Pokemon RPG/Wargame

[virgil]

Pokemon Tabletop
Combat Resolution

• Select a Prepared Move
• Roll Initiative
• Movement: In order of lowest to highest, no diagonals
• Chase: Remaining move can be spent to follow the precise path (up to remaining move) of a unit that started its turn in your threatened space and left, from lowest to highest
• Facing: Rotate to any desired facing, in order of lowest to highest
• Shift: If, having move half squares or less AND an enemy move through your threatened space, you may move a single square (lowest to highest)
• Resolution: Reveal and resolve prepared move or at-will move, from highest to lowest
• Recovery: Make saving throws to end status effects (4+ on d6, typically)

Sample Pokemon
Type

• Every Pokemon will have a type. A number will have two types, listed in order of Primary/Secondary. The Primary type is for defenses, which determines whether a move uses its Normal/Super Effective/Not Very Effective line. Secondary type is for offense, and determines whether the Pokemon benefits from STAB when using any particular move.

Derived Stats
Aside from the default stats of the Pokemon below, the following are derived from their experience and training.

• Level A very important number. A trainer cannot control a Pokemon of higher level than their own. Aside from determining attack/defense results & HP, it also determines what can be trained and unlocked from their movelists.
  Combat Power A trainer can manage up to their Leadership Value in CP worth of Pokemon. A Pokemon's CP is equal to their Base Cost + (Level * Level).
  Movement 3 + Speed, number of squares (orthogonal only) that can be moved during the movement phase of combat
  HP 2*(Level + Bigness)
  Move Slots Every Pokemon has these slots, which are filled with available options selected from the movelist, as restricted by both level and available slots. It's typical, especially at low levels, to not have every slot filled. Switching out is a matter of downtime.
  • 1 Threat Slot
  • 4 At-Will Move Slots
  • 5 Prepared Move Slots
  • 5 Utility Move Slots
  • 1 Continuous Power Slot

Krenshar

Type Normal Base Cost 10
Movelists Furious Monster, Spooky
Continuous Power Rattled (+1 Speed when hit by Bug, Ghost, or Dark damaging moves)

Base Stats
Meanness 1	Willpower 0
Allure 0	Intelligence 0
Domination 2	Speed 1
Bigness 1	Hardness 0
Cuteness 0

Wild Notes For testing purposes, a wild krenshar will have only Double-Slap and Scary Face in its at-will and prepared slots, respectively.

Ash Rat

Type Fire Base Cost 10
Movelists Mouse, Body Inferno
Continuous Power White Smoke (Immune to stat penalties from enemy moves)

Base Stats
Meanness 1	Willpower 1
Allure 1	Intelligence 1
Domination 1	Speed 1
Bigness 1	Hardness 1
Cuteness 1

Testing Notes This is your starter Pokemon. It will start off having been trained to use the following...

• At-Will Slots: Tackle, Fire Punch
  Prepared Slots: Tail Whip, Fire Spin

Sample Moves
Every move will follow a template.

• Attack Pattern
  • Green squares are always hit
    Red squares will be hit unless accuracy is reduced
    Blue squares will be hit only if accuracy is improved
  MOVE NAME (Type)
  Slot Type
  Attack Stat used
  Defense Stat used
  Effect
  Super Effective Effect when move type is super effective against target
  Normal Usual effect
  Not Very Effective Effect when move type is not very effective against target

STAB When a Pokemon's secondary type matches their Move's type, increase the damage modifier by +1. There is no effect if the move doesn't have a damage effect.
Stat Modifiers No move can increase or decrease a target Pokemon's stats if they are five or more levels higher than the Pokemon. While stat modifiers stack, the maximum a stat can be changed is +/-5. All stat modifiers, both positive and negative, are cleared when a Pokemon is called back into its ball.
Status Effects At the end of every round, roll a d6 for each status effect (with no listed duration) on a Pokemon. On a 4+, the status effect will end. [Other durations to be decided later]
Accuracy Any effect that increases accuracy will cancel out an effect that reduces accuracy. Having multiple effects that increase and/or reduce accuracy will cancel each other one-for-one until there is only one type remaining. A move receives no additional bonus from multiple increases to accuracy, nor does it receive any additional penalty from multiple decreases; other than serving as a form of ablative armor against the other. Like stat modifiers, all changes to accuracy are cleared when a Pokemon is called back into its ball.
Damage When effect does damage, you make the following comparison.

• Base Damage = Move Effect + Level + Attack Stat
  Soak = Level + Defense Stat
  Final Damage = Base Damage - Soak

If the number is >0, then that much damage is subtracted from the Pokemon's HP. When a Pokemon runs out of HP, then it faints and is automatically called back to its ball.

• Double Slap
  
  Scary Face
  
  Fire Punch
  
  Fire Spin
  
  Tail Whip
  
  Tackle
  

[PhoneLobster]

[Three colors of squares meaning different things for targeting often in asymmetrical layouts]

NOPE!

[Ice9]

I have to agree - at the point when you have hidden declaration AND type interaction AND funny-shaped areas, that's already plenty of complexity.

For accuracy? I dunno - you could represent high accuracy by letting the player shift the template one square at the time it resolves.

[virgil]

The pre-added squares was the only real suggestion that seemed to work at first glance. Changing a single square essentially says you auto-miss/hit any single target (depending on who does the change). Adding a miss chance is...undesirable.

[OgreBattle]

There's a Pokemon Trading Figure Game, I don't know how to play it but it has movement across a special board, maybe it'll be of some use to you.


http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/ ... igure_Game

[virgil]

I've read the rules, and it's kind of like Nine Men's Morris with weird dice and nice looking minis. But, it's a board game that happens to have Pokemon on it, so I don't really see anything that translates to a wargame/RPG.

[Bruno Carvalho]

If you can avoid the feature bloat of PTU, this can be better than it.

[virgil]

You'll have to expand on what you mean by feature bloat for me to understand.

This is only a rough prelim of mechanics. It doesn't include downtime rules, gear, or noncombat rules like climbing and Trainer creation. And that will pale in comparison to the 600+ moves and even greater number of Pokemon that will need stats. Any individual Pokemon will come with a 'deck' of about 48 potential cards/powers to build from, and a specific one will be built using only a third of them at max level.

I can say this, I'm going to want trainers to not be able to have more than three pokemon out at a time, and even then only at higher levels. Their Leadership will restrict how many they can 'carry', but they won't be able to multitask the team management for active combat to go beyond that. Resolution is nominally pretty fast, but the deliberative strategy will easily make up for the time gain from not rolling dice/damage. Nobody here thinks that a party of summoning-focused druids is a good idea, and that's what you have here if you don't cap the controlled unit number for PCs to 3+trainer, even with presumed system mastery.