Playing With / One-Hit Kill

Basic Trope: A weapon or move in a video game instantly kills another character in one shot.

• Straight: The Player Character has a fire spell that spews instant death.
• Exaggerated:
  • The same fire spell can continue through its original target, hitting Mook after Mook. If it's cast by the enemy or boss instead, then it leads to a Total Party Kill.
  • The fireball causes Cessation of Existence. ^note Obviously, this only counts as an Exaggeration in a setting with an afterlife.
  • One-Hit-Point Wonder (any enemy, and likely the player too, can be instantly killed in one hit, probably including the Final Boss and Superboss, thus averting Contractual Boss Immunity).
  • The player is in a game with multiple lives, but there exists an attack that instantly sets that counter to zero.
• Downplayed:
  • The spell can do a Nonlethal KO in a game where it's possible to pernamently kill.
  • The spell doesn't actually kill in one shot, but it hits so hard that it might as well be a one-shot if the target isn't significantly durable.
  • The spell will instantly kill anything that can't mash the buttons fast enough to escape.
  • The spell is survivable if the target has enough health, only to die from the second hit.
• Justified:
  • The fire spell actually conjures a ludicrously large ball of fire that would indeed reduce any organic matter to ashes.
  • The fireball is super-concentrated enough to pierce through the head, no matter the armor. ^note doesn't matter how much HP a character has, with the brain that gone...?
• Inverted: The fire spell is used on a fire-type enemy... Who is healed fully by it.
• Subverted:
  • The fire spell causes instant death to minor Mooks, but not the Big Bad.
  • The fire spell always depletes the opponent's energy to just one point.
• Double Subverted:
  • ...Unless you hit him in just right the right place or at just the right time.
  • After the HP to One fire spell, the opponent is hit by any next attack.
  • The HP to One spell also inflicts the Burn status, which deals residual damage
• Parodied: The PC summons up a ludicrously small fireball (e.g. strikes a match) which nonetheless reduces the Mooks to ashes in spectacular fashion.
• Zig Zagged: The fireball kills some Mooks in one cast and not others.
• Averted: None of the spells in the game are One-Hit Kill.
• Enforced: The spell in question is a key piece of the plot.
• Lampshaded: "Taste instant death!"
• Invoked:
  • A Player Character must train their fire spell for hours before making its effectiveness reach the level of One-Hit Kill.
  • The game features a spell designing mechanic which includes Instant Death as a possible modifier.
• Exploited: Higher-level enemies can reflect the fireball to instantly kill the player.
• Defied:
  • No matter how much the Player Character trains, the fire spell will never perform a One-Hit Kill.
  • The enemy actively dodges your One-Hit Kill attacks.
• Discussed: "Dude, I just got the highest rank on my fireball spell!"
• Conversed: "Wow, how did you just kill a 100-foot giant with a basketball-sized fireball?"
• Deconstructed:
  • Using a fire spell of this magnitude costs the Player Character dearly in either stamina or mana and they must rest for quite a while before using it again.
  • The fire spell is so broken that the game isn't fun.
• Reconstructed:
  • ...But with training, they can almost negate the drawbacks entirely.
  • Alternatively, the Awesome, but Impractical nature of the spell encourages players to use it on the resident Demonic Spiders to avoid chewing through stamina or mana too quickly and use other spells more often.
  • The fun of the game is in being a broken One-Man Army who mows down mooks like a harvester through a wheat field.

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