History DiabloIII / TropesKToO

* LighterAndSofter: The somewhat more saturated palette of this game compared to its predecessors elicited accusations of this from the fans. Blizzard decided to mock the accusers back by releasing a shirt looking like [[http://gamerfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/diablo-iii-rainbow-unicorn-logo.jpg this]], and then going even further and creating a level in the actual game with the same theme - see the SugarApocalypse entry.

* LadykillerInLove: Part of the backstory of The Rogue, Lyndon. Exactly how much SUCCESS he has with women is anybody's guess, but he's definitely eager to flirt with anything in a skirt... or a [[AmazonChaser fur bikini]]... or a [[BareYourMidriff skimpy mage-robe]]... he's not picky, really, and doesn't even wince at being shot down. If you chastise him for his womanizing, he claims that he's only ever met one woman 'worth keeping'. Further digging into his past reveals that he originally [[StartOfDarkness turned to crime]] in order to fund his attempts to woo her, and that she wound up marrying his [[DifferentAsNightAndDay goody-two-shoes brother]] instead. The pain in his voice is audible whenever she comes up in conversation, turning his otherwise LoveableRogue demeanor bitter in a split second...

** Azmodan comes right out and shows Leah where he's going to invade, destroying his chance at a surprise attack and giving the hero the opportunity to stomp his ass. He then proceeds to announce every sneak attack and infiltration he tries in the actual battle, dooming each in turn.

* NoArcInArchery: Most projectiles just travel in a straight line with no concern for gravity, and are limited only by an ArbitraryMaximumRange.

* KnifeNut: The lowest ranks of the cultists merely run toward the player character brandishing daggers.

* LastChanceHitPoint: Every class has an available passive skill that saves the hero if they take mortal damage, through different means such as knockback or MercyInvincibility. These skills have a 60-second cooldown, so if you can't get away as soon as they activate, you're toast.
* LawfulStupid: This is how Tyrael sees the Angiris Council; because of an ancient pact and having an ancient scroll which they believe to be able to foretell everything, the angels will not interfere with humanity. Thus, they put both themselves and humanity in danger. [[spoiler:That is why Tyrael became a mortal, willingly. In his own words, "if [their] precious laws bind [the angels] to inaction," then Tyrael will no longer stand with them.]]

* LuckStat: Magic Find, Gold Find, and Critical Hit Chance.

* MoreDakka: The Demon Hunter's Rapid Fire ability does this.

* NumericalHard: First three difficulties.

* NotSoDifferent: Some characters, such as Zoltun Kulle, argue that the [[KnightTemplar angels]] are no better than the demons, and both sides would destroy humanity if they felt like it. Even Deckard Cain fears that this may be the case.

** In a way, killing Diablo as [[spoiler: poor Leah is his host, and possibly [[AndIMustScream still conscious but unable to do anything]]. Even if only [[CessationOfExistence oblivion awaits her]], that would still be a better fate.]]]]

* KillerRabbit: The enemies in Whimsyshire. Cute unicorns, teddy bears and pink flowers that will hand you your ass quickly if you're not careful. They're also the highest-leveled enemies in each difficulty level.

* LadykillerInLove: Part of the backstory of The Rogue, Lyndon. Exactly how much SUCCESS he has with women is anybody's guess, but he's definitely eager to flirt with anything in a skirt... or a [[AmazonChaser fur bikini]]... or a [[BareYourMidriff skimpy mage-robe]]... he's not picky, really, and doesn't even wince at being shot down. If you chastise him for his womanizing, he claims that he's only ever met one woman 'worth keeping'. Further digging into his past reveals that he originally [[StartOfDarkness turned to crime]] in order to fund his attempts to woo her, and that she wound up marrying his [[DifferentAsNightAndDay goody two-shoes brother]] instead. The pain in his voice is audible whenever she comes up in conversation, turning his otherwise LoveableRogue demeanor bitter in a split second...

* LevelScaling: After patch 2.0, the monsters' stats are based on your level, which can be exploited to level up new characters very fast if you have a friend who can do some {{Twinking}}). They don't catch up to your gear improvement, though, and there are skills, passives and items that can only be used at higher levels, so LowLevelAdvantage is averted in this regard.
* LevelUpFillUp: Both your health and mana is restored on leveling and your cooldowns are reset. This game even takes this further where you shoot off an aura that damages your enemies on Level-up.

** Imperius embodies this trope, not caring about mortals in the slightest. He was the main agitator among the Council for extermination of humanity, and since Malthael, the Aspect of Wisdom, was absent from the Council, his vote was counted against humanity in absentia, with Auriel and Itherael voting for humanity's survival. Tyrael's final vote thus saved humanity from annihilation.
** In general, Angels in Sanctuary falls into two camps. On one side, there's the tolerant or more believing in humanity and their potential (such as Tyrael, Auriel, Itherael and [[spoiler:The Prophet that trained Eirena]]). On the other side, there's the ''extremely short-sighted'', concluding that they're all [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters evil abominations]] on the first sight that they have demon bloods (Malthael and Imperius), or just seeing some bad examples of humanity and then generalizes that they're all like those bad examples (Urzael). The game has shown that there have been more tolerant Angels. However, the intolerant ones tend to have high position, so people mostly takes Angel's 'faces' based on the intolerant ones and overall painting a negative light on them. Not to mention, the Angels' goal to win the Eternal Conflict is to rule over creation on their own design of order, so the Angels used to be this until Inarius did his stitch, then Uldyssian impressed the tolerant Angels.

* LockedInTheDungeon: While the game involves plenty of dungeon-crawling, the prime example of this trope occurs in the final part of Act I, where you have to storm the Halls of Agony, King Leoric's old torture chambers, in order to find and rescue the Stranger you found at the impact zone of the Fallen Star, who has been taken there by Maghda and her Dark Coven. Since this is the ''Diablo'' universe, the Coven has turned the Halls into a site for HumanSacrifice and ColdBloodedTorture of their many victims, with all the horrificness that this implies, and the place is loaded with undead and demons for you to kill in addition to the cultists, as well as the ghosts of those who were put through hell and executed down there back when Leoric was still alive and insane.

* LoveableRogue: Lyndon, the Scoundrel. He claims to be "the most honest thief you'll ever meet," because while he may be a petty theif, [[AtLeastIAdmitIt at least he'll tell you that to your face]]. [[spoiler:Then you find out his backstory of sending money home to save his brother and his girl that got away, and Lyndon becomes even more sympathetic.]]
* LoveAtFirstSight: If Kormac the Templar is your follower the first time you encounter Eirena the Enchantress, he will remark that she is "beautiful." In subsequent conversations between the two characters it's evident that Kormac is interested in her romantically.

'''Guard 2''': This place was built by Kagus Deel, famed drunken architect. He has stashes all over the keep.

** Necromancers harvest Essence from their foes with their basic attacks, which can then be used to fuel other spells. Essence does not naturally deplete, but it also does not naturally regenerate, so Necromancers must be careful not to deplete their resources too quickly. Certain skills are CastFromHitPoints and may or may not require Essence as a secondary cost. Still other skills depend on the presence of enemy corpses; these generally don't require any Essence to cast.

* MeaningfulName: The third game introduces Imperius the Archangel of Valor. "Imperius" is clearly a differently spelled "imperious", which means "domineering, overbearing, arrogant; urgent; (obsolete meaning) imperial or regal". Interestingly enough, "valor" means "value; worth; strength of mind in regard to danger; that quality which enables a person to encounter danger with firmness; personal bravery; courage; prowess; intrepidity; a brave man; a man of valour; arrogance". When you think about how Imperius tried to stop [[spoiler: Diablo]] all by himself, and that he seems to be unbelievably arrogant, well, his name and title says it all!

* MetalSlime: Treasure Goblins drop a lot of gold and items, but flee from the player. If not killed in short order, they will disappear through a portal. There are several varieties of them in Nephalem Rifts: goblins focused on just gems, gold, crafting resources, and Blood Shards are frequent. There's also the "Insufferable Miscreant" variant that teleports and is even harder to kill, but always drops a legendary item if they player can kill it.
* MetaPowerup: The game has some very high level items that increase XP gain, and items ranging from low to high levels that increase gold drops or the chance that randomly dropped items will be magical (and the power of magical items that drop). There are also similar items at lower level. +1-2 XP per kill, +x% chance of magic drops, more gold.

** The game has a scene where the men in Maghda's [[ReligionOfEvil Coven]] are hinted to see your character fighting them as this when you go on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge against them following [[spoiler:Deckard Cain's death]]:

** In Act 3 there are 100 foot tall Hell Bearer demons which will grab onto the side of the ramparts and vomit out demons until slain.

* MuggingTheMonster: A dispossessed noble in Caldeum, Rasheed has been surviving by robbing people. Unfortunately for his mugging career, he tries to do a one-on-two+ stick-up on a PhysicalGod, their high-level companion and possible summoned creatures. Luckily for him, the Nephalem realizes that he's just a desperate nitwit rather than a hardened criminal so they let him off with just a warning.

* MummiesAtTheDinnerTable: A random event in the Fields of Misery involves a farm besieged by Leapers. Once all the leapers have been killed, a man comes out of the farm cellar, telling you that him and his wife have been trapped down there by the leapers for hours, and that his wife would love to thank you for rescuing them. He leads you into the cellar, and introduces you to his wife...a skeleton sitting in a rocking chair. He says that she's been unwell of late, but his love will see her through! [[spoiler:Then her head falls off. "Oh, she's nodded off."]]

** The description of the Stone of Jordan lampshades its status as common currency in the late levels in ''Diablo 2''.

** [[spoiler: Diablo is ''literally'' one step away from victory after you beat him in his Realm of Terror- he stomps the [[CosmicKeystone Crystal Arch]] and cracks it. If he had stomped another time, the Arch would have broken, the heavens would have be destroyed and he would have won.]]

* NoHoldsBarredBeatdown: Diablo's [[spoiler:final death]] in the "Destroy Diablo" objective in ''VideoGame/DiabloIII'' is essentially you giving him a much deserved hero on villain example.

* NonHumanUndead: The game gives us the Witch Doctor class, who can raise zombie dogs and the "Gargantua", who is made from an undead bear.
* NoobCave: The old Tristram Cathedral, the main dungeon from the very first game, which you take two trips through -- one to rescue ''Diablo'' regular Deckard Cain, and the other to find and destroy the Skeleton King, which has been resurrected by the power of the Fallen Star that fell on said cathedral, and which you have been tasked with getting to the bottom of.

* NotActuallyCosmeticAward: Pets. In-game texts explains that they don't fight for you nor do they die. What the game doesn't tell you is that they'll also collect gold for you.

* OhCrap: [[spoiler: During the Reaper of Souls epilogue, Tyrael has a subtle one, realizing that you have bested both the Demons' and Angels' greatest forces, and that as a mortal, even you are susceptible to corruption, hoping that you will be able to withstand the temptation should it present itself.]]

** Wizards can pull this off with their Archon ability. It turns them into a being of pure power, with extremely powerful melee attacks, powerful AOE abilities and a devastating, upgraded version of Disintegrate.

* OpeningTheSandbox: Of the two game modes, Campaign and Adventure, only Campaign mode is initially available, and while you can revisit any previous area that's part of the current Act, you can't travel to areas of previous Acts (for example, in Act II you cannot go back to New Tristram and the surrounding region). Once you complete all five Acts, Adventure mode is unlocked for all current and future characters under your account; Adventure mode lets you freely travel to any Waypoint in the game, with randomly-selected "Bounty" quests made available as incentive to explore all of Sanctuary. Averted in the console ports, where Adventure is available from the start.

** ''Diablo'' angels wear heavy armor, hoods, and have permanently shadowed faces. The only halo around is Imperius's, and it's made of steel. Their most striking feature are enormous flowing tentacle wings made out of glowing energy which can be used to manipulate objects as well as fly. Angels themselves are said to be made out of harmonic vibrations and light.

* LullDestruction: The followers will invoke this by jumping into random conversation every minute or so in the middle of battle, and complaining loudly if you stand still for about half a minute. Some of these talks establish character and plot, but many are reused from act to act.

* KaizoTrap: {{Elite Mook}}s with the "Molten" ability will leave behind a fireball when they die, which explodes in a radius for massive damage. Better not pick up that loot yet...
* KarmaHoudini: [[spoiler:Adria, who betrays you and resurrects Diablo by sacrificing Leah, manages to escape]]. This state of affairs continues until ''Reaper of Souls'', where [[spoiler:she shows up as Act V's second major boss, allowing you to ''finally'' give her the asskicking you've been wanting to give her since her betrayal at the end of Act III]].

** Throughout the battle against [[spoiler:Adria]], [[spoiler:she'll make mention that your character must be angry at what she did to Leah, then dismiss that as a worthless thought.]]

* KilledMidSentence: Can be invoked by the player. While the subtitles will show the entirety of any mook banter, if you kill the speaking mob before the audio of the banter has finished, the audio will cut off.

** [[spoiler:Deckard Cain, the old Horadrim mage who has helped you throughout the entire series, is killed towards the end of Act One.]]
** [[spoiler: Despite appearances, Leah is ''not'' necessarily an example of this. Covetous Shen, who's possibly a god, and even if he's not is very old and has possibly seen more than even Deckard Cain or Tyrael suggests she may have survived in some form, and unlike other times Diablo is defeated, her corpse isn't left behind. On top of that, Blizzard has teased her resurrection as a plot point for the expansion(s).]]
* KillerRabbit: The enemies in [[spoiler: Whimsyshire. Cute unicorns, teddy bears and pink flowers that will hand you your ass quickly if you're not careful. They're also the highest-leveled enemies in each difficulty level.]]
* KillOneOthersGetStronger: The "Avenger" ability that some {{Elite Mook}}s can have is basically this.

** Throughout Arreat Crater and its associated subzones.

* LawfulStupid: This is how Tyrael sees the Angiris Council; because of an ancient pact and having an ancient scroll which they believe to be able to foretell everything, they will not interfere and thus put both themselves and humanity in danger. [[spoiler:That is why he became a mortal, willingly.]]

** It's possible to subvert the level requirement with the Gem of Ease, which sets the required level of anything it's socketed in to 1, provided the Gem of Ease has reached level 25. Since this also gives a flat experience boost per enemy kill, using the equipment with a level 1 character will have them jump twenty or thirty levels in the span of a few minutes.
* LevelScaling: After patch 2.0, the monsters' stats are based on your level (or the host's level, if you're in a multiplayer game, which can be exploited to level up new characters very fast if you have a friend who can do some {{Twinking}}), which means they increase as you level up. They don't catch up to your gear improvement, though, and there are skills, passives and items that can only be used at higher levels, so LowLevelAdvantage is averted in this regard.

** In general, Angels in Sanctuary falls into either tolerant or more believing in humanity and their potential (such as Tyrael, Auriel, Itherael and [[spoiler:The Prophet that trained Eirena]]) or ''extremely short-sighted'', concluding that they're all [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters evil abominations]] on the first sight that they have demon bloods (Malthael and Imperius) or just seeing some bad examples of humanity and then generalizes that they're all like those bad examples (Urzael). The game has shown that there have been more tolerant Angels. However, the intolerant ones tend to have high position, so people mostly takes Angel's 'faces' based on the intolerant ones and overall painting a negative light on them. Not to mention, the Angels' goal to win the Eternal Conflict is to rule over creation on their own design of order, so the Angels used to be 100% this until Inarius did his stitch, then Uldyssian impressed the tolerant Angels.

* LimitedWardrobe: The Blacksmith and the Jeweller, Covetous Shen. Especially noticable with the latter, as he still wears his desert-faring clothes in the cold Bastion's Keep. The player can question him on this after Shen advises him to wrap up warm, and he instantly lampshades and justifies it.

* LoveableRogue: Lyndon, the Scoundrel.

** Barbarians build Fury with several of their basic attacks and combat-initiating abilities, and also by taking damage. Fury can be expended in much more powerful skills, though a passive ability can be chosen to grant highly increased damage with a maxed-out Fury counter. Fury will begin depleting if the Barbarian does not stay in combat, encouraging them to [[BloodKnight seek out the next monster to smash]].

** A Wizard channels a constant flow of Arcane Power into their spells. Their most powerful abilities can consume nearly the entire pool at once, though Wizards also have costless "Signature" abilities to deal moderate damage in the meantime.

* MasterOfDisguise: Belial and his minions are these.
* MeaningfulBackgroundEvent: In Acts III and IV you can see defenders fighting demons in the distance; in particular, in Act III the Siegebreaker Assault Beast is very prominent, laying waste to soldiers, so it's no surprise when you get to Azmodan's front lines and fight him.

* MetalSlime: Treasure goblins drop a lot of gold and items but flee from the player and if not killed in short order will disappear through a portal. Although they don't attack, following them can be dangerous if they lead you to a giant pack of hungry monsters.