01-25-2019, 12:50 PM
(This post was last modified: 01-25-2019, 12:58 PM by Dragonstrike.)
Some more advanced Pokerole battle tips:
5: Don't stretch yourself too thin unnecessarily. Just because you can do 4 or 5 actions doesn't mean you always should. More actions means less accuracy dice, and less accuracy dice means a higher chance to miss without even considering any debuffs. Pain, Paralysis, and Accuracy debuffs can make moves you needed to hit at the end (or even in the middle) of a long string of actions miss instead, which can be potentially disastrous.
6: Make sure you keep attempting to pressure your opponent, and don't give up if you're obviously struggling. Naturally having more actions than your opponent, more damage output than their bulk can handle, and more bulk than their strength can overcome are all potent factors in determining how effective you are at this to start with. If you don't have the stats to naturally have those traits, Attribute buffs and debuffs can do a solid job of fixing that. If your opponent gets an edge on you with any of those methods, you'll almost certainly have to find a way to swing things back in your favor so you can catch up, though. Pokerole is very punishing if you fall behind, but it's not impossible to make a comeback, either, even without high stats. Ya just might have to sometimes think a little about how to achieve that.
7: ...but don't spend too much time not attacking, either. Unless your strategy heavily benefits from setting up multiple buffs and/or crippling the enemy in myriad ways, most characters can easily punish you for not attacking them as much as they're attacking you. This ties back into keeping up the pressure, but I wanted to make special note of it because it's an easy mistake to make.
8: Evasion isn't for everyone and everything. To evade moves reliably, you probably want to have at least as many evasion dice as your opponent has accuracy dice. It's easier with higher Dex, Fight, and Evasion, but reducing your opponent's accuracy pool instead of boosting your own is another way to make Evasion more reliable as well. Evasion is at its best when avoiding powerful moves with innately lower accuracy. There's also an alternative way to reduce/avoid damage in the 1.2 rulebook (Clash) for those who aren't super dexterous and evasive, but it's not being used in this campaign. (I will be using it in mine, however)
9: Check your facts, be prepared for the worst, but don't always expect it. Unless you're facing really strong trainers, you probably aren't going to see many moves that take a whole ton of experience to learn. However, some pokemon get access to powerful moves for free (for example, all Rapidash can potentially use Megahorn and Poison Jab, but only more experienced ones are likely to use Fire Blast or Flare Blitz). Double checking what moves an enemy pokemon can learn in the book is always helpful. In addition, refreshing yourself on what types pokemon are and aren't weak to is also helpful.
10: Remember that pokemon don't often have access to their entire movepool. This ties partially into point number 9. Depending on the GM and the difficulty/type of the encounter, that will determine what kind of moves enemy pokemon will have. This is especially apparent in the differences between Iron's Skull Ruins campaign and Windos's Celadon City Campaign. In CC, Windos will create pokemon with access to a large portion of their movepool from Gen 7, including egg and tutor moves not listed in the book, because his campaign is intended to be harder and more powerful feeling. In SR, however, Iron's movepools are mostly limited to the moves listed in the 1.1 book, disregarding Bulbapedia's listings. There are a few exceptions at his discretion, but Iron wants to keep the movepools in his game a little simpler.
11: If you're outnumbered, it's often better to attack than try to set up. This isn't always the case, but reducing the enemy's damage output by rapidly decreasing their numbers is usually a safer thing to attempt to do, particularly if their stats are lower than usual to make up for their large numbers. Again, this ties back into keeping up the pressure and can be an easy mistake to make. Even the most solid walls can fall if enough things hit it all at the same time.
12: Watch the battle carefully. We're human. We make mistakes. If the GM forgets to roll something that could work out in someone's favor or forgets a key mechanic, make sure to point it out to them so they can fix it. A trait that a lot of good GMs have is to treat their players fairly, both in and out of battle.
13: Be aware that some pokemon might have Surprises that make them tougher than expected. They won't necessarily always be obvious, either. The most obvious surprises are often HP related, though. Bigger pokemon generally have more HP (Nathan's overgrown Slowking, Solomon, has a +1 HP surprise, so he's 7 feet tall rather than 6), while smaller pokemon will usually have less (such as that Azurill Spira caught). An example of a less obvious surprise is Nathan's Swablu, Kumo, can't have her accuracy reduced by Pain. Her small size is related to the time it'll take to evolve as a drawback of such a rare and potentially expensive Surprise, not how much HP she has. Non-overgrown pokemon can also still have HP altering surprises, and won't look any bigger or smaller to indicate that.
14: Be aware there's a difference between Vitality and Defense. This one's more of a mechanical tip than a battle tip, but when looking at surprises and wording of stuff to do with Defense and HP, the meaning of these words needs to be clear. Defense is determined by Vitality, but increases to Defense do not increase Vitality because Vitality also determines your maximum HP. Spira's Azurill has -1 HP and +1 Dex, but Nathan's male Combee, Zippy, has -1 Vitality and +1 Dex, which is equivalent to -1 HP, -1 Defense, and +1 Dex. Azurill would still have damage calculated against it with Spira's full Defense value, but Zippy takes more damage than most other pokemon will because he's incredibly small for a Combee (he's only a single hexagon as opposed to 3).
In addition, no move can increase your Vitality or max HP, but there's plenty of moves and items that can increase your defense. Some homebrewed items can increase your max HP temporarily, though.
15: Figure out how much Defense your opponent has. When a battle first starts, Iron doesn't tell you how much max HP and Defense an opponent has until you've damaged them. Do your move calculations carefully enough, and you can figure out how much Vitality the opponent has if Iron doesn't outright say how much they have after you've landed a damaging hit on them, and your orders in later Rounds can take that into account. If a pokemon has a Surprise that increases the pokemon's Defense, Iron will also probably tell you that when you've landed an attack against them.
16: Don't forget about the basic maneuvers. Strike, Knockdown, Evasion, and Grapple all have their uses, and every character can use them by default (even humans). They aren't particularly strong, but they can be very effective when used at the right times. Strikes and Knockdowns are typeless damage as well, which can be particularly helpful in some situations, such as when a pokemon with nothing but Normal and Fighting type damaging moves is facing a Ghost type without the effects of Odor Sleuth/Foresight.
17: Successive/Double Action Moves might be best left for the end of a chain of actions. Despite the accuracy penalties moves like Fury Attack typically have, using them when you don't intend to use any other moves after them might be for the best in this campaign. If you haven't noticed, using Evasions and successive action moves to skip to using Actions 3 and 4 at the same time as Action 2 in this campaign can be kinda dangerous. It might be easier to understand if I list an example.
If you use successive action moves like Fury Attack at the end of a chain of actions and don't attempt to use any moves after them, you avoid most of that mess entirely. Conditional Evasions still screw with the action order a little, but generally aren't as punishing as successive action moves if you don't KO the opponent with them.
Tip 17 TLDR; Be careful with how you use Successive Action Moves and Evasions in this campaign.
And I think that's all the more advanced tips I've got off the top of my head at this point in time. There's a lot there to digest, but I think they're good tips all the same.
5: Don't stretch yourself too thin unnecessarily. Just because you can do 4 or 5 actions doesn't mean you always should. More actions means less accuracy dice, and less accuracy dice means a higher chance to miss without even considering any debuffs. Pain, Paralysis, and Accuracy debuffs can make moves you needed to hit at the end (or even in the middle) of a long string of actions miss instead, which can be potentially disastrous.
6: Make sure you keep attempting to pressure your opponent, and don't give up if you're obviously struggling. Naturally having more actions than your opponent, more damage output than their bulk can handle, and more bulk than their strength can overcome are all potent factors in determining how effective you are at this to start with. If you don't have the stats to naturally have those traits, Attribute buffs and debuffs can do a solid job of fixing that. If your opponent gets an edge on you with any of those methods, you'll almost certainly have to find a way to swing things back in your favor so you can catch up, though. Pokerole is very punishing if you fall behind, but it's not impossible to make a comeback, either, even without high stats. Ya just might have to sometimes think a little about how to achieve that.
7: ...but don't spend too much time not attacking, either. Unless your strategy heavily benefits from setting up multiple buffs and/or crippling the enemy in myriad ways, most characters can easily punish you for not attacking them as much as they're attacking you. This ties back into keeping up the pressure, but I wanted to make special note of it because it's an easy mistake to make.
8: Evasion isn't for everyone and everything. To evade moves reliably, you probably want to have at least as many evasion dice as your opponent has accuracy dice. It's easier with higher Dex, Fight, and Evasion, but reducing your opponent's accuracy pool instead of boosting your own is another way to make Evasion more reliable as well. Evasion is at its best when avoiding powerful moves with innately lower accuracy. There's also an alternative way to reduce/avoid damage in the 1.2 rulebook (Clash) for those who aren't super dexterous and evasive, but it's not being used in this campaign. (I will be using it in mine, however)
9: Check your facts, be prepared for the worst, but don't always expect it. Unless you're facing really strong trainers, you probably aren't going to see many moves that take a whole ton of experience to learn. However, some pokemon get access to powerful moves for free (for example, all Rapidash can potentially use Megahorn and Poison Jab, but only more experienced ones are likely to use Fire Blast or Flare Blitz). Double checking what moves an enemy pokemon can learn in the book is always helpful. In addition, refreshing yourself on what types pokemon are and aren't weak to is also helpful.
10: Remember that pokemon don't often have access to their entire movepool. This ties partially into point number 9. Depending on the GM and the difficulty/type of the encounter, that will determine what kind of moves enemy pokemon will have. This is especially apparent in the differences between Iron's Skull Ruins campaign and Windos's Celadon City Campaign. In CC, Windos will create pokemon with access to a large portion of their movepool from Gen 7, including egg and tutor moves not listed in the book, because his campaign is intended to be harder and more powerful feeling. In SR, however, Iron's movepools are mostly limited to the moves listed in the 1.1 book, disregarding Bulbapedia's listings. There are a few exceptions at his discretion, but Iron wants to keep the movepools in his game a little simpler.
11: If you're outnumbered, it's often better to attack than try to set up. This isn't always the case, but reducing the enemy's damage output by rapidly decreasing their numbers is usually a safer thing to attempt to do, particularly if their stats are lower than usual to make up for their large numbers. Again, this ties back into keeping up the pressure and can be an easy mistake to make. Even the most solid walls can fall if enough things hit it all at the same time.
12: Watch the battle carefully. We're human. We make mistakes. If the GM forgets to roll something that could work out in someone's favor or forgets a key mechanic, make sure to point it out to them so they can fix it. A trait that a lot of good GMs have is to treat their players fairly, both in and out of battle.
13: Be aware that some pokemon might have Surprises that make them tougher than expected. They won't necessarily always be obvious, either. The most obvious surprises are often HP related, though. Bigger pokemon generally have more HP (Nathan's overgrown Slowking, Solomon, has a +1 HP surprise, so he's 7 feet tall rather than 6), while smaller pokemon will usually have less (such as that Azurill Spira caught). An example of a less obvious surprise is Nathan's Swablu, Kumo, can't have her accuracy reduced by Pain. Her small size is related to the time it'll take to evolve as a drawback of such a rare and potentially expensive Surprise, not how much HP she has. Non-overgrown pokemon can also still have HP altering surprises, and won't look any bigger or smaller to indicate that.
14: Be aware there's a difference between Vitality and Defense. This one's more of a mechanical tip than a battle tip, but when looking at surprises and wording of stuff to do with Defense and HP, the meaning of these words needs to be clear. Defense is determined by Vitality, but increases to Defense do not increase Vitality because Vitality also determines your maximum HP. Spira's Azurill has -1 HP and +1 Dex, but Nathan's male Combee, Zippy, has -1 Vitality and +1 Dex, which is equivalent to -1 HP, -1 Defense, and +1 Dex. Azurill would still have damage calculated against it with Spira's full Defense value, but Zippy takes more damage than most other pokemon will because he's incredibly small for a Combee (he's only a single hexagon as opposed to 3).
In addition, no move can increase your Vitality or max HP, but there's plenty of moves and items that can increase your defense. Some homebrewed items can increase your max HP temporarily, though.
15: Figure out how much Defense your opponent has. When a battle first starts, Iron doesn't tell you how much max HP and Defense an opponent has until you've damaged them. Do your move calculations carefully enough, and you can figure out how much Vitality the opponent has if Iron doesn't outright say how much they have after you've landed a damaging hit on them, and your orders in later Rounds can take that into account. If a pokemon has a Surprise that increases the pokemon's Defense, Iron will also probably tell you that when you've landed an attack against them.
16: Don't forget about the basic maneuvers. Strike, Knockdown, Evasion, and Grapple all have their uses, and every character can use them by default (even humans). They aren't particularly strong, but they can be very effective when used at the right times. Strikes and Knockdowns are typeless damage as well, which can be particularly helpful in some situations, such as when a pokemon with nothing but Normal and Fighting type damaging moves is facing a Ghost type without the effects of Odor Sleuth/Foresight.
17: Successive/Double Action Moves might be best left for the end of a chain of actions. Despite the accuracy penalties moves like Fury Attack typically have, using them when you don't intend to use any other moves after them might be for the best in this campaign. If you haven't noticed, using Evasions and successive action moves to skip to using Actions 3 and 4 at the same time as Action 2 in this campaign can be kinda dangerous. It might be easier to understand if I list an example.
If you use successive action moves like Fury Attack at the end of a chain of actions and don't attempt to use any moves after them, you avoid most of that mess entirely. Conditional Evasions still screw with the action order a little, but generally aren't as punishing as successive action moves if you don't KO the opponent with them.
![[+]](images/collapse_collapsed.png "[+]")
SpoilerTip 17 TLDR; Be careful with how you use Successive Action Moves and Evasions in this campaign.
And I think that's all the more advanced tips I've got off the top of my head at this point in time. There's a lot there to digest, but I think they're good tips all the same.
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Pokerole Game 1: Skull Ruins
Pokerole Game 2: Celadon City Vandals
Pokerole Game 3: PMD: Primal Shadows
Pokerole Game 1: Skull Ruins
Pokerole Game 2: Celadon City Vandals
Pokerole Game 3: PMD: Primal Shadows
