while Chaos makes you move around erratically.

[[AC:TabletopGames]]
* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' had the "behave randomly" version of this, as well as the more permanent ''Insanity''. The "attack self" variant was also present in the psionic power ''Death Urge''.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'' First Edition used D&D 3.5's version of Confusion, which gave a 25% chance each turn to attack the nearest creature, attack oneself, babble incoherently, or act normally. But if you were attacked while confused, you automatically retaliated instead, so having more than one person confused could quickly result in an enforced duel to the death. In Second Edition you have defensive penalties and always attack (or take actions like drawing a weapon that will enable you to attack). If you have targets, they're chosen randomly (i.e. by the [=GM=]), if you don't have targets you attack yourself. Only if you have no way of attacking at all do you babble incoherently, and there's no chance of acting normally. The good news is each time you take damage you have a 50% chance of recovering from the confusion, so you're likely to be broken out of it before you kill an ally or die yourself. Probably.
* Fright Checks in ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}'' can sometimes be changed into Awe or Confusion checks, which are mechanically similar, but roll on a different table for their effects. The Terror advantage, appropriately modified, can cause any of them.
* There exists a "Stupidity" rule in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'', mostly applied to large monsters, where it has a chance of doing nothing. [[TheFightingNarcissist Sigvald the Magnificent]] has this rule, not because of his intellect, but because he has his entire unit stop so he can admire his reflection in their polished shields.

[[AC:ThirdPersonShooter]]
* In ''VideoGame/KidIcarusUprising'', confused players will wander uncontrollably in various directions and randomly attack.
* ''VideoGame/{{Warframe}}'' comes with Radiation damage, which causes afflicted enemies to attack whatever's closest to them, be it friend or foe -- though, if Tenno are close enough or present enough of a threat, the confused enemies may still shoot at them. If a player is affected by Radiation, their FriendlyFireproof nature is turned off. There's also Nyx' ''Chaos'' power which causes a much longer duration Confusion effect that's extremely useful in higher level missions, and the ''Irradiating Disarm'' Augment for Loki's Radial Disarm power.

[[AC:TurnBasedStrategy]]
* ''VideoGame/ShiningForce'' is a little more merciful with its confusion: A lot of the time, the confused character just stands there and mumbles to himself.
* In ''VideoGame/HeroesOfMightAndMagic'', Confusion makes units sometimes forget to retaliate, and shooters sometimes forget to shoot.
* In ''VideoGame/SouthParkTheFracturedButWhole'', the Confused status makes the affected character attack whichever ally or enemy is the closest at the time, or possibly even both in the case of attacks which hit multiple targets.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Charm]]
Your character gets controlled by the other side and often can attack you with both their basic attacks as well as their spells and special abilities. If the person taken over can cast healing magic, they may even use the magic to cure the members of the enemy party. This can sometimes be one of the harder to cure effects, although sometimes simply [[GetAholdOfYourselfMan attacking the charmed person can break its effect]]. When players use this on enemies, they are [[SetAMookToKillAMook Setting A Mook To Kill A Mook]].

[[AC:ActionAdventure]]
* ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaPortraitOfRuin'' has one boss, Astarte the Egyptian queen, do this; if you're playing as Jonathan (or have both characters out at once), she blows a kiss that can charm him into attacking Charlotte. A potential pain, since Jonathan has the higher ATK, as well as a more diverse weaponry; imagine carrying a [[TakenForGranite Medusa whip]] into this fight then have him charmed: One hit on Charlotte and it's game over.
* ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaHarmonyOfDespair'' brings back Astarte with the same gimmick. Due to the game's nature where you may or may not play multiplayer, it's possible to fight her with a solo male character, in which case the charm works as a stun instead of FaceHeelTurn.

[[AC:HackAndSlash]]
* ''VideoGame/DiabloII'' has a short duration version of this that can be caused by the Paladin skill Conversion and the Assassin skill Mind Blast.

[[AC:{{MMORPG}}s]]
* Once again, there are several different versions of this in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft''. The most famous is the Priest spell "Mind Control", which lets you control a hostile enemy or player. In [[PlayerVersusEnvironment PvE]], it's used as a form of crowd control with the addition of using enemy attacks againt them. In [=PvP=], it's used to make enemy players jump off cliffs. Mind Control is also used by certain enemies, probably most effectively by [[CosmicHorror Yogg-Saron]], who casts an unbreakable Mind Control spell on any player whose Sanity Buff hits zero. Depending on the encounter, it might last until the end of the battle, a fixed amount of time (requiring other players to incapacitate victims), or breaks when the target takes enough damage.
** There are also spells such as "Enslave Demon", which allow players to take an enemy creature as a pet for a short time. Unlike the Hunter's Tame Beast skill, Enslave Demon eventually breaks and the demon turns against the player.
** And of course, the warlock demon pet Succubus has a spell, called Seduce, which will stop an enemy humanoid in their tracks with infatuation (complete with floating hearts) until they are hit or the spell runs out. The improved Succubus (Shivarra) available to Demonology warlocks has a Mesmerize that can be used on non-humanoids.
** In Mists of Pandaria expansion, one of the Mantids of Klaxxi can teach you this skill, although only useable in the same area against most humanoid enemies.
* ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'' has charm-like powers in the form of confuse used on NPC characters. The confused enemy will not just attack at random, it will specifically and exclusively target its own allies and ignore the players. If all of its allies are down and players are all that's left, it will idle until killed or until the effect wears off. However, confuse effects will not prevent the enemy from using beneficial powers on its allies at the same time, leading to the bizarre spectacle of a zombie master killing his own zombies, resurrecting them, then killing them again, or a sorcerer alternating between blasting and healing his friends.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' has Siren, a boss monster who can charm party members into attacking each other (which you can't normally do). The first stage of Charm has a slight bleed effect where the target loses some HP for a few seconds, and the only way to remove Charm is to restore the target's HP to full. If the effect is not removed in time, Charm takes control of the player completely as they attack their own party.

[[AC:RealTimeStrategy]]
* ''VideoGame/WarcraftIII'': Banshees have the Possession spell, which sacrifices them in exchange for control of the unit. While it's possible to do this on a WorkerUnit and include the enemy's units in your army, the food meter is shared by all units, meaning you can't have two separate armies.
** The Dark Ranger has the Charm ability, a permanent mind control spell.
* ''VideoGame/StarCraftI'': The Dark Archon's Mind Control minds controls an enemy. Unlike ''VideoGame/{{Warcraft}}'', each food meter is separate, allowing you to have two full-sized armies (if you have the resources for it).
** ''VideoGame/StarcraftII'': The Infestor's Neural Parasite ability allows you to control a single enemy until it or the Infestor (who is completely helpless and immobile, what with controlling the unit via a stretchy tentacle) dies. The campaign version removes the need for the Infestor to channel the spell, while the human campaign gives Nova's Domination ability, which lets her control one enemy at a time. The Dark Archon and its Mind Control ability returns in ''Legacy of the Void'', however mind controlled units now count towards a single food meter similar to ''Warcraft III''.
* ''VideoGame/DawnOfWar'': The Dark Eldar Archon has the Crucible of Malediction ability. While it doesn't let you control the unit, it causes them to attack friendly units for a short time.
** The Winter Assault campaign has a Sorcerer mind control entire squads of Guardsmen so they can be sacrificed.

[[AC:{{Roguelike}}]]
* In the ''VideoGame/IzunaLegendOfTheUnemployedNinja'' series, while you can't be Charmed, enemies can, causing them to fight other enemies on your behalf; it wears off if you attack the enemy, and charmed enemies can sometimes still attack you if there aren't any enemies nearby. This can be dangerous, because low- and mid-level monsters level up when they kill other monsters, which can potentially create an enemy too powerful to beat early in the game. This is only a problem early on, before enemies are always Lv.3.
* The Enslavement spell is ''VideoGame/DungeonCrawlStoneSoup'''s version of Charm, which gets an enemy to fight for you until the spell wears off. Getting enslaved by a monster (or [[DevelopersForesight trying to enslave yourself]]) causes Confusion instead. The god [[TheUnpronounceable Yredelemnul]] gives pious followers a more permanent version in Enslave Soul, which binds a single creature permanently into service if you kill it quickly enough after casting.
* ''VideoGame/TheBindingOfIsaac'': Charmed is an effect first added in Rebirth that makes enemies attack other enemies. It can be applied with tears if you have the right items, and is automatically applied to monsters you summon to make them friendly.

[[AC:RolePlayingGame]]
* The ''VideoGame/{{SaGa|RPG}}'' series from the ''VideoGame/{{Romancing SaGa}}'' trilogy onward is notorious for this ailment, especially at certain bosses.
* There is a sort of Charm effect in ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}''; when a Pokemon is under the effects of the ''Infatuation'' status condition, there is a 50% chance that they will be unable to perform their attack (in which case they are "immobilized by love"). This condition is caused by the move Attract and the ability Cute Charm, and only affects Pokemon of the opposite gender (e.g, a female Pokemon who uses Attract on a male Pokemon, or is struck with a physical attack by a male Pokemon; genderless Pokémon and Pokémon with the ability Oblivious are completely immune to the effect).
** Infatuation is one of the few status effects (along Confusion, Curse, Nightmare, and such) that can stack on top of other conditions (such as paralysis making it almost imposssible for a Pokémon to attack).
* ''The'' worst possible effect to suffer in ''VideoGame/{{Persona 3}}'' and by extension the ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'' series, especially if one of your healers gets hit. One of the most famous screw-yous in the game is if the final boss of the former hits your healer with Charm, and the healer in turn casts the full-heal Diarahan on it. To put it in perspective, the final boss's last form has 6000 hitpoints. Characters in your party should at this point deal about 150 damage per hit. And the charm-reheal cycle can theoretically go on forever.
** Hell, it doesn't even have to be the final boss -- the third boss in ''Persona 3'' is fond of charming opponents, as are many random encounters. If the player character is hit with Charm, you can only hope that your party finishes off the enemy while you waste turns getting messages reading "[Character Name] has turned against the party!" Since only you can change tactics or use items, you become a spectator until the battle ends or Charm breaks on its own.
** ''VideoGame/Persona5'' calls this ailment Brainwash, and those under it will take more damage from Psychic type skills.
** Other games in the series have physical or potent magical attacks that will additionally slap everyone on your party with this, adding insult to injury.
* A Charmed character in ''''VideoGame/BlackSigil'': Blade of the Exiled'' will, as per standard, turn on your party. Luckily, they aren't very smart and tend to avoid using their more powerful spells and attacks.
* Called Enthralled in ''VideoGame/TheLastRemnant'' (and the visual effect is the union being controlled by the enemy with marionette strings), the victim of this effect will attack your other unions and always kill them, since they do the same damage that you do controlling them. The only saving grace is that you can also kill them quite easily, and revive them in the same turn.
* A handful of enemies in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' (Coco, a basic enemy and Goddess, one of the last bosses, both of which look like human women) have the incredibly annoying spell Love Token, which causes the affected character to leap in front of any attacks aimed toward that enemy, taking the damage instead. They will even jump in the way of their ''own'' attacks if commanded to attack that enemy. Generally, the simplest way to deal with this is to kill the affected character and revive them, and hope that the enemy doesn't use the move again.
* ''VideoGame/{{Transistor}}'' has Switch() makes targets defend Red and attack other Process units for a short time. In an upgrade slot, it allows most other functions to do the same.
* ''VideoGame/XenobladeChroniclesX'' has the Control status, arguably the most crippling in the game; It lasts longer than most other ailments at a full minute, Controlled enemies will attack any other hostiles or simply sit quietly and let the party pummel them if there aren't any, and controlled enemies are vulnerable to the game's only OneHitKill skill, Servant Sacrifice. Only a few of the game's {{Bonus Boss}}es are capable of inflicting control on party members.
* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'' series has has the Command, Frenzy, Fury, Rally, and other similar spells which have this effect. "Command" lets you take control of a NPC or creature with a level lower than that of the spell's magnitude. The affected target will fight on your side for the spell's duration. "Frenzy" and "Fury" will cause the target to attack any nearby targets for the spell's duration. Rally will aggro a neutral target into joining the fight on your side for the spell's duration.
* ''Videogame/{{Wizardry}}'' has an aptly named Turncoat status which will cause the enemy/ally to change sides. Allies won't use their magic skills on party, so if wizard gets hit with it it's not that terrible, but turncoated fighter with an InfinityPlusOneSword may result in a TotalPartyKill.

[[AC:TabletopGames]]
* Depending on the skill levels of the players involved, Charms in ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' are usually less "make them attack their friends" than "make them think you're their best friend in the whole world". They won't attack the charmer (or his allies, if the charmer asks nicely), but neither will they just attack their friends without good cause (though the cause can conceivably be because they're attacking his new best friend in the whole world).
** On the other hand, the "Dominate" spells have the charmer actually taking over the mind of the victim, thus making these more like the standard Charm status effect from other games.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'' has Charm and Dominate just like D&D. Charm makes the target friendly, but they get a substantial bonus to their save if you're already in combat with them at the time. In Second Edition, it explicitly ends if you do anything hostile towards them. Dominate controls the target totally, and can singlehandedly swing the outcome of fights; because of this Second Edition made Dominate much harder to pull off, usually requiring the target to critically fail their save.
* ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}'' has Mind Control for the usual, temporary version of this; it comes in degrees, so if you have to decide every last little thing your new puppet does, the advantage is worth fewer points. For vampires, zombies, and the like, the Dominance advantage will infect your enemy and make them your thrall, although to ''keep'' them as your thrall, you have to pay Character Points to get them as an Ally.
* Many Blue or Red effects and enchantments in ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' involve "stealing" enemy creatures to fight for you.

[[AC:ThirdPersonShooter]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Warframe}}'': Nyx can pull this off with her "Mind Control" power. Not only does this mean enemies fight for you and use any of their special powers for you, but any "friendly fire" is ignored... until the end of the effect, at which point the Mind Controlled enemy takes all the damage they should have, all at once. This was added due to complaints from Nyx players that other players would just shoot their mind-controlled puppets out of reflex (or to be assholes), basically causing them to waste energy.

[[AC:TowerDefense]]
* ''VideoGame/PlantsVsZombies'' has the Hypno-shroom. Any zombie that eats it is turned over to your side, making it very useful against [[LightningBruiser Football Zombies]] and [[MookMaker Dancing Zombies]]. In [[VideoGame/PlantsVsZombies2ItsAboutTime the sequel]], using Plant Food on it will cause the zombie that eats it to [[OneWingedAngel turn into a hypnotized Gargantuar]] that can easily crush the zombies in its way.
* ''VideoGame/PlantsVsZombies2ItsAboutTime''
** The Perfume-shroom causes this on dinosaurs. Normally, the [[InvincibleMinorMinion dinosaurs can't be harmed by plants]] and greatly help the zombies, but when they're charmed, they OneHitKill the zombies instead.
** The Caulipower fires a hypnotizing blast at a random zombie, turning them over to your side ala the Hypno-Shroom. Best of all, it can even affect Zombies that don't eat, such as Mecha-Football Zombies, Excavator Zombies or Gargantuars.

[[AC:TurnBasedStrategy]]
* One of the standout examples from the ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' series comes from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTacticsA2''. In one mission, you're assigned to go take out a group of Cassie Malboros, pink Malboros with ribbons (implied to be the source of THE Ribbons, the ultimate status-effect-nullifying accessory). The major difficulty of the fight is the fact that the Cassies have an area-effect perfectly-accurate Charm ability.
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTactics'' takes this a step further with the "Invite" status, which is a permanent Charm effect. If the Invited enemy survives the battle, it will even join your team. Luckily, enemies never try this on your units.
* ''VideoGame/HeroesOfMightAndMagic 3'' has the usually useless Hypnotize, 5 has Puppet Master.
* ''[[VideoGame/Disgaea5AllianceOfVengeance Disgaea 5]]'' introduces Charm as one of its two new status ailments. Charmed units will attack their allies, though as a tradeoff the ailment tends to only last a short while. Seraphina, a [[HornyDevils Succubus]], has her Overload skill being a mass-charm effect, but [[CripplingOverspecialization it only affects male targets.]] Said Overload does upgrade during the story, allowing the player to outright control the affected targets, though again, females are unaffected. Of course, the Kunoichi and Succubi can inflict this as well, theirs being able to even charm female opponents.
* In ''VideoGame/SouthParkTheFracturedButWhole'', the Charmed status causes a character to attack their allies and heal their enemies for a set number of turns, until they take damage, or until the player removes it with a Cleansing move if able. They're also counted as an enemy for the purpose of ally attacks. It's mainly inflicted by enemies, but the player can also use it with the Plantmancer's Sweet Scent ability.
* In ''VideoGame/FellSealArbitersMark'', the Charm status makes an affected unit take actions which are beneficial to the enemy team. Fortunately, it ends early if they take any damage.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Frozen]]
Characters are unable to act, sometimes adding a defense debuff or critical hit multiplier on the recipient for good measure: after all, freezing something makes it brittle. Like sleep, this condition tends to stick around, but if the enemy is dumb enough to use a fire attack on a frozen character, that will often cure the effect. [[HarmlessFreezing Don't expect it to have any lasting effects.]]

[[AC:FightingGame]]
* Characters can be frozen in ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros''. Most of the time it's the result of the Freezie item, though the Ice Climbers can induce it for a split second and it's a possible effect of Game and Watch's Side B. They're encased in a large chunk of ice that can't be knocked back very far, but still allows the character to take damage. Mashing is required to break out, and the more damage a character has, the longer they stay in. Fire-based moves break the ice instantly, however.
* Sub Zero's signature attack in the ''Franchise/MortalKombat'' series, which also has a {{F|inishingMove}}atality [[LiterallyShatteredLives variation]].
* Xavier does his own version of this in ''VideoGame/EternalChampions'' with an expensive twist: Instead of encasing them in ice, he turns them into ''gold''.

[[AC:FirstPersonShooter]]
* The Winter Blast plasmid in the ''VideoGame/BioShock'' series is more or less what it sounds like. Frozen enemies can be [[LiterallyShatteredLives shattered]], but this [[DisadvantageousDisintegration destroys any loot they were carrying]].

[[AC:HackAndSlash]]
* In ''VideoGame/DiabloII'', the Frozen status severely slows down those afflicted. When killed, there's a good chance the target will shatter, destroying the corpse.
* In ''VideoGame/PathOfExile'', Frozen enemies are completely unable to act and shatter when killed, leaving behind no corpse. There is also the lesser cold-based ailment, Chill, which slows down the afflicted target's action speed (as in, their entire animation speed). In most cases, an attack needs to deal enough damage to Chill/Freeze an enemy, and Freeze is one of the only ContractualBossImmunity debuffs left in the game. On a more technical side, both Chill and Freeze are classified as action speed-based effects, so they can be overcome with effects that resist speed reduction effects.

[[AC:{{MMORPG}}s]]
* Being frozen in ''VideoGame/RagnarokOnline'' is easily cured -- just get hit. The biggest problem is that it changes the character's element to Water for the duration of the effect, increasing damage from Wind based attacks.
* ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' has three versions of being frozen; one simply renders you unable to move (but does not prevent other actions), while the second is this trope. In most cases, it immediately wears off upon receiving any damage. Mages deserve special mention for being able to freeze ''themselves'' in a block of ice, clearing all debuffs and becoming invulnerable for up to 10 seconds, at the cost of being unable to act (though they can manually cancel it after the immediate danger is over). The third type, used primarily by bosses, encases the target in a block of ice that must be destroyed via attacks to free the player. If not broken, the player will stay in there more or less forever (or at least until the encounter ends or they die).
** Very few monsters have a Freeze spell that stuns the player for a long time (about 10 seconds), deals periodic damage, and does not break on damage. Getting hit by this usually means a trip to the spirit healer. Most mobs with this spell have since been removed or nerfed.
** Frost mages can also do this to enemies, though it mostly functions as a stun aside from the target taking more damage from another of their signature spells, Frostlance.
* ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter'' takes this in two forms. Iceblight is a Chill, which causes you to lose Stamina faster (its counterpart, Waterblight, causes you to recover Stamina slower). There's also Snowy, which covers your character in ice, slows you down, and keeps you from attacking.
* ''VideoGame/SpiralKnights'' has a bit of a merciful Freeze: You may not move or change direction, but can still attack and shield, and recovery is as simple as being hit by anything or thawing naturally. A great crowd control status, though, as frozen monsters are effectively out of the fight, and monsters actually take decent damage if they thaw.
* ''VideoGame/AdventureQuestWorlds'' has the Mage's Ice Shard attack, which inflicts Frozen Blood, which reduces the damage a monster inflicts on you. In addition, if a Fireball is cast upon a monster who has Frozen Blood on them, the attack does double damage.
** ''VideoGame/DragonFable'' does much the same thing. The Ice spell reduces enemy damage and leaves the enemy extra vulnerable to Fire spell damage.
* ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarOnline2'' traps you in an ice crystal whenever you're Frozen. You can't influence how soon you break out of it, so you'll have to wait it out or wait for someone to cure you of it with Anti or a Sol Atomizer. Amusingly, some monsters can also be frozen even if the crystal is much smaller than they are. Certain bosses also have unique reactions to Freeze; for example, inflicting Freeze on the fire dragon boss Vol Dragon will cause his feet to freeze over.
* ''VideoGame/BladeAndSoul'' does a unique take on the Frozen concept; in fact, there are two of them. The first is your traditional "Frozen=cannot perform any action" variation. While you can inflict Frozen on your enemies, they are also immune to damage while in a frozen state. The more useful form of this is to inflict ''yourself'' with Frozen status, as they not only make you immune to damage for several seconds, some builds even allow you to ''heal'' proportional to damage inflicted while being Frozen. The second variant simply immobilizes your target so that they cannot approach you. Since most [=PvE=] opponents are melee-type creatures, this is an excellent way to defeat them without much effort. Of course, ranged characters are mostly unaffected and in [=PvP=], other players have moves that break out of Frozen status (of any kind).

[[AC:PlatformGame]]
* Yetis and blue drone pods in the ''VideoGame/MetalSlug'' series can freeze your character in a snowman, from which you have to [[SmashingSurvival waggle the joystick and mash buttons]] to escape.

[[AC:RealTimeStrategy]]
* In ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquer'', any frozen unit/building can be shattered and killed by even the most pitiful attack. In one hit.
** This is probably more realistic than it seems for sufficiently-frozen things (and it would have to be ''cold'' to freeze something that quickly), since the bonding breaks down at low temperatures. If you ever get the chance, dip a piece of something soft like an orange or a rubber hose in a tub of liquid nitrogen and throw it at the wall.
* In ''VideoGame/WarcraftIII'', certain units (namely [[DracoLich Frost Wyrms]]) can freeze buildings, preventing them from producing. When used against normal units, the attack only slows them down.
* In all 3 Patapon games, Patapons, enemies, and bosses can get frozen and will not move from their place until cured or killed.
** One boss even starts the battle in a chunk of ice and occasionally freezes everyone on screen (even himself).
* ''{{StarCraftIIHeartOfTheSwarm}}'' has a level where storms regularly lower the temperature to less than deep space, encasing all units in ice (including yours). Your first objective is to make your units immune to the cold, then attack the enemy while they're frozen.

[[AC:{{Roguelike}}s]]
* Being frozen in ''VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeon'' renders the victim completely immobile, but also protects them from harm until they thaw out, which happens on its own but can happen faster if you hit them with a fire move.
* In ''VideoGame/DungeonCrawl'', attacking cold-blooded enemies (reptiles, amphibians, [[DraconicHumanoid draconians]]) with weapons of freezing or certain Ice Magic spells has a decent chance of slowing them down. There's also the spell Metabolic Englaciation, which slows everything in sight (cold-blooded creatures are slowed longer), and the most powerful Ice Magic spell, Glaciate, does tons of damage, slows down everything it hits, and freezes anything it kills into a block of ice that melts away shortly afterwards.

[[AC:RolePlayingGame]]
* [[AnIcePerson Vexen]] can freeze Sora in every battle against him in the ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'' series. Most ice-based enemies can also freeze you in ''[[VideoGame/KingdomHearts358DaysOver2 358/2 Days]]''... even if you are playing as Vexen.
* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'', being frozen additionally makes you [[LiterallyShatteredLives die if you are hit by a melee attack]].
* Certain Fire type attacks allow frozen ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' to free themselves... but freezing moves are unlikely to be used on them in the first place. In fact, Freeze is the least seen standard status effect in the Pokémon games, as it has no dedicated high-accuracy move and is only found as a low-percentage side effect of most Ice moves.
** An alternate way to defrost a frozen Pokémon is to trick your opponent into hitting them with a Fire-type attack by switching Pokémon. Of course, you want to be sure that your Pokémon will survive the fire attack before you try this.
** As of Generation II, there's also about a 10% chance of your Pokémon thawing out by itself on its turn.
** The Water-type move, Scald, can thaw out the user if it is frozen and the foe using the said move can thaw out foe as well.
* ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor'', you can be frozen by certain enemies. Due to the ice area coming in late in the game, and enemies that use the effect only appearing in certain areas, it isn't that high a priority for players... but due to the fact that enemies can still hit you while you're frozen, you take damage when you thaw, AND you can get re-frozen rather easily, this is one of the more perilous status effects in the game (and it doesn't help that the BonusBoss has the ability to freeze you with one of its [[BreathWeapon breath attacks]]).
* ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'' games using the Press Turn system make the Frozen effect a godsend when it affects enemies. Frozen enemies will have their Agility reduced to zero, and all physical attacks will ignore their defense and will always hit critical, which gives you an extra turn. A high-level spell called Cocytus (and its upgraded form, Niflheim) will almost always inflict this status. It's the only feasible method of killing [[BossInMookClothing Arahabakis]]. Of course, the effect is just as devastating when ''you'' are affected. What really takes the cake though is that Frozen characters lose all of their resistances to physical damage.
* ''VideoGame/WorldOfMana'' calls this the "Snowman" ailment; in ''VideoGame/LegendOfMana'', this results in massive damage while frozen.
* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'', frozen characters turn blue and are unable to act, though they'll accept commands if they're frozen on their turn; they'll carry out the command when thawed. Fire breaks this effect and the afflicted is immune to ice.
* In ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarUniverse'', ice techniques and bullets can produce this status at random. Characters will be trapped in ice and unable to move for a short period of time, making them easy targets for other attacks.
* Freezards and other ice-based monsters in the later ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' games can do this.
* ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim'' adds a Downplayed version of this effect to [[AnIcePerson Ice-based]] spells. Targets will have their movement speed reduced as well as drain their [[SprintMeter Fatigue]]. This is naturally a very good counter to melee based warriors, who will be slowed (allowing a SquishyWizard GlassCannon to fall back) as well as prevent them from performing power attacks (which require Fatigue).
* ''''VideoGame/OctopathTraveler'': Unconsciousness prevents the victim from doing anything. Unlike sleep, getting hit won't snap them out of it.

[[AC:TabletopGame]]
* ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'' doesn't have a standard status effect for this, but has a number of spells and abilities that can accomplish it. The exact rules vary by effect, but generally hold the target in place, requiring a Strength check to break free, and often deal cold damage every turn as well. Often the target's allies can assist, either by making Strength checks of their own to break the ice, attacking it normally to inflict damage on it, or dealing fire damage to the victim to melt the ice.

[[AC:ThirdPersonShooter]]
* Being Frozen is one of the most dangerous status effects in ''VideoGame/KidIcarusUprising''. It wears off quickly, but being unable to move or attack is pretty much a death sentence in multiplayer mode. However, it's still possible to use certain powers, like Effect Recovery or Warp, to try and get out of it. Otherwise, you just have to mash buttons and hope you break free.
* Freeze Missiles in the ''VideoGame/TwistedMetal'' series are ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin. Opponents tend to spam this attack repeatedly, while hammering you with machine guns or other weapons, trapping you in a CycleOfHurting until death.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Warframe}}'', enemies killed under the effect of a cold proc turns into ice.
** [[AnIcePerson Frost]] has two abilities that can freeze enemies solid, and a third when used under the right conditions or when augmented.

[[AC:TowerDefense]]
* ''VideoGame/PlantsVsZombies'': The Ice-shroom temporarily freezes all zombies on screen.
* ''VideoGame/PlantsVsZombies2ItsAboutTime'':
** The Iceberg Lettuce temporarily freezes the first zombie that steps on it. Using a Plant Food on it lets it freeze all the zombies on the screen temporarily. Snow Pea's and Cold Snapdragon's Plant Food abilities also cause freezing.
** In Frostbite Caves, freezing winds and Hunter Zombie snowballs will gradually cause your plants to freeze up. It takes 3 "hits" to freeze a plant, and frozen plants are unable to move while also becoming obstacles that block shots.
* ''VideoGame/{{Arknights}}'': The second half of episode 6 introduces enemy casters and [[ActionBomb infused slugs]] that can freeze your operators with ice-based arts. They first inflict the Cold status which slows an operator's attack speed, then can inflict a Cold operator with the Frozen status, preventing them from attacking or using skills. These enemies are also paired with enemies that deal increased damage to Frozen operators.

[[AC:TurnBasedStrategy]]
* In ''VideoGame/SouthParkTheFracturedButWhole'', the Chilled status simply forces a character to skip their next turn.

[[AC:TurnBasedTactics]]
* In ''Gorky 17'' (or: ''VideoGame/{{Odium}}''), being frozen renders you unable to act ''and'' more vulnerable to damage.
* In ''VideoGame/MarioPlusRabbidsKingdomBattle'', being frozen lasts a single turn and renders you unable to use passive skills, such as counter attacks and shields. Characters can still move and attack while in this state.

[[AC:WideOpenSandbox]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Terraria}}'' has Frozen, which prevent the player from moving or using items.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Petrified]]
[[TakenForGranite Characters are likewise unable to act]], and are for all functionally dead; indeed, should the entire party become petrified, expect to see a GameOver. One of the most persistent status effects, generally -- it seldom heals on its own, and sometimes even the TraumaInn can't cure it -- you ''need'' to use a spell or item. Petrified characters are frequently invulnerable to all further damage, but in some cases they may actually suffer ''increased'' damage from attacks, or even become LiterallyShatteredLives.

[[AC:ActionAdventure]]
* In many of the later ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'' games, being turned to stone freezes you temporarily, but also makes you far more vulnerable to damage -- gods help you if this happens in the BonusDungeon. Most of the time, you have to shake yourself out, whereas Alucard can have his helper doing this with a... hammer.
* Gorgons can turn you to stone in ''VideoGame/GodOfWar''. Wiggling the joystick will break you out of it (and you have to do it fast before somebody breaks you). But if Kratos is in midair when he's petrified, he shatters on hitting the ground -- Game Over. In each game, you acquire a means of petrifying your enemies as well.
* The Black Crystal in ''VideoGame/PathwaysIntoDarkness'' does this to enemies.

[[AC:{{MMORPG}}s]]
* Stone Curse in ''VideoGame/RagnarokOnline'' has the traditional effect, as well as changing the target's element to Earth, causing double damage from Fire effects.
* Also appears in one of the raids of ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'', which only triggers on players having too many stacks of a certain debuff.

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

[[AC:{{Roguelike}}]]
* In ''VideoGame/NetHack'', being turned to stone is game over, since there's nobody to turn you back. But depending on the source of the effect, it may come on slow enough that you have a chance to save yourself by casting Stone to Flesh, praying, or eating something acidic -- the effect seems to be explained by calcium buildup. Eating a lizard corpse also fixes slow petrification for some reason.
* Being petrified in ''VideoGame/DungeonCrawl'' renders you basically helpless, but it also gives you resistance to incoming damage. However, it also renders you horribly vulnerable to the Lee's Rapid Deconstruction and Shatter spells, [[LiterallyShatteredLives which make quick work of hard, brittle objects.]] One unique, the dwarf Jorgrun, bases his entire strategy around petrifying you and then blowing up your petrified form.

[[AC:RolePlayingGame]]
* Many examples throughout ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'':
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'' has the Monster Arena boss Shinryu and its "Eraser" attack, which unavoidably petrifies a target. Not even Deathproof or Stoneproof armor (or a Ribbon for that matter) will stop it. Plus, the battle is underwater, and being petrified while underwater instantly shatters the victim (on account of the character sinking to the floor and breaking on impact). When this happens, that character can't be revived for the remainder of the battle. Since you can't swap anyone in for this fight (exactly three of the [=PCs=] can hold their breath indefinitely or fight underwater), you can't even let an aeon take the hit. The only saving grace is that once you lose two party members to Eraser, Shinryu won't use the attack anymore.
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV'' has Gradual Petrify, which makes you take double (and triple and quadruple damage) every time you are hit with it; after three times, you become a statue. It's the bread-and-butter attack of the Demon Wall.
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'' features an evil forest that (along with the monsters inside) turned to stone when you beat the boss at its heart. For some reason, this also affected a side character caught in the monsters' clutches. While normally, the "soft" item would let you cure the petrified status on anybody; in order to save them, you have to get your hands on a ''Super''-soft.
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'' has Petrify, which is on a timer like Doom. When the timer runs out, the character becomes afflicted with Stone, which removes them from battle. Unlike Petrify, Stone can't be removed with Esuna and must be cured specifically with either the Stona spell or a Gold Needle.
* The later games in the ''VideoGame/{{Wizardry}}'' series feature a particularly nasty Stone effect -- it damages vitality the same as dying, and when you do cure a stoned character, it's quite possible they died while stoned, necessitating resurrection ''and'' inflicting the vitality loss for dying...
* In ''VideoGame/PaperMario64'', the Stone Cap does this. Like the Tanuki Suit in Super Mario Bros 3, it makes you immune to damage, but you can't do anything until it wears off, making it mostly for providing some time for your partner to get some free hits in.
* In ''VideoGame/BaldursGate'', two of the most powerful spells were Stone to Flesh and Flesh to Stone. One specific NPC in the game is trapped in a petrified state. If you use a Stone to Flesh spell on the "Statue", she will be extremely grateful and wish to join your party.
* The ''VideoGame/WildArms'' series replaces this with Brass, which, like in FFIV, is a slow countdown until your character is turned into metal.
* ''VideoGame/EarthBound'' 's version of this is diamondization. The character is functionally dead, and you even get a red tinted interface just like when someone has died. (They also look quite comical out of battle, with a head encased in a perfect cut diamond.)
* In ''VideoGame/{{Lufia}}'', petrified characters can still be attacked, but they take zero HP damage until cured.
* ''Very'' frustrating in ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'', since being Petrified is basically a one-hit kill as all attacks on the Petrified character are instantly treated as Criticals, which, depending on the mechanics of the game, may give them extra turns or the chance to inflict devastating combos. Since TheComputerIsACheatingBastard, it'll probably only be a matter of time until [[WeCannotGoOnWithoutYou your main character is hit]] unless you're playing VideoGame/DigitalDevilSaga, in which case it's GameOver if all controllable characters are turned to stone. Did I mention that depending on the game, [[BlowYouAway Force attacks]] will ''instantly'' [[LiterallyShatteredLives shatter any Petrified victims]] while a single physical attack has a slight chance to do that as well?
** Petrification has been ''somewhat'' nerfed in most recent games... kind of. You basically become kinda like a OneHitPointWonder, and the character will remain alive (but immobilized) until hit with anything (especially Physical, Force, or Almighty attacks). On the other hand, it's ''very'' hard to find an item cure.
** Hell, Petrification is so effective that it's one huge DiscOneNuke in pretty much every game that includes it. One of the best grinding strategies in ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiStrangeJourney'' is to pick a gun that has a Petrifying skill, find the biggest, baddest enemy you can find, and ''face him alone''. On the other hand, it's GameOver if the main character is petrified in that game.
** ''VideoGame/PersonaQShadowOfTheLabyrinth'' is much more forgiving, as petrified characters take ''less'' damage than normal. But they can't act or gain EXP until they're cured. Not to mention, the skills Stona and Stone Breath are enemy exclusive skills, so you will never be able to use this ailment against your foes.
* The ''VideoGame/ShadowHearts'' series also features Petrification. It turns the afflicted character into a sitting duck that can be killed in one hit.
* In ''Videogame/DragonsDogma'', Petrification is slow-acting but lethal unless treated. When petrified, the victim is dramatically slowed until they eventually become a statue.
* The Kaclang status effect shows up in several ''VideoGame/DragonQuest'' games, either by monsters (often gargoyles) or the party. It turns the caster into a steel statue, preventing all damage but all action as well[[note]]The stated use for such an attack is to learn the enemy attack patterns, but the far better use is to make an enemy with strong magic attacks run out of MP[[/note]].
* ''VideoGame/OctopathTraveler'': Petrification, however, is unique to one boss in the game as a story element, and part of H'aanit's plotline is finding the extremely rare remedy. The game makes it clear that it is not a standard ability known in the world.

[[AC:TabletopGame]]
* ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'' can have this occur if you fight monsters like medusas or basilisks. A petrified character is unable to do much, but is still alive and can be revived by certain specific spells, though that almost always has to wait until after the combat. As such, it's a powerful way of neutralizing a target, and in First Edition petrification effects can quickly swing the outcome of a fight. In Second Edition most of these effects were toned down; petrification tends to occur gradually, only becoming total after multiple failed saves, and sometimes allowing subsequent saves to recover without magical aid.

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

[[AC:TurnBasedStrategy]]
* Gorgons will do this in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheSacredStones''. The first turn a character has been petrified, any creature that attacks the character has a higher chance of scoring a CriticalHit.
* ''VideoGame/OgreBattle'' features Cockatrices and Gorgons, whose breath and gaze carry a high chance to petrify. Once petrified, the victim may as well be dead for good, given how rare the curing item is. And if it hits an important character...
* A Medusa's melee attack can do this in ''VideoGame/HeroesOfMightAndMagic 3''. It breaks on damage and is for all intents and purposes another Paralyse.
* ''VideoGame/SouthParkTheFracturedButWhole'' uses a version of this called [[spoiler:[[YouAreGrounded Grounded]]]] as a unique effect in the boss battle against [[spoiler:Stephen Stotch]]. In that battle, the player character's LimitBreak is replaced with the ability to remove the status from one party member per turn, and they themselves are immune to it.

[[AC:TurnBasedTactics]]
* ''VideoGame/MarioPlusRabbidsKingdomBattle'' has Stone, which prevents all actions for a single turn.

[[AC:WideOpenSandbox]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Terraria}}'' has Stoned, which not only dismounts the player, prevents them from moving and using items, removes the effects of fall damage-negating accessories, and increases fall damage, which means a fall while affected by this debuff will likely be lethal... unless the player is under the effects of a Featherfall Potion.
[[/folder]]

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

[[AC:Action]]
* ''VideoGame/TheMatrixPathOfNeo'' has this if you miss connecting with an enemy too many times until it goes away.
** Also, the Witch Queen has this as an explicit ability.
* In ''VideoGame/TheWonderful101'', Unite Bomb inflicts this on enemies. [[MirrorBoss Prince Vorkken]], Tumeekys, and Koh-Tumeekys can inflict this on you.

[[AC:FirstPersonShooter]]
* ''VideoGame/TeamFortressClassic'' has the Spy's Tranquilizer Gun. Getting hit by a dart will cause the player to move and turn much slower, making it easier to backstab or run away.
* In ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'', the [[BatterUp Sandman]] fully paralyzes if you hit someone with the ball at very long range, but closer than that, it only slows their movement down instead of stopping them entirely. [[GatlingGood Natascha]] slows you down while it damages you. In Mann Vs. Machine, Jarate and Mad Milk can both be upgraded to slow affected enemies down, while explosive headshots from the Sniper's primary weapons (besides the Huntsman) have a slowdown effect on everything withing their range that last longer with upgrades; the former are so powerful they basically make every other Scout and Sniper secondary weapon useless in comparison.
* In the ''VideoGame/RainbowSix'' series, Wounded (crippled) characters walk with a limp and are unable to run, as well having impaired aim.
* In ''Videogame/{{Evolve}}'', Gorgon's web snare does this as well as a poison DOT.

[[AC:HackAndSlash]]
* ''VideoGame/DiabloII'' has certain items that cause this effect. The Clay Golem summoned minion of the Necromancer class also slows its target.
* The Temporal Chains curse in ''VideoGame/PathOfExile'' slows down the afflicted target's animation speed, but also extends the duration of timed buffs/debuffs to match. Some builds have exploited this effect by cursing themselves with a powerful Temporal Chains debuff to give short-lived buff effects a near-permanent uptime while mitigating it by equipping slow-resisting items and utilizing speed-independent sources of damage.

[[AC:{{MMORPG}}s]]
* A-Gears in ''VideoGame/AceOnline'' have this as one of their exclusive skillset. It's possible to snare ''yourself'' if you're not careful...
* ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarOnline'' had Slow Traps cause this. This was a big problem since the trap appeared out of nowhere for non-androids and those without Trap Visions and it didn't last long enough to warrant a Lv.6 Anti spell.
* At the beginning, ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'' did not have a cap to the amount of slow effects that could be stacked upon an enemy (or the player even), meaning that it was possible to keep stacking slow effects until the target was literally paralyzed. It wasn't long before the game was patched to put in a limit preventing this situation from occurring.
* ''VideoGame/EVEOnline'' has Stasis Webifiers used to cripple the velocity of enemy ships, usually to negate [[FragileSpeedster speedtanking]].
* Mages in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' have a literal version of this with the ''Slow'' spell, but every other class can do the same thing in one form or another.
** Monsters also commonly have abilities to slow their enemies, the most common being the ''dazed'' effect that all of them can inflict on players with melee attacks if they are hit in the back, which also forces them off their mount, slowing them down even further.
* ''VideoGame/GuildWars'' has "crippled" as a condition, in addition to a number of hexes.
* ''VideoGame/GuildWars2'' has both "crippled" (which slows movement a lot) and "chilled" (which slows movement less but also increases the recharge time for skills).
* ''VideoGame/RagnarokOnline'' has the skill [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Decrease Agility.]] It not only lowers your attack speed and agi stat temporarily, but your character visibly walks slower.
* ''VideoGame/SpiralKnights'': stun causes lowered movement and attack speed. Generally caused by massive hits, and even has a gong sound when inflicted.

[[AC:{{MOBA}}s]]
* Slows are one of the most common crowd control mechanics in ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends''. They typically only reduce movement speed, but abilities that also slow the enemy's attack speed are not unheard of.
* Multiple heroes in ''VideoGame/HeroesOfTheStorm'' have slow in their skill set. Some only slow an enemy's movement speed, others slow both movement speed and basic attack speed -- which is devastating against heroes that rely on basic attacks for their damage output.
** Jaina's entire skill set is dedicated to slowing enemies thanks to her trait Frostbite, which applies slow on enemies and increasing the damage they take from her spells. Talents can increase the amount and duration of the slow.

[[AC:PartyGame]]
* ''VideoGame/CrashBash'' has this in some Crate Crush arenas. If you grab giant Z by accident, your movement, including kicking and throwing, will be slown down to a crawl, making you much easier target.

[[AC:PlayByPostGames]]
* This is the passive ability of Mordred's Noble Phantasm Clarent in ''Roleplay/FateNuovoGuerra''. Flynning with it lowers enemy AGI by making their weapon feel heavier with each stroke exchanged.

[[AC:RealTimeStrategy]]
* ''VideoGame/WarcraftIII'' has the Sorceress' Slow spell, an autocast ability that, well, slows down the enemy. Any kind of frost magic has this effect as well (this naturally spread to the TowerDefense and MOBA genres), along with other spells like Earthquake and Cripple.

[[AC:RhythmGame]]
* ''VideoGame/{{R2Beat}}''
** In online item battles, there's an offensive item called "Tortoise Shell", it has a purpose to slow down targeted opponents.

[[AC:{{Roguelike}}]]
* In ''VideoGame/DungeonOfTheEndless'', The Neurostun Module and Golgy's Webslinger ability are able to slow down the movement (but not attacking speed) of enemies in the room. This can stack, causing mobs to slow to a crawl. Any hero in a room with monsters is slightly slowed down too, but if one of the monsters is a Chimera Hydra, it causes an even greater slowing effect.
* Slows are a decently common effect in ''VideoGame/TheBindingOfIsaac''. They're especially notable for being the only debuff that can be applied to Isaac himself, either via webs or oil left on the ground by enemies or with one of Death's attacks.
* ''VideoGame/CryingSuns'' has Stasis, which not only reduces an afflicted unit's movement speed but also cuts its attack power. It can be inflicted by Basilisk Cruisers and by certain battleship weapons.

[[AC:RolePlayingGame]]
* In the ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' series, after ''[[VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV IV]]'', it makes the ATP bar fill up a lot, well, slower. In the DS remake of ''IV'', this is absolutely ''necessary'' to survive all the bosses, and most of the late game random encounters. On that note, in several games in the series, it's one of the only status effects bosses are vulnerable to. In games with a conditional with conditional turn-based battle systems like ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'' and ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTacticsAdvance'', it simply causes the afflicted's turn to come around less often.
* There are a few attacks that lower your ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'''s speed, the most notable of these being String Shot, a move found on most common Bug Pokémon. A more frustrating example (as the bugs are pathetically weak anyway) is the powerful Bubblebeam move, which deals damage and has a chance of lowering your speed. Misty and her Starmie back in the first games loved this move, and the speed-lowering meant that Starmie could quite easily hit you with two Bubblebeams in a row, knocking out most Pokémon. Only two types [[note]]technically three, but there's ''no'' way you have a Dragon-type by this point[[/note]] resist the water-type Bubblebeam, and one of them is Water itself. If you didn't pick Bulbasaur, you're in for one hell of a battle.
* ''''VideoGame/BlackSigil'': Blade of the Exiled'': A Slowed character's Speed is heavily reduced, making their time bar fill up slower, and thus giving them less actions.
* "Heavy" status in ''VideoGame/{{Ys}} VI''.
* Present in later games in the ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'' series. It turns your enemies into sitting ducks, as it slows down all of their animations, including their flinching from taking damage. Not terribly threatening when it's used against you, as it increases the length of your defensive actions, thus making it easy to wait it out with minimal or no harm.
* ''VideoGame/{{Bastion}}'' has an enemy called the Gasbag, which leaves a noxious trail behind that damages you while in contact and cuts your speed significantly. You can still attack and block the same, but dodging and walking are slowed.
** The player can also inflict a damage-over-time status on enemies with upgrades to the War Machete and the Breaker's Bow.
* In the ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' series, player's and enemy's body parts can be "crippled", impairing movement, vision, perception, endurance, etc. Also, your character becomes overencumbered and unable to run if they are carrying too much stuff in their inventory.
* ''VideoGame/PanzerDragoon Saga'''s Slow makes your battle gauges fill more slowly; dragon positioning is unaffected.
* The Slowed status in ''VideoGame/SouthParkTheStickOfTruth'' makes the character attack less often.
* Two variants exist in ''VideoGame/ChildOfLight''. Slowed slows down a character on the "Wait" portion of the CombatantCooldownSystem, but doesn't affect cast time. A second player can use Igniculus to blind foes, which halves their speed on ''both'' the "Wait" and "Cast" portions.
* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls''
** Through ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion Oblivion]]'', there are spells available which reduce movement speed by either reducing the target's "Speed" Attribute or their "Athletics" Skill.
** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'' drops both Attributes and the Athletics Skill, so directly slowing foes is no longer possible. However, as mentioned under "Freeze" above, [[AnIcePerson Ice-based]] magic now has this as an added effect.
* In ''VideoGame/DigimonStoryCyberSleuth'' and ''[[VideoGame/DigimonStoryCyberSleuthHackersMemory Hacker's Memory]]'', Stun fills this role, delaying each of the afflicted Digimon's next several turns.

[[AC: ShootEmUp]]
* In ''VideoGame/{{Enigmata}}'', getting hit by red lasers will cause this effect. It's temporary and lasts for a short while.

[[AC:SurvivalHorror]]
* In the ''Franchise/ResidentEvil'' franchise starting with ''2'', characters become crippled and slow down at low health.

[[AC:TabletopGame]]
* ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'' has a Slow status. In First Edition, it gives a few minor penalties, cuts your speed, and most importantly, prevents you from using your full complement of actions on your turn, which can severely curtail some characters (or monsters) combat capability. In Second Edition, it simply reduces the number of actions you can take on your turn.

[[AC:ThirdPersonShooter]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Warframe}}'' has Cold damage, which usually does this, but can occasionally freeze an enemy too. Slowing and freezing enemies is [[AnIcePerson Frost's]] entire gimmick.

[[AC:TowerDefense]]
* ''VideoGame/PlantsVsZombies'': Both the Snow Pea and Winter Melon give zombies a chilled effect, causing them to move at half speed.
* ''VideoGame/PlantsVsZombies2ItsAboutTime'': Besides the chilled status, there exist two more:
** Sap-Fling throws sticky sap onto a tile, making all zombies walking on it to move slower
** Stallia explodes into a 3x3 area of perfume that temporarily slows down zombies caught in it.
* ''VideoGame/{{Arknights}}'': This is the main purpose of slow-type Supporter operators, who briefly slow an enemy's movement with every hit, delaying their advance. Some operators outside the Supporter class are also able to slow enemies with their skills. From the enemy side, there is a type of enemy drone that doesn't directly attack your operators, but emits a cold aura that slows the attack rate of any operator within its considerably large range.

[[AC: TurnBasedStrategy]]
* ''VideoGame/HeroesOfMightAndMagic'' games usually have a Slow spell that either reduces how far an affected unit can move or reduces its initiative so it takes turns less often, depending on the game. An expert Earth mage in 3 can slow down a whole army.
* In ''VideoGame/BattleForWesnoth'', slow reduces your unit movement points and attack damage. The effect ends after you end your turn.
* In ''VideoGame/SouthParkTheFracturedButWhole'', the Slowed effect reduces a character's movement speed, or the number of squares they can move per turn, by one.
* In ''VideoGame/FellSealArbitersMark'', Slow delays the character’s next few turns in the initiative order. It counters and is countered by Haste.
* In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemHeroes'', there's Gravity, a status ailment that restricts the hero to move only one space.

[[AC:WideOpenSandbox]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Terraria}}'' has Chilled, Slow and Oozed, which reduce movement speed, the latter being more intense than the first.
* ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'' have slowness potions that reduces your movement speed when affected. You can also cause this effect on mobs and other players as well. There's also a variant called Mining Fatigue, inflicted by Elder Guardians to prevent the player from excavating their Ocean Monument, this doesn't slow the player but it does slow their attack speed by a good bit, and drops their mining speed to less than a crawl.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Stop]]
[[TimeStandsStill Stops a character in time.]] They are unable to take any action--much like Paralysis--but Stop is a much stronger effect and generally cannot be cured in the same manner. In some systems a Stopped character is also considered functionally dead.

[[AC:{{MMORPG}}s]]
* Some ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' enemies use a Time Stop spell, but the in-game effect is identical to being Stunned for the duration.
* ''VideoGame/{{Maplestory}}'' has this, but it is referred to as "Stun" instead.

[[AC:{{MOBA}}s]]
* ''VideoGame/HeroesOfTheStorm'': This is split into two similar but distinct effects.
** Time Stop prevents all actions from the character for the duration, but prevents them from taking damage. It is the only crowd control that can affect characters with Unstoppable status, and is reserved for very special powerful abilities.
** Stasis also prevents a target from taking any actions or taking damage, but has a couple differences. Most stasis effects are self-applied and are meant to be defensive tools, although there are also enemy Stasis effects. Stasis will also remove other debuffs, and doesn't pause cooldowns like Time Stop does. Also, it can be prevented by Unstoppable (except for Zagara's Devouring Maw for some reason).

[[AC:RealTimeStrategy]]
* ''VideoGame/StarCraftI'' has the Arbiter's Stasis spell, which prevents units from attacking or taking damage.
* ''VideoGame/StarcraftII'' has the Mothership's Vortex spell, which has the same effect but by sucking all the units inside an UnrealisticBlackHole, who pop back out when the spell is done.
** Matriarch Vorazun in Co-op Commanders mode has access to Black Hole, which is similar to Vortex but the units inside can be attacked for the duration.
* ''VideoGame/EmpireEarth'': One of the robots had the ability to send units forward in time, preventing them from acting or taking damage until they returned.

[[AC:RolePlayingGame]]
* Early [=RPG=]s treated this as a sort of high-end Paralyze, but later games attribute it to time magic, in which case time stops for the target, but they can still be affected normally.
* In the ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'' series, it has the typical effect of stopping the victim's movements, but all hits and damage the target takes will only register once the Stop effect wears off, which can potentially result in them being immobilized for quite some time even after it wears off.
* In the ''VideoGame/PaperMario'' series, Immobilization works this way, as it is caused by using the Stop Watch item, and afflicted characters are shown to be stuck in the middle of their damage animation and unable to move.
* Several ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' games have this: it typically wears off after a certain amount of turns. In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'', if all characters are afflicted with stop, it's game over.
* The "Stop" spell in ''VideoGame/GoldenSun'' is only used to capture a particularly elusive Djinni. If usedd on people, their speech is a slow VisibleSilence.
* Shows up in ''VideoGame/CitizensOfEarth''. you can cause it, among other ways, by having your Mom impose a Time-out on an enemy, or by having the Photographer take a Freeze-Frame shot.
* ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'' has "Force Field" spell, which can be used on allies and enemies; affected unit cannot make any action and is immune to damage for few seconds. Spell's target is still susceptible to non-damaging spells and abilities, like curses.

[[AC:TabletopGames]]
* Inverted in ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'', which has a Time Stop spell that instead affects the caster, removing them from the current time stream. This effect only affects the caster, who in turn, can only affect himself with abilities while removed. Spells that run on a timer can also be cast as long as they don't affect anything other than the caster or the area (resulting in a very nasty combo with casting several delayed-blast fireballs on a descending timer, that all go off when Time Stop ends).
** The Temporal Stasis spell has this effect on its target-- they are suspended in time, unable to be harmed but also unable to do anything whatsoever. Only a very few specific effects can free the victim from this spell.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Weird Transformation]]
The character is [[BalefulPolymorph turned into a weird (sometimes humorous) but universally weak creature]]. The specific creature tends to vary from game to game--frogs, pigs, scarecrows, eggplants, rice balls, whatever--but if this happens to you, you can be sure you're going to have lowered stats (often to the effect of becoming a OneHitPointWonder) and some inaccessible commands. Sometimes, the attack, spell, or item that causes this effect doubles as a way to cure it (and vice versa).

[[AC:ActionGame]]
* In ''VideoGame/GodHand'', boss Shannon can turn you into a chihuahua (The game has a weird obsession with the dogs) for about thirty seconds. In this state, you are much slower, much more vulnerable and can't attack and Shannon chases after you ready to [[KickTheDog kick you]]. Hilariously, dog you has fur patterned after your jacket and an adorable miniature bandanna.
* In ''VideoGame/TheWonderful101'', Vijounne has the ability to turn Wonder-Blue into a puppy dog during his solo fight with her, rendering him completely helpless for the duration of the effect. If this sounds similar to the ''VideoGame/GodHand'' example, it's probably because [[Creator/PlatinumGames the]] [[Creator/HidekiKamiya creators]] are the same.

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

[[AC:FightingGame]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Darkstalkers}}'' has Anakaris's [[CurseOfThePharaoh Pharaoh's Curse]], which changes the opponent into something small and weak, with what that thing is depending on the character ([[FishPeople Rikuo]] becomes [[BewitchedAmphibians a frog]], [[EvilIsBurningHot Pyron]] becomes a tiny living flame, [[ClassicalMovieVampire Demitri]], [[HornyDevils Morrigan and Lilith]] all become bats, etc). In VideoGame/{{MarvelVsCapcom2}}, however, the attack instead turns every character into a generic imp/goblin creature, due to the [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters large roaster]].
[[AC:FirstPersonShooter]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Heretic}}'' and ''VideoGame/{{Hexen}}'' both have items that launch projectiles that do that -- the "Morph Ovum" (turns enemies into chickens), and the [[MessyPig "Porkalator"]], respectively.
* Rose from ''VideoGame/PlantsVsZombiesGardenWarfare 2'' has the ability "Goatify" which fires a magic blast with a small splash. Any zombies hit by this are temporarily turned into Stinky Goats, who have reduced power and weak abilities. Of course, the Hover-Goat 3000 is immune, by virtue of ''already being a Goat''.

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

[[AC:{{MOBA}}s]]
* Zander's ''Sheep Trick'' ability in ''VideoGame/{{Battlerite}}'', which functions as a longer-lasting Silence effect that ends early if the target enough damage.
* ''VideoGame/HeroesOfTheStorm'':
** Brightwing's ''Polymorph'' turns an enemy into a harmless critter for a few seconds. It is notably a very powerful point-and-click crowd control effect with no drawbacks, making it very effective on mobile heroes like Tracer or Genji.
** Medivh has a more powerful version in ''Poly Bomb'', which turns enemies into sheep and spreads to nearby enemies within the area of effect when it expires -- thus having the potential to infinitely sheeping the enemy team if they are grouped up together.
* In ''VideoGame/Dota2'', this is known as ''Hex''. Anyone can inflict this effect if they purchase the Scythe of Vyse, which turns an enemy into a pig (the item is often called "Sheepstick" by players because in [[VideoGame/DefenseOfTheAncientsAllStars the first game]], it turned them into sheep. [[TheArtifact The name stuck despite no longer being accurate]]). Meanwhile, Lion and the Shadow Shaman have ''Hex'' as part of their abilities, with Lion turning foes into frogs (or fish when equipped with the Fin King's Charm cosmetic item) and Shadow Shaman into chicken (or, with the Lamb to the Slaughter cosmetic item, into lambs, referencing the previously-mentioned sheepstick meme).

[[AC:{{MMORPG}}s]]
* This is a fairly rare instance of player characters having useful access to such an ability: in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'', a mage's ability to "sheep" mobs is a vital aspect of crowd control. However, it does have a downside: the target rapidly restores health and mana, whereas the monster version of this or similar spells do not (anymore).
** In more recent patches, Shamans have been given a similar ability; Hex, which turns the target into a frog. The major difference is that Hex does not regenerate health OR break on damage, with the trade off being that it can be cast much less often.
* ''VideoGame/GuildWars2'' has the Moa Morph skill, which turns the target into a flightless moa bird.
* In ''VideoGame/RagnarokOnline'' you can do this to enemies, using a certain dagger or accessory. But rather than just downgrading the monster, it 'randomly picks one''. This can lead to impressive minibosses inhabiting a low-level area and stomping on new players.
** Professors/Scholars have a just-for-fun skill called Abracadabra that when used makes the user perform a random skill. You can have Professors doing Assassin skills, it's quite funny. What's even better is that once in a while you'll use a skill called Summon Monster, and if used on another monster it can ocassionally turn it into a Boss monster... complete with drops! To prevent people from spamming Abra it's a costly skill consuming two yellow gems per use.

[[AC:PlatformGame]]
* ''VideoGame/KidIcarus'' gives a rare platformer example in the Eggplant Wizards. If Pit gets hit with one of the eggplants they toss, the upper half of his body gets transformed into an eggplant, rendering him unable to use any weapons or items. Oh, and he has to backtrack to the nearest available hospital in order to remove the curse, which may mean dodging MANY monsters if you intend to get there alive.
** The Eggplant status is back in ''[[VideoGame/KidIcarusUprising Uprising]]'', although now it simply wears off after time, and it can be caused by players themselves when using certain powers and items. There's also a newly introduced transformation; being turned into [[DeepFriedWhatever Tempura]]. It's very similar, but you lose stamina more quickly. And if you're caught by a Tempura Wizard in that state, it will ''eat you'' for a OneHitKill!
* Every ''VideoGame/RatchetAndClank'' game has one weapon that you can use to turn your enemies into game-specific animals. From chickens to penguins. Stronger versions of the weapons usually make the transformed foe explode when near other enemies.
* Magicians in the ''VideoGame/GhostsNGoblins'' series temporarily turn Arthur into a certain creature depending on what armor he is wearing.
* Scientists in ''VideoGame/MetalSlug 4'' shoot darts that turn the player character into a monkey, who can jump higher and climb along ceilings, but moves slower on the ground and can only use an Uzi for a weapon.
* Being caught in a crushing trap in the ''VideoGame/{{Bonk}}'' series turns Bonk into a crab, who can fit into small spaces but has hardly any attack range.

[[AC:{{Roguelike}}]]
* ''VideoGame/ShirenTheWanderer: Mysterious Dungeon 2'' features an enemy that at low levels turns your items into rice balls, but at its maximum level turns YOU into a riceball! You're able to move around but do nothing else until it wears off.
* In ''VideoGame/NetHack'' you can catch lycanthropy from being bitten by lycanthropes, which will cause you to randomly turn into the relevant type of animal for short periods of time.
* The [[BalefulPolymorph Polymorph]] spell in ''VideoGame/DungeonCrawl'' can change you into one of several "bad forms", including bat, pig, mushroom, porcupine, or wisp. It can even change you into a form that players can take through spells, like a spider or ice beast, but [[ShapeshifterModeLock you can't change back voluntarily when polymorphed]], even if you know the spell in question. Of course, being polymorphed also has a very slight chance of [[ScaledUp turning you into a dragon]], which can be extremely satisfying and hilarious. There's also the Porkalator spell known by the unique enchantress [[SpellMyNameWithAnS Kirke]], which will only ever turn you into a pig.
** Polymorphing other creatures transforms them into another creature of the same type (i.e. natural, demonic, plant, etc.) and roughly the same strength. This can help neutralize dangerous casters or enemies that you can't fight effectively, but watch out — some enemies have surprisingly high HD and can turn into some very nasty things, like dragons or titans.
* The ''VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeon'' games feature the Decoy status, which turns the afflicted Pokémon into a Substitute doll, which tends to draw fire from enemies.

[[AC:RolePlayingGame]]
* ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'':
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' has the {{Kappa}}/Imp status where stats are severely lowered and all special abilities are locked except for the Imp spell. However, there are Imp equipment found in the game that are completely useless on regular characters but godly when equipped on an Imp. There is also the "Zombie" status effect, which overlaps this with "confuse". the character turns green, is counted as "dead" and only attacks hand-to-hand.
** Many games in the ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' series feature a Frog or a Mini status which blocks all actions except a very weak physical attack (and sometimes the Frog spell as well). Oddly enough, ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV'' features the Frog Status, the Mini Status, and the one-time Pig Status. The Pig status effect prevents magic (except Pig itself) but doesn't affect your stats, the Mini status effect cuts the target's defense, attack, and evasion to zero while doubling the amount of damage the target takes, and Toad is the same as Mini, but it also prevents the target from using magic that isn't the Toad spell.
*** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIII'' has turning the party small, and into frogs, part of the [[GameplayAndStorySegregation storyline]]. Multiple times, in fact. And you still run into random encounters and in one case fight a boss when Mini or frogs -- these encounters are virtually unwinnable unless you've got a magic-heavy party.
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'' didn't include this status effect in the battle system, but an important NPC suffers from the classic Toad (in this case a Frog actually) transformation. Its effect on his mind (limiting his intellect) is an important plot point later on. Trying to create an item that will cure him is a rather annoying FetchQuest with nebulous guidelines.
* In ''VideoGame/SecretOfMana'', the Lunar element spell, Change Form turned enemies into weaker monsters of the same type, permanently. The utterly whimsical, Lunar Magic, however, afflicted enemies with the "Wimp Out" effect which would greatly weaken them in a similar manner, but only for a limited time.
* In ''VideoGame/SuperMarioRPG'', there is a GuideDangIt item that lets you inflict [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Sheep status]] on the enemies, effectively killing them in one hit. Using this item enough changes it to an even better version of the same thing, as it now targets all enemies at once.
** In normal gameplay, some enemies can turn your characters into scarecrows (disables basic attacks and items) or mushrooms (can't act, but slowly regenerates). Oddly, actual numeric stats aren't lowered in either condition.
* In the first four ''[[VideoGame/DotHackGUGames .hack//]]'' games, this is the player, Kite's, special ability, the Data Drain. Data Drain is typically used on invincible boss monsters to make them vulnerable, but you can use it on regular enemies as well, which will cause them to transform into the lowest level monster that shares their general "form". Since you can only use data drain a limited number of times before getting a game over, this is normally avoided, but it can let you make your way deep into dungeons even if you're too low of a level. And, of course, a monster that's been data drained gives next to no experience, so it will actually prevent you from leveling up normally if you use it too much.
* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'' series has the recurring MagicStaff "Wabbajack", a [[LegendaryWeapon legendary]] artifact associated with Sheogorath, the [[OurGodsAreDifferent Daedric Prince]] of [[MadGod Madness]]. Fittingly, it randomly transforms the target into something else. It can, for instance, turn a bandit into a sheep, or a monstrous [[OurDemonsAreDifferent lesser Daedra]], or into a ''pile of coins''. It's a JokeItem for having some fun, more than anything else. However, under the right circumstances, it can be a LethalJokeItem as well.
* Pumpkin in ''VideoGame/StarOceanTheLastHope'' does [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin exactly what it says]]. Anyone affected can only roll around the battlefield.
* In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast'', golden star-shaped flashes of light inflict this status effect on Link should he come into contact with said entities. When affected, Link temporarily assumes a bunny form, stripped of his normal abilities.
** In that game, anyone who enters the Dark World changes into a form based on their inner self. Link has to acquire a certain item to retain his normal form while in the Dark World, but those golden traps somehow nullify the item's effect for a while.
* In many ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaPortraitOfRuin'' you actually use this intentionally to access small passages. You're still subject to the terrible attack/defense parts though, and no enemies cast it on you.
* Dalles in ''VideoGame/{{Ys}} II'' turns Adol into a blue-green monster, and you must go on a long FetchQuest to return to form. Bammy in ''Ys IV'' can also turn Adol into a demon.
* These occasionally pop up in ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'' games, though they are ''much'' rarer than other ailments. Examples are ''Bael's Bane'' from Baal Avatar in ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIIINocturne'' and ''Zotzilaha's Bane'' from ''VideoGame/DigitalDevilSaga''.
* ''VideoGame/DevilSummoner'' has the Card and Mirror statuses, which prevent the affected character from moving and change their elemental affinities.
* In ''VideoGame/EpicBattleFantasy4'' there is the "slimed" status which turns one of your character into a slime. When transformed, the character cannot attack, cannot have items used on them, and have reduced stats. The only way to turn back into a human is to wait or to die.
* The ''VideoGame/ArcTheLad'' series has the Hemo-ji status. Hemo-ji are odd yeti-like creatures with {{butterface}}s that can transform other beings into another of their kind temporarily by touch; being afflicted lowers their attack as well as disabling magic casting. Chongara can find a wild Hemo-ji for his SummonMagic repetoire to induce this status in enemies.
* ''VideoGame/Persona5'': A midboss in [[spoiler:Futaba's]] palace has an attack that turns a party member into a mouse, drastically lowering their defense and making them unable to attack. Later in the game, [[spoiler:Shido's]] palace has rooms with statues that turn the party into mice when they're turned on, and the status carries over into any fights they get into, usually leading to a TotalPartyKill.
* ''VideoGame/DigimonStoryCyberSleuth'' and ''[[VideoGame/DigimonStoryCyberSleuthHackersMemory Hacker's Memory]]'' have the Dot status, which turns a Digimon into a sprite version of themselves that can only use basic attacks.

[[AC:RealTimeStrategy]]
* Sorceresses in ''VideoGame/WarcraftIII'' can temporarily turn units into sheep, making them completely helpless and open to damage (unlike the Mage version in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft''). The ''VideoGame/WarcraftII'' version was even worse, as the unit was lost permanently.
** Frozen Throne gives the Shadow Hunter's Hex ability, which turns the unit into a random critter. Unlike the Sorceress' spell, it can be used on Heroes, though with a reduced duration like most other such abilities.

[[AC:TabletopGame]]
* The Baleful Polymorph spell in ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'' can turn the target into a harmless critter, effectively taking it out of the battle. In First Edition, if they fail the Fortitude save to resist transforming, they get to make a Will save-- if they succeed they retain their mind and memories in their new body, but if they fail their mind becomes typical of the creature they've become. In Second Edition, like many "save-or-suck" spells, this was nerfed-- a normal failed save transforms the victim for a minute, lets them keep their mind, and allows them to use their actions to make additional saves to recover early. Only a critical failure causes a permanent (body and mind) transformation.

[[AC:TowerDefense]]
* ''VideoGame/PlantsVsZombies2ItsAboutTime'': The Wizard Zombie fought in the Dark Ages uses dark magic to turn plants into [[BalefulPolymorph completely useless sheep]]. Thankfully, killing the Wizard breaks the spell on all plants it has turned.
[[/folder]]

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

[[AC:FirstPersonShooter]]
* ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' has ghosts in two of its Halloween maps to date, which cause the player to [[ScreamsLikeALittleGirl Scream Like a Little Girl]] and be unable to wield a weapon for a few seconds, though curiously they will still be able to taunt. The same effect happens to players on the losing team at the end of a round, including ''both teams'' in the case of a stalemate.

[[AC:HackAndSlash]]
* ''VideoGame/DiabloII'' has items with the "Hit Causes Monster to Flee" mod. The effect can also be caused by the Barbarian skills Howl and Grim Ward, and the Terror Necromancer curse.

[[AC:{{MMORPG}}s]]
* Warlocks in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' are well known for this ability, but a few other classes have limited versions; priests have Psychic Scream and warriors Intimidating Shout, both of which will scatter an entire group. Warlocks have Howl of Terror for mass fear, and a Death Coil that is instant, deals damage, heals the warlock and fears for a short time -- very useful as it can be chained into a regular fear afterwards against an opponent that would not normally let you cast it. Hunters can only use it on beasts.
** Since this can be problematic in PvE (feared enemies might run into others and alert them to the fight), pretty much all fear effects can be modified by glyphs to have targets stay in place rather than running away.
* ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'' has two types of Fear effects, owing to its development history. One type causes NPC enemies (and NPC enemies only) to simply drop what they are doing and run away. This does not work on players, as it is an order to the AI. The second type of Fear affects both NPC and player characters, causing them to tremble with fear and be unable to take any action. Characters trembling in fear, however, can still lash out at attackers, essentially getting one free attack to retaliate with when attacked, though this is only doable every once in a while, rather than full-time.
* ''VideoGame/GuildWars2'' has a "fear" condition which interrupts skills and causes the target to run away for a short period of time.
* ''VideoGame/TheLordOfTheRingsOnline'' has fear and dread. Fear is pretty common; dread is produced only by the top bosses.
** Fear gives damage over time, since health is morale, or assorted debuffs, depending on the source.
** Dread reduces effective level, maximum morale and power. At high strength, it forces the player to cower helplessly, while reducing morale to 1% of normal. In the worst cases, the Eye of Sauron fills the screen, blinding the hapless player.

[[AC:{{MOBA}}s]]
* Some champions in ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'' can inspire Fear in enemies, slowing them and causing them to run around randomly for a short period. Although less reliable than a straight-up stun, it does mean that they can walk closer to danger. Or further away.
* ''VideoGame/HeroesOfTheStorm'': Gul'dan has a large AreaOfEffect fear as a Heroic, while Deathwing gets one on a MightyRoar in a midgame talent. It causes enemies to run away from the center of the spell, which can be pretty disastrous if it pointed you towards the enemy team.
* In ''VideoGame/Dota2'', fear causes enemies to run towards their home base with increased speed. Useful for getting foes off your tail when you're being chased, but can also be used to lead them into an ambush when your teammates are positioned between the enemies and their base. In a case of GameplayAndStorySegregation, the Night Stalker's ''Crippling Fear'' ability doesn't actually inflict this effect on foes due to being made before the fear effect was implemented into the game, instead, it acts as a combined Silence and Blind effect.

[[AC:PlayByPostGames]]
* El Cid's Noble Phantasms in ''Roleplay/FateNuovoGuerra'' focus on this, particularly the attack[=/=]defense-lowering effect. Servants with high Bravery are unaffected.

[[AC:RealTimeStrategy]]
* ''VideoGame/DawnOfWar'': the MoraleMechanic means there are many, many ways to cause fear, the most obvious being to stay in combat for too long. The Necron Lord has an ability that not only reduces morale to zero, it also causes enemies to run (Berserkers of Khorne get a similar ability in Soulstorm), while Dark Eldar get Terrorfex and Horrorfex grenades. Banshees can scream to demoralize enemies, and most invisible/sniper/both units will break enemies before they kill them.

[[AC:{{Roguelike}}]]
* In the ''VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeon'' series, fear simply causes the afflicted Pokemon to run away until it wears off. It can't be inflicted by any standard moves (Orbs and Dark-type team attacks being the only options), plus it has absolutely no effect on a Pokemon that's being controlled by the player. It's most frequently seen as the result of the completely useless Run Away ability, which inflicts its user with the status when it reaches critical HP, and it'll remain until their HP is restored.
* In the ''VideoGame/IzunaLegendOfTheUnemployedNinja'' series, Scared acts as a combination of ManaBurn and poison, quickly draining your SP. This can be dangerous, as not only is SP required to use Talismans, your damage is also increased based on your SP; because of this, fear quickly hobbles you. Interestingly, it can be cured by using an SP recovery item[[note]]A likeness (picture), suggesting that the cure is simply calming down.[[/note]].
* In ''VideoGame/DungeonCrawl'', fear used to be much more common as many creatures would become terrified and flee at low health. This was eventually phased out, as most players found it annoying to have to chase down things they wanted to kill. You can still force things to flee from you by reading a Scroll of Fear or casting Cause Fear, but some enemies (mainly [[BearsAreBadNews bears]]) might [[TurnsRed go berserk]] instead of fleeing.

[[AC:RolePlayingGame]]
* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'' series has two such effects: TurnUndead for undead enemies and ''Demoralize'' for everybody else. In both cases, they make the target much more likely to flee battle.
* In ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'', the move Roar scares the opponent into fleeing the battle (or switching out in trainer battles). The mysterious ghosts in Lavender Tower (pre-Silph Scope) make your Pokémon "paralysed with fear" and unable to do anything.
** Also, several moves have a chance of making the opponent flinch, which makes them skip their attack. Only the faster Pokémon can cause flinching, so one strategy used is "para-flinch": first paralyze the opponent, which will pretty much ensure that you go first, then use Flinching attacks. Even if the attack doesn't make the enemy flinch, there is still a 25% chance it will skip its turn due to the paralysis, thus really cutting down the probability the opponent will attack. There also exists one attack, Fake Out, which strikes first and has a 100% chance of making the opponent flinch... but it can only be used on the first turn that Pokémon was sent out and does barely any damage. The King's Rock item, when held, automatically adds a chance of flinching to any attack. Finally, some Pokémon have abilities to deal with flinching, either by preventing them (Inner Focus) or by raising Speed when flinched (Steadfast), presumably so they go first and thus cannot flinch from attacks any more.
* Fear in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioRPG'' halves the victim's attack and defense, making their attacks weaker and making them take more damage from hits. It's a pain to deal with when it happens to you, but you can inflict fear upon enemies too, primarily with Bowser's Big Boo spell.
* ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei''
** ''Franchise/{{Persona}}'' has two versions: Fear and Distress. Fear will sometimes cause a party member to freeze up, stealing their turn, and sometimes makes them run away outright. Distress weakens them, and any attack that hits them while they're distressed is an automatic CriticalHit. An additional OneHitKill move, Ghastly Wail, will infallibly execute any enemy and ally inflicted with Fear.
** ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiStrangeJourney'' has it as a very rare effect.
** ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'' games also occasionally have Intimidate as a conversation skill.
* Fear was another status effect used in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfDragoon''. It cuts attack and defense in half, and the afflicted character is shown to have blue skulls floating around them, and visibly shivering.
* NPC's in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' go into a fight-or-flight state when under attack, sometimes even randomly.
* The Flare Gun in ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas: Lonesome Road'' has this effect on Deathclaws and other abominations.
* Fear in ''VideoGame/FossilFighters'' acts as a disabler, causing some of the affected viviosaur's abilities to become unavailable.
* ''VideoGame/BravelyDefault'' has the Dread ailment, which makes it so the player cannot use the Brave or Default commands, two of the main gameplay commands. Every other command is unaffected and stats remain unchanged
* The Fear status in ''VideoGame/LufiaCurseOfTheSinistrals'' locks a character's IP meter at zero, preventing the use of charged or special attacks.
* The Horror spell in ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'' causes the target to "cower in fear, unable to move". It can be combined with the Sleep spell to inflict a nightmare on the enemy.
* The Fear status in ''VideoGame/IDOLAPhantasyStarSaga'' forces the victim to skip their turn until it wears off. Only a few characters can inflict it, most infamously Wyndis.
* ''VideoGame/OctopathTraveler'': Terror prevents the character from using or gaining BP.

[[AC:SimulationGame]]
* In ''VideoGame/ShepherdsCrossing,'' the "Fear" status effect in hunts only allows you to pass your turn or retreat.

[[AC:TabletopGames]]
* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' likes this one with basic fear spells and fear auras that surround powerful enemies. Fear also comes in several increments, from "Shaken" which merely reduces your combat effectiveness to "Cowering" which renders you completely helpless.
** The TabletopGame/{{Ravenloft}} setting expanded upon this with Fear and Horror checks. Failing a Fear check had similar effects to standard fear-based magic, whereas Horror could (depending on how badly one succumbed) produce various sorts of long-term psychological trauma.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'' First Edition borrowed D&D 3.5's system of fear. Low levels merely gave small penalties, while higher levels forced you to run away or cower in fear. In Second Edition there's a single Frightened status, which gives a penalty equal to a certain value that decreases by one every round. The Fleeing status, which forces you to run away, is a separate status, though it's usually accompanied by some level of Frightened.
* ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' has a keyword for Fear: It makes the creature with it unblockable except by artifact creatures (no emotions) and black creatures (who, presumably, would not be afraid of what other things are afraid of.) A newer ability called Intimidate makes a creature unblockable except by artifact creatures (again, no emotions) and creatures that share a color with that creature (why would one be intimidated by something familiar?)
** The newest iteration of the ability (the previous ones had UselessUsefulSpell problems) is Menace, where the creature cannot be blocked except by two or more creatures (Too scary to face alone? Get help from a friend.)
* ''TabletopGame/TheOneRing'': Characters who fail a Fear Test roll, such as when exposed to a Nazgûl's EmotionBomb, are unable to spend Hope points to boost their dice rolls or activate other abilities while the source of their fear is nearby.

[[AC:ThirdPersonShooter]]
* This is the secondary effect of Heat damage in ''VideoGame/{{Warframe}}'' (the primary effect being damage). Only enemies flail in fear when on fire; Tenno couldn't care less.
** Nekros can cast Terrify on groups of enemies to make them run the hell away as fast as they can. Oddly, this also makes their armor less effective if they have any.

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

[[AC:WideOpenSandbox]]
* The Wall of Flesh boss in ''VideoGame/{{Terraria}}'' inflicts the horrified debuff to all players in the vicinity and strangely, actually ''prevents'' the player from fleeing. In addition, confusion causes enemies to move away from the player, as the effect normally inverts the player's controls.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:A Meta-Effect]]
A condition which interferes with [[InterfaceScrew the player's control interface]] somehow, such as by obscuring parts of the screen or, yes, reversing the controls. Hard to [[JustifiedTrope justify]] within the context of the game world, so it often gets folded in with Confusion, curses, or sanity somehow.

[[AC:ActionGame]]
* Most of the "sanity effects" in ''VideoGame/EternalDarkness'' are of this type (such as having the screen blank, the sound mute, or the controls not work, and even deleting the mem card [thankfully falsely] and putting up a SequelHook card).
* The gene disruptor beam in ''VideoGame/{{Evolva}}'', which has two effects: on your party members that you're not controlling at the moment, it makes them attack each other, something like Confusion; on the directly controlled partly member, it inverts the controls.

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

[[AC:FirstPersonShooter]]
* In ''VideoGame/BioShock1'', you can get Jack drunk. Your screen goes into double vision, and you lurch around.
* ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands}}'' has the Daze effect for enemies and players. A character who is dazed moves slower and their accuracy drops.
* ''VideoGame/TeamFortressClassic'' gives the Spy Gas Grenades, which cause players who are hit by it to experience severe hallucinations, which include seeing enemies and teammates, among other things. The Medic and Scout get Concussion Grenades, which cause those hit to have their view sway uncontrollably, making it harder to aim.
* Flashbang grenades in ''VideoGame/RainbowSix'', ''VideoGame/ModernWarfare'', and other FPS series temporarily blind and deafen the player and enemies.
* The Flash Missile in the ''VideoGame/{{Descent}}'' series does ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin. One boss in the second game has ''homing'' flash missiles that have a more intense flash than the player's.
* The ''VideoGame/ModernWarfare'' series has the Scrambler, which disables a player's radar, and the {{EMP}}, which completely knocks out the HUD, along with any electronic accessories, and makes the screen fuzzy.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Marathon}}'''s Pfhor ship levels, the magnetic fields scramble your motion detector.

[[AC: MazeGame]]
* Certain ''VideoGame/{{Bomberman}}'' games have skull tiles, which cause random effects such as causing Bomberman to continuously drop bombs, be unable to drop bombs, move too fast or too slow, etc. The effect can be transmitted to other players by touching them.

[[AC:{{MMORPG}}s]]
* While usually not a status effect per se, ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' characters can get drunk, which obscures the players vision of the game and makes movement rather uncontrollable. This is usually done intentionally for fun (ingame holidays often serve free alcohol), but a few instances of it being inflicted by monsters exist as well. Unfortunately, characters sober up from those much faster. It also simulates impaired judgment when your character is "totally smashed", by making anything with a level look up to five levels lower than it actually is. A very subtle side-effect of being drunken is that your depth perception actually is slightly off.
** Getting your character drunk in ''VideoGame/TheLordOfTheRingsOnline'' works mostly the same way, with the addition of your character eventually passing out and [[WhatDidIDoLastNight waking up somewhere else]]. A number of ingame holiday quests require that your character be drunk while doing them.
** ''VideoGame/GuildWars'' has this too: drinking alcohol will give your character the "intoxicated" effect, causing the screen to blur (with the effect becoming more pronounced the more you've had) and make your character randomly emote (/sit, /moan etc) and mutter amusing things ("I love you man!", "I think I'm gonna be sick"). This is mostly just for fun, but a handful of [[PlayerVersusEnvironment PvE]]-only skills in the game require that your character be intoxicated to get the full effect from them.
* In ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarOnline2'', Panic scrambles your controls. It also makes it so you can hit other players with your attacks, but it's difficult to kill your allies this way.

[[AC:Platformers]]
* The infamous "Touch Fuzzy, Get Dizzy" InterfaceScrew from VideoGame/YoshisIsland.

[[AC:{{MOBA}}s]]
* Nocturne's ultimate ability in ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'' -- aptly named ''Paranoia'' -- darkens the screens of all opponents, reducing their vision range and making them unable to see their teammates. Interestingly, old lore actually tried to justify it as Nocturne's power affecting summoners themselves (in other words, the {{Player Character}}s), making them untrustful and suspicious of each other.
* ''VideoGame/HeroesOfTheStorm'': Dehaka's ''Isolation'' and Maiev's ''Containment Disc'' reduce the victim's sight range to 1, which literally blinds the player to anything that is not right next to the character.

[[AC:RhythmGame]]
* ''VideoGame/{{R2Beat}}''
** In online item battles, there's an offensive item called "headphone", although this item doesn't screw the visual interface, it has a purpose to distract / screw players audibly from performing the gameplay perfectly as it temporarily replaces the certain song in gameplay with the fake song came from the headphone.
** in the same modes, there's a "fog" item, which is to remove the timing windows on-screen and blocks players from seeing the certain obstacle notes clearly, making it difficult to perform it in full-combo.

[[AC:{{Roguelike}}]]
* ''VideoGame/NetHack'' has the hallucination effect, which causes the symbols representing monsters and items to constantly shift, makes it impossible to distinguish whether a monster is hostile/neutral/friendly, makes the game give humorous alternate message, and in the Slash'EM variant makes the contents of your pack look different every time you examine your inventory. Combat messages from monsters while hallucinating even list things that aren't even part of the game, such as [[Franchise/StarTrek Klingons]] and Franchise/{{Pokemon}}.
* In ''VideoGame/StarTrekArmada'', the [[Franchise/StarTrek Borg]] have the nanites ability. When cast on one of your ships, your control panels and minimap run around the screen. Not only does this obscure half of the battle, but hotkeys are disabled too, you have to find and click on your moving command bar to issue orders. Just hope it isn't hiding behind something else!

[[AC:RolePlayingGame]]
* In ''VideoGame/BatenKaitos'', you select the "spirit numbers" on each magnus card to make combos. These numbers typically appear in the corners of each card, and the numbers stay in the same place every time the magnuss card is used. However, the status effects Headache and Confusion change this. Headache causes the numbers to shift to the center of each edge, rather than at the corners, and the numbers are switched up. Confusion makes the numbers to actually ''spin around the card'', which makes getting good combos much more difficult.
* Confusion in ''VideoGame/DigimonWorld3'' changes your battle menu to include actions such as Laugh, Cry, and Seduce. One of the actions will correspond to your basic attack. The others do exactly what they say.
* You know how every game in the ''VideoGame/ShadowHearts'' franchise (minus ''[[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness Koudelka]]'') utilizes the Judgment Ring in order to determine whether you act in combat and how accurately you do so? You better believe that the Ring itself is subject to status effects.
** "Tight Ring" narrows down the target areas.
** "Reverse Ring" reverses the direction that the bar sweeps.
** "Blind Ring" eliminates the target areas entirely to force you to hit them from memory.
** "Fast Ring" speeds the sweep up.
** "Fickle Ring" causes the bar to become sporadic in its speed.
** "Small Ring" shrinks the Ring itself.
** "Up Ring" gradually accelerates the bar's sweep.
** "Fake Ring" throws false target areas at you.
** "Random Ring" changes the target areas around between appearances.
* "Confuse" status in the ''VideoGame/{{Ys}}'' series reverses your controls.
* In ''VideoGame/ChronoCross'', the Flu status will mess up your controls while on the field.
* The Drunk effect in ''VideoGame/LiveALive'' will randomize your movement controls and prevent you from using most attacks.
* Recieving a Concussion (crippled head) in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' and ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' causes blurred vision and ringing in the ears, and reduces Perception. Certain types of poison in the latter game have a similar effect. Vault 106 has its atmosphere injected with a psychoactive drug that periodically causes hallucinations.
* ''VideoGame/ParasiteEve'' has the Confusion status work differently between enemies and the player. Confused enemies spin in place and can't act until it wears off. If the player is hit with Confusion, their movement controls are randomly remapped, making moving difficult to do. The sequel keeps Confusion with similar mechanics, but the controls will change at random instead.
* Snapshots from ''VideoGame/{{Transistor}}'' have an "obscuring generator" that can create glitchy clouds that appear during Turn() and hide everything except for Red and other enemies, making it guesswork to maneuver and attack them.

[[AC:TableTopRoleplayingGame]]
* In a table-top role-playing game, the GM will describe what your character observes. The GM's maps and description are your interface. If enemies are using illusion powers, disguises, and so forth, there's no guarantee what you're seeing is ''real.''
* The GM Intrusion mechanic in {{Numenera}} is the ability of the GM to simply enter the game, make things more complicated, and grant you bonus ExperiencePoints for dealing with it.
* ''TabletopGame/LamentationsOfTheFlamePrincess'' has many, many, MANY ways of pprovoking this, the best exemple being one of the possible epic fails for the summoning spell, which has a PC die and take the Refereeree's place, who then has to roll a character and have it go up a level in order to get his place back.

[[AC:ThirdPersonShooter]]
* You can blind opponents in multiplayer by using a power in ''VideoGame/KidIcarusUprising''. It completely blacks out the screen for a few seconds. There's also the Spinning and Shaking status effects. Spinning causes the camera to wildly spin around at high speeds to disorient you. Shaking causes the targeting reticule to erratically move around uncontrollably, ruining your accuracy.
* In ''VideoGame/MaxPayne3'', after being [[GameBreakingInjury shot by a sniper]] in Chapter 3, Max suffers from both [[ImpairmentShot impaired vision]] and slowed movement.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Warframe}}'', being afflicted with a Magnetic proc will [[InterfaceScrew cause a screen wide distortion]] in addition to draining the warframe's shield and energy.

[[AC:WideOpenSandbox]]
* In ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIV'', Niko can get drunk, with realistic InterfaceScrew effects and impaired driving ability.
** ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'' has a similar effect with the nausea status, causing the screen to warp and wobble, making it difficult to see where you're walking.
* ''VideoGame/{{Terraria}}'' has Confusion, which actually works by reversing the player controls.
* ''VideoGame/RetroCityRampage'' distorts the game image when the player is DrunkOnMilk (which also has a Poison effect) or under the influence of [[MushroomSamba psychedelic mushrooms]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Instant Death]]
A.k.a. OneHitKill. One cast, one death, no waiting. Obviously this is a ridiculously powerful ability, and it's often reserved for bosses--games where common enemies can use this with regularity tend to be frustrating, since there's often nothing you can do to stop it except pray to the RandomNumberGod that it misses. Your party members will rarely have any resistance to this effect whatsoever, whereas [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard enemies are frequently born with resistance to it]] and [[ContractualBossImmunity bosses have contractual immunity to it]], making it a UselessUsefulSpell in most systems.

[[AC:{{MMORPG}}s]]
* ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' likes to give bosses OneHitKill abilities, but special mention goes to Archimonde. Anyone who has had to learn this encounter will be ''very'' familiar with his [=Finger of Death=] ability, which he uses to mop up the raid when things go pear-shaped. Under certain conditions he uses [=Hand of Death=] instead, which does five times the damage (five fingers, geddit?). To everyone at once. Ouch.
** The description for the [=Finger of Death=] move strays into LargeHam territory. ''Inflicts 20,000 Shadow damage to you, your children, and your children's children!''
** Let's not forget Yogg-Saron's berserk ability, which is really straightforward. ''Extinguishes all life. Kaput.''
* ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'' has what's known as the "one-shot code", which basically prevents a player character from being taken down to no HitPoints if he started from full HitPoints. However, a character starting out damage can very much be taken out in one hit, and attacks that deal multiple "ticks" of damage will get around this safeguard anyway. That said, some very powerful bosses can and will use large-scale, incredibly devastating attacks that have the potential to kill every player in the vicinity, often using circumstances to sidestep safeguards.
* ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarOnline'''s Megid. It casts a dark ball that (sometimes) instantly kills an enemy. A UselessUsefulSpell when used by a player... but when used by an enemy you can expect it to work 99% of the time. Specifically, Ob Lilies in Ultimate Caves just LOVE this spell. It does have an AchillesHeel however, it's chance to work is modified by your EDK stat. Too bad most armors don't have much more than 20, and you 'could' sacrifice slots for EDK units, but you just lose too much.
** It also subverts the UselessUsefulSpell a little if a Force has it at level 30. (Which is a 100% chance to work... modified by Enemy EDK.) There are quite a few enemies that you could use it on with great effect, but most enemies have an extremely high EDK stat, making it useless agenst other enemies.
** The special attack for weapons, 'Hell' does the same thing, but with one diffrence. A unit called V502 doubles the chance of it working. If you have a high ammount of accuracy and a V502 unit, you can use the Hell special on just about any non-boss enemy.
* ''VideoGame/GuildWars'' gives this mechanic to a handful of environmental hazards in the game, most notably ''the entire ground'' in the Desolation. (Crossing the Desolation requires taming a giant {{Sandworm}} and riding around in its mouth.) It's also used for fun in outposts -- the only persistent areas in the game, where players can't attack or use skills -- during certain holiday events. Because of this, instant deaths don't count as "real" deaths; your character won't get any death penalty and the death won't get added to your death count.
* ''VideoGame/RagnarokOnline'' has the Coma status, whick doesn't kill you outright but reduces your HP to 1, meaning that the slightest poke will kill you.

[[AC:RolePlayingGame]]
* A variant known in ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' games in the level-based Death spell, which kills any enemy whose level is multiple of 5 and always hits those enemies at 100% accuracy.
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyI'' had BANE/Scrouge, a Black Magic spell that killed any enemy instantly but often missed, and RUB/Death, a spell only usable by bosses that instantly killed one of your party members.
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' had two such spells, Death and Banish. Bosses were usually immune to these spells. However, players of the SNES and [=PS1=] versions could use the Vanish spell on most bosses to give them the [[StatusBuff usually-beneficial]] Clear status, which makes a character resistant to all physical attacks but extremely susceptible to magic. So susceptible, in fact, that a bug in the game caused these invisible bosses to lose their immunity to the two instant-death spells!
** Using Banish in this manner to kill the randomly-appearing boss Doom Gaze would result in not getting the Bahamut Esper upon his defeat. Not a good call; use Death instead.
* Such moves in the Franchise/{{Pokemon}} universe only work if the target's level is lower than or equal to the user's, except in the first game(s) where it was Speed. The moves also have 30% accuracy.
** When paired with Lock On or Mind Reader these moves have 100% accuracy, but most opponents are smart enough to swap when these moves are used, and few Pokémon ever learn targeting and OHKO moves on a natural legal moveset.
** Even without such a move or ability, each level difference between the two Pokemon increases the success rate by 1%. Hence, a level 71-100 Pokemon could use 100% instant-kills (however, unless the opponent is a master of EV points and has an Event-Only Legendary, you're unlikely to need them).
** Pokémon with the ability Sturdy are protected from the effects of OHKO moves. Before generation 5, this was its ''only'' effect; in later games, it also protected against [[ChunkySalsaRule being taken out in one hit with]] ''[[ChunkySalsaRule any]]'' [[ChunkySalsaRule move]].
* ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'' games enjoy providing even lowly {{Mooks}} with instant-death spells like the [[LightIsNotGood Hama]] and Mudo categories. More infuriating when they happen to miss everyone in the party but [[WeCannotGoOnWithoutYou the Main Character]]. VideoGame/DigitalDevilSaga tones down on this a bit and has it so that only Mudo can insta-kill and a GameOver can only occur if all playable characters are either dead or [[TakenForGranite petrified as the petrification folder above details]].
** Hama and Mudo are the kindest versions of instant death in SMT -- typically classed as elemental spells, they can be resisted, blocked, or even repelled. There are also at least two non-elemental, non-blockable instant death spells that {{Mooks}} get access to, which always work against characters affected by status effects: Eternal Rest kills sleeping characters, and Ghastly Wail targets the fearful. Some high-end bosses also receive special, similarly unblockable instant kill moves of their own that work off a specific criteria (For instance, [[spoiler: Izanami of VideoGame/{{Persona 4}}'s special move insta-kills characters affected by ''any'' status effect]]).
*** ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiStrangeJourney''. The Law and Neutral FinalBoss. [[spoiler:'''M.A.''']] Guaranteed instant kill AND saps the victim's HP. AND ''it can target you.'' [[LuckBasedMission Tee hee!]] What's that? You're fighting the Chaos boss? You get [[spoiler:Requiem]], an Almighty instant kill spell that targets ''everyone'' (though it's at least not guaranteed)!
*** ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIIINocturne'' has Pestilence, the signature skill of the Pale Rider. This move does moderate Almighty damage to everything normally, but it will instantly kill poisoned enemies.
** However, SMT makes the skills also useful against a good many enemy monsters, with only a handful being really immune or even repelling them. In addition to that, there are actually bosses who can fall by using these spells on them (though those are rare).
** One for ''your'' side: ''VideoGame/Persona4'' has Chie's Galactic Punt, which she can randomly use when you get [[ExtraTurn One More]]. It instantly kills any one enemy. This works on ''mini-bosses'', as well. [[ContractualBossImmunity She won't use it against actual bosses, though.]]
* ''VideoGame/EarthBound'' has the Psi Flash ability. Once it reaches Beta, Gamma or Omega level, it possesses the ability to instantly kill select characters. Only Ness and the boss of the final sanctuary can use it though.
** And [[FinalBoss Giygas]], who uses it liberally. Night/Sea/Star Pendant required.
** It's more than just that. The regular enemies Conducting Menace, Conducting Spirit, and Wild n' Wooly Shambler and the bosses Evil Mani-Mani, Thunder and Storm, Kraken, Diamond Dog, Ness's Nightmare and Giygas can use at least Flash Beta or its non-PSI (read: non-blockable) equivalent, Glorious Light/Summoned a Storm. And absent protective pendants, all of the Player Characters are * very* vulnerable to Flash and will frequently be paralyzed or KO'd by even the Beta level.
* ''VideoGame/DragonQuest'' games have the spells Whack and Thwack, formerly Beat and Defeat, that can cause death to individuals or a group. Like most of the game's status-causing spells, these have a better chance of working in general than their equivalents in other [=RPGs=], but Whack and Thwack cost a lot of MP, and they're still not extremely reliable. Dragon Quest IX adds Kathwack, which can kill all enemies, even if they are in multiple groups -- but it's unreliable as ever!
** There's also [[TakingYouWithMe Kamikazee]], which, depending on the game, always or has a chance to kill all targets (with each target having a seperate RNG roll). The worst case was in ''VideoGame/DragonQuestII'' where if an enemy casts Kamikazee, you are guaranteed a TotalPartyKill since Kamikazee kills targets 100% of the time there.
* Some enemies in the ''VideoGame/GoldenSun'' franchise have attacks that either do 1 point of damage or 1 hit KO.
* The ''VideoGame/ShadowHearts'' series have the Instant Death ring ability. It's insteresting to note how the games make a point to mention that it's just another round-of-the-mill status ailment that can be easily negated by equiping your character with the correct acccesory -- in this case, [[ImprobableAccessoryEffect a sad looking Teddie bear whose origins varies from game to game]]
* Present rather uncommonly in ''VideoGame/{{Xenoblade}}'', and only towards the end. Perhaps the most notable example is a superboss that causes instant death if you ''so much as hit it without protection''.
* ''Videogame/DragonsDogma'' has the Exequy spell, which summons up a red field that instantly kills anyone that stays in it long enough (with tougher enemies taking longer). It can be learned by Sorcerers as well as being used by magic-using bosses.
* ''VideoGame/ChildOfLight'' has the Obliterated status. Aurora's Light Ray series of spells has a 10% chance of causing it while Oengus' Kiss of Death passive skill allows all his attacks to cause this (maximum 20% chance). Thankfully, enemies can't use this on you.
* ''VideoGame/SkiesOfArcadia'' features this as a part of the silver magic school (along with revival magic and a status cure spell). The basic version has a low chance to insta-kill one enemy, the advanced version has a higher chance and targets the entire enemy party, and the final version has perfect accuracy and targets one enemy (though Contractual Boss Immunity is still in play). Some common Mooks know the basic versions, and one BonusBoss specializes in silver magic. One of your party members has a skill that defends against all status effects for a turn, and this includes Instant Death.
* The ''VideoGame/{{Lufia}}'' series has the staple Perish and Destroy instant-death spells. In ''VideoGame/LufiaIIRiseOfTheSinistrals'', Destroy had a 50% chance of instant-death (against a single target), which made it [[DeathOrGloryAttack a worthwhile tactic]] in the Ancient Cave.
** The Ancient Cave also contained weapons with an ''80%'' instant-death chance, albeit with attack power so low they'd typically do no damage if the target didn't die instantly. They're all cursed, which means they can't be unequipped without use of a rare item (and doing so removes the curse and instant-death property).
* Shows up many times in ''VideoGame/TheDarkSpire'' once you get to higher spell tiers. Like its other status effects, instant death has an incredibly high chance of working against enemies that don't have magic resistance, and still works pretty well on enemies that do. Logic still applies to them (you can't suffocate a skeleton to death, for example), but they constantly remain useful. One such spell even instantly kills ''everything'' under level 8, no questions asked, which is easily the strongest spell until floor 6. They're high level for a ''reason''.
* ''VideoGame/IDOLAPhantasyStarSaga'' has Fatal Wound. Surprisingly, ContractualBossImmunity works a bit differently in this game; boss enemies are ''not'' immune to Fatal Wound, they just don't get deleted instantly like normal enemies. They take double damage instead. Fatal Wound also subverts UselessUsefulSpell since there are several reliable sources that can hit 50% base Fatal rate (Kibaki EX and [[Manga/AttackOnTitan Levi]], for starters).

[[AC:RealTimeStrategy]]
* Some bosses in ''VideoGame/{{Patapon}}'' have an attack that will decimate your ENTIRE army (Even Hatapon) unless you dodge.
** Even further: Some bosses have attacks you can't dodge, meaning you have to defend and hope for the best.
* ''VideoGame/{{Sacrifice}}'' has the Death spell which summons a shadowy figure that instantly kills every unit it can reach. However it's double edged, as it will attack the summoner's own units as well.
* ''VideoGame/WarcraftIII'': Averted with the Finger of Death ability. While the description states that it turns the target inside-out, killling it instantly, it only does 500 damage. Nothing to laugh at, certainly, especially since it's free and relatively fast to recharge, but the vast majority of units will survive a hit.

[[AC:TableTopGames]]
* ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}'' has the Heart Attack affliction, which yes, gives you a heart attack. This instantly renders the character unconscious, and kills then within about 3-5 minutes. During this "grace period", the character can be resuscitated with First Aid or healing magic, and comes back missing a significant chunk of hit points.

[[AC:ThirdPersonShooter]]
* You can add Instant Death to your attacks using a power in ''VideoGame/KidIcarusUprising'', but only in single-player mode.
[[/folder]]

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

[[AC:FirstPersonShooter]]
* In ''Halo 5: Guardians'',if you are killed with certain promethean weapons like the binary rifle, you will be disintegrated and will have to restart from the last checkpoint rather than being revived by a teammate.

[[AC:RealTimeStrategy]]
* Some bosses in ''VideoGame/{{Patapon}}'' have an attack that will ''outright destroy'' a Patapon, caps and all, making them [[DeaderThanDead unable to be revived]].

[[AC:RolePlayingGame]]
* ''VideoGame/MightAndMagic'' has ''Eradicated'', which happens if a character takes way too much damage.
* ''VideoGame/{{Exile}}[=/=]VideoGame/{{Avernum}}'' has ''Dust'', whose cause is the same as in Might and Magic.
* Characters in ''VideoGame/UltimaIII'' could be turned to ash. Thankfully, the most powerful cleric spell could reverse this.
* ''Final Fantasy'' in its various iterations has the "Eject" effect which removes the character from the battlefield, god knows where. Its most notable incarnations are:
** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'' and ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX2'' getting hit while Petrified sometimes results in your character [[LiterallyShatteredLives shattering]], with no way to revive them until after the fight. It would also happen if you got petrified underwater.
** In VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII, [[FinalBoss Ultimecia]] has the effect of "Absorbing into time", which is cast on any dead player character, dissolves them and prevents them from being revived.
** In the same game, the limit breaks of the characters Quistis ("Degenerator") and Selphie ("Rapture") inflict Eject and remove any non-boss monster. Degenerator can also be used by gespers, rare but otherwise unremarkable mook monsters, on your characters.
** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'', the monster Yan (the strongest non-boss enemy in the game) spams the Sneeze attack, which inflicts Eject.
* In the ''VideoGame/{{Wizardry}}'' games, a failed resurrection could result in being turned to "ashes", only curable by an even stronger resurrection -- and that, too, could fail, causing the victim to be [[FinalDeath "gone"]]. A botched teleportation spell could {{telefrag}} and destroy [[TotalPartyKill your entire party]].
* In ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIV'', enemy force attacks have a 1/100 probability of inflicting Lost on your demons -- which while not killing the targeted demon, is just as irritating, given it kicks it out of battle, removing the possibility of simply reviving it. To make matters worse, BonusBoss Sanat's SignatureMove, Gaea Rage, inflicts Lost with a far greater chance of success as does the enemy-exclusive physical skill Carol Hit. Even after the battle ends, you don't get your demon back. Instead, any normal encounter has a chance to be your lost demon, who will then rejoin your party.
* ''VideoGame/{{Earthbound}}'' has Diamondization, which has a unique overworld sprite, and if all your characters are afflicted, you die. And it can't be cured via PSI Healing, only with Secret Herbs and the very rare Cup of Lifenoodles or Horn of Life.

[[AC:TabletopGames]]
* In ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' some spells (such as Disintegrate) could cause this. Characters destroyed in this manner cannot be revived with Raise Dead, requiring the more powerful Resurrection or even True Resurrection.
* ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' has many spells (mostly White or Red) that completely remove cards from the game, as opposed to simply making your opponent discard them. Such cards usually thematically feature fire or cleansing light, though Catapult Master is also memorable, rendering the target beyond saving presumably by the simple expedient of dropping far too large of a boulder on them.
* GURPS notes that anyone taking [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill sufficiently excessive amounts of damage]] is not only automatically killed, but disintegrated, pulverized, pasted, splattered, or otherwise damaged so much that there's not enough corpse left for resurrection methods that require a body.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Doom]]
Similar to Instant Death, but [[TimeDelayedDeath activates after a set amount of time or turns instead of instantaneously]]; usually accompanied by some sort of indication of the time left. It can sometimes be cured before this by standard status-removing magic; otherwise by ending the battle before the counter reaches zero. Some poorly programmed games will even continue the countdown through victory animations, possibly [[KaizoTrap wiping out the final party member]] [[VictoryPose mid-boogie]].

[[AC:{{MMORPG}}s]]
* In Mount Hyjal, a raid dungeon in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'''s Burning Crusade expansion, one of the bosses casts a debuff called Doom, which kills the target player upon fading and spawns a demon from their corpse.
** More familiar is the Warlock's "Curse of Doom" spell. It does nothing for 60 seconds, but when it expires, it inflicts a very high amount of damage on the target. If the damage from the curse is what strikes the killing blow, a Doomguard will be summoned from the corpse. (However, since he isn't under the Warlock's control, he either needs to be shackled, or the curse can be worse than the cure...)

[[AC:RealTimeStrategy]]
* ''VideoGame/WarcraftIII'': Doom is the Pit Lord's ultimate spell. It prevents the target from casting, does massive damage over time, is uncancelable (though the unit can be healed to delay the inevitable) and spawns a huge Doom Guard once the target dies.
** Parasite is a much, much less dangerous version: it only deals minor damage, eventually dispels itself, and spawns a very weak minion on death.

[[AC:{{Roguelike}}]]
* ''VideoGame/NetHack'' has a "sick" (food poisoning) condition which is fatal if not cured within a few turns; a delayed-effect petrification status caused by [[spoiler:hearing a cockatrice hiss]] which can be cured by [[spoiler:eating an acidic food, praying or best yet, eating a lizard corpse\]]; Also the attack of a green slime can cause your character to start [[ViralTransformation turning into a green slime]] methods of curing include [[spoiler: praying, being hit with a fire spell, casting the spell "cure sickness", wearing an amulet of unchanging, or somewhat illogically, polymorphing into a green slime]].

[[AC:RolePlayingGame]]
* In ''VideoGame/EarthBound'' and ''VideoGame/Mother3'', your HP doesn't go down instantly when hit by an attack. It instead slowly rolls down, and stops doing so if the battle ends before the full damage is acknowledged. This means that, if your character is at a high enough level, any physical damage that should kill you effectively becomes a Doom effect instead, allowing you to survive through healing or winning the battle before you die. This doesn't stop death-inducing Flash attacks, however.
* The Perish Song attack in ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' works this way, and combined with Mean Look it makes a good strategy against stallers. However, using it when both players are down to their last Pokémon in tournament play is illegal. Cursola's Perish Body ability also causes the Perish Song effect when an enemy makes contact with them.
** Also as mentioned above, Brass in the ''VideoGame/WildArms'' series.
* Some Psynergy in the ''VideoGame/GoldenSun'' franchise puts an eight-turn counter on a certain character, after which they die. This is denoted by four flames next to their head which gradually go out. If a character is hit with this, the game's battle text exclaims that "The Spirit of Death embraces _____"!
* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII'', [[SummonMagic Eidolons]] cast this spell on your party leader the instant you start to fight them, essentially making their battles {{Timed Mission}}s. A lot of bosses will also do this if your party takes too long to kill them. It's also the only status effect in the game that is totally unavoidable.
* In the first two ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' games, being irradiated to 1000 rads causes death within 24 hours(unless Rad-Aways are used), as opposed to the Instant Death in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' and ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas''.
* In ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsI'', the Phantom curses each member of the party in turn (with Sora for last). When the hands of Big Ben make one full rotation, the cursed party member will die, and cannot be resurrected for the rest of the fight (signified by a series of flames at the number positions that disappear as the hands move). Casting Stop on the clock's hands pauses this timer temporarily.
* In ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'', Marluxia's boss fight exclusively puts a Doom counter on Sora. It decrements each time he gets hit, and when it hits 0, you instantly lose the fight. Certain Command Actions can increase the Doom counter. The counter is based on your level. [[OneHitPointWonder If you're doing a Level 1 run...]]
* The "Screwed" status effect in ''VideoGame/SouthParkTheStickOfTruth'' kills off a character after a certain number of turns if not cured.
* ''VideoGame/{{Sonny}} 2'' has "Death Sentence", a nasty variant that ''will'' kill you. It's an ''undispellable'' debuff which deals 9999 damage (or 100% of your health, whichever is more) per turn, ''over 10 turns''. The description even states that the target is pretty much dead.
--> This unit is going to die. This effect cannot be dispelled. What is going to be your last move?
* Instant death spells in ''VideoGame/LufiaCurseOfTheSinistrals'' cause a black sphere to appear around the character. If not destroyed by attacks in time, the character falls.
* ''VideoGame/PersonaQShadowOfTheLabyrinth'': The final boss starts off the fight by slapping timers onto your party members that click down as they take turns... or he decides to lop one off on the spot. When the timer hits zero, they drop dead. It can be staved off with items like Revival Bead and Recarm, but it's only postponing the inevitable. [[spoiler: Fitting for the [[WeAllDieSomeday theme of the game]], really.]]
* ''VideoGame/Persona5'' has 'Despair', an especially nasty variant that prevents the inflicted character from moving, saps their SP turn by turn, and on turn three, [[DeathByDespair down they go]].
* ''VideoGame/LostOdyssey'''s Petrification status is a weird version of this: when hit by it, the target, friend or foe, shows Signs of Petrification. In three turns, a party member will [[TakenForGranite turn to stone]]: annoying but curable with an item. Enemies, on the other hand, will simply drop dead on the spot.

[[AC:TurnBasedStrategy]]
* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTactics'', an additional Doom counter comes into being after a character dies. If that counter reaches 0, the character is [[FinalDeath lost]] (unless it's an undead, in which case it might revive instead.) If this happens to Ramza, GameOver.

[[AC:WebComics]]
* One ''Webcomic/{{Adventurers}}'' strip had Drecker hit with Doom, and complaining that he only got one second for each stage of grief. Another character points out he spent six seconds whining.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Critical]]
A character in Critical condition is low on hitpoints and near-death. Highly variable between games, it can unlock [[DesperationAttack desperation moves]] (as in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' or some of the ''[[VideoGame/TalesSeries Tales]]'' games) or simply cause effects like a hunched-over posture, a red-tinged screen, or an [[CriticalAnnoyance alert bell]]. Seeing this as a negative thing to varying degrees is a something of an aversion of CriticalExistenceFailure. Attacks that specifically ''cause'' Critical status instead of inflicting normal damage -- e.g., HPToOne -- are rare and often reserved for bosses.

[[AC:BeatEmUp]]
* All Umbran Witches such as VideoGame/{{Bayonetta}} make a DealWithTheDevil (several, in fact) to gain their powers. Thus, when Bayonetta's health is minimal, small shadow hands begin to reach at her from the edges of the screen, as the demons prepare to claim her soul.

[[AC:First Person Shooter]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' and ''Videogame/DukeNukem'' has enemies fall to their knees trying to hold their guts inside, bleeding profusely and screaming their last; light-aeons to an entire dimension away from home. They can be insta-killed by a melee attack.
* ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands}}'' and its sequels have Fight For Your Life mode, triggered when your health hits 0. After a brief animation, you're knocked down and your vision starts to decrease, but you have several seconds to kill something or ask your co-op partner to revive you. If you succeed, you're back on your feet -- otherwise, you go back to the last [[RespawnPoint New-U Station]]. To prevent players from abusing it, the timer gets shorter if you get knocked down several times in succession, to the point where it ticks down almost instantly.
* ''VideoGame/{{Overwatch}}'': When a character is below 1/3 of their max health, the screen turns red at the edges and audible gasps can be heard.

[[AC:{{MMORPG}}s]]
* While it is not classified formally as a status effect, reaching a given percentage of health has a myriad of positive and negative effects in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft''.
** Several classes have "[[FinishingMove Execute]]" abilities (including the [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin warrior ability Execute]] and the [[NoKillLikeOverkill hunter ability Kill Shot]]) which can only be used when the target is below 20% (sometimes 25%) health. Even more classes have talents that cause their normal abilites to be more powerful against low-health enemies.
** Many classes also gain benefits when their own health is reduced far enough; Rogues that have trained Cheat Death gain a powerful damage reduction ability [[OneHitPointWonder instead of hitting zero health]], although it only lasts a few seconds and can only activate every minute. Some casters automatically activate shields or self-heals at 50% health.
*** Properly-specced Priests even get healing bonuses on friendly targets at less than half health.
*** Many [=NPCs=] (including most bosses) and even certain player characters also get damage increases when their own health reaches a certain level, usually in the form of an "Enrage" effect. This makes the last phase of a fight particularly dangerous.
*** Others do it more gradually, gaining more abilities as their health declines.
* ''VideoGame/GuildWars2'' has the "downed" state: when your HP reaches 0, your character will fall to the ground and their skill bar will be replaced by a handful of "downed" skills. If you manage to kill something using these skills before your consciousness meter runs out, you will "rally" and return to form. Otherwise, you will die. If this happens underwater, you will go into a "drowning" state instead, which works in much the same way, except that you can also swim to the surface to rally.
* ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic'' has a few abilities that can only (normally) be used on targets under 30%, such as Quickdraw or Dispatch. Interestingly, it also has a heal that is (relatively) free if cast on a target under 30%.
* In ''VideoGame/PathOfExile'', this is called "Low Life". Skills, items and passives can provide bonuses against enemies at low life, or bonuses when your character is at low life themself.
* In ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarOnline2'', the Fighter class can trigger Deadline Slayer when below 25% HP, which grants a massive boost to your S-ATK and R-ATK.

[[AC:{{MOBA}}s]]
* ''VideoGame/HeroesOfTheStorm'': Zul'jin's trait ''[[TheBerserker Berserker]]'' causes him to attack faster the lower his current health is. His ultimate ''Gulliotine'' also deals more damage the more health Zul'jin is missing.
** Certain supports have talents that grant additional effects on healing heroes below 50% health, like Rehgar's ''Earthliving Enchant''.

[[AC:{{Roguelike}}]]
* ''VideoGame/DarkestDungeon'''s Death's Door status is a cross between this and a LastChanceHitPoint. Character hits this after their health hits 0 or they suffer a heart attack (caused by extremely high stress level). This comes with a massive penalty to most stats, and means any subsequent damage they take has a chance of causing FinalDeath. Healing by any amount removes this status, but part of the stat penalty will persist for the rest of dungeon, unless cured by certain camping skills.

[[AC:RolePlayingGame]]
* Starting from the third generation, certain abilities (Overgrow, Blaze, Torrent, and Swarm) can have a bonus to attacks of a ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'''s type when their HP is below 1/3 of their maximum.
** Certain berries only activate when the Pokemon is "in a pinch" (1/3 health or lower) as well. Couple that with certain attacks that do incredible amounts of damage when your Pokémon is near death (Reversal, Flail), and ''letting'' yourself get beat up by the opponent only to turn the tables seconds later becomes a viable option.
*** [[FunWithAcronyms F.E.A.R.]]: '''F'''ocus Sash + '''E'''ndeavor + Quick '''A'''ttack + '''R'''attata. The Focus Sash ensures that, if the user has full HP, [[LastChanceHitPoint the Mon holding it survives any attack with 1 HP]]. Endeavor sets the enemy's HP equal to the user's. Quick Attack always goes first and will take down that last 1 HP with mandatory ScratchDamage. Fortunately, ItOnlyWorksOnce, and can be easily countered if the opponent uses their own high-priority attack.
*** Taken to new extremes with the advent of [[VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite the 5th generation]] of games, where Sturdy, which used to only provide an immunity to the already-banned OHKO moves, now acts as a built-in Focus Sash that ''never goes away.'' Combine this with the normally [[UselessUsefulSpell Useless Useful Item]] Shell Bell, which restores approximately 1 HP for every 8 damage you do, and you have an invincible plank in Aron. Level 1 Aron + Endeavor (matches foe's HP to own) + Sturdy + Shell Bell + Sandstorm leads to: opponent attacks Aron, Sturdy leaves Aron at 1 HP, Aron uses Endeavor, lowering the opponent's HPToOne, Shell Bell fully restores, Aron's HP, enemy dies from Sandstorm (to which Aron is immune). Rinse and repeat.
* Some games have equipment that activate or increase in power when the wearer is in critical condition, such as "SOS" items in Square-Enix games.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' had "Desperation Attacks" -- when a character who was in Critical condition launched a standard physical attack, there was a chance of them using an [[LimitBreak extremely powerful move]] that would often turn the tide of battle. Each character had his or her own unique Desperation Attack.
* ''VideoGame/LostKingdoms'' doesn't really bother with this, unless you're the main character. Where you are, your movement becomes hindered the less hp you have, which makes you easy prey.
* ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIIINocturne'' has Hito-Shura take on a rather fetching red glow and stagger around holding his stomach when on the field.
** As a rule, ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'' games' bosses using ''Nocturne'''s battle system all have a move designed to fracture their one turn into two or four half-turns.
* ''VideoGame/PaperMario'' is a good example of how this can be a beneficial effect, as many badges provided great benefits to Mario when he was at 5 or less (or even only 1) HP. Being probably the most ubiquitous example, Mega Rush increased your attack power by FOUR TIMES if you had a single hit point remaining. This, coupled with an infinitely-comboable Powerbounce attack (and good timing) led to monumental amounts of damage being dealt. This could take out just about every boss that didn't start out invulnerable until a certain event happened (which happened far too often for this to be TOO abusable) before it even had the chance to attack, making it a staple tactic of speedrunners.
** Thus spawning the Danger Mario technique. Basically, there's an NPC in the game that can lower one stat (either HP, [[MagicPoints Flower Points]], or [[PowersAsPrograms Badge Points]] and boost another. Mario has a base 10 HP, and using the NPC will make it 5, putting him in Danger status. Stacking lots of Power Rushes (the aforementioned badge that increases Attack) creates an incredibly [[IncrediblyLamePun dangerous]] attacker, especially when using Powerbounce.
* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII'', being in critical condition is the most common way to trigger a LimitBreak. Since the only other method is by use of a spell that isn't very easy to get and doesn't last very long, this makes it oddly desirable to keep at least part of the active party terminally at critically low HP in order to turn out {{Limit Break}}s at will.
* If a party member other than the main character is knocked into Critical in ''VideoGame/{{Persona 3}}'', they may ask you to let them leave the fight. This can get annoying if they have healing magic, because if you tell them to stay, they'll tell you off... then heal themselves. You suffer no penalties for ordering them to keep fighting, incidentally.
* The ''[[VideoGame/TalesSeries Tales]]'' series have always approached this effect somewhat differently with systems like Overlimit and Spirits Blaster. At first, this just provided temporary immunity to staggering when the target took enough damage (essentially, it was something of a desperation move). However, as the games went on, Overlimit gained a gauge that could be built up through causing and receiving damage. Characters were still immune to staggering after it was activated, except the overpowered Mystic Artes were now easier to use since you could trigger them on a whim.
** ''VideoGame/TalesOfVesperia'' takes this one step further with the option to stack up to four Overlimits at once. The [=PS3=] version increased this to ''eight''.
* In ''VideoGame/SandsOfDestruction'', when a character gets to critical, they get a unique "critical" pose. Morte uses her double-bladed sword to support herself, for instance, and Kyrie slouches. Taupy gets two, in one, he becomes unsteady on his feet, in another, he pulls a crutch out of {{Hammerspace}}.
* The Nerd Rage perk in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' and ''VideoGame/{{Fallout New Vegas}}'' increases a player's Strength and Damage Resistance when below 20% HP.
* In ''VideoGame/ChildOfLight'', both player characters and enemies will go into a "tired" position when their health gets low. This is the only indicator that an enemy is about to go down, as their health is hidden. Certain Occuli equips allow characters to deal more or receive less damage when in critical condition.
* ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarNova'' gives us Deadline Slayer, a late-game ability that grants a whopping ''+5000'' S-ATK and R-ATK when your HP is less than 25%.

[[AC:SurvivalHorror]]
* The ''Franchise/ResidentEvil'' series has characters hold their sides when injured and limp when near death. Due to EarlyInstallmentWeirdness, the first game lacked such a feature.

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

[[AC: TurnBasedStrategy]]
* ''VideoGame/SouthParkTheFracturedButWhole'' has this as a purely aesthetical effect. When a character loses enough health, they appear damaged, their portrait in the turn order timeline turns red, and they occasionally say unique battle quotes.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Minimized/Shrunk]]
A rarer effect, but still seen in disparate works, this status effect makes the victim physically shrink, to varying degrees. Generally this makes the victim vulnerable to damage (either in general or from being stomped) and/or weakens them, but it can also have beneficial effects (usually by making the victim harder to hit).

[[AC:FirstPersonShooter]]
* ''VideoGame/DukeNukem'' Features the Shrinker (or Shrink Ray), a... well, ShrinkRay that makes enemies vulnerable to OneHitKill by stomping. Notably, the player can affect themselves with the weapon if there's a mirror handy, which can be used to bypass enemies or squeeze through tight spaces, though the player can't attack at all until it wears off.

[[AC:PlatformGame]]
* Some characters in ''VideoGame/SlyCooper'' (usually [[TheSmartGuy Bentley]]) have access to "reduction bombs", "shrink ammo", a "size destabilizer", etc., which shrinks affected guards to half their size, halving the damage they deal and doubling the damage they take, until it wears off. It also makes enemies voices higher pitched.
* Some of the classic ''Franchise/{{SonicTheHedgehog}}'' games have this as a mechanic. In VideoGame/{{Sonic the Hedgehog CD}} and VideoGame/{{SonicMania}}, there are [[ShrinkRay Shrink Rays]] that let you get through small spaces but otherwise not changing your stats. In VideoGame/{{KnucklesChaotix}} on the other hand, getting shrunken (In this case by smashing shrink monitors) makes you slower and decreases your jump abilities, but making you lighter, allowing you to fly or glide longer. The shrink effect is temporary in Chaotix, but in CD and Mania you have to find a grow ray to bring you back to normal size.

[[AC:RacingGame]]
* The ''VideoGame/MarioKart'' series has the Lightning attack, which shrinks all of one's opponents, causing them to drop their items and move much slower, as well as be SquashedFlat when hit by a normal-sized racer.

[[AC:{{Roguelike}}]]
* ''VideoGame/TheBindingOfIsaac'': God's Flesh gives Isaac a small chance to shrink struck enemies, which lowers their speed and [[OneHitKill instantly kills them]] [[SquashedFlat if they're stepped on]].

[[AC:RolePlayingGame]]
* ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' feature the move "Minimize", which nominally raises the user's evasion (dodge chance) significantly (making it theoretically a status buff) and has some cosmetic effects, but also causes the user to take doubled damage from a wide variety of attacks (generally those that have to do with crushing forces or pressure, like "Stomp", "Steamroll", or "Phantom Force") and said attacks will ''never'' miss a minimized character.

[[AC:TabletopGames]]
* ''Franchise/DungeonsAndDragons'' has the "Reduce" spell, which shrinks a target, reducing their strength and melee damage, and also affecting their size category, which depending on edition can have a whole host of secondary effects. The "Enlarge" spell is its buff counterpart. There are situations where the buff/debuff nature of these spells is reversed, though-- sometimes being smaller is actually an advantage.

[[AC:TowerDefense]]
* ''VideoGame/PlantsVsZombies2ItsAboutTime'': The Shrinking Violet shrinks zombies in a 3x3 down to a small size and [[DamageIncreasingDebuff makes them take extra damage]] while eating slower. In the case of the already-small Imps, it's a OneHitKill as it shrinks them down to oblivion.

[[/folder]]

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

[[AC:ActionAdventure]]
* Curse works differently in the ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'' games:
** ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaRondoOfBlood'' and ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaHarmonyOfDissonance'': Slows down character's movement.
** ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaSymphonyOfTheNight'' and ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaCircleOfTheMoon'': Character is unable to attack or defend.
** ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaChroniclesOfSorrow'', ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaPortraitOfRuin'', and ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaOrderOfEcclesia'': MP level drops FAST.
** ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaLamentOfInnocence'': Character is unable to perform combos.
** In ''VideoGame/{{Castlevania 64}}'', being bitten by a vampire renders the character unable to attack or recover health, and they [[NonStandardGameOver eventually]] [[AndThenJohnWasAZombie turn into a vampire themselves]] unless you find a Purifying Crystal.
* In certain ''Zelda'' games, being touched by a Bubble disables your sword, either temporarily, or permanently until you use a potion, touch a Blue Bubble or visit a fairy. In ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword Skyward Sword]]'', cursed enemies disable all items for a period of time. In a game where enemies fight smartly and Link's shield is more vital than ever, this is the last thing you want -- get a Sacred Shield ASAP!
* In ''VideoGame/HollowKnight'', if the player forcibly equips a Charm that requires more Notches than are available, they become "Overcharmed", which causes them to take double damage.

[[AC:HackAndSlash]]
* ''VideoGame/DiabloII'' has the Necromancer class, with a whole tree devoted to various curses. These curses can lower an enemy's resistance to physical or elemental damage(Amplify Damage and Lower Resist), or cause various other status effects such as Fear or Confuse(via the Terror and Confuse curses, respectively). Other classes can sometimes use these curses via charged items(such as a Wand of Lower Resist) or items with a chance to cast a specific curse upon striking(such as the popular Dracul's Grasp unique gloves, with their 5% chance to cast Life Tap on striking).
* ''VideoGame/PathOfExile'' has a category of debuffs classified as "curses". Curses have a variety of effects like increasing an enemy's damage vulnerability or slowing them down, but by default each enemy can have only one curse on them at a time. Curses are split into two categories: Hexes are applied in an [=AoE=] and become more powerful over time if cast manually, while Marks are limited to one singular target at any time but have a generally stronger effect and ignore hex immunity. Some peculiar builds even put curses on themselves to their benefit.

[[AC:{{MMORPG}}s]]
* One particularly potent one is from ''VideoGame/GuildWars'': [[NightmareFuel Spectral Agony.]] [[OneHitKill 80% slowed movement and attack speed, and 100hp loss/second (base max hp is ~500).]]
** On a less severe note, a major type of debuff in the game is the "hex". Most spellcasting classes can apply hexes, but Necromancers and Mesmers in particular excel at them. Necros even have a skill line called "Curses", while mesmers can dip into "Domination" or "Illusion Magic".
* In ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'', the Warlock class is a master of Curses:
** Curse of Agony, which deals increasing damage as time passes.
** Curse of the Elements, which both reduces the target's magic resistances and increases the damage they take from magic attacks.
** Curse of Tongues, which slows casting speed.
** Curse of Weakness, which reduces the target's armor and physical attack power.
** Curse of Exhaustion, which lowers the target's movement speed.
** Curse of Doom, which deal a large amount of damage after a certain amount of time passes.
* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI'', Curse reduces max HP and movement speed and usually lasts a maddeningly long time if not cured with Cursna or holy water.
* ''VideoGame/SpiralKnights'' has a rare but powerful curse effect: A cursed player has certain weapons and items marked by the curse, and attempting to use them causes damage. At endgame, this can easily be the entire inventory of the player. At the status lasts 30 seconds (compared to the 7 seconds of everything else). For the enemies, it just damages them every time they do something. The only non-vial method of inflicting the status is the (Gran) Faust. Both yours and that Phantom's.
* ''VideoGame/PerfectWorld'' has "increased damage taken" for its Curse effect. Player-character classes with skills that can inflict it include the Blademaster (Heaven's Flame), Venomancer (Amplify Damage), and Archer (Blood Vow). AI-controlled enemies that can inflict Curse on players are mercifully few and far between.

[[AC:RealTimeStrategy]]
* ''VideoGame/WarcraftIII'': The Curse spell makes a unit miss a third of its attacks, while the Cripple spell does horrible things to the unit's movement and attack speed and reduces their damage by half.

[[AC:{{Roguelike}}]]
* In ''VideoGame/DesktopDungeons,'' being Cursed negates all of the player's damage resistance or reduction until it's removed (generally by killing a non-cursed enemy).
* In the ''VideoGame/IzunaLegendOfTheUnemployedNinja'' series, Curse halves your Exp. gains until you descend to the next floor. This can be problematic early on, but becomes a UselessUsefulSpell for your enemies once you hit the level cap.

[[AC:RolePlayingGame]]
* Another nasty one is Disease from the later ''VideoGame/{{Wizardry}}'' games, which while technically a Plague, operates like a curse, and will steadily destroy a character from their skills to permanent stat damage, from which there is no recovery-not even death and resurrection will restore the character.
* Similarly, Disease from the ''VideoGame/WildArms'' games will prevent the character from healing while it's in effect.
* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII'' & ''X'', a Cursed character is unable to perform Limit Breaks or Overdrives. It didn't help in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'' that the aeons were immune to all status effects BUT curse. Of course, those select bosses have status effect causing attack with a myriad of effects. If one's really unlucky, one of the characters will be Cursed. If an aeon gets hit by said attack, they '''always''' get cursed.
* In ''VideoGame/TreasureOfTheRudra'', Curse is called Pollution: character cannot cast Mantras until Purifier is used or a Costly MP Mantra is cast that can Purify it [[spoiler: PERSUAN]]
* And then there's the famous "Mushroom" status from ''VideoGame/EarthBound'', which is essentially this.
** Certain zombie or spirit enemies (such as Zombie Possessor, Stinky Ghost, and Evil Elemental) can use an attack that possesses a party member, which would add a Tiny Li'l Ghost to your party, who would attack and solidify you during battle. It's curable by visiting the hospital to get the ghost exorcised... but half the enemies that possess you are found in dungeons that are nowhere near hospitals. [[spoiler: Or you could just get hit by an attack that hits your entire party, killing the ghost in the process...]]
* An odd case in VideoGame/{{Pokemon}}. The move Curse works differently depending on the type of the Pokémon using it. Ghost type Pokémon remove 50% of their own HP to inflict a poison-like status on the enemy that cuts 1/4 of their HP every turn, and this can stack with other status ailments. Any other type will lower their speed to raise defense and attack. (The reason for this is due to a LostInTranslation pun in the original Japanese. The Japanese name for this attack is ''Noroi'', which can mean either "curse" or "slow" due to AlternateCharacterReading.)
* ''Super Mario RPG'''s version of the Fear status would fall under this category, as it halves the target's attack and defense stats.
* Individual characters can become cursed in ''VideoGame/GoldenSun'', but by two totally different ways. The first way is for a spirit to become bonded with some character, which normally doesn't do much except cause ScratchDamage every odd turn. The second way is to equip something that is cursed (the game will always tell you what equipment is cursed, and the equipment usually has foreboding names, like Devil's Plate and whatnot). Cursed equipment normally has resoundingly high bonuses, but in exchange you cannot remove the equipment, and your character will occasionally be unable to move during battle. Both curses cannot be removed by any item or spell, and you must visit a healer to fix yourself.
** There is, however, an item called [[http://goldensun.wikia.com/wiki/Cleric%27s_Ring "Cleric's Ring"]] that one can equip to nullify a curse's effect. Using a cursed weapon while wearing said item can make for a very powerful character, but the weapon cannot be unequipped without visiting a healer.
* ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIIINocturne'' has the Magatama-imparted curses -- they weaken you, make you randomly attack allies, and is generally a horrible nuisance. However, being affected by a curse changes the rules in Demon Fusion, making it more likely to inherit better skills and stats -- as long as the result of the Fusion is a demon of the darker races, such as Fiends, Fouls, or Fallens.
** ''VideoGame/DigitalDevilSaga'' uses another form of Curse, which inflicts upon you the same amount of Physical damage you deal to enemies. It also makes anyone afflicted more susceptible to the Mudo line of spells, which inflict instant death.
* In ''VideoGame/EtrianOdyssey'', Curse causes the affected character to take half the damage they inflict to their enemy. This is a loathed status effect due to HealthDamageAsymmetry: Enemies, especially bosses, have thousands to tens of thousands of HP but deals maybe just hundreds of HP at a time, while your characters who cannot have more than [[{{Cap}} 999 HP]] can deal upwards to thousands to HP damage with the right skill, which means a cursed enemy can inflict TotalPartyKill on you while suffering little more than scratch, while your cursed party can cause TotalPartyKill on ''themselves'' if they decide to go crazy with damage. Even worse, some enemies will only give specific VendorTrash items if they die from the Curse backlash damage, which often necessitates the use of [[TooAwesomeToUse Formaldehyde]] which allows you to obtain said special drops regardless of how you kill the enemy.
* ''''VideoGame/BlackSigil'': Blade of the Exiled'': It's not displayed in battle, but two of your characters spend a good portion of the game Cursed. The effect being that you tend to start battles with anywhere from one to four random status effects and debuffs. Can be a bit annoying when you catch fire as soon as you see a monster.
* ''VideoGame/DragonQuest'' uses Curse to cause a Stun effect. In ''VideoGame/DragonQuestVIII'', one bit of foreshadowing is that Curse doesn't work on the main character -- while its failure on most characters is "(Character) dodged out of the way", for the main character it's always "But the curse dissipates before it reaches (Hero)!"
* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII'', Curse made you less likely to interrupt enemy actions and more prone to getting your own actions interrupted by the enemy. Its beneficial counterpart, Vigilance, did the exact opposite (they cancel each other out when cast on the same target).
* In ''VideoGame/{{Xenosaga}}'', a cursed character will receive mirror damage. It's particularly unnerving if you don't have anything to get rid of the curse.
* In ''VideoGame/ChronoCross'', a cursed character takes stamina damage along with regular damage.
* In ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'':
** In the first game, Basilisks (and Seath the Scaleless) can inflict a 'cursed' status upon you if you stay in their steam for too long. Not only does it instantly turn you to stone and kill you, it also '''permanently''' halves your health bar until you use a Purging Stone or go to the healer in New Londo, which requires trekking through a dangerous ruin filled with ghosts. Before patch 1.05, the halving effect even ''stacked'', meaning you could end up with a tiny sliver of a health bar if you were cursed multiple times.
** ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsII'' split cursed into two effects, one keeping the name which causes the same amount of [[MaximumHPReduction hollowing]] as one death and the other, called petrification, getting the instant death effect.
** ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsIII'' brings back "cursed" status, which has just been made into an Instant Death petrification effect this time.
* In the ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' series, the player character can become addicted to certain drugs and suffer withdrawal, with subsequently lowered stats. In the first couple games most addictions are temporary, but in ''3'' and ''New Vegas'', all are permanent unless tended to by a doctor.
** ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 4}}'' has a disease inflicted by the Mole Rats in Vault 81 that decreases your maximum HP by 10; the only way to cure yourself is to use the medicine intended for Austin, causing you to fail the "Hole in the Wall" quest.
* The ''[[VideoFame/{{Neptunia}} Hyperdimension Neptunia]]'' series has the Virus status effect, which knocks a CPU out of Super Mode and prevents them from transforming again. In most games, [[BadassNormal Makers]] can be afflicted with the condition as well, and will even slouch over like with any status effect, despite Virus having no effect on their performance whatsoever.

[[AC:TabletopGame]]
* Curses in ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'' work similarly to poisons and diseases, in that you get an initial save to resist them, and if you fail, you get various penalties and have to make periodic additional saves to avoid further problems. Unlike diseases or poisons, however, curses generally can't be recovered from natually, no matter how many subsequent saves you make-- only magic can remove them.

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

[[AC:WideOpenSandbox]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Terraria}}'':
** Cursed, which prevents the player from using items.
** Weak, which reduces all physical stats, and Withered Weapon, which halves all damage.
** Ichor, Broken Armor and Withered Armor, which reduce defense by 20 (the first) and to half its value (the other two). There's a variant of Ichor called Betsy's Curse, more powerful (40 instead of 20) and available only to players.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Zombie]]
This puts you in a ReviveKillsZombie situation in which healing damages you and instant-death attacks may heal you, often coupled with losing control of the character ''à la'' Berserk or Charm. Beyond that, you become immune to a great deal of the other status effects, since they wouldn't effect the dead, such as poison or doom.

[[AC:ActionGame]]
* ''VideoGame/MetalSlug'' series has two, Mummification and zombification:
** In ''2/X'', ''3'' and ''4'', getting hit by the purple mummy breath, the purple smoke dropped by bats or the purple rolling bombs spat out by mummies will turn player character into a Mummy. In this state, the character's speed is lowered but their jump height is increased, and there's a lag time between throwing grenades. They're still vulnerable to any damage and getting hit by anything will kill them. It's curable by touching a red potion.
** In ''3'' and ''4'', getting hit by {{Zombie Puke Attack}}s will turn the character into a zombie instead of killing them. When zombified, the character slows to a crawl, gets a much lower jump height and will die if hit by zombie vomit again. However, it also makes them immune to most other forms of damage, and makes their grenade into a [[BloodyMurder massive stream of bloody puke]] that does ''crazy'' amounts of damage to enemies in front. It's cured by touching a medkit, which scientist zombies [[CarryingTheAntidote conveniently drop]].

[[AC:EdutainmentGame]]
* Being Fuzzed in ''VideoGame/AgentUSA'' causes the Agent to randomly wander until the entire country gets fuzzed or they run into a PowerCrystal by chance.

[[AC:{{MMORPG}}s]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Maplestory}}'' has a debuff called Zombify, which makes characters take damage from the priest's heal, and reduces the amount of HP recovered from potions by one half. However, it has no other effects.

[[AC:RolePlayingGame]]
* Most Franchise/FinalFantasy games have this effect. ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'' makes the most famous use of it.
** During one boss fight, the boss hits party members with Zombie... and then casts Total Heal on them, killing them instantly. A later boss fight takes it even further, as the boss will use Zombie and Curaga in conjuction -- and then starts the last phase of the fight with a partywide instant death spell; you ''cannot'' survive if you've cured your entire party of zombification!
*** That petrifying underwater boss mentioned in earlier sections also happens to be a zombie itself. And you can target healing items on enemies. Using a hyper potion is a very cathartic way to instant-kill that boss once it has instant-killed one of your party members by petrification.
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTacticsA2'' [[PlayedForDrama plays this for drama]] with a character who survives an assassination attempt to [[ZombifyTheLiving turning her into an undead monster.]] The former paladin wanders the land, unsure why people flee from her and why healing potions hurt her, until she manages to recover with the assistance of the party. This is somewhat noteworthy as the status effect doesn't otherwise exist in the IvaliceAlliance games.
* Animate Dead in ''VideoGame/RomancingSaGa'', It's casted on a fallen character and the affected character is under the caster's control and fights as it's ally, those afflicted by it cannot be lifted of it until they run out of HP again unless you have the Moonstone or anything that Negates Necromancy magic. Only 2 bosses use it, bad news is that one of them is the final boss.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Decover]]

An effect that [[AntiRegeneration prevents the target from being healed]], barring whatever ability is meant to remove the status effect itself. Often achieved by turning regular damage into MaximumHPReduction.

[[AC:FirstPersonShooter]]
* In ''[[VideoGame/FirstEncounterAssaultRecon F3AR]]'', the Creep's presence prevents health regeneration.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Overwatch}}'', [[FriendlySniper Ana]]'s ''Biotic Grenade'' turns enemies' health bars purple, preventing them from healing until it wears off.

[[AC:MMORPG]]
* ''VideoGame/PerfectWorld'' has the Lord of Paradise, final boss in an extremely tough dungeon called the Uncharted Paradise, inflict a limited version of Decover (reducing the effectiveness of healing spells and potions) on every player in his arena while he is active. This is especially baneful when he summons mini-bosses or Nightmares (AI dopplegangers of player classes) that need to be killed as soon as possible.

[[AC:MultiplayerOnlineBattleArena]]
* Lord Salforis in ''VideoGame/HeroesOfNewerth'' is built around decovery effects. One of his skills deals a lot of damage up front, but makes them regenerate a portion of the damage taken over time but cut down the effectiveness of heals by half. Another skill lets him steal half an enemy's natural health regen for himself, which means his first skill effectively deals more damage while giving Lord Salforis bonus health regen. Finally, his ultimate curses an enemy to take damage over time and completely cut off any heals or health regen from it, ensuring certain death, provided their health was low enough.
* ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'' has Grievous Wounds, which reduces healing and regeneration by 50%. Though originally designed to counter the enemy's WhiteMage champions, Grievous Wounds better serves to counter aggressive champions that rely on copious LifeDrain. (Following a long series of healing nerfs to make wearing a champion down instead of having to kill them outright a viable bottom lane strategy, Soraka is the only champion whose primary contribution is healing, and even her normal heal comes with a massive temporary armor boost to the target.) It's available through a couple items, the summoner ability Ignite inflicts it, and Tristana, Varus, and Fizz have abilities that apply it.
* In ''VideoGame/Dota2'', this is the Ancient Apparition's signature ability: his ultimate spell, Ice Blast, completely prevents any affected foes from increasing their current HP in any way, making him a must-pick against heroes who can regenerate large amounts of health such as Huskar or the Alchemist.
* Multiple characters in ''VideoGame/HeroesOfTheStorm'' have talents that can add healing reduction to their existing abilities (Varian's ''Mortal Strike'', Malfurion's ''Strangling Vines''), or as a separate new ability (Malthael's ''Touch of Death'', Garrosh's ''Brute Force''). Extremely useful against large burst healing like Rehgar's ''Ancestral Healing''.

[[AC:{{Roguelike}}]]
* In the ''VideoGame/IzunaLegendOfTheUnemployedNinja'' series, Shoulder Ache is a combination of this and ''Silenced'', preventing you from throwing items and raising healing orbs (unusually, including the {{Panacea}}, meaning you have to wait it out).

[[AC:RolePlayingGame]]
* "Thirsty" in ''VideoGame/DarkCloud 2'' prevented the player from healing until it was taken care of.
* ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'' has the Curse of Mortality, which blocks all healing while also dealing a small amount of damage. The effect is only active for a limited time, but because of how important healing spells and health poultices are, it often dooms party members that it hits. [[UselessUsefulSpell Also, because enemies rarely use healing, learning it is not much use to the player.]]
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'' has the Disease status that prevents the character from recovering their HP. Every time they take damage, their max HP also drops until it falls to just 1 HP. If they are knocked out and revived, their HP will still stay at 1 until you cure the status. Disease gets lethal when combined with Sap (bleeding) and/or Poison.
* It's named "Poison", but ''VideoGame/PhantasyStar'' games treat it like this, preventing party members from recovering HP until cured by a doctor, an Antidote or the Anti technique.
* The move Heal Block will prevent a Franchise/{{Pokemon}} from healing for five turns. Even health-draining attacks like Giga Drain won't heal the user, although they still do damage. Items used by Trainers still work, but that's worthless in competitive play.
* ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei''
** Appears in ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIV'' as Brand. Though few enemies can inflict it, all of them DLC (Raphael's Stigmata Strike, Gabriel's Lamentation and the Ancient of Days' Stigmatic Gleam) it can be one of the most horrible ailments, given it cannot be healed even with Salvation; it naturally fades over time.
** Both ''VideoGame/DevilSurvivor'' and ''VideoGame/DevilSurvivor2'' have Curse, an ailment inflicted by the Mystic-elemental spell Diajama and the higher-leveled Ghost Race demons' Racial Skill Possession respectively, which drops all HP and MP recovery to zero. ''However'', rather than the horror that is Brand, Curse ''can'' be healed with Amrita, Prayer, or even the Megami Race demons' Racial Skill, significantly reducing the risk it poses.
* Disease in the ''VideoGame/WildArms'' series prevents the afflicted character from getting healed until cured.
* Downplayed in ''VideoGame/EpicBattleFantasy 4''. Some of [[BossInMooksClothing dragons]] can apply status that reduces the maximum HP of given character for a certain time (that can't be healed besides ending the battle, mind you). Naturally those HP can't be recovered.

[[AC:TurnBasedStrategy]]
* The Sneezing Zombie from ''VideoGame/PlantsVsZombiesHeroes'' prevents the Plant Hero and Plant teammates from healing any HP whatsoever as long as she is on the field. A very useful ability against the Solar plant class which has several healing abilities, including the very deadly Heartichoke[[note]]whenever a Plant or Plant Hero is healed, it hits the Zombie Hero for the same amount[[/note]] [[CycleOfHurting heal loop]] with the Venus Flytraplanet environment[[note]]When a plant on this deals damage, heal the Plant Hero by that amount[[/note]], as well as the Astro Vera[[note]]heals the Plant Hero by 10 ''and'' extends their maximum HP by 10[[/note]].
* In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemHeroes'', there's a variant called Deep Wounds, a status ailment that prevents a unit from healing. It also prevents the ally from getting healed by means of using healing assist skills such as Physic or Restore (though the latter cures Deep Wounds), Ardent Sacrifice and prevents [[LifeDrain life-draining Special Triggers like Noontime and Aether from healing itself]] where it functions like damage boosting special triggers.

[[AC:TurnBasedTactics]]
* ''VideoGame/FellSealArbitersMark'' has the Weaken debuff, which prevents a character from being healed directly. ''Indirect'' forms of healing like GradualRegeneration still work, however.

[[AC:WideOpenSandbox]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Terraria}}'' has Bleeding and Moon Bite, which prevent the player from regenerating health (the former passively, the latter through life steal).
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Other]]
Many games of course may come up with unique status effects of their own, or just ones that aren't always used.

[[AC:{{DatingSim}}s]]
* ''[[VideoGame/LivePowerfulProBaseball Power Pro-kun Pocket]]'' games usually have seven possible status effects divided between body and mental ("kokoro" -- heart in the figurative sense) ailments. They'll generally drop motivation and health between turns or prevent the protagonist from training, and to heal them the player [[LuckBasedMission must roll the dice]]. Two are particularly vicious: getting lovestuck causes the dating option to randomly be the only one available, but on top of that the protagonist can get so air-headed [[LookBothWays he'll be run over by a truck]] afterwards. The other one is ''becoming an otaku'' (or rather, a "mania"), which on top of also wasting turns is incurable in some of the games and leads to a bad ending where the protagonist becomes an useless shut-in.

[[AC:{{MMORPG}}s]]
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI'' features "Weight", which lowers evasion and movement speed.
** Also, "Muddle" prevents you from using items, under "Zombie" you cannot be cured, "Encumberance" removes all your gear and prevents you from re-equipping for a time, and "Amnesia" prevents you from using job abilities and weapon-skills.
* ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'' has a few odd ones:
** Debuffs that reduce the speed at which the target regains health or stamina.
** Debuffs that actually reduces the total health or stamina that the target can have.
** Debuffs that make it so that the target cannot actually be healed at all.
* ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter'' has a few other afflictions -- [[CoveredInMud Muddy]] is the desert counterpart to Snowy, [[DungFu Soiled]] prevents you from eating any items, Fatigue drains the stamina bar to its minimum value while preventing the use of food items that restore stamina, [[ShockAndAwe Thunderblight]] makes you easier to stun, and Dragonblight reduces your Affinity, which in turn reduces the amount of {{Critical Hit}}s you will land.
** In ''Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate'', Dragonblight also disables your weapon's element or status. It also introduces Slime (called Blastblight in later games), which causes the victim to explode for added pain after a period of time or from heavy trauma. Rolling will wipe the slime off, but make it quick!
** In ''Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate'', Seltas and Tetsucabra have a weaker version of Fatigue that only drains the stamina bar but allow it to restore over time. Web Bound is inflicted by Nerscylla to bind hunters in place until they can break free or until Nerscylla can inflict Sleep or Poison. Gogmazios may drop slicks of Oil that behave like both Web Bound and Slime.
** ''Monster Hunter Generations'' adds Bubbles, which improves evasive abilities but degrades into uncontrollable sliding and flailing if hit by bubbles a second time. Mucus does nothing on its own, but punishes dodging by causing debris to stick to the hunter and prevent most actions. This game also adds a standard control-reversing Confusion effect.
* ''VideoGame/MapleStory'' has seduce, which makes characters forced to move in a certain way, for example, jumping to the left, and you cannot use potions under this effect.
* ''VideoGame/PerfectWorld'' actually features an enemy that tries to kill players with PhlebotinumOverload: Tyrant Prince Mushi, final boss of an instanced dungeon called Flowsilver Palace that's very popular among endgamers, will periodically release an area-of-effect spell that instantly fills the Chi meter of all surrounding players to its maximum capacity. This spell acts as a OneHitKill on any player whose Chi meter is already full when it happens. [[BestBossEver Players with the right Chi-costly debuffing attacks, especially Blademasters (who have the greatest variety of such skills to choose from), find Mushi a joy to fight for this reason.]]
* ''VideoGame/GuildWars'' has Deep Wound, which reduces maximum HP and healing by 20% for its duration. This condition is popular amongst [=PvPers=] who like to use a tactic known as "spiking": the entire team targets a single enemy player, counts down from 3, then [[OneHitKill simultaneously blast them with their most powerful skills]].
** Corpses, of all things, get their own status effect: "Exploited". Once a corpse is exploited, it will turn black and cannot be exploited again, nor can it be unexploited (except through resurrecting and then dying again). This differs from the "Destroyed" effect mentioned above in that it doesn't affect the corpse's ability to get resurrected; instead, it's used to limit certain Necromancer skills which use corpses as a resource.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' has a number of status effects that do some unique things, along with the standard effects:
** Pacification: Prevents the use of weapon skills. Basically a "silenced" effect for physical fighters.
** Hysteria: You can't control yourself as your character moves around in random directions.
** Devoured: Player is eaten and takes damage over time. Instant KO will occur if the player isn't saved in time.
** Vulnerability Up: Damage taken is increased.
** Disease: Healing is less effective and movement speed is reduced.

[[AC:PlatformGame]]
* ''Franchise/RatchetAndClank'' has toyed with status-effect like abilities on their weapons (most notably in VideoGame/RatchetAndClankGoingCommando and VideoGame/RatchetDeadlocked), most of which are recognizable, but a few are more unique:
** Acid: Your basic DamageOverTime.
** Shock: ChainLightning made into a status effect. Earlier games in particular made it obviously a status effect, changing enemy's coloration and causing lightning bolts to occasionally arc off them towards nearby allies, over a long period of time. Later games decreased the duration and increased the rate of bolt-throwing to such a degree that it often just looks like a part of the weapon's basic functioning.
** Morph: A "Weird Transformation" effect. Usually (but not always) permanent, once inflicted. Even when not permanent, it prevents the afflicted from acting, and reduces their Hp considerably, allowing them to be taken out much more easily.
** Infection[=/=]Mind Control: A renamed "charm".
** Time Bomb: Theoretically a "Doom!" status effect, but in practice just extra damage.
** Dancing: Caused exclusively by "The Groovitron". In practice it's basically a sleep effect with some catchy music and a (hilarious) animation attached.

[[AC:PuzzleGame]]
* In ''VideoGame/ElementalStory'', bind monsters can neither attack nor use their skills until the effect wears off.

[[AC:RealTimeStrategy]]
* ''VideoGame/CompanyOfHeroes'' uses two sets of status effects, one for infantry and one for vehicles. High concentrations of fire, like from a [[MoreDakka MG42 or Browning .30cal]], can [[color:yellow:suppress]] and eventually [[color:red:pin]] enemy infantry, slowing their movement to a crawl and reducing their firepower drastically. Vehicles can suffer critical hits to various components, like engine or main gun [[color:red:Damaged]] or [[color:red:Destroyed]], in addition to being [[color:yellow:buttoned]] up by Bren gun fire. The ones that both infantry and vehicles both suffer from are [[color:gray:stun]] and burn damage (no text color to indicate this, but then again it's rather hard to not notice the flames).
** ''VideoGame/DawnOfWar 2'' (which runs on the same engine) uses a similar but simplified system that resembles its TabletopStrategy counterpart. Infantry under fire from heavy weapons or special attacks can be suppressed (glowing red unit tag), cutting movement and attack. Vehicles can be disabled (can't do anything for a few seconds), suffer rear armor hits (increased damage, or any damage at all from small arms fire) or go out of control (roll forward swerving wildly and damaging anything it runs over until it hits a wall and explodes), all shown by brief text tags.
* ''VideoGame/TownOfSalem'' has the Plaguebearer's infection. Infected players spread the infection by visiting others or being visited. Infection itself has no apparent effects, but once all players are infected, the Plaguebearer transforms into the [[NighInvulnerability nigh-invulnerable]] [[EldritchAbomination Pestilence]].
** Additionally, the [[PyroManiac Arsonist]] can douse players at night. Doused players are killed when the Arsonist ignites his targets and have their investigation results permanently changed to Bodyguard/Godfather/Arsonist/Crusader. Thus, even if the Arsonist dies before igniting, doused players still cause plenty of confusion for investigators. [[EvilSorcerer Hex Masters]] can inflict a similar status effect called Hex, which kills automatically once all non-coven players are hexed.

[[AC:{{Roguelike}}]]
* Many {{Roguelike}}s have the "teleportitis" status effect, which periodically induces TeleportationMisfire.
* ''VideoGame/{{Elona}}'' has several:
** "Anorexia" makes you unable to eat anything - any attempt will result in copious vomiting and stat loss. [[ObviousRulePatch Caused by abusing the game's hunger system.]]
** "Gravity" negates the ability to fly, making the player suspectible to ground-based hazards. Inflicted by the Mine Dog, a monster which also lays landmines on the ground.
** "Insanity" will inflict random status effects. Inflicted by ThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow, or by [[IAteWhat eating human flesh]].
** "Pregnant" makes a hostile alien burst out of your chest after some time. Caused by XenomorphXerox encounters, or by drinking dirty water.
* In the ''VideoGame/IzunaLegendOfTheUnemployedNinja'' series:
** Forgetful gives you a random chance of dropping an item every turn. It's a mild inconvenience at best.
** Sweaty unequips your equipment, and prevents you from equipping anything until it wears off. This can be problematic while you're being swarmed.
** Straddling the line between beneficial and detrimental, Floating keeps you from picking up items or descending the stairs to the next floor, but also keeps you from triggering traps.
** The game also treats your two available buffs as ailments, causing the {{Panacea}} to remove them along with detrimental effects. Awakened increases your accuracy and evasion, and Excited doubles the damage you deal.
* ''VideoGame/NetHack'' has the "aggravate monster" status effect, which is basically the opposite of stealth: you're much more likely to wake up nearby sleeping monsters, and monsters can tell where you are even if you're {{invisible}}.
* ''VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeon'' games feature many unique status effects specific to seed and orb items only found in those games. A couple of examples:
** The X-Eye Seed afflicts a Pokémon with "X-Eye". For the player this makes every other Pokémon on the floor look like a Substitute doll (making allies and enemies indistinguishable and, like Confusion, allowing FriendlyFire), makes all items and exposed special tiles on the ground look like flowers, and makes all dots on the map green (usually allies are white, enemies are red, and items are blue)--it's essentially the closest you'll come to tripping acid in Pokémon. For allies and enemies the first effect is the only really relevant one; it makes everyone else look like a wild Pokémon, so afflicted allies will attack you and afflicted enemies will leave you alone.
** The Stairs Orb afflicts the target with "Stairs", which warps it to the stairs on that floor of the dungeon (which is more useful when you're using an X-Ray Specs or Radar Orb and can see where your target gets warped to on the map) and keeps it petrified until it is attacked.

[[AC:RolePlayingGame]]
* Certain RPG games have an "Eject" status, where a character is kicked out of the fight (sometimes literally) for a while, or even for the entire battle. Some examples are certain enemies or bosses the ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' series, the King Calamari boss fight in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioRPG'', and the beetle enemies in ''VideoGame/AttackTheLight''.
* ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiStrangeJourney'' has Bomb. If a character suffering from Bomb is hit again, they die instantly, and their HP is divided up and dealt as damage to the rest of the party.
** ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIV'' has Sickness, which reduces evasion to 0 and physical damage by a quarter. What makes it unique is that it's ''contagious'' - every turn, if there's a Sick character in the party, all other party members have a chance to become Sick. Fortunately, items and skills that cure Poison also cure Sickness.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' has a variant of Charm status exclusive to the Rafflesia enemy that doesn't wear off when hit. And then allows you to gain access to that spell via Gau's Rage ability. And then never bothered programming any resistance to this skill, as it was only supposed to be for one boss fight where it would be used on your party, for any other enemies including bosses.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'' has several, including Heat (a particularly brief ailment that kills the afflicted character if they take any action whatsoever), and Trouble (which, if the afflicted character is attacked, hurts the rest of the party for roughly half the damage taken). Freeze is also a nasty case where the character is immobilized and being struck by a physical attack is an instant knock out.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'' has Reverse (what would do damage now heals and vice versa) as well as Oil (double damage from fire; as mentioned below, it originated in ''Tactics'').
* ''VideoGame/{{Sonny}}'' has some ''ridiculous'' status effects, which are too many to list. Being knifed in the face is one such example. Really, some get ridiculously odd, it is odd-ish that ''zombies, insurgents, renegade combat medics, and blade dancing female zombies'' have to obey the orders of the [[BossBattle Mayor of Hew]] to ''sit down'', and why the heck (even ''with'' magic) several things that should have little or ''no'' relevance to combat make appearances.
* ''VideoGame/EarthBound'' gave Ness a personal status effect in the form of "homesickness"; if he hadn't contacted his mother in a while, he risked a chance of failing to act in combat thanks to [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin being homesick]]. Calling home was the usual cure, but [[CutenessProximity hatching a baby chick]] could provide a brief bit of relief from it if no phones were nearby.
** Also in ''Earthbound'' is Heat Stroke. If your characters spent too long out in a hot place (either in the Dusty Dunes Desert or Scaraba), they can pick up the affliction, which works like a slow, weak poison.
** In [[VideoGame/EarthBoundBeginnings the NES prequel]], the main character Ninten also has a rather unique personal status effect: he is asthmatic, and a few enemies can trigger an asthma attack by spewing smoke at him. It can only be healed by buying and using an inhaler. This has a similar effect to Ness's homesickness, but it stops Ninten from acting ''much'' more often. Thankfully, only a few foes around the middle of the game can do this.
** In ''VideoGame/Mother3'', rather than developing new PSI powers as soon as they level up, Lucas and Kumatora spend a short time after battle "feeling feverish" before the power manifests. While one of them is feverish, the party cannot run outside of battle.
* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX2'', the only action an "itchy" character could perform would be to change clothes, which would cure the condition. Fortunately, this could be done relatively quickly, even in combat, and was actually one of the core game mechanics.
* ''VideoGame/{{Xenoblade}}'' has a whole slew of different status ailments, with the caveat that the duration is measured in seconds, though combat is fast-paced enough that those few seconds spent helpless can hurt. It also has examples of some statuses requiring ''prerequisite'' status effects -- for instance, the "Break" status does bupkis but make the target vulnerable to attacks that cause 'Topple' (target is knocked on their backside, can't move or act and loses special shielding) and a target must be toppled before Daze can be applied (same as topple, but extends the duration and prevents the victim from accumulating aggro, allowing squishier party members to pour on the hurt.)
* Fatigue in ''VideoGame/SkiesOfArcadia'' prevents your characters from gaining SP, which is essential to use skills/magic.
* ''VideoGame/KingdomHearts358DaysOver2'' features several status ailments that are a bit out there, like Shoe-Glue (prevents your character from jumping), Air Toss (You character gets tossed into the air without being able to recover or attack and takes twice the damage), Null-Defense (Enemies deal damage regardless of your character's defense) and Jolt (your character loses 10% of their HP when coming into contact with allies, enemies, and even walls and environment objects) to name a few.
* ''VideoGame/ChronoCross'' has Fatigue, which has a ''massive'' impact on stamina; regeneration is slowed and attacks take more stamina. Thankfully, it's very rarely seen; it's probably the most dangerous status ailment if you don't have a Purify or [=WhiteOut=] element allocated.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII2'' has Wound damage, which reduces your character's max HitPoints. It goes away after battle, and can be healed by a Wound Potion. Not dealing with Wound damage can be pretty dangerous in some of the harder battles.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyCrystalChroniclesRingOfFates'' and ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyCrystalChroniclesEchoesOfTime'' have Gravity, which prevents you from jumping.
* ''VideoGame/{{BravelyDefault}}'' has a particularly dangerous version of Charm that's unique to one of the bonus bosses, called Love. Rather than just changing sides, the Love status acts like extreme obsession. A character under the effect of Love will target one of your other characters as the one they are in love with. They will then mimic any action that the person they're in love with makes but otherwise are uncontrollable. If there are more than one person in love with the same person, then both of the affected will attack each other to the death with powerful attacks as love rivals. Lastly, if a party member dies, any member that was in love with them dies with them.
* ''VideoGame/PanzerDragoon Saga'' has Pain ([[DamageIncreasingDebuff decreases your defense]]) and Bind (only allows you to charge one gauge, blocking berserk attacks and {{combos}}).
* "Excited" in the ''VideoGame/FossilFighters'' series causes you to be unable to switch your viviosaurs around. In the first game, it locks your attack position viviosaur into place, so they can't be swapped for a supporter. In the second game, it keeps you from being able to rotate your team, regardless of whether it affects an attacker or a supporter.
* "Allergic" in ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor'' prevents you from having any ''other'' status conditions while it's active. While this does prevent debuffs (such as poisoning and sleep), it also prevents ''buffs'' as well (like HP regen and attack increases).
* ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarNova'' has Infection, which slows your movement speed to a snail's pace and disables all of your actions besides dodging, and even then you can't dodge very far. There's also Bind, which stops you from moving but otherwise doesn't prevent you from acting.
* ''VideoGame/{{Miitopia}}'' features quirkier versions of status ailments from other [=RPGs=]. Characters aren't paralyzed, but can be left unable to act due to suffering from a laughing fit. There is no "blind" ailment, but characters can suffer accuracy penalties from crying.
* ''Franchise/{{Persona}}'':
** ''VideoGame/Persona3'' has the Condition mechanic. Party members you take to explore Tartarus will be in worse condition the next day, affecting their performance in battle if you continue to use them in that state. Cycling party members is important to your gameplay, as not using them will allow them to recover. The protagonist will be affected most, as you CantDropTheHero, and being Tired or Sick will limit the stat boosts they gain and the actions they can take in day to day life.
** ''VideoGame/Persona4'' has Exhaustion and Enervation. The former will lower defense and cause the afflicted to lose SP every turn. The latter will halve all stats, cause characters to forget what they're doing mid-Persona summon, and in some cases, reduce HP to one.
** ''VideoGame/Persona5'' has Hunger. Characters afflicted will be too hungry to concentrate, and thus have a severely lowered attack power. They'll also take more damage from Psychic attacks. All skills that inflict Hunger can only be used by enemies, including the fifth boss, who also has an attack that ''cures'' Hunger and restores HP to anyone suffering from it.
* ''VideoGame/CthulhuSavesTheWorld'' has Insanity, an enemy-exclusive status effect. Every enemy can be DrivenToMadness, which increases the damage they take, but at the same time lets them do more damage, and in some cases lets them use abilities they weren't able to before. They also have an unique "insane" sprite to represent it.
* ''[[VideoGame/{{Lisa}} Lisa the Painfull]]'' has several:
** The most important one being withdrawal. Many character, including protagonist Brad, are addicted to a drug called "Joy". Like in real life, not taking the drug regularly will cause the character to go into withdrawal, chopping all their stats dramatically. Some of them, like Brad and Carp, will still manage to deal damage in fights but others, like Queen Roger, will be rendered completely useless. Consuming Joy will grant the character the Joyed status that greatly buff all their stats. The downside is that it increases the addiction and will cause them to experience withdrawal more often.
** Some character have status ailments unique to them like Fardy's Depression (lowers Attack, Defense and accuracy), Beastborn's Critter Gone and Yazan's Cat gone (Prevent the use of Critter and Cat skills).
* ''VideoGame/DragonAgeInquisition'' will eventually grant you access to a Jar of Bees to use as a weapon. Throwing it at a group of enemies will cause them to suffer a combination of Poison and Panic... except it isn't labeled as such in game. Instead, affected enemies will show the flag "[[PunctuatedForEmphasis BEES!]]"
* ''Videogame/MightAndMagic'' ''VI-VIII'' has quite a few statuses that change around stats and toy with HP/MP recovery, plus have some other effects that don't really fit anywhere else:
** Insanity is essentially a combo of Berserk/Silenced, as it causes Personality and Intellect to take a dive plus RestingRecovery does not recover any MP (in fact, even if the person has MP ''before'' resting, they will wake up with 0 MP), but it makes Strength skyrocket. Bad if it happens to your mage or healer, but insanity is benefical to Knights that have zero magical skills to begin with.
** Curse also decreases magically related stats but on top it causes any spell to fail 50% of time.
** Weak decreases physical stats and most importantly any physical damage your character does is reduced to half. You will most likely see this when you cross map borders without enough food rations.
** Poison in this game is not actually a Damage-over-Time effect, but it reduces your stats as well, decreases HP/MP restored by RestingRecovery, and ''worsens'' over time if not treated (read: bigger stat penalties). Disease works in a similar fashion.
** Drunk is a rare status caused by drinking from specific wells, and it also decreases most of stats since, well, you don't expect drunk to have the best coordination in the country, but the Luck gets doubled for some reason.


[[AC:TowerDefense]]
* "Glue" or "goo" is occasionally used as a freeze or slow effect in tower defense games. Two examples are ''Flash Element 2'', in which the Glue Gun is the more powerful of the two blue towers and temporarily freezes an enemy, and ''Canyon Defense'', in which the Goo Cannon slows enemies.
* ''VideoGame/PlantsVsZombies2ItsAboutTime'' has a status where your plant has been bound up by an octopus thrown by the Octo Zombie. In order to cure it, you need to kill the octopus on the bound plant, and it has a good bit of health. And the Octo Zombie can use this multiple times with no reliable way to counter it.
* ''VideoGame/PlantsVsZombies 3'' has a similar "bound" status to the octopus from ''Plants Vs Zombies 2'', except it's a pizza thrown onto the plant by the Pizza Delivery Zombie. Like the octopus, the pizza needs to be attacked to free the plant.
[[AC:TurnBasedStrategy]]
* Creator/NipponIchi games such as ''Franchise/{{Disgaea}}'' have the "Deprave" status effect, signified by a black swirl over the victim's head. Depraved characters earn no experience, which of course is far more effective against the player than it is the enemy. Worse, it's also said that a depraved character doesn't ''give'' experience either, meaning you don't want to inflict it at all.
** From ''VideoGame/{{Disgaea 2|CursedMemories}}'' onward, Deprave also chops off 20% of the afflicted character's stats.
** Also in some Nippon Ichi games is an effect they call "Critical" (or Deathblow), but is unlike the Critical above (though some units do have low HP effects). This Critical is an effect on Geo Panels in ''Disgaea'' and a room in ''VideoGame/SoulNomadAndTheWorldEaters''. If you're standing on a Critical Geo Panel, any attack that hits (doesn't miss) kills you. ''VideoGame/PhantomBrave'' had a proto-critical effect in the "Gamble" status condition, which made the odds 50/50 of missing or killing the Gambled character.
** Disgaea 5 renamed Deprave to "Weaken", and added in the ''Shrink'' status. Shrink minimizes the character, rendering them unable to attack, although they can still move about and use items.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTactics'' had an Oil status which supposed to increase damage from [[PlayingWithFire fire-element]] attacks, but was bugged and in fact did nothing. This was fixed in the PSP version, and was also used later in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'' and ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTacticsA2.''
* ''VideoGame/MetalGearAcid2'' has Oil, which can be gained from slipping in an oil patch and from certain attacks. It doesn't do anything on its own, but being shot while Oiled causes your character to burst into flames.
* ''VideoGame/FellSealArbitersMark'' has Exhaust, which prevents a character from gaining the benefit of Quicken for two turns. As the Quicken buff gives the character an immediate extra turn, this exists (and is automatically applied after the Quickened turn ends) to prevent you from breaking the game over your knee. There are also several debuffs named “<Stat> Down”, which reduce that stat.

[[AC:WideOpenSandbox]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Terraria}}'': In Expert Mode, bats have a chance of inflicting Feral Bite if they hit the player. Not only does this reduce health regeneration (but increase damage output), it also causes the player to get ''other'' status effects at random!

[[/folder]]
----

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

** Also in ''Earthbound'' is Heat Stroke. If your characters spent too long out in a hot place (either in the Dusty Dunes Desert or Scaraba), they can pick up the affliction, which works like a slow poison.

** ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaSymphonyOfTheNight'' and ''CastlevaniaCircleOfTheMoon'': Character is unable to attack or defend.

* This is one of the status effects in ''[[VideoGame/KingdomHearts358DaysOver2 Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days]]''. It causes most physical attacks to miss, though magic attacks are unaffected. For who knows what reason, even ''[[spoiler:Riku]]'' is affected by Blindness, even though [[spoiler:he's ''blindfolded as it is'']].

* In ''VideoGame/KingdomHearts1'', the Phantom curses each member of the party in turn (with Sora for last). When the hands of Big Ben make one full rotation, the cursed party member will die, and cannot be resurrected for the rest of the fight (signified by a series of flames at the number positions that disappear as the hands move). Casting Stop on the clock's hands pauses this timer temporarily.

* ''[[VideoGame/KingdomHearts358DaysOver2 Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days]]'' features several status ailments that are a bit out there, like Shoe-Glue (prevents your character from jumping), Air Toss (You character gets tossed into the air without being able to recover or attack and takes twice the damage), Null-Defense (Enemies deal damage regardless of your character's defense) and Jolt (your character loses 10% of their HP when coming into contact with allies, enemies, and even walls and environment objects) to name a few.

* Silence in ''VideoGame/Dota2'' prevents the afflicted units from using active abilities. There is also a separate status effect, Break, which disables passive abilities, and Break, which prevents activating items.

* In ''Franchise/FireEmblem'', silence was caused by the Silence staff, that renders magic and staff users useless as it seals up the targets from using magic. Additionally, it also prevents characters from talking and visiting villages. In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemHeroes'', there's a variant called the Isolation effect from Bridal Fjorm's Gjallarbru where it disables the heroes from using assist moves such as Rally Attack and healing skills like Restore.

* In ''VideoGame/PathOfExile'', this is called "Low Life" and, depending upon which [[PowerCrystal Skill Gems]] are equipped, several bonuses can be ignited.

* ''VideoGame/PathOfExile'' has an entire category of debuffs classified as "curses". Curses have a variety of powerful effects like increasing an enemy's damage vulnerability, slowing them down, or empower whatever strikes them, but by default each enemy can have only one curse on them at a time. Curses are split into two categories: Hexes are applied in an [=AoE=] and gain more powerful over time via Doom if manually cast, which certain other skills use to deal more damage, and Marks are limited to one singular target at all times. Some peculiar builds even put curses on themselves to their benefit.

* In ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'', Marluxia's boss fight exclusively puts a Doom counter on Sora. It decrements each time he gets hit, and when it hits 0, you instantly lose the fight. Certain Command Actions can increase the Doom counter.