Pokemon as D&D monsters

[Jilocasin]

Well, those are just the pokedex entries which usually have almost nothing to do with how the pokemon actually function. It's like when people playing DnD assume that a frost giant or something is really really fuckin' big when it's actually only large size. So if there's interest in writing new pokedex entries for everything then fine, but I wouldn't look at them as they are now as anything other than rough (extremely rough) guidelines.

Although Charizard seems okay to me, hell most of the torches I use to make jewelry can easily reach those temperatures. After all, the melting point of platinum is 3214.9 °F.

Wailord on the other hands is all kinds of crazy. I took this from another site.

Estimating Wailord to be and cylinder with a radius of 18ft, it height being 47 feet 7 inches based off of his pokedex entry. With a weight of 877.4lbs, also told by the pokedex.

Wailord's Density = 0.29018 g/l
Hydrogen's Density = 0.0899 g/L
Helium's Density = 0.1785 g/L
Lithium's Density = 0.534 g/L
Air at STP = 1.297 g/L

[Username17]

Since we don't know what material Magcargo is made out of, its temperature is kind of meaningless. Temperature is just a measurement of whether heat is being transferred in or out. Since Magcargo is magically sending heat out, he could very well have a measured temperature of infinity billion or whatever. Temperature is just energy divided by specific heat. So if Magcargo has a specific heat of .1 instead of Water's 4, that 10,800 degrees kelvin is actually no more energy than is required to bring water to its melting point. And for that matter, it doesn't say what its conductivity is. It doesn't matter how hot something gets, if its conductivity is only allowing a few joules through, it'll only feel slightly warm to the touch. That Magcargo statistic, while fascinating, is actually totally meaningless in absence of other statistics. It could just go ahead and be true for all I care.

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Anyway, if levels aren't going to be a big deal, stat spreads don't have to be balanced at any given level, just at a pokemon's "point cost." What that means practically speaking is that you can apply a "template" that increases stats and cost, but doesn't increase level.

So the "value" of a Level 16 Bulbasaur might be the same as the "value" of a trained level 10 Venusaur. Being lower level, it won't have the level 15 Bulbaoption (whatever that is), but it will have the evolution option (probably Frenzy Plant) as well as the training options.

-Username17

[IGTN]

So you're saying, essentially, that Venusaur can have a level adjustment? Works for me.

Legendaries can get good stat spreads, balanced (vs advancement) by a level adjustment that tells you what the level equivalency is with an ordinary pokemon.

[Prak]

ain't much of use, but I thought I'd share this photobucket album I found that's good inspiration for pokemaniac characters:

[Avoraciopoctules]

Wow. There's definitely some pretty neat stuff in that album. The image you are using as a link would probably work pretty well for Knights as well.

EDIT: I am most amused by http://s277.photobucket.com/albums/kk61 ... ugtrio.png

[Prak]

Wow. There's definitely some pretty neat stuff in that album. The image you are using as a link would probably work pretty well for Knights as well.

Yeah the steel type maniacs look like they perfectly portray a trainer who fights beside his pokemon. Some of them err into pokegirl/boy territory (the Char trio all have tails) but most of them are just wearing pokemon inspired stuff. Sometimes I love the random stuff I find.

It occurs to me there could be small clans of Exile barbarians who have taken up pokemon as their totems, and look a good bit like some of these.

[Username17]

I really like the look of the Steel Trainers, yeah. Definitely looks like a group of armored badasses. But I also really like where they went with Bug Maniacs.

Holy shit Beedrill. A sort of flying dual wielder blitz warrior package. And that's Not a one-off. The whole bug maniac group seems very Consistent. It's what the D&D Ranger or Rogue classes were trying to be.

-Username17

[Koumei]

It's what the D&D Ranger or Rogue classes were trying to be.

Emphasis on the word Trying.

Anyway, I have mixed feelings about the "100 levels of practically no bonus, moves sparsely spread out, enjoy controlling actual teams" thing. Okay that latter bit sounds kind of cool. Like getting a point between D&D and Skubhammer, where each player has a squad of Pokemon out and kicking ass, with a horrible mixture of attacked-squares as everyone tries not to catch their allies in the AoEs.

But something seems nice and simple about "30 levels, each level makes you that much intrinsically better. Gain a move more or less every level."

I don't feel so strongly that I'll stick to it if everyone else prefers the other idea, though.

[IGTN]

I like the smaller divisions since it allows you to have pokemon of different levels of ability, where one is overall better and another is situationally better. With stats from 1-4 and a +3 per-level bonus, a Base Meanness 1 pokemon is as mean as a Base Meanness 4 pokemon one level lower. With a +1 per-level bonus, you can have pokemon of slightly different levels where the lower-level one is actually meaner, or cuter, or faster, or whatever, even if the higher-level one is better overall.

We could call the +1 bonuses something other than levels. Increments, maybe? So you get +1 per Increment and +3 per level, and when you gain three Increments you lose them and gain a level that comes with a chance to learn a new move, maybe evolve, and so on. I'm not attached to any specific terminology, though.

[Username17]

I don't see any reason to have 100 levels of +1s, nor would there be any pressing reason for 30 level of +3s. Those are really big numbers. Remember that you don't really have the whole d20 to play with for differences in bonuses, because each difference is going to be boosting one pokemon's attacks an penalizing the other's. So at like +/-12 you've basically kicked the RNG in the dick pretty hard. So with those kinds of level spreads, you're looking at like 7 or 8 tiers of almost total noninteraction. And that seems pretty extreme. I'm totally willing to have an actual phase shift, where Suicune in't required to give a fuck about normal Beedrills unless they how up in swarms that collectively count as a higher level dealy. But I don't want to have to do that six more times until we're threatening Mewtwo with a riot marker of Charizards.

Remember that 4e D&D already has a rubric where people (supposedly) gain +1 to attack and defenses each level, and things are pretty strung out to get out to 30 levels - the high end stops making sense numerically even before we we get to Yogi hats and shit. Even if people don't try to obscure 4e' tramp stamp with their double attribute bonuses to-hit jizm, the fact is that 4e's number are unstable at "epic" level.

The take home message is that even at +1/level it probably makes sense to measure normal people and pokemon from level 1-20 and reserve like 4 or 5 levels after that for "Epic" characters like Mewtwo. Even that might be excessive once you factor in the idea of Snorlax having bigger stats than Loudred.

But in any case, the level range and the number of tiers of obsolescence that people want needs to get nailed down before the rest of the RNG choices are made. And they do have to be made before stats are finalized.

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Anyways, it seems to me that the best D&D-esque world to be doing crosovers with is seriously probably Enroth (the world from Might and Magic VI and VII as well as Heroes of Might and Magic II and III). It has the advantage of having a culture where people already run around as champions leading skirmish groups of mixed humanoids and/or monsters to fight each other and it also has the advantage of having been destroyed.

Besides, having all the demons and devils and shit called Kreegans is a better name than "Tanar'ri and Baatorian." It has the same crashed spaceship nonsense that Greyhawk does, but we can give the crashed spaceships of Enroth precisely the same gloss-over that we give the crashed spaceships of Pokemon World.

-Username17

[Jilocasin]

Twenty levels seems to me to be a good level range. It's small enough that there shouldn't have to be any dead levels but it's big enough that there's room for creatures significantly weaker and significantly more powerful. Also, practically speaking, it can be a little bit bigger than those twenty levels if we add even just three tags after a pokemon's name. [Wild], [Trained], and [Legendary]. Since wild pokemon only know 2 or 3 moves any trained pokemon is automatically on slightly better footing. We can add in some other bonuses as well if necessary, but the point is that (on a 1-20 scale) a [Trained] pokemon ought to be able to relatively easily challenge a [Wild] pokemon that is 2-4 levels higher. The [Legendary] tag would work similarly.

A few things to keep in mind as far as I'm envisioning this. Running into groups of [Wild] pokemon is common, so you'll probably usually be evenly matched or outnumbered. Battling [Trained] pokemon should be on more or less even footing, but a variance of one or two levels isn't going to ruin your chances, especially if your group of four trainers goes against their group of three. [Legendary] pokemon have further advantages. I'd argue that they should be fairly equal on the RNG to a [Trained] pokemon of similar level, but they should have other advantages. More and better moves, greater options for tactical advantage, whatever else ends up working. I mean, legendaries don't huddle in groups so meeting two at once would be practically a miracle.

Something like this might even work with just fifteen levels. Regardless, I like the idea of something around 1-20 levels with three tiers within those levels that can still interact with each other. It might be a good idea to add in some rule where a trainer can only have one legendary on their team at a time. Also it occurs to me that six is a pretty big number, especially if your trainer also has abilities that work in battle. People who have more experience with this kind of big melee please correct me if I'm way off, I just don't want battles to feel too slow. Or maybe you can just have one pokemon out at once, whatever.

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Anyways, it seems to me that the best D&D-esque world to be doing crosovers with is seriously probably Enroth (the world from Might and Magic VI and VII as well as Heroes of Might and Magic II and III). It has the advantage of having a culture where people already run around as champions leading skirmish groups of mixed humanoids and/or monsters to fight each other and it also has the advantage of having been destroyed.

Besides, having all the demons and devils and shit called Kreegans is a better name than "Tanar'ri and Baatorian." It has the same crashed spaceship nonsense that Greyhawk does, but we can give the crashed spaceships of Enroth precisely the same gloss-over that we give the crashed spaceships of Pokemon World.

Yes.

[Prak]

One thing that might be interesting for Legendaries as an advantage is a passive impact on their surroundings, kind of like Groudon's and Kyogre's special abilities, but a bit more influential and just something Legendaries do. So Groudon comes out and the sun brighten's, and veins of lava surface, Kyogre is sent out and a torrential downpour starts as hurricane winds whip up, sure, but then, say, Dialga comes out and times slows down or speeds up, or stands still, Palkia is sent out and holes in space open up, etc.

[Username17]

Every Pokemon has a passive effect on its environment. Even if that passive effect is merely "has a threatened area of the square directly in front of it and the two diagonals adjacent to that." Now that being said, the fact that the passive effect of of a Lairon is that there are a couple of squares that you can't move through without suffering an opportunity attack if the Lairon holds his ground while the passive effect of Articuno is that it fucking dumps snow on the entire battlefield every round - means that there is a noticeable distinction in how meaningful those continuous effects really are. So those passive effects could be factored into the points cost of different Pokemon. Groudon's value is really high because he can passively set the entire battlefield on fire and still rape any resistant ground types and such by firing a solar beam whenever he wants. Just based on that, Groudon can probably take many hole teams all at once just by keeping to cover and raping enemies one at a time while everyone gets dunked in the lava.

Now consider the Plusle Paradox. Minun and Plusle presumably provide some sort of passive cheerleading bonus. What else could they do? And presuming for the moment that we don't go the 4e Righteous Brand route and actually cap aid to something that won't skull fuck the RNG, it's entirely likely that a "Baton Passer" Minun will provide a very comparable amount of offensive punch at 4th level as it does at 14th - since it is mostly there to helping hand allies. Like how in 4e, a Wizard can minion pop and a Paladin can lay on hands or provide a divine challenge AC buff to the other characters basically exactly the same at 1st level or 21st level, so if there was a way to get extra lo level characters on your team, you'd totally do that. There are several design decisions we could make in response to that.

• Discourage players from farming out helping hand jobs to low level Plusles by setting suggested encounter point values based on the highest point value on the player's side.
• Encourage people to do that and talk about trying to use tactical positioning to keep enemies from being able to molest the PC's low level (and thus vulnerable) Lopunnies.
• Outright ban lowlevel cheerleaders by putting attenuation and finally negation on characters providing assistance bonuses to higher level characters.

Personally, I would go with a combination of 2 and 3. That is, allow Pokemon to have a substantial but not unlimited level differential to still provide the max bonus. That makes attempting to get to a position where you can attack someone's Miltank a reasonable tactical goal because a smart trainer is probably going to keep front liners higher level than the healers in the back. But not so much higher level that it actually gets booted off the RNG.

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In other news: the Bug Class is called "Soldier". The Flying class is called Icarite. I am deeply unhappy with the name of the Water, Ice, and Ground classes. If you got ideas, I would like to hear them.

-Username17

[IGTN]

Water could be Swimmer, Aquatic * (or just Aquatic), Diver, or we could label it as a scientist (Marine biologist, Oceanologist, whatever)

Ground could be Hiker, although those were more rock type in the game. Mountaineer also works as a name, and wasn't used in English. Also Pioneer, Nomad, or anything like that.

Ice could be Snowshaper, or we could grab the skiier/boarder trainer classes from the game.

[Jilocasin]

2 and 3 sound good to me. Assuming 20 levels what kind of max level difference are we talking about that still allows for cheerleader bonuses?

Okay so as far as pinning down the level range and tiers of obsolescence go, the following sounds okay to me. A range of 20 levels with individual legendaries being more powerful than individual trained pokemon of the same level, and those being more powerful than individual wild pokemon of similar level. Since generally speaking a trainer will almost always be utilizing only trained pokemon, that's gonna be the baseline from which you compare the power (and point values) of wilds and legendaries. For tiers, well, I'd like it if Ho-oh never had to worry about Pidgey, even 9 or 10 of them, ever. Pidgeot sure, but I find something distasteful about legedaries ever having to worry about even a huge swarm of Caterpie.

What do other people want?

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I like Aqualogue or Hydrologue (or something like that) for water.

[IGTN]

A same level pidgey (especially a trained one) should still be something for Ho-Oh to worry about. Of course, Pidgey has little reason not to evolve.

[Jilocasin]

Yeah, I can't really think of any reason why Pidgey wouldn't evolve if it was that high a level.

I perhaps worded my last post a bit poorly. I'm not saying that a Pidgey of equal level to Ho-oh shouldn't be able to put up any kind of fight. I am saying that it should take more than one of those Pidgeys to have a significant shot of winning. I guess I just assumed that lowest evolution pokemon would pretty much always be low to mid-range in level. Correct me if I'm misunderstanding you, but if you don't think that legendaries should be inherently more powerful than non-legendaries of the same level, well I disagree with that. I think that a single one should be a challenge for a whole team of equal level. I can't imagine that players are going to run into them all that often anyway though, so I'm perfectly willing to be flexible.

This is maybe all moot anyway since we haven't come to any real decision about levels and tiers.

[IGTN]

I agree that legendaries should be more powerful than others of the same level. But if the math's going to work at all, then Pidgey needs to be able to hit Ho-oh at the same level. Pidgey might be badly outclassed on hit points and damage, but the choice between swatting the pidgey down or attacking the other trainer's feraligatr or whatever needs to be an actual tactical choice for Ho-oh to make.

Pidgey should only always be low-level in the wild. Trainers can have all sorts of weird things.

The only problem with making one legendary match an entire team of trainers is that at the end, someone's going to throw the pokeball and catch it, and everyone else isn't. So eventually a legendary is going to end up as a PC's pokemon, and something has to be done to keep party balance when that happens.

Remember that this is a game where the premise is that every monster in the monster books will eventually work its way onto a PC's team roster, so you can't put in unbalanced monsters like you can with D&D. That doesn't mean Legendaries can't be bigger, but it does mean that they can't be so big that one PC becomes better than all the others combined just by virtue of having thrown the first successful pokeball at it.

[Jilocasin]

Right, gotcha.

[Prak]

well, one thing to keep in mind is that, in the anime, the Legendaries aren't unique (with Mewtwo as an exception)

Many legendary Pokémon are shown to breed in the wild, as seen with Lugia, while none are immortal nor invincible, as seen by the death of Celebi and the injury of Arceus. Very few, in fact, are unique, with only Mewtwo known to be (due to the circumstances of its creation) and Arceus, Dialga, Palkia, and Giratina assumed to be, due to their role in the creation of the universe.

So it's entirely possible for two groudons to face off, or a flock of articuno's to go fuck a single groudon's shit up.

Unlikely, but possible.

[Crissa]

Just because they breed in the wild doesn't mean there's flocks of them.

They seem to require a very large personal range and are just good at not being seen.

There are mountain lions in silicon valley. Where? We don't really know. Yet they cross the area, never being seen.

-Crissa

[Prak]

My point was that it's not like one character is gaining completely asymmetric power just because they catch Groudon. Not only can he be countered by a trainer that has Kyogre, he can also be countered by someone else who also caught Groundon.

I kinda went off on a tangent towards the end, but really my point is that they are not unique, and it's totally possible for twenty trainers to each have the same legendary.

[IGTN]

If the party only meets one Groundon in an adventure, and one of them catches it, then the intra-party balance breaks if Groundon is as good as everyone else's best pokemon combined. It doesn't matter if you can counter that with someone else who also has Groundon, unless legendaries travel in groups of three to six, there is going to be party imbalance if they're too much more powerful.

A small imbalance can be allowed, and made self-correcting if, for instance, the legendary gains levels slower or whatever. An imbalance where one player is as the entire rest of the party is game-destructive. So legendaries have to fall somewhere between "trained" and "as good as a trained party." One possibility is to give them unique powers that other pokemon just don't get (Articuno dropping snow over the entire battlefield continually, to use Frank's example), and a few numerical bonuses, maybe a better-than-average stat array, and then give them an according EXP table.

Something like that, or they could actually get weaker in a trainer's hands, losing Legend status. But that's something people complain about in video games, and something pokemon doesn't actually do, so we shouldn't do it.

[Jilocasin]

I like unique powers. They always have them anyway, so not porting that aspect over would probably make them seem lacking.

It occurs to me that there's no reason why trainers have to have a maximum of six pokemon. They could just have a point value maximum, justifying that wouldn't even be difficult. All you need to say is that legendaries need more of a trainer's attention, or whatever. So you could have a legendary and maybe three 'normal' pokemon or six 'normal' pokes before you reach maximum allotted point value for you team. That would give you enough pokemon to have a reasonable variance in type and not totally break party balance. It would also force some decisions about sheer power versus variety.

And of course you're totally right. Legendaries have to be more powerful, but not that much more powerful.

[Koumei]

I was about to say we could do the Mystery Dungeon thing and have Legendaries take up more "slots". So while most people have their team of six out all at once, your Rayquaza takes up 3-4 slots on its own.

Though in MD it was mainly based on Bigness (Celebi and Darkrai still took only 1 of the 4 slots, whereas Gyarados and Onyx took up two slots. But most of the big legendaries like Palkia, Dialga and Giratina, took up three).

Incidentally, animu says Darkrai is a good guy (if misunderstood) who protects people from P&D, but can only communicate through nightmares. The games say he's an evil jerk (and he's pure Dark type, which cinches it!) Which should we go with?

Although my Darkrai in Diamond loves me so much it wants to affectionately chomp my neck.