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New PTU GM needs help badly
Topic Started: Jun 1 2014, 03:08 PM (1,734 Views)
panahinuva
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Newbie GM
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Hey all, pana here, first time poster. I'm running a PTU game for the first time and I'm having some trouble structuring the encounters. When building off of experience given, how does one account for trainers mixing it up in combat as serious threats? My campaign has at least 3 elementalists in it and I have no idea how to make encounters that they won't gleefully overrun, but that also won't massively jump their Pokemon up in level when they win. Any advice from gms who are familiar with trainers involving themselves in a meaningful way?
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castfromhp
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Mawile Ace
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One thing you'll probably need to keep in mind is that a common encounter often won't feel like it put the party at significant threat of losing. Read page 443 of the pdf to get a more thorough explanation of what I mean here. If you have more combat-capable Trainers, you definitely could increase the baseline experience you're working with by a fraction of your normal total. I think the EXP math works in a way such that you won't significantly inflate their Pokémon levels by doing this in moderation. Outside of that, you can simply count more on wearing down your PCs over time.

This is something for which you'll develop a better feel for the balance over time. Trainers feel the pain of Injuries much more than Pokémon because they have to be out and can't retreat to Poké Balls or be rotated out of the team to recover. On the one hand, this means you can still make PCs feel threatened and in danger despite the fact a good number of them can fight themselves. On the other hand, you can slip into making it difficult to keep up as a combat trainer because of the mounting injuries over the course of multiple battles in the wilderness.

I think as with most systems, there's a bit of trial and error in the learning process for crafting encounters, so don't worry about it too much if you don't get everything just right in your first few battles.
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Ursus the Grim
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Never Knows Best
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castfromhp
Jun 1 2014, 03:32 PM
This is something for which you'll develop a better feel for the balance over time. Trainers feel the pain of Injuries much more than Pokémon because they have to be out and can't retreat to Poké Balls or be rotated out of the team to recover. On the one hand, this means you can still make PCs feel threatened and in danger despite the fact a good number of them can fight themselves. On the other hand, you can slip into making it difficult to keep up as a combat trainer because of the mounting injuries over the course of multiple battles in the wilderness.
This.

I have a fairly capable Weapons Specialist in the party, and its generally a good idea for him to get in there and tangle with with hostiles. However, its high-risk, as it should be, because every tactic that works on a pokemon is generally even more effective against a trainer. Last session he went full contact in the boss battle (against some poachers in the starter module) and nearly ended up asleep. He did get poisoned and actually had to get out of the fray in order to safely heal that. At the end of the encounter he was suffering an Injury and had to manage his resources accordingly. This meant that his honedge ended up being at 1 Injury for a later encounter.

If your trainers are getting involved, don't be afraid to have the enemies target them. Its a pretty obvious tactic for humans to use, as well as any pokemon with Intelligence 4 or higher. Even with Intelligence lower than that, its a pretty straightforward process of 'what's hurting me the most.' They need to be aware of the risk involved in getting directly involved or they will simply overwhelm most threats (primarily through action economy).

I suspect this problem will resolve itself somewhat as your campaign continues. Most combat trainers have a pretty decent time in early levels, but most will eventually lag behind pokemon as they evolve, get more abilities, and more dangerous movesets.

Regarding the experience, I recommend you make use of the significance multiplier. If you feel like the trainers did all the work and the pokemon just coasted, only give them 1.0x. Perhaps restrict it to only be applicable to pokemon who contributed meaningfully.
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panahinuva
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Ok, need help again. I had my players (all level 1 trainers with level 5 pokemon) go up against a set of 6 level 3 Rattata for their first encounter. I had decided that I wanted to award them 5 EXP each, which gave me 20 EXP worth of enemies. The encounter went pretty well, with the players taking down the Rattata in about two rounds, but everyone who got attacked by rattata got their healths practically halved. The Rattata were dealing approximately 24-28 damage each and the players had healths in the high 40s, low 50s, which seems normal for level 1 trainers and pokemon had mid 30s to mid 40s for health, which also seems normal for pokemon. Is that supposed to happen? Did I pick a bad starting enemy? Did I stat them wrong? They were stated with 9 attack and 9 speed, with adamant natures.

Also, does Pursuit act as an attack of opportunity? How is "running away" defined when using pursuit? Do they actually have to be fleeing away from combat, or just moving away from the pokemon with pursuit?
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castfromhp
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That seems about right. Average damage for a tackle from a Rattata is 24 with those stats, which then is reduced by defense. On average it should take three hits before a Pokémon of their levels goes down from Tackles at those numbers, which is fine.

And remember, when your players have more Pokémon, they'll be able to rotate through their teams between battles, not to mention keeping a stock of restorative items on hand.

The way I handle Pursuit is it triggers if someone is moving away with the intent of leaving the battlefield, or if they're shifting as part of Taking a Breather. If it's just a shift for repositioning, then it doesn't count in my eyes.
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Elemental Knight
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Remember, too, that Rattata are actually surprisingly effective Pokemon at low and mid levels. You have some physically-focused Rattata, thanks to their Adamant nature; it makes sense that they'd hit hard. If they were Modest, instead, you might even have the opposite problem: They wouldn't hit hard enough.

Natures are important! Moreso for "simple" Pokemon like Rattata, where they tend to have only a few ways to build them. Nobody makes a special-focused Rattata.

As for Pursuit: Yep, I'm with Cast. Pursuit is about running *away* from the fight, not running within it. So moving to attack some other combatant probably shouldn't trigger it, but returning to a Pokeball, intending to escape the fight entirely, and otherwise saying "I don't want to deal with this anymore" via your footwork would all count for it. Some of this is gonna come down to GM fiat and clear communication, as well.
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Philturn
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A lot of the encounters are just a balancing act. A majority of mine are groups of four or five weaker Pokemon. If they get taken out too easily then I have reinforcements I can bring in to level the playing field.
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GrayGriffin
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I had one GM also say that, if you made a foe flee with Roar, Pursuit could activate in that case as well.
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Ursus the Grim
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GrayGriffin
Jun 5 2014, 07:32 AM
I had one GM also say that, if you made a foe flee with Roar, Pursuit could activate in that case as well.
Well, yeah. I've actually done that in game before.

Pursuit makes no mention about meta-intent. Roar's effect almost perfectly matches the trigger for Pursuit's bonus damage.
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panahinuva
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I feel like I'm using this topic a lot, but I'm kind of floundering and this is the best place I know for asking advice.

I want to have a really important (5x sig modifier) encounter for my players (first showdown with their rival), but they almost got overwhelmed by Rattata yesterday, so there's no way they can deal with an 80 exp encounter. This is a great way to jumpstart their pokemon growth and a good milestone for them to gain their first trainer level, but I don't think they can survive it.

What should I do here?
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