Let's move onto Moves now, shall we? First I'll review the structure of a Move and the various keywords they may or may not have, then I'll bring up any Moves that are actually interesting. It should go without saying that homebrew moves tend to be far more interesting than their RAW counterparts. But let's get into it!
Moves
80% of the moves in this game. Also the only picture I've posted that's not actually in this book.
So, for those of you with the memory span of a Goldeen, a brief reminder of how a move works:
I am 100% positive that this could be structured in a way that eats up less space. There's about 8 Moves per page in here.
This should be mostly self-explanatory, but not entirely. Here's where Frequencies actually get detailed: At-Will is exactly what it says, you can spam that shit all day every day. EOT stands for Every Other Turn, which also applies out of battle - you need at least 10 seconds between each use, which isn't something I imagine will be relevant very much. Scene X means you can use that move X times per scene, but even if it has multiple uses, you still can't use it more than Every Other Turn, no spamming Counter or anything. Daily moves only come back with Extended Rests or PC trips, and even if they're usable multiple times a day, you can still only use it once per Scene. Unfortunately, it isn't really mentioned how long the "recharge" timer is outside of combat - another casualty of having everything work in Scene time like you're writing a TV show. It's worth mentioning that there actually are some Static moves that you don't actually use, they just provide a benefit all the time... but these are extremely rare.
In case you forgot, the likelihood that you'll hit your opponent depends most on the Move you're using, as the AC is on the Move's side rather than a static number your opponent has. The vast majority of moves in PTU are AC 2, meaning that there's very little "whiffing" in fights and people get dropped regularly. This is good. You also make a single Accuracy Roll when using AOE attacks and apply each target's Evasion separately. This is also good.
Damage Bases are something I'd like to talk a bit more about, as I'm conflicted about them. One part of me hates looking at the Damage Base table during a game, another part of me hates that I've memorized half the table, and another part thinks it's a great way to have fine control over damage scaling that can be applied consistently across moves. A fourth part thinks it's quite useful to be able to see that a Move from the games has 70 Power and you immediately know it's a DB 7 move in PTU, since that makes content generation easier - very important, given the plethora of fangames and the unending march of the Pokemon franchise. Anyone have input on this one?
This is one of like, two places in the book that mentions caps: Features and Abilities that extend the Critical Hit or Effect Range of a move can never extend them by more than +6. For example, Stone Edge crits on a 17+. You can never, EVER increase that beyond a +11. I'm not sure if +6 is the best number to cap it at, since I'd like to have things be a little more high-powered, but that's something I need to play around with.
There are also Contest Effects. I do not care in the least.
Keywords
Keywords are good. I like keywords. This game needs more of them.
- Absorb is not actually a Keyword in this game, but one I made up since there are tons of moves that have the exact same fucking effect (and by tons I mean 7): You gain half the damage you inflict back as HP. I hate starting off with homebrew, but it's alphabetically first, so deal with it.
- Aura denotes that the move manipulates the Pokemon concept of Aura - surprisingly, most moves with this Keyword don't have Aura in the name.
- Berry is used just for Natural Gift, and has a giant fuck-off table that shows what the DB and Type of the move becomes, depending on the Berry you've eaten. God, I think I really hate Berries.
- Blessings are things like Reflect or Light Screen, and they are shared by the entire team. All your allies may benefit from the Blessing, but it disappears after a certain number of uses. Blessings are really fucking strong.
- Coat means that you only have the effect while you have the Coat active - Substitute, for example, is a Coat move. These can be passed on via Baton Pass.
- Critical Mind/Phys/Sum are all keywords I shamelessly ripped from Pokemon Journeys. Each one causes the Move to have an additional effect if you crit with it - Mind causes the target to roll twice for Accuracy Rolls and take the worst one for a round, Phys causes the target to be Vulnerable and take 5 more damage from all attacks, and Sum doubles all numerical values in the effect. These are typically, but not always, given out to Status Moves, since they don't normally do anything when you crit with them. Honestly, I dig it.
- Dash in PTU simply means the move can't be used if you're Stuck. In Pokemon Journeys, it doesn't have that restriction at all and means you can Disengage 1 before you use the move. I don't fully understand the benefit of that, but I combined them both together, so you have some extra movement with Dash moves, but you still have to be able to fucking move in order to use them.
- Double Strike means you make two Attack Rolls. If one hits, the move deals damage as usual. If BOTH hit, the Damage Base is doubled, and they can crit separately. Double Kick, for example, is DB 3 and deals 1d6+5 damage. Hitting with both raises it to DB 6, causing it to deal 2d6+8 damage. If you hit with both, but only one crits, you would add another 1d6+5 damage. If both hit and crit, you'd deal an extra 2d6+8 damage. Not too complicated.
- Environ is another chart, this time for the moves Nature Power and Secret Power. It tells you what move Nature Power becomes in various terrains, as well as what effect Secret Power has.
- Execute moves are shit like Sheer Cold and Guillotine. They auto-faint if they hit, but... well, we'll get into how you determine if they hit later.
- Exhaust is just the shittiest shit ever. After you Hyper Beam, you lose your next Standard and Shift Actions. Because of this, you will never, ever fucking use these moves. You cannot get around losing your turn through any shenanigans whatsoever. So I took a page out of Pokemon Journeys, which changed it to merely cause you to be Slowed, Vulnerable, and deal -10 damage on your next turn. Still rough, but not completely fucking unusable.
- Fang is another one I made up. It simply means that move is affected by the ability Strong Jaw, which increases the damage base. Just cleans things up a bit.
- Fling is yet another table. It has a list of items you can throw, what the DB is when you do it, as well as any effects it has. Throwing an Iron Ball is a DB 12 attack and just ruins somebody's fucking day.
- Friendly moves don't hit allies, for whatever reason.
- Five Strike usually requires me to look it up... This is for multi-hit moves like Fury Swipes. When you hit with it, you roll 1d8 to see how many times it hits. 1 hits once, 2-3 hits twice, 4-6 hits 3 times, 7 hits 4 times, and 8 hits 5 times. You multiply the Damage Base by how many times it hits, but you have to apply any DB modifiers AFTER you multiply all this shit up. It is entirely possible to toss 5d12+25 damage around in your very first encounter ever.
- Groundsource moves... come from the ground. They don't take any penalties for targeting into Rough Terrain, and they also ignore Blocking Terrain completely. To appease people like Frank, there is an optional rule that makes Flying-type Pokemon only immune to Groundsource moves, not all Ground moves. I don't personally do that, but it also hasn't really come up in my game either.
- Hazards cover some of the field - think Spikes or Stealth Rocks. People who run into or near them get affected by it.
- Illusions are... illusions. The keyword doesn't do anything special, but Trainers with Clairsentient just completely fucking ignore them. Third eye, bitches.
- Interrupt moves are like Priority moves, except you can only use them during someone else's turn, and you can only take that specific action, not your whole turn. Protect is the archetypal example of an Interrupt move.
- Pass moves kick ass. At any point in your movement, you can use a Pass move, at which point you can only move forward in a straight line, for up to 4 meters, moving through all enemies in your path. You have to end in an empty square, but you attack every target you move through, not taking any AoOs. The only drawback is that you stop your Shift after using a Pass move. This is for all you weeaboos who want to be like samurai in Kurosawa films. Or any other anime bullshit.
- Pledge moves are Fire Pledge, Water Pledge, and Grass Pledge. They have different effects depending on which you "combine" - for example, using Fire Pledge then Water Pledge makes a Rainbow for 5 turns, increasing all your allies' Effect Range by +3. This is highly specific, but whatever.
- Powder moves are things like Stun Spore and Sleep Powder. These do absolutely nothing to Grass-types.
- Priority is something I think I've already explained, so go read the rest of the review for my thoughts on them.
- Punch is another one I made up just to denote that the move is affected by Iron Fist. Theoretically, we could have other abilities that interact with the keyword...
- Push moves push people. The 4e jokes make themselves.
- Reaction moves are like Interrupts, except they only happen AFTER whatever triggered them is resolved. Counter is a Reaction, while Protect is an Interrupt.
- Recoil involves EVEN MORE MATH. To use an example, Take Down is "Recoil 1/3". This means that a third of the damage you inflict, you take. I do not want to deal with fucking fractions during combat, so I changed it to simply cause you to lose a single Tick of HP when you hit. Much simpler.
- Reliable is another one I stole from Pokemon Journeys - when you miss, that move's Frequency is not expended. This is pretty much only given to Daily and Scene moves, so you're not totally shit out of luck when you miss with them.
- Set-Up moves require 2 turns to resolve: The first turn you use the Set-Up Effect, and on the second you use the Resolution Effect. As you might guess, these moves aren't terribly good.
- Shield is a very specific kind of Interrupt that only gets triggered by foe's attacks. This keyword mostly exists so the devs can write effects that bypass it. Protect is also a Shield move.
- Smite is rare: When you miss with a Smite move, you still hit, it's just that the attack is resisted and you can't activate any secondary effects. This is typically on your big fuck-off moves like Draco Meteor and Thunder.
- Social moves can't be Intercepted and ignore Substitute. There are lots of things that interact with this keyword.
- Sonic moves are sound-based. Supersonic, Snarl, things like that. They also ignore Substitute.
- Spirit Surge is on things like Ancient Power or Rapid Spin: Even if you miss, the effect can still activate.
- Trigger moves can ONLY be used whenever their conditions are met. Sucker Punch is a Trigger move - you literally can't use it unless someone tries to hit you.
- Versatile is another one I took from Pokemon Journeys: it simply means the move can be either Physical or Special. That kicks ass.
- Vortex moves are things like Fire Spin or Whirlpool: They make the target Slowed and Trapped, and they lose a Tick of HP at the beginning of their turns. At the end of their turn, they roll 1d20 to try and escape - and you need a 20 on the first turn. The DC is lowered by 6 each turn until the fifth turn, at which point it dissipates.
- Weather moves affect the whole field and there can only be one at a time - they replace each other. In a stunningly shitty turn of events, "Weather Conditions are not usually found as natural occurrences. A bright and sunny day does not count as Sunny Weather, nor does rain count as Rainy Weather. However, particularly severe examples of the corresponding weather can count. For example, a tropical rainstorm could count as Rainy weather." Fuck you, game. Fuck you. That's just stupid.
- Weight Class exists purely to remind you that, in fact, things have different weights. It's literally just the Weight Class chart reposted here.
Range Keywords
What comes next are a bunch of handy pictures that explicitly show you how ranges work in this game. Some are totally bonkers. I could just take pictures and post them here.... so I'll save minutes of my life and just do that.
It's worth mentioning that these ranges never really get as crazy as they could. Nothing ever goes over Line 9 or Burst 5, for example. Do you think they could use some more range types? I certainly think the numbers could be bigger.
There's a short blurb about how all this shit interacts with Blocking Terrain, and I'll save you time by saying it works exactly like you'd expect. It's a fucking wall, shit doesn't go past it.
Well, I'd keep going, but it's time for me to leave the office, so I'll probably pick this back up in a little bit. This should be enough to tide you over.
Next time: Moves (but for real)
