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

[PhantomUnderYourDesk]

Ah, should have known by myself actually, shouldn't I...? Well, then just bring one of these Ice Trainers up, prefered conditions stay the same. I'll reply to it tomorrow morning then (after my time), but if you don't want to wait, feel free to roll out the first Round right away (Cottonee would most likely use Absorb, Helios ...anything that doesn't get him hurt too much. How about Evade, since Teleport itself would recall him from the battle.)

Once again I'll give Plusle and Minun away for the sake of training-cheering on Ventus' battle. If you don't want to give them any XP this tine, this is fine, they'll just do it for the feeling then!

[Dragonstrike]

Windos, since Ventus is going to be using Poygon in the gym battle, here's its stats:

Species: Porygon
Nickname:
Ability: Download (raises Strength by 1 by scanning the opponent and finding the optimal way to deal damage. Iron can change the effect at his discretion if the scan can reveal another vulnerability, though)
HP: 3 Base + Vitality
Moves:
- Conversion (almost useless currently, only working if Porygon wants to change back to normal type)
- Conversion 2 (an interesting choice if you need a little more bulk over the extra power from STAB)
- Sharpen (won't stack with Download's Strength boost)
- Tackle
2 Happiness, 2 Loyalty, 0 Exp

EDIT: Oh, seems you've got a handle on it already. Well, the info's still here if you need to refer to it, I guess.

[Iron]

Dragonstrike, are you still using the more recent rulebook instead of 1.10? Conversion looks like it might be different than your description.

[Dragonstrike]

Letting the now comfortable silence hold between, he let Shiva dictate the pace of their conversation. Naturally, she brought up Nathan's gym battle, and Ventus couldn't help the chuckle that left him. "The boy utterly dominated Zamboni. Swiftfire and Ralts blasted a hole straight through his team, and end up having a decisive victory. The leader had a Delibird, Spealo, and a Rotom Freeze as a nasty surprise, but Nathan was able to take them all down without losing a single one of his Pokémon. Not a bad showing, if I say," the researcher said, very happy with his friends victory. After all, it allowed him the chance to have a go at the Leader himself!

Not quite accurate.  Ralts went down to a Blizzard from Rotom, remember?

[Lord Windos]

Lets just say Ventus is exaggerating the details. He's not going to trash talk Nathan, no way!

[Dragonstrike]

Dragonstrike, are you still using the more recent rulebook instead of 1.10? Conversion looks like it might be different than your description.

I have both 1.1 and 1.2 to refer to if needed.  The reason I worded it like that in the comment is because all of Porygon's moves are Normal type, so the only type Conversion should be able to turn it into is Normal if we're going by the game's effect.  Not very useful currently since it would only come into play if Conversion 2 is used, and that defeats the point of using Conversion 2.  The wording in the book is also a little...vague.  The description says the user download's a move's data, but then the effect says the user changes type at random, not saying what moves determine which types are available.

I do think the random effect (aka GM discretion) should stay (since that makes it a little fairer, plus it was random in gens 2-5), as opposed to how it works as of gens 6 and 7: changing the user's type to match the first move in its movepool (second if the first is the same, and so on).  In gen 1, it did what Reflect Type does now.  

The description for it in both versions of the book is also identical. 

The only other thing to consider if we treat it like the gen 2-5 version of the move is if it only pulls from the 4 moves the pokemon is currently using, or every move it knows. (just the 4 moves it's using allows for better strategy, while every move it knows would make it less powerful, but still potentially potent)

It's also worth noting that Conversion 2 also changes the user to a random type in the games, though it's guaranteed to at least resist the attack Porygon was hit last with (status moves also don't count for it. The pokemon has to get hit by a damaging move).

[Dragonstrike]

Lets just say Ventus is exaggerating the details. He's not going to trash talk Nathan, no way!

To be fair, that Blizzard only JUST knocked Ralts to 1 HP, avoiding KOing it because of Thick Fat.  Ralts was like a ninja in that battle!  Nothing could stop his little rampage except continual chip damage!

[Iron]

Yeah I was thinking the rules were implying that Conversion should be able to change into any of the 18 types, which could be good or bad! I'll let Nathan train his Porygon to use Conversion in one way of his choice, but not the other way.

[Lord Windos]

Iron, are those dice of yours out to get me? They seem to hold a grudge of some form, at least! Also, why did you reduce Porygon's damage? I'm not entirely sure why you did that.

[Dragonstrike]

Yeah I was thinking the rules were implying that Conversion should be able to change into any of the 18 types, which could be good or bad! I'll let Nathan train his Porygon to use Conversion in one way of his choice, but not the other way.

Hmmm...maybe we could do something interesting with that, then.  How about we use all 3 mechanics?

To start with, all 18 are chosen from.  Porygon could have a lot of data from when it was made, but has no filters to sort through it to start with.  It might even be pulling this from the database it uses for Conversion 2, which has those built in filters.

After a little bit, it can pull from every move it knows, narrowing down things a little.  This isn't so bad at first, but as we get later on and it gets access to more than 4 different types of moves and non-normal status moves, then the randomness makes it unreliable again.

And at the end of it all, it'll finally be able to filter down the available types to just the 4 moves it's currently using.  

I think this could be an interesting way to go about things.