Pratfall

Pratfall is an ability in the Dragon Quest series. The user takes a comedic dive in order to distract enemies or avoid attacks.

Pratfall Japanese ぼけ (DQVII)
ボケ (DQIX, X) Rōmaji boke Type Skill Older names Silliness (DQVII PS1)

Appearances

Dragon Quest VII

Pratfall is learned at rank 3 of the Jester vocation in the original Playstation version, or rank 1 of the Jester vocation in the remakes. The ability nullifies all physical damage for 1 turn. It doesn't cost any MP to use.

Dragon Quest IX

This ability is learned with 16 skill points allocated into Litheness skill.

Dragon Quest X

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Etymology

The Japanese name for this technique, ぼけ boke, is a reference to Manzai, a form of traditional Japanese comedy which involves there being two comedic performers.

One of these two performers is the "boke", who acts foolish and/or says ridiculous things (similar to the "funny man" in Western double comedy acts). The other performer is the one delivering the "tsukkomi" to the boke's tomfoolery - which basically involves making funny commentary on the boke's behavior, or correcting their outrageous statements (similar to playing the "straight man" in Western comedy routines) - this generally leads to more confusion and/or stupidity from the boke, leading to additional opportunities for tsukkomi until the manzai act ends.

The skill Sobering Slap is called "tsukkomi" in Japanese, so it could be seen as a counterpart to this ability.

Trivia

In Japanese, the ability's name is written in hiragana in Dragon Quest VII, whereas it is written in katakana in Dragon Quest IX and X. This may be due to the fact that Pratfall in VII is a Jester skill, whereas Pratfall in IX and X is one of the Minstrel's litheness skills.

See also

Sobering Slap