Pokemon Umbral Theatre 3: Dedicated to Cosplaying Pokemon Trainers Part 1

[Dracorion]

Oh, and AB, can you confirm these things Geminex and Menarker said?

In fact, I know that AB said somewhere that the likelihood of a successful snag were dependent on HP. Hey, AB, could you elaborate on that? Like, what probability will we have at which level?

One thing I might propose, is that instead of adding SO MUCH success chance of proper snagging, you should probably have some abilities that improve their happiness and morale. Since they will attack you and join the enemy again if they get attacked too much. Stuff like being hit with super effective hits, critical hits, being ganged up, being hit by status affliction and not being treated. Being knocked out and revived and knocked out over and over would be NASTY to its mood. That sort of thing.

In regard to that last one, do Snagged pokemon really work that way? They can leave if they take too much damage/are unhappy?

Oh, and I guess I don't have to give Elizabeth two new pokemon. She only has six pokemon at Trainer 4. That should mean six pokemon plus Snagged pokemon, but what the hell, she can get those extra two slots later. She'll stay at four pokemon for now.

[Astral Harmony]

Sure, I can clarify.

About Shagging...ergh...Snagging: Snagballs might as well be used for inflicting status effects while a Pokemon is relatively healthy. The chance of a successful Snag climbs as the Pokemon takes damage. Here's a quick little rundown...

- Pokemon has 100% to 60% health = 10% success.
- Pokemon has 70% to 25% = 20% success.
- Pokemon has less than 25% = 50% success.

The current Snagger template issues a 60% upgrade at Snagger Rank 2. Hmmm...let's actually have it grant +10% at each milestone.

*write write*

Done. Moving on...

About Rapid Deployable Powered Armors: customizing an RDPA is actually a lot like customizing an NPC. Here's how to build one...

First, the Stats: Take a Slayer's general stats, then take...oh, 150 points? That's not too much, is it? Anyways, spread them out across the Slayer's statistics as the Slayer sees fit and you'll have RDPA stats.

Secondly, the Equipment Slots: An RDPA has eight equipment slots which you can assign either weapons or armor to. You could conceivably equip seven different types of armor and make it defensive juggernaut which with you could probably protect the team using the RDPA's Overdrive, using the single weapon slot to deal whatever damage you can.

Thirdly, about Equipment: You can customize your own weapons and armor, just like the way I customize NPC Slayers. However, RDPAs allow for far more customization, such as weapons that hit multiple foes and even weapons that deploy drones that deal damage or debuff foes. I''ll provide an example of this later in the post.

Fourthly and finally, about Weight: More effective weapons and armor are generally heavier. Weight lowers Speed, which in turn lowers your Critical and Evasion. You probably could put points in Speed to balance it out, but if you're going for heavy weapons, you may as well spend it all on ATT or SATT, depending on the type of damage your weapons deal, or DEF or SDEF, depending on the effects of your armor.

So, let's do an example, shall we?

Rayleen's RDPA is actually an attachment to her mechanical right arm, called Gungnir. Gungnir is a heavyweight, high damage attachment that comes with its own tripod and everything, or else Rayleen's arm would pull itself right off. Let's start creating it!

1.) We start off with statistics. Gungnir's weapons gravitate towards Special damage, so Rayleen puts 75 points into the SATT stat. Rayleen plops the other 75 into the SDEF stat to protect her from Special attacks. That's it for stats. Simple, right?

2.) Now we decide on what Rayleen puts in her equipment slots. Rayleen's Gungnir is geared towards balance, so Rayleen keeps it at an even four weapons and four armors. That part's done.

3.) This is probably the longest and most exciting part. We're going to create Rayleen's weapons and armors here.

- Weapon One: Photon Gatling ~ Light Almighty damage, 15 hits, one target. A rapid fire energy minigun.
- Weapon Two: Blast Bomb ~ Medium Fire damage, 3 targets, 70% Burn. An explosive grenade launched from a cannon.
- Weapon Three: Demon's Maw ~ Heavy Fire damage, 50% Plasmaburn. A long range flamethrower that eats through flesh.
- Weapon Four: Dread Star ~ Extreme Almighty damage, 3 targets, lesser damage dealt on splash. Not the same laser beam that destroyed Alderaan, but only because Rayleen hasn't tried yet.

- Armor One: Riot Shield ~ 25% Reduction in Physical damage recieved. A simple but effective shield.
- Armor Two: Ruin Guard ~ 50% Reduction in Ruin type damage. Deals 10% MAXHP in damage to any Ruin Pokemon that attack her.
- Armor Three: Special Barrier ~ 25% Reduction is Special damage recieved. A powerful kinetic barrier.
- Armor Four: Smart Ballistics ~ Releases one Ballistic Shell each turn. Any unit that attacks Rayleen while a Ballistic Shell is deployed will recieve heavy Steel damage.

4.) Now comes the weight. Rayleen's weapons (particularly the Demon's Maw and Dread Star) and armor (Smart Ballistics) ensures that her Critical and Evasion are pretty damn low. And because she doesn't put any points into Speed, it remains so. She shouldn't expect to deliver criticals or dodge attacks anytime soon.

About Snagged Pokemon, yes, they do work that way. If the Snagged Pokemon is defeated, that's usually enough on its own to 'cause the Snagged Pokemon to go back. Keep it healthy, keep it killing, use boosting items on it, and it should serve you as well as the Pokemon that you caught yourself.

[Dracorion]

Looks pretty cool.

I'm not going to create a RPDA for Elizabeth yet, since that's still a ways away. Sophia's next, and I'll probably include her RPDA with her upgrades.

I don't suppose you could show us a sample Overdrive, AB?

Anyway, I'll make the appropriate changes to Liz's upgrades tonight.

For now...

HEY BARD CLEAN OUT YOUR INBOX.

[Astral Harmony]

Oh, right. Forgot to include one.

Rayleen's Overdrive: Descending Judgment ~ Heavy Almighty/Fire damage, 5 targets, 50% Plasmaburn. Rayleen gets some sweet air and rains terrible lasery punishment down on the enemy. Never has sweet justice ever smelled so damn burnt.

[Geminex]

One thing, Drac: On Trainer 4 Liz gains loyalty, I suddenly realize. I didn't see that one before...

I'm thinking that might make her a bit too strong. I mean, sure, have her be a strong annoyer/tank who can last ages and make enemies' life hell, but letting her keep snagged pokemon after one KO, that removes a fairly important limitation for Snaggers. I don't think that limitation should be removed.

Menarker:
Your idea seems to be:
5 stages of crit
Faster than your opponent gives you +2
Various other effects give bonuses to crit ranging from +1 to +2

My idea is:
6 stages of crit
Faster than your opponent gives you +2, twice as fast or more gives +3
Any other single effect can give you +1 at most (this includes stuff like Super Luck)
Anything above stage 4 is only reachable with speed bonuses

My way makes speed the central factor in crit. Your way makes it relevant to crit, but not super-important.

[Dracorion]

Originally Posted by Geminex

One thing, Drac: On Trainer 4 Liz gains loyalty, I suddenly realize. I didn't see that one before...

It's the passive ability I just said I added. Gets upgraded at Tuner 3, did you see?

Originally Posted by Geminex

I'm thinking that might make her a bit too strong. I mean, sure, have her be a strong annoyer/tank who can last ages and make enemies' life hell, but letting her keep snagged pokemon after one KO, that removes a fairly important limitation for Snaggers. I don't think that limitation should be removed.

It's not like Snagged pokemon won't run away. It's that it's going to take more than one KO. A second one will do it.

Her second level of Loyalty probably does need some nerfing, though.

[Menarker]

Originally Posted by Geminex

Menarker:
Your idea seems to be:
5 stages of crit
Faster than your opponent gives you +2
Various other effects give bonuses to crit ranging from +1 to +2

My idea is:
6 stages of crit
Faster than your opponent gives you +2, twice as fast or more gives +3
Any other single effect can give you +1 at most (this includes stuff like Super Luck)
Anything above stage 4 is only reachable with speed bonuses

My way makes speed the central factor in crit. Your way makes it relevant to crit, but not super-important.

You assumed partly incorrect. Improved Crit Specific moves like Slash or Stone Edge gives +2 crit. Everything else is +1 except for greater speed with is +2.

With your idea, pokemons with low or average speed who are supposed to be crit users never catch up to fast pokemons who don't crit normally. And WHY is only Speed able to reach over level 4 as opposed to ACTUAL crit specific abilities? Really, that boggles my mind. (Although part of this is my fault, since technically, there is no order in how things add up. Only how much bonuses there are total and how easy it is to get them)

I shall list the results of your proposed rules under the likely circumstances which assumes that the trainer intended to use that pokemon for critting and thus prepared by having a held item and a crit move but without spending an action to use an item:

Crit pokemons:
Start at 1
No speed bonus most of the time. The few times they do, they don't get the +3 bonus.
+1 for held item.
+1 for crit moves.
End result: Stuck at 25% except for the luckier times they get 50%.


Speed pokemons:
Start at 1
Speed bonus of +2 at least. Maybe even +3
+1 for held item
+1 for crit move.
End result: 50% or even something like 66% if speed is twice as fast as foe.


Some results of this is:
1) Crits are too easy to reach for fast pokemons.
2) Crit pokemons who are SUPPOSED to be GOOD at critting are inferior to fast pokemons.
3) Crits are too common and too easy to get IN GENERAL. Keep in mind Crits bypasses opposing buffs and ignore negative debuffs on your character and doubles your damage. (Making quad effective moves doing 8x damage instead of 4x.)
4) Speed pokemons who don't even TRY to be crit users end up having chances of critting equal to the crit users who TRY to be crit users. (25% or 33% chance of critting without held item or crit move).
5) Speed pokemons already gain more benefit with speed helping dodge destroyers and snipers.

I don't think Speed should be THE key factor to Crit. Crit is already its own mechanic with moves, items and abilities that influence it. Yes, we're trying to find a way to incorporate Speed into this RP, but this not only disadvantages quite a lot of pokemons, this is clearly one of those "overly powerful changes to the RP's system" where we're enabling more than 50% chance of double damage to anyone who is super fast, especially if they are the type with low defense and high offense and thus doubling that high offense is sure to be near gamebreaking. Plus it heavily reduces the value of defensive buff moves and defensive tactics in general making the system that was already geared toward blistering offense pace EVEN more offensively paced.

And what if I was to tell you that my pokebrid form might very well be one of those crit users or one of those heavy speed types? If the thought of improving crit to the point where my character with high offensive power can suddenly do double damage 50% or 66% of the time makes you shudder and think my build should be scrapped, then the entire crit system obviously needs working.

Anyhow, for the balancing part of it, I proposed my example because...


I shall list the results of my proposed rules under the likely circumstances which assumes that the trainer intended to use that pokemon for critting and thus prepared by having a held item and a crit move but without spending an action to use an item:

Speed Pokemons:
Start at Stage 1
Speed Clash Victory: +2
Held Item: +1
End Result: 33% chance

Crit Pokemons:
Start at Stage 1
Improved Crit Move: +2
Held Item: +1
End Result: 33% chance.

Crit and speed pokemons have equal chance of critting at this point. If Crit manages to win the Speed Clash or if the Speed Pokemon gets a crit move, they get to 50% chance.
This still favors speed pokemons in terms of their chances of critting, although crit pokemons might better tools like STAB crit moves or something like that. (Although Stone Edge is very common due to TM status...)

Although I personally think even this is too much. Crit getting even to 50% should require a bit more effort in my view like having to use Dire Hit or so. Maybe drop winning speed clash and improved crit moves to +1...

AB: Do you have a viewpoint about the entire crit conversation or a point worth mentioning? Or an offer of how to change the system in some way?

The RDPA thing looks interesting, although I'll save creating it until a good time later on.

EDIT: And Drac, I remember reading somewhere in an early thread (way back when we had a snagger PC) that Snagged pokemons stay with you between missions if they haven't ran away and been retrieved before the mission ended.

AB: Wait, does using the RDPA require you to only attack using the weapon system of the RDPA as opposed to fighting the normal way with boosted stats? Like, can they even use Slayer weapons or accessories (or in my case, fight using Integrated Combat Training)? Or can you fight normally with additional options via the RDPA?

[Dracorion]

Originally Posted by Menarker

EDIT: And Drac, I remember reading somewhere in an early thread (way back when we had a snagger PC) that Snagged pokemons stay with you between missions if they haven't ran away and been retrieved before the mission ended.

Yeah, I remember too.

'm just making sure.

[Astral Harmony]

You can only fight using the RDPA functions.

[Dracorion]

And Snagged pokemon stay between missions?