Before we get to more ready-text, let me ask this: which do you all prefer? In this I had a few variations on how dialog was done, I tried just free-writing entirely. I tried text entirely and then text with minor quips as free-writing. So of these, which do you all prefer for the comic proper?

More info-dumpy time, Yay! Anyway, lets start with a bit more information on what is already given. For starters, I had debated quite a bit about how to handle when people can attack. On whether to do a ATB-like system or something like FF:T where speed is just added up, but decided that doesn't really sit well. So here's how turn "order" will work. Basically all attacks will have an internal "cooldown." Because I'm a geek like that what I'll probably do by the time I get to doing combat is I'll have a board on some program (maybe TTS, but most likely just Blender or if I'm really lazy, Excel) where i have all the models located. How far someone can move depends on their speed, which makes sense. Someone with a Speed of 30 should be able to run circles around someone with a speed of 1. But except for the fact that you cannot make a physical attack when not in striking distance (it'd make no sense to be able to still punch someone that's 50 feet away), Speed has no impact on how often one can attack. Instead it's going to be skill based and how hard they're hitting. Naturally, one should be able to make a second attack after a quick jab a lot faster than one they throw their whole wait behind. So (subject to change) thinking of .25 power = .33 timing. .50 power = .67 timing. and 1.5 power = 1.75 timing. And special attacks will start probably 30% slower and likely have a bit of travel time to them as well. Weapon attacks will move slower than just a punch. How much slower depends on the weapon weight and the person's strength. And then as one gets skill points in attacking in this manner, that'll speed up how quickly they can attack (probably 5% faster per skill level. So someone at skill level 20 would attack twice as fast).

On that note: second point of order: Weapons and Armor. Let's start with armor. Armor is both really nice and potentially useful, but at the same times sometimes useless. Like Plate Mail is extremely useful against physical attacks. Like no punch or kick or even sword swing will go through that. So the cost to speed from the weight might seem like a really good idea. Except that metal is a good conductor for heat, meaning not nearly as much protection from fire or ice type. And it does conduct electricity so Electric types go through it. Probably wouldn't help much against psychic or poison or dark either. I don't want to just list every stat for every item on how it impacts from each typing and I'm half tempted to just go a "it's good against physical or special" but then just leaving it open ended would allow for more participation, where people can have debates on if someone wearing a winter jacket would protect them from ice attacks. As for what weapons and armor are available, some can be bought and some could be found. Most weapons, especially at the start, will be more weapons of opportunity. At any rate there will be a skill for each weapon type as we get to them. And well, you kind of need hands to use most weapons. So the ones turning into things without hands would eventually lose the ability to use weapons as well.

Not to more mathy stuff. Didn't list this in the comic because I may change my mind if it is too unbalanced. It's the problem with designing a system from scratch, sometimes things don't work. Heck, next page will address a fix I'm already implementing in order to deal with how unbalanced fighting an evolved pokemon will be.

To Hit= Dexterity + Roll. Naturally they must be in range to do this. For ranged there is a penalty for the distance, factored by a reduction of the target's speed. For quick attacks (.25 power), that's 1/20 speed per 10 feet. For light attacks that's 1/15 speed per 10 feet. for normal attacks, that's 1/10 speed per 10 feet and for strong attacks, it'll be 1/5 speed per 10 feet. Assuming this number isn't negative, the defender has 3 options. First, Dodging = Speed + Roll. Dodging is best when a character has high speed and is pretty good against multiple attacks. Deflection = Dexterity + Roll. When we get to the next page you'll see reasons why trying to parry or block an attack is better than just dodging, but deflection is mostly only good against a single attacker. Finally Tanking = Unadjustable Roll. Sometimes it can be better to not bother trying to avoid damage and just take it straight on. Now if the Attacker's To Hit roll is higher than the defender's roll then it hits, else it misses and does no damage.

Damage = Strength or Special + Roll - Defender Armor value (if applicable) - (Defender Strength or Special + Roll)/2 - (Defender Toughness + Roll)/2. Type advantage is half that of the games (so instead of 1/4, 1/2, 1, 2, 4 it's 1/2, 3/4, 1, 1.5, 2) and no point in stab since they wouldn't really be using many off-type special attacks anyway. Example: Susan has 10 Special and succeeds to hit. She rolls a 10 on damage, setting base damage to 20. Mark has 10 Special and also rolls a 10 on his first roll, which will reduce the damage by 10, (10+10)/2. His toughness is 6 and rolls another 10, which will drop damage by an additional 8, (6+10)/2. Meaning from this attack he takes 2 damage (20 - 10 - 8). Note as soon as the damage reaches zero the rolls stop. Say Mark had an armor that reduced damage by 5 and he rolled a 20. the 20 and his 10 would reduce damage by 15, and after subtracting the armor as well, the damage is already completely negated, meaning no need to roll toughness (why this is important will be in the next one).

Lower health factor: because I'll just be having everything in an excel spreadsheet anyway to track skills and whatnot, Strength, Speed and Spirit will drop by the square root of their health percentage (so at 1/4 max health their strength and speed are halved). Special and Dexterity will drop at half that rate. This means as someone gets closer to being defeated, their ability to fight back also decreases. Whether someone dies or faints when health reaches zero depends on context.

Yeah, you can probably see why it is I'm doing expo dumps in the description as well. Can you imagine how many pages it'd take just to draw all this info?

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