%%
%%Image removed per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=16715588180.29076700
%%Please don't add a new image without discussion in Image Pickin'.
%%

%%% No quotes, please. We want to get directly to the rule that this article is about.

''In any martial arts fight, there is only a finite amount of''' '''''ninjutsu''''' '''available to each side in a given encounter. As a result, one {{Ninja}} is a deadly threat, but an army of them are [[{{Mooks}} cannon fodder]].''

A specific form of PlotArmor, this trope is very common due to the numerous [[TheoryOfNarrativeCausality storytelling]] considerations fueling it. [[RuleOfDrama Drama thrives on conflict]], and having the few put up a fight against the many is basically a free conflict coupon that's automatically viable during any few vs. many confrontation. Why have the superhero team [[CurbStompBattle curb stomp]] the villain if you can make him powerful enough to force them into TeethClenchedTeamwork? Why have the dozens of {{Mooks}} club TheHero unconscious three seconds into an encounter if you can let him take down seven or eight of them before he collapses, to show how much of a badass he is? That would be letting some perfectly good [[EmotionalTorque dramatic tension]] go to waste.

As the number disparity grows larger, another factor comes into play—there's strength in numbers, but also ''anonymity'', which in fiction is a [[NominalImportance crippling weakness]]. Characterization is a precious, rare resource that is difficult to set up, which means most characters [[FlatCharacter are not going to get any]]. Since characters often [[CastHerd travel in homogeneous packs in terms of characterization depth]], the larger a group is, the less characterization—and therefore, ‘‘[[UniquenessValue uniqueness]]’’—its members probably have. And in fiction-land, ‘not being unique’ [[SecondLawOfMetafictionalThermodynamics automatically makes one expendable]].

In other words, if Team Meager is up against Team Gargantuan, we probably know something about Team Meager and at least care how well they're going to do in this fight—maybe we even outright sympathize with them and root for them to win. Team Gargantuan, on the other hand, is likely a [[FacelessGoons faceless]] blob of {{Mooks}} or {{Red Shirt}}s that we [[WhatMeasureIsAMook don't care about on any personal level]]. Letting Team Gargantuan steamroll over Team Meager in this scenario would be [[AntiClimax anticlimactic]]; ''not'' letting Team Gargantuan do that means playing this trope straight almost by definition (even if Team Gargantuan wins, Team Meager still has to [[LastStand put up a good fight]]). Often Team Gargantuan, instead of applying their numbers, [[MookChivalry tends to get in line]] waiting to get beat in turn.

Hence, you end up with the few gaining an almost-automatic boost to their capabilities when pitted against the many. Extra points if, when presented with their multiple adversaries, one character [[LampshadeHanging notes]] that "We barely were able to handle one, how on earth are we going to handle this many?" right before successfully doing just that.

This can, of course, apply to EliteMooks other than ninjas. Vampires are particularly susceptible to Conservation of Ninjutsu, as are werewolves, alien monsters, [[RedshirtArmy Special Forces commandos]] and SuperPoweredRobotMeterMaids.

There are a few conceivable ways in which this trope can be {{Justified|Trope}}:
* The most obvious one is adhering to MagicAIsMagicA—if you consistently portray someone as powerful enough to take on a large number of people by their own and put an explicit limit on what they can and can't do, the WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief will not suffer nearly as much. ''How'' to establish the superiority of small numbers in concrete terms is another issue.
** Alternately, if you have some MagicAIsMagicA reason why the MonsterOfTheWeek explicitly grows less powerful in larger numbers. Perhaps there is literally a fixed pool of monstrous power, or perhaps the HiveMind gets distracted trying to control a large number of drones.
* Another is to introduce some superior technology or art, available to the small group but not the larger group, that evens the odds (think the armies of Saladin vs. an M1 Abrams Tank). If stealth specialists are forced to fight head-on heavy hitters who excel exactly at this job—which is usually the case with the "ninja" form of the trope—it's a bad strategy, and heavy losses are expectable, too.
** This is where conservation of tool came into play. The fewer enemies that know your tricks, the bigger your advantage. Real ninja were masters of technology in their time, but if their enemy knew about their tools and tricks from past experience, the ninja was likely dead '''after''' they were captured and tortured for information.
** Additionally, the smaller group may have access to better area of effect attacks than single-target ones - a single enemy may be able to dodge a HerdHittingAttack, or might not always be in a good place for one, but a large enemy group virtually ensures that some of the bad guys will be hit, or won't be able to dodge.
* One more plausible scenario for this trope is if a smaller group of people is simply better coordinated than a larger group of opponents, and tries to stack the odds in their favour, however they can--cutting off paths for reinforcements, luring enemies into ambushes or traps, or disrupting their communications. This relies heavily on the element of surprise, as well as considerable planning and ability to adapt to situations on the fly, and would be considerably more effective if the group had some of the previously-mentioned advantages. In any case, if the element of surprise is lost or if the plan starts to fall apart, you can expect things to get very bad.
** A subset of this trope that occasionally shows up in more fantastical works is to introduce the idea of a mastermind who can remotely control one or more puppet-bodies. If he's only controlling a single body, then he can focus all his attention on that one body and fight very well in it, but if he's trying to control ten different bodies doing ten different things at once, he's going to be pretty distracted and none of the individual bodies will be very competent.
* In video games, this trope is often employed for balancing purposes. If you encounter a particular enemy as a boss and you also encounter it at some other point ''en masse'' in one place, each individual enemy in the mass will usually be [[DegradedBoss much weaker than the one who's fought by themselves]], so as to keep the fight from being excessively difficult or lengthy. Even for regular mooks, this is often applied, with shooters in particular often [[ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy lowering the accuracy of enemies]] the more of them are present, that way one can still be a non-trivial threat while ten is only (say) two or three times as dangerous, rather than [[NintendoHard nigh-impossible to beat]].

Despite all of those possible justifications, this trope is generally a result of the TheoryOfNarrativeCausality more than anything else—fights are won one way or the other because the plot says they should and not because of any relevant InUniverse factors. In RealLife, there is strength in numbers more often than not; large groups of fighters have probably been ''trained'' to fight as a group and take advantage of their superior numbers if they ever manage to corner a single foe, and in some creations of mother nature this is a natural-born instinct (as a pack of wolves would be happy to demonstrate on any unfortunate prey). Quality over Quantity has lost a great many more fights in reality than it has in fiction.

See also TooManyCooksSpoilTheSoup, StrongAsTheyNeedToBe, FixedRelativeStrength and TheWorfEffect. Compare ConservationOfCompetence and KillOneOthersGetStronger. This trope is a reason the ZergRush may fail. HydraProblem and AsteroidsMonster usually lead to this trope. Beware, however, in case SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome occurs, and this trope ''[[WrongGenreSavvy doesn't]]'' apply. If the system ''doesn't'' use this, TheMinionMaster will capitalize on it, as will the WolfpackBoss. Contrast EliteArmy (in that the one {{Ninja}} is a deadly threat while an army of them are [[BadassArmy almost invincible]].). See also OneManArmy (for characters who are strong enough to take on large numbers of enemies). An aversion may result in a BolivianArmyEnding.

Also known as [[https://web.archive.org/web/20090324080130/https://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Ninja/Laws The Law of Inverse Ninja Strength]]: ''Threat Per Mook = O(1/N)'' where N = number of Ninjas (or other "Elite Adversaries"), that is, the threat per mook tends to decrease fast enough so total ninjutsu cannot grow, assuming arithmetic additivity of ''threat''.

Subtrope of both QuantityVsQuality and QualityOverQuantity.

----
!!Examples
[[index]]
* ConservationOfNinjutsu/AnimeAndManga
* ConservationOfNinjutsu/ComicBooks
* ConservationOfNinjutsu/FanWorks
* ConservationOfNinjutsu/{{Film}}
* ConservationOfNinjutsu/{{Literature}}
* ConservationOfNinjutsu/LiveActionTV
* ConservationOfNinjutsu/ProfessionalWrestling
* ConservationOfNinjutsu/{{Roleplay}}
* ConservationOfNinjutsu/TabletopGames
* ConservationOfNinjutsu/VideoGames
* ConservationOfNinjutsu/WebAnimation
* ConservationOfNinjutsu/{{Webcomics}}
* ConservationOfNinjutsu/WesternAnimation
* ConservationOfNinjutsu/OtherMedia
[[/index]]

%%
%% No real life or "truth in television" examples.
%% This about how a trope is used in storytelling.
%%
----