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PTU Sleazeball
Topic Started: Nov 4 2014, 06:59 PM (652 Views)
ShadySpinda
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Pokémon Trainer
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A few months ago I made a class that revolved around Confusion (PTU Flabbergast), and since then I've been looking at some of the other volatile status conditions. Lately I've become somewhat enamored with the idea of Flinching, and thus I present unto you all the Sleazeball. I'm still fairly new to this, so any corrections, ideas, or general feedback is very much appreciated.

Without any further ado:
Spoiler: click to toggle
Edited by ShadySpinda, Nov 5 2014, 02:00 AM.
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TM93
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You do realize that you just made Headbutt Flinch on 8+ right? That's scary man.

Also I would limit Noxious Aura's useage, 1AP is pretty cheap at high levels, you could entirely incapacitate a single enemy for an extended period while your allies take care of their own business. Unless I missed something about it's Frequency.
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The Black Glove
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Flinch is a powerful status condition. It essentially means "you don't do jack until next round". Let's see how you handled the class...

Base Feature: Boy, for a **** Trainer Combat class, it sure is lacking in stat tags, isn't it? Ability=two moves as far as features go. Drop Astonish or replace Inner Focus with a move. Astonish, huh? So the class deals Ghost Type Damage? (Spoiler Alert: It doesn't.)

Disgusting: Personally, I would imagine this being a better ability for the trainer than something you would tutor to mon. Again, Flinch is really powerful, so giving literally everything in the game access to +2 Flinch on all moves is overpowered. If you're going to tutor an Ability, find something else.

Flatulence: Okay, I thought the class was based around Flinch? Why do you get a Poison-Causing move here? Also, adding Poison Gas to the effect is redundant, as Odious Spray is a connection ability, and you automatically gain any move connected to one.

Way Too Close: Fake Out I get, but Steamroller? A bug-type move? This is suddenly setting up the class with 3 types (we have rules 'bout type coverage 'round these parts), and it feels like the moves were just thrown in here because they cause Flinching.

Shuddering Uncontrollably: Okay, aside from the typo where it says "confused" instead of "flinched", this is what the class should -actually- be doing. 1 AP for 2 Stages is a little much though. Tone it down to 1 Stage, and add a note to clarify you get to choose the stage.

Unpleasantly Surprised and Unworldly Horror: NO. NO. BAD SHADYSPINDA. Let me show you something- Headbutt normally flinches on 15+, a respectable range with no boosts to it. You have reduced that range by 2 with the first feature and 3 with the second. Additionally, all Pokemon you have with the Stench Ability (which if you're doing your job right should be all of them) gain that +3 bonus to flinching along with the +2 caused by Stench and they can do it with any move in the game. This doesn't even include abilities or items that can also boost Flinch range. You have a Flinch Range of 10+ (50%) on Headbutt (TM93 forgot that the trainer themselves do not get Stench), and everything you own has (bare minimum) 15+ on every single move in the game. NO. BAD.

Noxious Aura: 1 AP for a free Fake Out that potentially does more damage and of a different type. Flinch that stacks an additional turn. NO. You can't cut people out of turns like that. It's not balanced, and it won't be fun for your GM to deal with or you to play against.

The class is overall not handled well. Flinch is extremely powerful, and you've given this class everything it needs to abuse it. The makings of a good class are in here- Shuddering Uncontrollably is a good model for what should be done. Fake Out and Headbutt would make a good combat feature. Inner Focus is completely fine, and helps with the idea that he's not repulsed by his own stench. But for now, I would not consider using this class as a GM or Player for all the problems it would cause.
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TM93
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In my defense, it's been a long day. And 10+ is still basically a coin flip on Headbutt to Flinch or Not, which is still crazy.
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ShadySpinda
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I cannot believe I forgot to say that all of the moves were supposed to deal typeless damage. Jesus Christ that's a gigantic mistake. As for the Headbutt problem, that was more of a foresight than anything else. Let's try moving this around A LOT.

Base Feature: Like I said, typo on the move. My bad. I moved Fake Out to the first one, which seemed a little more reasonable.

Disgusting: Switched to Inner Focus to nerf it. It's a fairly useful ability on it's own, and it's a nice perk that their pokemon can't be harmed by their niche status.

Flatulence: It gives a poison-causing move because there aren't very many moves and abilities that use Flinch in a useable way. Having a character based around trainer combat doesn't work very well if they can't do anything other than the 21 flavors of headbutt (more on that later). It's more for the effect of Odious Spray than for the poison effect, but because of the way Poison Gas is built, it's kind of difficult to change the effect to something moderately equal. I'm very open to suggestions about that one, but right now I can't think of anything that would be a fair switch.

Way Too Close: Again, my bad on the typing. It's funny how sometimes you think of something very basic and fundamental in your head, but you forget to write it down because of how fundamental it seems. Bah. Type changed fixed. The moves were indeed chosen because they caused flinch, but the reason for the specific moves was the variation between them. Like I said earlier, I didn't want to have a class that just let you used the 21 different Headbutts. Steamroller was chosen (just like Odious Spray and Poison Gas) because it causes Flinch in a unique way that doesn't require too much manipulation of the rules. That should have been clear if they were all normalized, but, again, dropped the ball on that one.

Shuddering Uncontrollably: Problems fixed.

Unpleasantly Surprised: Tried to balance this one. Removed the increased Flinch effect, added a variable damage. However, this is absolutely a band-aid fix and if anyone has a better idea I would very much like to hear it.

Unworldly Horror: Seriously kicking myself over this one. For some reason I never completely added all of the buffs together, only looking at them individually, which is such a big mistake I'm cutting this feature completely. It's just completely overpowered in a way that's not really fixable without burning it to the ground and building something over the charred remains. Replaced with a buffer similar to Shaking Uncontrollably, but for the user rather than the target.

Noxious Aura: Nerfed considerably from an essential auto-flinch to more of a targeting system. At a higher level, the evasion bonuses go up, so it would be helpful if every once in a while the character that already has lower stats thanks to a lack of tags can hit where they wouldn't usually, even if it doesn't cause a flinch.




All in all, kind of humbled with this one. I jumped into this with significantly less forethought than was required, initially believing that decreased damage would balance out the destruction of enemy turn economy. However, this was at best naive, and at worst just outrageously stupid. Player Characters in PTU rarely if ever fight one on one, they almost alway have their pokemon by their side. If a PC is fighting a difficult opponent with their underlevel Magikarp and the PC is able to steal all of the enemy’s action economy, the Magikarp will win. It doesn’t even matter what the opponent is, it could be a Sunkern or an Arceus, the effect is still the same. This, I think, is one of the major benefits of this board: that stupid, stupid oversights are revealed immediately and in great detail.

Robbing opponents of their action in a very continuous fashion is rather ridiculous. This class should not be about “How many times can I go before they can even try to run away”, which kind of feels like what I was going for when I first brought this thing into being. This round of edits has been very focused on trying to bring it more into the realm of benefitting from Flinch, rather than distilling it.

If anything, this is telling me that I need to check my work three times before I worry about posting. Too many stupid, gamebreaking errors. Sorry for making you guys read through those.

With that said, the class is still very much a work in progress, and if anyone has any fixes, ideas, or just general notes, please shout them out. They’re obviously quite helpful.
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Major
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You are also tutoring Stench on. I guarantee you one can get higher than 10+

Headbutt: 15
13 Due to Stench
10 due to Unworldy Horror
8 if you tutor Stench on a mon with Serene Grace
7 if you use training for Brutal training
6 if the trainer uses a turn to use Brutal Training as an order (or 4 if you use Pinpoint strike and just do resisted damage)

This is just off top of my head that anyone can easily get. Pretty sure you can find ways to get it below 6.
Even more options if you look at selective classes:
-signature technique "One-two strike"
-Fairy Ace teammate activating Sparkle Motion for up to +3 effect range,
-Steel Ace with a type-shifted headbutt and Polished Shine (+2)


Edit: Ninja'd, reading new changes
Edited by Major, Nov 5 2014, 02:07 AM.
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