History NoSell / TabletopGames

*** Powerful monsters such as liches, adult dragons, and the [[{{Kaiju}} Tarrasque]] have a trait called "Legendary Resistance," which lets them automatically succeed on a certain number (usually three) of saving throws per day. This is generally considered a NecessaryWeasel, since it prevents players from defeating the BigBad with a single spell.

*** Powerful monsters such as liches, adult dragons, and the [[{{Kaiju}} Tarrasque]] have a trait called "Legendary Resistance," which lets them automatically succeed on a certain number (usually three) of saving throws per day. This is generally considered a NecessaryEvil, since it prevents players from defeating the BigBad with a single spell.

* ''TabletopGame/ArsMagica'': Thanks to the supernatural forces permeating the setting, the PointBuildSystem allows for characters to have an innate immunity to some hazard. It's a Greater Virtue if the hazard is common and deadly, like [[ImmuneToFire fire]], and a Lesser Virtue if it's rare and/or not life-threatening.

* Mundanes in ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS IOU}}'' can do this to anything "weird", going so far as to turn aliens into guys in rubber suits at high levels.

*** Powerful monsters such as liches, adult dragons, and the [[{{Kaiju}} Tarrasque]] have a trait called "Legendary Resistance," which lets them automatically succeed on a certain number (usually three) of saving throws per day. This is generally considered a NecesarryEvil, since it prevents players from defeating the BigBad with a single spell.

*** Elves and their subraces like the Drow [[TheSleepless don't sleep like other humanoids]], instead entering a trance that gives them the benefits of eight hours of sleep in only half the time. Due to this, they simply cannot be put to sleep by magical means at all.

*** powerful monsters such as liches, adult dragons, and the [[{{Kaiju}} Tarrasque]] have a trait called "Legendary Resistance," which lets them automatically succeed on a certain number (usually three) of saving throws per day. This is generally considered a NecesarryEvil, since it prevents players from defeating the BigBad with a single spell.

** In 5th Edition, powerful monsters such as liches, adult dragons, and the [[{{Kaiju}} Tarrasque]] have a trait called "Legendary Resistance," which lets them automatically succeed on a certain number (usually three) of saving throws per day. This is generally considered a NecesarryEvil, since it prevents players from defeating the BigBad with a single spell.
** Fifth Edition also brought back some monsters having immunity to damage from non-magical weapons, but only for truly powerful beings like mummy lords, Devil Archdukes, elder elementals, or the Tarrasque.
** The 3.5 Edition "Entropomancer" PrestigeClass uses EntropyAndChaosMagic to fairly lacklustre effect, with one exception: when fully trained, they are completely immune to a Sphere of Annihilation, which otherwise renders anything that touches it unrecoverably DeaderThanDead barring ''literal'' DivineIntervention.
** Elves and their subraces like the Drow [[TheSleepless don't sleep like other humanoids]], instead entering a trance that gives them the benefits of eight hours of sleep in only half the time. Due to this, they simply cannot be put to sleep by magical means at all.
** Barbarians in Rage can do this due to gaining resistances to damage. Zealot Barbarians take this a step further by being able to NoSell ''death'', ignoring fatal injuries once they hit zero and only dying if their Rage ends while they have zero HP.

* An odd example crops up in the TabletopGame/{{Fate}} version of ''TabletopGame/AchtungCthulhu'' (classic Lovecraftian horror set in UsefulNotes/{{W|orldWarII}}W2) -- as per their writeups virtually all Mythos creatures have the "Inhuman Mind" trait that renders any attempt to use ''social'' skills against them null and void. That's right, their minds are apparently so alien that even if you can somehow find a common language to communicate in, it's utterly impossible to make a good impression on them, intimidate them, or even figure out their motives. Which enters PlotHole territory when the same book also establishes several background examples of ''non-player'' characters managing to negotiate with Mythos monsters just fine (an at least somewhat "tame" immature Color Out Of Space actually works for the Allied side, for example), demonstrating that while the task may be hard it can't ''actually'' be outright impossible...

** Any mid-level or higher character will most likely have some form of perfect defense, which allows the character to dodge or block any attack, even attacks that are otherwise unblockable. They are even acknowledged in the in-universe lore as one of the reasons for their success in the battle against the Primordials as they were the only way to defend against just getting a mountain dropped on your head. Aside from the combat perfects getting iterated through the editions, the game also has a wide array of immunities to other effects such as BalefulPolymorph magic or environmental hazards that consistently stay very cheap to use.

* ''TabletopGame/TheOneRing'': Dunlendings have the unique racial ability to negate an [[HitPoints Endurance]] loss that would render them [[StandardStatusEffects Weary]] or unconscious, at the cost of a point of [[KarmaMeter Shadow]].

** Up to 3rd edition, monsters like {{Golem}}s and [[WillOTheWisp Will-o'-the-Wisps]] are immune to most kinds of magic. In theory, this was supposed to give the more physical warrior types the chance to shine, running up and beating down on the enemy while the wizard was useless. In practice, many of these monsters were immune to sneak attacks as well, negating the primary physical damage dealing class (the rogue), while they remained very vulnerable to spells which didn't target them but the environment around them - surrounding them with a wall of stone or iron, collapsing a building on them, summoning a monster to attack them, or many dozens of other effects worked on them just fine, and if worst came to worst, the wizard could always just cast spells to make themselves into unstoppable killing machines (frequently by turning into monsters) and tearing them apart themselves.

* Subverted by ''TabletopGame/{{Paranoia}}'', where the rulebook specifically tells [=GMs=] to disregard any and all inconvenient dice rolls, including ''rolling dice in plain view'' and '''ignoring''' the results.
** The strongest protection in Paranoia is GM Fiat, which means the GM says this character No Sells anything they get thrown at them, and the GM may punish you for making them even bother explaining why sixteen blasts from your highly illegal violet laser pistol did nothing to that character. Notice, character, not NPC. You do not want GM Fiat; it's the epitome of BlessedWithSuck when given to a player, because you can bet it will be used to set up a legendary, unbelievable fall.
* The Tau in ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' have so little Warp presence that it grants them some protection from Chaos's mind-affecting abilities, although a Chaos creature manifested in the physical world can still eat them without difficulty.
** More powerful daemons and psykers have the raw power to burn through the AntiMagic of blanks. This is prominently displayed in the ''Literature/{{Eisenhorn}}'' books when [[spoiler: the power of a Chaos Titan is too great for Alizebeth to negate]].
** In previous editions of 40k, the Grey Knights went through TrainingFromHell to develop enough HeroicWillpower to resist the influence of Chaos, and were so dedicated that none of them had ever fallen to Chaos. In the much-reviled 5th edition Grey Knights Codex, this was changed to where the Grey Knights were simply immune to Chaos altogether, even when wielding a [[ArtifactOfDoom daemonic weapon]], palling around with [[DemonicPossession Daemonhosts]], wandering through the heart of Hell, or slaughtering a convent of faithful [[ChurchMilitant Adeptus Sororitas]] and [[MoralEventHorizon painting their armor with the innocents' blood]].
** In the game proper, any creature with a Toughness that's 4 points higher than the attack's Strength Value completely no-sells the attack. This is due to the way the game mechanics work. Similarly, vehicles can no-sell attacks with Strength Values that are 6 points under their armor value as you determine the result of an attack on a vehicle by rolling a 6 sided dice. There are special rules that are made specifically to avert these though (Fleshbane and Poison for creatures, Armorbane, Melta and Haywire for Vehicles, and Grav for both).
** The latter is averted in 8th edition, as they realized this made things un-fun. As such, Banes were reduced in effeect, though not eliminated, and any attack can succeed on a 6+. It may be statistically unsound? But it's POSSIBLE to destroy certain things.
* The Cosmic enhancement in ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}'' lets you ignore one normally ironclad limitation and often gets used like this. Static also makes you totally immune to the effects of one powerset.

** In base second edition, they had pretty low costs while any even slightly enhanced attack could easily kill a character - so they players had to use them ''all the time''. The only restriction to their power was that you could only activate one Charm per turn, unless you paid XP to put several of them together into a package. That gave rise to the "Paranoia Combo" culture, wherein you put together some basic attack boosts as well as your Perfect Defenses into the package and used it every turn.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Scion}}'' gives us Ultimate Stamina. Its use? Pay thirty Legend points and any damage to you just... doesn't work that round. At all. Its weaker cousin is Solipstic Defense, where one attack per scene (you choose which one) passes harmlessly through you.

* One of the advanced Dementation abilities in ''TabletopGame/VampireTheMasquerade'' (available only to characters of sixth generation or lower, which generally includes only [=NPCs=] and [[CannibalismSuperpower diablerists]]) allows the character to completely ignore an object for the duration of an encounter. For example, everyone else may see a perfectly ordinary sword pass straight through him harmlessly, but the character himself will wonder why the unfriendly chap is swinging his empty hand around like that.
* In ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'', this was part of what made the Clans' Elemental battle armor troopers so fearsome against Inner Sphere opponents who didn't know what to expect during the early days of the invasion. Seeing odd-looking jump infantry, they naturally opened up with their anti-infantry weapons like flamers and machine guns...only to see their targets simply shrug off multiple hits and keep coming. Even in the board game it takes some fairly heavy '''Mech-scale'' firepower to reliably take down a single armored Elemental quickly, let alone a five-man Point with random hit allocation.
** Several armor types simply ignore the special abilities of certain weapons. For instance, Hardened Armor will basically deny any ArmorPiercingAttack, forcing the opponent to get through several thick layers of armor to reach the sensitive inner components.
** In the fiction, the ''Leviathan'' class Warship basically refused to acknowledge ''being nuked.'' It's 1.7 kilometers long, masses over 2.4 million tons, and didn't so much as flinch when the Blakists tried (and failed utterly) to bring it down with a nuclear missile.

* ''TabletopGame/StarWarsSagaEdition'' has the previous Star Wars examples, but in game form!
** Various (typically Force related) talents allow characters to No Sell everything from Poison to the JediMindTrick. Specific Force powers like Rebuke and Negate Energy allow characters to reflect Force Lightning or ignore Lightsaber attacks.
** As mentioned in the ''Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse'' entry above the Yuuzhan Vong are disconnected from (and thus immune to) the Force. Specifically any aspect of the force that targets Will Defense. Like in the novels, Telekinesis and Force Lightning work perfectly well. Unlike in the novels, abilities like Battle Strike, Malacia, Force Track, Cloak, and any other power that doesn't target Will defense ''also'' works fine. They're also completely locked out from learning Force Powers or Talents, or gaining Force Points (the game's LuckManipulationMechanic), and any talent that uses them. It's not easy being a Force-Immune invader in Saga Edition.
* The ability of supernatural beings, particularly vampires and werewolves, to outright ignore or regenerate from weaker attacks in ''TabletopGame/TheWorldOfDarkness'' games is one of their most useful abilities. Vampires, however, get powers particularly appropriate to the trope. In Requiem and Masquerade both, a combination discipline (or "devotion" in Requiem), requiring both Fortitude (vampiric toughness) and Obfuscate (mystic stealth), allows a vampire to appear unfazed by an attack that, in reality, hurt like hell. In Masquerade, the high-level applications of Fortitude got more and more like this, such as Personal Armor (which would cause some weapons to break when they struck the vampire's skin) and Adamantine (an even more powerful version, which made it so that when a weapon broke in such a fashion, the vampire took no damage at all).
* An odd example crops up in the TabletopGame/{{Fate}} version of ''TabletopGame/AchtungCthulhu'' (classic Lovecraftian horror set in UsefulNotes/{{W|orldWarII}}W2) -- as per their writeups virtually all Mythos creatures have the "Inhuman Mind" trait that renders any attempt to use ''social'' skills against them null and void. That's right, their minds are apparently so alien that even if you can somehow find a common language to communicate in, it's utterly impossible to make a good impression on them, intimidate them, or even figure out their motives. Which enters PlotHole territory when the same book also establishes several background examples of ''non-player'' characters managing to negotiate with Mythos monsters just fine (an at least somewhat "tame" immature Color Out Of Space actually works for the Allied side, for example), demonstrating that while the task may be hard it can't ''actually'' be outright impossible...

* In ''TabletopGame/XWingMiniatures'', Chewbacca is immune to all critical effects - they're just downgraded to regular hits - and anyone with Determination isn't even damaged by any critical damage that has the Pilot trait, discarding it entirely.
* ''TabletopGame/TheOneRing'': Dunlendings have the unique racial ability to negate an [[HitPoints Endurance]] loss that would render them [[StandardStatusEffects Weary]] or unconscious, at the cost of a point of [[KarmaMeter Shadow]].

** In 5th Edition, powerful monsters such as liches, adult dragons, and the [[{{Kaiju}} Tarrasque]] have a trait called "Legendary Resistance," which lets them automatically succeed on a certain number (usually three) of saving throws per day.

** The strongest protection in Paranoia is GM Fiat, which means the GM says this character No Sells anything they get thrown at them, and the GM may punish you for making them even bother explaining sixteen blasts from your highly illegal violet laser pistol did nothing to that character. Notice, character, not NPC. You do not want GM Fiat; it's the epitome of BlessedWithSuck when given to a player, because you can bet it will be used to set up a legendary, unbelievable fall.

** Any mid-level or higher character will most likely have some form of perfect defense, which allows the character to dodge or block any attack, even attacks that are otherwise unblockable. These require motes, so you can't use them forever, but it still tends to turn high-level combat into battles of attrition waiting for one of the combatants to run out of motes.
** Solars have so many Charms of this nature that some fans build "Paranoia Combos", which contain as many different No Sell powers as possible. This can get up to lists like "1st Melee Excellency, Seven Shadow Evasion, Reflex Sidestep Defense, Integrity-Protecting Prana, Leaping Dodge Method, SesquipedalianLoquaciousness Technique, Kitchen Sink Meditation". One of their charms is even explicitly called ''Immunity To Everything Technique''.

* An odd example crops up in the Fate version of ''Achtung! Cthulhu'' (classic Lovecraftian horror set in UsefulNotes/{{W|orldWarII}}W2) -- as per their writeups virtually all Mythos creatures have the "Inhuman Mind" trait that renders any attempt to use ''social'' skills against them null and void. That's right, their minds are apparently so alien that even if you can somehow find a common language to communicate in, it's utterly impossible to make a good impression on them, intimidate them, or even figure out their motives. Which enters PlotHole territory when the same book also establishes several background examples of ''non-player'' characters managing to negotiate with Mythos monsters just fine (an at least somewhat "tame" immature Color Out Of Space actually works for the Allied side, for example), demonstrating that while the task may be hard it can't ''actually'' be outright impossible...

* Mundanes in ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}: IOU'' can do this to anything "weird", going so far as to turn aliens into guys in rubber suits at high levels.