Pokemon as D&D monsters

[Orion]

I favor having 3 Effect lines: Effect:, Super:, and Not Very:

This lets us do a LOT more with type. For instance

Blizzard:
Super: Xd6 damage and can't use Fire moves next turn, and slowed
Effect: Xd6 Damage and Slowed
Not Very: Slowed

Throat Punch
Super: 2xd6 damage and dazed
Effect: Xd6 damage and dazed
Not Very: Xd6 damage

Mind Probe
Super: dominated
Effect: xd6 damage and weakened
Not Very: user and target stunned

[Koumei]

And neither Bula nor Dr. Spoons is going down quickly.

...is that what you named them when you played?

[Koumei]

Anyway, I kind of like the 9-stat set-up, if only because it means having Meanness and Cuteness as stats (though I raise an eyebrow at Allure).

I mean, I suppose it could be done with Hardness (P. Defence), Bigness (HP), Cuteness (Sp. Defence), Power (P. Attack) and Meanness (Sp. Attack), but that does simplify it a lot. It's kind of cool having two choices of attack stat per defence stat, and a triad of defences.

Boring math talk follows:

So, I can see that working, with Bigness per level in HP, so the first ten levels could look like:
2, +5 (7), +8 (15), +11 (26), +14 (40), +17 (57), +20 (77), +23 (90), +26 (116), +29 (145)

Unless it's (current level)*(current bigness), where we get:
2, 10, 24, 44, 70, 102, 140, 184, 234, 290

I think the former is better. So, say your standard attack deals 1d6 per level*, this means we're looking at this:
Level 1 deals 3.5 and is a KO.
Level 2 deals 7, and is (barely) a KO.
Level 3 deals 10.5 and doesn't, but a really good roll could do it.
Level 4 reaches the point where rolling maximum won't cut it.
Level 5 deals 5-30 (17.5) which is less than half.
Level 6 deals 6-36 (21), which is still less than half but more than a third.
Level 7 deals 7-42 (24.5), which is under a third. Two hits on maximum will still KO, but if you can guarantee that, I want your dice.
Level 8 deals 8-48 (28), same spot as before.
Level 9 deals 9-54 (31.5), and 2x maximum no longer cuts it. 4 average hits are needed.
Level 10 deals 10-60 (35), and takes five hits on average.

Now I would like to assume this does not go up to level 100. Level 30 is probably fine, meaning even if you only have access to one list, you still get slightly more than one power off the list (assuming they're all 16 each) per two levels. Still, by level 30, using the above chart, we're looking at quite a long battle: 1,355 HP, 30d6 damage (30-180, average 105), so barring misses, critical hits and effectiveness, that's seriously 13 rounds of combat. That might be a bit too slow, so at the higher tiers we could very easily want damage to scale up a bit more. I mean, having the non-at-will powers deal significantly more damage could be a very good idea - even 2d6/level is only taking away 1/6 of their HP.

*And I'm not saying it is. Maybe we want "fixed" damage and higher-level attacks dealing more than lower level ones. Or maybe we want something in between, where low level ones deal 1d4 per level or 1d6 per 2 levels, then it goes up to 1d6/level, then eventually we get 2d6/level, 10/level and so on.

[Koumei]

More lists, because then it will be easy to stat the moves up later.

Predator:

• Scratch
• Tackle
• Tail Whip
• Growl
• Quick Attack
• Slash
• Leer
• Roar
• Bite
• Glare
• Odour Sleuth
• Howl
• Rest
• Agility
• Swift
• Crunch

Furious Monster:

• Double-Slap
• Rage
• Roar
• Thrash
• Bite
• Slash
• Howl
• Stomp
• Dragon Rage
• Glare
• Super Power
• Submission
• Beat Up
• Belly Drum
• Counter
• Outrage

Angry Dragon:

• Fire Claw
• Whirlwind
• Dragon Rage
• Shadow Claw
• Dragon Dance
• Dragon Pulse
• Steel Claw
• Fly
• Aero-Submission
• Dragon Claw
• Cloud Breaker
• Sky Attack
• Air Slash
• Hyper Beam
• Outrage
• Draco Meteor

Hard Rock:

• Harden
• Rock Slide
• Rock Throw
• Withdraw
• Rock Tomb
• Rock Polish
• Magnitude
• Defence Curl
• Self-Destruct
• Roll-Out
• Rock Smash
• Bounce
• Avalanche
• Stone Edge
• Earthquake
• Explosion

[Username17]

The original source material has the following attributes:

• Attack
  Defense
  Special Attack
  Special Defense
  Speed
  Hit Points
  Accuracy
  Weight
  Smart
  Cool
  Beauty
  Tough
  Happiness

And no, I'm not making any of those up. And yes, they all can affect the way your moves work and/or other moves work against you. And some of them are mixed blessings. The higher your Happiness the more damage you'll do with Return and the less damage you'll do with Frustration. The higher your weight, the more damage you'll take from a Low Kick or a Grass Knot. And so on.

Furthermore, there are seriously powers like Mean Look, Charm, Attract, and Cheer that function in battle based on how cruel/cute/beautiful a pokemon is. That's not even a joke. Beautifly and Wormadram are insects that have the ability to be so so sexy that other pokemon fall in love with them in the middle of battle. The same power can be found on Milotic (giant snake), Purugly (cat), and Finneon (fish). With a TM, you can give this power to almost any Pokemon (though it doesn't actually get any sillier than the ones it comes naturally on). So yes, having an entire couple of power lists that are mostly Allure and Meanness based and target various "mental" defenses like Cuteness and Willpower is totally in-genre.

And limiting things to 9 stats is actually a reduction from the original source material. And I don't think it's really that difficult to flesh out attacks when there are already 487 attacks and a whole lot of attacks imply a whole range of abilities (like Teleport definitely implies learnable powers like Telefrag and Portal Drop). The real problem is actually going to be keeping the discipline to make sure that there aren't so many power variations that every character could get powers that built off their big attack stat and targeted every possible defense. Although, that's partially taken care of by having powers be used in wildly different circumstances based on distances, directions, and areas. It would be tempting to allow a character to have access to Mean Look (Meanness vs. Cuteness), Pursuit (Meanness vs. Speed), Frustration (Meanness vs. Bigness), Faint Attack (Meanness vs. Intelligence), Sucker Punch (Meanness vs. Hardness), and Dark Pulse (Meanness vs. Willpower). Because those are all actual moves. And they are literally ll available to Umbreon (who by the way, is a very Mean Pokemon). They need to have wildly different area uses or Umbreon is just going to face hump everyone in their personal weaknesses no matter what they are. And it's not a condition limited to Umbreon, Houndoom (who is also a very Mean Pokemon) can make a similar perfect storm based around Nasty Plot, Beat Up, Frustration, Torment, Dark Pulse, and Thief.

-Username17

[Prak]

Sucker Punch (Meanness vs. Hardness)

IIRC, Sucker Punch also takes speed into account and is almost shit because of it, because it fails if you're faster than your opponent, and I think I've seen maybe one pokemon who gets it normally actually be slow...

[Username17]

Sucker Punch (Meanness vs. Hardness)

IIRC, Sucker Punch also takes speed into account and is almost shit because of it, because it fails if you're faster than your opponent, and I think I've seen maybe one pokemon who gets it normally actually be slow...

That sounds like some other move. Sucker Punch fails if the enemy is faster than you and uses Quick Attack (or Sucker Punch), and it fails if your opponent uses Harden (or any other move that isn't an attack).

Point is that since the normal effect of it is to ignore enemy speed, it seems like a pretty obvious candidate for Umbreon to directly attack the Hardness of his opponent.

-Username17

[Orion]

But Frank, most of those stats are *bullshit*

Happiness isn't a real part of the game, it's something tacked on to justify a minigame where you waste time cutting your pokemon's hair and feeding it snacks. It didn't do anything good, and it can fuck right off. I don't know what the fuck Weight did. You don't need Attack, Defense, and Tough, there's clearly overlap there.

Also: Pursuit can't be vs. Speed, it's a move which is *especially effective* against running foes. It took me *forever* to figure out how you justify Mean Look vs. Cuteness. Honestly, it seems to a Mean Look is exactly what a mean pokemon SHOULD use to terrify an adorable one. *finally* I figured out that the idea was that the pokemon was so cute no one could bear to be mean to it, but it took a while. I also wouldn't have guessed Meanness for Faint Attack, though I'm not going to argue as it's sort of arbitrary. Speed or Intellect or whatever.

This is frankly silly. You say we need 9 stats to support 483 moves, but nobody it seems like the obvious answer would be to *write fewer moves*. Then you get a playable game faster, easier to keep track of, test, and balance.

Give out four defenses: Mass, Mind, Move, Might. Or whatever. A Pokemon seriously gets four at-wills. That means, yes, your Charizard can have Flamethrower (vs. Move), Heat Wave (vs. Mind), Fire Spin (vs. Might), and Magma Shot (vs. Size) But wait! There's actually more than 4 defense because there's also TYPE. Maybe you want some flying moves. So you drop Flamethrower and Magma Shot to get Gust (vs. Move) and Dust Storm (vs. Size). But wait! maybe you want some melee attack and some ranged attacks, so:

Movelist: Fire Jaws (vs. Might), Heat Wave (vs. Mind), Attack Dive (vs. Move), Dust Storm (vs. Size). Then maybe you decide you don't need Fire Jaws because you have several encounter powers that attack might, so you drop it for Double Team.

The odds of having the perfect move to "own" an enemy have just gotten fairly low, so applying the best move will actually take some work.

------------

TL;DR: Apologies for the wall of text, it's VERY late where I am and probably I'll feel stupid tomorrow. BUT, this much I know:

Having "attack stats" seems kinda silly when you're already specifically opting various attacks in or out for each individual pokemon species.

If you want your Charizard to be better at "Angry Dragon" than "Fire Starter" you can jolly well give him "Angry Dragon +2".

[Koumei]

Actually, the contest stats got expanded to Tough/Cute/Smart/Cool/Beauty. But I thought that they only affected contest stuff, with the exception of a max-Beauty Feebas evolving into Milotic.

More move lists. This really won't take too long, and once they're done, it won't take long at all to get the moves written up, with their crazy threatened areas.

Psychokinetic

• Teleport
• Disable
• Light Screen
• Psy-wave
• Imprison
• Reflect
• Kinesis
• Tele-frag
• Protect
• Power Swap
• Portal Drop
• Fly
• Psycho-Cut
• Poltergeist
• Psychic
• Fissure

Empath

• Telepathy
• Detect
• Confusion
• Hypnosis
• Taunt
• Extra-Sensory
• Calm Mind
• Dream Eater
• Flatter
• Encore
• Psy-Beam
• Mean Look
• Future Sight
• Amnesia
• Heart Swap
• Psychic

Power of Cute

• Growl
• Fake Tears
• Charm
• Tickle
• Return
• Assist
• Helping Hand
• Sing
• Uproar
• Yawn
• Sleep Talk
• Rest
• Chatter
• Sweet Kiss
• Splash!
• Metronome

Battletoad

• Splash!
• Water Gun
• Surf
• Water Pulse
• Dive
• Whirlpool
• Aqua Tail
• Waterfall
• Hydro Pump
• Aqua Jet
• Mud Layer
• Water Layer
• Mud Slap
• Muddy Water
• Surface Skimmer
• Hydro Cannon

Pain in the Grass

• Vine Whip
• Wrap
• Leech Seed
• Poison Powder
• Absorb
• Entangle
• Razor Leaf
• Thorn Field
• Energy Ball
• Seed Bomb
• Power Whip
• Magical Leaf
• Solar Beam
• Ingrain
• Mega Drain
• Frenzy Plant

Flower Power

• Sleep Powder
• Growth
• Spore
• Sunny Day
• Bullet Seed
• Natural Gift
• Synthesis
• Petal Dance
• Grass Whistle
• Worry Seed
• Sweet Scent
• Cotton Spore
• Solar Beam
• Mega Drain
• Leaf Storm
• Pollen Cloud

[Username17]

This is frankly silly. You say we need 9 stats to support 483 moves, but nobody it seems like the obvious answer would be to *write fewer moves*. Then you get a playable game faster, easier to keep track of, test, and balance.

You completely misunderstand me. You don't need 9 stats to cover the 487 currently existing moes, nor do I think that ultimately the project will hae 487 moes. I expect a total closer to 1500. You want a large number of stats to create palpable differences between Pokemon. There are 493 official Pokemon, and people are going to want to pull in ther favorite D&D Pokemon as well (like Ashrat, Quasit, and Chimera). That's a lot.

If you only have two stats, there are only 3 possible stat configurations (+-, -+, and ==). With three stats, you have seven possible configurations (+=-, +-=, -+=, -=+, =+-, =-+, and ===). With more stats, you introduce the ability to have stats be between other stats, so you not only have more slots to stash values into, you also have more meaningfuly distinct values available to put into those slots. This gets so extreme that it can wrap around and skullfuck the RNG if you let it - with 9 stats on the table the stats could be ordered nine different ways, but having one stat be 8 points higher than another is almost half the RNG all by itself, and should probably not happen (unless a larger RNG was used).

But basically, a reductionist stat system is wholly unacceptable because there are hundreds of distinct pokemon. There are 48 pure Water Type Pokemon. That's more than the 35 unique stat arrays you can theoretically produce from four stats even before we consider old Greyhawk favorites like Water Weird, Siege Crab, and Tojanida. More stats is an absolute physical requirement of a playspace that large.

And honestly, most stats should be average. Otherwise they don't feel average when they are in the middle or exceptional when they are at the edges. With just stats, pretty much every Pokemon is going to get the stat array 0-1-2-3-4. And that means that every Pokemon will have as many 4s as they have 2s. And that means that finding a Pokemon with a 4 in any particular stat is not "special" because 20% of Pokemon do - just like 20% have any other particular value for that stat. In order to make the bellcurve possible, Pokemon have to have substantially more stats than there are values. At 9 stats, 2s can be like twice as common as 4s, which makes a 4 feel big. Which is something that it otherwise would not do and which it is important that it does.

-Username17

[Koumei]

That's a pretty convincing argument to me.

Heavy Metal:

• Harden
• Bullet Punch
• Hammer Arm
• Metal Noise
• Metal Head
• Gravity
• Sharpen
• Metal Defence
• Double Edge
• Metal Claw
• Gyro Ball
• Rock Polish
• Metal Fang
• Crash Landing
• Metal Tail
• Metal Mash

Toxic Touch:

• Poison Powder
• Sleep Powder
• Stun Powder
• Smog
• Sludge
• Poison Fang
• Toxic
• Poison Punch
• Absorb
• Bulk Up
• Muddy Water
• Twin Needle
• Gastro-Acid
• Acid Armour
• Sludge Pit
• Sludge Bomb

Fire Master:

• Ember
• Fire Wheel
• Fire Spin
• Sunny Day
• Heat Wave
• Fire Trail
• Fire Wall
• Burn-Off
• Flame Pillar
• Will-O-Wisp
• Fire Pulse
• Heat Metal
• Blast Burn
• Ember Pit
• Overheat
• Magma Storm

Evil Bastard:

• Fake-Out
• Imprison
• Faint Attack
• Mean Look
• Dark Pulse
• Sucker-Punch
• Pursuit
• Punishment
• Trick
• Trick Room
• Fake Tears
• Beat Up
• Nasty Plot
• Frustration
• Grudge
• Spite

Powerhouse:

• Bulk Up
• Pound
• Take-Down
• Mega-Punch
• Submission
• Slam
• Stomp
• Power Slam
• Swagger
• Super Power
• Strength
• Rock Smash
• Rock Throw
• Climb
• Roar
• Belly Drum

Burrower:

• Dig
• Rock Slide
• Rock Tomb
• Quicksand
• Mud Slap
• Magnitude
• Gravity
• Rock Climb
• Bulk Up
• Imprison
• Dust Cloud
• U-Turn
• Pot-Hole
• Earth Power
• Hidden Power
• Earthquake

Aerialist:

• Fly
• Quick Attack
• Sky Attack
• Swift
• Pursuit
• U-Turn
• Wing Attack
• Steel Wing
• Air Cutter
• Wind Slash
• Agility
• Aerial Attack
• Twister
• Peck
• Clear Sky
• Lock-On

Martial Artist:

• Meditate
• Low Kick
• Mega-Kick
• High Jump Kick
• Cross Chop
• Brick-Break
• Mega-Punch
• Fire Punch
• Thunder Punch
• Ice Punch
• Jump Kick
• Karate Chop
• Recovery
• Mach Punch
• Wake-Up Slap
• Aura Sphere

Cosmic Forces:

• Cosmic Power
• Reflect
• Recovery
• Safeguard
• Magic Coat
• Mirror Coat
• Perish Song
• Ancient Power
• Punishment
• Gravity
• Detect
• Wish
• Healing Wish
• Roar of Time
• Draco-Meteor
• Aura Sphere

Bite Club:

• Bite
• Hyper Fang
• Super Fang
• Poison Bite
• Giga Drain
• Crunch
• Fire Fang
• Ice Fang
• Stockpile
• Gulp
• Swallow Whole
• Spit Up
• Thunder Fang
• Steel Fang
• Gastro-Acid
• Yawn

Frosty:

• Ice Shard
• Icicle
• Ice Punch
• Hail
• Powder Snow
• Blizzard
• Icy Wind
• Avalanche
• Ice Darts
• Ice Skate
• Frozen Water
• Clear Sky
• Surf
• Water Gun
• Dive
• Sheer Cold

Gloom and Doom:

• Curse
• Grudge
• Memento
• Shadow Pulse
• Shadow Sneak
• Shadow Ball
• Poltergeist
• Dream Eater
• Shadow Claw
• Will-O-Wisp
• Pain Split
• Perish Song
• Roar
• Ominous Wind
• Nightshade
• Dark Void

[Username17]

The existence of Trap moves like Counter or Reflect imply that the special move be chosen in advance of knowing what the initiative count actually is. So the turn order appears to be:

• Select Card. It's face down, so any order would do.
• Roll Initiative.
• Characters move and declare special movement actions from lowest to highest.
• Characters declare facing from lowest to highest.
• Characters declare moves from their Card or their at-wills from highest initiative to lowest.
• Characters all take their Recovery Phase in whatever fucking order they want.

---

Anyway, so Houndoom is known for Meanness first and foremost, but also for being a genuine Hellhound. He's a twisted Fire Starter, and a Predator. And he's a villain, but his evil magic could plausibly come from a move set named anything, so we'll get to that in a moment.

So for starters, the combined Houndoom move list for Fire Starter and Predator would be (bolding all the ones that are canonically Houndoom special moves):

• Ember
• Smoke Screen
• Fire Spin
• Flame Thrower
• Smog
• Eruption
• Dragon Breath
• Dragon Rage
• Heatwave
• Fire Wall
• Fire Blast
• Ember Pit
• Will-O-Wisp
• Flare Blitz
• Overheat
• Blast Burn
• Scratch
• Tackle
• Tail Whip
• Growl
• Quick Attack
• Slash
• Leer
• Wrap
• Bite
• Glare
• Body Slam
• Howl
• Rest
• Agility
• Swift
• Crunch

OK, and here are the unlisted major powers:

• Thunder Fang (WTF, but whatever)
• Roar
• Odor Sleuth
• Beat Up
• Fire Fang
• Faint Attack
• Embargo
• Nasty Plot
• Head Butt
• Magic Coat
• Mud Slap
• Snore
• Spite
• Sucker Punch
• Super Fang
• Uproar

Plus an ass-tonne of TMs, but whatever. Suggestions:

• Dragon Rage and stuff should probably go into some Dragon List or another. No special need for it to appear on the fire starter list. Just weird for that to be a Torkoal and Houndoom power.
• I think Roar and Odor Sleuth should be on the Predator List. Room can be made by taking out Wrap (that can be on separate lists for snakes and tentacle monsters) and Body Slam.
• It implies a short list for "Esoteric Biting Martial Arts" that can have Fire Fang, Super Fang, Thunder Fang, Ice Fang, Hyper Fang, Poison Fang, and Head Butt.

That leaves Houndoom's infernalism power list to explain:

• Beat Up
• Faint Attack
• Embargo
• Nasty Plot
• Magic Coat
• Mud Slap
• Snore
• Spite
• Sucker Punch
• Uproar

Which seems totally doable. Half of those were listed on Koumei's "Evil Bastard" list. And really it looks like the whole list could be called "Douchebag Fratboy" and be fairly cohesive.

But I think the takehome message is that you can cover a pretty established character in the Pokemon world who is fully evolved and has a lot of options with three full lists and a short list. A general rule of being able to get one full list for each of your types and one list for your body type (so Houndoom has a Fire List, a Dark List, and a list for being a Dog), and badasses get to have an Esoteric Martial Training list as well.

-Username17

[Username17]

I just want to say that Bulbapedia is as bad as TVTropes. So much crazy interconnected data, and the connections really do multiply.

So anyway, probably the most important physical profile template is the Mouse Template. Because that's the basic power list that Pikachu runs off, and he is always going to be the flagship pokemon. But it's not just Pikachu. There's a lot of critters that fit that description. Rattata, Marill, Sandshrew, Plusle, Eevee and so on.

• Mouse:
• Scratch
• Defense Curl
• Rapid Spin
• Quick Attack
• Swift
• Fury Swipes
• Growl
• Tail Whip
• Last Resort
• Slash
• Tackle
• Knock Off
• Rollout
• Slam
• Feint
• Scurry

So if you're Plusle or Minun, you get these powers because you're a Mouse. You also get the Personal Battery powers because you're frickin electric, and you get the Cheer powers because that's your schtick. If you're Rattata, you get the Mouse powers, and the Lurker movelist, and the Esoteric Biting Martial Arts list. And yeah, that means Plusle and Minun get three full lists and Rattata gets 2 and a half. But one of them is an Esoteric Martial Arts list, so it's not all bad. Buneary is a rabbit and not strictly speaking a mouse, but Sandshrew is a frickin pangolin, so it's close enough. She gets the Mouse list, the Cheer list, and whatever the bouncing martial arts list is that Kangaskhan gets. If you're Pachirisu you are a frickin super-friendly electrosquirrel and you get the Mouse, Personal Battery, and Charm lists.

-Username17

[Prak]

Sucker Punch (Meanness vs. Hardness)

IIRC, Sucker Punch also takes speed into account and is almost shit because of it, because it fails if you're faster than your opponent, and I think I've seen maybe one pokemon who gets it normally actually be slow...

That sounds like some other move. Sucker Punch fails if the enemy is faster than you and uses Quick Attack (or Sucker Punch), and it fails if your opponent uses Harden (or any other move that isn't an attack).

Point is that since the normal effect of it is to ignore enemy speed, it seems like a pretty obvious candidate for Umbreon to directly attack the Hardness of his opponent.

-Username17

I'm pretty sure it is the move I was thinking of, but, you have your point.

That's a pretty convincing argument to me.

Yeah. That makes sense. I was on the fence about having that many stats, but I understand the arguement now.

There's a lot of critters that fit that description. Rattata, Marill, Sandshrew, Plusle, Eevee and so on

I always saw Eevee as more of a fox... but it looks like you're just talking move wise?

[Archmage]

A lot of moves in Pokémon are essentially palette swaps of one another--they have the same attack power and only differ in type. Examples:

-Quick Attack (normal)
-Aqua Jet (water)
-Bullet Punch (steel)
-Ice Shard (ice)
-Mach Punch (fighting)
-Shadow Sneak (dark)
-Vacuum Wave (fighting)

In-game, they all have base power 40 and cause you to go first regardless of speed (i.e., a +1 priority modifier) unless someone is using another move that has an even higher priority modifier.

If you consider the number of moves that are essentially just differently-typed clones of one another, you don't have ~480 moves (haven't counted the actual number of attacks), you've got quite a few less. The only differences between the attacks aside from typing are the occasional secondary effects, like burn or freeze.

Should this be handled by actually differentiating the moves more, or can the amount of work to be done be reduced by permitting some "move clones" without meaningfully reducing the tactical complexity of play?

[Prak]

well, the non-differences between such moves in the video games are because of the media. In a video game, especially the kind of video game that the pokemon games are, all that really matters with the moves is how hard and fast the pokemon hits.

In a table top rpg that allows more strategy and granularity, those moves can have more differences. Aqua Jet, for example, will create puddles of water and soak the target, while Ice shard may freeze the ground around the target, and maybe the path between attacker and target, and might even leave sharp ice spikes around the target.


Attributes: are pcs going to roll their base stats? d4 maybe?

[Archmage]

I figured there would be some differentiation between the abilities, but my thought is that it would be easy to pick some appropriate damage point and then just vary the "special effects" for a couple basic moves that each type might have. Obviously, you don't want to do the 4e thing where every move is just a different damage keyword with a trivially different debuff, but having some basic amount of damage that an average Tier 1 elemental attack deals doesn't seem like a mistake to me.

Also, I'd suggest against randomized PC stats in favor of array-based options. And are you talking about PC trainers or PC pokes? Because at this point, I can't see trainers using the same set of stats as their monsters.

[Username17]

I think Trainers would have to use the same stats as their Pokemon. They need to have the same Defenses because they are going to be subjected to Charizard flame jets from time to time. That's 6 of the 9 stats accounted for straight off. At which point, why not have the Trainers have a Meanness, Allure, and Domination stat? Indeed, those sound like pretty useful stats to have if you're a Pokemon trainer.

I figured there would be some differentiation between the abilities, but my thought is that it would be easy to pick some appropriate damage point and then just vary the "special effects" for a couple basic moves that each type might have. Obviously, you don't want to do the 4e thing where every move is just a different damage keyword with a trivially different debuff, but having some basic amount of damage that an average Tier 1 elemental attack deals doesn't seem like a mistake to me.

The big difference is of course going to be effect template. There actually aren't a whole lot of status effects that you need to worry about, so to an extent you're going to necessarily be looking at a bit of 4eing on that issue. We can do better of course, because the 4e debuffs of "Dazed", "Stunned", "Weakened", and "Slowed" all show up in the same thesaurus entry. This linguistic identity between them really lends itself to the identical feeling of using any of them - subtle tactical differences be damned. Pokemon's major statuses include Confused, Asleep, Paralyzed, but they also have some really batshit stuff like Leechseed.

But the short answer is that yes there should be some relatively standardized damage arrays.

-Username17

[Koumei]

• Dragon Rage and stuff should probably go into some Dragon List or another. No special need for it to appear on the fire starter list. Just weird for that to be a Torkoal and Houndoom power.
• I think Roar and Odor Sleuth should be on the Predator List. Room can be made by taking out Wrap (that can be on separate lists for snakes and tentacle monsters) and Body Slam.

Done and done. Obviously, some of the powers appearing on these lists are not ones found in Pokemon. But it should be easy enough to figure out what they do.

So from the looks of it, for "body type" lists we'd want:
Mouse (includes many animals), Dog (arguably includes the 2 bears), Dinosaur, Snake (includes things like Dratini and Onyx), Bug (separate from Bug Type, but happens to cover most Bug Type Pokemon), Sphere (Voltorb, Geodude, Jigglypuff...), Humanoid, Bird (includes the bats), Dragon (which is basically Dinosaur with wings), Fish (covers roughly half the Water Types. Shut up, I know whales aren't fish, but whatever), Tentacled (Octopuses, Jellyfish, masses of vines)... what else?

I mean, the other lists, there could be a kajillion of them, based on how many lists certain Types can be divided into (Psychic lends itself to more than Poison, for instance) and how many thematic-move lists seem appropriate ("Biting"). And plenty of mini-lists. But there could conceivably be a fixed list of body type lists.

And it occurs to me that there are heaps of status effects in Pokemon, it's just that only a few (Sleep/Poison/Confuse/Paralysis... maybe Flinch and Locked-In) crop up often enough that anyone gives a shit.

[Koumei]

Big Dog

• Growl
• Dig
• Howl
• Bite
• Leer
• Crunch
• Roar
• Odour Sleuth
• Stomp
• Cold Nose
• Lick
• Rest
• Swift
• Snore
• Pounce
• Pursuit

[Username17]

I'd put Crunch (Houndour, Poochyena, Growlithe), Swift (Growlithe, Entei, Houndour) and Leer (Houndour, Growlithe, Entei) in there. Oddly enough, I don't think any big dogs get Yawn, Slash, or Scratch unless you count Teddy Ursa or Stunky as "dogs." And I don't think you should, because Teddy Ursa gets all the "punch" moves off the humanoid list and stunky gets the moves like Screech and Slash off the Cat list. Which means that Pepe Le'pew was totally right: Cats are Skunks.

-Username17

[Koumei]

Done. An yeah, my dog yawns a lot, and scratches all the time despite not seeming to possess fleas. This must mean he has access to a different list.

Now...

Human-Like:

• Double Slap
• Focus Punch
• Sucker Punch
• Mega Punch
• Fire Punch
• Thunder Punch
• Ice Punch
• Wake-Up Slap
• Smelling Salt
• Revenge
• Dynamic Punch
• Sky Uppercut
• Close Combat
• Copycat
• Baton Pass
• Mimic

Cat:

• Scratch
• Screech
• Slash
• Cut
• Fury Swipes
• Bite
• Taunt
• Night Slash
• Assurance
• Sand Attack
• Quick Attack
• Swift
• Covet
• Rest
• Sing
• False Swipe

Tentacular:

• Wrap
• Power Whip
• Wring-Out
• Ingrain
• Entangle
• Tickle
• Constrict
• Ancient Power
• Bind
• Fling
• Slam
• Knock-Off
• Stockpile
• Spit Up
• Swallow
• Block

[Username17]

So... movement. I think that there should be no diagonals and just have people move one square at a time in an orthagonal direction. Now the real question is how many squares are expected to be taken up on the board and how many can be moved each turn. If people move too slowly, there is no melee and the game is tactically dull. If people move too quickly, distance means nothing and the game is tactically dull.

I would say that Final Fantasy Tactics and Disgaea are very strong games in this category. And they give characters movement rates in the 3-5 range. But they also give out movement bonuses like candy, and you can get a movement of about 10 without a lot of difficulty.

How does giving characters a Move of 3 + Speed sound? Pokemon moving between 3 spaces and 7 spaces in a turn. Seems like you could play that on a Go board (19x19 map).

-Username17

[IGTN]

Your reasoning for board size seems sound.

What are we doing about setting for this? It obviously needs a write-up for Kanto (or just pull that from online pokemon guides), since people are going to want to go there. Should it also have another region of its own?

Also, I like the idea of doing a more fantastic setting than the psuedo-modern Pokemon world. Something with orc and sahuagin pokemon trainers in it. It can still have all of the pokemon tropes thrown in. The question for that is this: do we want to make it as its own setting, or do we want to do an adaptation of an existing setting?

E: Also, an adventure seed occurs to me:
"The gym's closed. A wild Ifrit has been breaking things. If you can stop it, we'd be able to open and you could challenge for your badge. Take this Magic Lamp. It's a pokeball that's super effective against genies."

[Jilocasin]

Oh wow, just read through the thread and this project looks like something I'd love to contribute to. Been a lurker for a while. Anyway, I agree that FFT and Disgaea are great models for tactical battles of this sort and 3-7 movement sounds like it would work. I was looking at the grid sizes of FFT maps and the greater portion of them are somewhere between 11x11 and 15x15. That leads me to think that Go board size would work quite well for our purposes here. Reason being, I'm assuming that height (which is a big component of the two aforementioned games) wouldn't be that much of a factor since modeling it in a similar fashion in a tabletop game would be extremely time consuming. The smaller grid sizes in the video games work with those movement ranges because often times you're actually moving a lot less than your full movement value. Like when you have to cross water, or jump down a cliff, or up a waterfall or something. Emulating a lot of that would be pretty easy with obstacles and difficult terrain; trees and boulders and swamps and ice and whatnot, maybe even sheer cliffs. I just envision that before battle actually beings it would be much easier to move your full movement value. So a slightly larger average map size would work well. And of course I know that eventually in FFT you get shit like Ignore Height and Teleport.

The other thing that got me thinking about is the importance of carefully regulating the ranges where engagement becomes practical. This being pokemon, I assume that short range combat is going to be the norm and I absolutely love the idea of really weird targeting areas for the moves. Ranged moves being maybe between 2 and 4 squares away (with arbitrary targeting). Long range moves being relatively few and extremely limited in scope. Along the line of Earth Slash with a range of maybe 7.

This is just an idea that popped into my head and I want to get it down somewhere. This probably goes without saying, but here it is anyway. A lot of pokemon fluff has to do with moves that can dramatically alter the landscape and I think it would be interesting to see that in this system. So if there's a boulder within the Rock Smash targeting reticle, after the move resolves that boulder isn't there anymore. Or you use Earthquake and a chasm opens up, or after you use Surf there's a big pool of water on the battlefield.

Just my 2 cents for now.