I like the passives I picked for Commando. :P

Hey all.

I spent some time making icons for the RP. Most were copied from the wiki, but then I had to resize them because the standard image resize BBCode seems to be broken here. I created the Air and Earth buffs from scratch using resources from Brave Exvius. Here they are so everyone knows what the icons mean:

When in combat, most RPGs use some sort of initiative tracking system. Final Fantasy uses the Active Time Battle system which adds a delay between actions. This is done for several reasons, such as allowing the player a little bit of time to consider and input their next move while also allowing for various buffs () and debuffs (,) that affect how quickly someone can act.

But we're not looking at specific actions right now. Let's just look at when we can act. We all will start with 3 ATB segments. We can gain one additional ATB segment each through leveling up our Crystarium, unlocking our Summon, and using a weapon that we have upgraded to the final tier. Here's a screenshot from the game with the active character using 4 ATB slots (Image is of the JPN version).

Your ATB Gauge generally takes about 4-ish seconds to fill fully, although this number changes based on the number of ATB segments you have. The more ATB Segments you have, the faster each segment fills, but the slower the overall bar fills. It still ranges between about 4.2 seconds with 3 ATBs and 4.7 seconds with 6 ATBs, so it's generally worth it to have more ATB segments. Once your gauge is full, you may act. If multiple people have full ATB at exactly the same time, the order of action will be by whoever is listed first on the public sheet, with enemies acting AFTER all allies.

Your Turn consists of enough Actions to fill your ATB Gauge. Any unused segments will be Canceled which will speed up the time until your next action, but over an entire battle, will allow for fewer Actions. Generally, the more segments an ability uses, the stronger it is. There are several actions that do not take up any segments, such as using items or Tech abilities. I will cover these later. The image I linked above shows Lightning in a COM role using four Attack actions, each with a cost of 1 ATB Segment. She could also have used two Blitz Actions (costs 2 Segments), or 2 Attacks and one Blitz, etc. You may mix and match any abilities as long as ALL abilities come from the same Role (in this case, Commando). In order to change Active Roles, you must use 2 ATB segments at the start of your turn to change your Role. After using this ability, you may select any ability from the Role you switched to, and may no longer use abilities from the previous Role. This is called Paradigm Shifting.

After you have selected all of your abilities, the next thing you must do is select a target. In the sample image above, Lightning is choosing between three Sahagin. When she selects her target, all of her abilities will target that one enemy. You may only target enemies with damaging or debuffing abilities, and you may only target allies with buffs or healing abilities. SEN always targets himself, and all of his abilities apply to all enemies on the field. You may not split your abilities to target different enemies without first canceling your abilities, but if you defeat an enemy, you will automatically target the next one on the list with the remainder of your actions. AoE abilities target the enemy you select and those just before and after it on the list. Small AoEs (like Blitz and -ra abilities) will target 1 enemy above and below your selected target for a maximum of 3 targets. Wide AoEs (like Area Sweep and -ga abilities) will target 2 enemies above and below your selected target for a maximum of 5 targets. All -ra and -ga MED abilities target the full party regardless of who the initial target is. SYN -ra abilities are single target (confusing, I know), but -ga abilities will target the full party. All of your actions will be resolved before the next party member acts.

A hidden tip for those wishing to maximize effectiveness: you might have noticed that the AI for Ravagers tends to switch between two different abilities, such as Blizzard and Froststrike or Fire and Thunder. The reason for this is that alternating abilities will increase the chain gauge faster. To see other hidden conditional chain bonuses, check out the Cond Chain tab on the public sheet.

Typically, the actions of one party member do not significantly change the actions of the next. As such, I would like all party members to attempt to provide me with their next turn's actions as soon as they can. Typically, this is after the enemy acts. Waiting until it is your turn generally slows the pace of the battle and forces the group to wait for one individual. Waiting will be inevitable, of course, but the more stacked actions the DMs have, the faster we can go through battles. It is a bit frustrating for all involved to wait for several hours or days between each action when typical actions will be "Attack 3 times." With that said, all players should realize that real life exists, and that sometimes people will be asleep, working, or otherwise unable to respond. All I ask is that people prioritize checking in on the battle when it's active.

If 24 hrs pass while waiting for an individual and I have not heard from them, I will Auto-Battle their actions. Auto-Battle rules are rather straightforward, but generally not optimal. Your character will target either whoever else is being targeted or their previous target if no one else has an offensive Role. Your character will not Paradigm Shift. Your character will attempt to find weaknesses if unknown (Magic, Phys, elements), and if known, will cycle abilities to raise chain gauge as much as possible. Attacking weaknesses always takes priority. For MED, SAB, SYN, if there are no actions they can take, they will wait and do nothing until the enemy acts or 3 seconds, whichever is sooner. SAB will not refresh debuffs without player input. Cheer, Endless Nightmares, and Endless Blessings will not be used during Auto-Battle. Items and Techniques will also never be used during auto-battle.

Items and Techniques do not take ATB Segments to use, but must be used on your turn. Items will delay your next action by a total of 1 second. It's possible that you will be able to use an Item and then act immediately. In that and most other cases, please state your next action when you ask to use an item. Potions target all party members and Librascopes target all enemies, but most other items require a single target.

If anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask! The battle system is fairly complicated to look at, but once we begin, it should be rather simple to input your Actions.

One of the most important parts of FF13 battles is the Chain Gauge. This describes what the chain gauge does and how it and other information will be represented in the RP.

The Chain Gauge is a passive modifier on all damage that a target receives. The minimum value of the Chain Gauge is 100.0%, and the maximum value is 999.9%. Every enemy has a Chain Resistance which modifies how quickly the Chain Gauge is built. Every enemy also has a Stagger Point. Once an enemy's Chain Gauge reaches the Stagger Point, several things happen. 1) The Chain Gauge immediately jumps by 100% (so if the Stagger Point is 120%, it jumps to 220%). 2) The Keep value for the target is reduced to 0, and nearly every action taken against it will interrupt the target. 3) The target often changes resistances. All targets are immune to Launch when not staggered, but some might be launched after the Chain exceeds its Stagger Point. Certain targets are significantly easier to defeat when staggered, and some are essentially impossible to beat until they are staggered.

Every action performed has two values that modify the Chain Gauge: Chain Bonus and Chain Duration. Chain Duration is a value that extends the length of the time that a Chain is active. In practice, these actions stabilize the Chain Gauge, slowing its rate of decay. When the Chain Gauge is depleted, the Chain is broken, and we start over at 100%. COM abilities are best at stabilizing the Chain Gauge, but SAB abilities are also relatively strong at this. Chain Bonus raises the value of the Chain Gauge. RAV abilities have the best Chain Bonus, but SAB abilities are decent in a pinch. Some abilities (specifically the -ra abilities in the RAV role) have higher Chain Bonus against staggered targets. Look for the S in the Chain+ column.

Next, this is the table you will see during battles. This table has most of the pertinent information you will need for battles. It's about 99% done - only thing I'd like to add is a link to images for the enemies, but that could be done in the Libra section. Anyways, this gives you a ton of information: Enemy HP%, Chain%, Chain Break, Initiative, who's next, Paradigms and Roles, and Statuses. I intended to show off several different possibilities in the battle. For example, you can see that the color of your HP bar changes as you reach certain thresholds. Red HP is considered "Critical." Yellow HP is between 30% and 70%. There are a few modifiers that look at the HP% in these terms. You can also see TP. TP is used to cast Techniques. The first TP you get costs 20 points, the second costs 30, and the last costs 50.

There's a lot of information in this table, but it's fairly condensed. Also in case you were wondering, this table is completely automated from my spreadsheet. Fun stuff.


Edit: Since creating this table, I have added a few features. One of the more useful ones is the Chain timer. Underneath the chain gauge (or the word Stagger) is an underline. This represents the time left on the Chain. If the underline extends to the end of thechain gauge (full), the chain will last for about 45 seconds. It depletes at a proportionate rate (at 1/3 full, it's 15 seconds, etc). I understand that the underline is a bit hard to see with the Chain bar in the way, but this should at least help a lot during Stagger.

@JBRam2002 Nice OOC information right there. And you put a lot of work on this.

I like there's BASS we have to fight. Evil Cocoonian bass.

That must've taken a long time to work up, battle calculations and etc.

Looks like we just need @SnowLeopard and we can move on.

Ooooh. Interested in this.

Ooooh. Interested in this.

Hey, how's it going?

Send me a PM with a character idea and we can work out the particulars. Since this RP is heavy on the combat side, there are a fair number of particulars. In the meantime, take a look at the Public Sheet with how the otherscreated the mechanics side of their PCs.

Here is a link to the vision the group received. I'll also link it in the post.

So while we're waiting for (hopefully) a new player to join in, I've got another PC that I could introduce. Since I'm not sure if we'll get more players or not, I've decided to write up a CS for them. Should a new player join and we run out of roster slots, this will be the first player to get dropped (although we could also just as easily add another team). I am posting it here because I want the group to decide if they want her to join before putting her in the Chars section.

Always have wanted to try this style but know nothing about FF except for meme like things. I'll work on creating a character though.

Always have wanted to try this style but know nothing about FF except for meme like things. I'll work on creating a character though.

Awesome! If you have any questions, send them at me. We also have a Discord Server. You can PM me here or on Discord with any questions you have.

@alexfangtalon Welcome to the RP.

@alexfangtalon welcome. I hope you stay for the long haul.

Hey so what role is most lacking right now that y'all need?

Hey so what role is most lacking right now that y'all need?

We're actually fairly balanced at the moment. We could use pretty much any role. What are you thinking?

Not really sure. I like Saboteur the most because the Paradigm names I like the most all have Saboteur. Usually is my playstyle any way. Saboteurs make me think of rouges and that's how I usually play.

@alexfangtalonI suggest picking up either RAV and / or COM as well. Sab can be fun to use, but it doesn't deal much direct damage. SEN is also a tad boring to play, but can be quite rewarding when you save the whole party from disaster. We have another player interested in joining and he's looking at SYN and RAV as likely options.

@alexfangtalon @Gordian Nought @DrDrMuDPhuD

I want to thank you three for your interest. All of you have asked me what roles would be recommended. I just want to get all on the same page. Currently we are fairly balanced in terms of roles. We have 1 fewer in SAB, SYN, and SEN than the other roles, but that doesn't greatly concern me since the other three are the "primary" ones necessary in every single battle (but all roles are important).

That said, we have the following plans:
Dr. Mud: COM, MED, SEN
Gordi: SAB SYN RAV - willing to drop SAB if needed
Alex: SAB ? ?

Another thing I've been watching for balance is the first role (affects your summon). We now have one for every role except MED, but we have two SAB primaries not including this trio. I would prefer if we don't gain two more SAB summons :P

One last thing to keep in mind: we will want to mix and match groups. Versatility is key in allowing groups to mix around. When I create a party, I will want all 6 roles covered. I would also like to see 2 of either RAV, MED, or COM to ensure we can take out enemies with haste. With that in mind, you three will not need to always be in the same group, so you don't necessarily have to balance your roles around each other.

This has space open for one more?