Concepts

"In battle, there's always a chance of dying... I knew that!
But... I was so focused on fighting that I didn't notice anything else!"

In addition to the use of regular attacks and abilities, other options and strategies are open to characters in combat. In this newsfile, all these concepts will be expanded upon.

Basic Combat Commands

• +stats (or +sheet)
  • Shows your character's stats. +sheet/m, +sheet/1, +sheet/2 will display your stats as if the Persona in your main slot, Slot 1, and Slot 2 respectively is equipped.

• +attacks
  • Shows your character's attacks. +attacks/m, +attacks/1, +attacks/2 will display the attacks for the Personas in the main slot, Slot 1, and Slot 2 respectively.
    • +attacks/self -- Shows your basic weapon attacks and your special.
    • +attacks/groups -- Shows a list of the attacks in your ability groups.
    • +attacks/all -- Shows everything. Spammy.

• +health (or +status)
  • Shows your character's current status. Reports HP, SP, EX meter, elemental resists and weaknesses, and any buffs or debuffs. Will also report your Counter target if you have the Counter passive, and it has activated.

• +heal/full
  • Resets you to full health.

• attack <name>=<ability>
  • The basic attack syntax. Use this both for offensive and healing moves, as appropriate!

Alternate Combat Commands

There are a few alternate combat commands of note available:

• +soda: Use of this command grants you 30 SP, and sets you in a guarding stance, increasing your evasion. However, it also ends your turn automatically.
  • +soda/set <name> allows you to choose which soda (or other drink) will display when you use +soda. +soda/clear to return to the randomized output.
• +cover <target>: This will give you a chance, dependent on your target's current HP and whether you have rank 1 in the Arcana of your target, to jump in and take an incoming attack for another person.
  • For example, if your cover target is at full HP, it will be quite difficult to succeed a cover. On the other hand, if your cover target is at very low HP, you will be extremely likely to succeed.
  • If, on top of that, your cover target is Empress Arcana and you have Rank 1 in Empress, you will gain an additional bonus to your success chances!
  • This command can be used at any time and will not take up your turn, although you can only cover one person at a time.
  • To remove any active +covers targeted on yourself, use +cover/clear.
  • To stop +covering someone else, use +cover/off.

Switching Personae

Switching Personae also plays a vital role in the flow of combat. Most people have two slots for generic Personae, indicated at the top of +stats by '1.' and '2.' Personae are summoned into these respective slots before combat starts. You can switch between them with +persona #, where # indicates M, 1, 2 and so on. Personae can only be switched once per round.

Slot your chosen generic Personae before any combat begins. It is not ICly possible to summon new Personae to your Persona slots mid-combat, though you may swap freely between the ones that you have equipped. If you must change one of your slotted generics midfight, ask permission of the other scene members and/or the scenerunner.

• +persona/info <Persona>: Pull up a generic Persona's stats.
• +persona/summon <Slot #>=<Persona>: Equip a Persona in the specified slot.
• +persona/release <Slot #>: Clear the Persona out of the specified slot.
• +persona <#>: Swap to the Persona in the specified slot #. +persona m switches to your Main Persona.

The EX Meter

The EX meter is a resource that is filled through various actions in combat, and which can be spent to enhance certain actions or unlock new capabilities. Attacking, or being targeted by an attack, always raises meter by 1; Statgrowth determines other ways to gain more than 1.

• Using a Special or an Unlock-tagged ability costs 5 meter.
• Only one meter command may be used per turn. Special or Unlock use is a specific exception to this rule: it is legal to, for example, use +ex/power before attacking with your Special.

• +ex: Displays your current meter both as a bar and as a number.
• +ex/power: Adds power to your next attack. Costs 3 meter.
• +ex/aim <#>: Adds accuracy to your next attack. Costs at least 1 meter, but can scale up to 20.
• +ex/vigor <#>: Recovers some of your own HP. Costs at least 1 meter, but can scale up to 20.
• +ex/boost <target>=<#>: Gives some of your SP to someone else. Costs 5 meter, and you can spend anywhere from 1 SP, to as much SP as you currently have.
• +ex/helpup <target>: Recovers someone from knockdown. Costs 3 meter.
• +ex/onemore: Lets you take an additional attack! Costs 15 meter.

Statgrowth

Statgrowth is chosen at character setup and attached to one of the five stats (STR, MAG, AGI, VIT, or LUK). It allows a character to gain more EX meter by taking certain actions related to that stat. Statgrowth can be any of the five stats you wish; it does not necessarily need to be attached to your character's highest stat.

• STR statgrowth allows a character to gain more meter when they attack with Physical or Primal abilities. Weapon attacks do not count towards this.
• MAG statgrowth allows a character to gain more meter when they attack with Magical or Primal abilities.
• AGI statgrowth allows a character to gain more meter when they are attacked (not necessarily hit) by magical abilities, and when they dodge.
• VIT statgrowth allows a character to gain more meter when they are attacked (not necessarily hit) by physical abilities, and when they receive a heal.
• LUK statgrowth allows a character to gain more meter when they score a critical hit, or apply an effect (such as Poison or Energy).

Knockdown and Critical Hits

Striking an elemental weakness, or scoring a critical hit, carry certain advantages for a character in a fight. These actions will inflict the status Knockdown. Until their next turn, a character who is knocked down is more easily hit by incoming attacks, and in particular takes more damage from attacks with the tag 'Knockdownatk'. A character inflicted with Knockdown need not physically be 'knocked down,' despite the name. It simply reflects that the character is in a much more vulnerable position.

It should be noted that critical hits and weakness hits do not stack. That is, it isn't possible to critically hit someone already struck in their weakness.

Boss Mode

Boss Mode exists as a way for a character to spoof a stronger enemy of some sort, whether it's as themselves, or as something else. It's made use of through the use of the command +heal/boss #, where # is generally used to equal the number of opponents the player is facing as a boss. This enables Boss HP, effectively raising one's HP high above the character's natural maximum, in relation to how many they are facing.

Boss Mode is exited-- if normal combat has not taken the character back down to their normal range of HP-- through use of +heal, which resets your character's HP to their natural maximum.

Characters in Boss Mode can make as many attacks per round as there are participants, divided by two and rounded down. They receive a minimum of two attacks per round if the previous value comes out as less than two. Using +heal/boss # will automatically calculate how many attacks you are allowed, and will end your round for you only after that number of attacks has been made. For example, +heal/boss 7 will grant you 3 actions per turn, and +autoround will not end your turn until those 3 actions have been taken.