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

[Dragonstrike]

Spoiler

Mate, I already am aware of the power of Super Fang, as erasing 1/2 HP is always going to be a significant advantage over a Move that has its damaged Roll. Its the same thing that makes it and (To an extent) OHKOs , Destiny Bond, and Grudge useful, and Dragon Rage moderately so (Hey, if you have a Target with 4 or less HP left, just use it twice and only gamble on the Accuracy Roll), and why they are desirable.

You're not accounting for Move Effects on some Moves, Buffs and Debuffs in general, Abilities/Crits/SE Damage that affect the Damage Dice of others, or, perhaps most signficantly, Recovery. Move Effects like Burn, Poison, Block Damage, Flinch, Always Accurate etc. can make using a Move more desirable to use over SF in scenarios, Buffs and Debuffs enhances Damage + is lasting help against all enemies per Encounter (In buffs case), Abilities/Crits/And SE Damage can end up making Damaging Moves deal more Damage on average than SF, and Healing like Potions, Recovery Moves, etc. can be employed to instantly revert SF's Damage, while a Move's Effects/Self Buffs or Debuffs on Target will remain.

There's also the fact that if you know a Pokemon has Super Fang or a Damage Ignoring Move, then you/the NPC can always have the conditional orders to have their Pokemon drop everything and Dodge it/Use a Barrier Move, or make a strategy to overcome SF then go back to standard operating procedure. An semi example of this is Terra's battle against Brazen: Once I knew I was facing a Klefki with Michael, I tried (And Failed) to minimize the impact of them using Heal Block, then immediately switched out for Lapis to Wrap and trap the annoying key chain to out tank/grind it away while waiting for HB to go away so I could heal Michael again/let him have his regen later. An example of a strat against SF is simply using a Ghost type, trap and burst down the SFer ASAP and then heal up, Disabling it, inflicting nasty Status.......I could go on.

My point still stands from earlier: Super Fang is perfectly fine as it is, and that its not OP or gamebreaking as you believe. If there are to be nerfs, then don't hit its Damage but either its Accuracy or usage per Encounter first. Or just make it so that it can't be used in regular Trainer Battles, as using it against the common folk is 'unfair', but against the Elite Four and Bo? If they don't have strats, Plot Devices, or Evasion out the wazoo to defend against such attacks, then they deserve getting taken down with such attacks.

Dragon Rage isn't as much of a problem because it was originally designed that way.  Yeah, it's scary if you're really low on HP/didn't have much to begin with, but that's always been its gimmick.  Same with all those other moves, just to a more extreme degree.

The whole reason I'm pushing this is Super Fang not rolling damage doesn't appear to me to be how the move was originally intended to work in Pokerole, and it might put a lot of strain on the system as a result.  Sure, there are ways you can play around it, but doing so can have a very unhealthy effect on how you play against the SF user in question.  If you heal with a Potion, then your Potion effectiveness is halved, which means it's harder to heal the next time you get slammed by Super Fang (or just later in the day, for that matter, if all your opponent is trying to do is annoy and cripple you so you have to waste resources on healing.  Spira's probably got that exact problem atm with Hida, in fact), which means you have to spend at least one action neutralizing the threat of Super Fang in some manner (disable the move, KO the pokemon, send in the obvious Ghost type switch in...), which generally gives the SF user more momentum.  If you Evade, you need to have enough dice to outdo that accuracy pool, and Evading is a hard, all or nothing thing to achieve which can be easily exploited if your opponent gets to Evade happy (and SF isn't an easy move to avoid since it only has -1 accuracy).

I'm not considering other move effects because all Super Fang does is damage, and I'm not including crits because crits aren't always a reliable thing, and I'm not including SE damage because I'm putting the example in a vacuum.  If you're using Super Fang, your softening up your target so you can either KO them or reduce their HP without KOing them, and doing 4+ damage isn't meant to be a reliable thing in the original system without exploiting weaknesses or having incredibly powerful attacks. If all you want from an attack is raw damage, then anything else is just a bonus.


I'm not sure using Lapis is necessarily a good example of outplaying your opponent, given that not many trainers are going to be prepared to suddenly be facing a pokemon with over 20 HP.  Yeah, you outtanked someone by using one of the bulkiest pokemon in the game.  The strategy was sound, but the outcome wasn't exactly surprising.



I've said it twice already, but I'm saying it again: I'm fine with whatever Iron rules on this.  But I'm stating my opinion and what evidence I have to support it here so that the decision can be informed.  Rolling damage or not, it's not going to be hard to remember which ruling we're using.