Pokemon Tabletop

Series of quests from an old pokemon game I played

>Bees get organized.
Beedrills raid local towns, killing some, stealing others. Invade their hive and save them. Mutated Vespiquen running the show, and is as smart as a human.
Reward: Set of moderate level pokemon to rescue, used by the Vesiquen in battle, and more honey than you could ever need.

>What has Science done?
Abandoned pokemon bioengineering lab. Type shifts. Type shifts everywhere. A ghostly goldeen, an aquatic magmar, ash covered sandslashes, and poison pidgeys! Or whatever you want

Reward: Unique, one of a kind type shifted pokemon, and maybe a ditto if they look really, really carefully.

>Lights out
Team Knock Off has captured "Insert favorite electric type legendary" and is using them to power a powerplant! Are you a bad enough dude to free a pokegod?
Reward: A couple of favors from said pokegod. Only a couple.

>Invasion!
The neighboring kingdom is tired of using pokemon duels! They have superior numbers, and will use them to take your land! Prepare for all out battle, and use pokemon to their fullest mass potential. Show them the horror of Pokewar.

[Evil Team] Invades?! The Counterattack
>The PCs are nearby trainers/townsfolk that have to step up to the plate to defend [town] from the evil team of your choice. The local Gym was targeted first, before the alarm sounded and the session begins. The Gym Leader is MIA, and other strong Trainers will take time to get there. The PCs either have to hold out in the Pokemon Centre or drive the bad guys back.
>If the PCs do well, they might reach the Gym, where the evil team Boss lurks. ETB might be holding the Gym Leader hostage, prompting a heroic rescue. If the PCs do poorly, then they might see the arrival of the Gym Leader/E4 Member/Champ, depending on how bombastic you want to be.
>The PCs might also opt to join or pretend to join the evil team or some other extreme, so, you know, gl hf.

1. The players meet up.
2. Then they find a random pokemon.
3. Then a group of exceedingly shittily statted enemy trainers try to do Something Bad to Random Pokemon, oh no!
4. The players defeat Enemy Trainers easily, because the Enemy Trainers suck.
5. Roll a d20. On a 1-5, the Random Pokemon was already owned by someone else. On a 6-18, the players are told they don't want to capture it/it leaves/it is better off in the wild/it needs to be with its family. On a 19 or 20 they can argue over who gets to capture it, IC. Suggest they battle over it, that's always fun!
6. Repeat from 2 for the next session, and the next session after that, and after that, and after that. Occasionally throw in gym battles, or have the die roll come BEFORE the Enemy Trainer attack, just to mix things up a bit. Repeat for the next 20 years

>Bees get organized
In general, when regular fauna gets their shit together they can cause absurd amounts of chaos.

Our GM is doing Grim Dark PTU with Rocket Taking over the world and us playing resistance fighters

its been alot of fun

About how many episodes--I mean, how many sessions should we spend on each gym battle? I was thinking at least two per gym leader, with only one party member getting a badge.

Two to three is a good metric, and why would more than one party member even WANT to get a badge?

It's the 3ds emulator done?

Everyone in my group needed badges.
So we had group battles against the gym leader and gym trainers.

Silly. Only one character per group ever needs gym badges. Why would anyone else ever need them? They're just tagging along with him, after all.

Actually I just thought. Multiple trainer battles exist in Pokémon, there are twin gym leaders after all.
If you declare yourself a three person team with a couple of friends and do triple or rotation battles, you could arguably get three badges at once... Unless you just get one "triple badge" that only counts for you three when battling together.

Oh yes. And that picture reminds me of another side quest we had

>Drifloons are fucking evil
A gang of drifloons has stolen a group of children and pokemon, and are hauling them up into the distortion world to feed on them. Can you save all the children and pokemon both from the evil balloons, and the fall that follows?

Reward: The local town that had their children stolen will hail the party as heroes, giving them a nice friendly place to hang their hats. The saved pokemon might join the trainers.

>Too Spooky
Spooky ghosts have been attacking a town. Tracking them back leads to an ancient burial tomb. Can you fight through the horde of ghosts and put the ancient angry spirit back to rest?

Reward: A wide assortment of ghost types to capture, and your flavor of ancient burial goods. We got a Ghost Type bow, a Psychic Type bow, a head dress of truesight, and a Talking Stick that let us use telepathy to talk to anything.

>Team Knock Off is at it again!
Team Knock Off is drilling for oil, and accidentally release an endless tide of primordial muks and wheezings. You need to stop the operation and plug the hole before the country side suffers the effect of a sentient oil spill.
Reward: We failed this mission, and as such, the southern most part of the map was desolate and noxious.

My group ran mass melees for gym battles. Every trainer who challenged them as a group would be allowed one or two pokemon to use in the battle, and the gym leader would have their gym members to take part in the battle.

Mind you, there was almost never a battle in my game where it was a one on one pokemon battle. The trainers were regulars in the thick of melee, either as combatants or medics.

We only had three gym battles in that game, and all of them were just because "Hey, we're in a town with a gym. We could use the prize money for supplies."

We weren't looking to be the very best, we were looking to survive in a harsh wilderness while tracking down legendary pokemon, or trying to make our own.

Was from this game. It was a good game, although the group broke apart in the second arc of the story. Damn shame.

>Psyducks can enter fugue states with incredible power when they have a migraine.

IIRC, nitroglycerin can induce migraines, if the same applies for pokemon as it does people, then a trainer might have a small vial of the stuff for "emergencies".

Wait, how would that work if two of the PCs were gym leaders themselves, just tagging along with the actual MC?

That'd get pretty weird at times. Do we have any information on League regulations that cover that sort of thing?

>2017
>actually using gyms and badges
Trials suit a tabletop model so much better. Get some traditional dungeon crawling in there and an inventive totem.

Too busy making sure the professors are watching the kids like a hawk through the spycameras in their pokedices to ensure they don't incorrectly utilize common (or not so common) objects to police the gym leaders in any coherent fashion.

Too goddamn true.

I'm kind of torn about pokemon as a tabletop thing. The traditional "get the badges then take on the elite four" thing seems like it wouldn't work that well with multiple people. The mystery dungeon line would make a lot more sense to adapt, but it just feels like "Autism, the Setting"

You're someone whom would likely be killed by their Pokemon it would seem

>pokewar
I'm curious.

We ran a PMD game.
Can confirm, it was Autism, the Setting. Loved every second of it though.

Pokemon are cute though. That makes it okay.

>What has science done
This was an actual thing in the TCG, there was the Holon Region pokemon who had different typings due to genetic modification, and now in Sun and Moon we have regional varients who changed types based on their new locations they live in.

>it just feels like "Autism, the Setting
Not just that, it's an open outlet for furries.

Rival nation next door was very technologically advanced, but had shit for natural resources, due to being built ontop of an old mega city. A lot of old salvaged tech.

Our nation was assbackwards, going full iron age with a handful of old tech dotted around.

Rival's decide they want our delicious farmland, mines, and forests. They prepare an invasion, and we have a few days to prepare our border.

The first encounter was the worst. Using squads of sandslashes who knew Earthquake, we scattered them over the only easy field of battle, using them as a mass seismic minefield, devastating the vast majority of their ground pounders in a single blow. We changed the landscape for about a half mile in that valley.

Next was the skirmishers in the woods flanking the battlefield. Heavy use of bug types with status effects, most importantly poison powder and stun spore. We choked the forest, using the diminutive size of many bug pokemon, or their frankly overlooked nature to ambush any wayward bands. We have them go full Vietcong.

The final stretch was trenches, flanked by more forests, filled with more ambush. We forced them to meet us in the trenches, and used swarms of weak ghost pokemon to phase through trench walls, attack, and than phase back in. Anyone who tried to move over the line was struck down by siege equipment, hurling clusters of geodudes with self destruct into enemy columns.

The biggest problem we faced was the flying jetpack assault troops. That made up the mass brunt of the parties combat, fighting the elite shock troops and their crazy psyker general.

It was glorious, but the cost of life on all sides was enormous, and that stretch of border was effectively lifeless after the sheer amount of toxins we pumped out and terraforming we did

Our group played up the horror that would come from living in the pokemon world. When you have giant hornets the size of children, mice that can summon thunder, small mole penises that can cause earthquakes, titanic stone snakes that can burrow through solid stone, giant flying flamethrowing lizards, apes that can tear a man in two, rats that can take a man's leg off in one bite, sentient piles of pollution that can melt flesh at a touch, aloof and alien pokemon gods, and more dream eating abominations than you can shake a stick at, you can easily make "Gotta catch 'em all!" into "Gotta survive 'em all!" you can take pokemon in a very dark direction, which can be quite satisfying.

I was making more of a statement of curiosity on what warfare in the Pokemon world would entail, not the particulars of your campaign; though giving me the latter gave some insights into the former.

I always figured a "pokewar," would involve more counting coup and champion-fighting stuff than anything else. When the law enforcement of your setting use Pokemon in dangerous situations and their firearms are just for show (and also lower-tech than the rest of the buildings and other stuff around them), soldiers are like to have a similar setup.

And if most issues in your setting are solved by dog-fights with magical animals--and these fights typically result in unconsciousness or maiming, not death, as forcing Pokemon to fight to the death is very difficult from what I understand--then why would issues between city-states go on to full-scale industrial-style combats as opposed to the highly-publicized champion- or small group-fights that people are already used to?

Even the settings many mafias use small-unit tactics during their literal (for a few of them) world-ending plans.

It just seems odd to me that state conflicts would be anything more than publicized fights between their best trainers, even from a technological perspective; how would someone develop artillery when creatures that can hurl stones, manipulate weather, and shoot laser beams are not only common, but easily trainable? How would the development of weapons technology survive beyond the sort of for-fun shit you see in Olympic events or ridiculously-simple Great War-era small-arms or even black powder weapons?

never thought id see a ptu thread

someone talk to me about it i want to argue why its shit and for you to argue why its not

>Power capability is so bad that you can leap 15 feet into the air and punch out a Charizard with Ice Punch, but if you try to lift more than 120 lbs you can't move more than like 5 feet per 10 seconds
>Movement capability in general is retarded because unless a Trainer specifically caters his build towards moving fast despite being Max Level he'll never be able to muster the strength to move faster than 15 feet per 10 seconds
>Hitting airborne targets requires you to use the pythagorean theorem
>Rules are a clusterfuck of having to open one book to find a Feature in question, another book to figure out how that Feature interacts with itself, and opening a third book to find out what the capability it gives does
>Piece of shit for GMs to run because if you ever want to introduce an NPC trainer you also need to stat up 6 other NPC Pokemon to accompany them
>Martial classes have three specific viable builds that pigeonhole them into either 'Fast Guy', 'Tanky Guy', or 'High Health High Damage Guy'
>Banning certain classes like Warper is popular because GMs are retards who can't comprehend how to make a puzzle without teleporting instantly solving it because mUH AGENCY
>Damage system is retarded because the game leans heavily towards small, regular and reliable damage base moves of At-Will or EOT frequency and completely discourages Scene/Daily frequency damage moves from being used due to their minisculely higher damage base compared to just using Water Pulse twice

Veeky Forums is genwun af

On the other hand, the least I can give PTU is that at least there's no completely unstoppable class/pokemon combo. No matter what, there seems to be a counter to everything.

Also six Magikarp team is viable and completely meme.

Or by their nitroglycerin vials.

I think the thing that the mystery dungeon games really messed up isn't making it more scary with the dangers of the world, but rather making the setting work in general. Things like "how are they building houses", "Why aren't they using names (or why not play it up as a cultural thing where it's rare to address anyone by a given name instead of their species)", who the hell is making these gadgets and orbs?, and potential world building details. If they took a little effort to make some sense out of their world I could probably appreciate the games a lot more instead of just as a quirky endless dungeon spawning time killer
Pretty sure most people who know about pokemon are. Not sure what in this thread lead to you saying that though

You realize the Mystery Dungeon games are a crossover, right?

It's not just Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, it's Pokemon x Mystery Dungeon.

It's a crossover the same way Persona Q is a crossover with Etrian Odyssey.

I believe the leagues and championships grew from the need to use a champion system of resolving conflicts, giving the destructive capability of pokemon.

The use of pokemon as it stands, the six slotted on a belt, is only possible due to the advances of technology in the pokemon world. Before that, keeping a team of monsters would require far more food and supplies for warfare, making the use of large amounts of pokemon to engage in warfare cost prohibitive, compared to making a cannon or a catapult.

Also, advances in things like firearms would be to give people a level playing field against pokemon. Wild pokemon don't fight one by one as you run along, they act like their respective species. Some of them swarm, move in herds, attack from ambush, so on and so forth. Having a shotgun would be quite handy to help keep you safe along side your pokemon.

Also, champion battles need to be honored by both sides. If one nation has superior manpower, pokepower, and industrial resources, why should they let a highly trained group of pokemon decide their territorial desires, when they could easily put the full brunt of their military might into the endeavor?

Mind you, this game setting was a lot darker than normal pokemon, so there is that.

I suppose it depends on how easy you figure it is for trainers and Pokemon to interact and partner pre-Pokeballs.

There's literally a thread over in /vp/ that was just discussing how trainers and Pokemon did their stuff before 'balls. A few suggested that people and Pokemon naturally partner, but because of how hard it would be to train more than one or two without 'balls making everything so convenient, people would only have one to three really strong Pokemon; this is where NPCs in the games having one or two Pokemon on them more often than not is explained. I'm fond of this idea, and the PTU expansion books even suggest multiple ways that trainers and Pokemon could have been together before 'balls; if I remember right, what I just described is one of their suggestions.

In that case, humans and Pokemon would have been working together and protecting each other long before firearms were really a thing at all. This isn't to say that they don't exist; to the contrary, as we see them occasionally in the show and games. I'm simply suggesting that they are exceptionally rare, especially compared to our own world.

As for champion battles being descended from ancient rite, I really like that. Pokemon are incredibly destructive (or at least, they can be) so it makes perfect sense. And in terms of whether or not it'd be honored in a modern context, that's certainly a good question. Personally, I think that in most situations, it would.

Only in the well and truly seriously War-is-Hell scenarios--like a religious conflict or a planned genocide or mass conquering as opposed to fighting over a stretch of territory or resource rights--would you see a mass deployment of trainers and Pokemon fighting for their homes, and that's where we'd see the "professional corps," of state-sponsored soldier-teams. I would add though that Pokemon is certainly a world of personalities. A single Champion-tier trainer can likely make a massive difference for a city-state.

And we did, during the grand battle. A couple of us had acquired unique or legendary mon during our travels, and we all played vital parts during the battle. Champions, be they exceptional trainers or battle hardened warriors, can always help turn the tide when backed by waves of lesser, but still competent soldiers.

The battle was the wrap up of the first arc, we didn't have many full fledged battles besides that one. Everything else was skirmishes and brutal melees when fighting rival trainers.

In more civilized times, yes, I full well believe all conflicts would be resolved through fights between champions, but that isn't the stage for aspiring trainers.

And I do not believe firearms would be rare. Pokemon are pretty common, but not everyone is a trainer. Yeah, some folks might keep a mon or two as pets or guard animals, but a professional hunter would still have need for a bow, or later on a rifle to help them in their trade. While their are pokemon that could fill the role of ranged hunting tool, not every region has them, nor would every settlement. The gun would be a homesteaders tool, to catch dinner and to ward off threats.

A bandit looking to rob you of all your valuables isn't going to sit idly by while his pokemon duke it out with yours. He's going to be trying to stab you and take your wallet so you can't command that array of beasts on your belt.

Man killed man long before we domesticated the dog to help us kill man quicker. It would be no different in pokemon.

>15 feet per ten seconds
>90 feet a minute
>5400 feet an hour
>approximately 1.8 kmph
>literally crawl speed
This can't be true

My mistake, it's actually in meters which is less retarded, but still completely unbelievable for a realistic game in a realistic setting, let alone something as fantastical as Pokemon

By the way keep in mind barring specific circumstances you only get a total 29 points to put into your skills, if you choose to put those into skills and not other areas in the first place

So when there's 17 skills and only 29 points in the most circumstances, 40 points if you dedicate your entire build to collecting them instead of stat points, you're going to be very minmaxed since SKILLS ARE RANKED FROM 1 TO 8, EACH

Hey look at the bright side, if you max out your Acrobatics & Athletics for a measly 12 of your points, you can run a whole 33 meters per 10 seconds, which is pretty fast for exactly half of your entire game's progression to max level's worth of points and time.

Its not. Its a hyperbole. Trainers start out with 6 or so overland movement (in meters, not feet) unless you dump acrobatics and athletics as low as you can.

Skills go from 1 to 6. 8 is achieved by a feature that just lets you use 8 instead of 6 for other features that call on the value of a skill (ex. heal 3xskill hp). It does not affect rolls for that skill

So you can only go to 27 meters per 10 seconds, less fun.

Either way unless your Class demands either Acrobatics or Athletics to get its Features, you won't be putting any ranks into it and come out as a god among men with the power to destroy threats against mankind in a single punch, yet start choking from being out of breath if you move at more than a slow-paced jog.

Holy crap, a PTU thread?

My players want a Gym Crawl but they already killed the last one because they acted like it was the game. Should I try another setting, or try and spice it up?

Also worth mentioning that those skills are in-combat movement speeds, where the notion is you arn't using all energy you have in running one direction, because you're also issueing commands to your team or trying to hit someone with an attack or a variation of other actions.

Not really anything new. Dnd uses this mentality a lot too. And considering every pokemon's movement speeds scale appropriately to each other, it works fine.

Be salty all you want, no one is forcing you to play. Either way the entire system is balanced around these movement numbers (yes some things go faster or slower, but they make sense. fish out of water sort of thing). Most things can move 6-7. Mons displaced from water or equivilant move ~3. Really fast ones like jolteon can get 10+ decently easy.

How about the irrelevancy of Scene/Daily frequency moves, pigeonholing of Martial Trainers, bullshit math required to aim skywards because of 3D combat being brought onto a 2D grid, extreme overwork for GMs to make NPCs since making one means they need another 6 Pokemon with them, or how the Power capability makes absolutely no sense and there's no rules, or how you specifically need to break all immersion concerning having multiple Pokemon owned by a Trainer outside their Pokeballs in combat because the game's balance shatters if they decide to do anything except break all character and do literally nothing since the action economy would instantly gib anything, how about how the newest playtests are catering towards Play-by-Post by nerfing Status moves because the majority of the playerbase can't stand waiting a week to take their next turn in combat because they were Flinched, completely removing the tabletop aspect of a tabletop rpg?

PTU is a shit system my dude.

Oh, I forgot about how the Water Type is completely ass too since unless you dedicate a Move slot just for Splash, your fish will only be able to flop one or two squares at a time and just get kited until it dies since Pokemon battles don't happen in the sea or rivers. Even with Splash it gives the fish a barely servicable, +2-3 movement to just about match the most crippled and incapable of Trainers in terms of speed.

I was disappointed that GF didn't dive fully into Delta Species and just kept it to the "regional variants" shit. Oh no, that would be too much work for a mechanic that actually might be interesting.

I guess I'll be that first degenerate to ask for a source on that pic.

There is one source book

Half of those are hyperboles or just plain untrue. The other half just show off the fact you havent actually been in a game long enough for them to come up/be relevant. Its been shown in your previous posts of not even bothering to actually read or willingness to use context.

No shit the game is based around action economy, damn near every tabletop is. No shit your fireball wont reach over there, it has a range of 5 and your target is 5 in front and 5 to the right. Of course flinch is getting a nerf, when theres literally no save to losing not 1 but all actions; also you before you could make it all but a garuntee if you hit via certain combinations. No that trainer doesnt have to have 6 pokemon, they could just like, you know, not accept a battle.

Water type is perfectly fine. Its full of ranged moves and there are plenty of water mons with good land speed. Also splash is far better than youre giving it credit as it ups your evasion coupled with most fish-like pokemon have higher jump than most. In any case, there are poke edges for upping movement of all types and orders that do the same. And above all that your GM could just have river or an arena suited to water mons.

Sounds like you need to git gud. Most systems have problem with flying. There are rules for power, even if you don't like them. Obviously a Pokemon game is gonna require people to have teams. In the games you control 3 Pokemon at max and battles would be a cluster fuck if everyone used all their Pokemon at once. Also statuses removing turns sucked for everyone involved because Paralysis was save or lose. The current playtest nerfs are from almsot a full year ago.

PTU is still the only good Pokemon RPG system there is. Not because it is good, but the other stuff is all much worse.

Dude, maybe Pokemon isn't for you? I mean, you fail to understand the single most important rule in the Pokeverse; Rule of Cool.

>a Pokemon jumping high and smacking another Pokemon
That is awesome. Do it.
>but hypotenuse and shit
That is literally basic math and you should be able to do it quickly either on a calculator (which we all have in our pockets right now!) or in your head. And if you can't be bothered to reach for your phone, then fall back on Rule of Cool.

Gym crawls are fine so long as theres other things going on. Several mini hooks per city and a few over arching stories can really tie everything together nicely.

And by no mean do gyms have to be strictly battles. Having a component/the whole thing be something different is fine, like staying the night in a haunted house or making treacherous journey to find medicine for a local. Just spice it up every now and then.

>Half of those are hyperboles
Why use any of the DB12-15 Scene/Daily Moves when you can get much reliable damage through At-Will DB6-10s?

Martial Classes consist of the three: Fast Trainers go Tumbler+Rogue+Technician Martial Artist+Hey you get one option to choose at least for your 4th
Strong Trainers go Berserker+Roughneck+Athlete
Tanky Trainers go Fortress+Steelheart+Roughneck+Athlete
Not pigeonholing yourself into one of these three lists dooms you to be unable to keep up against what a Pokemon Battling Style Trainer's capabilities are.
>No that trainer doesnt have to have 6 pokemon, they could just like, you know, not accept a battle.
What about you know, when they do accept the battle at some point? Since it's a... Pokemon Battling game? What do you do when they want one of those every session, or multiple times a session per PC? You /could/ spitball generic stats and call it a day, and then realize that the PCs utterly destroy them without a sweat since you didn't take the time to account for the Trainer's actual abilities and how they synergize with their Pokemon, the same way they did for their own.
>Nerfing Flinch because people can't take the chance of losing a turn due to a 25% on Headbutt, before even accounting for the chance of it hitting you in the first place.
What's the point in Fast Martial builds then? Astonish is already a piece of shit that doesn't work and Rogue's best trait is its Ambush Ability, both of which only work once a Scene.
first.

>Berserker
>Fortress
>Steel Heart
Those are splats

>6 on 6 battles
Nigga, who would want to risk using all their Pokemon on a route where wild Pokemon show up? People can easily and within reason only do 2 on 2 or 3 on 3

>Nerfing flinch is bad because muh speed
It just straight up denied actions with no save

>Daily and Scene Moves
Well yeah, you aren't gonna spam them. Which moves are more useful are gonna depend on the campaign style. A typical gym crawl can probably have 2 big moves because they aren't gonna battle 5 times a day.

>martial materials are pigeonholed
Why are you playing a Pokemon game as a martial character anyway? It makes no sense in universe. Also, there's not a single system with perfect class balance. What else is new?

>assuming full 6v6 battles all the time.
Works great in a videogame, but when you translate Pokemon into some semblance of real world logic (use that term loosely), most people end up having 1 or 2 Pokemon. Take a page from Battle Towers, and Most battles should be 3v3 tops.

>Hypotenuse is basic
It still bogs combat down disgustingly when you need to decide if its best to try a ranged attack or close in with a melee one on an airborne enemy.

Ranged? Sure, let's calculate the pythagorean theorem for every square I'm able to move to see what the bare minimum I can move yet still move in range is.
Melee? Sure, let's check my High Jump, damn I need to get higher. Let's move back for a running start for a +1, now let's make a DC16 Acrobatics check for another +1. Now let's hope that I have enough Overland left after getting my running start and planning my jump distance to actually get to the airborne enemy. Now I can finally roll my attack, it sure felt good making everyone wait endlessly for their turn while I checked back several times to make sure I could effectively get in range.

There's also the non-option classes that are actually useless. Dancer, Oracle, Coordinator (Contests lmao), Capture Specialist (Because GMs popularly limit Pokemon avaliability to be equal amongst Trainers since Pokemon EXP throws too out of whack for them to handle), Enduring Soul, Dragon/Fairy/Electric/Fire/Ground/Psychic/Rock Aces, General/Chemistry/Occultism/Pokemon Caretaking/Paleontology Researchers. Amazing, terrible classes that are blatantly outshined by others in their category.

Sounds like you just suck.

Some people want to punch a Charizard, it's radical, it's cool, it's a fantasy game with fantastical elements such as fighting alongside your partner Pokemon.

About the 6on6, sure, you don't often fight the entire team. Nonetheless your PCs won't ever face a challenge unless you specifically go out of your way to examine your NPC's build and how that synergizes with his Pokemon in question, what? Were you just going to make the NPC a Duelist and not even take advantage of Tolerance? Your PCs did and should, and if you don't the NPCs are outclassed and destined for defeat.

And even after taking the time to do that, those NPCs will be out of date once the Trainers gain another 4 levels and hit another Powerspike via increased Skills or more Features so you'll have to go back and do work on them again.

That's hoping that the PCs will fight that NPC in the first place, have fun trying to recycle that build at a later date if they ignore them.

>PTU is still the only good Pokemon RPG system there is. Not because it is good, but the other stuff is all much worse.

This.
Pokerole seems decent as well but I have no experience playing it and the rules seemed just a tad to barebones.

PTU meanwhile is the first game i saw that manages to be playable while still beeing very close to the original mechanical feeling of the video games.
If people can handle 3.PF then they can handle PTU.
I agree in that it's a GM prep nightmare and that balance is a little off here and there, but it's far from broken. A lot of things aim for beeing practical, not realistic. Keeping movement speeds low is good for games with emphasis on grid combat. Otherwise most grids and gaming tables are just to small and prepping maps becomes even more öoad on the GM.

Also: the book is excellent in terms of layout and advice, especially for a fan project.

tl;dr : Still one of the best pokemon tabletops out there, even if far from perfect.

Pokerole looks fine, but it is terribly balanced and has more holes than typical swiss cheese.

I'm the complaining guy, I'll concede this. It's the best Pokemon TTRPG we have right now, I think it's shit, but its nonetheless the most servicable thing avaliable.

Not every NPC is gonna show up again or be super dedicated to battles. Also just giving Ace Trainer and Commander spices up a fight. PCs don't know how many other fights they have that day, NPCs are likely to be in only that one.

You didn't read my post at all, did you?
I'm going to assume you're an idiot for just a few minutes and explain something to you:

>75% of all systems are crap
>Pokemon as a setting revolves around the universal Rule of Cool.
>If it's awesome, you should do it.
>throw out and ignore the shit rules in order to adhere to yours number 1 Pokemon Rule: Rule of Cool.

If you want do something, and the rules big down game play and just make certain options a hassle, then going with the in- universe logic is much better 9/10 times. In- universe logic lets us do things like ride tiny birds hundreds of miles, or allow a giant rock monster to drop- kick a giant bird monster.

Why are you hung up on shit rules anyway? Wouldn't you rather focus on hunting exotic fighting animals?

Look, PTU is terrible. The rules conflict with each other between trying to emulate the games, emulate the show, and emulate reality. I GM a game right now, and imnjist blatantly ignoring or changing rules I think are idiotic for the sake of fun.

Why are you not doing the same?

>Ace Trainer and Commander alone
+1 CS, another Training Feature to spam every turn, and a single, possibly fun Signature Move

Commander I'll concede if you manage to think of a really good combo to pull with Leadership and Battle Conductor on non-Pokemon. But that goes back to needing the take time to specifically see how to challenge the players, to a point that at least matches up to the time they put into their own builds.

Off the top of my head, a couple favorite NPC combos I've pulled was an Ace Trainer spamming a Double Down'd Bite every turn, and a Commander+Cheerleader using Moment of Action, Leadership, and Battle Conductor to constantly supply three allied Trainers with 1 free AP a turn to fuel their own Features.

I would love a full on "Brew as you go" game using some more cinematic and/or narrative game.
Savage Worlds, FATE, hell even a hack of those new SW FFG games might work out well.
You just gotta figure out some stuff to adjust it to the pokemon formula in a smooth way.

>Having Legendary Pokemon

I don't know. The movies have made them out to be just too strong to contain. I can see some of them choosing to work with a human, or showing up to a tournament to test their might against some of the best humans have to offer.

>Wars with Pokemon

I think the movies and even Conquest has shown how you might go about that. The real problem at the end is always going to be human greed. After they've prepped or even conquered another country, they might try to capture some real powerful Legendary Pokemon, only for it to destroy them in an appropriate manner. That would put a damper on aggressiveness if any would be Empire shortly gets destroyed.

Forgot to add why I'm not doing it right now: You need the right players for it. I don't have them, yet still wanna spend time with my friends doing ttrpg things. Thus PTU it is, and we're still having a blast.

Did that for my first Pokemon game.
I'm a huge nerd who bought several of the paperback Pokedexes that come out. So I looked at the stats in those books, and seeing every stat rated 1- 6, i just used those stats in the books and a d6 roll under resolution system.

Made up everything else on the fly and focused on narrative storytelling. I thought seriously about "writing" this rules light system, but it seemed so easy, why even bother? Surely many other people came up with the idea. Turns out, everyone wants to write 3.PF levels of crunch.

Maybe I should go back to that project.

To adress the thing with the need to take a specific build for trainer combat:
I always felt combat classes are there to make yourself member 7 of your team, as a way to make you able to do something, but not all the fighting by yourself.
Might be due to the fact that nobody in my group minmaxes to the point of utter perfection, so i never felt the need to make a perfect combat trainer.

Not to derail the thread but I feel that games tend to go crunch heavy to cover every situation in some way that everybody can agree upon the results they have for the story due to rules written in a book.
Most games tend to focus on combat because it is usually the one thing with the gravest consequences and seems to have the most need for regulation.

Also going rules heavy makes it more game and less impro theater. Seems to be what most people want...

Its generally easier to make "everyday encounters" that only deal with one trainer at a time, kinda like the games with battles for wagers/sport and are 3v3 at best like another poster said. They even mention stuff like this when talking about league legal fights that are all about fairness.

As for builds theres plenty you can do to make a challenge if you dont want to go that deep. Theres a ton of generic buff classes like stat aces or ace trainer that can be difficult in a 1v1 setting. Maybe this particular trainer has better/more money/items/vitamins in their pokemon giving them an edge. Even just adding a strong held item (choice item post supressiom change for example) can spice it up. Either way encounter building is something you get use to and better at like in every ttrpg.

And if you really have that much trouble, not every session needs to have combat. Investigating cities and doing odd jobs can be fun too. Most wilderness encounters only need one or 2 sheets, just throw multiples of them at the party.

Also I had something happen earlier today, I stat up some enemies for a quick 1 on 1 with my trainers since we have missed a week and I want them to remember combat rules. The enemies have set 1 Pokemon. The players end up choosing Pokemon that are fucked by these singular Pokemon even without trainer features because of matchups.

So, I'm planning on running a Pokemon game in a region based off of Northwestern Africa.
What are some good 'invasive' pokemon species?

I already have Skirskit using Ice Beam during dry season and fucking up the weather, Diglet being a massive cause of desertification, and Rattata being easy prey that breeds explosively, causing a boom and bust in carnivore populations.

Shit happens like that with 1v1. 2v2 is something my group likes to do for 600-1400 wagers. Most 1v1s wont go above 600. That or do 2v2 with each trainer using one. Helps with match ups and engages more players. Might have trouble once on goes down though

I want more information on this, because that is a read idea.

Damn near any bug type perhaps? Maybe exeggutor helping create oasis areas for parts of the year, but when they migrate it has an impact on wildlife that depend on them for shelter/food.

>team work
I wish my players did that

Wingulls and Pelippers take took over rivers. Even more so now that Pelipper get Drizzle and could cause flooding.

Ruins being uncovered and unleashing groups of Baltoy or Sigilyph that use their psychic powers to keep people away from a common travel route.

What else would you like to know?

Exeggutor migrating being a natural part of the landscape that's kind of bothersome, so some people keep them penned in. Of course, when it turns out that the only thing keeping the Cacturne and Sudowoodo from going rampant was the migratory routes of the Exeggutor, it doesn't seem like such a good idea...

>Wingulls and Pelippers being dicks
Sounds good.

I already planned a Psychic/Ghost type gym, where a bunch of ancient pokemon who died millennia ago hang around, bother trainers, and potentially give the PC's a 'badge' that is over 1000 years old.

Do you have a map? African-based fakemon? Any ideas for interesting characters or Gym Leaders? What kind of region-unique hooks do you have in mind? What's the culture like; based on actual black African cultures, or are you going to use Sou'frican influence?

They could even investigate why Pelipper now cause the rain to fall around them all of a sudden when they didn't before.
A sudden mutation? A blessing by Kyogre? Something stranger still?
Just make sure you've got a whole lot of trumpet music on hand.

So which type aces are dog shit, workable, and good?

Haven't looked at the type ace much, but I do like the Dragon Ace. I think the powers give you that extra edge against other dragon types (and come on, who doesn t want dragon types?)

>God Tier
Flying, Ghost, Grass, Ice, Normal, Steel

>Okay Tier
Bug, Dark, Fighting, Poison, Water, Electric

>Shit Tier
Dragon, Fairy, Fire, Ground, Psychic, Rock

Huh, that's actually a completely even spread of good to bad.

I have looked at them, but not given too much thought. Dragon seems like one of the worst though given how the type is pretty late game, slow to grow if you get it early, and most of the bonuses are against other dragons.

Holy shit, those god tier ones really are amazing.

Tyrant's Roar is slightly useful for the slow but requires hitting in the first place, and the CS removal is only relevant if they have positive CS in the first place.

Highlander is a completely wasted, dead Feature unless you happen to be fighting other Dragons, where it amounts to just "You hit harder, they hit less hard."

Unconquerable requires you to not ONLY already have at least 3 Status Inflictions, but be able to still use a Dragon type Move to cure them. Opponents generally only need one good status like Flinch, Sleep, Freeze, Suppression, ect to ruin your entire strategy, trying to get hit by 3 and still be able to use a Move? Good luck with that dude.

This Will Not Stand is okay, but a critical hit or Massive Damage in PTU usually guarantees fainting, due to the system generally being a game of rocket tag and +1 CS to three stats won't be able to mitigate the HP loss you suffered to activate it.

Overall Dragon Ace is shit

And MOST of that makes sense, even.
Ice sucks ass because it's fucking Ice. Normal doesn't have much going for it either, Grass gets on the many resist/lots of weaks train too.
Dragon and Fairy are usually considered the strongest types, Earthquake Type is Earthquake Type.

Though it's obviously not perfect (I don't even know what Steel gets and can tell it got the best deal because it's fucking Steel), if the intent was to buff the weaker types and not buff the stronger types as much I can see why they did it that way.