Attacks and Abilities Guide

I know Agility can be used for purposes other than just the Speed boost (such as dodging, assisting other moves, etc.) but even if it's used to run away from an opponent, does it still have a priority of 0?

Scenario: Poliwag, with a base Speed of 90, is commanded to use Hypnosis while Treecko, base Speed of 70 (Treecko also has a -2 Speed drop), is commanded to use Agility to run out of range. Does the Treecko escape first (thus giving Agility a priority of +1), or is Hypnosis executed first because of the user's base Speed?

Can a Pokemon be ordered to stop a Rollout early? It's not so in the games, but in the guide it says the Pokemon /can/ roll for five actions...?

Melodic Harmony said:

I know Agility can be used for purposes other than just the Speed boost (such as dodging, assisting other moves, etc.) but even if it's used to run away from an opponent, does it still have a priority of 0?

Scenario: Poliwag, with a base Speed of 90, is commanded to use Hypnosis while Treecko, base Speed of 70 (Treecko also has a -2 Speed drop), is commanded to use Agility to run out of range. Does the Treecko escape first (thus giving Agility a priority of +1), or is Hypnosis executed first because of the user's base Speed?

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Agility has a priority of zero, but I tend to ref reactionary actions as taking priority unless the difference in speed is extreme. With -2 speed that scenario is a little iffy, but I would most likely have reffed the agility as allowing treecko to dodge the hypnosis, if and only if that was what the agility had been commanded to do specifically.

blazheirio889 said:

Can a Pokemon be ordered to stop a Rollout early? It's not so in the games, but in the guide it says the Pokemon /can/ roll for five actions...?

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Like petal dance, uproar, and so on, the maximum duration of the attack can be set when the attack is first commanded. So, you could tell your pokémon to rollout for three actions, and it will stop after the third. If you don't command a maximum duration, though, the pokémon will keep going until it reaches maximum power/the attack misses/it's blocked by protect/whatever. You can't tell your pokémon to stop in the middle of the attack.

Negrek said:

Agility has a priority of zero, but I tend to ref reactionary actions as taking priority unless the difference in speed is extreme. With -2 speed that scenario is a little iffy, but I would most likely have reffed the agility as allowing treecko to dodge the hypnosis, if and only if that was what the agility had been commanded to do specifically.

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Note that I didn't make the hypnosis fail completely, I only reduced its accuracy. Was the way I reffed it okay?

Yup, that's fine.

Can a Litwick move in any way? Even if it's reaaally slowly?

blazheirio889 said:

Can a Litwick move in any way? Even if it's reaaally slowly?

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It can hop around a little.

Then how is it supposed to use Flame Charge or Double Team?

By hopping around a little. I imagine it can do so with some degree of speed if prompted. It's only going to make one or two clones anyway.

Well, it is a ghost-type, so I presume it could use some kind of ghostly power or something.

I would think at the very least it can ooze along similar to Grimer or Slugma...being made of melting wax and all

Can Magic Coat be used in a conditional? In particular, something along the lines of "Use Magic Coat if it uses Taunt, otherwise use [redacted]." I'd assume so, if Protect can, but I'd like to make sure.

Yup.

Can a Pokémon with Prankster choose to ignore its ability in favour of trying to out-stall its opponent to mess with its conditionals?

EDIT: ALSO, I really need a better idea of how to ref status. I've been going with Kratos's methods, but (usually) starting them out at moderate/severe for side-effects and dedicated status moves respectively, instead of mild/moderate. I commented at some point that I wanted to switch to using mild/moderate, but then Negrek asked why I wanted to include this particular nerf and I didn't have any real reason aside from "it's Kratos's scale and Kratos said so". (In hindsight that was probably a better reason than it felt like.) I made up something on the spot about only introducing that nerf for babies and first-of-threes, which I then forgot about. Since then, I've been just plain inconsistent about it.

But, yes, if eight actions of sleep is way too much but starting out at moderate is a "nerf", then obviously mixing these two metrics isn't working well! I haven't actually run into sleep, thankfully, but for example, I most recently made Confuse Ray inflict confusion which started at 50% fail-chance and is going to take eight actions total to fade entirely, while I have paralysis from Thunder Wave set to start at 25% fail-chance and take twenty-four actions in one reffing I'm working on. Two of the rounds I'm working on involve paralysis, actually, so I'd like to get this figured out.

Yeah; could a Pokemon be commanded to use a priority move after its opponent?

Yes, a pokemon with prankster can choose not to use its priority attack on a move. A pokemon can wait and use a priority attack after its opponent has moved in an action.

I'll get to the status thing later tonight, as that's going to require some typing.

Does stall affect moves that do not target the opponent? Like *cough*phasing*cough* chills or status moves or something?

Yes

Is it possible to have a ghost phase before a battle starts? More generally, is that the same sort of thing as asking a consensually flying/hovering pokémon to start a battle already in the air, or similar?

And I know you answered my earlier asked-elsewhere question about taunt stopping phasing (should the taunt actually go first), but you haven't answered the sleep powder question, so... would phasing stop sleep powder? I actually would think it would since it's not an energy-based attack, but...?