History AwesomeButImpractical / TabletopGames

* The Rube Goldberg device at the center of the game ''Mousetrap.'' It is fun to watch in action, but the "trap" takes a long time to assemble and NEVER works from start to finish. Fortunately, nothing practical is provided.

* ''Pirates Constructible Strategy Game'':

** In the game's [[ObviousBeta janky 1st Edition]], thrown bombs were almost impossible to throw without catching yourself in the blast radius, which was only a yard shorter than the maximum throw distance. Errata and later editions corrected this.

* Mumakil in the ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings Strategy Battle Game'' (another Games Workshop property). The largest plastic model GW made when it was released (although new technology has since left it in the dust), it is capable of devastating enemy armies... but if it takes a Wound, you need to take a Courage test or your opponent can have it trample up and down over your troops. In addition, it costs a small fortune, and its damage output goes way down if your opponent gets Priority and successfully charges it or speed-bumps it with a Hero or other unit (an Ent, for example) that's durable enough to take its impact and survive.

** In 5e, some subclasses and races, especially those not in the Player's Handbook, can be seen as this. There's also combining races that use one stat for special racial abilities, with a class that uses another stat, such as making a Yuan-Ti Pureblood Cleric, as Yuan-Ti use Charisma for their special abilities, while Clerics use Wisdom for their spells. Still, with the right stat arrangement, and a bit of practice, a smart player can come up with a pretty cool character. However, ''Tasha's Cauldron of Everything'' provides a generic rule variant that allows a player to place the stat bonuses in whichever stats they want, as long as the DM approves the use of this rule. This allows for a lot more interesting racial and class combinations that don't end up being subpar mechanically. It also allows for changes to any skill, weapon, armor, and tool proficiencies -- skill swapped for another skill, armor could be swapped for a weapon or tool skill, with martial weapons being swapped for another martial or simple weapon, simple weapons swapped for another simple weapon or tool, and finally tools for other tools or simple weapons -- which could also be used to get rid of any redundancies, such as a Mountain Dwarf Fighter, which has proficiencies with light armor, medium armor, hand axes, light hammers, war hammers, and battle axes, things a fighter gets automatically. Such redundant weapon and armor proficiencies could be swapped for more tools, like water and land vehicles, other tools that dwarves could get, or instruments.

*** This was made even more glaring at some points in time, as most of their stuff was overpriced and out of date by their then-current Marine counterparts who, while still being much cheaper than a Grey Knight, had much more equipment to compensate for any of their earlier weaknesses. Chaos Space Marines also got an update so that they can be upgraded to be harder to kill. The Grey Knights eventually moved from this trope, as the 2011 Grey Knight codex moved the army into GameBreaker and LowTierLetdown status. 55 point Terminators with two wounds each, armed with force weapons, that have 4+ invulnerable saves on top of their 2+ armor save? That can claim objectives? ''And'' had [[MadeOfIron Feel No Pain]]. Never forget [[WhyWontYouDie FNP]].

*** The ''Dungeon Master's Guide'' explicitly instructs dungeon masters to pervert even the most benign of wishes (it claims not to, but then it gives examples where it does). Many take it to heart, making the spell an effective suicide method.

** Some cards have the effect of healing all of your Pokémon but each of them has a drawback: Undaunted Togekiss and Burning Shadows Butterfree are Stage 2's and require the player to shuffle the Pokémon and all cards attached to it into your deck. Sun & Moon's Primarina-GX is also a Stage 2 and requires you to place a GX marker on the card after you use its move (though this can be sidestepped by Cosmic Eclipse Misty & Lorelei Tag Team) and Quad Stone requires you to play 4 copies at once. Needless to say, it's easier to use cards like Max Potion or Rough Seas

** Third Edition had the "Brilliant Energy" weapon ability. At a staggering +4 price mod (a weapon's total cost was it's price mod, squared, multiplied by 2000 gold pieces), a Brilliant Energy Weapon ignores all inorganic matter when swung, sailing effortlessly through armor. Sounds cool, right? The trouble is that most of the enemies a player will face by the time he can afford it see it as inconsequential; Outsiders have massive Deflection-based defenses that don't use matter, Dragons have incredibly thick hides that a Brilliant Energy weapon won't help pierce, worst of all, undead and constructs don't have any organic matter at all -- meaning that the weapon will sail through their entire bodies, leaving them completely unharmed. On the other hand, that last bit means a Necromancer capable of casting the spell that gives people Brilliant Energy weapons (temporarily) has an unstoppable army.

** The Deathstrike Missile. It's ungodly powerful (being one of the most powerful weapons you can field in an non-Apocalypse game), indestructible, and has a huge blast radius. The impractical part? Due to being a blast weapon, it's inaccurate to the point of HoistByHisOwnPetard-tier suicide (unless you fire it across the table, it's fully capable of randomly flying backwards and obliterating your own troops). Doesn't help that it's being crewed by normal Guardsmen, who are not known for their accuracy. You also only get one shot per game. It also can't fire first turn (leaving it open to being shot off the table; It's not that well armored) and is only really useful against less mobile, more concentrated armies (playing against Dark Eldar? You'll probably hit 1 unit with it, ''if'' you're lucky).

*** Imperator is a sub-class of Emperor Titan, along with the Warmonger Titan. They are both roughly the same size. Warlord Titans are one step smaller, followed by Reaver Titans and finally Warhounds. Games Workshop have only ever released Warhound Titans (and, from Forge World, Reaver Titans) in 40K scale. The Imperator/Emperor model was only ever made in Epic scale, along with all the other Titan types.
** The 40K scale Tau Manta transport gunship from Forgeworld. At a massive 63x86cm (25x34 inches), this thing not only does not belong on a table, it ''is'' a table. And at more than a thousand UK Pounds, there aren't likely to be too many players who can afford one.
** Also for Tau, and from Forge World, the [=XV9=] Hazard battlesuit. Tougher than almost every other battlesuit option out there, armed with a variety of Anti-infantry weaponry. The catch? Well for starters, it's a Forgeworld Model which means money costs are high. Second, most of its weapons only reach out to 18", and leave quite a bit to be desired in the Armor Piercing department for most of them. The Phased Ion gun is, quite bluntly, a ShoddyKnockoffProduct of the Space Marine Assault Cannon, with the only difference being you can equip two of them per suit. For anti armor, its Fusion Cascade is a Melta weapon, but has lower power in exchange for a D3 shots per turn, making its armor busting potential questionable. And the final nail in the coffin is that for a lot cheaper costs (money and points wise), you can use other Tau units to do everything the [=XV9=] Hazard can but better. Stealth Suits, which are incredibly effective in cover, and have up to 6 in one squad (3 more than any other Battlesuit squad). Crisis suits, which are BoringButPractical and can be kitted out with much more reliable (and further ranged) weapons. Finally, you could take Broadsides with High-Yield Missile Pods, and Smart Missile Systems (aka, "[[MacrossMissileMassacre Missilesides]]"), which have higher strength than most of the options on the Hazard, shoot much further, and will always put out 8 shots a turn, with re-rolls to misses, thanks to being twinlinked. Additionally, the Smart Missiles ignore cover, and don't require line of sight either. All of which are from the standard Tau Empire Codex.
** The [=XV104=] Riptide Battlesuit is amazingly awesome. Its stock loadout is the GatlingGood Heavy Burst Cannon, which fires 8 shots a turn to wreck infantry squads, paired with a secondary weapon choice of either Twin-Linked Smart Missile Systems, Plasma Rifles, or Fusion Blasters. Thanks to the Riptide's dark matter-powered Nova Reactor, it has the option each turn to Nova-charge its weapons in order to spit out 12 shots and gain the Rending rule. So that's the Awesome part, what's the Impractical? Well, aside from needing to make a 3+ activation check to use the Nova-Reactor, with a failure meaning you get no benefit out of the Nova Reactor, and suffer an automatic wound with no saves allowed on the Riptide, a Nova-Charged Heavy Burst Cannon also gains the "Gets Hot!" rule, which means on a [[CriticalFailure roll of 1]] you receive another wound. That means you've got [[ThirteenIsUnlucky 13]] chances to wound your particularly points-expensive Elite Battlesuit during its own turn. For a few extra points (so few that it barely even matters at this point) you can avert this flaw and upgrade the Heavy Burst Cannon to an Ion Accelerator. This has incredibly massive range, allowing you to safely tuck your Riptide away and out of reach of most other units, hits much harder, and for much safer risk of just 1 chance at over heating, can be overcharged normally like all Ion weaponry of the Tau, and can switch from 3 shots, to a single shot Large Blast with more power. The only time you will ever need to consider turning on the Nova Charge reactor for the Ion Accelerator, is if your intended target also involves the words "Armor Value 14" in its stats, or simply take the previously mentioned Fusion Blaster secondary weapons which has the Melta rule, and can be nova-charged to fire more rapidly with no risk of getting hot.

** In a similar vein, the Land Raider itself is this. On paper the thing looks damn impressive, having enough firepower to destroy any other tank in the game, or take on a full squad of elite troopers, while its armor laughs off swarmers and anything not dedicated to killing giant tanks. Its point cost, while high, is still affordable in most standard games. The main problem is that the primary focus of a Land Raider is to ''survive'', which does little for something that cannot 1.) do that much damage and 2.) capture points. For the same cost as a Land Raider, you could have afforded two tanks with twice the amount of weapons, and are viewed as less of a high-profile target.

** In the fluff, [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Abaddon the Despoiler's]] unimaginatively-named flagship ''Planet Killer''. Sure, it has the most powerful weapon pretty much in the known universe (the [[SarcasmMode imaginatively-named Armageddon Gun]]). Sure, it bristles with lance batteries and torpedo tubes, and sure, it has a crew of millions of slaves and thousands of [[SpaceMarine psychotic ten thousand year old badass warlords]]... but the one time its captain tried to take it into action without escorts, a small squadron of cruisers sat out of range, metaphorically flipped the bird at the spiky scary ship, and ''[[CurbStompBattle blew it to pieces]]'' with standard long-range torpedoes. Undeterred by this, he built another one.

** Penitent Engines and Dread Knights look like this, both of them are walkers bristling with devastating close-range weaponry -- with pilots ''intentionally'' left fully exposed to enemy fire. Background material claims that it not to be the case. The Dreadknight has a forcefield that protects the pilot while Penitent Engines has its pilot's consciousness downloaded inside the machine, so they're not affected by the pilot's body being blown to pieces. Plus the Dread Knight's pilot is wearing Terminator Armour, the heaviest available in the Imperium, and the entire point of the Penitent Engine is to get its pilot gloriously killed to atone for their past sins.

** Sometimes happens in-universe as well -- Commissar Literature/CiaphasCain is usually depicted with a bolt pistol on book covers (in the style as Imperial propaganda posters), but he himself uses a laspistol. He discusses the flaws of a bolt pistol when he runs into one of his colleagues wielding one; the laspistol is much lighter than a bolt pistol, has more shots per clip (the laspistol clips are lighter and smaller too), can be recharged through various means (given how often he spends cut off from enemy lines with nothing but a gun, chainsword, and Jurgen, running out of ammo is the last thing he wants), and while it doesn't make as much dramatic noise when executing cowards, he does his best to avoid executing soldiers in the first place (not to mention he doesn't want to make himself an even bigger target).
** This trope is so enforced in 40k that the reason they don't use more BoringButPractical methods seems to be that they'll inevitably find ''some'' way to make it impractical. The article "Rocks Are Not Free!" explains that the Imperium relies on expensive high-tech missiles and battleships to depopulate worlds rather than just taking a few asteroids and dropping them from orbit, because the Imperium insists on running that maneuver through so many layers of red tape that that the missiles are actually the cheaper option.

** The ''Pokémon Trading Card Game Fossil Expansion Player's Guide'' has a deck called [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Ferocious_Commons_(TCG) Ferocious Commons]] which is a deck that tosses Base Set Rattata, Staryu and Machop into a deck for a ZergRush strategy. The main problem is that all three cards have ''very low'' health points as well as attacks that only dealt 20 damage and the two most popular decks at the time, Haymaker and Rain Dance, had Pokémon with high HP and Damage leading to very fast knockouts. The deck tries to get around this with a variety of Trainer cards like Bill and Gust of Wind but it still doesn't make up for the very weak Pokémon

* ''TabletopGame/Pokemon'':
** Most Charizard cards are this, possessing big damage but very hefty effects such as the Base Set Charizard, whose Fire Spin did 100 damage...but also required 4 Fire Energy cards and to discard 2 every time you attacked. That said, however, some Charizard cards have been released with better costs and effects such as Charizard-GX and Charizard & Braxien GX.
** The ''Pokémon Trading Card Game Fossil Expansion Player's Guide'' has a deck called [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Ferocious_Commons_(TCG) Ferocious Commons]] which is a deck that tosses Base Set Rattata, Staryu and Machop into a deck for a ZergRush strategy. The main problem is that all three cards have ''very low'' health points and the two most popular decks at the time, Haymaker and Rain Dance, had Pokémon with high HP and Damage leading to very fast knockouts. The deck tries to get around this with a variety of Trainer cards like Bill and Gust of Wind but it still doesn't make up for the very weak Pokémon.

*** This was made even more glaring at some points in time, as most of their stuff was overpriced and out of date by their then-current Marine counterparts who, while still being much cheaper than a Grey Knight, had much more equipment to compensate for any of their earlier weaknesses. Chaos Space Marines also got an update so that they can be upgraded to be harder to kill. The Grey Knights eventually moved from this trope, as the 2011 Grey Knight codex moved the army into GameBreaker and TierInducedScrappy status. 55 point Terminators with two wounds each, armed with force weapons, that have 4+ invulnerable saves on top of their 2+ armor save? That can claim objectives? ''And'' had [[MadeOfIron Feel No Pain]]. Never forget [[WhyWontYouDie FNP]].

* TabletopGame/Chess:

** Flamethrowers and (especially) plasma generators do lots of area-of-effect damage, but when it malfunctions (which it does relatively often) or a shot hits the fuel tank, it tends to explode -- and it's strapped to your back, so you can't run away unless you take time to unstrap it first.

** The Sorcerer's Bestiary has an ability that lets you play a Dragon from an ''opponent's'' discard pile... by paying its normal cost and four more essences on top of that. Between the high cost (especially considering that most Dragons require a lot of specific essences) and the timing required (if you're too slow, the Dragon's owner might return it to their hand or shuffle their discard pile into a new deck), this is hard to pull off, especially if you don't have any cost reduction effects to counteract the +4 additional costs. However, if the stars do align, this move uses an opponent's card to earn you ''three'' points (one from the Dragon itself and two extra from the Bestiary's "two points per Dragon you control" ability).

* The ''[[UsefulNotes/BritsWithBattleships HMS Dreadnought]]'' from the ''Pirates Constructible Strategy Game''; it possesses five masts and five cannons that hit on a 4+ die roll, and these cannot be eliminated until all of its masts have been shot away. The drawbacks? 26 point cost (when most games run 40 point fleets) and slower than a glacier when sent out with no crew. Giving it a captain and a helmsman will tack on 5 more points, bringing the total cost to 31 points. While it might have a chance of doing some damage, if its sunk, captured or wrecked, then half the player's fleet is gone.

* In the ''TabletopGame/D20Modern'' Urban Arcana setting, a bunch of Gnomes whom ended up in Switzerland designed a "[[KillSat fully functional orbiting laser cannon platform]]". It was never actually built because it would have been too expensive.
* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' 3.5e examples:

*** Vengeful Gaze of God causes, on average, 1067 HP of damage, to any one target within a 4 kilometer radius. Pretty big, no? Except... casting it requires a skill roll with a Difficulty Class of '''419''' (probably the highest DC ever to show up in any D&D book), which is impossible even to a normally-built wizard on level ''100''. And if you '''are''' powerful enough to cast something like this, then at your level even the weakest mooks you face probably have hit points going into the thousands. And for added fun, it causes an average 700 HP of backlash damage to ''you''.

** Third Edition had the "Brilliant Energy" weapon ability. At a staggering +4 price mod (a weapon's total cost was it's price mod, squared, multiplied by 2000 gold pieces), a Brilliant Energy Weapon ignores all inorganic matter when swung, sailing effortlessly through armor. Sounds cool, right? The trouble is that most of the enemies a player will face by the time he can afford it see it as inconsequential; Outsiders have massive Deflection-based defenses that don't use matter, Dragons have incredibly thick hides that a Brilliant Energy weapon won't help pierce, worst of all, undead and constructs don't have any organic matter at all -- meaning that the weapon will sail through their entire bodies, leaving them completely unharmed.
*** On the other hand, that last bit means a Necromancer capable of casting the spell that gives people Brilliant Energy weapons (temporarily) has an unstoppable army.

** In 5e, some subclasses and races, especially those not in the Player's Handbook, can be seen as this. There's also combining races that use one stat for special racial abilities, with a class that uses another stat, such as making a Yuan-Ti Pureblood Cleric, as Yuan-Ti use Charisma for their special abilities, while Clerics use Wisdom for their spells. Still, with the right stat arrangement, and a bit of practice, a smart player can come up with a pretty cool character.
*** Fortunately, Tasha's Cauldron of Everything provided a generic rule variant that allows a player to place the stat bonuses in whichever stats they want, as long as the DM approves the use of this rule. This allows for a lot more interesting racial and class combinations that don't end up being subpar mechanically. It also allows for changes to any skill, weapon, armor, and tool proficiencies -- skill swapped for another skill, armor could be swapped for a weapon or tool skill, with martial weapons being swapped for another martial or simple weapon, simple weapons swapped for another simple weapon or tool, and finally tools for other tools or simple weapons -- which could also be used to get rid of any redundancies, such as a Mountain Dwarf Fighter, which has proficiencies with light armor, medium armor, hand axes, light hammers, war hammers, and battle axes, things a fighter gets automatically. Such redundant weapon and armor proficiencies could be swapped for more tools, like water and land vehicles, other tools that dwarves could get, or instruments.

** The 40K scale Tau Manta transport gunship from Forgeworld. At a massive 63x86cm (25x34 inches), this thing not only does not belong on a table, it ''is'' a table. And at nearly a thousand UK Pounds, there aren't likely to be too many players who can afford one.

* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' lives, breathes and shits this trope. All the time.
** The Baneblade superheavy tank in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' looks absolutely sweet and its stats on paper are overwhelmingly awesome. After all, it's ready to unleash [[VideoGame/DawnOfWar ELEVEN BARRELS OF HELL!]] However, the sheer ridiculous points cost means that the opponent can field a much larger force, with all the dedicated anti-tank weaponry needed to make the Baneblade into eleven mountains of scrap metal. Some people actually pointed out that due to the rules for coming in from reserves, a Baneblade technically can't be put in reserve, despite it being an option (and the only way to ensure it doesn't get scrapped in Spearhead). This is because the literal wording of Reserves means that the unit has to move from off the board onto the board using its normal movement allowance. A Baneblade moves 6 inches a turn, it's almost a foot in length! [[ThrowTheDogABone Then came 5th edition which]] not only made it cheaper (from 650 to 500 which is cheap in 3,000+ point games it's made for), but also harder to kill. It still has its limits -- sinking 500 points into a unit which couldn't capture objectives at the time, is relatively slow, and is vulnerable to rear armour hits like all tanks -- but it's at least usable. Not to mention there's nothing better than [[OhCrap the look on a Guard player's face if you do succeed in wrecking their precious baby.]]
** The Baneblade (and its brother Super Heavies, the Mjollnir and Excalibur tanks) didn't fare much better in the larger scale game ''Space Marine''. True, their 1+ save meant they could only be taken out by reasonably powerful weapons, and they packed Titan class weapons... but for the price of one of them, you could buy one or two units of regular tanks, which could 1) bring more guns to the party, 2) move much, much faster and 3) not die in a single lucky hit. For that matter, the Ork Super Gargants were also all but useless - being extra hardy is nice. Having only short range and contact weapons on a slower-than-tectonic-plates bullet magnet? Not so much.
** The Shadowsword is an anti-Titan variant of the aforementioned Baneblade. It's main gun is the horrendously powerful [[WaveMotionGun Volcano Cannon]], a laser weapon from the Dark Age of Technology that literally reduces HumongousMecha and heavy fortifications to steaming piles of molten slag (provided the shields are downed first). Lesser Titans like Reavers and Warhounds go down in one shot, shields or no. However it's still slow, it cannot fire on the move or rotate the gun (no turret mount here) and it doesn't have many of the guns the generalist Baneblade has for picking off lesser targets. If the gun hits anything lesser than a Titan it will be utterly destroyed, but it just isn't worth the cost then.
** A lot of special characters fall into this, especially the ones that are pure beatsticks. They are extremely powerful, but also extremely expensive and, if not immune to instant death, die to a single tank round. That's why you don't see the likes of Typhus or Marneus Calgar very often. The most used special characters either buff your other units (like Vulcan, Ghazghkull or Fatereaver) or are {{Game Breaker}}s (like Eldrad).
** Eldar tanks are actually as durable as their Imperial equivalents. Eldar lack heavy tanks like Leman Russes or Land Raiders, but compared to Chimaera-and Rhino-chassis tanks (which, like the Eldar tanks, are based on a transport chassis), Eldar tanks are actually more heavily armoured, faster, and have additional defences in the form of power- or holofields. They're still impractical, though, due to their extremely high cost (a Wave Serpent costs nearly four times as much as a Chimera, while having similar firepower and being only slightly more durable).
** The Grey Knights used to embody this trope. Not only was the average Grey Knight Trooper more expensive than its loyalist OR Chaos Counterpart (in both in-game point cost and real-life money costs), it still died by the same weapons that can kill the aforementioned cheaper counterparts. The Awesome part? Even the basic trooper in a Grey Knight army is equipped with an appropriately named Nemesis Force Weapon and Stormbolter, which turns each and every Grey Knight into a LightningBruiser / GlassCannon that can tear apart a tank in close combat....if you ever got it that close to a tank. It's even lampshaded in their debut codex, which mentions that it would be very hard to play a pure Grey Knight army (although possible).
*** This was made even more glaring at some points in time, as most of their stuff was overpriced and out of date by their then-current Marine counterparts who, while still being much cheaper than a Grey Knight, had much more equipment to compensate for any of their earlier weaknesses. Chaos Space Marines also got an update so that they can be upgraded to be harder to kill. The Grey Knights eventually moved from this trope, as the 2011 Grey Knight codex moved the army into GameBreaker and TierInducedScrappy status. 55 point Terminators with two wounds each, armed with force weapons, that have 4+ invulnerable saves on top of their 2+ armor save? That can claim objectives? ''And'' had [[MadeOfIron Feel No Pain]]. Never forget [[WhyWontYouDie FNP]].
*** Feel No Pain on the Paladins (the aforementioned 2 wound Terminators) is itself an example of this trope, purely because everyone became aware of it. Terminators are already very well protected from low strength and AP weapons, Paladins more so as they have two wounds and can abuse the wound allocation rules to spread damage around their unit. Therefore, most fire directed at them from other players will either be [=AP2=] or S8 (or both), negating [=FNP=] entirely. Considering how much a Paladin Apothecary costs, it's hardly practical to get them [=FNP=] instead of just buying more Paladins.
** The Deathstrike Missile. It's ungodly powerful (being one of the most powerful weapons you can field in an non-Apocalypse game), indestructible, and has a huge blast radius. The impractical part? Due to being a blast weapon, it's inaccurate to the point of HoistByHisOwnPetard-tier suicide (unless you fire it across the table, it's fully capable of randomly flying backwards and obliterating your own troops). Doesn't help that it's being crewed by normal Guardsmen, who are not known for their accuracy. You also only get one shot per game. It also can't fire first turn (leaving it open to being shot off the table; It's not that well armored) and is only really useful against less mobile, more concentrated armies (playing against Dark Eldar? You'll probably hit 1 unit with it, ''if'' you're lucky).
** Speaking of Apocalypse, both of the {{Lethal Joke Character}}s. The Warlord Titan is three times the size of a Warhound Titan, which is already gigantic even in miniature scale. There are also rules for a Imperator Titan, which no-one deploys due to just how bloody ''huge'' it is. To say it's easier to {{cosplay}} as one and just stand on the table instead of making a model is NOT an understatement of how big it would be. In fact, it may actually be smaller than making a true-to-scale model. You would need specially-reinforced tables just to use those things.
*** Imperator is a sub-class of Emperor Titan, along with the Warmonger Titan. They are both roughly the same size. Warlord Titans are one step smaller, followed by Reaver Titans and finally Warhounds. Games Workshop have only ever released Warhound Titans (and, from Forge World, Reaver Titans) in 40K scale. The Imperator/Emperor model was only ever made in Epic scale, along with all the other Titan types.
** The 40K scale Tau Manta transport gunship from Forgeworld. At a massive 63x86cm (25x34 inches), this thing not only does not belong on a table, it ''is'' a table. And at nearly a thousand UK Pounds, there aren't likely to be too many players who can afford one.
** Also for Tau, and from Forge World, the [=XV9=] Hazard battlesuit. Tougher than almost every other battlesuit option out there, armed with a variety of Anti-infantry weaponry. The catch? Well for starters, it's a Forgeworld Model which means money costs are high. Second, most of its weapons only reach out to 18", and leave quite a bit to be desired in the Armor Piercing department for most of them. The Phased Ion gun is, quite bluntly, a ShoddyKnockoffProduct of the Space Marine Assault Cannon, with the only difference being you can equip two of them per suit. For anti armor, its Fusion Cascade is a Melta weapon, but has lower power in exchange for a D3 shots per turn, making its armor busting potential questionable. And the final nail in the coffin is that for a lot cheaper costs (money and points wise), you can use other Tau units to do everything the [=XV9=] Hazard can but better. Stealth Suits, which are incredibly effective in cover, and have up to 6 in one squad (3 more than any other Battlesuit squad). Crisis suits, which are BoringButPractical and can be kitted out with much more reliable (and further ranged) weapons. Finally, you could take Broadsides with High-Yield Missile Pods, and Smart Missile Systems (aka, "[[MacrossMissileMassacre Missilesides]]"), which have higher strength than most of the options on the Hazard, shoot much further, and will always put out 8 shots a turn, with re-rolls to misses, thanks to being twinlinked. Additionally, the Smart Missiles ignore cover, and don't require line of sight either. All of which are from the standard Tau Empire Codex.
** The [=XV104=] Riptide Battlesuit is amazingly awesome. Its stock loadout is the GatlingGood Heavy Burst Cannon, which fires 8 shots a turn to wreck infantry squads, paired with a secondary weapon choice of either Twin-Linked Smart Missile Systems, Plasma Rifles, or Fusion Blasters. Thanks to the Riptide's dark matter-powered Nova Reactor, it has the option each turn to Nova-charge its weapons in order to spit out 12 shots and gain the Rending rule. So that's the Awesome part, what's the Impractical? Well, aside from needing to make a 3+ activation check to use the Nova-Reactor, with a failure meaning you get no benefit out of the Nova Reactor, and suffer an automatic wound with no saves allowed on the Riptide, a Nova-Charged Heavy Burst Cannon also gains the "Gets Hot!" rule, which means on a [[CriticalFailure roll of 1]] you receive another wound. That means you've got [[ThirteenIsUnlucky 13]] chances to wound your particularly points-expensive Elite Battlesuit during its own turn. For a few extra points (so few that it barely even matters at this point) you can avert this flaw and upgrade the Heavy Burst Cannon to an Ion Accelerator. This has incredibly massive range, allowing you to safely tuck your Riptide away and out of reach of most other units, hits much harder, and for much safer risk of just 1 chance at over heating, can be overcharged normally like all Ion weaponry of the Tau, and can switch from 3 shots, to a single shot Large Blast with more power. The only time you will ever need to consider turning on the Nova Charge reactor for the Ion Accelerator, is if your intended target also involves the words "Armor Value 14" in its stats, or simply take the previously mentioned Fusion Blaster secondary weapons which has the Melta rule, and can be nova-charged to fire more rapidly with no risk of getting hot.
*** Worth noting that in-universe, the Tau are the only exception to ''Warhammer 40000'''s love of this trope. Everything the Tau use is built with functionality in mind. No trophy racks and battle honours on their sleek, futuristic vehicles - if it serves no purpose, it comes off. The Tau are the only faction in the game who don't often use [[HumongousMecha Titans]], preferring heavy strike aircraft like the aforementioned Manta, much like modern armies in RealLife. They're also the only ones to use mass-produced plasma weapons, which are less destructive than the Imperial versions but don't explode.
*** However, the Tau are not above using [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial large robots that definitely aren't based on Titans]] such as the Ta'unar Supremacy Armour, which while being loaded out with enough guns to make even the [[OurOrksAreDifferent Orks]] jealous, it does suffer from the same issue as other massive units in game, mainly being extremely expensive both in RealLife and in game.
** On paper, the Eldar's Fire Prism looks pretty awesome. It is tougher than a Land Raider when fully upgraded, can fling Strength 9 laser bolts around, and can combine fire with other Fire Prisms to make even bigger superlaser-of-death shots. Then again, in smaller games a single 90pt War Walker can hit tanks harder than two 115-pt Fire Prisms combining their shots, a Dark Reaper squadron can kill heavy infantry nearly as effectively, and a Falcon can blow more things up for the same Heavy Support slot while remaining just as tough. Thank Khaine for Carnifexes, because if there were no Monstrous Creatures in the game, the Fire Prism wouldn't exist.
*** In the 6th edition Eldar codex, this is no longer the case, as the Fire Prism became much more practical. Its gun has 3 firing modes, a S5 [=AP3=] Large Blast, perfect for blasting apart large units of everything from Marines on down, a S7 [=AP2=] Blast, perfect for Terminators and the like and an S9 [=AP1=] Lance, perfect for killing tanks. The clincher? All 3 of these have a 60 inch range and can be fired after moving 12 inches, meaning that in a board of any size, it's very difficult to return fire on one. Awesome Yet Game Breaking might be a better term for this edition's Fire Prism.
** In a similar vein, the Land Raider itself is this. On paper the thing looks damn impressive, having enough firepower to destroy any other tank in the game, or take on a full squad of elite troopers, while its armor laughs off swarmers and anything not dedicated to killing giant tanks. Its point cost, while high, is still affordable in most standard games. The main problem is that the primary focus of a Land Raider is to ''survive'', which does little for something that cannot 1.) do that much damage and 2.) capture points. For the same cost as a Land Raider, you could have afforded two tanks with twice the amount of weapons, and are viewed as less of a high-profile target.
%% *** The [[KillItWithFire Redeemer]] and [[MoreDakka Crusader]] versions, however, are a different story.
** Many a vanilla unit is prone to find itself in this role. Consider Assault Terminators. A Codex Marines army can spend 400 points just fluffing out a ten man squad. Sure, they'll hit like a ton of bricks if they catch anything in melee, but because of their high value and very slow movement, they aren't going to catch many things in melee at all, and certainly not enough to make back their points cost. The Marine player will likely find that unit has a hard time getting in close with anything that matters, meaning the enemy can avoid it if they want, feed it a low-value unit if they must to delay the squad, and pick apart the rest of the Space Marine army with their force. A ''smaller'' Terminator force would be far more dangerous because it will be supported by other units who can keep the enemies from having a whole table to maneuver on. There's nothing sadder than watching a new Space Marine player who put his two hundred point HQ into his 400 point Assault Terminator squad thinking it'll win the game, and all that squad did was take down a squad of RedShirt Imperial Guardsmen.
** Terminator armor itself was considered this in-universe at one time. During the Great Crusade, there were plans to replace all power armor with terminator armor. However, the suits proved too slow and easy to outmaneuver, leading to the plan being scrapped.
** In the fluff, [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Abaddon the Despoiler's]] unimaginatively-named flagship ''Planet Killer''. Sure, it has the most powerful weapon pretty much in the known universe (the [[SarcasmMode imaginatively-named Armageddon Gun]]). Sure, it bristles with lance batteries and torpedo tubes, and sure, it has a crew of millions of slaves and thousands of [[SpaceMarine psychotic ten thousand year old badass warlords]]... but the one time its captain tried to take it into action without escorts, a small squadron of cruisers sat out of range, metaphorically flipped the bird at the spiky scary ship, and ''[[CurbStompBattle blew it to pieces]]'' with standard long-range torpedoes. Undeterred by this, he built another one.
** Similarly, Imperial Ironclads. Ancient human warships from before the development of DeflectorShields, they protect their occupants with ''tonnes'' of armor. Because they are built in the times before or during the Dark Age of Technology, they often have ''apocalyptically'' powerful armaments, but their lack of shields makes them GlassCannon units at best in the present day of the setting. The Imperium usually recognizes this and converts them into either planetary assault ships (fit some rudimentary deflectors, fill it with expendable Guardsmen and bombardment weapons) because they can actually land on planets without shattering due to their freakishly strong construction, turning them into BoringYetPractical. Other uses include stripping out the weapons, replacing them with ''more'' bolstering, [[RammingAlwaysWorks adding shields at the front, massive engines at the back and using them to ram things]] in a particularly Orky move, or replacing everything with a {{BFG}} and using it to kill planets. Some of the very youngest ironclads[[note]]Or those the Imperium can viably fit proper shields to.[[/note]] are, however, much more useful -- they keep their Dark Age of Technology-level weapons, but their plate armor ''is'' good enough to stop "modern" weapons, and glows [[IncendiaryExponent red hot with each hit, making them look]] ''[[IncendiaryExponent awesome]]'' as they advance into battle.
** Abaddon himself was considered this up until 8th Edition. Costing as much as a Land Raider, Abaddon has enough special rules and weapons to literally murder anything he comes across (even tarpits and superheavy vehicles wouldn't slow him down for long). However, he has the crippling drawback of having no movement modifiers at all; this means even the most basic trooper can simply outrun him if he doesn't have a transport to cart him around. And because of his Terminator Armor, the only transport that will fit him is the aforementioned Land Raider (and no, his faction only gets the vanilla kind unless you dip into Forge World), which is yet another example of this trope. And unlike his other fellow Chaos Champions (Typhus, Huron, even Ahriman) he usually lacks the ability to buff anyone else; even Ahriman can at least cast spells to buff people around him. This results in Abaddon usually ''just barely'' killing enough enemies to make him worth his points, while models like Huron or Typhus can often change the entire flow of the game by merely ''existing''. 8th Edition, though, changed Abaddon's rules to give him a number of powerful support buffs (such as a 12" aura to make his underlings immune to morale and allowing nearby soldiers to reroll their attacks) while sacrificing none of his close combat ability.
** Assault Centurions have some of the beefiest armour in the Space Marine list, cool-looking siege drills, and a movement speed roughly akin to [[MightyGlacier molasses going uphill in January]]. This is a ''melee unit'' that can barely outrun the ''scenery''. You could always put them in a Land Raider, which has the minor problem of being akin to walking into battle with a "SHOOT ME I'M RIGHT HERE" sign.
** Penitent Engines and Dread Knights look like this, both of them are walkers bristling with devastating close-range weaponry - with pilots ''intentionally'' left fully exposed to enemy fire. Background material claims that it not to be the case. The Dreadknight has a forcefield that protects the pilot while Penitent Engines has its pilot's consciousness downloaded inside the machine, so they're not affected by the pilot's body being blown to pieces. Plus the Dread Knight's pilot is wearing Terminator Armour, the heaviest available in the Imperium, and the entire point of the Penitent Engine is to get its pilot gloriously killed to atone for their past sins.
** A lot of relics fall into this territory. Most common is the "evolving weapon" type, where the weapon gains additional attributes as you rack up kills. The problem is, unless it allows you to kill mooks and you manage to wipe an entire squad from the get-go, these bonuses often accrue so slowly that you'd maybe see their effects on the last turn of the game, when it's too far gone to put it to good tactical use. Similarly, a lot of other relics apply some awesome effect to a generic weapon, but the effect is either overkill (such as the Norn Crown) or completely useless (such as causing instant death on a To Wound roll of a 6). If a relic manage to avert all of this, sometimes their good ol' points costs ruins them as anything viable. Those that manage to completely avert this unfortunately become [[GameBreaker Game Breakers]].
** Imperium Plasma Pistols. Strength 7 [=AP 2=] will kill or wound most anything in the game, but the plasma pistol suffers from a variety of drawbacks that are usually mitigated in its bigger cousins (the rifle-sized plasma gun and the heavy plasma cannon). The plasma pistol costs the same amount of points as the other (15 points, enough to add one Space Marine or three Guardsmen to a squad), yet is limited to one shot a turn compared to two shots or a small blast like the plasma gun and cannon respectively, but the pistol's 12" range requires that the wielder gets close to the enemy, and it has a 1 in 6 chance of not only missing but blowing up in the wielder's face and removing the pistol as a threat entirely (possibly also killing the wielder). When fighting against cheap horde armies like Orks or Tyranids, a plasma pistol is impractical overkill and will struggle to make its points back, and when targeting tanks or Monstrous Creatures it might only take off one or two wounds/hull points before the wielder dies. It's mainly meant to threaten elite units or heroes, but the whole "blowing off your own arm" issue makes it struggle to shine.
** Sometimes happens in-universe as well- Commissar Literature/CiaphasCain is usually depicted with a bolt pistol on book covers (in the style as Imperial propaganda posters), but he himself uses a laspistol. He discusses the flaws of a bolt pistol when he runs into one of his colleagues wielding one; the laspistol is much lighter than a bolt pistol, has more shots per clip (the laspistol clips are lighter and smaller too), can be recharged through various means (given how often he spends cut off from enemy lines with nothing but a gun, chainsword, and Jurgen, running out of ammo is the last thing he wants), and while it doesn't make as much dramatic noise when executing cowards, he does his best to avoid executing soldiers in the first place (not to mention he doesn't want to make himself an even bigger target).
** This trope is so enforced in 40k that the reason they don't use more BoringButPractical methods seems to be that they'll inevitably find ''some'' way to make it impractical. The article "Rocks Are Not Free!" explains that the Imperium relies on expensive high-tech missiles and battleships to depopulate worlds rather than just taking a few asteroids and dropping them from orbit, because the Imperium insists on running that maneuver through so many layers of red tape that that the missiles are actually the cheaper option.
* In ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'', the Sidereal Exalted have the reputation of unparalleled Martial Artists. They can create and learn Kung Fu styles so powerful that they rewrite the reality at whim and so flashy that fans of all the other splats demand them to be universally available. The catch is, these Martial Arts are incredibly expensive and very cumbersome to successfully employ in combat. Most Exalts are much better off using their less awesome but cheaper and more reliable Kung Fu.
** Not to mention, the Five Metal Shrike. It's a flying machine which survived the First Age. It's smaller than any major weapon of the First Age, and more maneuverable than any flying machine in the Age of Sorrows. It's got Artificial Intelligence. [[ThereCanBeOnlyOne There is only one]]. It can repair itself, it can respire Essence by itself, it can [[SuperSpeed cross Creation in a day]], and it can become completely invulnerable to damage. [[ButWaitTheresMore In addition]], its main weapon is the "Godspear". Listed statistics include: "infinite levels of lethal damage". Unfortunately, only one exists, it's [[RobotWar controlled by a machine]], and it can only fire the Godspear once per day. Oh, and creating a new one takes over 100 years, assuming you're ''already'' got the required knowledge. And the infinite damage radius is only 25yds, with a secondary blast of "only" 50 damage in a 500yds radius (where most characters have health levels in the single digits). [[YouFool Oh yeah]]... if the Shrike is destroyed, it explodes with double damage and more than triple the radius of the secondary blast from the Godspear.
*** The Titan-class Citadels the Shrike was intended to replace are the Shrike, needing a crew of 5,000, with a primary weapon one mile across, with an explosion that flattens a truly ridiculous area when destroyed. In other words, the Shrike is ''practical'' by comparison, unless you actually want to train up five thousand random villagers.
** Any combo attack against a creature that has a perfect defense.
** And ''then'' there's sorcery, which teaches us that control over the fundamental forces of reality, including demon summoning, rains of apocalyptic death, and showers of obsidian insects to tear everything to shreds...is, ultimately, overshadowed by the native powers of the average Exalt. High-level Terrestrial charms (as in, the ''weakest'' of the Exalted) such as "Dragon Vortex Attack" and "As In The Beginning" are substantially nastier than even the spell [[FantasticNuke Total Annihilation]]. When the right kung fu combo on top of a mountain can destroy the world, sorcery just ain't that practical.
** With the 2.5 errata, it turned out that the Infernal charm trees were neat, interesting, cool character-building for the Yozis, and completely unsustainable inside a semi-functional version of the Exalted ruleset.
** Most effects with a status-type keyword (Crippling, Shaping, Poison, Disease, Illusion, Compulsion, and so on) fall into this. Sure, you can punch someone's soul out with some Shaping keyword effects, but Shaping is a keyword that pretty much every target worth using it on can get blanket immunity to with very low prerequisites, and most of the others aren't much harder to get. Having said that, if someone's not immune, they can be very nasty indeed.

** Subverted by the Gloryborn template armour from the ''Dungeon Master's Guide II''. This was ''explicitly stated'' to look as absurdly impractical as possible - men would get chest armour limited to leather straps to show off their pecs, while women got [[BreastPlate what you'd expect]]. Despite ''looking'' Awesome But Impractical, it really functions exactly like normal armour of that kind, [[AWizardDidIt due to the extra-planar origin of the equipment]].

** Third Edition had the "Brilliant Energy" weapon ability. At a staggering +4 price mod (a weapon's total cost was it's price mod, squared, multiplied by 2000 gold pieces), a Brilliant Energy Weapon ignores all inorganic matter when swung, sailing effortlessly through armor. Sounds cool, right? The trouble is that most of the enemies a player will face by the time he can afford it see it as inconsequential; Outsiders have massive Deflection-based defenses that don't use matter, Dragons have incredibly thick hides that a Brilliant Energy weapon won't help pierce, worst of all, undead and constructs don't have any organic matter at all--meaning that the weapon will sail through their entire bodies, leaving them completely unharmed.

** Another 3.5 one is the Necrocarnate, a prestige class for the soul-manipulating Incarnate which boasts the ability to [[YourSoulIsMine consume the souls of the recently dead]]. This converts their life force into bonus essentia, the fuel for the Incarnate's signature abilities, and it lacks a real upper limit--in theory, you could just slaughter a bunch of 1st-level commoners, enjoying a functionally limitless supply of essentia that you can pour into all your abilities and max them out. But there are two caveats: Necrocarnate doesn't advance your usual essentia progression, and the bonus essentia leaves after twenty-four hours. So a 7th-level Incarnate/13th-level Necrocarnate who hasn't found a recently dead body since yesterday will find their pool of essentia depleted to about a quarter of what a 20th-level Incarnate has. This means you have to be killing things ''constantly'' to keep your powers up, since [[ThisIsYourBrainOnEvil even a one-day break is going to render you nearly useless until you can kill a few things again]]. Even the book points out that it's almost impossible to play a Necrocarnate in a traditional campaign, and the class is better suited for villains (where the amount of essentia one has is ultimately going to come down to DM fiat).

* ''TabletopGame/TheWitcherGameOfImagination'' got few few weapons that are inherently awesome, only to be almost completely useless:
** Whips can be used for very flashy combat maneuvers like tripping over, disarming and strangling, but over such short distances it's easier to just draw your sword or shoot your enemy from afar. They are close to useless against armoured enemies, most animals and monsters. Lamias (whips with metal spikes all along their length) are saved from this by doing damage like a two-handed weapon, and the handle works as a mace, so they avoid the problem with close-quarter fights.
** Exotic weapons bypass any armour except plate armor, but they also cost a small fortune and have only d6 damage roll, while normal weapons can be customised for the user to deal additional fixed damage and become easier to wield.
** Two-handed weapons deal 2d6 + twice the Strength of damage, but they require sufficient Strength and many combat maneuvers are restricted for one-handed weapons. It's more practical to use a a one-handed weapon and a shield, as this grants protection and the [[ShieldBash shield may be weaponized]].
** Mini-crossbows are saved by a niche use. They deal relatively little damage and have a very short range, but they can be hidden in wide sleeves and shoot two bolts in a single round - [[NoRangeLikePointBlankRange right in the face]], thus dealing absurd damage if used properly.
* In the ''TabletopGame/D20Modern'' Urban Arcana setting, a bunch of Gnomes whom ended up in Switzerland designed a "[[KillSat fully functional orbiting laser cannon platform]]". It was never actually built because it would have been too expensive.
* In the board game ''TabletopGame/{{Risk}}'', the player who controls the whole of Asia gets a bonus of 7 battalions per turn, the largest bonus in the game. This might be useful save for the fact that you almost certainly don't need the bonus if you are capable of successfully holding Asia for a turn with its many border provinces and the fact that it can be attacked from every other continent but South America.
* In the ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' roleplaying game, they mention that chainsaws are realistically very impractical weapon, but because so many movies show them off to great effect, they have it deal a lot of damage, but they take penalties to hit and they can hit the wielder if you botch.
* In the ''TabletopGame/NewWorldOfDarkness'' {{sourcebook}} ''Armory'', chainsaws have a penalty to use and hurt you if you botch, but if you do hit, you get Eight Again on the damage roll (in other words, you reroll successes until you get a roll without ''any'' successes, then add them up - every success is a level of damage).
** One particular ''TabletopGame/OldWorldOfDarkness'' example is the ''vozhd'' war ghoul, [[FusionDance a merging of at least a dozen ghouls into a giant fleshy war machine]], from ''TabletopGame/VampireTheMasquerade''. They were [[TheBrute extremely effective siege weapons]] for the Tzimisce during the dark ages. However, in modern nights, they're almost never produced for several reasons. One, a good chunk of the Tzimisce with the knowledge and power to make them died during the Anarch Revolt; there just aren't as many even capable of making them anymore. Two, a 20-foot tall fleshcrafted monstrosity causes the Camarilla (and several other supernatural groups) to [[DrawAggro suddenly focus all their attention on whoever brought one out]] to preserve TheMasquerade, to the extent of causing [[EnemyMine groups otherwise antagonistic to each other to team up to take them, and their creator, out]]. Three, [[TechnologyMarchesOn advances in military hardware]] make it much easier to kill one - since a ''vozhd'' can barely use a melee weapon, let alone anything with projectiles, bullets and flamethrowers are particularly useful in dealing with them. Given the time and resources needed to make a ''vozhd'', they're generally only worthwhile to the Tzimisce defending out-of-the-way territory... and they're not particularly effective at that, generally making them a waste of time. Their most frequent use in modern nights is for psychological warfare (namely, "Look at what kind of BodyHorror the Sabbat can do!".

* The monofilament whip in ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'' is a cyberpunk vorpal sword: A filament made of a single long chain of molecules with a handle at one end and a little weighted ball at the other. Presumably it is so sharp that it will instantly sever a limb, but you need mad skills to use it; if you miss your target, the whip is likely to come back and take off your head.
** It ''is'', however, an extremely good WeaponForIntimidation because anyone willingly using one is either crazy skilled or just crazy period, and thus best avoided (or immediately turned into a fine red mist using massive ranged firepower, which will at least save your mage from a round of shooting).
*** the one exception to this is if someone is playing a Pixie. Their low strength maximum makes melee impractical. Luckily, the Monofilament whip doesn't spec off strength, allowing them to max out their agility and do crippling damage to their opponent in the first round.
* A ''TabletopGame/{{Rifts}}'' example is the Cosmo Knight from the ''Three Galaxies'' sourcebooks. At first glance, they look like the cutting edge in Munchkinism. They take 1/100th damage from energy weapons (meaning that you need a starship-mounted cannon to even ding their armor), and that's on top of the massive amount of damage they could soak up even if they didn't have that particular ability. That's on top of a stack of other wild abilities they have, and their "one great" weakness is a total joke (they take full damage from magic). The drawback? You have to play the character as Principled alignment (Palladium's equivalent to LawfulGood), and on top of that, they have a strict Code of Honor they have to follow. Unless the GM is lenient (and how often does that happen?), step one toe out of line and the character becomes a Fallen Knight. Fallen Knights lose most of their powers, and while still tough, aren't a patch on what they used to be. Many a HackAndSlash power gamer has thrown the Cosmo Knight away in disgust upon learning that they couldn't just rampage through the galaxy, killing anyone who so much as looked at them funny.

** Flamethrowers and (especially) plasma generators do lots of area-of-effect damage, but when it malfunctions (which it does relatively often) or a shot hits the fuel tank, it tends to explode - and it's strapped to your back, so you can't run away unless you take time to unstrap it first.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}} Fantasy'' gives us the Steam Tank. Looks cool, is utterly worthless. If it takes any damage, its rules render it unusuable.
** [[SubsystemDamage The damage will mean you either have to play more conservatively or risk catastrophe]], but even if the opponent manages to sneak in a couple of wounds (almost always needing to roll a 6 to hurt it, and then you not rolling a 3 or more to discount the wound) it will still chew through enemies in combat. As long as it picks its fights well (ie: trying to avoid hordes who hit hard or being sniped by enemy cannon, instead going for small blocks of monsters or elites) then it can be a holy terror.
** ''Every'' named character who isn't a squad upgrade. You can build a normal character to outdo any named character regardless of who he is, and some of the named characters are ''so'' absurdly expensive that you can put together two tricked-out Lords for the same points cost (Malekith, we're looking at you).
** The very act of charging became this in the latest edition. Previous to this, charging at least guaranteed you the ability to attack before you died. Now, without special rules, it nets you a measly +1 to combat resolution, i.e. nowhere near enough to cope with the casualties you just took against that high-Initiative opponent.
** "Storm of Magic": Exalted Greater Daemons and Emperor Dragons. Exalted Greater Daemons are powerful, very resilient, usually spellcasting monsters capable of eating entire units, but they cost so much that even a 3000pt army cannot bring even ''one'' with its Monsters and Magic allowance. Emperor Dragons, at least, are cheaper in that they ''only'' cost 650pts, so a 3000pt army ''can'' bring one, and they've got a whole bunch of stats at 9, but they're still more than a 2000-2500pt army can afford. Both, in addition to this, are vulnerable to not just concentrated war machine fire, but also the "Unbind Monster" cantrip, which offers a 1 in 6 chance of killing a bound monster outright from 24" away with no saves and can be cast on a 3+ by any wizard on the battlefield.
** The Cataclysm spells in Storm of Magic are all weakened by their inability to get Irresistible Force, meaning that they can always be dispelled if your enemy has enough dice, but the worst has to be the Lizardmen's Great Leveller. This spell forces the enemy to sacrifice units and characters until both armies have the same number of each, but it has a laundry list of drawbacks - it automatically kills the Slann casting it, it can only be used if you control the majority of Arcane Fulcrums, which is unlikely if your enemy is in a dominant enough position that you'd want to cast it, and worst of all, its 35+ casting value was set while Slann had a game-breakingly powerful way to cheat the cap on dice rolled per spell, which they have since lost, meaning that trying to pull it off under current rules requires a roll of at least 28 (assuming favourable Winds of Magic) on six dice (average roll 21).
* ''TabletopGame/StarfleetBattles'' had battleships. Huge and powerful, and enough to make your oponent look for his [[BringMyBrownPants brown pants]], they were horrificly expensive (especially in campaign play), and effectively required an expensive support fleet to protect and augment it. In the end, 'historically' only the Klingons ever built any, and only two of a planned nine.

* In ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasyRoleplay'', half the highest-level careers are this. The Wizard Lord, the highest-level magic user, requires the character to possess 6,000 gold crowns' worth of arcane tomes, in a game system where the players are playing wandering sellswords and obtaining a single gold crown is a grand achievement.
* The Rube Goldberg device at the center of the game ''Mousetrap.'' It is fun to watch in action, but the "trap" takes a long time to assemble and NEVER works from start to finish. Fortunately, nothing practical is provided.
* ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}'' tends to be full of this. Owing to the game's tendency to strive for "realism" even when it is emulating unrealistic genres, many "cinematic" maneuvers may be allowed but are still modeled as being almost as impractical or dangerous as in real life.
* ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'' had mechs such as the Clan-tech Blackhawk (appropriately called the Nova by the Clans) which packed 12 ER Medium Lasers. If it gets in range, it ''will'' take down virtually any mech its size and smaller, and possibly many larger. But a full salvo generates so much heat the mech risks temporary shutdown from the first volley. The reason for this is because it's a dueling mech: it's built to fight one on one with something and chip away until it gets an opportunity to make a spectacular all-or-nothing AlphaStrike.
** Many weapons fall under the Awesome, But Impractical category as well. Melee weapons, for example- a hatchet does great damage for most mechs, but to use it you've got to be adjacent to your opponent, and they know you're packing a hatchet. All too often the amount of tonnage devoted to packing one just ends up as dead weight that could have been used for longer ranged lasers or missiles. Another good example is the Hypervelocity Autocannon: better range than standard autocannons of the same damage potential, but they're also heavier (a real problem in a game in which weight is the main weakness of ballistic weapons relative to energy- and missile-based ones already), generate more heat, and have a 1-in-36 chance of [[MadeOfExplodium blowing up]] each time they're fired.
** Land-Air Mechs are the epitome of Awesome Impracticality in the Inner Sphere. These mechs could [[TransformingMecha transform]] between a mech mode and an aerospace fighter mode, theoretically granting it a high degree of versatility. In practice, however, this versatility requires great sacrifices in effectivity: The mech had to be light enough to be able to sustain its flight in fighter mode, could equip less ordinance than most mechs of its weight class due to the transformation servos taking up space and weight (In [=BattleTech=], a mech lives or dies by the way its loadout is spread over its max tonnage), the frame was much more fragile than in other conventional mechs of its weight class due to the components needing to shift around between modes, leaving openings and weakpoints, and [[TransformationIsAFreeAction transformation is most definitely]] [[AvertedTrope not a free action]] for them, which made these mechs most vulnerable when they were transforming. After the decline of the Star League, most Land-Air Mechs were slowly taken out of production and replaced with more practical mechs until only one factory in the entire Inner Sphere remained, continuing to produce them until the Clans, which detested the concept of these units, paid a visit and razed it to the ground. The Word of Blake tried to revive and improve on the concept during the last stages of its jihad, but the attempt at so was so short-lived it was almost inconsequential.
** [=ClanTech=] in general proved to be this in the lore. The Clans' mechs and equipment are individually superior to anything the Inner Sphere can make, but they're only feasible to make for the Clans because of their non-profit-based economy, their enormous jump-start in technology, and low but dense population compared to the Inner Sphere. The Inner Sphere on its side simply cannot ''afford'' to make such high-quality 'mechs for everyone in their massively larger militaries when their own, individually inferior 'mechs are cheaper and quicker to make for their manufacturers.
--->'''Tex Talks [=BattleTech=]:''' Consider this: For the price of a ''[[LightningBruiser Thor]]''... For the price of a ''single Thor'', at 21 million, 320 thousand, 834 C-bills... You could buy eleven ''[[LethalJokeCharacter Urbanmechs]]''. Or, seven ''[[TankGoodness Rommels]]''. Or, three ''[[MightyGlacier Awesomes]]'', plus spare parts. Or, two ''[[TheDreaded Atlases]]'', plus spare parts. Or, thirty [[SuperSoldier Elementals]], and [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy all their honour]]. Or, in 3052 C-bill conversion rates, you could buy enough burgers from Federated Fast Food to become ''king of Meat Mountain''... [[NoodleIncident Until the birds showed up. Birds always ruin Meat Mountain]]... [[SidetrackedByTheAnalogy Where was I]]? Clan shit is expensive, keep this in mind.

* Maka Dai Dai Shoji is a Japanese chess game that dates back to the 15th century. It has 361 squares, 50 different types of pieces whith 96 pieces on each side. There are at least three types of King (such as King, Dragon King, and Free King) along with an Emperor and Prince. A game like this does not last only one evening. There are many pieces which represent cool things like the phoenix, dark spirit, evil wolf, she devil, guardian of the gods, and coiled serpent. Some pieces like Emperor are all powerful (they can instantly jump to any unprotected square or enemy piece on the board). Many of these pieces may never get to be used in the course of most normal games played by experienced players. Needless to say, the more compact versions of shoji were always more popular in Japan.
* The ''[[UsefulNotes/BritsWithBattleships HMS Dreadnought]]'' from the ''Pirates Constructible Strategy Game''; it possesses five masts and five cannons that hit on a 4+ die roll, and these cannot be eliminated until all of its masts have been shot away. The drawbacks? 26 point cost (when most games run 40 point fleets) and slower than a glacier when sent out with no crew. Giving it a captain and a helmsman will tack on 5 more points, bringing the total cost to 31 points. While it might have a chance of doing some damage, if its sunk, captured or wrecked, then half the player's fleet is gone.
** The ''USS Constitution'' has a similar problem, although it is more affordable than the ''Dreadnought'' at 22 points. It's also slightly faster, but still very expensive to properly man.
* ''TabletopGame/BloodBowl'' ogre and vampire teams look like they would be broken at a glance. Players of both types are outright [[LightningBruiser Lightning Bruisers]], but rules regarding the former's stupidity and that the latter's bloodlust mean teams composed them are doomed to fail. Goblin teams actively revel in this, with grenades, chainsaws and pogo-sticks more noted for their fun than their effectiveness.
* In ''TabletopGame/{{AT43}}'', the UNA subgroup M.Ind loves [[WalkingTank combat striders]], the heavier the better. The UNA army book mentions that some over-eager M.Ind generals actually deploy units with two support striders (the largest type available). This is noted to be ''extremely'' expensive and more than a little ridiculous, both in-universe and in actual play. Among other things, support striders present large targets and are intended to support other, smaller/faster striders.
* The device Tesla installs into the torch of the Statue of Liberty in ''TabletopGame/RocketAge'', during Trail of the Scorpion. The upside: It can wirelessly power the entire eastern seaboard. The downside: If it overloads it would wipe out New York.
* Mumakil in the ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings Strategy Battle Game'' (another Games Workshop property). The largest plastic model GW made when it was released (although new technology has since left it in the dust), it is capable of devastating enemy armies...but if it takes a Wound, you need to take a Courage test or your opponent can have it trample up and down over your troops. In addition, it costs a small fortune, and its damage output goes way down if your opponent gets Priority and successfully charges it or speed-bumps it with a Hero or other unit (an Ent, for example) that's durable enough to take its impact and survive.
* ''Robogear'' has the Protectorate T-Rex, which boasts the most firepower of any unit in the game, has the most hit points, looks awesome and even has arguably the best name. The only problem is, it's incredibly slow and so expensive to field that the same point cost could buy you [[BoringButPractical seven Salamanders]], which each have ''half'' the firepower of a T-Rex and can move many, many times faster. Of course, the Salamander is so amazing for its point cost, it goes too far the other way and borders on being a GameBreaker.

* In ''TabletopGame/XWingMiniatures'', large and expensive ships tend to be very vulnerable to swarms and scenery. This can even apply to small and expensive ships; an E-Wing, for example, is blisteringly fast, fairly agile and has very good primary weapon and agility statistics...but it is very expensive - which is awkward for a ship with only 5 total hull and shield. Even if most attacks will miss, enough will hit that it will be torn to shreds.
* The original clan champions in the ''TabletopGame/LegendOfTheFiveRings'' CCG from the Imperial set were the epitome of this. Costly and often difficult to play due to honor requirements, they were simply the biggest specimens of their respective character types. It was often easier to play three other characters for less cost and more combat utility. Later cards representing the champions often added unique and powerful abilities. Whether that justified their cost depended on the card in question.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Chaotic}}'''s [[https://chaotic.wikia.com%2Fwiki%2FAa%2527une_the_Oligarch&psig=AFQjCNGS8oJvCSxpCKQT1zaSENKrQHL6yw&ust=1493758708314481 Aa'une The Oligarch]]. He starts out in his Projection form, which is a basic M'arrillian Chieftain who's only effect is that it's the side that starts the game face-up, similar to [[TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering Magic's]] transform cards. In order to transform him into his incredibly powerful [[https://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/chaotic/images/a/aa/C-Ma_Aa-Une-the-Oligarch.png/revision/latest?cb=20090716043120 Avatar form]], which has 200 in every stat, 100 energy, ''20'' extra damage with every stat attack, and the ability to basically destroy every creature on your opponent's board if you haven't used any mugic, you must:
** Have Aa'une win combat. Doable.
** Have Aa'une be equiped with [[http://www.tcgplayer.com/games/21/cardimages/758.jpg Baton of Aa'une]]. ''Very'' easily gotten rid of by certain mugic, attacks, or creatures, but a good battlegear to have on him.
** Play the attack [[http://www.tcgplayer.com/games/21/cardimages/750.jpg Rage of Aa'une]]. Again, good to have in your deck if you'r playing Aa'une, but even with the max 2 copies its entirely possible you won't have it on hand when Aa'une fights.
** Then, if all of the former conditions are met ''on the same turn'', you have to cast [[http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/chaotic/images/d/d9/Calling_of_aa%27une.png/revision/latest?cb=20140223185644 Calling of Aa'une]] to flip him over and play the Oligarch. The issue here is that Aa'une himself has ''no mugic counters'' and Calling is a ''M'arrillian'' mugic, meaning you have to have a fluidmorpher to cast it, as there's almost no way Aa'une himself could ''ever'' gain that many mugic counters on his own. This means if Aa'une is your only creature left, you'll have hard time transforming him.
** Chaotic also has [[https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/chaotic/images/b/b9/Glacier_Plains_3.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20110222195456 Glacier Plains, M'arillian Heat Cannon]], the only card in the game with an InstantWinCondition; the problem is that the condition is ''ulcer-inducing'' to actually pull off. To win the game with its effect, you have to have a whopping '''50''' Mugic counters on your field. You read that correctly: ''50''. You basically need to keep an entire army of fluidmorphers alive for at least two or three turns ''without'' playing Mugic or abilities at the very least to even get that many. And to top it off, the Heat Cannon is a Unique Location, meaning that there's only a 1 in 10 chance on any one of your turns that it'll come up, and if it shows up before you have enough counters, you can kiss your instant win goodbye.
* While [[TabletopGame/{{Netrunner}} Android: Netrunner]] may have overall less crazy card effects than its predecessor Netrunner, it has its share of big, beefy cards that are too costly to use most of the time.
** Government Takeover, a Weyland agenda worth ''six'' agenda points (out of seven to win), has a powerful 3 credit-per-click effect when scored, and is limited to one per deck. The problem is that it requires 9 advancements to score when 5 is already considered difficult, and an opponent stealing it is not only substantially easier than you scoring it, it will almost certainly lose you the game. Its effect also might as well be blank most of the time; if you didn't immediately win when you scored it, you're very likely about to anyways.
** On the runner side, Monolith is the king of big-rig consoles. +3 Memory Units, 3 heavily discounted program installs from hand, and the option to sack uninstalled programs to prevent damage are magnificent perks, but it costs '''18 credits''', thrice as much as any console actually worth playing. Without some janky shenanigans to get it out quickly and reliably, it will almost never be worth it to amass that much money then install it normally, and it would still take more time to get the programs in hand to make that effect worthwhile.
* The three Wild Card Edges in ''TabletopGame/SavageWorlds'', Dead Shot, Mighty Blow, and Power Surge, are very powerful. Doubling physical or ranged damage, and regenerating power points respectively, but only work on turns when the character has been dealt the Joker. Sacrificing a valuable trait slot which could be used on another, more reliable ability, to gamble on the slim chance of getting an insane power up for a turn.
* In the FASA iteration of of the ''Franchise/StarTrek'' [=RPG=], the background material justified the reasons that Klingons and Romulans favoured disruptor weaponry over the Federations phaser weapons was that while phasers were more powerful and versatile, disruptors were simpler and cheaper to build and ship borne variants didn't require the hi-tech and dangerous if breached cooling systems that ship mounted phasers did.