Checking a monster's condition, how do I do it? Options

[shinyjiggly]

I've been having a little bit of trouble with a skill that I'm trying to work on. I want it to only work on a monster when they are asleep.
But there's a problem with this because the conditional branch doesn't have an option to check a monster's condition. Even in the monster group event area it doesn't have anything that will let you activate something when a monster has a particular status affliction. Is there a way to get around this without having to dabble in patches?
I was thinking that maybe I could make the sleep-inducing move activate some switches or variables to track sleeping monsters but I think that might get a tad messy.

[Zinx10]

Your method is around of what you should try for.
Here is what I thought up quickly:
1. HERO USES BATTLE COMMAND (trigger)
2. CONDITIONAL BRANCH: Monster (Choose monster) is selected target.

That is how you should start it up. I am not positive, but you should mess around with the MONSTER IS ABLE TO ACT. Never messed with that action though.

EDIT:
Sorry if I am not too helpful. I RARELY mess with the default battle style.

This post has been edited by Zinx_therpgmaker: Aug 10 2011, 12:28 AM

[shinyjiggly]

(I have a strange feeling that this thread should be in the events forum instead...)
Sorry about taking so long to get back to this thing. I considered your ideas and then noticed that I would have to put that thing into every single monster group to have them work. (which would be kind of a pain) I'd like to figure out a way that involves common events instead of monster groups. (Why must I have to take these stupidly long work-arounds to attempt to arrive at something that could have easily been scripted?)
my plan would involve the use of a variable that would track which monsters are currently afflicted with the "sleep" condition that would be activated when the sleep-inducing move is used upon them. Because there are 7 spots for monsters in a group but only 6 figures available to a variable, I decided to have it turn into a number that when translated to binary, would be like 7 switches in one.
Example:

CODE

If sleepmonvar=64,127,96,112,120,124,or 126
//this means that if the 7th monster is asleep (or in binary, if the 7th place has a 1 in it in a 7-digit binary number)
and sleepmonvar=currentselectvar
//this means if the one that is asleep is being selected for the special attack
then,
activate special attack upon the 7th monster!
remove sleep status
change sleepmonvar
(if 64, then change to 0; if 127, then change to 63; etc...)
add sleep status to attacking character
//no variables here because there won't be any monsters that can use this attack too. That would get waaaay too complicated for me.
else,
fail message.

All I really need is a way to turn my roundabout psudocode into a working attack with working conditions for usage against monsters in battle without resorting to patches or (if it comes down to it,) monster group events (don't those only work once a battle if used? And would it screw with the "rage mode activator" that I placed into all of the monster group events?).

I apologize for being such a tough customer and for trying to be ambitious with events in the first place. And feel free to give suggestions that don't involve variables being used as 7 switches in one.

[Zinx10]

Hmm....didn't understand all of that, for the layout was weird for me, but for what you said with the way of messing with things that can easily be scripted. RPG Maker 2k3's event system is absolutely the BEST of any RM, well....for the maps. It still is for the battle style, but the battle style is SO limited.