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Magic Armor
Price: 598 Rupees and growing

Uses coins for ammo
Higher valued coins do more damage
— Coin Gun description, Terraria

Finding your party in a particularly sticky situation? Make like a government and throw money at the problem. Literally!

To put simply, these powers don't drain your ammo, mana, or the like; instead they drain your Wallet or Take Any Coin sized Resources from your Bag. Such an ability may literally require money to work (such as offering a bribe to the enemy or physically tossing coins to attack), or else it simply reduces your cash with each use.

Given that money is a consumable, sometimes scarce resource (though still more available than your precious Hit Points), Casting From Money should be somewhat more powerful than standard attacks — or else the player wouldn't bother. On the other hand, making such a move too powerful can create a Game-Breaker, especially if using it allows you to earn more than you spend.

Occasionally can be justified through Practical Currency. Often a form of Gameplay and Story Segregation, if the money is permanently consumed even when the ability does not necessarily destroy it (like tossing coins). Energy Economy is when this trope applies to everything - characters may use it to power... powers... but so does everyone and everything else.

Note: simply buying a power or an attack does not count as this trope. See Money Is Experience Points for that trope.

Compare Cast from Hit Points, Cast from Experience Points and Money Mauling, where the moolah is used as the weapon but the attack does not necessarily drain any fund. See also Cash Gate, Throwing the Distraction. Often used to reduce the impact of Money for Nothing.


Examples:

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    Anime & Manga 
  • This is F. Scott Fitzgerald's power in Bungo Stray Dogs. He can supercharge his speed, strength, and durability by draining his bank account.
  • Deals in [C] – Control work like this. Both Direct and Flations require money to be used. Richer Entrepreneurs are typically the strongest.
  • Kanade Sakurada from Castle Town Dandelion can materialize anything she desires, even things that do not exist yet. However, she can only do so if she has the funding that the items would cost, making this a very literal case.
  • In The Daichis: Earth Defence Family, the special weapons made available to the family cost money for each use, and they have to learn to fight without them to avoid going over budget.
  • The Disastrous Life of Saiki K.: If Saiki wants to teleport an object to him, he has to swap it for something else of the same monetary value or the money itself. For instance, he has to sacrifice an expensive coffee jelly dessert to retrieve a kid's signed baseball that he accidentally knocked to the bottom of the sea.
  • A cyborg assassin in Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex uses coins for her shotgun-style Arm Cannon. She does this because she hates rich people and capitalism and loves the Irony of killing them with money.
  • In The Hidden Dungeon Only I Can Enter, Luna has a very powerful skill that heals people but drains her life force. Noir alters the skill so it costs money instead.
  • The Seven of Diamonds in High Card grants a power called “Never No Dollars,” which can summon any item by making its value in nearby cash disappear. Its current holder, Leo, is rich enough to demonstrate by trading a Briefcase Full of Money for a rocket launcher.
  • Shirojiro Bertoni in Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere has a Shinto contract explicitly allows him to buy power from others and use it as his own.
  • One episode of Naruto has a wannabe shinobi from a wealthy family using money instead of chakra to pay subordinates to emulate jutsu.
  • Some spells or monster summonings in Overlord (2012) cost money to use, notably the spell that Ainz Ooal Gown uses to resurrect Shalltear Bloodfallen consumes a lot of gold, even causing a pile of gold coins to melt down and morph into her new body.
  • In Rumiko Takahashi's manga RIN-NE, several characters have access to powers that literally use money as ammunition; the hero seldom uses his due to being broke.

    Comic Books 
  • Nick Fury wears a suit in Ultimate X-Men that lets him turn intangible and invisible but it's remotely activated from his home base so he has to haggle with SHIELDS accounts department in order to get longer usage due to running costs.

    Fan Works 
  • Dungeon Keeper Ami: Gold is turned into the magic for spells by dungeon hearts.
  • I Woke Up As a Dungeon, Now What?: Casting a ritual spell requires the ritualist to sacrifice gold coins to attempt to get the planet's attention, and may require other sacrifices to pay for the desired effect.

    Gamebooks 
  • Sorcery! allows wizard players a wide variety of spells, one being the ability to create an invisible, magical shield from the wrist using a gold coin. The coin will either disappear or become a useless piece of metal after the spell wears off.

    Literature 
  • The City We Became: Manny throws money to be able to push back tentacles of the Enemy, due to money working as a construct that has power from how important people find it.
  • The Dresden Files: Lacking powdered diamond as a Love Potion ingredient in Storm Front, Harry shreds a $50 bill for the potion instead. The actual substance of the ingredient is less important than its symbolism as an item of value.
  • Mistborn:
    • Allomancers with the ability to burn steel can Push metal away from themselves. They generally use copper coins as ammunition, to the point that they are commonly referred to as Coinshots. Coins are just about the perfect weight and size, and nearly all Allomancers are filthy rich, so they can afford to throw away a few handfuls of change for use in combat.
    • Miles Hundredlives from The Alloy of Law is a gold Compounder: he can Feruchemically store health inside a bit of gold, then Allomantically burn the gold to get back about ten times as much health as he put in. This combination makes him effectively immortal... as long as he's got enough gold to burn.
  • The Night of Wishes: Liquid money was one of the ingredients needed for the Notion Potion and is one of the times where her money was indeed the solution to her problem though not in the way she expected it to be...
  • A variant in The Stormlight Archive. Everyone on the world of Roshar uses tiny gemstone chips for currency, and those gemstones are the only things that can capture and store the titular Stormlight. Since Stormlight fuels both the mystical Surgebindings of the Knights Radiant, and the Magitek fabrials, magic expends money to work.
    • In addition, if you draw too much power through a fabrial gemstone, the gem will crack into smaller and less valuable shards, decreasing its total worth.
    • Unlike most examples on this page, drawing Stormlight from a gem doesn't normally cause it any harm, so its fundamental value is unaffected. However, one probably won't be able to spend depleted gemstones because others will assume they're counterfeit. Just wait for it to be recharged, however, and it's good as new again.
    • Early on in Oathbringer, the lost city of Urithiru effectively runs on this, since it is filled with fabrials that run off of Stormlight, and the highstorms that normally replenish it haven't been occurring. Dalinar's army has to trade their dun spheres for lit ones at a noticeable loss to keep the massive lifts and water systems operational for several months before the regular highstorms start again. In Rhythm of War, this is finally averted when the Sibling is reawakened, which powers it up with a steady supply of Towerlight.

    Tabletop Games 
  • Dungeons & Dragons:
    • Some spells require material components to cast, with the more powerful spells requiring components of nontrivial value, such as "a diamond worth...", going up to thousands of gold pieces. When the spell is cast, the components disappear as they power the spell.
    • 3rd edition has a magic item crafting system based around expending money, as opposed to the previous system based on Fetch Quests.
    • Judges Guild adventure Dark Tower (1979). The artifact called The Mind of Balance drains the value from items (gold, gems, jewelry) to power its healing ability. Items which have been drained become worthless dross, glass, etc.
    • 4th edition's Ritual Magic is basically all like this: the ability to use it is conferred by a Feat that any Player Character can take and that some Character Classes get for free, and each ritual spell requires a specific gold-piece amount of generic Eye of Newt spell components.
    • The 1st Edition Dungeon Master's Guide had rules for creating magical artifacts and relics. One potential drawback of such an item was having to sacrifice 10,000-60,000 gold pieces worth of gems/jewelry to activate the item for one day.
    • The BECMI D&D Master Set, "Master DM's Book" had two possible handicaps for Immortal Artifacts that worked this way.
      • "Operating Costs". From 1-50% of the user's treasure was consumed by the artifact to power itself, either when the artifact was first used or for each use of a power.
      • "Recharging Costs". Each time the artifact needed to recharge its energy it had to be fed a source of power. This could include a specific type of treasure (such money or magic items) or any kind of treasure.
  • A form of magic in Unknown Armies plays with this trope. All magic in Unknown Armies is based on a contradiction; Plutomancers believe in the power of money to get things done, thus they are loathe to actually spend it and use that power. By gaining cash, Plutomancers gain charges to cast spells. However, spending money ruins their charges; the result is that most Plutomancers try to lead very thrifty lifestyles while getting lucrative work. The rent or mortgage payment alone for even a middle-class home could rob a Plutomancer of their powers every time they had to pay it. Of course, being part of the magical underground, they usually aren't stable enough for conventional high-paying jobs. That said, the game rather undermines itself; the limit a Plutomancer can spend per transaction is, depending on the edition, either one or two thousand dollars. Not enough for a house payment, but "living like a pauper" is overselling it.
    The central paradox of Plutomancy is that it demands asceticism of its followers. Though they become wealthy, Plutomancy demands they live like paupers, hoarding their money instead of spending it. After all, if you spend it, you no longer have it, and the essence of Plutomancy lies in the having.
    • The Entropomancer gains charges for magic to control fate by accepting the chaos and randomness of their life. They can get charges by cashing out their personal fortune, walking over to the roulette wheel, and putting it all on Black 21 without influencing the outcome.
  • Not a specific spell, but Magic: The Gathering does have one sorcery and one creature that turn creatures into Gold (both being allusions to the Theros equivalent of the King Midas myth). You can then use that gold as Mana to pay for spells.
  • GURPS Ultra Tech has "Electro-thermal chemical" APDS (armor-piercing discarding sabot) rounds, as well as several weapons with a high Rate of Fire. Combine the two, and you'll be burning through expensive ammo fast.
    • An optional rule treats trauma plates added on a Bulletproof Vest as Ablative DR, which means you have to regularly buy spares. If you are regularly shot at, they can get expensive to replace real fast.
    • The above problems gets even worse in games set After the End. Since the Technology Level available to the general population is likely lower, the prices for weapons and ammo of a higher TL skyrocket. That, combined with the fact that the lower your TL is, the less starting money you have, means that Ultratech relics from before the apocalypse are gonna get expensive to keep maintained really fast. Also, pistol/rifle cartridges and shotgun shells are the Practical Currency After the End, so if you use a firearm, you are literally shooting money.
  • Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Handrich, God of Money, is unique in the pantheon in that his spells can be cast by tithing money in lieu of the traditional Eye of Newt. He even accepts IOUs, provided the cultist settle their tab by the next Market Day.

    Video Games 
  • In Ancient Domains of Mystery, all classes can throw gold pieces, but only the Merchant class can turn them into effective missiles, particularly against their own doppelgangers, which confuses them.
  • In Assassin's Creed II, one special move involves tossing cash to the ground, which can be used to distract the unalerted guards or create a commotion on the streets to slow down pursuit.
  • Some items in Backpack Hero such as the Orksork Axe cost money to use instead of energy or mana.
  • The Binding of Isaac has the item Magic Finger, which acts like a Smart Bomb that can be activated by consuming 1 penny. The Repentance expansion also added the Golden Razor, which lets you pay 5 coins for a temporary damage boost.
  • Played with in Baldur's Gate III. Once per Short Rest, you can use the Twist of Fortune mace to consume your target's money, dealing additional damage for every 300 gold the target possesses.
  • The Merchant job from Bravely Default has a lot of abilities that use the party's money. "Pay to Play" sharply boosts the user's Critical Hit chance, and "Takeover" is a Fixed Damage Attack where the user throws a large ball of coins at the enemy.
  • Candies 'n Curses has the Devour Charm, an item that grants Molli additional spirit hearts at the end of every room. This comes at the cost of souls, the game's main currency.
  • In several of the Castlevania games, the powerful secondary weapons often cost Hearts (which double as currency in some early games) to use.
  • Chrono Cross has the character Van with his level 7 tech PiggyBoink, which grows in power depending on how much money you deposit in his piggy bank, up to a maximum 27% power boost if you deposit 900G. However, it also gains a chance of breaking as you fill it more, resetting its attack to zero.
  • A staple of 4X games. In Civilization and its sequels, for example, the player can perform espionage actions that cost a lump sum proportionate to their difficulty or usefulness, such as research theft or the covert capture of an enemy city. Additionally, under certain governments, it is possible to rush production by paying citizens.
  • In Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, the Allies Spies have a skill that converts a nearby enemy unit to his side, for a price. It's the only money-draining skill in the game.
  • Some Hexes in Dark Souls II consume souls, which are both the game's currency and experience points. The soul-using hexes can be cast while out of souls too, though for severely diminished effect. One hex in particular, Climax, will consume ALL of the player's currently held souls, though once fully powered by souls it will nearly guarantee to one-shot other players in PvP, where it is most useful.
  • Dante's Faust Hat weapon in Devil May Cry 5 attacks enemies by consuming Red Orbs to produce projectiles. You can make back your money by killing foes with this as the payouts are greater than the consumed resources.
  • Some Dragon Quest games have a skill that allows a Merchant-vocation character to summon an merchant army to assault the player, which requires some of the player's money to use.
    • Dragon Quest IX has the Gold Rush skill, which spends 1000 gold coins to "do some distinctive damage" to the enemy. (It looks like piles of money falling onto the monsters!)
  • Dungeon Crawl has the god Gozag Ym Sagoz, god of wealth and greed. Other gods keep track of piety, which is gained by doing deeds the god appreciates, grants bonuses and abilities at certain levels, and is spent to activate divine abilities. Gozag does not have a piety track; all of its abilities are available from the moment you convert and only require money to use.
  • Dungeon Keeper uses gold as the currency for all the Keeper's activities, including building their dungeon, paying their evil minions, and casting spells, which makes resource management a very important constraint in the game. The sequel replaces this trope with a Mana Meter that recharges at a rate proportional to the size of the Keeper's territory.
  • Dungeons of Dredmor has this with some of the Bankster skills. Insurance Fraud allows you to gain back money when attacking a target; Hire Contractor temporarily converts a monster to your side; and Fiscal Hedge causes some damage to affect your money instead of your HP.
  • Certain Real-Time Strategy games, such as Emperor: Battle for Dune, have a system where the player can make instant purchases of units independently from the normal production queue.
  • Empire Earth: The expansion allows you to buy missile bases as a civ power. Missiles cost 1000 gold and iron each, move in a straight line towards the target, can easily be destroyed by a cheap dedicated unit... but it's all worth it to see the destruction they cause.
  • In the Endless series (Endless Space, Endless Legend, Dungeon of the Endless), the Practical Currency "Dust" is used as a currency by all races bar the Harmony. Dust is also used to fuel Hero Unit special abilities in combat, instantly heal heroes, and instantly construct buildings and starships. The Broken Lords in Legend take it to the next level in that they are made of money, being suits of Animated Armor with their souls bound by Dust; rather than use food or population growth, they literally build new citizens with Dust.
  • Enter the Gungeon has the Microtransaction Gun. It shoots gungeon merch and each shot uses up one coin. It's underwhelmingly average, considering its rank and how expensive it is to unlock in-game.
  • Exit Fate has a Bribe mechanic which allows you to always-successfully avoid a battle.
  • In the Fallout series, bottle caps are used as currency, but you can also use them to craft Bottlecap mines, which are landmines that explode in a hail of bottle caps when detonated to inflict damage. Lampshaded by one character in Fallout: New Vegas who remarks that it's a waste of money to use bottle caps that way. In Fallout 4, you can actually recover some of the bottle caps after the mines explode.
    • In Fallout: New Vegas, you can also craft shotgun shells with Legion Denarii, using the silver coins as replacement for shot. There's even a chance that the money be recovered from killed enemies, though there's also a chance the coin is mangled and is worth less. The coins used for the shells also factor into their sale price.
    • Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 both have a weapon (called the Rock-It Launcher in 3, and the Junk Jet in 4) that lets you load any kind of useless Shop Fodder into it and fire it at your enemies. The most useful thing to use as ammo for it is Pre-War Money, because it weighs nothing, allowing you to carry a large amount of it, and it does the same amount of damage as anything else fired from it.
    • Weapons/armor with rare and expensive ammo and/or replacement parts in general. Get ready to spend a lot of money to get them fixed by a merchant with high Repair skill and buying ammo any chance you get if you want to use them.
  • Final Fantasy features a recurring skill called Gil Toss (some games call it Spare Change instead, although actually keeping it to a spare-change level is going to, at most, mildly annoy enemies). It lets you attack all enemies by literally throwing money at them, costing you gil.
    • Final Fantasy X has the Aeon Yojimbo, whose attacks scaled based on the enemy's level and on how much you pay him. Give him enough money, and he will One-Hit Kill any enemy in the game, including bosses.
      • X also featured Bribe as a skill. You could pay Y amount to make enemies flee the battle. If you paid a certain amount (depending on the enemies) they would automatically drop rare items, which made it a very useful skill for getting components for Item Crafting.
    • Final Fantasy XII features an accessory that makes spells cost gil to cast instead of MP.
  • Freedroid RPG spell-like programs merely cause heating, but equipment enhancement consumes Valuable Circuits commonly used as currency by hundreds.
  • Used heavily in Ganbare Goemon. Your basic ranged attack involves literally throwing coins at your enemies, and later, the magic attacks and power upgrade all draw directly from your finances.
  • In Halo Wars, all Leader Powers cost resources; Covenant ones are initially activated like unit abilities from the leader unit, but sustain indefinitely until cancelled (or out of resources) and drain resources as long as they're active, while UNSC ones are activated via a Power Wheel and have a fixed cost.
  • Heat Signature: The Fleshstripper is a unique gun that directly fires from your stock of money. This is rather more effective and more horrific than it initially sounds, considering the local currency is an especially ravenous battery acid that can turn a heavily armored man into a sizzling skeleton in seconds.
  • In Horizon Zero Dawn, the Metal Shards used as the main currency are also a vital ingredient for the crafting of arrows (presumably for the arrowheads). However, destroyed machines drop so many Shards that it's unlikely to become an issue.
  • Money functions as Hit Points in the game Kingdom, because it's literally what the Greed are after. Loose coins on the ground will be picked up by them and returned to the portals, which can be used to distract them in a pinch; if you or your followers are attacked, a gold coin will be flung away until you or they run out.
  • I Was a Teenage Exocolonist: The card for the Deckbuilding Game mechanic obtained from getting into early stages of friendship with Marz, who can be befriended via doing commerce-related jobs, costs a single Kudos to use. It can be upgraded twice so that you earn Kudos when you play it instead.
  • The Rain-Doh Orange Agent in Kingdom of Loathing is a special combat item; unlike most other items, it is not consumed when used. However, using it requires a nominal amount of meat to use. Still, it is useful when you need to make sure that your attack hits.
  • Legaia II: Duel Saga has the "Gold Siphon" skill, which increases the character's attack power at the cost of draining 100 G per strike.
  • The Legend of Zelda:
    • In the original Legend of Zelda, shooting the bow costs one rupee. However, in addition to getting the bow as a dungeon item, you also have to buy the arrow from a shop as a separate item to actually use the bow. Also, this game predates the series becoming infamous for Money for Nothing; rupees are not easy to come by and only come in denominations of one and five, plus your wallet caps at 255. Prepare to spend lots of time gathering rupees before each dungeon to stay armed.
    • Lacking the magic meter of many other games, the magic armor in Twilight Princess drains your wallet at a extremely fast rate. Of course, Awkward Zombie had to cover this one.
    • The Wind Waker HD actually changes the magic armor to work this way, presumably to balance the item, as you could simply carry magic-restoring potions around otherwise. But it's less useless than in Twilight Princess because it only drains money upon getting hit.
    • Some items in The Legend Of Zelda C Di Games consume rubees/rupees. Zelda's Adventure justifies this in the manual by saying that rupees contain magical energy (all of Zelda's weapons in this game are actually just new spells for her Magic Wand).
  • Among the mix-and-match fighting styles in Mabinogi is throwing pouches of gold, with all the force implied by using hundreds of gold coins as a projectile, unrecoverable because the technique also turns the pouch into an explosive grenade. While it takes substantial time to charge to full power (and you're clearly bouncing the slowly growing moneybag in your hand), it can be a devastating opening strike for a presently low-level character, especially with luck - and high luck also tends to speed up gold acquisition. It's taught in-game to merchants (said class is noted for a high luck stat) or characters known to enough of the NPC banking community, and is explicitly described as designed for the sort of person who'd rather just throw money at all their problems.
  • Majesty: Spells are cast this way this from the player's perspective, but the fluff explains this as the Wizard's Guild and the various temples charging a fee for their services.
  • In MapleStory, there is a skill called Meso Explosion, which explodes the mesos (the currency in the game) dropped on the ground around you to attack monsters.
  • In Metro 2033, post-apocalyptic society uses bullets as currency. Specifically, irreplaceable pre-catastrophe bullets which are much better than what can be manufactured now; hence you can get a damage boost by literally firing your money at the enemy.
  • Although it's not immediately obvious, Million Gunman in No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle actually uses up rolled up wads of cash as ammunition for his guns, as can be seen from the large clouds of floating bills whenever you get hit by them. Then again, considering that bills fly out of any enemy you stomp repeatedly or cut in half with your Beam Katana, his choice of weaponry isn't really that surprising.
  • In Noita, the spell "Gold To Power" converts 5% of your gold into additional spell damage, up to a maximum of 24,000 gold. If the player achieves infinite wealth by collecting 2.1 billion gold, the spell casts at maximum power without costing any gold.
  • Tressa (or anyone with the Merchant subjob) from Octopath Traveler can use a skill called "Hired Help" to summon a unit onto the battlefield to strike all enemies at once. The strength and effect of the skill depend on how much money she spends.
    • Partitio and other characters with the Merchant subjob in Octopath Traveler II can do this too. Partitio also has an EX skill called "Negotiate Schedule" that allows him to directly buy the opponent's turn!
  • Oracle of Tao has such a skill as a Limit Break.
  • PAYDAY 2
    • A variant: you can now whack people on the head with a stack of Benjamins. It's weaker than using your fists (you need to use it twice to break thin glass), but the sheer ludicrousness of the situation causes trained special ops to fall down in surprise. The money stack can be swung fairly quickly and has a good amount of knockback, making the process of subduing law enforcement to be taken as hostages easier. What makes the weapon even sillier is you have to unlock it at a certain level instead of just taking your own money.
    • Anniversary events allowed players to use the Cash Blaster, a variant of the flamethrower that deals a lot more damage, but consumes a thousand dollars from the user's offshore account for every cop defeated by it.
  • Penny-Punching Princess has the Princess' magical calculator. By spending some of the money she's collected in a level, she can capture enemies without fighting them, or capture traps to use against the enemies. After completing a few stages, the calculator gains a function called "Coin Miracle", which can grant her any number of beneficial effects such as healing, increased strength, or even more gold. The effectiveness of the Coin Miracle is directly proportional to how much money the Princess is willing to spend to use it.
  • Phantasy Star Online's "Charge" Special weapons. For 200 Meseta per hit, you get to deal 1.5x extra damage. One of the most popular and effective weapons isn't the super rare Infinity +1 Sword of the game, it's a mundane normal mechgun with the Charge special on it. Another special weapon takes 10,000 Meseta per swing, but deals 3 times as much damage!
  • Pokémon:
    • Inverted with the moves Pay Day and Make It Rain, that actually generates money for the player to collect. You also collect the extra change if your opponent uses the move as well.
    • Played straight with Pokémon Rumble's rendition of Fling, which has you chuck about 10% of your money (capping at 1K) for a decent amount of damage.
  • Ragnarok Online also has a Merchant class skills that make use of Zeny, the in-game currency. Two of them, in fact. The first one is the basic skill called Mammonite, which has a distinct animation of scattering coins. The second is a Mastersmith skill called High Speed Cart Ram which requires both Zeny and a pushcart.
  • During development, Ratchet & Clank (2002) had the Bolt Blaster, which fired the game's currency (Bolts, of course) as its ammunition. This was eventually changed to normal shots so that the player couldn't fire all their money away as it's needed at certain points to unlock levels, and the gun renamed to just Blaster.
  • The Crowdfunder in Risk of Rain 2 is an automatic minigun that drains your money to keep firing. While in later stages you get Money for Nothing, at that point its damage is something to be desired.
  • One of the DLCs for Saints Row IV gives the player superpowers that do this, on top of also turning enemies and civilians into money.
  • There was the suggestion that Treasure Knight, the diving suit-clad pirate from Shovel Knight, would've had a power like this if he had been chosen to become a playable character with his own campaign. Quite fitting, given his theme and motivation. Sadly, he did not make the cut.
  • SimCity 4 lets you live out this trope by driving down the streets in the mayoral limo, throwing money (straight from the public coffers) to boost your mayor rating.
  • In Soda Dungeon, the Merchant's Affluence skill launches treasure at enemies and takes up 1000 gold.
  • In Super Mario Odyssey, if Mario captures a Coin Coffer, he can attack with coins from his own stash, meaning if he runs out of coins he can't attack.
  • Tales of the Abyss: One of Anise's Mystic Artes, Fever Time, showers the battlefield in giant coins, ending with blowing the enemies up with fireworks. It costs 20,000 Gald to use unless the fight ends there.
  • Terraria added the Coin Gun in its 1.2 update, which fires coins from your inventory as ammunition and deals damage according to their value. Its damage can range from being moderately acceptable with the lowest valued coins, to being the hands-down strongest weapon in the game... for a few seconds.
  • Total War: Warhammer II introduced Rites to the strategic campaign layer - for a hefty fee and a long cooldown, your faction can perform a magical ritual with very impressive results, from summoning an army comprised entirely of dinosaurs, to creating a mobile naval fortress.
  • Inverted with the Warcraft III spell Transmute, which uses mana to turn the targeted unit into gold. The Goblin Laboratory's Reveal (shows a small section of the map) costs 50 gold per use, which the human's Arcane Tower can do for free but with a longer cooldown.
  • In Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3, Wario can convert ten normal coins in his possession into a special "10 gold coin" that he can throw at enemies — and then run in and collect again, because he's a greedy guy, of course. Useful in the absence of other mooks he can pick up and throw, and required to open the exit gate in most levels (demonstrated in the first level).
  • In World of Warcraft, many spells originally required expensive reagents. In Wrath of the Lich King, they became affordable through Ridiculous Future Inflation, and in Cataclysm most reagents were eliminated.
  • In Yakuza: Like a Dragon, Ichiban can call up anyone from the Poundmates servicenote  for a nominal fee, ranging from a thousand yen to a million. First time is free, however.

    Webcomics 

    Western Animation 
  • In an episode of South Park, a cure for AIDS is discovered. It involves taking large amounts of money, putting it in a blender, pureeing it, and then drinking the result. Works great for someone like Magic Johnson, not so much for most people with AIDS.

 
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Paper Mario The Origami King

In battles in The Origami King, you can use coins to call on the Toads to give a variety of helpful effects including healing and providing a trail. You can also use them to extend the timer.

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