[Meta Thread] Pokerole Mystery Dungeon: Primal Shadows

[Dragonstrike]

There won't be a Stealth roll involved in sneaking past Sandaconda if that's the route you decide to take.  A small army of pokemon coming to fight you is rather distracting.  This is a tough enemy, and if you want to save your energy and items for Landorus, you have the option to do so.


Spirit is also correct.  This Sandaconda is indeed a Shadow Pokemon, as indicated by the dark clouds circling above it (reminiscent of the storm clouds raging in the skies above the island).

And for Windos's benefit and team strategizing, Dynamax is both a simple and complex mechanic.  There's a number of aspects that it affects:

Spoiler

- the pokemon becomes a gigantic HP sponge due to its increased size

- the pokemon's attacks become stronger and inflict buffs/debuffs that affect entire sides of the battlefield (single target moves with spread target effects, like debuffing everyone's attack or buffing the attack of the user and all of their allies) or change the terrain/weather.  The effect, type, power, and whether the max move is physical or special all depend on the original traits of the move being used as a base for the attack.

- the pokemon becomes immune to Flinching, weight based attacks (dmax mons all have ??? weight according to the pokedex), Ability swapping (can still be nullified though), move disabling, and cannot be forced to switch unless it's by one of their own effects.  They also cannot be forced into using a single move via effects like Choice items and Encore.  Some of these effects may be subject to change in this system, but many of them exist to make it harder to cripple what's normally a temporary transformation and bolster the raid bosses in SwSh.

- Gigantamax pokemon also have unique signature max moves that replace one of the generic ones.  Sandaconda's is G-Max Sandblast, which inflicts a Sand Tomb effect on the opposing team.

- Max moves are also unable to miss due to their extreme size.

- Dynamaxing is typically only possible in areas where there is a Power Spot (what a Power Spot is exactly isn't particularly important at the moment.  Just know that there's enough energy in this area to fuel this gigantic transformation).

- Status moves become Max Guard regardless of their original effects.  It is a buffed version of Protect which fully protects against opposing Max Moves (they pierce through regular Protect and do reduced damage without being fully nullified).

- Higher difficulty wild Dmax pokemon in SwSh also get extra attacks, defensive barriers that reduce the damage they take and make them immune to status moves (similar to what you saw with Tornadus and Thundurus, but anyone can contribute to breaking these shields), and a special non-damaging move that wipes all stat changes on the opposing team, nullifies all abilities on the opposing team for 1 turn, and removes all debuffs on the Dmaxed pokemon.

TLDR; this is going to be a difficult encounter if you choose to fight the Shadow Gigantamax Sandaconda.  Dynamax is designed to be a raid boss mechanic that controls the battlefield, and defeating them requires solid teamwork.  Bonus exp for beating it if you do want to fight it, but it might put some strain on your resources for the Landorus battle (which is why I'm making this fight optional and easily avoidable for the players).

Edit: No need to worry about skipping over this fight due to me wanting to showcase something cool by the way. I'm not trying to showcase a cool boss idea right now (Landorus is your primary boss encounter here, not a random Sandaconda, lol). Rather, I'm trying to put the spotlight on Team Raiders, which I can do regardless of whether you decide to join this battle or skip it.


As for Kogeki's aura draining abilities, he's welcome to attempt it.  There's a lot of energy there, and it will have an effect if Kogeki can handle absorbing it.  What kind of an effect?  That'll be something you have to find out.