D&D Monsters as Pokemon

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Fri Dec 05, 2014 7:47 am

So, I'm wanting to run a D&D Pokemon game (whether that happens or not remains to be seen...), so I'm thinking about D&D Monsters and evolutions and such.

I like the idea that psuedodragons are like draconic eevees--maybe get rid of psuedodragons' inherent alignment (or true dragons'), and say that time of day and evo stone determine the form. So if you hit a psuedodragon with a fire stone at night, it turns into a Redragon, if during the day, it becomes Brasgon, maybe if it's holding a Magmarizer and you give it a fire stone during the day it becomes a Goldragon.

Something like-


Evolution	Conditions
Blakdregon (Water/Dragon)	Water Stone at night
Bludregon (Ground/Dragon)	Thunderstone at night
Grendregon (Plant/Dragon)	Leaf Stone
Redragon (Fire/Dragon)	Fire Stone while holding Magmarizer
Whidregon (Ice/Dragon)	Increase HD in a blizzard
Brasgon (Fire/Dragon)	Sun Stone
Bronzragon (Water/Dragon)	Water Stone during the day
Coppregon (Rock/Dragon)	Increase HD underground
Goldragon (Fire/Dragon)	Fire Stone during the day
Silvergon (Flying/Dragon)	Increase HD at subzero temperatures

I would probably make a branched evo with wolves too, something like-


		Learn Pin Missile	Howler (Bug)
		Learn Ice Fang	Wintwolf (Ice)
		Prism Scale	Sennmurv (Flying)
Wolf	Dire Wolf	Fire Stone	Hellhound (Fire/Dark)
		Dusk Stone	Yethound (Ghost)
		Dawn Stone	Blinkanine (Psychic)
		Learn Leach Life	Barghest (Dark/Poison)
		Shiny Stone	Houndarchon (Fighting)

I'm sure there are more dog monsters that could be added to this, but I can't think of them off the top of my head.

Any other thoughts?

...You Lost Me · Post by **...You Lost Me** » Fri Dec 05, 2014 8:08 am

I have nothing to add (is there anything to talk about?) except that those names could be shortened by a syllable and made to sound more poke-ish. Ex: Blagon, Blugon, Greegon, Regon.

Also, there is a whole category of dragons named after metals. Especially for distinctive words like copper, you may find it hard to explain why they're not Steel-typed.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Fri Dec 05, 2014 8:21 am

Because a pokemon only has two Types, and the important things about a D&D dragon are:
*It's a dragon (so Dragon Type)
*What it breathes on you (so Fire/Water/Electricity/Poison/Ice/Your Mum)
The colour of a given dragon doesn't really influence things.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Fri Dec 05, 2014 9:29 am

Also Steel dragons are a thing in D&D.

I suppose I could do something like Chromagon and Metalligon, with each having different forms. ie, instead of Redragon and Bludregon, you'd have red and blue forms of Chromagon. That way Metalligon can just be Metal/Dragon, but there's no issue with Chromagon being the elemental type that matches it's breath weapon.

Not that it matters a whole lot, I suppose. Though one player will be trying to be a dragon trainer since he has an obsession with them.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Fri Dec 05, 2014 11:24 am

For Ice dragons, typically Dawn Stone is used for cold evolutions. Or in the case of Eevee, levelling up near a stupid frozen rock.

There's also the Shadow Mastiff, which is either Dark or Ghost depending on whether it's incorporeal or not, but is another variant of Bad Dog. I suppose there's also the Bearhound if you care, which is basically a big Normal bag of HP like Ursaring but with more barking involved.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Fri Dec 05, 2014 12:48 pm

I'm actually tempted to run this online with how hard it is to get my meatspace group together.

Thinking about it, Faerun has some monsters that would work TOO well, like Tressym. Honestly I'm surprised there isn't a "winged cat" pokemon.

Abishai would work too.

I might introduce dragon stones too, which would make things pokevolve into half dragons.

RadiantPhoenix · Post by **RadiantPhoenix** » Fri Dec 05, 2014 4:42 pm

Koumei wrote:For Ice dragons, typically Dawn Stone is used for cold evolutions. Or in the case of Eevee, levelling up near a stupid frozen rock.

There is only one ice-evolution for the Dawn Stone: Frosslass. Gallade is the other evolution, and it's not ice at all.

So the Eevee rock has better precedent.

You could also do trade-with-Nevermeltice

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Fri Dec 05, 2014 10:11 pm

The trade evos always seem askance to me when thinking about them in-world. Looking up trade evos on Bulbapedia (which is quickly replacing serebii as my go to for pokemon info...) I guess trade-evos are more of "be put in a machine" or "be cared for by someone else" evos, or something like that. It would seem the easiest way to handle trade evos in a tabletop game is to make it so that some pokemon only evolve when they form the trainer-bond with a second person. So if you want your haunter to evolve, you have to let someone else in your party play with and take care of them for a bit.

...which creates interesting story potentials in couples that came together over caring for each others' pokemon... but that's neither here nor there.

Shadow Mastiffs would be a good addition to the wolf branches. I'm thinking the evo condition could be learing Roar, since that's basically what the S.Mastiff Bay power is. It'd be a good Dark type. Given that the main difference between a Yeth Hound and a Shadow Mastiff seems to be that the former flies and the latter can blend into shadows, they should probably be two related branches something like "Learn Roar>Learn Shadow Blend OR Fly(/take HM Slave feat)."
Oh. Or alternatively, it could be "Increase HD in a Shadow aura>Shadow Mastiff, Increase HD in an Infernal aura>Yeth Hound."

Also I have literally no idea what the fuck to do with the Fairy type in D&D, since it has next to no relation with fae legends in the Pokemon game, so you'd have this weird incongrousness where nymphs and sapient cream puffs are the same type if you actually said Fae were fairy types. Then again, Pokemon has sapient ice cream cones and racist caricatures sharing the Ice type, so....

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Sat Dec 06, 2014 2:42 am

Giants are another evolution stone monster ready to go.

I'd make it more loose and be like digimon where lots of things can become something else.

Your basic guideline being "if it shares a typing then it can turn into that when it reaches the same CR"

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sat Dec 06, 2014 3:01 am

Aberrations are proof that Typing means precisely dick. Not all fey creatures necessarily need to be Fairy Type though - pretty sure there's one that would basically be Steel/Fighting, for instance. And if you stick with the "These things shouldn't really be pokemon because they're people" thing, then a handy thing is to not give those creatures pokemon Types (so Nymphs aren't Water/Fairy, they're just "not typed, just like you". Similarly, Mind Flayers aren't Psychic, they're just "go fuck yourself").

It was decided that Mephits are like Arceus, in that they're born as a given type (based on the parent), and then if they hold a _____ Plate, they turn into that type of Mephit. When they drop it, they don't revert to "Normal", they stay changed until they grab a new Plate.

This means deciding on what to do:
1. Apparently there's a Dust Plate, Magma Plate, Steam Plate and so on. Arceus can't turn into a ghost, but he can turn into Potassium Cyanide (hey, it's a salt!)
2. Have a few tequila shots then line them up based on what sounds like a good idea at the time ("Ground is Earth, Rock is Salt, Water is Water, Fire is Fire, Flying is Air, Ice is Ice, Poison is Ooze, Fighting is Glass! My head feels funny.")
3. Actually change it so the types of Mephit are Bug, Dragon, Electricity and so on.

Then when they have enough hit dice they evolve into an Elemental Weird, and with the original ones, it's easy to decide which types evolve into which Weirds, but if you chose option 2 or 3, then you're looking at having Dark Weirds and Dragon Weirds.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Dec 06, 2014 3:03 am

I don't think I want to go that free form, but in general I agree. There's no way I'm going to go through all the monsters of 3.5 and figure out types and evolution relations for them, nor am I going to go through all 700+ pokemon and stat them up (though a good number are already statted up). I'll do things up as needed, and make judgment calls on D&D monster evos as needed, and allow some amount of player input on the latter.

Another thing I'm thinking about is evolution stones being able to add templates to things, like the aforementioned dragon stone. So you can take your pet raven (normal/flying), give it a fire stone, and it gains the Half Fire Elemental template (swapping the normal type for fire). The exception would be cases like the the wolf>hell hound example, where instead of the general 1/2 Fire Elemental template, there's a more specific creature it can turn into. 1/2 Elemental is a decently powerful template--especially when you can increase the creature's HD--so I would allow a player to not just do Eevee>Flareon style stuff, but I'd also to use a fire stone on Helhound to make it a 1/2 fire elemental on top of being a Hell Hound.

Edit: I was going by the "does it advance by HD?" thing.

Edit edit: I kind of want to keep that because I like the idea of having crow-fiends represented by refluffing imps and quasits that you can have as your partner. Also there's a lot of precedent in both D&D and Pokemon for having creatures of human level intelligence or greater as your servant you call from an extradimensional space at a whim, in the former case it's bound demons, and in the latter case it's meowth.

So maybe sapient things that advance by HD can still be caught, it's just considered outright evil to do so without their consent and usually some form of agreement made. So if you want a Heckrow, you can call one up and negotiate with it and probably get it to agree to being caught and trained. You'd want to catch it so you have the necessary connection to train it, but, depending on the disposition of your indentured servant, you may just almost never call it back to it's pokeball.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun Dec 07, 2014 12:11 pm

Ok, so this is getting away from Pokemon and working something like it but specific to D&D, but what do people think of tweaking the types a bit? When bringing pokemon over to D&D, Dark has an innate tie to bad touch planes like the Plane of Shadow, the plane of Negative Energy, and the lower planes, but this creates an imbalance as there is no "Light" type. In pokemon, one can argue that Dark's "Evilness" is countered by Fighting being more like "Hero," but aside from trying to make that work, there's no reason to give Fighting a connection to the Good Touched Planes.

I'm tempted to just add a Light type, strong against Bug and Ghost, a mutual weakness with Darkness, and vulnerable to Grass and Fire. Kind of tempted to make them strong against Water (because evaporation) and Poison (because sunlight kills germs), but that seems a bit too strong.

Then there's the fact that Pokemaster treats subtypes like they're pokemon types...

Anyway. I'm also thinking about running this online, since it'll be easier to find another player or two on here than in meatspace. If I do that, it'd be set in Faerun, in the North.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sun Dec 07, 2014 12:54 pm

Prak wrote:In pokemon, one can argue that Dark's "Evilness" is countered by Fighting being more like "Hero," but aside from trying to make that work, there's no reason to give Fighting a connection to the Good Touched Planes.

Correct. It's Heroic, but not intrinsically Holy or anything.

He would feel very conflicted.

As much as you hate its very existence, Fairy is the closest to "Good and Nice and Fluffy and Shiny and Plays Nice"

I take that back.

I'm tempted to just add a Light type, strong against Bug and Ghost, a mutual weakness with Darkness, and vulnerable to Grass and Fire. Kind of tempted to make them strong against Water (because evaporation) and Poison (because sunlight kills germs), but that seems a bit too strong.

While I wouldn't add Light type to pokemon, I can see there being a calling for it in D&D. I mean, of the Pokemon attacks that blast people with light beams, there's Solar Ray (Grass), and then there are a few Steel ones. I suppose there's also Judgement Beam or whatever, which is "the same type as Arceus at the moment", but they're usually Steel. Oh okay there's also an Ice one, oh and maybe Electricity. So basically, Light as an element is all over the fucking place.

Then there's the fact that Pokemaster treats subtypes like they're pokemon types...

When I started to do that Pokemon-D&D project I abandoned, I did the "Pokemon Type Traits" thing, and they specialised in Pokemon Types and not Subtypes. But you could have the Mindless Gym or the Law Gym or whatever, I suppose. Cold, Fire, Earth, Air, Water, Incorporeal, Evil (arguably) and Psionic are subtypes that already fit just fine.

Anyway. I'm also thinking about running this online, since it'll be easier to find another player or two on here than in meatspace. If I do that, it'd be set in Faerun, in the North.

I am okay with this idea.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun Dec 07, 2014 1:10 pm

I do dislike the fairy type, but I realised my main problem with it is lack of a unifying theme. Dark at least has "kind of assholes." I would call "kind and benevolent" Fairy's unifying theme, except that healbots like Chancey and Miltank didn't get the type. Which is the other way to go--call Fairy the inherently good type, and move some stuff around and make some retcons on certain pokemon.

Yeah, I remember the Pokemon Type Traits thing. I suggested it when I statted Joltik/Galvantula, and then you made a bunch more. I didn't remember the Pokemaster type tweak though.

But yeah, I'm thinking of doing "Dungeons and Druddigons" as a Play by Post here, because IRC is kind of a pain to organize. The enemy team would probably of course be Team Thay. Maybe Team Zhentar is a rival team?

I kind of want to allow fullcasters, but they seem way too powerful. Restricting them to cohort casting by saying "you must have two levels in something else at all times" seems like it could maybe help with that, as would allowing Sorcerers but not Wizards, and restricting Divine casters to "Core only, can pick Wis mod in non-core spells each level" or something.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Dec 07, 2014 1:25 pm

The fact that pokemon only have two types is a weird dissociated game mechanic. Obviously Scizor continues to fly after getting the metal coat. In an RPG like D&D, you'd just have subtypes accumulate.

If your system can't handle the fact that Dracolich is an Undead and a Dragon and airborne at the same time your system is stupid.

-Username17

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun Dec 07, 2014 1:27 pm

Actually, that's a good point too, and something that's bugged me for a while.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sun Dec 07, 2014 1:29 pm

Yeah, good point. It's not like there are going to be things that cause problems by having Type Bloat where they're Flying Fire Electricity Steel Psychic Dragon Bugs. Or if there are, those things are probably stupid creatures that were a bit dumb to start with.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun Dec 07, 2014 1:35 pm

Well... a silver dragon would be Dragon Flying Ice Poison and possibly Steel... a black dragon would be Dragon Flying Grass Poison Water.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Dec 07, 2014 1:41 pm

In a game with a battle map, the flying type doesn't even exist. It's an emergent property of their movement modes. Pokemon doesn't have locations, and so uses the Flying Type as a kludge to imply that some creatures aren't touching the ground and are therefore unaffected by earthquakes and the like.

Basically you're going to end up with a list of subtypes that looks more like 3e subtypes than Pokemon Types.

-Username17

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sun Dec 07, 2014 1:42 pm

Prak wrote:Well... a silver dragon would be Dragon Flying Ice Poison and possibly Steel... a black dragon would be Dragon Flying Grass Poison Water.

A Silver Dragon would be Dragon, Flying and Ice. Maybe Steel if the shiny surface seems relevant enough. It happens to have one Poison breath weapon but that doesn't make it a Poison thing. Black Dragons are Water Poison Flying Dragons definitely, but I don't really see Grass being particularly relevant to them.

You could even argue that Blue Dragons for instance rarely actually fly, so they don't get Flying Type, flying is just something they happen to be able to do. So Blue could be Electric Ground Dragon.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun Dec 07, 2014 1:52 pm

Yeah, I was tempted to say the Flying type was irrelevant in D&D but didn't because there are the type interactions. That said, there are enough other things for Ground, Fighting and Grass to be weak against that it's probably fine to remove Flying as a type and say it's just something some pokemon do, and if they are actively flying it's hard to hit them with Ground moves the same way that it's hard for your judo monk to meaningfully contribute against something that flies.

So removing Flying actually helps a lot, since it means Charizard can just be a Fire Dragon and Gyarados can just be a Water Dragon (and suddenly not so sad about Electric attacks) and Silvergon is just an Ice Dragon and so on.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Sun Dec 07, 2014 7:51 pm

Pokemon's elements make sense for the gameboy pokemon games but get odd when you turn it into a tabletop RPG. I think you could divide it into three subsections

1) Elemental property
The weakness and resistances the pokemon has to energy types

2) Physical constitution
The weaknesses and resistances the pokemon has to physical attack properties: Bashing, Slashing, Piercing

3) Movement mode
The movement modes that let pokemon avoid or leave them vulnerable to certain move types.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Dec 08, 2014 12:57 am

I'm not sure I'd go that far, because that becomes less Pokemon and more "D&D 'Mon game." Which is an admirable thing I have nothing against, but would need a bit more work than saying "Ok, we're playing D&D and everyone gets pikachu or one of his compatriots."

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Tue Dec 09, 2014 8:26 am

You know, when adding D&D monsters, I think there's another Eevee style thing: Ekans

So if it gains X hit dice, it evolves into Arbok as normal. When can then evolve into the Iron Cobra if it [reaches ___ hit dice/levels up/is traded] while wearing a Protector.

This one, not the drum pedal.

If touched with a Dusk Stone, it evolves into a Shadow Asp. Sadly I can't see anything for that to evolve into, and it's a fairly basic, low-level critter.

Maybe half-ass its next evolution with the Umbral template added to Arbok? I don't know.

If you touch it with a Fire Stone, there's the Fire Snake critter in one of the books, that comes in 2-3 strengths.

That's without getting into the weird 2-headed varieties, basilisks, and such. You probably don't want to include things that are a bit too human to fit that evolution (Nagas and Yuan'ti).

Feel free to create charts for Demons and Devils.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Tue Dec 09, 2014 8:33 am

Human like intelligence has always been very weird in Pokemon, see Alakazam and Mewtwo.

But yeah, too human is probably something to avoid with most pokemon. There is the Broodguard, however, which I think is acceptable as a pokemon. And there are a variety of serpentine dragons which ekans could evolve into.