Fixed Damage skill, need some help

[Gespenst]

So I created a fixed damage skill that works like using 1000 Needles from Final Fantasy where regardless of defence, the skill will do 1000 damage to the target. I managed to get it work using the Common Event for most part but I bumped into one problem, the skill target 'dead' actors and therefore completely skipping the turn and I was wondering how would I be able to make a check that re-rolls if it lands on a 'dead' un-targetable actor.

Heres what I made so far:
Skill: 1000 Needles
Status Change: Knockout [-] (I do this so that it doesn't appear as 'Miss' in battle]
Scope: The User
Common Event: 1000 Needles

Common Event: 1000 Needles
@>Control Variable: [0005: 1000 Needles] = Random No.(1...4)
@>Conditional Branch: Variable [0005: 1000 Needles] == 1
 @>Comment:#Actor1
 @>Show Battle Animation: Actor No.1,[1000 Needles]
 @>Deal Damage: Actor No.1, 1000
 @>
 : Branch End
@>Conditional Branch: Variable [0005: 1000 Needles] == 2
 @>Comment:#Actor2
 @>Show Battle Animation: Actor No.2,[1000 Needles]
 @>Deal Damage: Actor No.2, 1000
 @>
 : Branch End
@>Conditional Branch: Variable [0005: 1000 Needles] == 3
 @>Comment:#Actor3
 @>Show Battle Animation: Actor No.3,[1000 Needles]
 @>Deal Damage: Actor No.3, 1000
 @>
 : Branch End
@>Conditional Branch: Variable [0005: 1000 Needles] == 4
 @>Comment:#Actor4
 @>Show Battle Animation: Actor No.4,[1000 Needles]
 @>Deal Damage: Actor No.4, 1000
 @>
 : Branch End

 

[Harosata]

Forgive me for not touching RPG Maker XP, but does XP's formula box do something to the numbers that can't be customized? Because if I wanted to do 1000 Needles with Ace, I'd just type in 1000 in the box and do 0 Variance and no Critical. But I'm assuming that you probably want to bypass even Physical Defense Rate (pdr).

Anyway, does XP have Labels? Because if it does, you could try putting a Reroll Label in the beginning, then in each branch before damage and animation, put a

Conditional Branch: Actor1 State: KO #change actor for each actor
Jump to Label: Reroll
Branch End

Labels don't do anything by themselves, but by using Jump to Label, it makes the code continue from that Label. Here, we check if the Actor is dead and use the label, and if the actor is not dead, it continues the code as normal, which will then deal damage.

 

[Tai_MT]

@Harosata

XP doesn't have a "formula box". I think that was only added in to VX, and has carried forward since then (VX Ace, MV, etcetera). It uses the same method that RPG Maker 2000 and RPG Maker 2003 use for determining skill damage.

 

[Gespenst]

Thank you for your helpful reply Harosata. It appears that RPG Maker XP doesn't have a Conditional Branch that checks Actor's battle position, or atleast I'm not looking hard enough. How my Common Event works is that it rolls a number between 1 - 4 using a variable and whatever number it lands on will target the number position of the actor so 1 being 1st position, 2 being 2nd etc. But from what you're suggesting is that I should do an individual actor check if they're inflicted with state Knockout and would jump back to label to recheck. I wouldn't mind this if it wasn't for the fact I have over 20 Actors in my game to check individually.