First of all, you will most likely need a calculator to play MoDBC, as there is a lot of math involved in calculating the damage of attacks and such.

Secondly, you will need either a pair of D6s (6-sided dice), a D10 (a 10-sided die), or something that can substitute for dice, such as the /rolldie command in the chatrooms here on Paint.

Now, on to the actual rules of the game…

Although there are 6 different battle formats to choose from in MoDBC (each of which I will explain in detail further below), there are certain rules and battle mechanics that are common to all of them, which are what I will try to explain here.

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The Stats of MoDBC

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There are 12 different stats in MoDBC, and understanding what each of these stats does and how they work is essential to playing the game.

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1. HP (Hit Points)

The same as HP in Pokémon or any other video game. It gradually goes down as you sustain damage until it reaches 0 and you are KO'd.

2. MP (Mana Points)

The same as MP or Mana in most other games. MP is consumed when using magical abilities such as spells.

3. SP (Stamina Points)

While MP is depleted by using magical abilities, SP is depleted instead when physical abilities are used, such as when using special martial arts moves or sword techniques.
(And certain abilities that are both magical and physical in nature deplete both MP and SP.)

4. STR (Strength)

The same as STR in most RPGs, or the Attack stat in Pokémon. The higher this stat is, the more damage your physical attacks will inflict.

5. DEF (Defense)

The physical defense stat. The higher this stat is, the less damage you will take from physical attacks.

6. MAG (Magic)

The magical equivalent of the STR stat, serving the same purpose as the Sp. Attack stat in Pokémon or the MATK stat in other JRPGs, although it affects the strength of some beneficial spells as well.

7. RES (Magic Resistance)

The magical equivalent of the DEF stat, serving the same purpose as the Sp. Defense stat in Pokémon or the MDEF stat in other JRPGs. The higher this stat is, the less damage you will take from magical attacks.

8. ACC (Accuracy)

Serves a similar function in MoDBC to what it does in Pokémon and other games, although ACC is a full-fledged stat in MoDBC, unlike in Pokémon. The higher this stat is, the greater likelihood you have of successfully hitting your target with your attacks.
(And it also increases your crit rate.)

9. EVA (Evasion)

The defensive counterpart to ACC. Like ACC, EVA is a fully fledged stat in MoDBC, and whereas ACC increases your chances of successfully hitting or critting your target, EVA decreases the chance of your attackers doing the same to you.

10. SPE (Speed)

Affects the turn order just like it does in Pokémon and some other games, although it also affects turn frequency.
(Which I will explain in more detail below.)

11. WIL (Willpower)

While physical abilities are based on STR vs. DEF and magical abilities are based on MAG vs. RES, the effectiveness of and resistance to mental abilities (such as Neuromancy) is based on the WIL stat instead.

12. SPI (Spirit)

Just as WIL affects the strength of and resistance to mental abilities, SPI affects the strength of and resistance to spiritual abilities.

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The Elements of MoDBC

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There are also 20 different Elements in MoDBC, and understanding how these 20 Elements interact with one another is just as essential as understanding the different type matchups in Pokémon.





The above Element matchup charts show the relationships between the different Elements in MoDBC, with the 1st chart showing the Element matchups for harmful abilities such as attacks and debuffs, and the 2nd one shows the Element matchups for helpful abilities such as heals and buffs.

The Element of the ability is divided by row by row and is shown in the leftmost column, whereas the ability of the target is divided column by column and is shown in the top row, just like a regular Pokémon type matchup chart.

A ✔ (green checkmark) means that abilities of that Element have a "super effective" matchup when used on a target of that Element and will have 2× the usual effect, and a ✖ (red X) means that they have a "not very effective" matchup and will have ½ the usual effect.

Just like in Pokémon, the effects of Element matchups stack on top of one another, with good matchups counteracting the effects of bad ones and vice versa, and multiple good or bad matchups increasing or decreasing the effectiveness of the ability to a far greater extent than a single good or bad matchup would.
(A Dragon Element attack would inflict 8× the usual damage on Helena Dusklight, for example.)

One of the main differences between the Element system in MoDBC and the type matchup system in Pokémon is that there are type matchups for helpful abilities as well as for harmful ones.

For example, using a harmful Dark Element ability against Autumn would have 2× the usual effect due to it being "super effective" against her Light Element, but using a helpful Dark Element ability on her would have ½ the usual effect due to the "not very effective" matchup that helpful Dark Element abilities have on Light Element targets.

This is just 1 example, but all abilities (rather than just attacks like in Pokémon) are affected by type matchups in MoDBC, and using abilities that have a good elemental matchup with their intended target(s) will increase their effectiveness.

Additionally, when characters use abilities with the same Element as them they receive a 2× boost to their effectiveness as well (similar to STAB in Pokémon), and this bonus applies to both helpful and harmful abilities that are used.
(Which can effectively negate the effect of a single bad Element matchup, like in the example I gave before).

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Calculating the Effectiveness of Abilities in MoDBC

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OK, so you now know the different stats and Element matchups, but how do you actually calculate how much damage your attack is going to do? Or how much you're going to heal with that healing spell of yours?

Well, the process of calculating the effectiveness of different abilities in MoDBC is actually quite similar how it works in the core series Pokémon games, and just like in those games, it is mostly just a bunch of multiplication.

Of course, I'll first need to address the issue of how dice rolls in MoDBC work...

As I mentioned earlier, dice rolls in MoDBC can be done by using either a pair of D6s (regular 6-sided dice), a D10 (10-sided die), or the /rolldie command in the chatrooms here on Paint, and I will explain how to do all 3.

When using /rolldie, you roll twice each time to simulate rolling 2 D6s, and if using you're using /rolldie or D6s instead of a D10, you convert the results of your dice rolls to a number between 1 and 10 using the following guide.



If you're using a D10 instead, then you simply roll it like normal to get a random number between 1 and 10, as that is essentially the goal here.

It is worth noting that if using D6s or /rolldie, the likelihood of rolling very high or very low is much lower than with a D10, due to all of the different possible combinations (36 in total) of dice rolls you can get by rolling 2 D6s, shown in the guide above.
(Which means only a 1 in 36 chance of rolling a 10, rather than a 1 in 10 chance like with a D10, for example.)

Now, most abilities in MoDC have a To Hit number and a To Crit number, as well as damage/healing/other effect numbers that vary in their amount depending upon your roll, but how do these all work?

Well, first a dice roll is done to determine whether or not the ability will hit and whether or not it will land a critical hit (heals, buffs, and other abilities can crit too in MoDBC), and that is where those To Hit and To Crit numbers come in.

Let's say that an ability has a To Hit rating of 2 and a To Crit rating of 10. This means that as long as you roll 2 or higher that your ability will successfully hit its target, and if you're lucky enough to roll 10, then you will get a crit.

Now, where this gets interesting is when the Accuracy and Evasion stats get factored in here, as they basically modify the results of your dice roll.

After your dice roll, you take the results of said roll and multiply it by your Accuracy stat, and then divide it by your target's Evasion stat.

For example, let's say that you rolled a 4, and your Accuracy stat is 255 and your target's Evasion stat is only 100:

4×255÷100=10.2

As you can see, the end result is higher than the best roll you could normally get (10), and so if you have this big of an advantage in Accuracy compared to your target's Evasion, you are not only guaranteed to hit them, but are also incredibly likely to land a critical hit on them, inflicting 2× damage.
(Or twice as powerful of a debuff or whatever.)

Now to give an example of the opposite sort of situation, let's say that you rolled a 10, and your Accuracy stat is 100 and your target's Evasion stat is only 255:

10×100÷255=3.9215686275

As we can see, even a perfect roll of 10 becomes lower than 4 in a situation like this, and since (just like in Pokémon) some abilities are less accurate than others, you will actually never be able to successfully hit your target with an ability that has a To Hit rating of 4 or higher in a situation like this.

These are obviously rather extreme examples, but the point is that the Accuracy and Evasion stats can play a major role in how often you hit your opponents or land critical hits on them, as well as how often your opponents do the same to you.

Now, once you've gotten past this first dice roll, another dice roll is done to determine the effectiveness of the ability, if it is an ability that varies in how effective it is when used.
(Just like in Pokémon, certain attacks inflict a fixed amount of damage.)

An example of this might be something like this:

1: 80
2: 85
3: 90
4: 95
5: 100
6: 105
7: 110
8: 115
9: 120
10: 125

This means that if you roll 1 on your 2nd roll, you will only inflict 80 damage (or 160 if you landed a crit on your 1st roll), but if you roll 10, you will inflict 125 damage (or 250 if you landed a crit).

Let's say that you rolled 1, which means that you will inflict 80 points of damage on your target.

Well, depending upon what sort of ability it is (a physical attack, a spell, a psychic attack, or a spiritual attack), this 80 point number will then be multiplied by one of your stats (Strength, Magic, Willpower, or Spirit) and then be divided by one of your target's stats (Defense, Magic Resistance, Willpower, or Spirit) to determine the final damage number.

Let's say that you're a Fire Element character using a Fire Element spell on an Ice Element opponent, and that your MAG stat is 255 and their RES stat is 100...

80×255÷100=204

Now, let's factor in the 2× same Element bonus and the 2× super effective bonus...

204×2×2=816

Now let's go with a completely different scenario using an ability of equal strength, where you instead rolled a perfect 10 twice, and are set to land a critical hit that would inflict 250 points of damage.

In this scenario, let's reverse the stat situation and Element matchup and see what happens...

250×100÷255=98.039215686

As we can see, we're already not off to a very good start due to the steep difference (in our opponent's favor) when it comes to our offensive stat compared to their defensive stat, but when you factor in the Element matchup as well...

98.039215686÷2=49.019607843

As we can see from these (rather extreme) examples, the impact of dice rolls is usually far less than that of stats and Element matchups, just like is usually the case in Pokémon.

Of course, I didn't even address how (like in Pokémon) abilities can be "super effective" or "not very effective" against multiple of the target's Elements, and since (unlike in Pokémon) characters can have more than 2 Elements, this can make for some pretty crazy damage numbers.
(Or buffing numbers for that matter, as most of these things apply to buffs, debuffs, and healing abilities as well.)

The biggest difference when calculating the effectiveness of helpful abilities like buffs or heals is that your target's defensive stats aren't a factor. Yes, you can get a crit heal or buff or whatnot, but it isn't going to fail because your party member evaded it, nor is it going to heal any less because they're too resistant to healing magic.
(Although Element matchups are still a factor.)

Since there's no division involved, the initial numbers on helpful abilities that are affected by stats tend to be significantly lower than those of harmful abilities that are.

Let's say that you're using a Light Element healing spell with a To Crit of 10...

Well, as I mentioned earlier, ACC vs EVA doesn't play a role when it comes to calculating helpful abilities like buffs and heals, and so in order to get that crit, you've just got to roll high enough.

Now, let's say that these are the healing numbers for that 2nd roll:

1: 0.80
2: 0.85
3: 0.90
4: 0.95
5: 1.00
6: 1.05
7: 1.10
8: 1.15
9: 1.20
10: 1.25

All of these numbers are really low, but remember that they're going to be multiplied by one of your stats, such as your Magic or Spirit stat.

Now, lets say that this is a spiritually based healing spell, and that you rolled a 1, and that your SPI stat is 255...

0.80×255=204

And now let's say that you're a Light Element character using a Light Element healing spell on a Light Element ally...

204×2×2=816

If all of these numbers seem familiar, it's because they are the EXACT same numbers I used as an example of how stats and such effect harmful abilities, despite the numbers on the initial dice roll part being 1% of those in the harmful ability example.
(And that is usually how this stuff works in MoDBC.)

To do a repeat of our example of 2 perfect dice rolls with poor stats and Element matchups, let's try a SPI stat of only 100, on a character without a Light Element, healing using a Light Element healing spell on a Dark Element ally.

1.25×2 (crit)=2.5

2.5×100=250

250÷2=125

Not quite as bad as those low damage numbers in the harmful ability example (due to the fact that the target's defensive stats aren't a factor with helpful abilities), but once again, stats and Element matchups have much more of an impact than getting good dice rolls, despite the fact that getting good dice rolls can have a significant impact.

Hopefully you've gotten used to doing these calculations and stuff by now, as you will (unfortunately) need to go through this process every single turn unless and until a video game version of MoDBC is made, in which case all of these calculations would be done automatically.

Still, if you actually enjoy spending time doing this sort of stuff (like I do), then MoDBC can be an EXTREMELY fun game, just like Dungeons & Dragons, the Pokémon TCG, or any other cool game like this that can be played without a computer or a game system.
(And don't forget that it can also be played in the chatrooms right here on Paint, too!)

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How Speed Affects Turn Order in MoDBC

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Just like in Pokémon, turn order in MoDBC is determined primarily by the Speed stat, but the way in which Speed affects the turn order in MoDBC is quite different than how it does in Pokémon.

To keep this simple, let's say that there's a duel between Winter, who has a Speed stat of 175, and Summer, who has a Speed stat of 255.

Now, just like in Pokémon, the one with the highest Speed stat (in this case Summer) would go first, but it isn't quite as simple as that in MoDBC...

In MoDBC, there is something known as battle time, which is divided into units known as battle minutes.

Since MoDBC is a purely turn-based game, neither of these things refers to actual time IRL, but rather to a special sort of in-game time that passes as turns take place in a given match.

Now, how does this all relate to turn order and the Speed stat?

Well, a character's Speed stat is basically just used to determine their slowness, which (as the name implies) is how slow a character is, and how long (in terms of battle time) it takes before it is their turn.

A character's slowness is calculated by dividing 1 by their Speed stat (if you have a calculator with a ¹/x button it can help with this), which means that if a character's Speed stat is 1 they would have to wait 1 full battle minute for it to be their turn.

Using the above example of a duel between Winter and Summer, here is how we would calculate their slowness:

Winter: 1÷175=0.0057142857

Summer: 1÷255=0.0039215686

This means that Winter would get a turn every 0.0057142857 battle minutes, whereas Summer would get one every 0.0039215686 battle minutes, meaning that Summer would get a turn about 50% more often than Winter.

As a result, the turn order would go like this:

Turn 1: Summer (after 0.0039215686 battle minutes)

Turn 2: Winter (after 0.0057142857 battle minutes)

Turn 3: Summer (after 0.0078431372 battle minutes)

Turn 4: Winter (after 0.0114285714 battle minutes)

Turn 5: Summer (after 0.0117647058 battle minutes)

Turn 6: Summer (after 0.0156862744 battle minutes)

Turn 7: Winter (after 0.0171428571 battle minutes)

Turn 8: Summer (after 0.019607843 battle minutes)

Turn 9: Winter (after 0.0228571428 battle minutes)

Turn 10: Summer (after 0.0235294116 battle minutes)

Notice how Summer got 2 turns in a row on turns 5 and 6, rather than it just alternating between her turn and Winter's?

This is due to the battle time mechanic, which causes a character with twice as high of a Speed stat to get a turn twice as often, and a character with 10× the Speed stat to get a turn 10× as often, making the Speed stat EXTREMELY important in MoDBC, even to a greater extent than it is in Pokémon.

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The Battle Formats of MoDBC

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1. Party Battle (for 2 to 12 players)

A Party Battle in MoDBC is somewhat similar to a Triple Battle in Pokémon. You assemble a party of 6 characters, 3 in the front row and 3 in the back, and your 3 front row characters face off against the 3 front row characters of your opponent, just like a Triple Battle in Pokémon.

Where a Party Battle in MoDBC differs from a Triple Battle in Pokémon, however, is in the fact that the characters in your back row are still a part of the battle. They are somewhat protected by the characters in your front row, but certain attacks can still reach them, and they can attack your opponent's party members with certain attacks as well.

Generally speaking, it makes sense to have strong tanks in your front row to take the brunt of the damage, and to put mages and healers and such in your back row, where they can still be useful and are also protected somewhat from the opposing party's attacks.

Also, just like in Triple Battles in Pokémon, characters on the left side of the battlefield can only hit opponents on the right side with certain abilities and vice-versa, and characters can swap positions with any character adjacent to them (even at an angle) whenever it is their turn.

Although meant for 2 players, Party Battles can technically accommodate up to 12 players, simply by dividing up the members of one or both parties between multiple players.
(Which would work somewhat similarly to how a Multi Battle in Pokémon does.)

2. Rotation Battle (for 2 players)

A Rotation Battle in MoDBC is quite similar to a Rotation Battle in Pokémon, although there are some key differences.

First of all, just like in a Party Battle, 3 members of your party are positioned in the front row and 3 are positioned in the back. Just like in Pokémon, the center character in the front row is the only one that is active, but they can be swapped out for any other character, regardless of position.

Additionally, the inactive party members can still support other party members by healing or buffing them. Doing so still uses up a turn, and inactive party members cannot attack or be attacked by the opposing party (unless they are rotated with the active character), but this still allows them to assist the active character to a certain extent without putting themselves at risk.
(This especially beneficial to healers and other support oreinted characters.)

3. Team Battle (for 2 to 4 players)

This is identical to the Team Battle format in Pokémon Battle Revolution's Waterfall Colosseum, and just like Team Battles in Pokémon, it comes in both Single and Double Battle varieties.

You send out 1 or 2 of your 6 chosen party members each round in a predetermined order and your opponent does the same, and your 1 or 2 party members face off against theirs in either 5 1v1 rounds (Singles) or 3 2v2 rounds (Doubles), until either you or your opponent get the needed 3 out of 5 (Singles) or 2 out of 3 wins (Doubles).

Team Battles with 2v2 rounds can easily accommodate up to 4 players, by having 2 people form parties of 3 (rather than 1 forming a party of 6) and each of them sending out 1 member each round on the same side.

4. Battle Royale (for 3 to 4 players)

Battle Royales are basically Rotation Battles for 3 to 4 players, where all 3 or 4 players have a party of 6 members, each with 1 member actively engaged in battle at a time.

Just like in Rotation Battles, inactive party members can still use support abilities to assist their allies, but only the active member of the party can attack either of the opposing parties' active member, and the only way an inactive member can do so is by being rotated with the active character.

Aside from the rotation thing, Battle Royales in MoDBC are quite similar to Battle Royals in Pokémon, except that in MoDBC everyone tries to defeat everyone else until only 1 party remains.
(Rather than ending as soon as 1 party is defeated like in Pokémon.)

5. Party War (for 3 to 4 players)

While Battle Royales are basically Rotation Battles for 3 to 4 players, Party Wars are basically Party Battles for 3 to 4 players.
(Although as I mentioned above, Party Battles can technically accommodate up to 12 players, albeit somewhat awkwardly.)

Party Wars are the most crazy and out-of control of all of these battle formats, as up to 24 characters may be actively engaged in battle simultaneously, giving characters with high Speed and powerful attacks that can damage multiple opponents at once a particular advantage.

If 3 players are participating, 1 of your opponents' parties is to your left and the other is to your right, whereas if 4 players are participating 1 will be directly across from you as well.

This all impacts whose abilities can hit who and whatnot, and because of this distance mechanic and the inherent complexity in so many characters being on the battlefield at once, Party Wars are without a doubt the most complicated of these battle formats.

6. Duel (for 2 players)

While Party Wars are the most complicated battle format in MoDBC, Duels are the simplest, and also (by far) the fastest.

Rather than forming a party of 6, both you and your opponent choose a single character each, and you both try to defeat each other.

More support-oreinted characters like healers and such obviously won't do very well in this format, and frailer more offense-oreinted may struggle as well due to their inability to withstand powerful attacks, and Duels are basically the MoDBC equivalent of the 1v1 battle format on Pokémon Showdown[/A], or the individual rounds of the 1v1 version of Team Battles.