[Meta Thread] Pokerole Mystery Dungeon: Primal Shadows

[Spiritmon]

Spoiler

With all that said, here's a basic plan I got hammered out, subject to change based on additional ideas or counter plans:

1. Kogek, Pyra, and Karen focus on trying to KOing Rolycoly C or D ASAP, with Karen preferably using her Spread Move to get at them both.
2. Marcus and Dax  use their SE STABs on Carkol (Since Dragonstrike stated only ONE of the Rolys have to be KOed or otherwise shunted aside to get at them), which if both hit are all but GAURANTEED to OHKO it due to the combined 4 SE Damage and the 1 pip of chip Damage from Kee's Gravelyrock + any support from Hoopa. If one Roly is still not unFainted, Dax finishes them off while Marcus goes in for the Faint with Bone Club.
3. Kee either finishes off Carkol if they are somehow still unFainted (or they got a cheeky KO on Marcus/Dax and/or Marcus beef their STABs), or starts on weakening one or more of the Rolys with Bite/Snarl.

This plan is inherently unreliable due to requiring NPCs to do specific things, but hopefully either Kee or Pyra shouting out the strat will get them to follow through with it. That, and Hoopa could do shenanigans that upend everything and/or render my plans moot, so take that under advisement as you make your Orders (Conditional and not). Thoughts, everyone?

Well, all my attacks is physical so even if they have Flame Body, I have no other option but attack physical (unless I throw my kunai to not get burned, but that would make me loose one of my main weapons). With the exception of Quick Attack, my other moves against those Rolycoly would be STAB Shadow Punch, Bite and a attack of the kunai (with this one having a Base power of 2).

My idea of plan is more or less like this: Use Shadow Punch to have a strong STAB move right away to faint one of those armies of rocks, then follow up with a Bite to hopefully Flinch one of the enemies (either Corkoal or any left Rolycoly since I dont have SE moves) and finish off with a Strike of my kunai with a Will Point to make sure it will hit, either of the mentioned options.

[Lord Windos]

(...) This plan is inherently unreliable due to requiring NPCs to do specific things, but hopefully either Kee or Pyra shouting out the strat will get them to follow through with it. That, and Hoopa could do shenanigans that upend everything and/or render my plans moot, so take that under advisement as you make your Orders (Conditional and not). Thoughts, everyone?

Sounds decent and solid my dear, good thinking - except for the fact that I already wanted to have Kee clash an SE attack targeted at any of us (mostly at Pyra) or a Flame Charge from Carkoal to prevent them from getting +1 Dext, with conditional orders of Kee snarling at them all shall they be at 1 or 2HP when it's his turn and he hasn't clashed by then to go for a KO. Is that, uh, alright?

Huh....sort of forgot about Clashing and the way it interacts with Initiative (Sort of like Round and Beat Up does), at least so far as it's been done in Dragonstrike's campaigns, so that's a valid counter plan I can get behind....

....if it would work out that way we wish. I'm not sure if you are allowed to counter Phys Moves with Special/Most Non-Contact Channel Moves that don't deal Phys Damage, and since the group can't directly attack Carkol until one of the Rolycolys are out of the way...Dragonstrike, some clarification on the matter? In regards to the Rolycolys, though, Clashing their attacks with either Bite/Snarl/Tackle should work out well enough, provided that either of said Moves are capable of Clashing with their SE STABs (Ancient Power and Smack Down). You know more about Clashing than I do, though, so I'll leave any plans you have with it to you entirely, dear.

Also, Dragonstrike, is Carkol restricted from attacking anyone if he's hiding behind the Rolycolys? Or do they have some sort of instictual coordination/very minor Plot Device that allows for him to strike out past their 'defensive' formation?

@Spiritmon : Ouch, tough break....hopefully the dice are merciful if the target we decide to group up on has Flame Body! 

Your plan is a-Okay to me (Just give me a Target to work with, preferably Rolys C or D), but I have to ask how many Accuracy Dice do you have between those three Moves? If they all share the same formula (DEX + Fight + Brawl, I presume), then you'll need at least 7 Accuracy Dice Total to make those three Actions, and that's not counting any Pain, Smokescreen Effect(s), or other outside factor punching a hole through your pool and letting some of those dice leak out. If they don't, then you'll have to do your own math and figure out what's what, I'm afraid.

Even in those cases, you'd probably want to be conservative with your Actions to avoid possibly having Dragonstrike Luck Die on one of your Attacks if those Neg. Mods bring that Move's Accuracy bellow zero, or just plain whiffing a Attack if Miss Fortune really has it out for us. Will Points can't really reliably be used to ensure a Move's Accuracy bar the 'Ignore Pain for a Round' due to them having to be spent proactively now (ugh) , so they won't bail you out if an Action's Accuracy goes negative (unless I'm mistaken?).

Only good thing Will is for now (in my opinion) is Ignoring Pain, for use in Crafting/Move that use it up, and Will Checks, situationally good in extending the Crit Range of Moves and the chance of success of a Clash, and with using them to directly increasing the Accuracy of a Move a last resort if you absolutely can't afford to miss no matter what OR that Move's Accuracy Pool ends up (With every Neg Mod in place/accounted for) /could easily end up (With etc..) as 1 Dice (at which point it literally can't miss with Will unless the target Evades, Clashes, or shenanigans happen). I digress, though, so back on topic.

In sum: Maybe focus on doing less Actions or Just one on a Rolycoly (for that + 2 Single Action Bonus), if you don't have that large of a shared Dice Pool for your Moves. That, and you're better off leading with Bite if your aim is to disrupt, since it benefits from extra Accuracy Dice and can Flinch a Roly out of it's Action (if it gets one). If you just want to maximize the amount of Damage onto a Roly to help 'get it out of the way' for Dax/Marcus to directly get at Carkol, though, Shadow Punch first and foremost is spot on!


As for my plan guys, I'm just going to have Pyra do a Single Action Bite on either Rolycoly C or D, and hope that everyone else has/will join in on my Target. Intimidate will take the sting out of a lot of this mob's Attacks and grant us that extra bit of leeway, though if they start pelting the group with Ancient Power or Incinerate then they're all taking the full Damage there.

[PhantomUnderYourDesk]

Huh....sort of forgot about Clashing and the way it interacts with Initiative (Sort of like Round and Beat Up does), at least so far as it's been done in Dragonstrike's campaigns, so that's a valid counter plan I can get behind....

....if it would work out that way we wish. I'm not sure if you are allowed to counter Phys Moves with Special/Most Non-Contact Channel Moves that don't deal Phys Damage, and since the group can't directly attack Carkol until one of the Rolycolys are out of the way...Dragonstrike, some clarification on the matter? In regards to the Rolycolys, though, Clashing their attacks with either Bite/Snarl/Tackle should work out well enough, provided that either of said Moves are capable of Clashing with their SE STABs (Ancient Power and Smack Down). You know more about Clashing than I do, though, so I'll leave any plans you have with it to you entirely, dear. (..)

Thank you, happy to hear that you can get behind that! Yes, it's possible to clash a physical move with a special move, I've done that in the Flying Training Maze before and it worked just fine - it was Staravia's Wing Attack against my Snarl. Kinda want to keep clashing via Snarl until I'll level up Kee's Strength Stat more.

However, one question I'd like to clarify before I'll type out my orders in Game Thread @Dragonstrike: In case I successfully clash a Flame Charge from Cakoal, will they still get the +1 Dext or won't they? I wouldn't say so as they didn't get to outplay the move completely, but what do you say as the GM?

[Dragonstrike]

Dragonstrike, some clarification on (Clashing physical with Special moves)?

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Also, Dragonstrike, is Carkol restricted from attacking anyone if he's hiding behind the Rolycolys? Or do they have some sort of instictual coordination/very minor Plot Device that allows for him to strike out past their 'defensive' formation?

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Will Points can't really reliably be used to ensure a Move's Accuracy bar the 'Ignore Pain for a Round' due to them having to be spent proactively now (ugh) , so they won't bail you out if an Action's Accuracy goes negative (unless I'm mistaken?).

Clashing is framed as a flexible technique in the book and doesn't have any written restrictions on what can and can't be clashed.  My main condition is the Clash has to be justifiable at the very least, and have a comparable number of targets/area of effect at minimum to the move you're clashing.

Keep in mind the book states that Clashes also still apply type effectiveness modifiers.

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Carkol won't be attacking any of the pokemon that he's ordered the Rolycoly to deal with until either a) the Rock types' formation is broken or b) the opponent that Carkol is 1v1ing has been defeated.

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Will Points won't bail you out if a move's accuracy pool hits 0 or less (in which case I'll state you won't have spent the Will Point when the action comes around), but the successes that they add are unremovable so long as the move does not fail/use a Luck Die.

However, one question I'd like to clarify before I'll type out my orders in Game Thread Dragonstrike: In case I successfully clash a Flame Charge from Cakoal, will they still get the +1 Dext or won't they? I wouldn't say so as they didn't get to outplay the move completely, but what do you say as the GM?

I'd say the move's effect would not be triggered because the move didn't impact with full force if it's clashed.  That would also be consistent with all the Snarl Clashes you've done so far as well since they didn't drop the target's Special.

[Spiritmon]

Spoiler

@Spiritmon : Ouch, tough break....hopefully the dice are merciful if the target we decide to group up on has Flame Body! 

Your plan is a-Okay to me (Just give me a Target to work with, preferably Rolys C or D), but I have to ask how many Accuracy Dice do you have between those three Moves? If they all share the same formula (DEX + Fight + Brawl, I presume), then you'll need at least 7 Accuracy Dice Total to make those three Actions, and that's not counting any Pain, Smokescreen Effect(s), or other outside factor punching a hole through your pool and letting some of those dice leak out. If they don't, then you'll have to do your own math and figure out what's what, I'm afraid.

Even in those cases, you'd probably want to be conservative with your Actions to avoid possibly having Dragonstrike Luck Die on one of your Attacks if those Neg. Mods bring that Move's Accuracy bellow zero, or just plain whiffing a Attack if Miss Fortune really has it out for us. Will Points can't really reliably be used to ensure a Move's Accuracy bar the 'Ignore Pain for a Round' due to them having to be spent proactively now (ugh) , so they won't bail you out if an Action's Accuracy goes negative (unless I'm mistaken?).

Only good thing Will is for now (in my opinion) is Ignoring Pain, for use in Crafting/Move that use it up, and Will Checks, situationally good in extending the Crit Range of Moves and the chance of success of a Clash, and with using them to directly increasing the Accuracy of a Move a last resort if you absolutely can't afford to miss no matter what OR that Move's Accuracy Pool ends up (With every Neg Mod in place/accounted for) /could easily end up (With etc..) as 1 Dice (at which point it literally can't miss with Will unless the target Evades, Clashes, or shenanigans happen). I digress, though, so back on topic.

In sum: Maybe focus on doing less Actions or Just one on a Rolycoly (for that + 2 Single Action Bonus), if you don't have that large of a shared Dice Pool for your Moves. That, and you're better off leading with Bite if your aim is to disrupt, since it benefits from extra Accuracy Dice and can Flinch a Roly out of it's Action (if it gets one). If you just want to maximize the amount of Damage onto a Roly to help 'get it out of the way' for Dax/Marcus to directly get at Carkol, though, Shadow Punch first and foremost is spot on!


As for my plan guys, I'm just going to have Pyra do a Single Action Bite on either Rolycoly C or D, and hope that everyone else has/will join in on my Target. Intimidate will take the sting out of a lot of this mob's Attacks and grant us that extra bit of leeway, though if they start pelting the group with Ancient Power or Incinerate then they're all taking the full Damage there.

Well, about my dice, in the case of Shadow Punch and Bite they both use Dex(2)+Fight(2)+Brawl(2) and the attack with Kunai be Dex(2)+Fight(2)+Melee(2). Maybe I could use at maximum 2 attacks in this round since my dice is not that great. My target for now will be Rolycoly C, since it looks like the first to attack. And then I will try to finish Rolycoly D. The first attack will be Bite (And hopefully I might succeed in Flinch) and the second will be Shadow Punch (since it will hit anyway and have a good power). Or try to deliver my dark punch justice in Rolycoly A or B if by chance the C and D was already fainted.

[Lord Windos]

@Spiritmon and @PhantomUnderYourDesk Alright, it seems everyone has an idea of what they want to do and we're on the same page planwise, so let us get to posting our Orders ASAP! Time to Burn Up these lumps of fossil fuel!

[PhantomUnderYourDesk]

Spiritmon and PhantomUnderYourDesk    Alright, it seems everyone has an idea of what they want to do and we're on the same page planwise, so let us get to posting our Orders ASAP! Time to Burn Up these lumps of fossil fuel!

Done, just posted my orders! Sorry that I couldn't get to it yesterday.

[PhantomUnderYourDesk]

Uh, @no one and @Spiritmon, can I kindly ask you two to post your orders for the first Round of the battle in GameThread or quick-state here in Meta Thread what actions you wish to take, please? Once you've got the time, that is. It's been a bit already, and I rather not want to wait a week or more to get one Round of a battle completed.

Oh, and Spirit: Happy Birthday to you!!~ Forum said your's was yesterday, I hope you had a great day and got to enjoy yourself.

[Spiritmon]

Uh, @no one and @Spiritmon, can I kindly ask you two to post your orders for the first Round of the battle in GameThread or quick-state here in Meta Thread what actions you wish to take, please? Once you've got the time, that is. It's been a bit already, and I rather not want to wait a week or more to get one Round of a battle completed.

Oh, and Spirit: Happy Birthday to you!!~ Forum said your's was yesterday, I hope you had a great day and got to enjoy yourself.

Ah! Sorry! I was carrried away with a few things to do and didnt had time to post my orders for this round! I will work in my post as soon as possible. I just doing a few things and then I will work in my post.

Also thanks! 26 years now! But to be honest I feel like a bit older. All this chaos happening in the world make me feel age around 10 years.

[Spiritmon]

Also @Dragonstrike, you forgot my ability effect again. Did I detect any dangerous presence?