Lunge and Shield Strike

If you tried to recreate the characters I made in Tutorial III exactly, its obvious that something wasn’t right.

I know exactly what you are thinking. “Wait, how am I supposed to create a the Lunge and Shield Strike skills? How could I possibly create a skill that does damage, while applying a bonus or penalty to the character’s defense?”

Well in this case, the plan is to use a script created by a member of the RPG Maker Web Forums, Jet10985 (usually just referred to as Jet).

This script will allow us to create a skill and then mark certain effects that will affect the user of the skill instead of the target. The way we are going to mark those effects is with notetags.

Because it is so popular, learning to use notetags is important to implementing most scripts currently being made.

You can download the script I am using in this tutorial here.

Adding a Script in the Script Editor

The first thing we need to do is add the script into the game scripts. This is relatively simple. First open up the script editor under the Tools menu.

Next scroll down the script list until we get to the name ( Insert Here ). At this point, right click on that and select insert.
Next click on it and insert the name of the script you are adding into your game.

Now that you have the spot for your script, open up the text file containing the script you will be using, and select all the text and copy it.

Now paste it into the Script Editor in the spot you just created.

At this time, you can read through all the text highlighted green. This denotes comments and explains who created the script and how to use it.

Creating a Lunge Effect State

The first thing we need to do is create a state that will lower the character’s defense by 25%. To do this, give the state a Feature that multiplies the characters DEF by 75%.

Now why not just use a debuff? I prefer a states in this case because it gives me better control of duration. In this case we want it to end at the end of the characters next turn. The removal conditions are configured for this.

Creating the Lunge Skill

Now we can create the Lunge Skill itself. I started by copying the Attack skill. After that I changed the damage formula so that it will do 25% more damage than a standard attack.

After assiging it to the Spear Skill category and giving it a TP cost of 20, and giving it a descrition and Using Message, all that is left is to implement the state.

First lets have the skill add the state 100% of the time it is used in the Skill Effects.

Now we can go back to the script instructions on how to have this effect apply to the user rather than the skill target.

Since we only want the single effect in slot 1 of the skill effects to apply to the user, all we have to do is type <self effect: 1> into the Notes box. Now when the skill is used, our script will read this and know to apply it to the user.

With this simple script and notetag knowledge, we have created an entire new dimension to the skills we can create. Why don’t you try and create the Shield Strike skill now on your own?