[Meta thread] Iron's PokeRole Adventure: The Skull Ruins

[Iron]

Stick close to Shiva and keep those Lucky Chants up.

As GM, I'm sad because I almost never manage crits, even when I forego multiple actions to seek them out.

[Lord Windos]

Ya know, I seem to have absolutely terrible luck with dice pools larger than 5...between missing a Horn Drill with 8 dice, those first two bubble beams from Starmie, Swiftfire's training roll...yeesh...

The more dice you have, the more chance you have to roll badly! That's why I always assume that half the dice in my rolls turn up negative, and plan accordingly!

So, Nathan is going spend Encounter Slot 3 Training and bonding with his mons, while Ventus is probably going to spend his third training Lucifer, Ariel, and Michael (If I have not used it, that is! Did I already use all three by now?).

[Dragonstrike]

The more dice you have, the more chance you have to roll badly! That's why I always assume that half the dice in my rolls turn up negative, and plan accordingly!

So, Nathan is going spend Encounter Slot 3 Training and bonding with his mons, while Ventus is probably going to spend his third training Lucifer, Ariel, and Michael (If I have not used it, that is! Did I already use all three by now?).

That's the thing, though: they've been rather consistently below average :/  And yet when I have smaller dice pools, I somehow seem to still pull off what I intended to...assuming you'll get the average only works so well, after all...well, at least there's other instances where having those larger dice pools certainly worked in my favor.  Grid's Thunder Wave and Screech combo, Kingdra's Draco Meteor crit on Ninetales, Weavile's Beat Up on Mew...stuff like that.  So it's not all doom and gloom, thankfully.

I hope you've only used the second so far.  Dropping off Slowpoke shouldn't take long at all, after all.  I've still got a little bit of RPing to do for that 3rd encounter slot.  There won't be any training, though.  Nathan's had enough battling for the day.

[PhantomUnderYourDesk]

Hmm? Someone called? Or someone called for a chant?

Neat, all of a sudden that Charmander is way less dangerous as I feared. As for leveling up Vitality, I actually didn't have this Stat as priority...But I feel it wouldn't be that bad - rather very benefitial - to save XP for 3 Vitality. Channel and Perform won't run away, neither will Insight.

[Dragonstrike]

I mean, I could just have Kirlia learn Lucky Chant if I REALLY feel I need it...but it's not so much 1s that have been plaguing me as much as the really, really large amounts of 2s and 3s that accompany them and the 1 or 2 successes I roll... (though I have stated before that when my luck is bad, it's completely terrible, I guess...)

All of the attributes are rather core. Insight's a little less so in this campaign, but the other 3 are all really, really important to keep on top of if you want to maximize your battle potential. Dex affects accuracy and initiative, Strength affects your damage and ability to Grapple, and Vitality is both more HP and more Def . It's why I've poured so much exp into raising those 3 stats, and raising specialties for the boosted accuracy, with 1 point put into survival so my intiatives aren't completely terrible. (Starting out with Reiner was pretty grueling since he started with only 2 Dex and 0 Survival...but dang, did he hit hard. Kinda like how Valder started out, I guess. Though Reiner had 4 points in Fight to help with accuracy issues, so that's the other thing I planned for. Fights are certainly a lot more interesting when you're going second fairly consistently...)

So, in summary, Pokerole is a game where you either keep pace with your opponents, or you'll get crushed horribly.

[Lord Windos]

I mean, I could just have Kirlia learn Lucky Chant if I REALLY feel I need it...but it's not so much 1s that have been plaguing me as much as the really, really large amounts of 2s and 3s that accompany them and the 1 or 2 successes I roll... (though I have stated before that when my luck is bad, it's completely terrible, I guess...)

All of the attributes are rather core.  Insight's a little less so in this campaign, but the other 3 are all really, really important to keep on top of if you want to maximize your battle potential.  Dex affects accuracy and initiative, Strength affects your damage and ability to Grapple, and Vitality is both more HP and more Def .  It's why I've poured so much exp into raising those 3 stats, and raising specialties for the boosted accuracy, with 1 point put into survival so my intiatives aren't completely terrible.  (Starting out with Reiner was pretty grueling since he started with only 2 Dex and 0 Survival...but dang, did he hit hard.  Kinda like how Valder started out, I guess.  Though Reiner had 4 points in Fight to help with accuracy issues, so that's the other thing I planned for.  Fights are certainly a lot more interesting when you're going second fairly consistently...)

So, in summary, Pokerole is a game where you either keep pace with your opponents, or you'll get crushed horribly.

Indeed! I knew was going to be creating a gimped character when coming into the Roleplay originally, but I had an idea I wanted to create, and it require starting with a weanie beanie researcher. His empathy and high Insight has come in handy several times, and given me a greater buffer against the big annoying Status effects (Sleep, Confusion, and Love), but had I known how important DEX and STR was going to be, I would have given him 4 DEX and 2 Insight, and had 1 Survival and 3 Fight instead of 1 Knowledge and 3 Survival. Would have made things for my character battle wise muuuuuch easier, but I might not have developed my debuff heavy fighting style or become a Tank, so there is that to consider as well!

I need to get Medicine and my Accuracy pool up, before I start putting points into STR or Evasion. I'm built to take hits anyway, so skimping on Evasion for a bit won't hurt me...to much. Might put one point in their, just in case.

[Dragonstrike]

I think it would be interesting to try a non-battle oriented character eventually.  I took it upon myself to do the whole fighter thing in this campaign because of both my character concept and the development of the other characters, and did a similar thing with Reiner basically out of necessity (I would have been creamed several times over already if I hadn't).

Now, if in a future campaign, everyone were to end up with a fun, non-battle focused character to start with, I guess the fights could be scaled back just a tad by the GM to compensate...so that could lead to some interesting differences between what this campaign is like and what that theoretical future one would feel like...

So, uh, spoilers, but that could be what the campaign I'm planning out might be like.  It's still in the works, and I likely won't start it until Skull Ruins is over since it's another big story (and Iron might want to jump in on it), but I'm trying to design the start of it so that everyone who participates can create the character they want, rather than have at least 1 or 2 gear up to be fighters almost out of necessity.  Planning is hard work, yo...but I'm taking it slow for now since Skull Ruins is still FAR from over.  I will also say it's going to be rather...different from the current two games.  For one VERY big reason.

[Lord Windos]

I think it would be interesting to try a non-battle oriented character eventually.  I took it upon myself to do the whole fighter thing in this campaign because of both my character concept and the development of the other characters, and did a similar thing with Reiner basically out of necessity (I would have been creamed several times over already if I hadn't).

Now, if in a future campaign, everyone were to end up with a fun, non-battle focused character to start with, I guess the fights could be scaled back just a tad by the GM to compensate...so that could lead to some interesting differences between what this campaign is like and what that theoretical future one would feel like...

So, uh, spoilers, but that could be what the campaign I'm planning out might be like.  It's still in the works, and I likely won't start it until Skull Ruins is over since it's another big story (and Iron might want to jump in on it), but I'm trying to design the start of it so that everyone who participates can create the character they want, rather than have at least 1 or 2 gear up to be fighters almost out of necessity.  Planning is hard work, yo...but I'm taking it slow for now since Skull Ruins is still FAR from over.  I will also say it's going to be rather...different from the current two games.  For one VERY big reason.

Colour me intrigued, Dragonstrike! While I actually prefer combat heavy campaigns going hand in hand with nice character development/interaction, a change of pace would be nice! I'm probably going to start off a another character I had in mind (Hopefully I'll be allowed to start with 2 Pokémon, but I can manage otherwise!), and he's going to be quite the departure of our not so mild mannered researcher...

[Dragonstrike]

Colour me intrigued, Dragonstrike! While I actually prefer combat heavy campaigns going hand in hand with nice character development/interaction, a change of pace would be nice! I'm probably going to start off a another character I had in mind (Hopefully I'll be allowed to start with 2 Pokémon, but I can manage otherwise!), and he's going to be quite the departure of our not so mild mannered researcher...

Hehe...I think you'll appreciate what I've got planned, for multiple reasons.  At least at the start of the campaign, you shouldn't have to focus too much on developing combat skills because you'll have a supporting character to pick up most of that slack and show everyone the ropes.

Though I wouldn't get TOO attached to your character concept. It'll play a part (you'll get a few specialty points to start with based on the character concept and a start of game decision, probably, just to encourage a little variety), but trust me, when I reveal what I'm planning, you'll see exactly what I mean about my planned campaign being 'different.'  

I'm planning out a few of the important music tracks currently (an idea for the final boss is what inspired this whole thing, by the way!  That idea and a very appropriate music track for it formed the basis of the story's core. Oh, and a track that's fitting for a very interesting area, as well), and I've got the very, very start of the story planned out right now as well.

[PhantomUnderYourDesk]

I'm personally awaiting the Contest Modul and the wrapping up of this campaign before I even dare to seriously begin planning the holding of a friendly and casual campaign foscusing on the rasing, caring and handling of Pokemon, including participating in Contests. No overly detailed plot. Shiva, way older and with a journey through Alola and Tandor in her past, will be present as a Mentor for new Coordinators. (If you'd REALLY want, @Lord Windos, have her married to Ventus...) 'Normal' battles can be held at any point, but seriously fierded up battles against for example Gym Leaders will be minimum or completely absent. It should be a natural, logical Storytelling with consequences on everything one does rather than experimenting/doing what one wants/overpowered items or mechanics, inspired by @Iron's way of gamemastering things. Natures and Social Attributes definitely included. There, spoiler.