In video games, usually in the HUD, this trope is the gauge that represents your armor's durability, i.e how much damage it can take before it breaks and stops protecting you. Can also be done with shields, whether traditional ones or force field ones. This often appears alongside Life Meter, Hit Points and/or Armor Points, since when the numbers of such points get big, precision in values is sometimes wanted, and is hard to achieve with even with gradation of the meters, so, the precise amounts of those points are stated.
Like in Life Meter's case, the armor's capability of protecting you (usually by shaving off some percentage of damage you took) is usually subject to Critical Existence Failure (meaning that it won't suffer any reduction in effectiveness even as it nearly breaks).
Regenerating Shield, Static Health is when it's only the armor/shield meter that can regenerate on its own, not the health, similar to the connection between Regenerating Health for Life Meter.
Anti-Armor is the trope for attacks that are for damaging armor more than other attacks, while Armor-Piercing Attack is for attacks intended for mainly damaging health while basically ignoring armor.
Mana Shield is when your Mana Meter temporarily becomes Armor Meter as damage you took instead burns your mana; this is a Sub-Trope, and therefore this trope shouldn't be listed for a work in regards to that scenario.
Body Armor as Hit Points is when armor directly serves as HP, and doesn't turn a Life Meter into this trope because the function of "armor" there isn't a reduction of damage in any way, but just extends the Life Meter.
This trope is part of the Stat Meters. Compare it to Break Meter, a meter on the opponent that you have to fill (or deplete, depending on the case) to make them more vulnerable, Breakable Weapons, for weapons with their own "durability points", and Single-Use Shield, when armor is a basically a One-Hit-Point Wonder, but isn't Body Armor as Hit Points, if it blocks all damage even if the hit usually has damage greater than 1 Hit Point.
Sub-Trope of Status Line (a display element showing the current disposition of the player, e.g. score, health, ammo, etc).
Examples
- The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword's shields use a meter to indicate how much more damage they can take. The final shield doesn't take damage, but still has a meter.
- Command & Conquer: Renegade: Armor is represented by a growing row of shields and the exact Armor Points number on the last shield.
- Outlaws: You can find boilerplates to use as armour whose durability is shown as a card on the bottom of the screen that slides down with each hit they absorb.
- Unreal:
- Displaying armor by the pieces currently being worn as filled in sections of a man-shaped icon with sections for each type of armor, like head and leg armor.
- Unreal
- Unreal Championship
- Unreal Tournament 2003 and 2004
- Unreal Tournament 4
- There's a human shape which not only displays the kinds of armor they have but also if the user is carrying the Jump Boots with them:
- Unreal Tournament: Armor indicators are represented in the HUD in the top-right corner.
- Unreal Tournament III: Armor indicators are represented in the HUD in the bottom-left corner.
- Displaying armor by the pieces currently being worn as filled in sections of a man-shaped icon with sections for each type of armor, like head and leg armor.
- Quake IV: There's a green-ish armor meter at the bottom of the screen, with a vest symbol representing it, and Armor Points written on it in white italicized text and depletes from left to right. Armor provides Damage Reduction, leaving 1/3 of the usual damage to go to the Life Meter.
- Blood:
- Blood (1997) gets three different armor types with separate numbers and bars presented on the HUD, which protect against different damage types: basic body armor (represented by a blue bar) protects against bullets, fire armor (a red bar) protects from fire and explosions, and spirit armor (a green bar) protects from magic and spiritual attacks.
- Blood II: The Chosen switches to a more basic single armor type, which is shown as just a second number to the right of your Hit Points meter, with an icon of a scarab (the items used to replenish it) next to it rather than a heart.
- Dragon Age: Inquisition: Warrior companions can generate guard with certain abilities or passives, upon which a grey bar will overlay itself over the Life Meter. The bar indicates how much armor they have left before it breaks, and enemies will have to break the armor meter before they can affect a warrior's hit points.
- GreedFall: The line of shields that sits on the health bar represent the amount of armor a character has and is directly linked to the 24-Hour Armor they are wearing, with more shields equaling more armor. Armor reduces damage to hit points, sometimes entirely absorbing an attack's damage. It doesn't regenerate unless a specific spell is used, and once it breaks (indicated by the shields turning black), all attacks will directly drain health.
- In the StarCraft series, Protoss units and buildings have a blue bar over their Life Meter which indicates the current strength of their shields. Once these are depleted, damage is applied directly to their HP, and a visual effect indicates whether a unit/building has shields.
- Alien Shooter: The game lets you acquire armors, ranging from simple kevlar vests all the way to full body armors. It's indicated in a blue circle with the armor's image and white Armor Points text to the right of your HP bar when you equip them.
- Gungrave: Beyond the Grave (the player character) has a blue bar beneath his HP bar that serves as this; he wouldn't actually be damaged from heavy gunfire of Mooks as long as the bar is still there, but if it depletes, that's when he takes damage normally.
- In Minecraft, shields and each piece of armour have a meter represented by a number of grey vest shapes that blacken from right to left, the number of vests is based on the armor pieces equipped. More and better armor give more vests. The meter is placed above the Life Meter at the bottom of the screen, as the player takes damage while wearing them, with armor pieces breaking when that meter runs out and leaving player more vulnerable.
- Spyro the Dragon: Sparx the dragonfly works as your "shield". Spyro is actually a One-Hit-Point Wonder, but you wouldn't know that because Sparx will take the damage for you when you get hit. The "meter" here is more subtle, taking form of Sparx's coloring: he's normally yellow, but by taking damage he'll turn blue, then green, before disappearing after one more hit.
