Pokemon TableTop - /ptt/

>>53934794
That's why I'm currently building a prototype of a Pokemon TT game in which Pokemon are not nearly as complex and battling can be easily done with few hassles.

It will take inspiration from games that build dice pools in order to compete with other characters or Pokemon. The Pokemon themselves will only have two core attributes: Strength and Agility. As for other attributes, such as Charisma or Willpower, it's assumed that Pokemon share the values of their Trainers. Strength dictates the amount of HP and Damage a Pokemon can produce, and Agility helps in winning opposing rolls. Trainers will use skills to assist their Pokemon in getting their actions across. This system will use d6's and d20's (inb4 d20 ugh). The d20 is purely used as a way to determine critical effects or rare dodge chances, but they do not become a wacky auto pass or auto fail mechanic. Here's an example of how a battle might flow in this system:

To be continued...(1)

>>53935810
(2)

Two trainers, Bill and Pete, decide to have a battle between Bill's Pikachu and Pete's Charmander. Instead of going through entire character sheets for both Pokemon and Trainer, we simply build dice pools based on the trainer's intelligence and skill and the Pokemon's level and speed.

So the battle starts. Bill commands Pikachu to use Thundershock, and Pete commands Charmander to use Ember. Each trainer adds a d6 to their pool equal to their Int, so let's say 2d6 for Bill and 3d6 for Pete. Bill's Pikachu is a higher level, but not by too much, so Bill adds another d6 to even the playing field. Finally, they both add a d20 to their pools. They both roll their dice. Their Pokemon adds their Agility value to the result, and each trainer can re-roll a number of their d6's equal to their ranks in Battle Command skill (name in progress). Let's say that with a higher skill from Bill and a higher Agility rating from his Pikachu, Pikachu is able to win the roll. Bill also rolls a 20 on his d20, so not only does the attack go through, it does a critical effect as well, adding a Paralysis effect. The damage is taken from Charmander's HP, and since Charmander lost the roll, his attack does not go through, ending the Attack phase. Trainers continue to issue commands and roll until a victor is decided.

I'm currently working on the rules for everything right now. I just need to name skills, add items and set values for each Pokemon but that's the gist of it, it won't be as simple as that but not complicated either. I'm hoping that after one session Trainers can get used to it and should be able to complete battles within 10-30 minutes, depending on party size.

>>53934794
I actually feel like playing pokemon tabletop now. For some reason, I fucking love pokemon.

Btw, a bit out of topic, but I recently made a pokemon boardgame just because I was bored. :D

>>53935810
>>53935821
What about pokemon who have high defenses? How would something like ferrothorn work. Also if 'strength' is HP AND ATTACK, how does blissey work? If you reflect the high HP with high strength that is also damage output, its sounds like that needs fixing.

>>53934794
It's very hard to simplify Pokemon without losing parts of what people really like about Pokemon, and the trainer being so complicated I feel is just because the devs for PTA/PTU like 3.5 and 4e D&D more than they like Pokemon. The trainer should be able to influence the battle sure, but they don't need to be any more complicated than the monsters that are doing the actual battling.

>>53937456
The issue with PTU isnt that trainers can do stuff in combat, its that theres very little stop people from picking up both combat and support classes, which gives players too much options in fights and slows things down.

In PTA classes are harder to pick up, but each one has a ton of broken things which when coupled with the fact trainera and pokemon dont even follow the same rules, is what breaks it.

>>53937456
> The trainer should be able to influence the battle sure, but they don't need to be any more complicated than the monsters that are doing the actual battling.
I agree with this. >>53935821 mentioned using the trainer's "intelligence" in battle, and I think that's an error. Trainers use their intelligence by giving the right order, commanding the right attack, etc. I think all stats battle-related should come from the pokemon and the pokemon only (although the trainer could help the pokemon grow specific stats during training or something).

Also, I think that using pokemon stats (attack, defense, sp attack, sp defense and speed) is quite a good deal. Those stats are quite simple (attack/defense and specials work basically the same) and you can easily fit speed in there (like a dnd initiative roll, to see who is doing what first), though I would rather use a roll and through some randomness there than be like pokemon and have a 501 speed pokemon always attack before a 500. Tabletop people like a bit of randomness.

>>53937656
Main issue with the iniative thing is how to implement it? Having played/run a PTU campaign, i like the idea but with pokemon stats growing each level and as they evolve, it seems the die would either matter too much or not at all, with maybe a small range where it works as intended.

>>53937763
Well, depends on how much their stats grow, really. I think their stats growth should be mostly based on the pokemon's species, but there should be some room for customizing because hell, that is what people want to do on tabletops.

> i like the idea but with pokemon stats growing each level and as they evolve, it seems the die would either matter too much or not at all
That is pretty much a thing on games like DND, and people use initiative rolls anyway. To make this sort of decision, first we would need to sit down and decide a few things, such as the maximum level of a pokemon, and based on that the maximum stats a pokemon can reach. Stat growth can be done in a thousand different ways, and it would really depend on which way we choose to use.

>>53937967
Should have said up front that i was assuming the PTU/A level ups. Their way of doing it works well as you get to customize within reason (no throwing all points for chansey into attack, etc).

Early game when speeds are low the die would feel way to arbitrary as magnimites out speed pikachus, from 20 to about 30/35maybe it would be fine, but still a bit swingy. Anything after is mostly going to come down to stat spreads.

One thing i see changing all this is if the die you roll changes depending on your level bracket.

But even then, most pokemon encounters ive dealt with in my games have 8-20 combatants, and i REALLY wouldnt want to do this for each one and each time a new one is sent out. Maybe only the trainers roll initative bonuses and their pokemon also get whatever they roll. Slightly more simple, and can showcase trainer prowess.

>>53937967
Pokemon can also change their stats mid-battle, so I'd rather the rolls be not added in just so the overhead doesn't get outrageous. It's already a lot to handle.
>>53937656
Yeah, ideally a trainer would really just have some skills and some orders and that's it. Pokemon is already a complete RPG system without anything added.

>>53937581
I think that even if you go full support or full combat, trainers are way too complicated when you're dealing with progression and with combat. The game's complexity level is way too high and it's WAY too easy to pull yourself into a trap build, with a lot of classes not really solidifying until the last or second to last feature.

>>53937763
Now, as we start to put numbers and shit, our opinions are going to diverge. I haven't done any previous work on this, so I will just write here as it comes to my mind:

I would make stat growth REALLY SMALL. I would give each pokemon (species) specific stats, so every charmander would have the default stats of a charmander, every squirtle would have the default stats of a squirtle, etc. Then everytime a pokemon levels up, the player would be able to choose one stat to upgrade. Naturally, it takes more and more experience (and time) to level up each additional level, so the easiest way to get your pokemon is stronger really would be evolving (which is sort of how pokemon was supposed to work, in my opinion).

Here are some numbers for a pokemon's base stats (attack, defense, sp attack, sp defense, speed):

Charmander: [5,4,5,4,4]
Charmeleon: [7,6,7,6,6]
Charizard: [10,9,10,9,9]

So like you can see, I would make it in a way that the difference between a basic non-evolved pokemon and a fully-evolved badass pokemon is around 2x stats :)

When it comes to leveling, I would go with a rate similar to DND, so from 1 to 20, things like that. Each levels gives +1 stat of the trainer's choice. There could be a limitation that stops players from maxing a single stat, so I would expect that a level 1 charmander to have around 5 on its attributes, while a fully leveled charizard would have around 20. Using a d20 with such numbers, the dice would always matter.

Also, in my head it would be nice if evolution wasn't strictly based on experience, and would happen randomly at the "dungeon" master's choice. For me, pokemon evolution should fun, surprising and exciting like it was when I was a kid and watched that shitty anime.

>>53938169
> assuming the PTU/A level ups.
i have no idea what that stands for

>>53938187
>Naturally, it takes more and more experience (and time) to level up each additional level, so the easiest way to get your pokemon is stronger really would be evolving (which is sort of how pokemon was supposed to work, in my opinion).
It's the fast track to making Pokemon stronger, not the whole sum of it. That system would totally screw over Pokemon that don't fit the starter mold, which is an incredibly large amount of them.

>>53937388
It's a good question, and one that I've been tinkering with for a while. It's difficult trying to keep them unique while also keeping them simple.

So far, one of my ideas is to make a list of abilities/key words that keep Pokemon unique. An example might be an Alakazam, who might have horrible Strength but a devastating special attack stat. Would look something like this:

Alakazam
(Special Attacker) - When performing a Special Attack, double the Modified Strength added to the Damage.
(Physically Weak) - When leveling up, this Pokemon gains 2 HP per level, rather than the usual 3 HP. This Pokemon also adds 1 to Modified Strength every odd Level, as apposed to 1 every Level.

Another solution I'm thinking of (shown above) would be to separate Base Strength and Agility from Modified Strength and Agility. For each Level a Pokemon gains, they will most likely add 1 to each Modified stat, but also keep flat Attributes for the purposes of dice modifiers.

So, going back to an Alakazam, this time we say at level 50, it would look something like this:

Alakazam (Level 50)
HP - 110 (I wasn't clear on this, HP is based on Strength in the sense that starting HP for a Level 1 Pokemon is 10 + Base Strength. After that, HP goes up by 3 every level unless stated otherwise).

Base:
Strength - 2
Agility - 6

Modified:
Strength - 27
Agility - 56

(Special Attacker) - When performing a Special Attack, double the Modified Strength added to the Damage.
(Physically Weak) - When leveling up, this Pokemon gains 2 HP per level, rather than the usual 3 HP. This Pokemon also adds 1 to Modified Strength every odd Level, as apposed to 1 every Level.

With this method, Base Agility adds to the result of opposing dice rolls, and Modified Strength adds to the damage of attacks, unless stated otherwise (like above).

>>53938187
As far as those stat blocks go, you may as well use the base stat blocks PTU/A use. Its the same base line as in the videogames, divided by 10 and rounded up if needed.

Levels being reduced from 100 to 20 is actually what the devs of ptu are foing for their 2.0 project. Make things simpler and help divorce from being so close to the vidya, which is good.

All that in mind, just d20 (or whatever) + speed would work fine.

>>53938187
>Also, in my head it would be nice if evolution wasn't strictly based on experience, and would happen randomly at the "dungeon" master's choice. For me, pokemon evolution should fun, surprising and exciting like it was when I was a kid and watched that shitty anime.

As someone who's read a lot of Pokemon tabletop games, literally every single one has this corollary. But if you want a recent example of why it's not fun for your progression to be totally random in a game, try out Legend of Legacy's Awakening. Players need SOME stability to hang onto, so just getting rid of mechanically consistent evolutions you can count on would just hurt in the long run.

>>53938235
Mentioned here
>>53938324

>>53938351
Not him but maybe still track exp, but have it be kept GM side. This allows players to still influence growth (challenging other trainers) but also allows the GM some control. Maybe if you havent been abusing you pokemon/pushing them too hard they will evolve mid fight in your time of need.

>>53938316
Im gonna have to agree with >>53937656 here and say just use the base limes from the games or PTU (game stats divided by 10 round up). I feel like keeping at least the frame of pokemon stats is going to overall give less per species rules for you to think up, and gives something concrete to build off of.

>>53938295
Not necessarily. I have done this logic for my pokemon board game and my pokemon card game (2 different games), you just have to take that in consideration when making each pokemon's base stats.

>>53938324
> you may as well use the base stat blocks PTU/A use. Its the same base line as in the videogames
That could be a possibility. I personally prefer going through each pokemon individually and checking case by case, since there are adaptations that need to be done and usually things don't work 100% perfectly when converted. (also, I should note that I only consider gen 1, so that makes it easier to go through each pokemon).

> Players need SOME stability to hang onto, so just getting rid of mechanically consistent evolutions you can count on would just hurt in the long run.
Pokemon level would already be there, and probably trainer level, so there would be already a lot of stability for the player. When pokemons have a specific level to evolve and it happens exactly at that moment, I think it will feel like a race to get to the final stage of evolution, rushing through some potential nice content. Also, will pretty much take evolution out of the roleplay/story, becoming just a stat thing.

>>53938185
>I think that even if you go full support or full combat, trainers are way too complicated when you're dealing with progression and with combat. The game's complexity level is way too high and it's WAY too easy to pull yourself into a trap build, with a lot of classes not really solidifying until the last or second to last feature

Gotta say i disagree. Having played the system for 2 yrs now, its mostly just the number of combatants. If your trainers stick to 1 combat relivant class (be it martial artist or duelist or whatever) and the rest more passive classes like mentor, chef or something, its not bad. Also all classes seem fine. Only exerpience with "trap builds" were caused by GM and player not being on the same page (occult researcher in generic league setting or water ace in hunger-games-who-knows-what-youll-find game). Most classes cap stone feats dont require all the other ones in a given class, and each class does well enough at its roll (mostly its splat book classes that get nuts better lile all of game of throhs elementalists).

>>53938662
That could be a possibility. I personally prefer going through each pokemon individually and checking case by case, since there are adaptations that need to be done and usually things don't work 100% perfectly when converted. (also, I should note that I only consider gen 1, so that makes it easier to go through each pokemon)

Even still, your current system doesn't work for a lot of bulkier pokemon like cloyster (aside from maybe giving bonus HP? but then you ruin chansey's gimmick) or ones with higher HP bit low ATK like wigglytuff.

I do agree giving specific benefits to certain species is nice and need so some low teir pokemon like raticate or pidgeot cant still have a shot mechanically. Its probably more than you want to include, but again I gotta give props to PTU for having done this, giving unique amd powerful abilities to weaker mons. Stat wise they arent as good bit they better secure a niche than they otherwise would have.

>>53938495
Honestly, you may have given me an idea with this discussion.

What if I were to keep the full statline, and use their video game base stats as a way to determine their numbers in my rendition.

For example, a Pikachu's base stats on Bulbapedia are listed as follows:

HP - 35
Attack - 55
Defense - 40
Special Attack - 50
Special Defense - 40
Speed - 90

What if I were to make it's Base Stats what was listed above but divided by 10, rounding up? So it's Base Stats in my TTRPG become:

HP - (Keep my version, but make it 10 + Defense at Level 1, and it goes up by 3 every Level)
Attack - 6
Defense - 4
Sp Attack - 5
Sp Defense - 4
Speed - 9

Then, as for attacks. I would use the attacks listed from the video games, but divide their power by 10, rounded up. Then, the attack is modified by the Attack if physical, Sp Attack if special.

Example: Thundershock is a 4 damage attack. Pikachu uses it, dealing 4 damage plus Base Sp. Attack plus Level. At level 1, Thundershock does 10 damage. It will scale as HP scales with Level then, and will keep every fight at a consistent rate.

>>53938411
That is great for immersion, but a ton of work for the GM to keep up with. I get the point, but letting the players know when their Pokemon SHOULD evolve doesn't I think lessen the fun when Pokemon do evolve randomly. If anything, it makes it more special when your Pokemon get to evolve early by circumstance when it's not every single one.

>>53938836
Chef, Duelist, Enduring Soul, Tumbler and Dancer are all way more powerful than any other class. Meanwhile, a lot of the Aces kind of suck, and many of the classes need three or four features piled up on each other before they start gaining any real traction.

>>53939027
Most Pokemon tabletop RPGs do this, but it is a good setup so there's no shame in coming to that conclusion.

>>53939027
Might want to make that 10 + the average of both defenses, but then you run into not giving a fair shake to chansey and the like for high base HP. Or accurately reflecting lower HP scores.

Just to be clear, in PTU total HP is (stat X 3)+level of mon+10. But its also scaled for how they do things and how base relation works in that system.

>>53939144
Oh wait you have it a little different. Well, less customization, but it's not such a bad thing.

>>53939003
>I do agree giving specific benefits to certain species is nice and need so some low teir pokemon like raticate or pidgeot cant still have a shot mechanically. Its probably more than you want to include, but again I gotta give props to PTU for having done this, giving unique amd powerful abilities to weaker mons. Stat wise they arent as good bit they better secure a niche than they otherwise would have.
I sketched a pokemon trading card game sometime ago, and that was the solution I came up to make every pokemon "playable". I gave fully-evolved pokemons higher stats, but then gave pokemons without evolution really original and interesting special abilities so that they could still be useful, but less stat-focused. Maybe something like that is possible on a tabletop.

>>53939101
Enduring soul is not as strong as you make it out to be. Its pretty gimmicky (lets shuckle and diglett be more usable but otherwise meh), the breather feat is situational at best, the save checks are nice, but requirement can be steep. Not yet is solid but doesnt allow shenanigans like healing to stay up. I admit the cap stone is nice (although costly on tutor points), but so are other classes.

Chef probably doesnt work how you think it does, since you cant use dumplings to make dumplings, and unless your GM is just throwing tons of money around, its hard to make the better foods/vitamins for your team (much less actually using the 3 slots per poke) and your teammates. Beyond that, food buffs do expire and require beforehand planning.

Most other classes you mentioned are only good if its non-league combat (dancer is pretty null if trainers can't use moves) and in general trainers are far squishier than pokemon, even with class tags and the like. Duelist eats a lot of standard actions to use well so in nonleague matches it can be a burden. Otherwise its also not too hard to mess with due to enemies intercepting attacks on target or forced switches.

The aces are fine, because most are balanced around how good that type is in general, hence why overall ice ace is 'better' than say dragon. Ill agree Psychic and fighting arnt the strongest, but they have their niche. When you consider the classes only get better the more you buy into the type, they work out well. Particularly for gym leagers.

>>53939150
I would probably make Pokemon like high-HP Pokemon like Chansey state that they gain 6 HP per level rather than 3. Maybe have a 'Bulky' keyword to state this.

And with this, I could just use Speed to determine the number of d6's used to build a dice pool, with the Trainer's skill used to re-roll that many dice. It can keep that randomness of Pokemon sometimes failing to act faster despite being naturally quicker and Trainers can impact the result with their skill.

The d20 will still be used for critical effects, like inflicting paralysis. Going back on Pikachu's example for Thundershock dealing 10 damage at Level 1, this damage can then be mitigated by Sp. Def. What if I were to say that if the defending Pokemon's Sp. Def is higher than the Pikachu's Sp. Att, the attacks damage is halved?

That wouldn't sound too much like other systems, would it? I never actually got the chance to look deeply into or play these systems, I just want to make a simple system using dice pools, so hopefully this wouldn't be too identical. Your feedback is also quite helpful.

>>53939328
Not what i was talking about. What i meant is how do you give the fully evolved but lower powered mons a place to perform? Raticate is fully evolved, but doesnt hold a candle to something like rhydon. I dont meant to say 1v1 it should be fair, but you shouldnt make it where you players almost exlusively pick the high teir pokemon like lapras or dragonite over fearow or pinsir. Sure mons that done evolve like farfetchd should get something, but so should weezing who is evolved but might not be on par with aerodactyl.

>>53934794
>ctrl+f pokerole
>0 results

It's far from a perfect system, but if you don't like PTU/PTA, I strongly recommend taking a look at Pokerole.

>>53939489
My main point was to cut down on case by case changing the core system on how a pokemon grows/levels. What they gain each level (move/ability wise) is another story. Youll still have complexity and variety once you get into moves, movement per round, and abilities (like what gen 3 introduced, its the main way PTU make weaker pokemon uasable).

I highly suggest you read whats out there, at least so you can know what others have done and what changes you want to make. By all means build from the ground up, but each step away from the vidya games will make it seem less like pokemon. Depending on what exactly you change, of course. No one will fault you for changing the damage/catch rate formulas.

>>53939537
I think that if the stat difference is not colossal, they can be used. So I would build each pokemon's stats to make it at least useful, even if its a bit weaker.

>>53939699
Base stat totals can be really huge anon. Pokemon like dragonite have nearly 30%more base stats than something like raticate. This effect is exasperated by mons like dragonite having access to higher damage moves and abilities (aside from moves like hyper beam that everything learns via TM).

If all that changes each level up is a handful of stat points and a sprinkling of moves, players looking to powergame will lean yowards ones with higher totals. PTU adressed this by every so many levels a mon chooses an ability from its species list, making some lower powered ones on par with higher powered ones while also giving more options to the players' builds.

Also sorry for quoting PTU so often, its the only one of these games my group played a lot of, and i know it well having GM'd a game.

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https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=349118

my fav pokemon tabletop game. the the summary given in the forum post turned me away at first but after i read it i felt that it has a lot of solutions to common pokemon tabletop problems.

>>53939684
Well I guess the problem I'm seeing then is, that is it even possible to fix this main issue here without straying further away from the games in some way? I'm just seeing that main complaints include battles taking hours because of each Pokemon rockin' a full character sheet. There's no way to trim that down to a reasonable encounter time without having to ditch something. Especially if you want each Pokemon to have a full personality.

I mean, from what I'm seeing, all Pokemon really need are those Base Stats, an ability, HP and XP for Levels. The shows give us reasonable evidence that Pokemon will adopt the personalities of their Trainers, and by rare cases do they act extremely differently. And even if they don't, why can't that just be explained narratively?

FFG's Star Wars TT games are pretty good imo because they focus so much on narrative. Their dice pools are great because they avoid massive number-crunching and stick to range bands because it's simpler than calculating which exact square someone needs to be on every round. We don't need to make every detail a number.

But yea, I'll need to look at these games, as there's a pretty good chance I actually have no idea what I'm talking about.

>>53940025
No, i think youre right here. If you intend for your system to be really lite crunch and focus on narrative, that is really all you need. While games like PTU are far crunchier, you can still easily have a narrative driven game, same as any system. What youve outlined so far fits that goal and only really need details (granted, a lot of them like moves/movement) rounded out on the pokemon side of things.

My main concerns dealt with crunch and thats not what youre going for. But i do think a lot of people who go into a pokemon ttrpg are going to have some expectations, some of which might be better break from rather than adhere to.

Bump for interest.

>>53939570
Pokerole seems like the best option so far for a Pokemon game, despite it being far from perfect. I'm still wanting to run my Steel Pokeball Run campaign idea with it.

>>53939814
Hmmm, interesting idea (the ability every so many levels).

But back on the base stats, when you compare Dragonite against Raticate, its a really unfair comparison, and even so, 30% stats is not that huge of a difference. In my head is like comparing on D&D a regular great-axe against a +5 vorpal large sword: of course no one will use the great-axe if they have access to the vorpal sword, but great-axe have seen more play by an infinite amount, because its an early game content. My point being, I don't think players will be able to choose 100% what pokemon they want, and for some time, a Raticate might be a decent option (even the best option)

>>53939570
> I strongly recommend taking a look at Pokerole.
>>53939859
>https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=349118
I will check those out
Btw guys, I might sketch something today or tomorrow and show you guys (I should be looking for jobs, but hell, making pokemon games is a lot more fun)

>>53945151
shit, wrong thread. plz ignore that

>>53934794
>Each Pokemon is a complex as a single PC in a different game, why control 6 AND a human with stats?

GM here. The game recommends 3 PkMn per trainer, but even then it's pretty ridiculous. And Lord help you if you have more than 6 PkMn.

All the crunch inspired me to create my own PkMn system. It's still in the planning stages, but its a D% base and I'm going back to the RBY stats with some changes.

-HP will be based off a different formula. Still figuring that out.
-ATK determines extra Move damage. There is no longer the Physical/Special split for Moves.
-DEF is your damage reduction
-SPD is things like movement speed and iniative.
-Special is turned into a Luck-like stat. It offers minor bonuses to each other stat, but is key in determining Critical Hit chance. So basically, a Special Sweeper in current games would become a crit-fisher in my version.

>>53946170
idk, I expect people to have more than 6 pokemons. I would rather cut out the number of players than the number of pokemons each player can have

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>all this talk of balancing trainers and Pokemon
>when Pokemon Mystery Dungeon already exists as a human-less setting and applies the game's system to a top-down grid
The most major issues is getting the math right so it doesn't have to be done by a computer. Beyond that, it's all there.

>>53946288
Nobody cares about Pokemon Mystery Dungeon.

>>53946288
But I don't want to play a pokemon. I want to play a trainer.

>>53946244
In the game I'm running, I stupidly and naively allowed my 5 players to have 6 each, plus 12 more in their PC, because they're supposed to be experiences trainers. It's a nightmare. Just terrible. The amount of bookkeeping is horrendous, as we have to keep track of 92 character sheets plus any NPCs I create and their PkMn. And balancing encounters in PTU is ever-mounting in difficulty for me. There's always at least one PkMn has an ability that can nullify whatever I come up with because each PkMn has at least 3 abilities. Cutting down on bookkeeping is always recomended, and if I could get away with cutting them each to 1 PkMn each, i would.

It's the single worst game I've ever put myself through. But my players love it and they're having a great time. That's what's important, right?

>>53946348
>It's the single worst game I've ever put myself through. But my players love it and they're having a great time. That's what's important, right?
Yes

> my 5 players to have 6 each, plus 12 more in their PC
I don't see myself playing this sort of game with that many players. I would go somewhere around 1-3 players.

Also, I would make it in a way that each pokemon has its character sheet, but its basically a few stats. The way I picture it in my head, I could fit all 6 pokemons in a single sheet, and that with a lot of extra spaces. The pokemons would have 6 stats (like in the game), but take a look on DND character sheet - the space for 6 stats is really small. That would be mostly all for each pokemon. Something like that I guess

Btw, can you give us more advise from your experience? What else went wrong? What went good? Plz share! :D

>>53946621
Well, there is a lot of good in PTU.
Good:
-My players are having a ton of fun. Since we're trying to cut out/down game mechanics whenever we can, it's pretty roleplay heavy. We had an entire 5 your sessions this week without a single die roll.
-I've been able to homebrew very easily. Once I figured out how things work, like how Pokemon stats are derived from the source material, I've found it incredibly easy to create my own Features/'Mons/whatever.
-once you know what you're doing, stating trainers and PkMn on the fly becomes really quick. I can have wild 'Mons ready to go in about 5 mins.

Bad. I'lllimit it to my largest complaints:
-way too much crunch. Between calculating combat stages, catch chance, net damage, all of that slows down game play to a crawl. There are things you can do to mitigate this somewhat, but there's still so much to keep track of.
-There are tons of rules that don't work as written and a bunch of rules that are vague. Base relation is the best example off the top of my head (I would need the book in front of me for more). I had to read it 5 times just to understand what was intended. It's also laughably easy to ignore through Features. They desperately need an editor.
-Annoyer/Stall PkMn builds are king. Being able to turn a PkMn into a huge bag of HP while stacking multiple status afflictions is way too good at locking out other builds. To the point that only game breaking things like 7xattack Pidgeot are the only good thinf against them. As I understand, they're cutting down the effectiveness of status afflictions, but I have my doubts.

So, there you go, I guess.

>>53947058
There are plenty of ways to get through defensive builds. Several abilities ignore/nullify defensive abilities such as unaware and mold breaker. Keen eye also straight counters dodge tanks stacking evasion. As far as moves go chip away, clear smog and a couple others remove combat stages or flat ignore them. Plus theres several ways to inflict vulnerable, which goes a long way. Honestly my only 'fix' to the system my group found necessary was "every 10 points in an attack stat will cancel out 1 point of evasion on defense". Whole reason why most people see defense as better is because its damage reduction and some times straight up negation.

At least to me, base relation made a lot of sense. No you can't effectively turn your chansey into a machamp, but you can distribute your points to focus more on attack, so long as the stat block still looks like a chansey. Only classes that 'break' base relation are the stat aces, and even then it just removes the 1 stat they focus on out of the relation into what you could call a free spot. Beyond those classes, its just things that alter that specific pokemon's relation, like vitamins, natures or rebalancing from caretaking researcher. They just make it so now you can up your defenses without haveing to up the attack stat you arnt using before hand.

Also the 7x attack thing doesnt work that way. Its come up multiple times on the forums and here. Same people who thought you could faint, use not yet from enduring soul, use either explode or recover, then trigger vigor. Plan doesnt work. It's people trying to cheese the system by intentionally reading features wrong. Beyond that it requires a very high trainer level and from what i remember at least 3 different classes?

>>53944572
Fair enough. Like I said if your system and group you play with focus more on narritive you won't have a problem. My concern was for the inevitable crunch parts that come with pokemon. Not saying you cant do it rules lite, just saying it is a lot of what can make pokemon pokemon to some.

>>53944572
Ill elaborate some more on what i forgot on the other post.

Abilities in PTU come in basic, advanced, and high with there being 5 in total. Pokemon start out with one of their basic abilities (they have at most 2 to choose from), at 20 they choose a non-high ability (either 3 advanced, or 1 basic 2 advanced to choose from) and at level 40 they get their final choice from any of their species abilities (only spot to grab high, in most cases). Most are the ones the naturally get in games, but others are thing they should have/need to be decent choices or help fill their niche better.

In the game I've been running for a while now, raticate is certainly a common choice, not just because they are easy to train and everywhere, but because they offer just enough complexity. They have access to moves that cover their weaknesses, several strong TM options, and some interesting trick moves like sucker punch or counter. Coupled with a good base relation, they can fill almost any role on a team and serve as a great canvass to trainers who have their own style, dispite not being as good in their given role as some other pokes. But again thats using PTU's way of doing things.

File: pokemon bliss.jpg (38KB, 300x316px) Image search: [Google]

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I just love playing my Pokefu as a typical fantasy Cleric.

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I miss my group's PTU game.
>>53946288
PMD would definitely transfer over to tabletop a lot better but I haven't seen any full-fledged PMD games, only splats that try and alter the rules originally intended for trainers and parties.

>>53947610
I don't want to have to put Keen Eye and Mold Breaker in every encounter like I'm making competitive Smogon teams. Having a high defense stat negates so much damage on top of lessening it, along with nerfing type effectiveness and giving moves higher AC it's a mess just trying to get anything done in PTU. It's a problem that only gets worse as time goes on too, with moves getting less accurate and loads of sources of Evasion becoming available while there's barely anything to boost Accuracy. It takes forever to take anything down, especially when you get combat trainers doubling the action economy likely on both sides.

>>53954080
>It takes forever to take anything down
Man, that's like, the opposite of the video games where everything goes down in one or two turns when you follow basic type effectiveness. Pretty sure the average battle in the animes don't take an entire episode to finish, either.

>>53954179
PTU's devs have stated they hate that setup, so damage and types got nerfed into the ground. But I'd much rather have the rocket tag, instead I plan on maybe taking out a single Pokemon on the players' side because otherwise it takes multiple sessions to get through a single combat scene. And even then, it takes too long just to get through quick wilds and smaller minions because of the damage nerfs mixed with PTU's endless obsession with finicky triggers.

>>53947610
For me, all BSR has accomplished so far is forcing me into incredibly shitty builds when a Pokemon's Nature doesn't line up with its usual stat spread. It practically forces you to minmax your stats, and makes it so you can't easily customize at all. It "makes sense" but in practice only puts limits on choices players could have easily made themselves.

There's also Pokérole:

http://pokeroleproject.wixsite.com/pokerole

It's not that much different, with each being about the same as a normal character, but the baseline is much lower.