History Main / LordBritishPostulate

** In ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemMysteryOftheEmblem Fire Emblem: new Mystery of the Emblem]]'', one gaiden chapter has Kleine as a boss who is programmed to flee a few turns in. Despite this? She ''does'' have quotes - ''and'' is defeatable. [[DevelopersForesight If she is defeated, she simply retreats]] -as Kleine is needed for another map.

** In ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemMysteryOftheEmblem Fire Emblem: new Mystery of the Emblem]]'', one gaiden chapter has Kleine as a boss who is programmed to flee a few turns in. Despite this? She ''does'' have quotes - ''and'' is defeatable. [[DevleopersForesight If she is defeated, she simply retreats]] -as Kleine is needed for another map.

** Said game was a LawyerFriendlyCameo of ''Videogame/EarthBound'', and as discussed above, Giygas has similar protection.

* ''Videogame/EarthBound'':
** Giygas is supposed to be killable through one means and one means only: Paula's "Pray" command. While he does have a "real" HP value, calculational trickery otherwise keeps him alive. However, in the UsefulNotes/GameBoyAdvance CompilationRerelease, using a Viper on Giygas can poison him... and the poison will eventually kill him. On the other hand, since the battle wasn't ended the scripted way, glitchery ensues and you end up in a world preconfigured for the game's ending... an ending which won't happen now.
** Master Belch is immune to damage of any kind until you use the Fly Honey on him. However, the Hungry HP-Sucker doesn't ''count'' as damage, because it's a draining effect. It's possible to kill him the long way by exploiting his vulnerability to status effects and drawing his hit points out the long way.
** In ''VideoGame/MOTHER3'', the only way to kill the {{Superboss}} Pig King Statue is supposed to be with either a lucky shot of [[OneHitKill PK Flash]], or use the [[HPTo1 New Year's Eve Bomb]]. He has ''100 million HP'' otherwise, and regularly hits you for more HP than you probably have. It's just not possible to beat him conventionally without cheat codes, if only because, at the end of the day, long after you've run out of [[{{Mana}} PP]] and healing items, he still has ''99,000,000 HP left to go''. It's a numbers game and his are just far, ''far'', '''far''' superior to yours. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oNvzRrTthA That hasn't stopped people from trying, though.]]

* ''Literature/SwordArtOnline'':
** In the Aincrad Arc, towns are programmed as safe zones where no violence can take place, but [[PlayerKilling player-killers]] discover a loophole in the code governing PVP duels that allows them to murder players inside towns in their sleep: the player does not have to manually accept the duel request in order to take HitPoint damage. This is theorized to be the method in an in-game murder case that Kirito and Asuna investigate in volume 8.
** There are a number of areas in ''Alfheim Online'' that are locked simply by placing enough powerful enemies that no one should be able to pass. The quest to enter the World Tree turns out to be this. It's supposedly fair, but the designers didn't actually want anyone ever passing it. The enemies themselves are on the low-end of the power scale, but they spawn infinitely. And if you ''do'' manage to get past them, the door will not open for anyone but a GM.

* ''Literature/SwordArtOnline'': There are a number of areas in Alfheim Online that are locked simply by placing enough powerful enemies that no one should be able to pass. The quest to enter the World Tree turns out to be this. It's supposedly fair, but the designers didn't actually want anyone ever passing it. The enemies themselves are on the low-end of the power scale, but they spawn infinitely. And if you ''do'' manage to get past them, the door will not open for anyone but a GM.

* In ''TabletopGame/WorldsWithoutNumber'', the [=PCs=] cannot defeat an Imperator head-on; these beings are like unto gods. However, if they want to take one down, there's bound to be some way to turn the situation from "you lose" to something where it has a remote chance of losing.

* In ''TabletopGame/WorldsWithoutNumber'', the PCs cannot defeat an Imperator head-on; these beings are like unto gods. However, if they want to take one down, there's bound to be some way to turn the situation from "you lose" to something where it has a remote chance of losing.

* ''VideoGame/{{Terraria}}'':
** The game allows players to kill the neutral/friendly NPC characters in their village under some circumstances. The Clothier drops his red hat when you take him out, and the Guide can be directly killed if [[spoiler:you equip the Guide Voodoo Doll and attack him, or if you dunk the Voodoo Doll in the lava in the Netherworld]]. [[CrueltyIsTheOnlyOption You HAVE to kill him by the latter method to spawn a certain boss that must be beaten to progress to Hard Mode]]. The other [=NPCs=] can't be harmed by the player directly without the Rotten Eggs from Halloween, but they can be killed by monsters, land mines, traps, or lava.
** The [[FlyingFace Dungeon Guardian]] enemy, meant to protect the Dungeon from earlier access than intended, had 9999 hp, 9999 defense and 9999 damage, aside from being very fast. Yet, many players were able to kill it, using fast shooting weapons ([[DeathOfAThousandCuts that would deal 1 damage per hit]]) and reversing gravity in order to be fast enough not to be hit. Thanks to how defense works, and the addition of armor dealing melee damage done to the player back to the attacker, as well as an item allowing a small dodge chance, this was in a few updates relatively easy, until it was patched by decreasing the guardian's attack to 1000. However, another later patch introduced a flying mount with exactly the same movement speed as the Dungeon Guardian, once again trivializing it by letting you just fly away from it across the entire world while peppering the Guardian with bullets or arrows. The developers have since acknowledged the ability to kill the Dungeon Guardian by making it drop a unique pet. Further, killing the Guardian does not allow you to SequenceBreak the game: next time you try entering the Dungeon early, another Guardian will spawn in regardless of how many of them you kill.
** Skeletron Prime has been killed after sunrise, although it's more boring than anything since he only takes ScratchDamage and instakills you if he touches you. He doesn't drop anything special, as opposed to the Dungeon Guardian.

** Very rarely, in the initial build of [=BG1=], Gorion would kill the armored figure during the ambush encounter, causing the game to lock-up and crash (though it required his spells to hit for 85+% of their possible damage each time, and he needed to kill the ogre on his first spell), the Armored Figure's hp [[ObviousRulePatch was buffed in the following patch]].

** [[TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms Faerûn]]'s major players are also mostly statted out. Though they're generally higher-level than Eberron's, they're not designed very well, being [[ObviousBeta hastily converted from their AD&D stats]]. Evil adventuring parties tend to treat Faerûn like a big theme park full of low-hanging branches of XP.

* ''TabletopGame/ArkhamHorror'': It's possible to have to fight and win fights against the EldritchAbomination the players picked at the start of the game, including [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu Cthulhu himself]]. The exception is [[PrimordialChaos Azathoth]]. While other bosses have unique, nasty attacks, Azathoth's attack description is simply this: "The end is here! Azathoth [[EarthShatteringKaboom destroys the world]]." Furthermore, on the off chance that players could overcome the -∞ penalty to attacks against him and defeat him before he destroys the world, he has the additional special ability that the players lose the game when he awakens.

* ''VideoGame/Borderlands3'' has it so that any allied unit cannot be harmed whatsoever by your weapons... however due to the way they coded the rocket launcher "Jericho", the projectiles don't ''count'' as ''yours''. As such, if you load it up and fire it on a target, it's possible to actually knock that target down. Some random resident NPCs of Sanctuary III will actually outright vanish upon defeat and are completely killed. Others, like Ava or Lilith, are sent into a downed state and can either be revived, or will eventually get up on their own.

* ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys1'' developer Scott Cawthon originally thought that [[HarderThanHard 4/20]] mode (when you use [[LevelEditor Custom Night]] to set all the animatronics' AI to the absolute highest it can go) was impossible to defeat. However, a player called [=BigBug=] beat it, demonstrating that it was possible if one was incredibly skilled, [[{{Determinator}} insanely persistent]], and very, very lucky. Since then, 26 others have gone on to beat it and post their runs online. Scott has acknowledged this by programming in a reward: [[BraggingRightsReward A third star on your loading screen]]. It happened again with ''VideoGame/UltimateCustomNight'' and its '''50'''/20 mode, which Scott confidently claimed to be unbeatable. He was proven wrong within 2 weeks of the game's launch. The first person to manage it was Rhemery, who took nearly ''12 hours'' to make it to 6 AM.

* ''Videogame/FiveNightsAtFreddys'' developer Scott Cawthon originally thought that [[HarderThanHard 4/20]] mode (when you use [[LevelEditor Custom Night]] to set all the animatronics' AI to the absolute highest it can go) was impossible to defeat. However, a player called [=BigBug=] beat it, demonstrating that it was possible if one was incredibly skilled, [[TheDeterminator insanely persistent]], and very, very lucky. Since then, 26 others have gone on to beat it and post their runs online. Scott has acknowledged this by programming in a reward: [[BraggingRightsReward A third star on your loading screen]]. It happened again with ''VideoGame/UltimateCustomNight'' and its '''50'''/20 mode, which Scott confidently claimed to be unbeatable. He was proven wrong within 2 weeks of the game's launch. The first person to manage it was Rhemery, who took nearly ''[[TheDeterminator 12 hours]]'' to make it to 6 AM.

*** Zigzagged example - three stages in the first half of the game have a very powerful opponent called the Death Knight on the map to make you go around him. However, the developers programmed in dialogue for if you ''do'' attack and defeat him, and to further incentivise this, he has a Dark Seal in his inventory which he will drop if defeated (or if you put a thief nearby to steal it.)
*** The Final Boss of Verdant Wind route is expected to be fought once his 10 commanders have already been defeated (even the in-game hints suggests you to do so), as their presence alone rise all his stats (bar HP) to unbelievably high levels. Despite this, with some careful planning, raw power, and even sheer luck, it's very much possible to bypass all of his boosts and defeat him anyway, thus ending the mission early.

** The fight with the BigBad is scripted to end after he loses a certain amount of hit points, triggering a dialogue in which he teleports away. You can then exit Spellhold and continue the game. However, if you somehow get [[UnluckilyLucky extraordinarily (un)lucky]] and Irenicus fails his save against Disintegrate, then he does indeed Disintegrate - which renders the game UnintentionallyUnwinnable, since he's [[ScriptBreaking no longer around to trigger]] the dialogue and you can't move on. Of course, by all in-universe logic, you'll have ''won'' right then because the rest of the game is about chasing and stopping him.

** The fight with the BigBad is scripted to end after he loses a certain amount of hit points, triggering a dialogue in which he teleports away. You can then exit Spellhold and continue the game. However, if you somehow get [[UnluckilyLucky extraordinarily (un)lucky]] and Irenicus fails his save against Disintegrate, then he does indeed Disintegrate - which renders the game UnintentionallyUnwinnable, since he's no longer around to trigger the dialogue and you can't move on. Of course, by all in-universe logic, you'll have ''won'' right then because the rest of the game is about chasing and stopping him.

** The fight with the BigBad is scripted to end after he loses a certain amount of hit points, triggering a dialogue in which he teleports away. You can then exit Spellhold and continue the game. However, if you somehow get extraordinarily (un)lucky and Irenicus fails his save against Disintegrate, then he does indeed Disintegrate - which renders the game UnintentionallyUnwinnable, since he's no longer around to trigger the dialogue and you can't move on. Of course, by all in-universe logic, you'll have ''won'' right then because the rest of the game is about chasing and stopping him.

* ''VideoGame/BaldursGateII'': All critical plot characters are now immortal, but there is one instance that is clearly an oversight by developers: you can kill Desharik the pirate at the start of chapter 4 before entering Spellhold, but then he will come back alive later when you have to escape from the island, [[GameplayAndStorySegregation with no explanation]].
** Speaking of chapter 4, the fight with the BigBad is scripted to end after he loses a certain amount of hit points, triggering a dialogue in which he teleports away. You can then exit Spellhold and continue the game. However, if you somehow get extraordinarily (un)lucky and Irenicus fails his save against Disintegrate, then he does indeed Disintegrate - which renders the game UnintentionallyUnwinnable, since he's no longer around to trigger the dialogue and you can't move on. Of course, by all in-universe logic, you'll have ''won'' right then because the rest of the game is about chasing and stopping him.

* ''VideoGame/BaldursGateII'': All critical plot characters are now immortal, but there is one instance with an important but not fundamental character that is clearly an oversight by developers: you can kill Desharik the pirate at the start of chapter 4 before entering Spellhold, but then he will come back alive later when you have to escape from the island, [[GameplayAndStorySegregation with no explanation]].
** Speaking of chapter 4, the fight with the BigBad is scripted to end with him escaping and you chasing him when he reach a certain hitpoint threshold. He can't actually die in this fight, and even cheating won't kill but just leave him at 1 hp. However, if you are very (un)lucky, though, there is a small chance that the spell Disintegration might indeed, well, disintegrate him, leaving you stuck [[UnintentionallyUnwinnable because the story can't progress anymore]] - although technically you won.

** Very rarely, in the initial build of [=BG1=], Gorion would kill the armored figure during the ambush encounter, causing the game to lock-up and crash (though it required his spells to hit for 85+% of their possible damage each time, and he needed to kill the ogre on his first spell), the Armored Figure's hp was buffed in the following patch.

* The first duel with Genchiro Ashina in ''VideoGame/SekiroShadowsDieTwice'' is ''supposed'' to be a HopelessBossFight, and it is indeed very difficult... but it's not ''totally'' unwinnable. With enough skill and/or luck, it is completely possible to defeat Genichiro, [[DevelopersForesight and the game acknowledges what you've done]]; in the subsequent cutscene, [[{{Railroading}} Genichiro still defeats Wolf and cuts off his arm]], but he only manages it by [[CombatPragmatist cheating]] (a Nightjar throws a shurikan at Wolf, distracting him long enough for Genichiro to strike), and his dialogue changes to [[SoreLoser a snide comment about Wolf's honor]].

* The 4x/grand strategy game ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'' has three endgame crises. These are designed to be tough to defeat, but possible, and in fact most players with some experience can beat them on their standard settings. However, some players have taken it to the extreme, causing them to spawn at maximum strength as early into the game as possible, resulting in them spending in excess of a century fighting them but ultimately succeeding. [[spoiler: Then there's the End of the Cycle, which is only available to psionic empires. It provides you with enormous benefits for 50 years, the price being at the end of those 50 years your entire empire is destroyed and you take over a single planet, with the only things you inherit being the technologies you researched and your traditions. Every other empire gets a major opinion malus, and the single most powerful "ship" in the entire game appears on top of your old capital. So of course, people have proceeded to come back from this and conquer the galaxy.]]

* A more suicidal variation is in ''VideoGame/{{Bloodborne}}''. Normally it's impossible to die in the hunter's dream [[spoiler:except at the hands of the {{Superboss}}]], but many players have found ways to do so anyway, such as by using CastFromHitpoints weapons.

* ''VideoGame/Sonic3AndKnuckles'': At one point in Launch Base Zone, Robotnik flies by to pick up a box. You can hit him a couple times, but then he'll fly away with the box, to be fought again later in the level. However, in a Sonic and Tails game, if Sonic stays below a certain point, Robotnik will never fly away, allowing Tails to keep hitting him. After 256 strikes, he pops and leaves a small animal behind like any regular badnik does when defeated, but he'll still be around for the boss battle later in the zone.

* ''LightNovel/SwordArtOnline'': There are a number of areas in Alfheim Online that are locked simply by placing enough powerful enemies that no one should be able to pass. The quest to enter the World Tree turns out to be this. It's supposedly fair, but the designers didn't actually want anyone ever passing it. The enemies themselves are on the low-end of the power scale, but they spawn infinitely. And if you ''do'' manage to get past them, the door will not open for anyone but a GM.