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

[Dragonstrike]

Nathan: I am personally happy to take all of your suggestions as replacements for Anubi, though I'd prefer either the wise king or the mimic, as they more easily fill his niche of being good offense with healing support avaliable. Ditto could actually replace any of Terra's Pokemon but Oinari, as they could just literally become them and any of Terra's others, with the only downside being their low HP and chaotic Transformations getting in the way of their ulti versitility. Personally I think Charizard could stand to be left behind too to make way for Emolga and/or Princess, and that Dedenne should seriously be considered on his team, due to them futzing Electronics/boosting their power (Might be possible for comms to still work with them around, especially if we carry transceivers), but that's besides the point.

There is one other problem with loaning Terra Ditto: Terra's low Insight would limit access to pokemon species that aren't in Ditto's line of sight.  Transformations from memory/into objects are based purely off of an Insight check, so lower Insight means less reliable Transformations in the heat of the moment.  A Ditto working off of Shiva's stats would be as optimal as possible for memory/object based Transformations.  Spira could do it rather well too since he has 5.  Nathan's semi reliable with 4* Insight.  3 is when ya start to gamble slightly, as a single pair of (1) results makes the end result guaranteed to fail without a Lucky Chant.  2 is a straight up 25% chance of failing, and 1 is 50-50 on whether it works at all.  Of course, it's not an issue at all if Ditto is only Transforming into pokemon it can see, but Transforming from memory is powerful in that it can give a potentially wider variety of moves (any that are worth less than or equal to 5*(#of badges) + 15.  6 badges is up to 45 exp, while 5 is up to 40.).  However, Will can also be spent to guarantee the Transformation is successful, so if Ditto absolutely needs to Transform from memory and can't afford to fail, that is an option.

I'm not sure Solosis is going to grow enough to learn stuff like Skill Swap during this trip.  It'd be a pleasant thing to happen for sure, but I'm not going to count on moves that the pokemon doesn't know yet unless they're close to learning them already.  (On that note, Solomon has 19 exp atm, and Heal Pulse costs 58 for him)

Main reasons I'm considering Charizard seriously are a) Charizard were a favorite pokemon of nobility, including Sarimanok himself, so Charizard could potentially be a very strong 'kingly' candidate (the Skull Throne is rumoured to be made of Charizard skulls, too) b) he has lots of strong move choices between Fire STAB, Air Slash, Shadow Claw, Dragon Claw, Dragon Rage, and ROCK SMASH. He's got tons of offensive versatility, and is one of Nathan's stronger pokemon as a result (he could also potentially learn Scary Face for an effect equivalent to Paralysis, albeit more temporary!) c) I'm not particularly worried about Rock types since we have so many pokemon with moves effective against the type (mainly ROCK SMASH due to the ease of access, of course).  Rock isn't exactly a hard type to prepare for dealing with, either.

Also, on the note of Tubareel: I think I am probably going to sell/trade it.  It may be a rare and powerful pokemon that I'd like to keep, but I'm definitely not going to be taking the time to try and tame that unruly, tubby eel shark with no (visible) teeth.  If Terra could help with that trade, that'd be great.