Pokemon as D&D monsters

[Crissa]

(worksafe, so are the ads)

[Koumei]

The picture doesn't show, Crissa. Even "View Image" just linked to a "That is forbidden!"

Although it was on Furaffinity so I might have been saved from a horrific vision.

[Crissa]

Would I do that to you?

Have I ever done that?

-Crissa

[Koumei]

Not that I can remember, no.

[Maxus]

Dunno why it's giving a forbidden message to you, Koumei. I don't have an account; it's just someone's stylized take on Eevee and its evolutions.

[Username17]

Pokemon Design Goals

So I was lying in bed with stomach discomfort and it occurred to me that while the actual 4e design goals of “write this stuff as fast as humanly possible” are ones that appeal to basically no one who isn't actually making money of these books, that the design goals that they said that they had actually have a market. And that market is of course, people who want to role play in a video game world. Which leads me to a confession: I fucking hate Azeroth. I find the entire world intensely uninteresting. I'd rather play in Krynn, and if you know me well enough to have heard me go on about Krynn at any point, you know how low that puts my ranking of Azeroth. But Hoenn is pretty damn cool actually. And it could totally accept the 4e claimed design criteria.

And what were those? Remember when Massawyrm traded his credibility for money as part of a really loathsome sock puppet marketing campaign? Well, back when Massawyrm was pretending that he wasn't a paid shill for WotC marketing, the things he was using as selling points were:

• Math “just works”
• Monsters Scale “perfectly”
• Enemies show up in groups.
• Complex Tactics allowed and encouraged for everyone.
• Death is Rare.
• Classes are Simple and don't get mixed and matched.
• Big Toolbox.
• Sharply Defined Tiers.
• Functional Skill Challenges that Everyone Participates in.

Now, we all knew Massawyrm was a lying sack of shit even before he did the face-heel turn and said “And I got paid to lie my ass off to you assholes!” But a fair number of people held out hope because they were suckers. And because there are certain games and worlds that would actually benefit from that treatment. And frankly, the obvious world is not Eberron but Johto.

Math and Scaling
The first step to making your math work is a commitment to not break it.

So one of the big claims that got people jizzing themselves and ready to felate Mike Merles was the idea that the math was going to work well and scale well across levels. And of course, 4e fucked that shit up all over hell and gone, since basically it's trivially easy to hop right off the RNG and there is nothing but raw numerics to distinguish between a low level character and high level one, so if the RNG doesn't hold the whole concept of scaling at all (much less “well” or “perfectly”) is right off the table.

What this means is that for Advanced Pokemon: the RPG, it is imperative both that the levels scale predictably and demonstrably but also that characters stay within the RNG at every level. This works out to giving people large bonuses at each level, and keeping other bonuses strictly managed. Strictly managed could be by keeping bonuses small and then going to a curved number generator like 4d6, or it can be done by keeping bonuses infrequent and using a flat generator like a d20. After all, if there's no expectation of getting a bonus from 5 different sources, getting a bonus can just go ahead and be a big deal where it pushes you towards the actual end of the RNG. Let's consider going with the second option, and note that this is explicitly almost exactly the opposite of the 4e directions for math management.

So how does that look? Let's start with a base to-hit of 10+ on a d20 because it's reasonably popular. And then let's layer it all out:

Effect	Modifier
Higher Level	+3
STAB	+2
Off Suit Attack	-1
Targets Right Defense	+2
Targets Wrong Defense	-2
Combat Advantage	+3
Positional Advantage	+1
Aid From Another	+2
Targeting a Mook	+2
Targeting a Legendary	-2

And boom, that's the whole RNG. If you can keep the discipline to not add bullshit bonuses of any kind, that will just barely fit into the design specs. And yeah, there's a lot to be said for taking Level bonuses out of the to-hit equation entirely, but honestly we're talking about Pokemon here, so making it so that powerful badasses are pretty much immune to enemies more than 3 levels lower than them is fine. You'll also note that this is seriously the inverse of 4e's star crossed attempt to stay on the RNG – characters only shit 3 points instead of 6 to 10 by using their best stats as opposed to their worst, and characters get +3 every level instead of +1 every other level. That's totally fucking deliberate. To have levels smoothly and meaningfully scale, you really do have to put level first and foremost. And of course, kick the fuck out of all extraneous bonuses like Item Bonuses and Enhancement Bonuses.

Tactics and the Toolbox
Breaking the rules to do the things you want is still cheating.

Characters and enemies both are supposed to have a decent sized toolbox for design and in play. And that's fine. Let's be clear: having a 1/encounter and a 1/day supercharge on one of your two at will abilities that you spam incessantly does not in any meaningful sense of the word constitute a tactical toolbox of worth. And yet, it's also true that people want to advance as they go up in level. That's reasonable, and it's accomplishable. So here's what our new design implementation decisions are going to be:

• Characters have a fixed number of combat power slots, and as they go up in level, they can replace the old combat powers with new ones.
• Resource Managed and At-Will Slots will not be interchangeable.
• “Monster” enemies will have less combat power slots than characters.
• Enemies who are characters will have the same stats and combat ability slots as characters.
• On any given turn, a character should have the choice of using somewhere between 4 and 8 “moves”
• On any given turn, an enemy Mook should have a choice of 2 different moves.

Now obviously, this could be merged with a WoF system or power deck to keep things from getting stale or devolving into “Magikarp! Splash Attack!” while still retaining a basic mnemonic functionality. Alternatively, a preparation system can allow a character to have varied (and thus interesting) abilities while still having functionally limited abilities on a turn by turn basis (and thus be manageable). Either way, the point is that whether you're having to load daily abilities up before the next encounter or rolling or drawing cards to determine what choices your character has on a turn by turn basis there are very real resource management systems that limit turn by turn choices to something that can be listed off to a new player without making characters become boring to play in just a few fights – in a way that “a big pile of charges/spell points” seriously doesn't. One of those resource models should be used.

Meanwhile, the Pokemon world has a great excuse for why characters get so many more options than NPCs of nominally similar types. When you're fighting a bunch of wild Beedrills, you are fighting wild and thus untrained Beedrills. So in-character the word is that these untrained don't have powers in all of their power slots because they lack the training to have more than their reflexive natural abilities. You see what I did there? That way there's an in-character explanation for why the DM has a manageable and interesting task on his plate to throw six Beedrills on the field at once and yet if one of the players captures one of those Beedrills for himself and trains it, that commanding one Beedrill becomes a manageable and interesting task for the player.

Stats and Classes
However the play space is defined, its borders should be relatively obvious to all players.

So we're looking at making simple classes. That means that they, like 4e classes, are really just a simple template that gives you some basic gimmicks and sets your base defenses. Of course, like everything else that is a good idea, it's best if you go in almost exactly the opposite direction from the one which 4e went in. And that means of course, that the class templates are something that you apply after you select your powers.

And this is how evolution gets handled. You go up in level as a Scyther and you take a metal claw combat power that replaces some other power you had. At this point you also decide to declare that your level gain involved evolving into Scizor. And that means that your stats change. What does that mean? Good question.

The first and most obvious effects of your stats are your defenses. Your Defensive modifier varies from +0 to +4, and mostly it's +2. Attacks are balanced to hit on a 10 if that is the case, so if you have a target that you have the right kind of attack for, you get +2 and if you attack a target with the wrong attack, you're at -2. So defenses can be named whatever. But it seems to me that probably the easiest way is to use a D&D 6 stat array and name it after Pokemon stuff. I might just go with the Pokemon statss from battle and contests: Hardness, Speed, and Willpower (Def, Spd, and Spec Def) plus Bigness, Cuteness, and Intelligence. So like, 6 defense stats? Available stat arrays are:
0, 2, 2, 2, 2, 4
and
0, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4
and
0, 1, 1, 3, 3, 4
and
0, 0, 2, 2, 4, 4

So when you evolve Scyther to Scisor you change “classes” and get a dfferent stat array:

Pokemon	W	I	S	H	B	C
Scyther	2	0	4	3	2	1
Scizor	2	0	2	4	2	2

[Judging__Eagle]

I also hate Azeroth... it's... retarded on many, many levels.

I play there... actually, I don't anymore. I'll play there to play with RL friends that are on there.

also... I like how you made the math "work" in terms of scaling.

[Koumei]

This promises to be totally awesome.

Also:

One of the moves should be a persistent effect, simply to emulate the Ability that Pokemon get. So they can have X At Will, Y Charged/Per Time Unit/Per Kazoo, and 1 Always On.

As for how moves are selected, are you proposing that certain ones be used as requirements for others (example: Scratch > Slash > _____ Claw or Ember > Flame Wheel > Flamethrower)? Or are they all standalone so that, as you reach the next tier of power you can take whatever on the list? In the case of the former, "having known it in the past" would be good enough to qualify, I imagine.

I suppose it wouldn't be unreasonable to have certain ones be restricted by type, too.

[Username17]

The obvious setup is to have a series of power lists and allow different Pokemon access to different ones. I think it could work like 3e spells, where each list had a bunch of powers, and each power could be on a bunch of lists.

So Fire Punch could be on the "Body Inferno" list and also on the "Esoteric Martial Arts" list. If you happen to be a Quilava you can grab it off of the Body Inferno list, and if you happen to be a Machamp you can grab it off the Esoteric Martial Arts list.

In any case, if you also use those stats to attack, it would mean I suppose that the off-suit penalty actually goes as far as -2, which is more than I originally intended. Alternately, yould could have a separate set of stats that govern your attacks that is a bit tighter. That would have the advantage of allowing us to have Shuckle´s big deal be that he literally and specifically has RNG threatening larger defenses while having a lower set of attacks. To make the illusion be a little more illusory, one could have Bigness, Speed, and Intelligence be used for attacks and defenses, while Willpower, Cuteness, and Hardness were only defenses - and then throw down additional stats of Meanness, Allure, and Domination were attack-only stats. And then you could futz around with realtively balanced Pokemon whose stats did not add up to the same number. After all, Snorlax having a 4 in biggness would allow him to better resist Toxic attacks and better make Strength Attacks, while Shuckle´s high Hardness would just let him make him good at defending against Accurate attacks, and his own Toxic attacks would need to come off of Intelligence, Meanness or Allure.

-Username17

[Koumei]

I can get behind that idea. Besides, getting a Meanness stat and a Cuteness stat is like a lifelong dream of mine.

Also, only you can make a +/-2 modifier sound like such a big deal.

Regarding the +3 for being higher level, is this a bonus actually applied to the attack in-game ("Don't forget your +3 higher-level bonus!"), or do all stats simply go up by 3 every level meaning everyone gets BIG NUMBERS that don't happen to move relative to each other?

Aaaand... from the looks of it, your chart doesn't have type-based "It's Super/Not Very Effective". Is that just folded into the targeting the right defences, or is that going to affect something else (like damage) or whatever?

[Username17]

The original thought was to give people a "Level Bonus" to their attacks and defenses that happened to be equal to their level times three. But you're right that it's better to give people a +3 bonus to all their stats every level because then they get monstrously huge attacks and defenses that are imply added all at once. hat makes it a lot harder to forget the modifiers when the primary modifier on a 10th level Blaziken's Double Kick is a +34 Speed modifier. Noone is going to confuse whether a "17" is before or after modifiers when everyone is adding more than 17 to every roll!

And yeah, Fire damage does extra damage to Grass Pokemon. Not a bonus to hit. That allows us to have some pretty huge bonuses and penalties for Super Effectiveness without breaking the RNG. Needs a better rubric than multiplication (which is hard) or simple addition (which is dumb). Per Level addition/subtraction probably works fine. That is to say that if you are resistant you subtract some damage for every level you have; and if you are vulnerable, you add some damage for every level they have.

-Username17

[Username17]

So yeah, just fucking around until the database comes online "for reals" and I can make updates to aWoD with confidence that they'll "stick."

Tactics and Movement
“Playing Fire Emblem is kind of like... if they never stopped making new rules for Chess.”

There's really very little strategy to a stunlock. Every turn you try to do some damage and prevent your opponent from getting a turn. It's more interesting to watch King air juggle an opponent until they run out of health and hit the floor than just watching E. Honda move forward and hit the strong attack button over and over again – but the fact is that the air juggle is basically the same sequence of buttons and attacks every time and there isn't a whole lot that the other guy has to say about it. Once you've seen it a few times, it loses most of its interest. This kind of “five moves of doom” system is not much of a tactics system, it's more of a rote memorization challenge.

However, a tabletop game has much to offer because there's a whole board that people can move around on. And a whole board that you can fill up with threats, targeting ranges, forced movement, and areas of effect. So there's no real excuse to make tactical combat uninteresting. And yet, 4e managed it. And it did so by having the entire board topologically essentially the same as a line. And even within that context, there are generally only four ranges that “matter” (1 square, squares, 10 squares and 20 squares). On a board it can totally matter if you're 3 squares north and 2 squares east rather than just being 3 squares away, and 4e doesn't bother. No real excuse for that, but there you go.

Which brings us to the way in which Pokemon is in fact a tactically interesting game: the simultaneously determined move selection and the necessary guessing and double guessing that goes with it. The fact that you don't know what your opponent is planning when you select your own action allows for traps and counters with even the simplest interface. Pokemon seriously has a deeper tactical game with 4 moves and no positional information at all than 4e manages with more than one At-will, Utility, Encounter and Daily power and a 2-dimensional position array that takes up the entire kitchen table.

So what do we do? Well, we have a system where you predeclare your moves in secret and we have a system where you move around on a 2 dimensional grid and your powers have a completely arbitrary targeting reticule. How arbitrary? Imagine that this is your area of effect for Vine Whip (B is for Bulbasaur):

Code: Select all

 X 
B XX
 X

That is how arbitrary I am talking. Like actual chess pieces, except hundreds of them, so they are weird as fuck. Let's throw another one out there, a simple Fire Spin (V is for Vulpix):

Code: Select all

 XXX
X   X  
X V X
X   X
 XXX

And here's a Shadow Ball (S is for Sableye):

Code: Select all

  X X 
SX X
  X X

And it's not just areas of effect that look crazy like that. Even single target effects should look like the threatened area of a Shogi piece.

Movement in a Declare First System

So what you do is decide which power card to put into play in secret before movement. And when movement actually happens, characters with a worse Initiative have to move first. Only after everyone decides their location are power cards actually revealed. And yeah, you're seriously going to find yourself ready to do a dragon blast or a cross chop and find that you have allies in the way or no enemies in range, and you'll want to abort. No problem, because you can use any of your at-will powers instead of the power card you chose at no cost. Wild non-legendary Pokemon don't even have power cards, they just pick whatever at-will might work at the end of the movement phase.

Shifting and Threatening: So you have a Threat, which is like your attack of opportunity, and you can use it when people fuck around in your threatened area. Once you move, you don't threaten until the end of movement. If all you do is shift, you still threaten. So a low init character can run right up to an enemy, but they don't threaten, so the enemy can just walk around them. If the character only moves half their speed, they can “reserve a shift” to move over one space when their attack is about to go off, right before they attack.

Chasing: If you move right up to a guy and they haven't moved yet you can “give chase” If, at the end of their movement you still know where they are, you can spend the rest of your unspent movement to close the distance.

Trainer Preparation
My Magikarp is immune to the splash attacks of other Magikarp.

So when you train your Pokemon, you have a number of choices. These are swappable effects not unlike preparation casters in D&D. You have what are essentially chakras or some shit that can be filled with something other. So here are your slots:

• 1 Threat Slot
• 4 Basic Power Slots
• 5 Special Power Slots
• 5 Utility Power Slots
• 1 Continuous Power Slot

Holy shit yo! That's a lot isn't it? Well, sort of. The thing is that when you actually come to a decision point, you generally have five options. When you choose your face down special power card, it's from a choice of 5. And then when it comes to actual blasting time, you have five choices again. And yeah, not super sure it needs any more Resource Management than that. Probably some sort of rage bar to keep you from stunlock spamming.

Anyway, your actual Trainer can be a unit too! You get slots and shit. You need to grab Utility Power Slots to train your Pokemon and your Continuous power lets you command them in battle. So from a practical standpoint, your Jigglypuff is way better than you.

Sample Pokemons off the top of my head:

Pokemon	M	A	D	W	I	S	H	B	C
Abra	2	3	2	2	4	2	2	0	2
Kadabra	3	2	3	2	4	2	1	1	1
Alakazam	3	1	4	2	4	2	1	2	0
Skitty	2	4	0	3	1	2	2	0	4

Anyway, getting access to a power list allows you to get a bunch of moves. Some of them will be power cards, some will be Basic Powers, Threats, Utilities, or whatever. They'll normally have levels associated with them. And just because you're a “Fire Type” doesn't mean that you get all the Fire moves. So for example, if you're Ponyta or Typhlosion you are on fire. This means that you get access to the Body Inferno list. If you're Houndoom or Torkoal you breathe fire. This means that you get the Fire Starter list. If you're Vulpix or Entei, you control fires. This provides you with the Fire Master list.

Body Inferno List

• Blaze Kick
• Fire Spin
• Fire Punch
• Burning Maw
• Flare Blitz
• Meltdown
• Heat Wave
• Overheat
• Eruption
• Trail of Fire
• Personal Conflagration
• Flash Dash
• Hot Potato
• Body of the Sun
• Ignite
• Molten Aura

So... all told it appears to need about 500 powers and however many Continuous Powers to cover all the Pokemon. And honestly, it's easy enough to plug new Pokemon in (they are just a 9 number list ranging from 0 to 4, a couple of power lists, and a choice of 1 to 4 Continuous Powers) that old favorite pokemon from other settings could be easily ported in. Seriously, I'm certain that Mariliths have a high Meanness and the same Martial Arts list that Machamp gets. They are Dark/Fighting. This ain't rocket science.

-Username17

[CatharzGodfoot]

I like this a lot, Frank. I'm not a huge fan of Pokemon (never played the game), but it looks like you've come up with a dueling system that has a lot of potential.

[Koumei]

Yay, I contributed a good idea!

That looks simple enough. So it'd be a simple matter of:

Charmander Evolutions

Name	M	A	D	W	I	S	H	B	C
Charmander	1	2	1	4	2	3	1	2	3
Charmeleon	3	2	2	3	1	2	2	2	2
Charizard	3	1	4	2	2	1	2	4	0

(Note: the numbers bit was a rough guess. And I'm not sure if there should be a guideline for offensive/defensive balance, given we have a world with Skarmory and Shuckle in it. And Weavile, on the other side.)

Charmander: [Fire] Fire Starter, Predator, Dinosaur
Charmeleon: [Fire] Fire Starter, Furious Monster, Dinosaur
Charizard: [Fire][Flying] Fire Starter, Furious Monster, Angry Dragon

Continuous Power Choices:

• Flashfire: when on low health (under 1/4 HP) your Fire Starter attacks deal an extra (amount) damage.
• Shed Skin: when suffering from a status condition, at the beginning of your turn you may attempt a save to negate each one.
• Wildfire: if hit for Fire damage, whether it gets past your resistance or not, your next Fire Starter attack deals an extra (amount) damage.

Fire Starter List:

• Ember
• Smoke Screen
• Fire Spin
• Flame Thrower
• Smog
• Eruption
• Dragon Breath
• Dragon RageFire Fang
• Heatwave
• Fire Wall
• Fire Blast
• Ember Pit
• Will-O-Wisp
• Flare Blitz
• Overheat
• Blast Burn

[IGTN]

And yeah, Fire damage does extra damage to Grass Pokemon. Not a bonus to hit. That allows us to have some pretty huge bonuses and penalties for Super Effectiveness without breaking the RNG. Needs a better rubric than multiplication (which is hard) or simple addition (which is dumb). Per Level addition/subtraction probably works fine. That is to say that if you are resistant you subtract some damage for every level you have; and if you are vulnerable, you add some damage for every level they have.

-Username17

Mutliplication by whole numbers is easy. Double damage just means "you hit twice." So's division by 10, especially if you always round down. Heavy attacks should have a bigger Super Effective bonus (and Not Very Effective penalty) than weak attacks, even from the same pokemon.

Alternately, you could do something like:
Attack default to xd6
Super Effective, xd10 or xd8 or something.
Not very effective, Xd4 or even xd2.

This does mean more writing for attacks that use non-default die sizes, if you have them. Still, with the attack area/threatened area sizes, that doesn't look necessary.

xd2 can even be rolled on the same dice as xd6 by rolling like a dicepool: hit on a 4, damage = hits + dice. And, of course, you can roll a d2, d3, d4, and d6 on a d12, if you use that for super effective. The downside is that then the game calls for huge piles of d12s. Bonus (or penalty) damage per die (instead of per level) also works as an alternative.

Also, are you using facing on your grid, and, if not, do attacks have set directions or can you rotate them freely? I can see interesting things opening up with facing. Then tail attacks could be different from frontal attacks. Char* might then have a power option letting them reverse their facing for purposes of their Fire Starter attacks.

[Username17]

Actually it's true that having each power have three "hit" lines, one for Not Very Effective, one for Normal, and one for Super Effective is a total possibility. Could even have special powers like Nightshade that seriously have the same damage value for Super Effective and Not Very Effective.

But the big kicker of course is to make sure that special attacks have areas and targeting restrictions that are crazier than the ones from Disgaea 3.

-Username17

[Koumei]

...how crazy are the Disgaea 3 ones? Still, I think I get the general idea.

Should we stick with the non-retarded save mechanic that Fantastic! uses? Likewise, what should the general HP/damage be?

[Username17]

So on Facing: it seems like it could really add something to the game despite being an extra step. The deal is that you need to have a facing step after people move and before they launch their attacks or characters with better initiative will just walk around their enemies every turn and kidney punch them - and that's retarded. Alternately, you could solve the same problem by allowing each character to rotate to face one attack a turn when they are attacked but I don't think that's faster.

As for hit points, it all depends on what s desired. Obviously if it was desirable to have things be relatively static between characters of different levels, having static hitpoints and damage/resistance scales that canceled out of the equation between characters of different levels (like the to-hit calc) would be the way to go. However, I don't think that is the goal. The plan I think is for things to "feel epic" as the game progresses to higher levels. Which in this case I believe means having more enemies go down like suckas while the big boys take more shots to drop each other padded sumo style. And that of course, is totally achievable.

What it means is that PCs and major villains get more hit points per level per level. Possibly something as simple as Bigness Hit Points per Level. But in any case, by high level they have a fucking ass tonne of hit points. And damage is bigger too, but it doesn't keep up. What it does keep up with, and indeed surpasses is Mook hit points. Mook Hit Points grow slower than Damage, so they proceed towards Rocket Launcher Tag as levels rise.

Net result: a high level Bulbasaur wades through a lot of hostile raticates while he's fighting a tyranical Alakazam. And neither Bula nor Dr. Spoons is going down quickly. But the Raticate mooks are dropping left right and center.

-Username17

[kosall]

Disgaea literally has a ton of targeting/Area types. http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/ps2/file/589678/26230
check out section 5.05.01 Magic and below.
Examples include -

Code: Select all

                                [6]   [7]
1     [1]    4     [1][3] 7  [2]   [1]   [3]
                   [2][4]       [4]   [5]

         [2]       [3]          [4][1][8]
2     [1]    5  [4][1][5] 8     [3]   [7]
                   [2]          [2][5][6]

      [3]          [3][6]       [4][6][9]
3     [1]    6     [1][5] 9     [3][1][8]
      [2]          [2][4]       [2][5][7]

Also, at least with Magic effects, you can rotate those. For Weapons it's based on facing.

Examples (section 5.05.02 Weapon Skills) -
[>] - Indicates the direction the character is facing, in these
instances the character is always facng to the right.

[1] - Numbers inside the bracket are the affected hit areas. The
order of the hits is also determined by this number. [1] is
hit first, [2] is hit afterwards, and so on.

[X] - This panel needs to be free in during the time the skill is
performed.

[K] - This panel needs to be free, because this will be the new
position of the enemy after the skill is performed.

- This panel needs to be free, because this will be the new
position of the character after the skill is performed.

Code: Select all

[>][1][K]

[X][X][>][1][K]

       [2][3][4]
[X]   [5][>][1]
       [6][7][8]

[>][1]   [K]

[X][K][>][1]

etc.[/code]

[Lokathor]

Are these recently posted pokemon rules the same as the old pokemon d20 rules? Because a link to those was posted, but it leads to a geocities page, and geocities no longer exists.

[Quantumboost]

This is a new game, not a d20 variant.

[Lokathor]

Then would it be possible to obtain the d20 Pokemon ruleset from some place?

[Username17]

Then would it be possible to obtain the d20 Pokemon ruleset from some place?

No the whole ruleset, but some of it got saved here:
http://www.scshop.com/~ritaxis/

-Username17

[Orion]

Some thoughts on this:

Why do we need 9 stats on the stat line? That seems... excessive.

First of all, I tried repeatedly to write a simple powerset for Sumeru to playtest the combat mechanics, but kept getting hung up on how difficult and arbitrary the 6 attack types were. It didn't help that D&D stats suck: try writing an attack vs. WIS that couldn't plausibly attack CHA or INT! Writing STR and CON attacks was a drag. But mostly, it was onerous making sure each moveset had a good spread of various attack types.

Off your list, "cuteness" as a defense confuses me. I can understand how Cuteness could be used to defend against an attack in some active defensive ability. But having at Attack Vs. Cuteness implies that the uglier the target is, the more effective it is. That isn't really appropriate except for maybe attacks based on giving the target low self-esteem (or seducing them) which could just as easily be outsourced to Will and Int, respectively. Intelligence works okay if you intend for lots of "feint" type moves, but shares a lot of concept with Speed.

Personally, I don't think 6 defenses are necessary. This system has ridiculous levels of mechanical bloat. The pokemon games got by with 2 defense, and four available moves. Remember that "move type" systems already give you many of the benefits of multiple defenses, and whereas classically pokemon had 4 moves, you're giving them 8+.

I would rather see a system with 4 defenses, preferably Bigness, Quickness, Hardness, and Awareness.

[Orion]

So let's see:

Should my Pikachu learn Electric Punch?
-- Is it on my available move lists?
--Does it attack with a stat I have a good number in?
--Does it STAB? / If it doesn't STAB, does it come with an attack type I want?
--Does it attack a defense I don't attack yet?
--Does it synergize with my Continuous ability, or other moves?
--(If stats can be debuffed) does it use a stat I'm not attacking with yet?

Should my Pikachu use Electric Punch on your Charmander?
--does it attack a low defense?
--is its movetype effective?

Should my Pikachu Electric Punch your Charmander THIS TURN
--can I get in the right position?
--can I get the right facing?
--will I get combat advantage?
--WTH does this move DO anyway?

Off the top of my head, this looks like a LOT to consider, especially with all of the factors as complex as you want to make them. That's why I recommend fewer stats. I'd go down to four defenses, as mentioned above. I also feel that having attack stats and a STAB bonus is kind of unnecessary.

I'd consider replacing one or both of those with a movelist-based attack bonus. You COULD give Charmander 3 Size 3 Speed and Charizard 5 Size 1 Speed.

OR you could have

Charmander (Fire)
--Fire Starter +2
--Predator +0

Charizard (Fire, Flying)
--Fire Starter +0
--Predator +2
--Aerialist -2