A Video Game enemy which has to be defeated quickly, lest it become more dangerous. Unlike a Time-Limit Boss, failing to defeat them within a certain amount of time rarely leads to a Game Over (unless the player is careless), but can make things harder for the player in a number of ways:
- Calling or creating more enemies after a certain amount of time or Reviving Enemies who get back up if you haven't defeated their fellows quickly enough after them.
- Buffing itself gradually as time passes, becoming especially dangerous if the player lacks a Status-Buff Dispel or if the buff cannot be dispelled.
- Powering up into a stronger form if the battle drags on (this might lead to Do Well, But Not Perfect if the stronger form has a Rare Drop or other reason to challenge it).
- The enemy starts off with a weapon which is quite inaccurate, but over time the weapon's accuracy gets more and more buffed, until eventually it is almost guaranteed to strike with a lethal attack.
- Using a highly damaging attack which takes a few turns of prep (this type of enemy often runs away after doing so). Magic using enemies who need to build up enough Mana Points (by recovering them, or absorbing them from the player with an attack) before they can cast their spells are a specific variant. An Action Bomb is frequently an example.
These changes can either keep building up or they could happen all at once after a set amount of time/turns (or something in between, with the enemy getting stronger at regular intervals). This makes for a slight difference in strategy, as while the former is best defeated as quickly as possible, it might be wiser to defeat the latter as efficiently as possible within the time limit.
Sister Trope to the Time-Limit Boss (when failing to defeat them in time is an instant game over), Boss Arena Urgency (when the area the battle's taking place in is getting more dangerous) and Metal Slime (which costs the player a reward if it isn't defeated quickly instead). Sub-Trope to Gathering Steam. Contrast Turns Red. Compare Stalked by the Bell and Timed Mission, which share a similar relationship to this and Time Limit Boss, and Boss-Altering Consequence, for when the boss is made harder by the player's actions. If you need to clear away your enemies' support to make things easier, you may need to Shoot the Medic First and / or Shoot the Mage First. The Virus (especially the zombieism variants, given that a lone zombie may not pose a great threat, but it will infect others if not re-killed) is often a meta example, as the longer it spreads the more victims fall to it (and the more of a threat it becomes).
Don't even think about attempting Victory by Endurance on them.
When this describes a narrative threat rather than a game mechanic, see Snowballing Threat.
Examples:
Action Adventure
- The Final Boss of Ittle Dew 1 has a phase where he summons Petal Slugs over time. If left unchecked and this phase isn't defeated quickly, they can turn the boss arena into a Bullet Hell.
- Used for story purposes in NieR: Automata when you first fight Adam. He starts off as a barely functional, stumbling boss. But as the battle drags on, he analyzes what 2B and 9S do in order to gain more skill, which the game represents as him leveling up.
First Person Shooter
- In Borderlands 2 there are a few enemies which can grow into more powerful forms if they're left unchecked:
- Raging Goliaths are what happens when a Goliath's helmet is shot off of him. These crazed mutant bandits become consumed by anger and start attacking anything and everything unfortunate enough to be near them all the while screaming his head off and laughing. For every kill they get they gain experience points to level up and when they do they get much bigger and stronger, ultimately transforming into the GOD-Liath. Players, if they're big enough Badasses, can farm them for loot and experience points.
- Varkids turn into cocoons, which spit out progressively more and more powerful forms. Unlucky (or lucky, if they're farming it) players might end up fighting Vermivorous the Invincible.
- The "Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon's Keep" DLC has Orks, which grow even more quickly (and instantly), meaning the player is likely to end up fighting (or running from) a Grand Duke of Ork.
- Doom:
- The Pain Elementals from are Mook Makers which spit out endless amounts of Lost Souls, potentially creating a swarm of them if they continue their attacks. However, there is a limit to the number of Lost Souls at once in this way, and the pain elemental only creates mooks when attacking.
- Similarly, the Icon of Sin can go down in three rockets with really good timing. If left alone, it will spawn many kinds of monsters, even Pain Elementals, Barons of Hell and Archviles, and they will all want your head. Unlike the Pain Elemental, these enemies are not subject to a limited number.
- The Final Boss in Duke Nukem 3D Plutonium Pak is the alien queen, who gives birth to a dangerous drone every thirty seconds. Extra difficulty comes from the battle being underwater: once the player's air tank runs out, he's compelled to surface for air periodically, during which one or two new drones will be spawned.
- The Monster in Evolve. It's initially weaker than the Hunters, but if it gets to eat enough and evolve once, it becomes larger, stronger and able to fight on even terms with them. If it evolves again, it becomes stronger than the Hunter Team.
- As Selaco progresses the enemy's "Invasion Level" increases, giving them access to more abilities such as deployable shields, smoke grenades, etc.
- Team Fortress 2's Mann vs. Machine mode:
- Whichever robot is carrying the bomb receives status buffs over time. After 5 seconds, it gains a defense boost that also applies to all the robots around it. After 20 seconds, it starts quickly regenerating health. After 35 seconds, it becomes crit-boosted.
- Letting an Engineer robot get set up means the robots get free teleports, cutting down the time you have to prepare for each spawned wave. Worse, they're invincible when spawned, so you could have two dozen Scout robots run in with a bomb in their midst and you might find yourself quickly overwhelmed.
Idle Game
- The Final Boss of BIOTOMATA is an Anomaly Containment Task Force with 30k health, and stats of 100 across the board, which is low at the point. Its main attack is a gun that deals 300 (and sometimes 600) damage to you, which is weak at this point of the game. However... when it hits 75% of its Max health, it will use a move called Reinforcements with a very short cast time, and if successfully pulled off it will not only heal to full, but double its Max HP and all its stats. This can be done thrice, and while it still only uses the gun attack before three stacks, once it gets three stacks it will have 240k HP and will only use Specialist Strike, which not only heals it for a huge amount of health, but also stacks a plethora of Damage Over Time effects onto you, all of which now scale off its bloated 800 stats. The best way to deal with this boss is thus get its HP close to but above 22.5k, then Alpha Strike it down with all your powerful moves and hope to kill it before it can successfully cast Reinforcements at all.
- Sword Fight (2017):
- Zombies apply weakness, a percentage-based reduction to stats that eventually brings them to 1. Weakness also applies if invading or conquering a blighted zone, which makes it impossible to conquer such zones until the player can mitigate the condition.
- Grand Masters in Area 2 get an increasing bonus as the duel progresses. Johannes gets +50 Atk for each feint, Raymond gets +50 Def for each parry, Godfrey gets +50 Hit for each reversal, Frederick gets +2% Def for each parry while disciple is faltering, and Diaz gets +60 Hit and Def for each feint.
MMORPG
- Certain bosses in World of Warcraft have an "enrage" mechanic, which means they become much more dangerous if the battle drags on. For example, Beth'tilac has an area of effect spell that gradually increases in damage every time it's cast.
- Two of the bosses in Toontown Online, and, by extension, the fan servers, have so-called desperation modes, which crank up the difficulty as the battle drags on:
- The VP's stun time drastically shortens, making him much harder to knock back.
- The infamous C.E.O. After 20 minutes in the final round, one of the conveyors delivering healing snacks to the players will be disabled, and his attacks will become stronger. After 30 minutes, both conveyors will be disabled, his attacks will become even more powerful, he will attack more often, AND he gains a movement speed bonus.
- Elsword: The Superboss Alterasia Type-H is infamous for this. He's surround by constantly spawning Alterasia Spores which periodically heal him. Failing to stay on top of them can cause him to be healed constantly.
- Final Fantasy XIV has various mechanics for bosses and other fights that fall in this category
- Trials tend to have what are referred to as either "Soft Enrages" or "Hard Enrages". Soft enrages involve a damage dealing mechanic or otherwise becoming harder and harder to deal with as the battle drags on until it's impossible for the party to heal through and continue, while a hard enrage is more simply defined: If the battle passes a certain timer, the boss wipes the party with an arena wise attack to prevent sub-optimal gameplay from succeeding at chipping away at a boss's health to victory
- If somehow the party survives, the boss typically spams the attack until the party is dead.
- Has been essentially done away with as the damage nowadays is too high for even unsynced parties to handle and ignores defenses including the invincibility cooldowns Tanks have access to.
- Several bosses spawn adds that makes it harder to fight the boss, either by attacking the players, increasing damage the tank takes (straining the healers), or giving the boss a permanent buff if left alone.
- Some bosses apply debuff stacks. The most common is a debuff for getting hit by an attack that you should have avoided, called Vulnerability. Each stack of Vulnerability makes you take more damage from all sources for 60 seconds, and getting another stack resets the timer and increases the damage further. It's very difficult to survive bosses when you have 4 stacks of Vulnerability. It's almost impossible to survive when you have 5 or more. The debuff is intended to prevent players from tanking through boss attacks and ignoring the mechanics of the fight: the debuff is never applied from the boss using an attack that cannot be dodged.
- Quite a few bosses have a phase where they build up a meter. The more the meter fills up, the more damage it does up to a party wipe if it gets full.
- Inverted if you're fighting against some Extreme Primals unsynced where you can kill them quickly. However, if you bring their HP down too fast before performing a mechanic, they becoming invincible and start spamming their ultimate attack.
- Trials tend to have what are referred to as either "Soft Enrages" or "Hard Enrages". Soft enrages involve a damage dealing mechanic or otherwise becoming harder and harder to deal with as the battle drags on until it's impossible for the party to heal through and continue, while a hard enrage is more simply defined: If the battle passes a certain timer, the boss wipes the party with an arena wise attack to prevent sub-optimal gameplay from succeeding at chipping away at a boss's health to victory
- Warframe: Garuda weaponizes this with her passive ability, Death's Gate: The lower her health is, the more damage she does. So her playstyle is very much a high risk, high reward one based upon effectively managing her health with Blood Altarnote and energy with Bloodlettingnote . When done correctly, though, anything between Garuda and her objective may as well be bugs fighting a blender.
Combat Flight Simulator
- The Arclight Electromagnetic Launcher on Mihaly's X-02S Strike Wyvern in Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown becomes increasingly accurate during the fight, as the X-02S's onboard systems become better equipped at tracking Trigger's aircraft; If the player takes too long to shoot down Mihaly, that accuracy will hit 100%, and given that the weapon can reduce the player's health to a measly 1 point from just a single shot, Trigger's defeat at the hands of the EML is assured from here on out.
Platformer
- Mega Man X:
- If you take too long to defeat Awakened Zero (and only Awakened Zero; the regular Zero fought if Eurasia's collision is prevented doesn't use this attack) in Mega Man X5, he will eventually turn invincible and start spamming One-Hit Kill attacks that are only avoidable with Ultimate X's Nova Crash (not that that'll help since you're just delaying the inevitable at that point).
- Infinity Mijinion from Mega Man X6 will periodically duplicate himself during battle (or when he's struck by a powerful attack). He can potentially fill an entire screen with his copies if you take too much time, making him harder to kill.
Roguelike
- The Binding of Isaac: Homunculi and Begottens start out chained to walls or rocks, only capable of running at the player in short range. If enough time passes without killing them, they break their chains, and each of them gains a new trick making them more dangerous. Homunculi will leave damaging creep on the floor while they run and shoot six blood shots when they first break, while Begottens turn the screen dark and often turn invisible.
- The Tentacles spawned by the Shambler in Darkest Dungeon start out rather weak, but gain a buff to their attack power every time they attack. If you can't destroy them quickly, forcing the Shambler to create new, unbuffed ones, they can quickly become able to one-shot your party members.
- Meme Mayhem has a number of bosses that function like this, especially those that have Flex emojis, which buff their strength each time one fires off, or bosses that give themselves more emojis (all emojis in a character's arsenal normally fire off at the same time every second) as time goes on:
- Gym Rat (previously The Stone) has a bunch of Flex emojis and a stone (deal damage equal to strength), which means his attack will continuously increase until one of you goes down.
- Chaams
has absolutely zero attacks until it gains enough energy to pull its Limit Break off, after which it turns into Strong Cat
which gains a whole bunch of Flexes and Stones to attack you with.
- Squeaker
is similar to Chaams, having absolutely no attacks until he can pull of his Limit Break... which causes him to deal non-stop constant damage until either one of you goes down.
- Goblin only attacks with a slew of 40 Vampire emojis, which don't do much damage but cause minor Life Drain and Maximum HP Reduction per hit. If not killed in time, he will drain your max life down to zero. And unless you pick his item by choosing to befriend him after beating him, all of your stolen max HP is permanently gone.
- Butin not only has a Flex emoji and 15 stones, his unique relic "Entrapment" reduces your dodge chance by 1% and applies a stacking 1 Vulnerable every time any of his emoji attacks successfully score a Critical Hit. His 20% crit chance means that this will likely trigger often, causing you to suffer more and more damage.
- One possible Final Boss is Chad, who has Flexes that will gradually buff himself as the battle drags on.
- Another possible Final Boss is Mars, who uses "Railgun" every two seconds to deal a fixed 666 damage and give himself an extra coin emoji (deals 2x damage in strength), eventually gaining enough coin emojis to overtax any healing/regeneration.
- Moria: Some enemies could clone themselves, become more dangerous if left not cleared out quickly or otherwise being a slog to get through. For example, worm masses left alone could fill up a room and take a while to clear out. Giant lice could be dangerous, but have a low damage output that makes them slightly easier to farm.
- Muck: All enemies and bosses scale their stats and spawn rate exponentially with every passing day, putting you on an urgent time limit to complete all your objectives and/or grow stronger before they become too overwhelming.
- Slay the Spire has a wide array of enemies that buff themselves one way or the other, becoming more dangerous turn after turn; some through staggered buffs that spend their turns, others directly through mechanics. The most prominent examples are:
- The Time Eater, who takes an unusual approach in that he doesn't get more dangerous as turns pass, but rather as you play cards. Every 12 cards you play, he automatically ends your turn and gets more Strength to hit you with. As a result, any decks that rely on lots and lots of zero-cost cards will get torn apart.
- Donu and Deca are more straightforward, in that Donu will just directly up the pair's Strength every other turn. This piles on quickly, so any Gradual Grinder defensive decks will get broken in half eventually once their Beam becomes too much to handle. Decks that rely on Gathering Steam will also have a rough one, because they will probably grow stronger faster than you can.
RPG
- Every enemy in Breath of Death VII and Cthulhu Saves the World gets stronger the longer the fight drags on, pretty much ruling out any turtling strategy.
- The optional boss Mother Brain in Chrono Trigger can be this. She starts the battle with three Panels that will heal her every turn for a moderate amount of HP. If you kill all three of them, she Turns Red, getting increased stats and a powerful attack-all spell. Furthermore, her stats will continue to climb at a rapid pace. The longer the battle goes on, the more damage she'll deal and the less she'll receive, and after a few rounds she's practically unkillable. It's generally recommended to avoid this phase entirely by killing only two Panels and leaving the third alive (it will die when she does anyway).
- Superboss Lucifer in Devil Survivor has to be defeated quickly once he goes into his second form, as he will periodically cast Megidoladyne, an Almighty-elemental spell that targets everyone in all of your parties on the map and does 50% more damage with each successive casting, until it inflicts four-digit damage in a game where player-controlled characters can each only have up to 999 HP.
- Bosses in Diablo III generally adopt tougher tactics at certain health thresholds, or make the arena slowly more hazardous. However Belial has one attack that peppers the arena with randomly-placed explosions, of which there are more each time he does it until they become unavoidable.
- Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan introduces Rare Breeds, glowing variants of normal Mooks and F.O.E.s that get stronger the longer you leave them alive. They also give your party much more experience points than normal, provided they don't run away first.
- Final Fantasy:
- Across multiple games, the Tonberry will usually spend several turns approaching before using its signature Everybody's Grudge or Karma attack, which deals damage for every enemy defeated so far to one target. This attack can be a One-Hit Kill for characters that have been murdering tons of enemies up to the point they can encounter Tonberries, which is usually near the end of the game.
- Downplayed by the various Behemoths in Final Fantasy XIII. They start out on all four legs, but upon losing half their health, transform into a much tougher two-legged form that can wield a sword. Fortunately, there's a way to avoid this: max out their Break Meter quickly, Stun Lock them in the air so they cannot transform, then kill them before they unfreeze and change form.
- Kingdom Hearts II: Lexaeus' gimmick for his Superboss fight in the Final Mix version is that he has a power level that determines his damage output. He starts off doing so little damage that even if you're Level 1 he's completely non-threatening, but as the fight goes on he will occasionally power himself up and do more and more damage.
- In the Vantage Masters mini-game in The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel, the Knight Master Card has the ability to increase the attack power of all cards on your side of the field as well as the Knight itself by one point in each turn. Players need 3 energy per use, but since energy is fully restored each turn, it's a viable strategy to have the Knight buff itself up repeatedly until it can One-Hit Kill enemy cards.
- Look Outside has enemies that initially look unassuming, but transform into much more powerful and grotesque forms as combat progresses. The best example is the Onlooker, the weakest mook in the game, which can metamorphose to a stronger stage as a possible action, becoming an Observer with only slightly more health, then a Gawker which can inflict Confusion and has higher HP and attack, then a beefy Witness that attacks twice a turn for heavy damage each, and finally an Eternal Eye which attacks thrice a turn and hits brutally hard. One optional encounter has you face one that's already a Gawker, and it's a much more difficult fight than the Warm-Up Boss, let alone any Observers or Onlookers before it.
- The Superboss in Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals is completely harmless for three turns, saying supportive things and even healing the party. On the fourth turn, he casts a spell that inescapably causes a Total Party Kill, though thankfully it doesn't cause a game over, merely sends everyone back to the beginning of the 99-level Bonus Dungeon without their final reward.
- The Nergigante of Monster Hunter: World is covered in spikes that regrow continually. It can shoot these spikes as well, and the bigger and harder they get, the more damage they deal to you. Beware when the spikes are completely black, especially once it does its infamous dive-bomb move. The Ruiner variant ditches this mechanic and instead has "ironspikes" that are impenetrable to all but the sharpest of weapons, but don't grow back once shattered.
- The final boss of "The Answer" chapter in Persona 3 FES Erebus will use an attack called Dark Embrace periodically. Each time is is successfully used it will increase in damage until it becomes impossible to avoid a Total Party Kill. It's more downplayed than other examples however because it's possible to prevent it using it at all by inflicting enough damage while it's charging. Not that it explains that.
- In Pokémon:
- Regigigas has the "Slow Start" ability, which means that it spends the first five turns of a battle with reduced speed and attack. After this, the effect wears off and its real stats come into play. Seeing how the metagame is all about speed or stalling this handicap becomes more of a hassle than intended.
- Certain moves become more powerful if they gain momentum. Rollout, Ice Ball, Fury Cutter, and Rage will all become more dangerous if the foe can't be stopped, and they're allowed to use it multiple times in a row. Bugsy and Whitney both rely on this strategy in Gen II with a Fury Cutter Scyther and a Rollout Miltank respectively.
- Pokémon with the Moxie Ability. This Ability causes the Pokémon that has it to gain one stage of an Attack buff (a +50% boost per stage) every time it knocks out another Pokémon. If not stopped, these Pokémon will steamroll their way through the opposing team, especially if they can naturally increase their Speed. Magearna's signature ability, Soul Heart, is a Special variant of this, meaning it cannot even be slowed by Intimidate. Furthermore, it triggers whenever another Pokémon is knocked out - Magearna not only does not need to score the KO by itself (for example, if another Pokémon was knocked out by poison or burn, or by another Pokémon’s attack), but it also triggers if a teammate was knocked out, making getting boosts incredibly easy to pull off.
- The ability Beast Boost is like Moxie on steroids. Unlike Moxie or Soul Heart, which can only boost a single stat, when a Pokémon with Beast Boost knocks out another Pokémon, the Beast Boost user gains one stage of a buff IN ITS HIGHEST STAT. With proper Min-Maxing, a Beast Boost Pokémon can be tailored to boost whichever stat the player wants it to. The more offensively-inclined users, like Pheromosa and Xurkitree, can boost their already strong Special Attack stat to ridiculous levels, while more defensive users like Celesteela and some variants of Nihilego can boost a defensive stat instead, making it even harder to take down.
- Blaziken was banned from competitive play for good reason. One of its abilities, Speed Boost, causes the Pokémon to gain one stage of a Speed buff at the end of every turn, which means it only takes about a turn or two to outspeed almost any Pokémon in the game.
- Espathra was banned from competitive play due to its access to Speed Boost, as well as the moves Calm Mind and Stored Power. Calm Mind increases the Special Attack and Special Defense by one stage each per use, while Stored Power deals more damage depending on how many total stages of Status Buffs the user has. With two Calm Mind and Speed Boost boosts, Stored Power becomes a 140 base power move before Espathra's same-type attack bonus is factored in, allowing it to destroy anything that isn't a Dark-type with one blow.
- The ability "Moody" is even more broken than Speed Boost. At the end of each turn, it randomly raises one stat by two levels, while another one is randomly decreased by one level. It can also raise/lower accuracy or evasion, and if evasion gets raised it essentially works as two free Double Teams, so good luck hitting a monster that on average gets stronger each turn. This ability made Bidoof completely broken, therefore it is no surprise it got banned in competitive play as well.
- Any Pokémon equipped with the rarely-seen item Metronome can become this, as the Metronome's effect is to increase the damage done by a move for each consecutive turn it's used. If used in conjunction with the aforementioned moves like Rollout, Ice Ball, and so forth, both damage multipliers kick in, turning these moves very powerful very fast.
- Annihilape has the move "Rage Fist" which builds in power whenever Annihilape takes damage. It starts innocently enough at base 50, but if Annihilape survives 6 hits (difficult, but far from impossible with the right build) it will have a massive base 350 power, 100 points more than the next best score, EXPLOSION!
- The Void Shadows at the end of Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon's Reverse Mountain have the ability to duplicate themselves, a decent amount of HP, an attack that affects your entire party, and no type. If you don't take them out before the two Mega Gengar and the Mega Tyranitar, you're pretty much screwed. It doesn't help that the three Megas have an ungodly amount of HP, the Mega Gengar have Confuse Ray, and the Mega Tyranitar is very bulky.
- Xenogears has an enemy in the Shevat shafts called the Forbidden, a lizard man chained to a rock. They cannot attack initially, but if a few turns pass, they break out of their chains and start attacking with a move that deals damage equal to their missing health, which can kill party members quickly.
RTS
- Creeper World: Evermore has a 45-minute timer. If it's reached, it's likely due to the player wanting to start a survival mode, and thus the creeper starts increasing it's rate of growth.
- Junkworld has enemies called Weirdeer, mutated stags with moderately high HP and low attack which will attempt to mutate further after losing half their health. If they don't die before they finish mutating, they turn into Voo-deer, two-headed humanoid deer monstrosities that have far more health and attacking power.
- Kingdom Rush Alliance:
- Cult Priests are similar to the Weirdeer/Voo-deer from Ironhide Studio's sister game Junkworld, in that they will attempt to undergo a transformation at low health. Fail to stop them before they do so and they turn into Abominations, Cthulhumanoids with high HP and high damage that can perform a Finishing Move on any troops with low health.
- Evolving Scourges are Animalistic Abominations that evolve into a stronger form if they perform their Finishing Move to consume any of your weakened troops (below <30% health), first turning into a more powerful and durable form, then gaining the ability to fly over your troops while having a Giant Mook's worth of health. They instantly evolve into their strongest forms if they're nearby one of the The Overseer's open eyes.
"They might look almost cuddly at first sight, but if the Scourge feeds on fallen prey things will get awry fast."
- Plague Inc. has two of them, both being antagonists in two different game modes:
- Z-Com in the Necroa Virus mode. Every fortification of theirs will grow stronger over time, allowing them to combat your zombies more easily. They start off with one fortification, and if not dealt with in time will send planes over to other countries to establish more fortifications that will send more planes if not dealt with. As such, it's essential to get your zombies to take down their fortifications quickly.
- Templars in the Shadow Plague mode. Like Z-Com, the Templars will become stronger in their country over time and give them better attacking power against your vampire, which makes it important for the vampire to remove them quickly. Unlike Z-Com they can't establish more bases, but instead grow stronger each time another Templar base is destroyed.
- In a different sort of enemy, the Bio-Weapon plague will get increasingly deadly no matter what you do, and quickly becomes so quick at killing it can't infect fast enough and burns itself out. The key is to keep developing supression genes that will keep the lethality down for some time at least, until you've managed to infect enough people. And, if you infect everyone, you can just bring back all the lethality back and then some by unlocking the Annihilation Gene, which can and will kill the world in two weeks if everyone's caught the disease. This ability also exist in Cure Mode, where the Bioweapon ramps up its already crazy high infectivity and lethality for each country it infects, which means you have to act decisively very fast if you want to prevent it from killing everyone.
- WarCraft III:
- High-level paladins have a shield that makes them invulnerable and a mass resurrection ability. If not neutralized quickly, they spend the fight unable to take damage and bring back half a dozen dead units at full health.
- The Firelord's Incinerate ability deals ever-increasing damage with every attack. When an affected unit dies, it explodes and deals damage to surrounding units.
- Lethal Company:
- The Jester is an invulnerable jack-in-the-box on legs that looks rather adorable while harmlessly following players around the facility it's in. After some time, it will stop and wind itself up to the tune of "Pop Goes The Weasel". Once it finishes, its true, skeletal head pops out and it gives chase to players, instantly chomping and killing those it catches and moving to the next. It knows where each and every player is within the facility, while also getting faster and faster the longer it stays in this mode, eventually catching up to players within seconds. The only way to stop it is to have every surviving player leave the facility, which resets it back to its initial state.
- The Maneater starts out as an adorable baby bug that harmlessly follows an employee around. However, as a baby, they're very prone to getting stressed and crying, be it loud noises, being taken outside, being carried by an employee it "dislikes", or seeing other employees getting hurt. If it starts crying and an employee doesn't pick it up and rock it enough (or rocks it too much), or if it is attacked in any way, it'll grow up into its monstrous, adult form that befits its name, one-shotting any employee it hits while taking 5 hits to die regardless of weapon strength.
- In Resident Evil (Remake), dead zombies who are not decapitated or burned will later come back to life as deadly Crimson Heads when the player returns to the area after a certain amount of time or if certain Event Flags are triggered (although, there's at least one corpse that the player can't do anything about, and a boss battle with the Super Prototype Crimson Head that can't be avoided).
- After The Virus requires players to complete the scenario's objective. Until then, zombie cards based on wave number get added to the player's deck whenever the discard pile gets reshuffled, serving both as a Deck Clogger and enemies that need to be dealt with to avoid receiving damage. If there's not enough zombie cards, two non-zombie cards get destroyed for each absent card.
- Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition supplement Deities & Demigods Cyclopedia, Greek Mythology chapter. The giant Antaeus grows stronger each round he fights as long as he's touching the ground. He starts with the strength of a hill giant (19) and gains the strength of the next larger giant size each round of combat until he reaches the strength of a titan (25). This allows him to do increasingly more Hit Points of damage when he hits. In addition, each time he grows he regenerates all lost Hit Points of damage and gains an additional 25 Hit Points, making him tougher to kill. So when he starts to fight he has 100 Hit Points and a Strength of 19, doing 2-16 Hit Points of damage per hit. After 7 rounds of combat he has 250 Hit Points and a Strength of 25, doing 8-48 Hit Points per hit.
- In Magic: The Gathering, Primordial Hydra
has power and toughness that double every turn, and after it has been on the field long enough to get 10 power, it has trample, making it impossible to chump block.
- In a similar vein, Kalonian Hydra
enters with respectable stats that double every time it attacks. And unlike Primordial Hydra, it always has trample.
- Figure of Destiny
and Warden of the First Tree
start off as 1/1s, but must be killed quickly before their controller begins to spend the mana to transform them into their stronger forms over time.
- In a similar vein, Kalonian Hydra
- Betrayal at House on the Hill's tentacles scenario summons several monsters that start out pretty wimpy, but if the players don't manage to win the scenario promptly quickly become extremely dangerous, increasing in strength and speed every few turns.
- Warhammer 40,000: Njall Stormcaller has a special rule where every turn he's still alive brings increasingly Hostile Weather (slowing enemies, debuffing flyers, etc.) until every enemy in range is taking lightningbolts to the face every turn. And this is a passive effect, meaning he still has other spells to use.
- Yu-Gi-Oh!:
- Raging Flame Sprite
starts with a pitiful 100 ATK, but it can attack the opponent directly even if they have monsters on the field, and it gains 1000 ATK every time it does so. Just like a real fire, it can get out of hand if not dealt with quickly.
- Exodia Necross
gains 500 ATK at the start of each of your turns.
- Raging Flame Sprite
Turn-Based Strategy
- The Final Boss of XCOM 2 will keep summoning reinforcements every turn, forcing you to kill them quick or be swamped by mooks.
- The Final Boss of Fire Emblem: Awakening has a similar gimmick, with it summoning several enemies around the map every turn. Including high mobility enemies like Wyvern Riders. Thankfully the mission ends in victory if the boss itself is killed.
- The loads of Master Ninja and Mechanists in Fire Emblem Fates Conquest Chapter 25 on Lunatic. Although Lunatic is the resident Harder Than Hard mode, this level takes the cake. All the Master Ninja and Mechanists with debuffing shurikens will now get Inevitable End, which lets their debuffs stack, giving your best units stats equivalent of a level 1 Mook. Have fun forcing your way across two hallways filled with these to kill two Master Ninja minibosses who get Avoid from their Geo Effects or else Corrin will get slaughtered by the ludicrously overpowered Duel Boss on turn 20.
- Plants vs. Zombies: Heroes: Several Plant and Zombie Teammates will keep buffing themselves each turn if not removed from the battlefield. The Pea Pod and Team Mascot will give themselves +1 strength and +1 HP every turn, while the Doubled Mint's stats double each turn. Many cards with the "Dino-Roar" ability will also have this trait, usually buffing themselves or other teammates whenever a card is drawn by their side.
Wide Open Sandbox
- Terraria:
- One of the enemies spawned by the Vortex Pillar is the Alien Larva, which start out weak, but grow in to the stronger Alien Hornet, then become the deadlier Alien Queen. Each form deals more damage than the last and the Queens can shoot projectiles that screw up the player character's movement. Queens can also spawn Larvae when killed, starting the cycle all over again.
- The Star Cells spawned by the Stardust Pillar start as standard Asteroids Monsters, splitting in to a few smaller versions of itself when damaged. Should the smaller versions live long enough, they each grow in to full-sized Star Cells that once again split when damaged, which can quickly overwhelm a player.
Other
- The Juggernaut role in Town of Salem grows in power and gains a new ability with each successful kill they make. After the first kill they will be able to attack every night, after the second they gain basic defense, the third they will kill each other person who is targeting theirs, and the maxed out Juggernaut will kill any player while ignoring any defense or heals. The only role who can survive the last attack is Pestilence, who cannot be killed at night.
- The co-op bosses in 100% Orange Juice! use a random card every turn to make things harder for the players, and as the match progresses these cards will gradually be swapped out for stronger ones. Each boss also has their own method of becoming more dangerous over time, such as Star Devourer dealing more damage to players in battle as she steals more stars or Big the Jonathan gaining an Attack point while losing Defense and Evasion for every ten turns that pass.
Non-Video Game Examples
- In The Keys Stand Alone: The Hard World, the four have to mount a raid on Sudran, the Murder Island. Among their many problems is how to deal with a whole island-full of monsters and robots that gradually toughen against attacks, and that also gradually grown stronger in order to breach one's defenses. Their solution: avoid harming anything (except one unavoidable death) and move as fast as possible to avoid being hit and bogged down.
- The Incredibles 1: The Omnidroid is stated by Mirage to be an example of this trope:
Mirage: I've got to warn you. It's a learning robot. Every moment you spend fighting it will only increase its knowledge of how to beat you.Mr. Incredible: Shut it down, do it quickly, don't destroy it.Mirage: And don't die.
Mr. Incredible: Great. Thanks. - Lung in Worm gets more powerful the longer a fight continues, growing wings and increasing his pyrokinetic abilities.
- A common misconception was that Broly from the 8th Dragon Ball Z movie had his ki continuously increase while he was in his Legendary Super Saiyan form, based on a misinterpretation of one line he said. In Dragon Ball Super, characters like Hit and Ganos were introduced who actually fit this better, continuously improving throughout the fight.
- Hit and Ganos become increasingly lethal in the exact opposite way. Hit becomes more skilled and improves his Time-Skip, but he doesn't gain any actual physical improvement; meanwhile, Ganos's skill stays the same, but his strength, speed and endurance increase constantly.
- The new canon version of Broly from Dragon Ball Super: Broly on the other hand, does have such an ability. When he's introduced, he's never been in a fight before, and doesn't know how to apply his strength properly... But when he fights he learns at breakneck speed, becoming better at using his strength. And does it so quickly that, once Frieza awakens his Super Saiyan state, he surpasses Super Saiyan Blue Goku and Vegeta as well as Golden Frieza, and it's speculated that he could even be a match for Beerus. This rapid increase in power means that Goku and Vegeta are forced to become Super Saiyan Blue Gogeta to win.
- In JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders, this is what makes Anubis such a threat to the heroes: Not only can he learn how to counter any attack done to him right after it connects, but he grows faster and stronger each time he fights.
- A common problem in So I'm a Spider, So What?, especially with boss monsters. Since continual exposure to threats allows you to unlock resistance skills, Kumoko has to kill her foes quickly before they grow immune to what she's using. Fortunately this goes both ways, as Kumoko also grows in power as she fights.
- The Ranma ½ fan fiction Relentless
revolves around one of Happosai's sins (insulting a witch by stealing her undergartments) coming back to haunt all of the cast in the manifestation of a summoned spirit that is implacable and, worse yet, capable of adapting to all attacks that can injure it. By the time the Nerima Wrecking Crew finally figure out a way to kill it with magic in the final act, it is every bit as epic a battle to put it down as you would expect it to be.
- In Hercules and the Lost Kingdom, Hercules and Princess Deianeira encounter a version of Antaeus the Giant. Like the mythical Antaeus, this one gets his strength from his mother the Earth. Unlike the mythical version, this one comes back larger and stronger each time he's defeated. Hercules beats his first two forms fairly easily, but the third one is wiping the ground with Herc until Deianeira tells him Antaeus's secret. Herc then knows how to beat Antaeus, and does.
- In the Darksiders novel Darksiders: The Abomination Vault Black Mercy grows in power with each kill it makes after its full potential is unlocked, gaining an area of effect that makes any wound suffered by its wielders enemies instantly become fatal.
