Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
Welcome to Pokemon Tabletop. We hope you enjoy your visit.


You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free.


Join our community!


If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features:

Username:   Password:
Add Reply
  • Pages:
  • 1
  • 2
  • 4
Trouble with PCs catching high level pokemon
Topic Started: Jun 1 2014, 03:07 AM (3,081 Views)
Kaede11
Unlucky GM
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
LoL, you're right but that makes capturing the pokemon even easier...
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Ursus the Grim
Member Avatar
Never Knows Best
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
I often echo Batiro's advice on this matter when it comes up.

Keep in mind, you can ad hoc rates on the capture roll, its entirely within your rights for pokemon that aren't really meant to be captured. I believe the level 10 Pangoro in the Starter Module has a -20 capture adjustment because it's really strong.

You might also consider punishing them for capture attempts. Give them a choice, pressure them, so that every pokeball thrown is a gamble. Make them choose between, for instance, curing Bad Poison or attempting to capture it. Perhaps enforce a house rule that breaks pokeballs on particularly low rolls. I agree that capture rates seem low, but its a relatively easy problem to fix.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
BatiroAtrain
Member Avatar
Pyramid King
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
A few more suggestions for capturing being too easy:

If it's a horde battle, make a weaker Pokemon intercept the ball if someone tries capturing a boss (before they roll of course, so it doesn't seem like a cop-out).

Have Pokemon that could mess with their gear in some way. Maybe a greedy Meowth or trickster Aipom steals their ball case? That means no capturing until it's all over.

Along the same vein, you could have Pokemon that interfere with the ball's mechanics. If they're up against a strong Magneton and it's minions, the strong magnetic field could repel balls or disable their function.

In the end, it's all in how creative you are as a GM. If you feel something isn't hard enough, then make it more challenging. It's your game, after all, and if some people aren't having fun, then it needs to be fixed.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
JustAnotherRocketGrunt
Member Avatar
Pokémon Trainer
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
In a boss fight with a higher level Seviper and several lower level Ekans, my friend caught the Seviper on the very first round. The GM was disappointed (several boss battles in a row had gone like this), and said "one of the faster Ekans jumps in the way of the ball and is caught instead". We thought this was more than fair, and went on with the battle. I then caught the Seviper two rounds after, and wanted to trade it for the Ekans. Our GM (who was Batiro) said, "fine, you can have it; but it starts at Loyalty 0". Because of that, I don't know that that Seviper ever saw use.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Solysp
Member Avatar
Pokémon Trainer
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
You might consider giving 'mons you want to be challenging/boss fights the ability to swat balls away from them somehow until they take a reasonable amount of hp damage (or status effects). This won't solve all your problems but it will solve the one where boss battles can get chump-caught in the first round.

Definitely talk this idea over with your group first though, it will make some of the Capture Specialist features a little nerfed in boss fights so it would be best to make sure everyone is fine with it.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Esprit15
Member Avatar
Pokémon Trainer
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
Low loyalty is a good one. One player of mine was lucky and ended up catching a "real" Archen (Dragon replaced Rock type, stats were boosted). They had to make a command roll to make it behave in combat though, or it would do whatever it wanted (ignore her, hit the wrong target). She actually lost a gym battle that she nearly won because of two failed command rolls.

If your players want to catch everything and use everything, make them earn the second one. Sure, they caught the level 70 Giratina when the strongest thing they had was a level 30. It's not actually going to listen to them though. The moment they let it out, it's going to fly away and now its ownership is nothing but a note in the Pokédex.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Captain_Six
Member Avatar
Fightsmith
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
I only have some anecdotal comments to make. In my experience as a player the EXP curve is steep enough and inflates so rapidly that catching an over-leveled pokemon usually only means you have an extra strong pokemon for a few sessions, while everyone else catches up quickly.

In the game I'm currently playing everyone was given a level 1 starter pokemon, pretty standard stuff. I elected to not start with a pokemon at all, wanting to have my first capture and ensuing bonding time to happen on screen, so to say. But that meant the first session ended with my new capture, a level 5, while everyone else had a level 1. And due to participating in the battle even without a pokemon I was granted exp along with the rest of that party, meaning that level 5 got the same experience everyone else did. It's been a few sessions now and we're all around 8 to 10. In your case level 15 is still a small fry and the players will be laughing back on when that amazing capture felt like such a big deal.

I'd say catching powerful pokemon usually isn't a problem. It's an amazing feeling to finish a battle with that capture and come out with a super powered pokemon. And in the long run it wont mean all that much. Even when it's a boss pokemon it's not the end of the world. Ex-Bosses have been some of the most memorable pokemon I've ever seen in a party and the story behind their capture easily rank among the top moments I've had in any pokemon tabletop game.

Also remember that level and stats are only half the formula, I'd wager even less. More of a pokemon's power has to do with their moveset and the strategies they've learned over the course of play. The longer a group has a pokemon, the more customized their moves will be. TMs, tutors and thoroughly combed through level up lists keep even the under-leveled pokemon contenders against their statistically superior cousins with their hastily drafted movelists and underbaked tactics.

Basically what I'm saying is I wouldn't fret too much about it, as long as the level escalation isn't threatening to bring the game to a premature conclusion. Maybe I'm just lucky, but catches like this are common in games I'm in and they've always worked themselves out. Just sit back and see how things go before deciding if anything really needs to be fixed.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Talow
Member Avatar
Engineer
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
Captain_Six
Jun 1 2014, 03:04 PM
I only have some anecdotal comments to make. In my experience as a player the EXP curve is steep enough and inflates so rapidly that catching an over-leveled pokemon usually only means you have an extra strong pokemon for a few sessions, while everyone else catches up quickly.

In the game I'm currently playing everyone was given a level 1 starter pokemon, pretty standard stuff. I elected to not start with a pokemon at all, wanting to have my first capture and ensuing bonding time to happen on screen, so to say. But that meant the first session ended with my new capture, a level 5, while everyone else had a level 1. And due to participating in the battle even without a pokemon I was granted exp along with the rest of that party, meaning that level 5 got the same experience everyone else did. It's been a few sessions now and we're all around 8 to 10. In your case level 15 is still a small fry and the players will be laughing back on when that amazing capture felt like such a big deal.

I'd say catching powerful pokemon usually isn't a problem. It's an amazing feeling to finish a battle with that capture and come out with a super powered pokemon. And in the long run it wont mean all that much. Even when it's a boss pokemon it's not the end of the world. Ex-Bosses have been some of the most memorable pokemon I've ever seen in a party and the story behind their capture easily rank among the top moments I've had in any pokemon tabletop game.

Also remember that level and stats are only half the formula, I'd wager even less. More of a pokemon's power has to do with their moveset and the strategies they've learned over the course of play. The longer a group has a pokemon, the more customized their moves will be. TMs, tutors and thoroughly combed through level up lists keep even the under-leveled pokemon contenders against their statistically superior cousins with their hastily drafted movelists and underbaked tactics.

Basically what I'm saying is I wouldn't fret too much about it, as long as the level escalation isn't threatening to bring the game to a premature conclusion. Maybe I'm just lucky, but catches like this are common in games I'm in and they've always worked themselves out. Just sit back and see how things go before deciding if anything really needs to be fixed.
I can definitely agree with this point. Having my first PC be a Capture Specialist in PTA, high level captures were hands down some of the best experiences I had as a player. But, even with all that, my starter was still my goto because the level gaps always worked themselves out pretty quickly.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Esprit15
Member Avatar
Pokémon Trainer
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
If your big, scary boss Pokémon didn't have a good moveset on it, it wasn't that big and scary of a boss. :/ Just saying.

The problem here is like when you toss out a level 50 to scare the level 8 trainers with their level 20 Pokémon and the cap spec decides he wants to catch it. The difference between level 5 and level 1 is pretty small. Given that things can go from first to second or second to final form though at medium levels though, a ten or twenty level gap in midgame can be very unbalancing.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Captain_Six
Member Avatar
Fightsmith
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
Esprit15
Jun 2 2014, 02:26 AM
If your big, scary boss Pokémon didn't have a good moveset on it, it wasn't that big and scary of a boss. :/ Just saying.

It may not be scary, but unless there is a skill gap between GM and Players that's how it is. The GM did not raise that boss, they haven't collaborated with other players to coordinate and optimize their strategies, they don't know it inside and out and they haven't lived encounter after encounter of finely tuning its tactics to the degree a player has with their own pokemon. Or maybe they did, but that is a lot of time and resources to spend on a single character.

Esprit15
Jun 2 2014, 02:26 AM
The problem here is like when you toss out a level 50 to scare the level 8 trainers with their level 20 Pokémon and the cap spec decides he wants to catch it. The difference between level 5 and level 1 is pretty small. Given that things can go from first to second or second to final form though at medium levels though, a ten or twenty level gap in midgame can be very unbalancing.

This is just a weakness in the system and I wont even try to explain it away. Unfortunately using an unstoppably powerful, uncaught pokemon for an enemy as a preview for whatever just isn't something you can do with this game. When I GM I've always had a rule: Never introduce a character I'm not prepared for the players to kill. In my troublesome early days this allowed me to kick my NPC favoritism in the nuts. Now with pokemon I've developed a similar rule: Never introduce a pokemon I'm not prepared to have my players capture.

Enemy pokemon in PTU double as their own loot, the stronger they are the more tempting they are. No matter how much sense it would make for a high level pokemon to be in a situation it would be like giving the camp of level 1 kobolds a Rod of Wonders due to setting lore and not expecting the players to go for it. It's not greed or any attempted derailing, it's just what the game is geared toward doing. Enemy levels and level pacing are just things you need to pay extra attention to when GMing a game of pokemon.
Edited by Captain_Six, Jun 2 2014, 07:09 AM.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)
ZetaBoards - Free Forum Hosting
Create your own social network with a free forum.
Learn More · Sign-up for Free
Go to Next Page
« Previous Topic · Pokemon: Tabletop United · Next Topic »
Add Reply
  • Pages:
  • 1
  • 2
  • 4

Pokéball created by Sarah & Delirium of the ZNR