History Main / StandardStatusEffects

* ''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. 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.

* ''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.

* ''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 units, but emits a cold aura that slows the attack rate of any operator within its considerably large range.

* ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTenseiPersona''. It returns 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.

* In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast'', golden star-shaped flashes of light inflisct 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 ''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.

* ''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").

[[AC:Roguelike]]
* Many {{Roguelike}}s have the "teleportitis" status effect, which periodically induces TeleportationMisfire.
* ''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.

* ''VideoGame/PlantsVsZombies 3'' has a similar "bound" status to the octopus from ''PVZ2'', 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.

** In online item battles, there's an offensive item called "headphone", it has a purpose to distract / screw players from performing the gameplay perfectly as it temporarily replaces the certain song in gameplay with the fake song came from the headphone.

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

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.]] Don't [[FridgeLogic 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.

[[folder:Paralyzed / Stun]]

Describes a character who can't be controlled, loses all of its abilities except its 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]].

Characters will act unpredictably. They may strike enemies, their companions, or even (inexplicably) 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]].

* 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 a la Pokémon.

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]].

[[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:ActionGames]]

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. 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).

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.

* ''VideoGame/{{Exile}} / VideoGame/{{Avernum}}'' has ''Dust'', whose cause is the same as in Might and Magic.

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 ''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.

Cause 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 may even prevent you from healing yourself until a healer comes in and gets rid of it.

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 ''a 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.

** Infection / Mind Control: A renamed "charm"

* In''Franchise/FireEmblem'', silence was caused by the Silence staff, that renders magic and staff users useless as it it seals up the magic upon getting hit. 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.

* 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[[labelnote:*]]Melee damage is based on STR, but blades' skill damage is based on DEX[[/labelnote]], a 1v1 blade won't be using skills anyways, and the rare skill blade won't need the attack speed from Berserk[[labelnote:*]]as attack speed is also based on DEX[[/labelnote]].

* 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 a rather long period of time.

* ''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, while Panic refers to an ailment more akin to Confusion. ''VideoGame/Persona5'' calls it Forget.

** And in ''VideoGame/{{Persona 2}}: Innocent Sin'', there are certain bosses that can seal your Persona with a certain attack.

* 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.

* ''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 can't not take them, since 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 and 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.

* 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.

** 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.

* ''VideoGame/{{Terraria}}'' has Distorted, which causes the player to constantly rise and fall in midair. In addition, when applied to enemies, Confused makes the enemies to run away.