Pro Looking for a little help.

Ive been working with RPG maker 2k3 a looong time, infact my RPG has over 7 hours of play time.

But i have a couple questions i need help with.

1. I wanna have the odd duel, where it removes your party and you fight with one Hero (I dont care which hero although i would prefer the main hero, because adding choice will prolly just complicate things more.)  After the fight (lose = Game over) You get your party back and continue from there.

2. Is there a way to make skills hit only 2 enemies instead of one or all?

Also i havent had a chance to test thing and its a pretty newb question but if you have 4 heroes and u gain another one, does he stay in ur group and u can switch him in and out? (lol ya real noob question which i could answer myself in 2 seconds assuming i was at my computer)

Can someone please help me?

I wanna make a party switch options but i cant figure out how to save the current character benig switch out.

Can i make abilities that only hit 2 or 3 enemies instead of attack one or attack all?

Please someone help

Party Switching would need to be done through an evented scene, probably involving lots of picture events and variables. It is not a built in feature, and so unless you are a good eventer, you will probably need to find one. And not many people still use 2k3 on this forum :/

I haven't used 2k3 for a long time, but I'm guessing no. If it's not a built in option, then it can't unless you create your own battle system through events.

As for duel, that should not be hard. You need to keep track of which heroes are in your party, but once you event that, then all you need to do is remove all party members except the main, and then restore them after the battle.

To keep track of how many heroes are in your party through events, just reserve variables that represent which slot each hero is in by ID. Then, whenever you add a party member, just update those variables.

Ok to give a little background of my RPG before the question.

When the RPG starts you choose a main hero (one of 6 choices)
then u choose a second hero (one of 6 choices)
then u choose a third hero (one of 7 choices)
then u choose ur last hero (one of 6 choices)
After that you start the game with the party you have chosen.

Now if say you chose the Archer and got him to level 11. Then you meet a new character you could add to your party.
How would i save the state of the archer so i can reload him if you wanna switch back to him later?

Thats my main issue. If you removed the archer who was say level 11 at the time, how can i make sure he comes back at 11 preferably with the same gear too.

Just uncheck the Initialize box?

In RMXP, when you add a member to the party, there is a box that says Initialize. Unchecking that will make him come back as he was last.

Regarding saving character state when they leave the party:
As far as I know, this happens automatically. At least in RM2K it does, and I'm fairly sure there isn't a change to RM2K3. At least I haven't noticed one. And this isn't RMXP anyway, I'd say putting them back to initial state would be the hard part. They heroes by default keep equipment and stats. (Have you tested to see if it doesn't?)

Regarding multiple-enemy hitting skills:
No, not using the default battle system. You could possibly use a switch skill that triggers a battle event affecting the first two monsters, though a custom targeting screen would be needed, and things would get messy.

Regarding the 5 hero party:
Not by default, but this actually can be done fairly easy with a single event. It won't be pretty, but you can use a dialog box asking "Add \n[x] to party?" , then spit up "Party Full" if a variable set to party size is 4. Or you could get fancy and make a whole menu system based around it. (Team Olympus does this. The result is quite nice!)

Im having issues getting  party switch to even work. I dont understand how to save a hero to a Variable.

Cause in 2k3 its doesnt just let me say save This hero to here etc. It makes me try to save an integer from the hero (like his level or his Gold or his Experience for example.

Can anyone just help me make a way todo a party switch? it doesnt need to be at all times. For example all the heroes u can "get" goto an Inn where u can party switch once there.

Also how can i make a Bank? Where players can input money stored and withdraw it later. The biggest issue with this im having is withdrawing it after. (BTW this bank is for money only. I dont need items.)

There isn't a clean way to get the Hero IDs of everyone in the party. You'll have to resort to "If Hero X in Party change switch 'Got This Hero' on." It's annoying.

For a party-switcher, just through up the "Add to Party?" dialogue box for each hero in the game, and then if the answer is "Yes" add the hero to the party. Continue until the party is full. Are you having any specific problems?

Well the way my RPG rolls, you choose your 4 man party right off the bat before u even start playing. Even if you were to run into another character that you could in theory have on your team the party size caps at 4 heroes.

So i need to find a way to sub out current characters for new ones. But i also need the ability to sub in a benched character (preferably same level and gear when he was benched)

My issue is that the party is "full" at the very start off the game. So when you find other characters in the world you in theory could get (or secret characters for example) i have no way of Subbing out a character for this new character.

The only method ive found is Completely removing the character from your party to open the Slot, so you can add another one.

Ive broken the character slots down to help with this.
Slot 1 = Main hero
Slot 2 = Melee character
Slot 3 = Casting Character
Slot 4 = Support Character

Please someone help me

I assume this would not be taking place in battle?

If you just want a simple method of putting heroes into parties, and have predefined positions, you could always use this sort of dialogue:
"Which character do you want to switch?"
Then a Show Choice command with the four roles you described
For each choice, you'd have:
"Use [default hero]?"
Choice yes/no
Yes: Add to party, break out of this by jumping to a label at the end of event
No: Nothing
Branch if switch "Got Secret Character" on
Choice yes/no

And so on. Not very pretty or powerful, but functional.