Stat Overflow

This is a videogame mechanic where one or more stats can exceed their imposed limit for a limited time.

Usually, Stat Meters can't be restored beyond the maximum. Obviously, it's useless if you heal yourself, pick a health item while having full HP (or close to it) or pick up mana/armor/shield charges while having full meter. But sometimes, certain restoration effects can push your stats over the top and fill your stat meters over the established caps. It may be represented by Multiple Life Bars. When this is applied to health, it's usually called overhealing, with shields overshielding, and so on.

The obvious benefit of the mechanic is the ability to survive more harmful stuff as well as One Hit Kills and, in the case of Mana, being able to cast more powerful spells or not-so-powerful spells more times. Another added benefit, in certain genres, is to be able to use Full Health Bonus (or Full Mana/Armor/Shield) abilities, as you can take damage and the game will still register the respective meter as being "full". Either way, it allows you to avoid wasting resources if you're already close to full on the stat that's being restored.

Typically, normal restoration methods won't work while you're at 120/100 mana, for example, and the excess may even decay over time back down to the normal cap. However, if the Stat Overflow is represented by a bonus meter, you're often able to refill it, but it disappears for good if it empties completely.

Note that this mechanic only lets you bypass the normal cap on your stats. If the added health/armor/shield/mana becomes permanent, it's instead a Cap Raiser applied to that stat. For other cap changers, see Rare Candy and Heart Container.

Contrast Surplus Damage Bonus, where the game has a mechanic when you kill enemies beyond "dead", and Maximum HP Reduction, a temporary decrease to your maximum health. Do NOT confuse with Body Armor as Hit Points, as that trope pertains the usage of a stat to protect another (in this case, armor/shields and health); this trope, on the other hand, is about overcharging a stat for a temporary period. Sprint Shoes is a subtrope where the overflow is temporarily applied to movement speed, while Quad Damage is another subtrope where the overflow is applied to output damage.

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Examples

Action Adventure

• The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom:
  • Sleeping in a soft bed will not only revitalize you but also grant you one yellow heart above your normal red hearts. Once lost, you can no longer regain it.
  • Certain "hearty" and "enduring" food items can temporarily grant a few extra hearts and stamina wheels respectively in addition to fully restoring the respective gauges.
  • Mipha's Grace replenishes all your hearts and gives you up to five extra hearts once you run out of hearts.
• Startropics has a rare health pickup that heals Mike all the way to his eventual maximum even if he hasn't extended his health bar that much. But if he does this when his health bar isn't extended to the maximum, it will gradually decrease to its current limit.

Augmented Reality Game

• Pokémon GO: Having an inventory that's just under full doesn't prevent acquiring the normal number of items from a PokéStop, or from receiving items as weekly bonuses or research rewards. The new items just take up space beyond the nominal cap, and items obtained in other ways still treat the inventory as full, until the number of items falls below the cap once more. A completely full or overfull inventory still allows reward items but does prevent a PokéStop from spinning.

First-Person Shooter

• The Borderlands series has some items (mainly Class Mods) that allow your characters to increase specific skills beyond their max; the effect is lost once said items are removed (either by replacement, selling or just dropping). This also has the side effect of freeing skill points for other stats.
• Destiny 2 has multiple examples from different sources:
  • Certain Void fragments and abilities can cause a Void Overshield to form over the user, letting them withstand additional damage before it either is broken or the buff timer runs out. In particular, Sentinel Titans can alter their Barricade to provide a full overshield to themselves and nearby allies on cast, and staying near it while its up causes the overshield to slowly regenerate. Hunters with Gyrfalcon's Hauberk can abuse this with Invisibility and Volatile, blowing up enemies and constantly staying out of sight while charging overshields they and their allies can use by deploying their class ability.
  • Warlock Rifts can slowly heal past full health to form an overshield, but it immediately fades if the person inside steps out. The Well of Radiance super used to do this for a long while, but got changed to instead just heal to full and apply damage resistance instead.
• Doom:
  • The Soul Sphere adds 100% health on top of the player's current percentage: at 44% health + Soul Sphere = 144% health.
  • The Mega Sphere, pushes both health and armor up to the fixed maximum values of 200%.
  • The little blue water bottles add health by 1% increments that surpass 100% health. The little green helmets also gave a 1% bonus but won't exceed armor's normal maximum of 200% (unless playing v1.2 or earlier, where armor percentage was capped by integer overflow.)
• Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Health pickups heal 50 points of health, up to a maximum of 200 instead of the regular 100.
• Far Cry 3 was the first game in the series that allowed players to craft health-restoring syringes from local plants. The final version of these syringes fully restores Jason's health and gives him additional health bars up to a maximum of 10 despite his health normally maxing out at 6 bars. Later games, using the same engine and general gameplay loop, also incorporated this feature in one way or another.
• Half-Life 2: In the Citadel, both in the climax of the main game and the beginning of Episode 1, suit chargers can fill your suit power to 200% HP/AP. The effect is gone and your suit reverted to normal in Episode 1 after the Citadel's core has been stabilized.
• Nexuiz and Xonotic's health doesn't really have a cap, so players could pick up plenty of health items and reach big HP numbers, at the catch that the bigger the number is, the faster the health degenerates to the default 100 HP after some seconds passed without picking up items or being attacked. The reverse is also true, as health regenerates if it's below 100 (but players will still be fragged the moment it reaches zero or less) and some seconds pass without picking up items or being attacked.
• Overwatch:
  • Brigitte's ultimate, Rally, gives her and all of her allies temporary armor at a rate of 15/second, capping at 100. The armor is lost after 30 seconds.
  • Doomfist's passive ability gives him 30 temporary shields each time he hits an enemy with an ability (or seventy-five if that ability is his ultimate). These temporary shields are capped at 150 and decay at a rate of 3/second.
  • Lúcio's ultimate, Sound Barrier, gives him and all of his allies 750 temporary shields that decay over the course of 6 seconds.
  • Sigma's Kinetic Grasp gives him temporary shields based on how much damage he absorbed with the ability, and the shields start to decay at a rate of 7/second three seconds after he gains them.
  • Torbjörn's Overload gives him 100 armor that lasts for the duration of the ability, then is lost.
  • Wrecking Ball's Adaptive Shield ability gives him 100 temporary shields, plus 100 for each enemy near him. This ability lasts for 7 seconds.
• Quake:
  • Quake has a megahealth which boosts health above 100, but slowly decays until it gets back to 100. This decay is specifically provided by the megahealth, not from being above the maximum.
  • All games in the series sans Enemy Territory: Quake Wars and the single-player mode of Quake IV have the Stimpack and Megahealth items. Stimpacks add +5 HP, Megahealth adds a degenerating +100 HP and both items can overheal to a maximum of 200.
  • Quake II Mission Pack: The Reckoning and the 2023 remastered edition's Call of the Machine expansion have the Trap item. It turns any monster or player into health cubes. It has the ability to turn the user themself into one. However, managed correctly, these cubes overheal past [[BeyondTheImpossible even the 200HP maximum cap, the health doesn't degenerate unlike the Megahealth (unless the Megahealth itself is picked up, in whose case it does degenerate until the maximum cap at that moment) and, since it counts as a weapon rather than an item, the user can carry several at the same time.
  • In Quake III: Arena (as well as Quake Live) and its Spiritual Successor OpenArena, health degenerates to 100 HP if it's over this value. Players already start with an instantly-degenerating 125 HP, and the Regeneration powerup heals up to 200 max at a rate of 5 HP per second; after the powerup expires, the excess health starts degenerating.
• Team Fortress 2:
  • The Medic can use his Medigun to heal other characters to 150% of their maximum HP. When the Medic stops using the Medigun, their health will slowly degenerate to its default max value over the course of 15 seconds.
  • The Pyro's Powerjack can give overheal upon a successful kill.
  • The Spy's Conniver's Kunai steals the enemy's health on a successful backstab, allowing the Spy to get up to 210 points of overhealing.
  • In Mann vs Machine mode, Scout can gain overheal upon collecting credits.
  • In Mann vs Machine mode, weapons can be upgraded to give the user health on kills, potentially overhealing depending on their HP.
• Turok 2: Seeds of Evil, the normal health cap is 100, and this is respected by the 10 health and Full Health pickups, however the common 2 health and very rare Ultra (=100) Health pickups instead have a cap of 200.
• ULTRAKILL: One of the power-ups is a red blood orb that not only heals V1 completely, but also doubles their max HP of 100 to 200 until they lose their extra HP.
• Unreal series:
  • Almost all games in the series (the only exception is Unreal II: The Awakening) feature a rare, usually well-hidden item that gives the player 100 hitpoints (called Super Health Pack on the first game, and Big Keg O'Health in the Tournament and Championship games), surpassing the standard cap of 100. The player, however, won't be able to pick up other healing items until their life meter drops below 100.
  • In the Tournament and Championship games, the Health Vials can also overheal at a rate of 5HP.
• Valorant: When playing as Reyna, whenever she kills an opponent, it leaves behind a Soul Orb. She can consume these with her Devour ability to heal, potentially boosting her health to 150 HP, which is the same as being fully healed and equipped with the strongest body armor.

Gacha Game

• Fate/Grand Order has Fou cards that can be obtained from the Friend Point Gacha or Da'Vinchi-Chan's shop that can permanently increase a Servant's Attack and HP stats. However, Attack Fou cards cannot alter class-based Attack modifiers. On the other hand, Max HP buffs can temporarily raise a Servant's HP above their normal caps in combat.
• Honkai: Star Rail: Patch 1.3 not only upped the cap of the amount of stamina that all players can hold, but it also added a system in which stamina is 'stored' when it regenerates over the cap (though at a slower rate) that can be redeemed at any time, up to a maximum of 2000, which is enough to fill up the stamina almost ten times over.
• Pokémon Masters: You receive 200 Stamina as a login bonus, invariably taking you over the cap, and some paid bundles also come with extra Stamina. While there's a hard cap of 999 Stamina, anything you earn beyond that goes into a "Temp Storage" area to be collected once you do run out.
• SINoALICE had a "Purification" system whereby, instead of waiting for your SP to fill up over time, you could manually refill it by playing a minigame. Purification easily gave you more than enough SP to go over the cap, and you could do it even if you were already at or above the cap. There was, however, a hard cap (about 3x of the visible soft cap) beyond which you couldn't earn any more SP, no matter what.

Hack and Slash

• The Diablo series has some gear pieces that allow your character to increase one or more stats; the effect is lost when said piece is removed (either by replacement, selling or just dropping). This also has the side effect of freeing stat points for other stats. Higher stats also allow you to use better gear or (in the case of magic) learn more powerful spells or increase your spell levels beyond what your character can usually learn.

Idle Game

• Universal Paperclips: The bonus "ops" from Quantum Computing can temporarily push the player past the usual limits of their Memory. The surplus will eventually decay but lasts long enough to be usable if there is a project that requires slightly more ops than the cap.

MOBA

• In Dota 2, movement speed for all units is capped at a fixed value, but Bloodseeker's Thirst ability removes this cap for himself. Thirst also grants Bloodseeker bonus movement speed based on how much HP enemy heroes are missing, which means he can potentially reach movement speeds much higher than the cap allows.
• League of Legends:
  • The Bloodthirster item used to grant lifesteal on-hit to the user. Any health gained that goes over the user's maximum health was converted into a shield up to 50-350 damage depending on level.
  • The runes Lethal Tempo and Hail of Blades allows their users to go past the normal attack speed cap of 2.5 per second.
  • Bel'vath's Death in Lavender passive inherently removes the attack speed cap for herself.
  • Jinx can exceed the cap while she's affected by her passive Get Excited!
  • Kennen's Lightning Rush ability also allows him to exceed the cap while it is active.

Platform Game

• Earthworm Jim 2 has the Chip Butty sandwich, which raises your health all the way to 200%.
• Hollow Knight:
  • Lifeblood Cocoons are scattered throughout the map, each one dropping two or three Lifeseeds when burst. Killing each Lifeseed grants an extra Mask of health above the normal maximum, but these cannot be healed after taking damage.
  • Lifeblood can also be applied with the charms Lifeblood Heart and Lifeblood Core, or you can replace your entire health bar with an extended one made entirely of Lifeblood with Joni's Blessing.
• Kirby and the Forgotten Land: Waddle Dee's Item Shop sells the Life Up item, which gives you a breakable extra health bar — it can be refilled, but it disappears if it empties completely.
• Sonic Generations: The Modern stages feature special jump panels that let Sonic perform mid-air tricks to refill his Boost Gauge. If the meter is already full, the extra energy will extend it beyond its limit.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • Super Mario Galaxy and its sequel feature Life Mushrooms. When collected, they will increase Mario's HP to 6, wearing off once it drops back to 3 or less. They're typically uncommon, but some boss fights let you buy one for coins beforehand.
  • Super Mario Odyssey's Life-Up Hearts function similarly, increasing your max HP to 6 until it drops back down to 3. They're uncommon in the field, but any Crazy Cap store will have them for sale.

Real-Time Strategy

• Warcraft III: The Blood Mage's Siphon Mana ability can be used on enemies to take their mana away or used on an ally to give them the Blood Mage's mana, possibly pushing it over the limit of his mana pool (this mechanic is not used with the similar Drain Life ability), which will cause it to continuously drain down to its limit.

Rhythm Game

• In BanG Dream! Girls Band Party!, stamina-boosting cards can heal up to 200% of your stamina meter, granting you extra buffer for later, more difficult parts of a song map.

Roguelike

• The Binding of Isaac:
  • Soul Hearts have been around since the original flash release. They're blue hearts that you can pick up even at full red health, and they protect you from losing your deal chances upon getting hit.
  • Introduced in Wrath of the Lamb, Eternal Hearts function similarly to soul hearts at first, appearing at the end of your health bar and giving you an extra hit. However, if you find a second eternal heart or protect it until the next floor, it will permanently turn into a red heart container.
  • The Game Mod for Rebirth, Antibirth, adds "Immortal Hearts." They function identically to Soul Hearts but will regenerate at the end of the room if they don't get destroyed.
  • Afterbirth+, the 2nd DLC expansion for Rebirth, eventually added Bone Hearts. They function similarly to soul hearts in that they appear at the end of your health bar and protect deal chances. The difference is that Bone Hearts also function as disposable heart containers, so they can be filled with red hearts.
• DRL allows you to heal up to 200% of your maximum health through Soulspheres and Health Bonuses but it decays back down to 100% like in Quake. The decay can be stopped at 150% if you literally Take a Level in Badass, with two levels removing the decay completely.
• Risk of Rain 2: Certain items like the Topaz Brooch or Aegis will allow you to get "barrier," health that extends past your maximum but depletes over time.

Role Playing Game

• The Elder Scrolls:
  • Magical effects can take stats beyond the limits of what regular training can do, sometimes having effects, but sometimes not. Acrobatics skill controls jump height, which always responds to changes in skill level.
  • Fortify spells, from the third game onward, when used on Stat Meters stats like Hit Points and Mana, boost the Cap of that stat for a limited time.
• Enter the Gungeon: Armor will appear at the end of your health bar and will deplete causing a blank effect upon getting depleted.
• Final Fantasy XII: The Bubble status effect doubles the HP of the affected character, allowing it to surpass the Cap of 9999 (even if the HUD doesn't say so). It also provides immunity to the Disease status effect.
• The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II and IV, as well as The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie, have the Lost Arts, powerful Arts (Magic from Technology) which use up all of the character's EP and can only be used once per battle, but provide powerful effects. One of these is Grail Thelas (Artemis' Tears in Cold Steel II), which overheals the whole party to 200% of their max HP. The description in Cold Steel II even states that "Moon Goddess' power allows recovery beyond the body's limits."
• In Octopath Traveler, the ultimate support skill of the Cleric, Saving Grace, allows the user to be healed beyond their maximum HP, but it can't be used on a character again until their HP goes back below maximum again.
• Octopath Traveler II: Temenos' EX ability, "Prayer for Plenty", acts as an improved version of the support skill, Saving Grace, from the first game. It can heal a target beyond their max HP and doesn't need them to be below it to do so.
• Runescape: There are several items that temporarily boost player's stats beyond their default. Most common of these are potions that boost skill levels depending on a potion.
• Steven Universe:
  • Save the Light:
    • Steven and Greg's Limit Break, Fam Jam, overheals the whole party up to 125% of their max HP.
    • Greg's Healing Jam can be upgraded to overheal one ally up to 110% of their max HP. This ability is also present in Unleash the Light.
  • Unleash the Light:
    • The Appetite perk in Rose's Room gives all food healing items an overheal up to 125% of the user's health and also adds three Big Donuts to your starting inventory.
• Undertale: Sleeping at Snowed Inn or MTT Hotel will grant you HP over your current max.

Shoot 'em Ups

• Len'en Ten'eisenki ~ Brilliant Pagoda or Haze Castle: Taira no Fumikado's skill "Seven Shadows" gives you three special barriers that hinder the detrimental effects of certain sub-events and go on top of your normal limit. They are rechargeable, but once you lose them, you can't get them back through normal means.
• The Void Rains Upon Her Heart:
  • Energy Zest lets you start each fight with a full Charged Attack gauge, and four bonus charges on top of that. The bonus charges are used first and can't regenerate.
  • Reserve Health gives you health that regenerates during battles. If you don't need it, it'll remain in stock until you take damage, effectively giving you health beyond the limit of your health bar. However, note that the regeneration is not instant, so several hits in rapid succession or one particularly powerful blow can still kill you even if the total damage is less than the sum of your health and Reserve Health.
• ZeroRanger: In GREEN ORANGE / Normal mode, destroying enemies in quick succession will raise your Score Multiplier, up to a maximum of ×6.4. Once you unlock your fighter's mech form, you can use your mech form's attacks to "Overload" your multiplier, up to ×12.8 (which is no easy feat, since your mech can only use melee attacks). However, the multiplier timer lasts shorter while in Overload, and once it empties out, you drop back to ×6.4 and below.

Tabletop Game

• Dungeons & Dragons:
  • Some spells and abilities can give a character "temporary hit points". These are layered on top of their regular HP and are always lost to damage before them, meaning that while the spell lasts (and while these temp. HP are unspent), the character effectively has more HP than their maximum. In the third edition, the duration of the temporary hit points is typically defined by the effect that grants them, while in 5e, they last until the character finishes a long rest.
  • The Positive Energy Plane is a dangerous variant — non-native creatures recover 5 Hit Points for each round of exposure, which can cause them to exceed their normal maximum. However, each round they remain "overhealed", they risk exploding from energy buildup.
  • The obscure ability "energy charge" allows a creature to bestow "positive levels" (the opposite of energy drain, which bestows negative levels). Each positive level grants a small stat boost and causes the target's Character Level to count as one higher. They can also be used to weaken or destroy undead in the same way that negative levels weaken or kill the living.
  • In 5th Edition, Player Character ability scores are capped at 20. However, some magic items let the wearer exceed this cap while they're worn. For example, the various Belts of Giant Strength set the wearer's Strength score to a fixed number, starting at 21 for the Belt of Hill Giant Strength and going all the way up to 29 for the Belt of Storm Giant Strength, which is one point below the game's hard ability score cap of 30. The Belt of Dwarvenkind, meanwhile, simply grants a +2 to the wearer's Constitution score but also temporarily adds +2 to their maximum Constitution while worn. Player Characters with 20 levels in the Barbarian class also gain the Primal Champion feature which raises their cap in the Strength and Constitution scores by 4 while adding another 4 to both scores.
• Wingspan: Two birds in Wingspan Asia have powers that let them lay eggs on other birds and go above the bird's usual egg limit when you do so.

Third-Person Shooter

• Warframe:
  • All Warframes except for Nidus and Inaros can have overshields in addition to their regular shields, which will turn the shield bar from cyan to purple. There are a variety of ways to gain overshields, including companion precept mods like Shield Charger or Molecular Conversion as well as Warframe abilities like Hildryn's Pillage or Protea's Grenade Fan. All Warframes have a hard cap of 1200 overshields except for Harrow, whose passive is to double this cap, and Nidus and Inaros, who can't have shields at all under any circumstances.
  • In a variant, the Health Conversion and Synth Fiber mods respectively grant armor to a Warframe or sentinel upon collecting health orbs.
  • Enemies that have been Taken for Granite by Atlas will drop rubble when they die. Picking up the rubble will heal Atlas or give him a stacking armor buff if he's at full health.

Non-Video-Game Examples

LitRPG

• Saintess Summons Skeletons: Sieva extract potions will heal 5000HP, which is more than Sofia's maximum health the first time she tries one. For a few seconds, her health is 5018/335, but then it quickly settles back down to her maximum.

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