Editing Plot Armor (section)

==Forms==
Plot armor can take many forms:
* hidden die rolls that "miss"
* [[Creed|Surprise reinforcements]]
* some type of armour/clothing that renders most/all attacks useless or inert on the wearer
* [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BedouinRescueService Bedouin Rescue Service] - an unlikely rescue from a hostile environment, such as a wandering desert caravan picking up the dehydrated and presumably dying hero to nurse them back to health.
* '''Deus Ex Machina''': A specific form of Plot armor can be the clumsy use of a Deus Ex Machina. A Deus Ex Machina or, "god from the machine" (wait a minute, that means we can start calling the [[Omnissiah]] a Deus Ex Machina! Probably tech-heresy, but still!) means something that utterly solves the problems of the story like the opposite of [[Old Man Henderson]], often with little buildup. A Deus Ex Machina is armor FOR the plot and makes sure that the outcome the GM or author wanted to happen, happens. Using Deus Ex Machina too often and so little as two times will make most people turn against the story and even the author themselves.
** For a example of this: the common cold killing all the Martians in the War of the Worlds (which is one of the few times a Machina has been used well, and well-foreshadowed assuming the reader knows their biology).
**Notably the German author Walter Moers had a character called Dues X. Machina whose job is going around the world saving people's lives at the last minute.
* '''Forgone Conclusion''': If a character from a chronologically later work shows up in a prequel work (such as Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy) or if the work is presented as a character's memoirs (such as [[Ciaphas Cain]]), they gain a degree of plot armor in that they ''will'' survive to the end of the work no matter what they might face (though this does not prevent them from struggling along the way; we know Anakin will become Darth Vader, but we didn't know he lost an arm to Dooku before the prequels came out). 
** This is generally considered one of the more acceptable forms of Plot Armor, since, y'know, it's necessary for basic narrative consistency. People will only really start ''complaining'' about plot armor if the prequel itself handles the matter in a really stupid way (such as Skynet constantly coming back to full operation no matter how many times it gets defeated in the past).

In [[role-playing game]]s, there can be a mechanism for plot armor, where player characters (and potentially very important [[NPC]]s) have "fate" or "karma" points that can be spent to offset bad rolls or shrug off injuries, or just many more hit points than anything else around them. 

In some Fluff terms like D&D even HP can be considered Plot Armor as it represents not only your physique but also can be your luck. No amount of damage can kill or maim you as long as you have 1HP left, even if that Dragon flame should logically cook you in your armour on contact. 

Interestingly enough, plot armour is now genuinely Star Wars canon, an example of showing that so long as the god-like power of your universe (IE the GM/DM) wants you not-dead, you shall be not-dead. Sort of like Guilliman. ''All is as the Force wills it.''