P5R Challenge Guidelines

I want to enjoy everything this battle system has to offer, in a playthrough, without crazy things like banning a ton of skills, etc. At the same time, if you take your time crafting Personas and S. Links, it is really easy to overpower yourself in this game. So here are my restrictions to try to avoid that, while still doing all S. Links and filling out the Persona compendium. These are more guidelines than anything else.

Difficulty: Hard in most battles, Merciless when you can't exploit extra damage. Might fine tune this, but the goal is for enemies to be able to exploit the 3x weakness/technical/crit multiplier without me being able to, when possible. For Royal as well, Merciless also has a slight reduction on damage you deal compared to Hard.

Items: No in-battle items allowed.
--EXCEPTION: I did Kamoshida without removing his crown while using one Soul Food DLC item. Because it was cool.
--EXCEPTION: I used one Snuff Soul on Ann against Okumura. That battle was such a drain. I could have done without it.

Persona Gallows: Limited. You can sacrifice Personas to strengthen other Personas, all the way to level 99 Arsene for example. This is a useful way to finish off unlocking all skills for the Persona, or inherit something unusual. I've been upping Daisoujou because I want him to be my main bless by the end, but in general, I'm not abusing the gallows past learning all the skills.

Equipment: No equipment that adds stats, due to the 2x glitch.

DLC Personas, Equipment: Banned. I'm not allowed to take any DLC Persona out, or fuse one, until I beat Lavenza in NG+ (at which point I'll probably be done with this game anyways for quite awhile). I can use DLC equipment in NG+, though (exp/money increasers).

Red Velvet Room: Stupidly powerful... but to get all the jail challenges done, you really need to use this, especially on great skill cards.

Skills: No restrictions, but I will sparingly use Charge/Concentrate (they will be activated by a couple confidants anyways, lol) outside of jail challenges.

Party Members: 3 party members max, except in Jail Challenges I'll use 4.

Cafe: Banned. The new cafe in the new area in Royal can grant a party member a completely separate skill from their normal tool kit, including insane stuff like Debilitate and Spell Master. Additionally, increased stats from cocktails are permanent and carry over to NG+... lol. I'm just outright banning this lmao.

Incenses: Banned. In Royal you can buy/find incenses, which you can store a Persona in the lockaway training area (I forget the name at the moment) and they gain a ton of stats for free over a few days.

I plan to do everything battle related in the game including the battle DLC. NG+ stuff obviously is a ways away.