| 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: |
- Pages:
- 1
- 2
| [PTU] Species Specialist; General. Really, really general. | |
|---|---|
| Tweet Topic Started: Oct 20 2014, 08:23 PM (1,807 Views) | |
| ShadySpinda | Oct 20 2014, 08:23 PM Post #1 |
|
Pokémon Trainer
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
A player of mine really wanted to specialize in the Mudkip line, and after searching the forums briefly, I found there there was no real way to do this. I expect players in the future will want to specialize in other species as well, so I've taken a swing at creating something to fill that need: the species specialist. Thoughts, fixes, and general edits are very appreciated. Thank you. Spoiler: click to toggle
|
![]() |
|
| Lockdown | Oct 20 2014, 08:28 PM Post #2 |
|
I SEEE YOUUUU
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
The base feature alone is incredibly over-powered. The rest of these are just stolen from other classes, there's nothing original here. |
![]() |
|
| GrayGriffin | Oct 20 2014, 08:31 PM Post #3 |
![]()
"Ah, you unmasked me. Whatever shall I do."
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
It's also really boring. The Ideadrome has some specific Species Aces for specific species. Try to find what's unique about the Mudkip line, and focus on that to create a more unique class. |
![]() |
|
| Kairose | Oct 20 2014, 10:31 PM Post #4 |
|
Pokémon Trainer
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
A really old version of PTU had this as a class. It was removed because they couldn't fill it out without making it basically just a bunch of different classes, but only works on one line. What remains of it are the Species Savant and Species Collector general features. That said, going over this class: Class Review Really, though, I would highly suggest following the advice people have already given and make species-specific "Ace" classes like what has already been made in the Ideadrome, rather than a single generic one that ends up being pretty boring. |
![]() |
|
| ShadySpinda | Oct 21 2014, 03:17 PM Post #5 |
|
Pokémon Trainer
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
Thanks you guys, I definitely see what you mean. I'll try to push them more towards Ace Trainer and the associated classes. Generic gameplay just isn't that interesting or fun, so the concept can't really do anything interesting or fun. Back to the drawing board! |
![]() |
|
| castfromhp | Oct 21 2014, 07:40 PM Post #6 |
|
Mawile Ace
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
Everyone else has basically said what I would've on the class. And to be honest, I'm not particularly a fan of the "species ace" homebrew classes that has gotten semi-popular either. If I were to handle a species specialist Trainer as a GM, this is what I would do:
|
![]() |
|
| EdroGrimshell | Oct 21 2014, 10:35 PM Post #7 |
|
Pokémon Trainer
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
Well, unown has a species ace in the form of the Rune Master, so why not other species? I mean sure, some of them are rather bland or don't have anything unique enough to have an entire class specialized in them, but some do, generally speaking the more mysterious pokemon or ones that are odd can have a lot going for them when creating a species ace, as long as the features are balanced, I really think that it wouldn't be that bad or hard to have a few more. Especially since one already exists without being a combination of classes. |
![]() |
|
| castfromhp | Oct 21 2014, 11:29 PM Post #8 |
|
Mawile Ace
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
As a preface to this, I'm going to say this is all my personal views. If you write or enjoy Species Ace classes, and you're reading this, this isn't meant to be an attack on anyone, just a statement of how I feel about this category of classes. Now that I've gotten that out of the way... I do think the Rune Master is a neat class, but if I were to be honest, it's a bit of a sacred cow. And it's one of the few sacred cows in the system we couldn't quite bring ourselves to get rid of during the transition from PTA to PTU, or that were too in-demand by the community to get rid of, like Weapon Specialist and the Elementalists. From a design standpoint, the Rune Master isn't something that would exist if PTU were created from scratch and with no prior preconceptions among the dev team or expectations from the audience. The biggest problem I have with Species Ace as a concept is that not all Pokémon are equally suited to a species specialist concept, and it's very difficult to account for that as well as the inherent imbalance between how useful Pokémon species are in general. For example, I recall someone made a Spiritomb Ace, and that's a Pokémon that just doesn't need the help at all. I feel like it's much easier to justify an entire class dedicated to a Pokémon as thoroughly useless as Unown is in its unmodified form, and very few other Pokémon are quite so useless or don't at least evolve into something less feeble. I think the one time I thought "oh hey that's actually kinda neat" when it came to a Species Ace concept was The Black Glove's Beekeeper, which takes another completely ineffectual Pokémon (Combee) and does a very Rune Master-y thing to it. My second issue with the concept is one that definitely plagues Rune Master, which is that these classes tend to place a particular emphasis on one personal interpretation of a species, or as I'd like to say, "gimmickizes" them. Whether it be making the Abra line all about spoons or having a big emphasis on ice cream toppings for Vanilite, these classes take one aspect of a Pokémon and essentially -make it their defining characteristic- through the class. I recognize this makes the classes useful for a certain limited set of players and campaigns, but it definitely makes the classes not for me at all. If I were to play a species specialist, I personally wouldn't look at any of those classes at all because I wouldn't want them to color my initial impressions of how I should go about characterizing the species or a specialist in that species. And if these sorts of gimmick themes do arise with a species specialist, I think it's much more interesting if it develops naturally out of the events in the game world rather than something that's chosen because there's a class written already that does it. Thirdly, and this will be my final generalized point just to keep this from growing into too long a post, I simply think it's more interesting as a species specialist to gather a variety of Pokémon of a species that have unique traits and quirks that the GM has come up with, or have been produced through roleplay. I don't like how the Species Ace classes tend to homogenize along a theme that has some customization options (to use earlier examples again, choice of different spoons or toppings on your Pokémon - but all of your Pokémon use spoons or toppings as their "thing") rather than having more disjointed quirks that feel more personal and unique (and which are difficult or impossible to encompass in a class write-up). And yes, it's perfectly possible to have both, but I think not including the Species Ace's gimmickization of a particular species gives the GM a lot more room to come up with these fantastic quirks and ideas which may not make any sense or clash with how a Species Ace class tries to treat a Pokémon line. Lastly, I'd like to say I'm saying this as someone who has played a species specialist before. It was Mawile. Shocking, I know. I don't think that it would be likely that if a Mawile Ace class had existed, that it would have suited my character concept well (think Macross idol but with a metal rather than pop genre and with a dash of cyberpunk). However, what did make my Mawiles unique, even discounting the excessive exploitation of some of PTA's more abusive features, was that they had these neat quirks that developed because of the direction the game took. I had one Mawile that was badly hurt by Raikou when I first ran into the Legendary, and it was marked by it and developed a suite of Moves that was perfect for hunting Legendaries as they worked in that campaign. It was great because I eventually took her into battle against the Raikou and ended up capturing it with her as my main combatant in that fight. I had another Mawile that resembled a mass-produced Eva from End of Evangelion because I bargained for its egg from an eldritch dream world creature. Yet another, and this was the one most defined by its Type Shift, was part Flying Type and could spin its fake mouth as a helicopter, much to NPCs' amusement and/or horror. All of these qualities are rather distinct from each other and couldn't be put into a class. I also think due to how heavily they colored a Pokémon's concept, it would have been difficult to incorporate something like a Species Ace class which dealt with different Mawile jaws or something like that without diluting their concepts or otherwise taking away from them in favor of a particular gimmick or interpretation of Mawile. Just my (overly long) 2 cents. |
![]() |
|
| ShadySpinda | Oct 22 2014, 08:55 AM Post #9 |
|
Pokémon Trainer
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
I have to say, that makes a somewhat ridiculous amount of sense. I can definitely see what you mean by increasing the effectiveness of useless pokemon, and allowing those who can function on their own to, well, function on their own. It is rather easy to forget that all pokemon are not created equally, ironically enough, and though many of the weaker, less useful pokemon may prove to be vastly improved by the abilities of a species ace class (*Rune Master cough cough*), many others simply...don't need the help, the prime example being mudkip. A mudkip user can benefit from everything from Water Ace to Survivalist, not to mention its pre-existing worth as a starter. I think your concerns about transforming a specialized pokemon into a gimmick are quite founded. Many allow almost no freedom of creativity: any shiny pokemon of the specialty type will simply act as if they are slightly more interesting than the other members of the species, rather than being unique in their own way. This is most definitely avoidable, but I think it's a little tricky. I've only ever used species ace classes for NPCs, and they are almost received with great praise. This, I think, is the niche within the niche class: they make for really fun adventures, so long as you don't have to be the one playing them. Introducing an NPC that only uses the Abra line just for a small handful of adventures keeps the campaign fresh without allowing players to see the downside of a gimmick character: repetition. You've definitely got a very sound argument regarding the value of having your pokemon have definite character. IN fact, that's one of the main reasons I love PTU so much: each of the pokemon has their own defined character, with the quirks and eccentricities that implies. As your campaign lengthens, you get a strong cast of characters added gradually and painlessly. However, this is something that requires the length of a multi-adventure campaign to play out. I think keeping the gimmick trainers to briefly-appearing NPCs allows the GM to skip over much of the development of highly similar characters (namely, the gimmicky pokemon), allowing them to instead focus on the NPC themselves. In fact, one of the best received characters I've had in any rpg I've GM'd was the Dunsparce Ace I brought in during a Pokemon league-esque arc. Hilarity ensued, most likely because the character only appeared for a limited period of time, and because none of the PC's had to deal with the drawbacks of the character's build. The players were able to enjoy him just as they would an interesting location or particular adventure: for a short but fun time. In short, I think that it might be good idea to move PC's away from species specialist classes, but they seem a good choice for an NPC who needs a bit of flair. Of course it should be used with heavy moderation, and these kinds of characters should only appear rarely, but I do think that NPC's provide a good niche for even the most gimmicky of specialists. No such thing as an overly long 2 cents. (Except maybe this one) ![]() |
![]() |
|
| Onidrill | Oct 22 2014, 10:33 PM Post #10 |
|
Pokémon Trainer
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
I don't think shinies are a bad thing with regards to incentivizing focus on one Pokemon, or a line of Pokemon. Shinies don't have defined rules like a species specialist class would, so they're a useful tool to reach for when you need an excuse for a particular Pokemon to have unusual traits. I don't want to put words in Cast's mouth, but I assume when he refers to a species being reduced to a gimmick he's talking about all of a species being pigeonholed into doing one thing by a defined set of features, rather than any one have a quirk or two that sets its apart from its peers. That's kind of the whole point, isn't it, if you want to gather nothing but members of that family? Shinies wouldn't be the only way to diversify that line, but it's definitely not something I would shun because it would make that individual gimmicky. |
![]() |
|
| 2 users reading this topic (2 Guests and 0 Anonymous) | |
| Go to Next Page | |
| « Previous Topic · Pokemon: Tabletop Homebrew · Next Topic » |
- Pages:
- 1
- 2
| Track Topic · E-mail Topic |
5:56 PM Jul 10
|
Pokéball created by Sarah & Delirium of the ZNR





![]](http://z4.ifrm.com/static/1/pip_r.png)






5:56 PM Jul 10