History Main / InverseLawOfUtilityAndLethality

* The many crippling issues of big, powerful creatures in ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering used to make them this, especially in the earlier phases of that game's existence, where such creatures usually took an ungodly amount of resources to get to the table, could still easily get killed, countered, exiled, etc. by any number of spells with a much lower cost, and to make matters worse, often had devastating drawback abilities, just in case they were still a little bit too playable! PowerCreep has since set in, and nowadays many of these creatures have ways to get around their high casting costs early, protections against some of the means to easily body them, and no drawbacks. Even still, of the cards famed for [[GameBreaker bending the game over its knee and making it cry uncle]], the cards whispered of in legends, almost none have damage as a main focus. An inordinate amount of them also happen to be in Blue, a color focused almost entirely on utility and control.[[labelnote:Note]]For reference, the "Power Nine", widely considered to be the most powerful cards in the game, consist of Black Lotus (which produces mana of any color), the Mox cycle (five mana-producing artifacts, one for each color), and the rest is three blue spells. Jace the Mind Sculptor, another one of the most infamous - and infamously expensive - cards, is also blue[[/labelnote]] Even today, some of the most powerful competitive decks tend to be not flashy decks with big creatures and explosive spells, but GradualGrinder control decks that have layers upon layers of countermeasures to shut down anything you might hope to throw against them. Tremendously effective, and [[BoringButPractical mind-numbingly boring to play against.]]

** The Super-Skrull, who has copies of all of the Fantastic Four's powers, has no problem using his flames to kill since he's a soldier in an alien army.

* ComicBook/BlackCanary's superpower is a powerful [[MakeMeWannaShout ultrasonic scream]] -- so powerful, in fact, that's it hard for to use without the risk of killing an opponent or a bystander. As a result, she hardly ever uses it. Fortunately, she's also one of the greatest martial artists in the DC Universe, so she doesn't really need it.

** Joseph Joestar's abilities in ''[[Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureBattleTendency Parts 2]]'' and 3 are more utility-oriented. In Part 2, he relies mostly on trickery and psyching out his enemies rather than overpowering his opponents, often utilizing Hamon to turn ordinary objects into weapons (i.e. hair, pasta, clackers, tequila bottle corks, etc). In Part 3, his stand, Hermit Purple, is weak in combat but can control electronics (mostly used to project pictures onto televisions). He can also use his Stand's vines to grapple onto buildings and take "spirit photographs" of far away targets such as when he took a picture of Dio in Egypt while in Japan. This is a stark contrast to the combat-oriented stands that the other members of Part 3's Joestar group have, none of which have very many uses outside of combat.

** Conversely, [[Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureStardustCrusaders Hol Horse]] and [[Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureVentoAureo Guido Mista.]] Both characters have roughly the same power (a gun with [[ImprobableAimingSkills bullets that they can redirect in mid-flight to hit a target]]), and it should make them incredibly formidable, since very few people in the setting are ImmuneToBullets. Except [[StoryBreakerPower it would be boring]] to simply have Mista unerringly shoot every opponent in the head, and Hol Horse is a villain so he can't just shoot and kill the heroes, so both characters tend to be [[ATeamFiring surprisingly bad at actually hitting anything]] despite their power being that they can hit anything, either because their enemies always seem to [[KryptoniteIsEverywhere conveniently have the perfect Stand to ruin their day]] or because they just flat-out miss. Hell, more than a few times, they've ended up hitting ''themselves.'' While fighting White Album alone, Mista shot himself twenty times--and survived.

* ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure''. Much of the intrigue comes from how villains use their Stands' strange and convoluted powers to deadly effect (A Stand that reduces your memory capacity to three given facts? A Stand that reduces the target's age?). The heroes often have to struggle to defeat their foes using their much more direct powers (Cut anything, control flames, extreme speed and strength...) A clearly established rule is also that direct power is inversely proportional to range, which means that heavy-hitters are heavily restricted. The exceptions are "remote Stands", that have large range, power ''and'' lack the usual "damage also affects the user" drawback, but cannot be controlled at long range and instead rely on simple behavior programs, giving them even less utility than other types.

** This trope is a major issue for Okuyasu, whose power is to use a close-range swipe to [[PortalCut remove part or all of his target from existence]]. He can also use it to draw people closer to him by "removing" the distance between them--so, logically, he should be able to kill just about anyone in at most two swipes. Naturally, this means Okuyasu loses basically every fight he gets involved in.

** But it's averted in the new movie: Although [[BloodlessCarnage there's no blood or anything]], it's fairly clear that Leonardo, Raphael, and April are hitting Foot Ninjas with their swords.
** Holds more or less true in the 2003 series as well, although it's pretty clear that Leo and Raph are deliberately holding back to avoid killing anyone. For example, in ''WesternAnimation/TurtlesForever'', when the 1987 and 2003 turtles fight a group of Foot Clan robots, 2003 Raphael wrestles a robot until he's told it isn't human, at which point he stabs it through the head with his dagger, yelling "I love fighting robots!".
** Given, the original comic books featured a lot more brutality. The Turtles were constantly covered in scars, and they actually killed Foot with their weapons and decapitated Saki.
** Curious example from the 80's cartoon; after a couple of seasons, parents complained about Michelangelo's nunchuks, because kids supposedly started to imitate him (remember the toy nunchucks covered in foam? ...well simply they just removed the cover and beat the plastic out of each other). So in later seasons the producers replaced Mikey's weapon with a rope/grappling hook thing. Talk about something pretty lame.
*** The thing is, a grappling hook weapon can be pretty lethal (Manriki-gusari might be based on it) if you consider choking and flinging it at a vulnerable spot. The real kicker is that the least harmful weapon to imitate, and most difficult to duplicate -- the nunchuck -- is removed, while swords, knives, and staffs are allowed to stay. Considering their {{expy}}s would be kitchen knives and broom handles -- easy enough to obtain and hurt someone with -- sounds like a case of [[NiceJobBreakingItHero nice job breaking it, watchdogs!!]]
*** Nunchucks are pretty low tech--wood and rope will do--and a glancing blow from wooden nunchucks can '''hurt'''. Nunchucks are also the easiest weapon to hit yourself out of the four.
*** So remember kids, [[AesopCollateralDamage hurting yourself is WRONG, but hurting OTHERS is OK!]]

** Charging a card to explode and then handing it to someone who doesn't know your powers is just A-OK, though.

* ''WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack'' only uses his sword against robots and occasionally an enemy holding a sword. This is likely because Jack is a MartialPacifist and doesn't want to kill anyone except [[BigBad Aku]].
** Many of those "robots" look and act exactly like organic beings, to the point of patronizing bars/restaurants. Even the wild animals proved to be robots, suggesting that the "robot" conceit is just a way to squeak the show past the gore police. A lot of them sprayed oil from their wounds in an obvious blood parallel.

** This trope is also present with Sokka. In the first two series, he hit a fair few people with his club and boomerang (which is bladed or not depending on what it hits). However, [[InverseLawOfSharpnessAndAccuracy he never managed to hit]] anyone with his knife or the sword.

* Kyle Baker reportedly saw this as an issue when writing ComicBook/{{Hawkman}}: Hawkman's main offensive power is being skilled with medieval weapons, so [[PlotTailoredToTheParty you have to write a story that makes use of them]], but at the same time, it's difficult to draw a superhero in the modern era bludgeoning someone with a mace without making him look like a violent brute. Consequently, he chose to have Hawkman fight [[WhatMeasureIsANonHuman mostly nonhuman enemies]]; after all, smacking a T-rex with a mace seems downright sporting by comparison.

* ''Disney/ThePrincessAndTheFrog'': Ray the firefly takes on a pack of shadow monsters and also is critical in enabling the defeat of the buffoonish hunters. Louis the alligator is useless against both opponents, being late to one fight and running from the other.

* Actually taken advantage of in [[http://magellanverse.com/?p=2554 this]] ''Webcomic/{{Magellan}}'' comic. During a [[HeroAcademy superpower combat exercise]], a firebreathing cadet gives the protagonist a warning shot. The protagonist's ally points out that since her blasts are liable to kill the BadassNormal protagonist, she can't actually use her powers for anything other than warning shots.

* Kouhei from ''Manga/TsukuyomiMoonPhase''; his total lack of magic power also means he's impervious to all forms of magic, which is by the way quite common in this series.

* Yami Yugi on ''Anime/YuGiOh''. [[WebVideo/YuGiOhTheAbridgedSeries "Remember kids, stealing and bullying is wrong. Crushing people's minds with magical powers is A-OK!"]] Overall, it seems that breaking minds, exiling people into Hell Mouth and stealing souls is far better to show children than anything ''physical''.

* Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure. Much of the intrigue comes from how villains use their Stands' strange and convoluted powers to deadly effect (A Stand that reduces your memory capacity to three given facts? A Stand that reduces the target's age?). The heroes often have to struggle to defeat their foes using their much more direct powers (Cut anything, control flames, extreme speed and strength...) A clearly established rule is also that direct power is inversely proportional to range, which means that heavy-hitters are heavily restricted. The exceptions are "remote Stands", that have large range, power ''and'' lack the usual "damage also affects the user" drawback, but cannot be controlled at long range and instead rely on simple behavior programs, giving them even less utility than other types.
** Joseph Joestar's abilities in Parts 2 and 3 are more utility-oriented. In Part 2, he relies mostly on trickery and psyching out his enemies rather than overpowering his opponents, often utilizing Hamon to turn ordinary objects into weapons (i.e. hair, pasta, clackers, tequila bottle corks, etc). In Part 3, his stand, Hermit Purple, is weak in combat but can control electronics (mostly used to project pictures onto televisions). He can also use his Stand's vines to grapple onto buildings and take "spirit photographs" of far away targets such as when he took a picture of Dio in Egypt while in Japan. This is a stark contrast to the combat-oriented stands that the other members of Part 3's Joestar group have, none of which have very many uses outside of combat.

** Conversely, [[Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureStardustCrusaders Hol Horse]] and [[Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureVentoAureo Mista.]] Both characters have roughly the same power (a gun with [[ImprobableAimingSkills bullets that they can redirect in mid-flight to hit a target]]), and it should make them incredibly formidable, since very few people in the setting are ImmuneToBullets. Except [[StoryBreakerPower it would be boring]] to simply have Mista unerringly shoot every opponent in the head, and Hol Horse is a villain so he can't just shoot and kill the heroes, so both characters tend to be [[ATeamFiring surprisingly bad at actually hitting anything]] despite their power being that they can hit anything, either because their enemies always seem to [[KryptoniteIsEverywhere conveniently have the perfect Stand to ruin their day]] or because they just flat-out miss. Hell, more than a few times, they've ended up hitting ''themselves.'' While fighting White Album alone, Mista shot himself twenty times--and survived.

* ''ComicBook/XMen'':
** A rather JustForFun/{{egregious}} mix of this and WhenAllYouHaveIsAHammer when they made Psylocke, one of their [[PsychicPowers team telepaths]], over into an Asian ActionGirl. She gained kung-fu, LeParkour, and the ability to focus her telepathy into a "psi-blade", which would instantly short-circuit the nervous system of anyone she stabbed with it, resulting in incapacitation or, [[{{Mooks}} in rare cases]], death. Unfortunately, the blade became the entirety of her heroic repertoire shortly thereafter. Combined with the Inverse Law, it made the poor girl look like the weak link in the X-Chain, and it took [[NewPowersAsThePlotDemands new powers]] to give her any sort of versatility or credibility afterwards.

* Creator/DCComics' ''Legion Of Substitute Heroes'', the rejects and washouts of the ''ComicBook/{{Legion Of Super-Heroes}}''. Their powers were deemed useless or dangerous. The ones who best fit this trope were Infectious Lass (she gave people contagious diseases - but couldn't control when she used it, who got it, or what disease they got), Porcupine Pete (could shoot porcupine-like quills, but only in every direction, hitting friend and foe alike), Color Kid (could change the color of objects) and Stone Boy (turned into an immobile statue). Despite their potentially offensively devastating powers, Infectious Lass and Porcupine Pete, due to their lack of control were reduced to objects of humor, while Color Kid and Stone Boy, despite their powers being useless on the surface, had moments of awesomeness - like changing all Green Kryptonite to Blue, rendering it harmless to Superboy and Supergirl, or immobilizing Pulsar Stargrave by falling on him from a great height.
* From ''Comicbook/FantasticFour'':

* Inverted in the original ''Comicbook/{{Wanted}}'' comic: the protagonist is The Killer; his ''only'' superpower is being unnaturally good at dealing death. While this would be unworkable in an ongoing comic, it's mighty good in a miniseries.

* The Mortal Blow Hidden Skill in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess''. If used properly, it is a OneHitKill against any unlucky mook. However, Link can't even hold his shield while preparing for it. The Ending Blow, which finished downed enemies, on the other hand is one of the most useful Hidden Skills, and the first one Link learns.

** Conversely, [[Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureStardustCrusaders Hol Horse]] and [[Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureVentoAureo Mista.]] Both characters have roughly the same power (a gun with [[ImprobableAimingSkills bullets that they can redirect in mid-flight to hit a target]]), and it should make them incredibly formidable, since very few people in the setting are ImmuneToBullets. Except [[StoryBreakerPower it would be boring]] to simply have Mista unerringly shoot every opponent in the head, and Hol Horse is a villain so he can't just shoot and kill the heroes, so both characters tend to be [[ATeamFiring surprisingly bad at actually hitting anything]] despite their power being that they can hit anything, because their enemies always seem to conveniently have the perfect Stand to ruin their day, be it a bulletproof suit or a Stand that can stop the motion of anything or one that can just move faster than the bullet. Hell, more than a few times, they've ended up hitting ''themselves.'' While fighting White Album alone, Mista shot himself twenty times--and survived.

* Ten Ten from ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' is an example of this. In a world of ninja, magic fireballs, demons and GodMode eye techniques, Ten Ten uses normal weapons at her disposal. Because of this, she is practically useless, which is jarring as any one of her weapons could end a battle really quickly, as it's been shown countless times that no matter how strong an enemy is, they usually have to dodge a kunai flying at their face. Part of her problem is one of her defining features is a 100% accuracy rate in projectile weapons... Considering the enemy is still VERY free to either block or dodge, and her enemies are, well, ninja, it goes as well as you can expect.

** On the other hand, Sylar's power is the ability to intuitively understand how things work. That doesn't sound so amazing until Sylar quickly figures out he can use it to learn other people's superpowers, making him one of the most powerful people in the world. Sylar's heavy use of telekinesis both averts and supports this, depending on the plot. It's a tremendously versatile power, good for everything from opening locks to stopping bullets to sawing off heads, but he has an amazing talent for not killing main characters, considering that he's a homicidal psychopath who can kill you by wishing it.

** [[spoiler: ''Shockingly'' averted in [[DarkerAndEdgier Season 5]], where thanks to the TV-14 rating Jack kills for the first time in his life, slicing the throat of one of the Daughters of Aku. The end builds this as a DespairEventHorizon...]][[spoiler:and the next episode involves him downright javelining another two, stabbing a third, and punching another one so hard it twists her neck. He throws the last two down a cliff, but Jack himself falls after them, showing it to be a survivable fall.]]

** The only exception to this rule seems to be the main villain of the corresponding arc. For example, the power of Dio Brando's The World ([[spoiler: stopping time]]) sounds absolutely terrifying - ''and it is''.
** Conversely, [[Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureStardustCrusaders Hol Horse]] and [[Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureVentoAureo Mista.]] Both characters have roughly the same power (a gun with [[ImprobableAimingSkills bullets that they can redirect in mid-flight to hit a target]]), and it should make them incredibly formidable, since very few people in the setting are ImmuneToBullets. Except [[StoryBreakerPower it would be boring]] to simply have Mista unerringly shoot every opponent in the head, and Hol Horse is a villain so he can't just shoot and kill the heroes, so both characters tend to be [[ATeamFiring surprisingly bad at actually hitting anything]] despite their power being that they can hit anything. Hell, more than a few times, they've ended up hitting ''themselves.'' While fighting White Album alone, Mista shot himself twenty times--and survived.

You've just run into the [[TitleDrop Inverse Law Of Utility And Lethality]]. In series that are focused on combat and fighting, there will be cool (but [[MediaWatchdog nerfed]]) violence. The items which produce the coolest violence will be the least useful -- for anything. MundaneUtility will be rare. Like BadPowersBadPeople, the uses for super destructive powers are severely limited.

** Setsuna's concern over [[LoveIsAWeakness her weakening skills as a warrior]] turn to a concern over her lack of any ''other'' skills, and she imagines herself having to work a part-time job at a convenience store to support her girlfriend. Distracted by thoughts of failures, she then slices a giant metal ball that had been flying at Konoka [[AbsurdlySharpBlade clean in half]] [[OffhandBackhand without even noticing.]]

* Yajirobe of ''Anime/DragonBallZ'' is pretty useful to have around, [[CantCatchUp at least early in the series.]] He's the one who cut off Vegeta's tail while everyone with super powerful lazer disk attacks got their rears handed to them.
* This mostly doesn't come into play in ''Anime/DarkerThanBlack'' since the Contractors who get sent on missions and end up in the protagonists' way are, logically enough, usually combat-oriented, but nevertheless we get situations like, say, Hei as opposed to Havok: his powers can be blocked, but he can also use them to pick locks and fix his landlady's TV, while her ability to create vacuums isn't useful for much but wanton destruction, but it's ''really, really good at it''. The individual Contractor's [[MagicPrerequisite remuneration]] also affects whether they can get away with using their powers for lesser concerns.
* Ten Ten from ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' is an example of this. In a world of ninja, magic fireballs, demons and GodMode eye techniques, Ten Ten uses normal weapons at her disposal. Because of this she is practically useless, which is jarring as any one of her weapons could end a battle real quick, as it's been shown countless times that no matter how strong an enemy is they usually have to dodge a kunai flying at their face. Part of her problem is one of her defining features is a 100% accuracy rate in projectile weapons... Considering the enemy is still VERY free to either block or dodge, and her enemies are, well, ninja, it goes as well as you can expect.
** She gets much more love in filler episodes, as her many normal weapons are summoned from [[HyperspaceArsenal special seals]], and this is expanded upon to turn her into a master of Hammerspace. She has, on one occasion, hidden an entire ship in one of these seals and [[ColonyDrop colony dropped]] the thing on some baddies. She is basically the [[BoringButPractical boring but practical]] support fighter, in that when the others have run out of flashy tricks, she'll still have weapons galore to hit you with.

** Joseph Joestar's abilities in Parts 2 and 3 are more utility-oriented. In Part 2, he relies mostly on trickery and psyching out his enemies rather than overpowering his opponents, often utilizing Hamon to turn ordinary objects into weapons (i.e. hair, pasta, clackers, tequila bottle corks, etc). In Part 3, his stand, Hermit Purple, is weak in combat but can control electronics (mostly used to project pictures onto televisions). He can also use his stand's vines to grapple onto buildings and take "spirit photographs" of far away targets such as when he took a picture of Dio in Egypt while in Japan. This is a stark contrast to the combat-oriented stands that the other members of Part 3's Joestar group have, none of which have very many uses outside of combat.

** Conversely, [[Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureStardustCrusaders Hol Horse]] and [[Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureVentoAureo Mista]]. Both characters have roughly the same power (a gun with [[ImprobableAimingSkills bullets that they can redirect in mid-flight to hit a target]]), and it should make them incredibly formidable, since very few people in the setting are ImmuneToBullets. Except [[StoryBreakerPower it would be boring]] to simply have Mista unerringly shoot every opponent in the head, and Hol Horse is a villain so he can't just shoot and kill the heroes, so both characters tend to be [[ATeamFiring surprisingly bad at actually hitting anything]] despite their power being that they can hit anything. Hell, more than a few times, they've ended up hitting ''themselves.'' While fighting White Album alone, Mista shot himself twenty times--and survived.
* This trope is why in ''Anime/TigerAndBunny'' the [[PlayingWithFire flame-powered]] hero Fire Emblem is consistently low-ranked in universe. Besides simply being a nice guy, Fire Emblem is one of many [[CorporateSponsoredSuperhero Corporate Sponsored Superheroes]] who catches criminals for public entertainment. As such, his impressive flame production/control is relatively useless, given the lack of purpose that it can be applied that don't involve killing or severely injuring others. Notably, the criminal-killing [[VigilanteMan vigilante]], Lunatic, has the same power (but stronger) and naturally finds it very useful for his purposes.

* ''Franchise/StarWars: VideoGame/JediKnightDarkForcesII'' gives the player the option to turn to the Dark Side and gain damage-dealing force powers, or to stay on the Light Side and gain defensive and healing powers. The Dark Side powers don't actually deal that much damage, and the player already has a lightsaber and 9 guns. Therefore the Light Side powers are actually far more useful, giving you much greater utility at deflecting or healing up from damage without having to worry about how limited the level's health and armor pickups might be. Later games in the series balanced it out somewhat, boosting the damage of dark side powers (while removing the inability to use powers outside your alignment, at least in singleplayer) and giving a few Dark Side utility moves, though it's still overall better to focus on Light Side powers for utility purposes and save Dark Side powers for offensive purposes, since Dark utility powers tend to have various drawbacks (Rage makes you invulnerable, but saps your health anyway; Drain heals you up, but is slower and more unwieldy than Heal since you need another enemy to drain from)
* Certain attacks in the ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' games will be this. Mostly, the one-hit KO moves, which will ignore defense and always take whatever it hits down in one hit, but only has an accuracy of 30% when an accuracy of 70% is considered low.

* ''Series/StreetFighter'' has interesting examples beyond the usuals for fighting games: Akuma's [[DangerousForbiddenTechnique Shun Goku Satsu]] seems very practical - fast-moving, fullscreen attack, can't be blocked and extremely powerful to boot - but it requires an extended and iconic input sequence that at tournament levels can be recognised and dodged easily before it is completed.

* Guards in the ''VideoGame/MetalGear'' series tend to raise the alarm upon seeing dead bodies or hearing gunshots. If they find a sleeping guard, they just wake him up. This makes the tranquilizer gun with built-in silencer the most useful weapon in the game.
** In ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2'', this is true. In ''[=MGS3=]'' and ''[=MGS4=]'', guards that are knocked unconscious in any way (punched out, thrown to the ground and knocked out, or tranquilizer darts) will wake up and immediately call HQ to report that "He got me!" Every soldier in the area immediately goes into Caution mode, which makes sneaking harder.
*** Thus leading to the rarified precision shooting required to shoot out their radios... which generally works pretty well, until the game decides that it hasn't heard from a particular goon on schedule, and sends the area into Alert mode to figure out what happened.
*** At least in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3'', it was still true. A [[BoomHeadshot headshot]] with either the tranquilizer gun or the pistol will instantly drop a soldier. But, should your aim be less than perfect, the tranquilizer will just take a moment longer to knock the guy out, while the pistol will cause him to raise an immediate alert. The smart play seems to be to tranquilize enemies from a distance, and then murder them in their sleep. Or, less gruesomely, leave the area before they wake up or dump them in a locker.

* ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'' has [[CuteGhostGirl Yuyuko Saigyouji]], with the ability to kill ''anything'' simply by inviting it to its death (actually "control of death", but it mainly manifests this way). Perhaps the ultimate example of this trope, as it is absolutely lethal and almost completely useless, especially when compared to [[SuperpowerLottery other characters]], and she doesn't even use it that much (in fact when she first discovered she possessed the ability she ''[[DrivenToSuicide killed herself]]'' due to her fear of it). The one time in the games she even ''considers'' using it just supports this trope further, as it was against a character who couldn't die.
* StarWars game Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight gives the player the option to turn to the Dark Side and gain damage dealing force powers, or to stay on the Light Side and gain defensive and healing powers. The Dark Side powers don't actually deal that much damage, and the player already has a lightsaber and 9 guns. Therefore the Light Side powers are actually far more useful.

* GoldenSun series usually has the Wind Adepts being the utility aspect of the party, their base skills can involve mind reading, clearing grass and shrubs to clear a passageway, and finding hidden passageways and items atop buffing and debuffing, they do have some offensive skills but they aren't as powerful compared to the other Adepts Elements.

* The whole reason the UselessUsefulSpell and ContractualBossImmunity tropes exist are to enforce that this law does not occur (for the player characters, at least), otherwise {{RPG}}s would be really easy to beat. Of course, this law applies very straight for when bosses and enemies have access to those spells, easily crippling your party with Poison or Confusion (not surprisingly, those tend to become DemonicSpiders or ThatOneBoss). You're more likely to target those guys first, while also needing a more elaborate strategy to bring them down unlike, say, a SmashMook.
* There are many {{RPG}}s out there that allow healing spells to be used outside of combat, meaning chances are that they will be your most used spells in the game as they're not confined to battle scenes. That's more than can be said for... pretty much anything else your character can do in combat.
* An intentional defiance of this concept occurs in many open-world survival games. Because resource-gathering and construction tools are already the most important things for helping your character survive and include things like [[AnAxeToGrind axes]], [[DropTheHammer hammers]], [[KnifeNut knives]], and [[PowerfulPick picks]], many developers make them do ScratchDamage to force players to craft weapons they otherwise wouldn't need.

You've just run into the [[TitleDrop InverseLawOfUtilityAndLethality]]. In series that are focused on combat and fighting, there will be cool (but [[MediaWatchdog nerfed]]) violence. The items which produce the coolest violence will be the least useful -- for anything. MundaneUtility will be rare. Like BadPowersBadPeople, the uses for super destructive powers are severely limited.

** Conversely, [[Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureStardustCrusaders Hol Horse]] and [[Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureVentoAureo Mista]]. Both characters have roughly the same power (a gun with [[ImprobableAimingSkills bullets that they can redirect in mid-flight to hit a target]]), and it should make them incredibly formidable, since very few people in the setting are ImmuneToBullets. Except [[StoryBreakerPower it would be boring]] to simply have Mista unerringly shoot every opponent in the head, and Hol Horse is a villain so he can't just shoot and kill the heroes, so both characters tend to be [[ATeamFiring surprisingly bad at actually hitting anything]] despite their power being that they can hit anything. Hell, more than a few times, they've ended up hitting ''themselves.''

You've just run into the InverseLawOfUtilityAndLethality. In series that are focused on combat and fighting, there will be cool (but [[MediaWatchdog nerfed]]) violence. The items which produce the coolest violence will be the least useful -- for anything. MundaneUtility will be rare. Like BadPowersBadPeople, the uses for super destructive powers are severely limited.