History Main / ThatOneDisadvantage

** Approval Process (cuts out one choice when obtaining Boons and upgrades per rank at random) is generally considered the most hated due to it's infamous tendency to prevent you from obtaining the choice you are after. The censor doesn't completely cover the choice, effectively rubbing it in (especially if you are denied a Duo or Legendary Boon). Not only that, if you attempt to use Fated Persuasion to reroll, ''it is possible for the same choice to get blocked again''.

** The Berserker primal path for Barbarians is infamous for the brutal downside of it's Frenzy ability. When the Barbarian uses their Rage, they can choose to Frenzy and gain an extra attack each turn for the duration of the rage, at the cost of a level of exhaustion when the rage ends. Each level of exhaustion adds a new penalty that stacks on top of the previous levels, which start off punishing but manageable, but by level 3 your ability to fight is so hampered it effectively negates the benefits of the extra attack. Oh and if for some reason you ever hit level 6 exhaustion, you die outright with NoSavingThrow. Each level of Exhaustion takes a Long Rest to get rid of, meaning a Berserker who uses their Frenzy multiple times will need days or, if playing with extended long rest rules, WEEKS to get back in fighting shape, while the rest of the party is ready after one rest. Worse case scenario where the party is in a situation where they're gaining exhaustion as a result of environmental hazards or enemies abilities, the Barbarian might be outright unable to use the ability at all without becoming a complete liability or even risking outright death.

** Permanence actively penalizes you for experimenting with the CombinatorialExplosion of functions, which is half the point of the game. Best to take this one last, after you have all the functions you need to build a GameBreaker combo.

** The Berserker primal path for Barbarians is infamous for the brutal downside of it's Frenzy ability. When the Barbarian uses their Rage, they can choose to Frenzy and gain an extra attack each turn for the duration of the rage, at the cost of a level of exhaustion when the rage ends. Each level of exhaustion adds a new penalty that stacks on top of the previous levels, which start off punishing but manageable, but by level 3 your ability to fight is so hampered it effectively negates the benefits of the extra attack. Oh and if for some reason you ever hit level 6 exhaustion, you die outright with NoSavingThrow. Each level of Exhaustion takes a Long Rest to get rid of, meaning a Berserker who uses their Frenzy multiple times will need days or, if playing with extended long rest rules, WEEKS to get back in fighting shape, while the rest of the party is ready to go the next day. Worse case scenario where the party is in a situation where they're gaining exhaustion as a result of environmental hazards or enemies abilities, the Barbarian might be outright unable to use the ability at all without becoming a complete liability or even risking outright death.

* Shieldless in ''VideoGame/FTLFasterThanLight''. Only four ships (Stealth A through C, Zoltan B) don't start with laser and beam-repelling shield systems, and while they have alternatives (a cloaking system in two cases and a special single-use shield for Zoltan B), they can be rapidly picked apart by anything with a beam drone (attack drones fire constantly for low damage which shields would normally absorb, but which adds up, and beams can't be dodged). Note you can buy a shield system, but you are still vulnerable initially and have to spend a lot to get what normal ships begin with.

** The Berserker primal path for Barbarians is hated for the Frenzy ability. It allows a Barbarian to use a Bonus Action to attack again on each turn of their Rage, at the cost of adding a level of exhaustion when the Rage ends. The trouble is that exhaustion is hard to get rid of -- you need to take a long rest just to rid of one stack, and you can get up to six of them (at which point you die with NoSavingThrow). Such penalties include disadvantage on all ability checks, attack rolls, and saving throws, as well as cutting your speed in half. Simply put, it's not worth the trouble to get a level of exhaustion for a single extra attack on a single enemy each turn for a single combat, which makes the subclass see very rare use.

** The Underdark subraces (like Drow or Duergar) are not very popular in terms of gameplay usage due to the Sunlight Sensitivity racial feature, which imposes disadvantage on Perception checks, and attack rolls, if in sunlight. Considering how most modules have sunlight in them, unless one happens to be playing in somewhere like the Underdark, very few players want to deal with being handicapped at all times by something they can't counter, especially considering their other racial features may not be enough to justify the downsides. While Drow are popular, and run in spite of this for EvilIsCool reasons, you'll never see other Underdark subraces played because it isn't worth such a drastic weakness.

*** Perfectionist makes your attacks deal no damage if they aren't skill crits. For some classes, such as the Barbarian[[note]]whose grounded attacks ''always'' skill crit, since they're slower, and their aerial attacks crit while dashing[[/note]], this is moot, but for others with more complex skill crit conditions, notably the Bard[[note]]they can only get skill crits after their note projectiles turn gold, which takes three seconds after shooting them out[[/note]], the game gets much, ''much'' harder.

** The Berserker primal path for Barbarians is hated for the Frenzy ability. It allows a Barbarian to use a Bonus Action to attack again, at the cost of adding a level of exhaustion. The trouble is that exhaustion is hard to get rid of -- you need to take a long rest just to rid of one stack, and you can get up to six of them (at which point you die with NoSavingThrow). Such penalties include disadvantage on all ability checks, attack rolls, and saving throws, as well as cutting your speed in half. Simply put, it's not worth the trouble to get a level of exhaustion for a single attack on a single enemy, which makes the subclass see very rare use.

* ''VideoGame/WorldOfHorror'' has several traits that are highly disadvantageous and can make finishing a run very hard.
** Picking the Medical History backstory is essentially asking for [[NintendoHard ending your run quickly]]. The injuries sustained in combat will rack up quickly, even if you run from combat (due to forced combat in at least one mystery you'll get) and chew through your funds when you try to treat them. To make matters worse, you ''will'' need to do this if you want any other backstories, as it's the first one unlocked and is required for obtaining other ones.
** The Ill-Fated background is arguably even ''[[HarderThanHard worse]]''. It causes you to automatically fail all event skill checks, meaning you're likely to lose Stamina or Reason almost ''every'' time you have to investigate somewhere. It also unlocks Card Pack C, so you'd be forgoing plenty of content if you don't complete a run with it. Its only saving grace is that Miku can get a perk that gives her +1 Reason after failing a skill check and and gets substantially stronger the higher Doom is, which will increase more often with failed skill checks. For all other characters, even with the free 133 experience (basically equating to an instant level up) upon starting, Medical History is still easier.
** The Knight-Errant backstory has you start the game with a book that, once used, increases all damage dealt in combat by 2 for the duration of the current mystery. Handy for, say, ending boss encounters pretty quickly. The downside is that every single time you get an ending for a mystery that isn't the [[GoldenEnding A Ending]], the Doom counter advances by 7. It's got a good chance of getting worse if you're in Timeline B: in that timeline, three of the mysteries possible ''will never get that golden ending.'' Furthermore, some golden endings require multiple mysteries to be done in the right order. For example: if you get the mystery "Bizarre Bruit of the Blood-Curdling Botanist" ''but'' don't also get "Macabre Memoir of Morbid Mermaids", you better prepare for that Doom increase, because the GoldenEnding of "Botanist" requires you to have the Fire Axe, which only comes from the GoldenEnding of "Mermaids". This, however, can be somewhat mitigated now that you can reroll mysteries at the start of the game assuming you haven't completed any yet.
** Out of all the Old Gods you can pick, the old version of Ithotu the All-Devouring Flame is the harshest one since it comes with doubled Stamina penalties in comparison to other options that offer much more manageable effects. It has since been nerfed so the double damage goes both ways, which puts it on par with Old Gods that aren't [[WarmupBoss Ath-Yolazsth]] and arguably even makes it fun, as it gives it a risk/reward factor.
** From the randomly-chosen influences of the Old Gods hoisted upon you after finishing a mystery, getting Contaminated Water or Fetid Fumes are perhaps the worst. The former denies you the free healing from using the bath in your house, while the latter makes your Rest action less effective. This means you'll either spend more time Resting and racking up your Doom counter or spending your funds on healing items. Getting both at the same time is bound to give you problems unless you are close to finishing the run.

* ''VideoGame/WorldOfHorror'':

** The Ill-Fated background is arguably even ''[[HarderThanHard worse]]''. It causes you to automatically fail all event skill checks, meaning you're likely to lose Stamina or Reason almost ''every'' time you have to investigate somewhere. It also unlocks Card Pack C, so you'd be forgoing plenty of content if you don't complete a run with it. Its only saving grace is that Miku can get a perk that gives her +1 Reason after failing a skill check, making it only slightly worse than Medical History for her and her alone.
** From the randomly-chosen influences of the Old Gods hoisted upon you after finishing a mystery, getting Contaminated Water or Fetid Fumes are perhaps the worst - the former denies you the free healing of using the bath in your house while the latter makes your Rest action less effective. This means you'll either spend more time Resting and racking up Doom or spending Funds on healing items. Getting both at the same time is bound to give you problems unless you are close to finishing the run.

* ThatOneLevel:

* Dark Fate in ''TabletopGame/LegendOfTheFiveRings''. Sure, it can save your bacon, but when the GM feels like it, you will betray everything your character holds dear, probably including the other players. Death is usually the result, although a FateWorseThanDeath is also a distinct possibility.
** ''[=L5R=]'' is rife with these. Momoku, which removes the ability to spend void, is not even close to worth the 10 Character Points you get. The creators have noted that disadvantages in their system are supposed to be deadly, not a minor handicap, and taking one is supposed to be handing the GM an excuse to ruin you.

* Bleeder in ''[[Series/{{Firefly}} Serenity]]'' is like GURPS Hemophilia -- any significant wound is death. "Things Don't Go Smooth" is another bad one (the GM can void any success he likes once or twice per game session, typically the "do or die" ones) -- notable in that ''Mal'' has it. Although this shouldn't be too much of a surprise, considering it's named after one of his lines.

** The Bloodfeeder for the Chaos Lord. When used in melee, you roll 2 six-sided dice and get that many plus 4 attacks in that round (keep in mind that, for a character, you should usually get about ''five'' attacks). That is, unless you roll a 1 on ''either'' die (which has a 30.6% chance of happening), in which your Chaos Lord [[MemeticMutation goes into a wrist-slitting]] [[{{Wangst}} emo mode]], represented by him taking an armor-ignoring wound and forfeiting ''all'' of his attacks that round, which more-often-than-not coincides with him getting obliterated in whatever melee he was a part of. No surprise, the fluff clearly points out in many places that [[AxCrazy "Khorne cares not from whence the blood flows"]]. The Chaos Marines have a number of ConfusionFu options in their codex, but the Bloodfeeder is by far the most self-destructive.

* Illiterate in ''VideoGame/{{Cataclysm}}'' makes you completely incapable of using any book, which makes it much harder to train your skills and impossible to learn advanced crafting recipes. Nowhere near worth the 6 points it gives you, since you can get that many points by taking multiple less harmful disadvantages. The only reason you'd want to have it would be for a SelfImposedChallenge.

** Iron Maiden makes the [[DemonicSpiders already-dangerous]] Queens get their movement turn much slower but also makes them ''[[InvincibleMinorMinion completely invulnerable]]'' foes that can still soak up shots meant for other targets. Any additional Queens spawned from Pawn promotion, the King's Mistress card, the Genderqueer card or the Succubus card will also benefit from this invincibility. This also makes it nearly impossible to get the very useful Queen Souls obtained from killing Queens, which allow the Black King to move like one upon spending them. The only way to kill these Queens and get their souls is via [[RingOut throwing them off the map]] with King's Shoulders, a specific card which can only be used once per floor. The only way to remove the invulnerability is if there are only Queens on the map, which means picking Guillotine (another huge disadvantage) to remove the King.

** Iron Maiden makes the [[DemonicSpiders already-dangerous]] Queens get their movement turn much slower but also makes them ''[[InvincibleMinorMinion completely invulnerable]]'' foes that can still soak up shots meant for other targets. Any additional Queens spawned from Pawn promotion, the King's Mistress card, the Genderqueer card or the Succubus card will also benefit from this invincibility. This also makes it nearly impossible to get the very useful Queen Souls obtained from killing Queens, which allow the Black King to move like one upon spending them. The only way to kill these Queens and get their souls is via [[RingOut throwing them off the map]] with King's Shoulders, a specific card which can only be used once per floor.

** Castle gives the White King the ability to [[SwapTeleportation swap place with a rook]] upon getting shot, even from stray bullets, and [[TakingTheBullet the Rook takes the damage instead]]. If you're in a direct orthogonal line from the King when this happens and the damage isn't enough to kill the Rook (which have a beefy 5 health before modifiers), the Rook will instantly checkmate you and end your run unless you have [[OneUp Black Mist]] to save you. The devs nerfed this such that a Rook that swapped can no longer checkmate you when doing so, severely nerfing its threat.
** Cathedral removes a Bishop, adds a Rook, and all non-Rook pieces adjacent to Rooks will only take a [[ScratchDamage maximum of 1 damage in a shot]]. Needless to say, this makes pieces near Rooks borderline unkillable, and while this card does open up the useful Church Organ card, the downside of Cathedral is still very deadly.

** Cathedral removes a Bishop, adds a Rook, and all pieces adjacent to Rooks will only take a [[ScratchDamage maximum of 1 damage in a shot]]. Needless to say, this makes pieces near Rooks borderline unkillable, and while this card does open up the useful Church Organ card, the downside of Cathedral is still very deadly.

* Cathedral removes a Bishop, adds a Rook, and all pieces adjacent to Rooks will only take a [[ScratchDamage maximum of 1 damage in a shot]]. Needless to say, this makes pieces near Rooks borderline unkillable, and while this card does open up the useful Church Organ card, the downside of Cathedral is still very deadly.

** Iron Maiden makes the [[DemonicSpiders already-dangerous]] Queens get their movement turn much slower but also makes them ''[[InvincibleMinorMinion completely invulnerable]]'' foes that can still soak up shots meant for other targets. The only way to kill these is via [[RingOut throwing them off the map]] with King's Shoulders, a specific card which can only be used once per floor. Any additional Queens spawned from Pawn promotion, the King's Mistress card, the Genderqueer card or the Succubus card will also benefit from this invincibility. This also makes it permanently impossible to get the very useful Queen Souls obtained from killing Queens, which allow the Black King to move like one upon spending them.

** Iron Maiden makes the [[DemonicSpiders already-dangerous]] Queens get their movement turn much slower but also makes them ''[[InvincibleMinorMinion completely invulnerable]]'' foes that can still soak up shots meant for other targets. The only way to kill these is via [[RingOut throwing them off the map]] with King's Shoulders, which can only be used once per floor. Any additional Queens spawned from Pawn promotion, the King's Mistress card, the Genderqueer card or the Succubus card will also benefit from this invincibility. This also makes it permanently impossible to get the very useful Queen Souls obtained from killing Queens, which allow the Black King to move like one upon spending them.

** Iron Maiden makes the [[DemonicSpiders already-dangerous]] Queens get their movement turn much slower but also makes them ''[[InvincibleMinorMinion completely invulnerable]]'' foes that can still soak up shots meant for other targets. Any additional Queens spawned from Pawn promotion, the King's Mistress card, or the Genderqueer card will also benefit from this invincibility. This also makes it permanently impossible to get the very useful Queen Souls obtained from killing Queens, which allow the Black King to move like one upon spending them.

** Castle gives the White King the ability to [[SwapTeleportation swap place with a rook]] upon getting shot, even from stray bullets, and [[TakingTheBullet the Rook takes the damage instead]]. If you're in a direct orthogonal line from the King when this happens and the damage isn't enough to kill the Rook (which have a beefy 5 health before modifiers), the Rook will instantly checkmate you and end your run unless you have [[OneUp Black Mist]] to save you.

* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons''
** Some subclasses from the initial launch of [[TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragonsFifthEdition the game's Fifth Edition]] are disliked because they impose negative effects on the player for using some part of their skills. In a somewhat telling move, almost every subclass released after the edition's launch did away with negative effects due to poor balancing and the fact that no one used them.
*** The Berserker primal path for Barbarians is hated for the Frenzy ability. It allows a Barbarian to use a Bonus Action to attack again, at the cost of adding a level of exhaustion. The trouble is that exhaustion is hard to get rid of -- you need to take a long rest just to rid of one stack, and you can get up to six of them (at which point you die with NoSavingThrow). Such penalties include disadvantage on all ability checks, attack rolls, and saving throws, as well as cutting your speed in half. Simply put, it's not worth the trouble to get a level of exhaustion for a single attack on a single enemy, which makes the subclass see very rare use.
*** The Wild Magic Sorcerer subclass falls into AwesomeButImpractical because of one of these. Whenever you cast a non-cantrip spell, you may have to roll a d20. If you get a 1 on this d20 roll, you then have to roll a d100 for a Wild Magic Surge, which makes something happens at random. Some of the Wild Magic Surge effects are useful -- recovering HP, regaining spell slots, casting buff spells like Mirror Image for free, or your next spell needing a Bonus Action instead of an Action. But you can also end up casting Fireball or Confusion centered on yourself, make yourself Frightened of the nearest enemy, or cause necrotic damage to everything around you (including your allies). While fun in theory, the amount of potential negative effects from a Wild Magic Surge makes the sub-class not worth using, as some of the Surges can easily lead to a TotalPartyKill in the wrong spot. Making this worse is that your most interesting ability -- being able to give yourself advantage -- leaves you open to a Wild Magic Surge roll as soon as you do it. So your one outright useful ability is probably going to be a detriment in the end. All of these drawbacks, in exchange for only slightly increasing your chances to cast spells and your damage, are not enough to make the sub-class viable. And to top it all off, you only have to roll for a Wild Magic Surge ''if the DM asks you to''. Depending on their whims and whether they remember a surge is possible, the bulk of this subclass' features may come into play constantly, very rarely, or anywhere in-between.

*** The Berserker primal path for Barbarians is hated for the Frenzy ability. It allows a Barbarian to use a Bonus Action to attack again, at the cost of adding a level of exhaustion. The trouble is that exhaustion is hard to get rid of -- you need to take a long rest just to rid of one stack, and you can get up to six of them (at which point you die with NoSavingThrow). Such penalties include disadvantage on all ability checks, attack rolls, and saving throws, as well as cutting your speed in half. Simply put, it's not worth the trouble to get a level of exhaustion for a single attack on a single enemy, which makes the class see very rare use.

[[quoteright:300:[[Franchise/{{Pokemon}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/regigigas_slow_start.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Slow Start: For five turns, the Pokémon's Attack and Speed stats are halved.]]