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

[Dragonstrike]

Bubble Pulse would be awesome. Also, sorry the delay in post something. I have been busy today. Okay, then it will be Phantom Force 2x with one Horn Leech and something around 5x bubbles. Its this alright people? Just in case, I have more than enough will to ignore pain. I gonna go out now so I will not able to post now. Maybe later it will work. See ya!

Do whatever you think will be helpful.  Keep in mind that you are going to get hit really, really hard by EQ though.  You should probably stick to around 3 actions imo (maybe 4 for Viktor since he can avoid one of the EQs while charging PF).  Any more, and you'll be spreading your attacks too thin once you start accumulating pain (and given that EQ has 10 D6 base for its damage pool, you're going to have some pain).

Oh, and don't forget that Phantom Force is a Charge move and takes 2 actions to fully execute.  (and if you charge it as your last action of the round (which doesn't require a roll), your first action of the next round will be attacking with it)

Might also want to wait for the initiatives before issuing orders. (I really hope Ditto ends up with a higher initiative than Mamo...that's going to make things a little more complicated if it isn't)

[Iron]

FAQ

Is Iron dead?
Nope, still alive, just couldn't get to the thread!

Where was Iron?
Got a surprise call that it was time to dig the foundation for my cabin, so I had to go take care of that after work!

Can Nathan make Cottonee learn Razor Leaf against Shiva's will?
No, Pokemon XP can only be spent with the permission of the Pokemon's owner/player.
But if you want your Pokemon to learn a new move under someone else's care for story reasons, that's fine.

Can Cottonee ride a Tropius?
With ease. A roll won't even be necessary since she moves in three dimensions as easily as in two.

When will the game advance?
When I get home from work tomorrow, hopefully.

[Dragonstrike]

Was wondering why we didn't hear from ya for over 24 hours.  Glad to hear everything's okay!

[PhantomUnderYourDesk]

Oh right, you shared somewhere before that you're working on a building project for a cabin ;ω;

Depending on when you'll be home and at the keyboard I may already be in bed snoozing (or trying to do so) and unable to see how the Round turned out, but I'll make sure to at least leave orders to roll out!

EDIT: This is a cool Initiative Order. Getting to it in a little~

[PhantomUnderYourDesk]

Oh. Everyone's growing so powerful it seems...Now I'm feeling slightly bad because I don't want Shiva to become just as mighty in Stats and rather concentrate on raising several Specialities ( = soft-raise Accuracy Pools this way); at some point she'll probably get a 4th point in Dexterity+Knowledge but apart from that she's completed in Attributes and Skills. But, it's my own decision what I'll do with the chara and that should be fine, I guess? I think I rather become useful and versatile outside of battles and in-battle 'compensate' things with all the tricks and combinations her Pokemon Team allows, that fits her nature better and is somehow more fun to me...

On the other hand, just as I'm free to do/level what I like everyonelse is as well, and I simply do not desire to become super-strong when it comes to fighting... It's boring if everyone of the group does so? I'm just trusting that things will somehow be 'balanced', Iron, in order to maybe not have things 'hard for those with naturally high dice pools in battle' while simultaneously 'barely any chance for those with not so high pools'?  ...I worry to much. >.<; But it's just a thought I had, don't mind me too much.

[Lord Windos]

Oh. Everyone's growing so powerful it seems...Now I'm feeling slightly bad because I don't want Shiva to become just as mighty in Stats and rather concentrate on raising several Specialities ( = soft-raise Accuracy Pools this way); at some point she'll probably get a 4th point in Dexterity+Knowledge but apart from that she's completed in Attributes and Skills. But, it's my own decision what I'll do with the chara and that should be fine, I guess? I think I rather become useful and versatile outside of battles and in-battle 'compensate' things with all the tricks and combinations her Pokemon Team allows, that fits her nature better and is somehow more fun to me...

On the other hand, just as I'm free to do/level what I like everyonelse is as well, and I simply do not desire to become super-strong when it comes to fighting... It's boring if everyone of the group does so? I'm just trusting that things will somehow be 'balanced', Iron, in order to maybe not have things 'hard for those with naturally high dice pools in battle' while simultaneously 'barely any chance for those with not so high pools'?  ...I worry to much. >.<; But it's just a thought I had, don't mind me too much.

Sorry honey bunny, but I just want to make sure that those blobs get a right pounding, and I like being in battles or situations that require Attributes rather than focus on the Skills and Specialities, so this recent choice of my makes all to much sense to me, really. Of course, having skills/specialites in outa battle scenarios is always a nice to have, so going that route with your character isn't all that bad of an option, especially if everyone else is specialized in battle or specific niche!  I'm sorry that I am are making you feel that Shiva feels inferior to the rest of the group.....

I don't necessarily think its 'boring' if everyone was strong in battle; if anything, it would make things 'easier' since everyone has sufficient strength to deal with just about any foe short of Plot Device ones or Blatent Surprise Encounters, and take some stress out of those combat scenarios as a result. However, I can happily accept your desire for a more technical character than not, and I trust Iron can make Encounters that are fair and reasonable for us to accomplish! Have faith in Shiva and them, dear!

[PhantomUnderYourDesk]

Original Post

Oh. Everyone's growing so powerful it seems...Now I'm feeling slightly bad because I don't want Shiva to become just as mighty in Stats and rather concentrate on raising several Specialities ( = soft-raise Accuracy Pools this way); at some point she'll probably get a 4th point in Dexterity+Knowledge but apart from that she's completed in Attributes and Skills. But, it's my own decision what I'll do with the chara and that should be fine, I guess? I think I rather become useful and versatile outside of battles and in-battle 'compensate' things with all the tricks and combinations her Pokemon Team allows, that fits her nature better and is somehow more fun to me...

On the other hand, just as I'm free to do/level what I like everyonelse is as well, and I simply do not desire to become super-strong when it comes to fighting... It's boring if everyone of the group does so? I'm just trusting that things will somehow be 'balanced', Iron, in order to maybe not have things 'hard for those with naturally high dice pools in battle' while simultaneously 'barely any chance for those with not so high pools'?  ...I worry to much. >.<; But it's just a thought I had, don't mind me too much.

Sorry honey bunny, but I just want to make sure that those blobs get a right pounding, and I like being in battles or situations that require Attributes rather than focus on the Skills and Specialities, so this recent choice of my makes all to much sense to me, really. Of course, having skills/specialites in outa battle scenarios is always a nice to have, so going that route with your character isn't all that bad of an option, especially if everyone else is specialized in battle or specific niche!  I'm sorry that I am are making you feel that Shiva feels inferior to the rest of the group.....

I don't necessarily think its 'boring' if everyone was strong in battle; if anything, it would make things 'easier' since everyone has sufficient strength to deal with just about any foe short of Plot Device ones or Blatent Surprise Encounters, and take some stress out of those combat scenarios as a result. However, I can happily accept your desire for a more technical character than not, and I trust Iron can make Encounters that are fair and reasonable for us to accomplish! Have faith in Shiva and them, dear!

Nononono Windos, please don't feel personally bad or such, I don't want that D: I can't guarantee that it won't make HER feel overshadowed again, but I'm feeling positive that her own Hero's Journey is going well and she'll be able to get along/accept it and herself more as things continue (help or supprt from the others is welcome). But thank you for showing compassion!~ Earned you a hug.♡

The fact that it makes things 'easier' is exactly what would somehow make it boring for me, although it'd probably indeed simplify important Boss Battles and the like. But in more traditional RPGs with more than one playable chara everyone of the group that's facing a boss has it's niche or speciality, some are direct attackers while others are more supporter or healer (or, I'm enjoying to keep my playable group versatile...), I guess that can roughly be transfered to our group of characters as well.

[Dragonstrike]

Nathan's Attributes are more or less 'done' as well (unless I decide to up Strength or Vitality again later on for some reason).  Specialties and Skills still need a little more work, and there's still Gym Badges to collect, but he's definitely getting to achieve what I aimed for him to do: a high aptitude for and flexibility in a large variety of situations.  Battling being a primary one, but it's hardly the only focus he has (Lore and History being his other major strong point, which will only continue to get better later).  Leveling Dexterity was the easiest way I was going to achieve that flexibility in most situations, so that's what I did.

There's many ways to compensate for weak points.  Raw Attributes are the easiest general solution, Skills still cover a few categories without as much generalization, and Specialties are...well, specific to certain situations.

- Compensating for not raising Strength/Defense means using Stat manipulating/power boosting moves/items most of the time (however, not raising Vitality means that without surprises you'll always be at an HP disadvantage as well as a Defense one when unboosted, which is a double whammy).  These are probably the hardest stats to compensate for because damage pools are harder to manipulate than accuracy pools.

- Low Dex can be made up for with high Fight/Brawl/Canalize.

- If you don't want high Dex, a high Survival will still help you not come dead last in the initiative order.

- No real way to make up for low Insight for the rolls that use just that stat, unfortunately, but high Knowledge/Lore/Medicine/etc. can help with those rolls easily.

- Most of the specialties are for out of battle scenarios when they're not applied to a move's accuracy.  Increasing them definitely helps a lot with lower Attributes in general if you want to specialize in a certain field without getting too general.

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Larger dice pools in general, no matter the means used to achieve it, means you can form more complex strategies in a single Round.  IMHO, being a 'natural' doesn't have anything to do with how you achieved those dice pools.  The only thing that matters at the end is that you have that skill, 'natural' or no.

At this point, none of our characters are just another 'average' trainer.  They're all stronger than your average Joe in some regard, imho.  One does not go on a journey like this and come out exactly the same as they were before.  Some grow as a person.  Some grow in their profession.  Some grow in their overall skill.  

Point is, they're all growing.  They're all still earning exp after all, right?

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As far as 'dedicated roles' go, I'm not quite sure Pokerole is a system that accommodates for that super well.  Everyone can potentially use the same pokemon to fill the same roles.  There's many ways to get sufficient accuracy pools to accomplish what needs to be done with any character.  Sure that's what dedicated specialties reflect, but since everyone has access to the same specialties at all times and there's no 'classes', there's very little distinction.  It doesn't help that Attributes have such a large impact on battles as well as other things that characters that don't invest in one will feel inferior to one that has when that Attribute comes into play.  Which is often.  It ends up being very tempting to just level an attribute and do better in a ton of things instead of leveling a specialty to do better at one or two things.

In short, Pokerole isn't a traditional RPG by a long shot.

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@Nylon @Spiritmon

Unrelated topic: Just waiting on orders from you two for the Reuni battle!

[PhantomUnderYourDesk]

I like being specialized and great in specific situations more than being good in a lot of things, that feels like me and like my designed chara. ^^ And it's true that everyone has the same base Specialities to level - but everyone can level them as much as desired (or choose not to), which adds the versality, and one can always interpret Stats differently or add customized Specialities. I'm especially enjoying that, and for me there's enough battling going on in the HandheldGames so I actually enjoy doing some other things when there's the opportunity to do.

Concerning

Everyone can potentially use the same pokemon to fill the same roles.

, I somehow don't feel like that's true or it is only partially true, as everyone raises a Pokemon differently and may have it learn different moves to do what one desires it to do. For example, I'm almost completely ignoring moves that use Brawl Speciality as that's nothing Shiva's good at.

[Dragonstrike]

Concerning

Everyone can potentially use the same pokemon to fill the same roles.

, I somehow don't feel like that's true or it is only partially true, as everyone raises a Pokemon differently and may have it learn different moves to do what one desires it to do. For example, I'm almost completely ignoring moves that use Brawl Speciality as that's nothing Shiva's good at.

It's a more accurate statement in the case of the base rules, tbh, where pokemon all use their own individual stats.  And I did also use the word 'potentially'.