[Meta Thread] Dragonstrike's Pokerole Test Game: Mount Coronet Mystery

[Lord Windos]

Gonna have to paraphrase you on this one: if I let you guys buff yourselves freely before every encounter you're aware of beforehand, then I'd have to change how I scale the difficulty.
Moving between tiles takes time, even if they're right next to each other.  If you want to buff yourself preemptively for a fight, it needs to be in the same tile as said fight (under whatever conditions I may impose at my discretion, if any).

I agree on that, while buffing yourself before a fight is indeed bringing a potentially large advantage to you, it's half-way boring and/or unfair in my view just because of that and should be only allowed if scenically possible, if it's a fight between two Trainers that agreed on doing so, or reasoned by the Encounter being a highly dangerous one with the chance of failing so big that you should be allowed to take on every benefit you can get to make it anyway. That's just my view though, please don't jump at me for that...

I actually have no problem Dragonstrike's rationale, in all honesty. A bit annoyed at first, admitidly (yet proudly bemused, strangely/funnily enough), but if its for the shake of mechanical balance I'm fine with them vetoing buffs or putting some form of cost/restriction on them. Plus, they gave a good reason to counter my other idea, so I quietly dropped that whole thing. 

When it comes to putting costs on pre-battle buffing, I'll either never ever do so if they pose is too great of a gamble for me (Stealth/Ambush Rolls, for instance, since futzing those means the enemy gets a free reAction(s) instead of you, which is so horrible it instantly invalidates any Pre-Battle Buffs contingent on them in my eyes), simply find logical ways to brute force buffs to get through restrictions (Like having Diam out to Cover Brigid/Stymph/The Entrance of the Room with Detect while they fire off one or two buffs, so that they are not stopped/get punished if they Fail in whatever Rolls, or sending someone to distract the Snover long enough for Brigid/Stymph/Puck to buff the rest of the fighters that hung back before they join a Round/Two later, or etc..) , or just pay the price if its feasible/not straight up bad if I succeed/fail. Sure, its inconvenient and annoying for me to either find loops to jump through in order to gain advantages or just have to forgo buffs altogether and being unable to scale the difficulty of an Encounter how I want it, but ultimately I still enjoy playing out Combat Encounters regardless. Buffs are nice, but (hopefully) not a necessity in most Fights, which means I can do without them.

Disagree with the 'Buff Only Allowed Scenically' Permission you uphold and that it would make Fights boring if pre-battle buffing restrictions were loosened/non-existent, but I do agree with the other two Permissions you present. Scenic is always trumped by mechanics/ways to progress the game state in a positive and optimal way imo, and all buffs would ultimately do in Pokerole is increase the probability of doing good rather than definitely so (+ 2 Dice can still end up with both as [1]s, after all, or fail to put out in anyway) , but restricting buff before battles for balance's/difficulty's shake is fine by me, like I said.