MZ - Shield Block

Use your shield to block, now available for RPGMaker MZ!

Using this plugin, actors and enemies alike can wield their shields defensively to block incoming damage from blockable attacks. The amount blocked is configurable, and the exact effect of a block can be configured as well.

By default, a successful block reduces incoming damage by x%, and then subtracts y from the remaining amount. Then a block animation is shown on the defender, and a block popup shows on him in place of the damage popup. If the attack still dealt damage, the damage popup will also still show.

Default Blocking

The default plugin values make it so that a successful block resists all damage, as you can see above. 

The actual chance to block is called block rate, and is stored on an actor in an xparam, like hit rate or critical rate. Block rate can be increased or decreased via note tags on equipment, actors, classes, states, or enemies. 

Even if an actor has a source of block rate, they still will not be able to block unless it is enabled. By default, any shield armor will enable blocking, but you can turn off blocking on individual shields via a note tag. You can also manually enable blocking with a note tag that can be used on classes, actors, equipment and states. Enemies will always have blocking enabled unless you specifically disable it for them via note tag.

When a blockable attack is determining its result, it makes a check against the defenders effective block rate. This check works very similarly to how the hit rate check works; the attacker's shield piercing value is subtracted from the defenders block rate, and then a random check is made to see if the defender succeeded in blocking. 

Shield Piercing is an attackers ability to get around a defenders block rate. It is provided via note tags on equipment, enemies, skills or states. An attackers piercing value is removed from the targets block rate, making them less likely to block the incoming attack. This number can actually also be negative, which causes a defender to be more likely to block the attack. Shield piercing can never cause a defender to block who does not have blocking enabled.

When a Block Happens:

When a block is determined to have happened, the following events occur:

• The block effect occurs
• The block animation occurs
• The defender performs the block motion.
• The block damage popup occurs
• Damage is applied to the defender, if the adjusted damage value is not zero. A second popup shows for this damage if it isn't zero.
• Effects from the attack apply (such as poison), but only if the damage value isn't zero, and only if the 'partial effects' plugin option is turned on.

Block Effects:

Block effects are configurable effects that happen when a block occurs. The default one multiplies the incoming damage by the defenders block percentage, and then subtracts the defenders block value from the result. The default values for these are set up in the plugin parameters, but individual equipment, states, classes, actors and enemies can have their own set by note tags. Multiple sources of block percentages are multiplied together, meaning two sources of 50% block value reduce incoming damage by 75%. Multiple sources of block value are additive, meaning that all sources are added together and removed from the remaining damage value after it has been modified by block percentage.

The default block effect uses the defenders block animation, and the default guard motion, but other block effects can override this and show a specific animation in place of the block animation, or cause the defender to make a different motion. I have included several block effects in the plugin parameters to choose from as well. You can also add more to the list and then reference them by note tag, or set them as the default.

value = Ramza.SB.make_damage_value.call(this, target, critical)
value = this.applyBlockDamageModifier(target, value)

The default block effect codebox

This enemy is using the 'thorns' block effect (with a comically undersized shield)

//target deals a percentage of blocked damage back to attacker
value = Ramza.SB.make_damage_value.call(this, target, critical)
var originaldmg = value
value = this.applyBlockDamageModifier(target, value)
var thornsdmg = originaldmg - value
thornsdmg *= 0.33
thornsdmg = Math.round(thornsdmg)
addedWait += 6
a.gainHp(-thornsdmg)
a.startDamagePopup()

The codebox for this thorns block effect

It is important to note that equipment that uses a non-default block effect will not enable that effect unless it also enables blocking. When a battler is checked to see which block effect to use, it is checked in the following order; states - oldest to most recent, equipment - highest slotId to lowest, class, actor, enemy. This means that a state can override the block effect, and equipment located further down in your actors equip slots can override the effect on a shield. If no armor is providing this, the weapon is also checked. If no equips or states are providing one, the class is checked, then the actor or enemy. If no priority effect is found, the default one will be used.

This is a departure from the MV version of this plugin. Block effects are a replacement for the block state that was used in the MV version of this plugin. In MV, in order to make different block effects, you'd need to edit the note tags on the block state to change the react effect when specific conditions were met. Now you can specify items that use specific block effects, and have those effects do different things entirely. A weapon can enable blocking, and cause the defender to melee attack the incoming hit instead of guarding it, or a buff spell can put a state that causes a magical shield to appear in front of the defender and block damage. The possibilities are endless.

Note Tags:

There are a ton of note tags available with this plugin which do a lot of different things. Rather than list them all here with an in depth explanation, I've included very detailed information about them in the help documentation.

Using note tags you can:

• Make a non-physical skill blockable, or make a physical skill unblockable.
• Modify the block percent and block amount of an armor, state, or enemy
• Set the block effect bestowed by an equipment, state, class, actor or enemy
• Enable blocking on non-shields, or disable it on specific items
• Cause states to disable blocking
• Change the block rate bestowed by an equipment, state, class, actor, enemy, etc.
• Change the shield piercing value of the item, state, actor, enemy, etc

VisuStella MZ Compatibility:

This plugin is fully compatible with the VisuStella MZ library. Because of the differences in the way that battle flows when using the plugin , I had to design a couple of block effects differently depending on which system you're using. Fortunately you can check them in the plugin parameters to see what you might need to do to make your own.

The default block effect in VSBattleCore

One thing you might immediately notice is that that block animation (the shield coming up on top of Reid there) is not appearing over the 'block' text. This is a quirk in MZ that maybe they'll fix at some point, but because VisuStella Engine changed the way damage popups work, it isn't a problem here.

The enemy thorns effect in VSBattleCore.

You can see VSBattleCore includes something that stops damage popups from showing up on top of eachother. This causes the block and damage text to show on different lines. You can also see a slight delay before the reflected damage hits Reid. 

//target deals a percentage of blocked damage back to attacker
value = Ramza.SB.make_damage_value.call(this, target, critical)
var originaldmg = value
value = this.applyBlockDamageModifier(target, value)
var thornsdmg = originaldmg - value
thornsdmg *= 0.33
thornsdmg = Math.round(thornsdmg)
setTimeout(function(){
a.gainHp(-thornsdmg)
a.startDamagePopup()
}, 300)
addedWait += 16

The code box for the VSBattlecore version of the thorns effect

Looking at the codebox here, you can see that I used a setTimeout to cause the popup on Reid to happen a bit later than the rest of the block effect. You can use this function to more accurately time events during the block effect. This is an advanced use-case though.

Menu Display:

Unfortunately, the default menu system in RMMZ does not contain any way for a player to see an actors xparameters, such as hit rate or block rate. As such, this plugin does not contain any changes to the default menus to make that information available to the player. 

If you are making your own menu system, or are making use of a system that can show custom information on screen, such as a hud, the following information will be of use to you in displaying relevant blocking statistics:

Actors, Enemies:

battler.blk will return the float value for block rate, in the same way that actor.hit will return hit rate. This is the sum of all block traits on the battler.

battler.getTotalBlockResistFloat() returns the total of all block percent on the battler. If a block will reduce all damage to zero it will show 0. If the battler cannot block, or doesn't have any block percent, this should return 1.

battler.getTotalBlockValue() returns the battlers total block value. This number is subtracted from an incoming hit after the block percentage is factored in. 

battler.getShieldPiercing() returns the total shield piercing value of this battler. This value is subtracted from the targets block rate when an attack is made.

battler.getBlockEffect() returns the name of the block effect that the battler is using. This will return whatever your default is set to, or whatever the battler has his set to, via items, states, class, actor, enemy tags, etc.

Equipment, States:

item.blockPercent is equal to 1 - the block percent granted by this item. An item that has a tag for 70% block percent will show a float of 0.3 here. Enemies also have this parameter, but it refers to their base block percent, not their total. The total block percent on a battler is determined by multiplying all of the block percent values from all of his equipped items or states.

item.blockValue is the block value granted by this item. These are all added together to determine a battlers total block value above.

item.shieldPierce is the amount of shield piercing this item provides. This value is given as an integer, so it's divided by 100 before it is applied in the block calculation. 

Note: This plugin has no easy way to tell you what the block rate granted by an individual state or item is. The default engine does not appear to have a way to calculate this without using an actual battler object.

VisuStella CoreEngine:

The version 1.07 update of the VisuStella Core Engine plugin allows for you to now define custom parameters to show on a wide variety of their custom menu scenes. Version 1.03 of Shield Block contains improved help documentation, and a few functions to facilitate showing block rate, shield piercing, block percent, and block value as custom parameters. 

These parameters show up on scenes like the shop, item and equip scenes, as well as the parameters window pictured below (if you include them on the columns for that plugin).

Here's a screenshot of how that might look:

Required Plugins:

This plugin is 100% standalone and works with the base RPGmaker MZ experience.

Terms of Use:

• This plugin may be used in commercial or non-commercial projects. With credit to me, Ramza. 
• Purchase of this plugin allows you to use it in as many projects as you want. 
• You may modify this plugin directly, for personal use only. 
• Sharing this plugin, direct edits to it, or any demo projects that come with it is prohibited. 
•  You may share edits to this plugin as extensions to this one. Extensions require the base plugin to function.
• You can choose to sell extensions to this plugin for profit, crowdfunding, donations, etc, as long as the extension requires this base plugin to function.  
•  Do not modify the header of the plugin file, and do not claim ownership of the plugin in your own projects.

//makes a melee swing 
motionRequested = "attack" 
value = Ramza.SB.make_damage_value.call(this, target, critical) 
value = this.applyBlockDamageModifier(target, value)