Pokemon Umbral Theatre 22: I can't think of a title

[Menarker]

REVIVING THE THREAD!

Things been going really slow and I don't want this RP to die, so I'm calling for attention and such.

Drac promised that he would end his procrastination shortly. Thus hopefully we can get back into the story and hopefully AB will come back as soon as the battle as over and his procrastination won't be much of an issue.

Bard, if you aren't too busy, a post from you would help him make his next post. I can PM the battle plan I showed you and Dante again if you happen to need it.

Dante... I know Matthias is unconscious and all, but I'm fully expecting him to be revived next turn and able to act.

My hope is that we get out of the current set of battles we've be in since the New Year and proceed with the rest of the story smoothly. (Not calling to end the sidequest, but move on to the next part).

AB, I know Drac has your GM reins atm, but it would be interesting to get something from you too, if you're willing. Maybe some sideline backstory from Rayleen of what is going on with her since her "house-arrest" or maybe something from Eldys Asherah. Stuff that you might have mentioned during the intermission that isn't neccessarily chronologically set after the sidequest or something.

Gem's absence admitably doesn't help, but until he comes back (hope he's in good health) we should probably press on.

[Astral Harmony]

Rayleen will talk about her situation with you in due time. While the Eldys thing will be revealed in the RP, only Impact will have considerable time spent with her.

I feel like I have more to talk about, but surprisingly I do not, so that is all.

EDIT: 'Nother random idea from Yours Truly...

I've come up with another wacky addition to the combat system which will be tested during the test battle during the post Dracorion's Sidequest intermission.

I call it the Synchronized Phase System.

Since we're moving to actual stat-based combat post this mission, I figured we might as put good use to the Speed stat. Y'know, give it back its reason for existing.

The system will combine the Ally and Enemy Phases into one and will use the Speed stats of all units to determine the attack order. This should allow every single move from the games to function as intended in this RP with the obvious exceptions such as "hit all" skills not exactly hitting all targets.

[Menarker]

Well, that sounds like it could be very complicated since buffs and debuffs and such are being slinged around at an increased rate. That and we would have to reveal stats for all foes including bosses to find out where they are on the attack speed list.

But the biggest issue is when an ally is knocked out by a foe in the middle of the round. The entire plan would be interrupted to have to remove them from combat, choose a replacement fighter/pokemon to put in their place and so on, and giving them a new set of actions (unless you want to imply that defeating slower targets cockblocks them from having their turn which seems quite dangerously overpowered when considering potential bosses). A single round in a battle would take several times longer to complete and be exceedingly more complicated.

So, at the moment, I'm not terribly excited about that idea as it is. Sorry.

As for Speed having a purpose, Gem and I already put the modification to Crit using speed as a critical factor. He also wanted to give some sort of evasive bonus for speed as well, but we never got into that yet...

Basically, it sounds realistic/neat but it just doesn't sound feasible at all in the context of this forum base RP, especially with the slowed down rate we're kinda having now due to circumstances of both avoidable and unavoidable nature.


Oh, and a very Happy Birthday to you AB!

[Astral Harmony]

Cockblocking occurs in the games all the time. I'm not sure how much worse it could make it for the RP.

Besides, it's not like just because the opponent is a boss, it's going to have a ridiculously high Speed stat. Higher Att, Def, SAt and SDf, usually. But never a super high Spd.

Though you should expect them to have resistances to certain cockblocking of their own, so don't go into battle expecting to score nearly one complete turn of free hits by having one of your Pokemon use Fake Out or some shit like that.

*sigh* Twenty-nine years old. Why the hell aren't I dead yet? Oh, well, maybe this garlic toast'll kill me.

[Menarker]

I'm not much younger than you. >_>

Anyhow, it sounds like it would complicate things an awful lot (and I don't exactly mean just combat difficulty)

Let's say for example, one of our medics was going to use his/her turn to use multiple healing items on several allies, but some foes knocked out one of the allies before it could be used. What then? Do they get the chance to switch to a different target or use a revive instead? Or is it wasted? (as well as the rage if any, despite not having actually used an item)

And another complication that comes into mind is regarding pokebrids. They have various forms with different speeds. Is shifting forms instanteous even if they were in a slow form before switching to a fast one or something?


I at least feel that we shouldn't have this idea and the Crit change co-existing at the same time. Giving allies/foes the chance to attack first AND have a strong chance to increase their power by double is too much.


Wonder if Drac, Bard or Dante have any thoughts regarding it.

[DanteFalcon]

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it. Although since I'm rather tired currently I'm not sure how wise it would be to try and form a coherent response. Honestly though I'd prefer it. It gives a reason to have moves like trick room, quick attack, extreme speed etc...

[Astral Harmony]

Well, since items are always used at the start of every turn in the games (or at least that's the only time I've ever seen them used by the enemy), I figured stuff like Pokeshifting, Paradigm Shifting, and RDPAs would also be used at the start of a turn.

Though not SignTechs or SyncTechs or none of those special moves. Those would still fall into the action order.

I had an idea earlier than this about having all units being able to attack in each turn, then using the damage to determine who is dead at the end, but that was going to be terrible.

EDIT: Regardless, it will be applied at least to the test battle to see if it actually does work out. I honestly just think that the whole phase system could be improved upon to make all those moves work, and the SPS was the only plausible idea I had for doing exactly that.

[Dracorion]

I like it.

Admittedly, we may have to remove the crit benefits because of it, but I still like it.

And Menarker, we wouldn't need to know the stats for all the enemies. I mean, pretend Bulbapedia didn't exist and you were playing one of the Pokemon games. Would you still know the stats of every single pokemon another trainer used at you?

What we could have is characters like Impact and Sophia and perhaps get some Engineer constructs use abilities that would basically function like Scan from the FF games. And may not work on bosses.

And yeah, happy birthday AB.

I am also the bearer of horrible news. Apparently Arcanum talked to Gem on Steam recently and he's just busy with life and junk. I know, I cried too.

[Astral Harmony]

Those scouters function pretty much like Dragonball, able to literally map an enemy's physical makeup which would provide accurate estimates of said enemy's vital statistics.

And the enemy wouldn't be able to get away with it by "lowering their power level", a feature of Dragonball that nobody would ever get me to understand.

As such, said statistics would usually but not always be available at the start of the first turn.

The main time consumer when it comes to me typing up posts is when new enemies are unleashed onto the field, but handling that earlier than when I'm making the post would easily cut that time down.

[Menarker]

There is another thing that comes to mind regarding the idea then.

In the past, we always had the options of choosing the order of our allies actions. Meaning that the speed stat didn't FORCE us to go first or second or whatnot. Like if we thought it was tactically better for us for a fast pokemon to attack after a slow pokemon for some reason, (Like a slow pokemon use Helping Hand to boost the potency of the fast pokemon), we were able to do that.

Will this new idea prevent us from having the option to delay our actions or whatnot?


Also, I pretty much want to demand the abililty to add a priority feature to Umbreon's custom move in respond to this, since Umbreon is a slow pokemon to begin with and the value of the move would become USELESS if it was unable to trigger the protection ability before foes attacked and the move was made taking in consideration the way we have been RPing since the very beginning. Highest Priority.


Also, to answer your question regarding DBZ and "Lowering power-level", basically, Ki is like a fuel to power one's attacks or support the body structure kinda like how a car burns fuel to run. (It is used up faster when used as an emission style attack than when it is collected as a body armor where it continue to reside for a while) The scouter senses the body make-up while taking the ki that is being gathered, (sense the body's strength as it is) literally because the body IS that weak at the point of being scanned but a fighter can raise and lower their power level and thus their body's make-up and strength faster than Evangaleen can strip off and put on her clothes.

It kinda made more sense when I read Hunter X Hunter where it uses a similar Ki system by goes much more into depth regarding how Ki works. Too bad the series seemed to jump the rails later on since the concept seemed to be neat. (Basically, DBZ characters are all Re-enforcement and Emission style fighters using that system)

And I'm glad to know that Gem is well enough.

If we go along with the plan we suggested, could we have Medics carry Dire Hits? They are basically X Stat items where the stat in question is crit rate

EDIT: I noticed that there are new items that can be found that are listed here... I wonder if you'll allow Medics to use any of the newer ones there or allow us to carry it in future combats..

http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Wonder_Launcher