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On creating Gym Leaders
Topic Started: Jan 8 2015, 04:08 PM (1,423 Views)
Dark_Star
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Pokémon Trainer
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So, I was looking over the recent Blog posts on creating Gym Challenges, when I noticed a recurring theme that has me slightly confused. Every single Gym Leader provided seems to be in mid-teens to mid-20s range in terms of Trainer Level, and in the case of the sample Gym Encounter provided in the PDF, pokemon to match. Is this supposed to be the case? Do I just not bother with keeping the gym leader and their team, and possibly any Gym Trainer helpers, at a level on par with my group of players? I mean, I guess it'd make for a more exciting battle, and I could always just do something like level their team up or down depending on the level of the PCs and their team. Still, it'd be nice to know if everyone does this, or if the provided Gym Leaders are just examples of mid-late game encounters, and I'm supposed to scale down or up depending on the situation.
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castfromhp
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Mawile Ace
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Keeping Pokémon level within an acceptable range of the PCs is much more important than doing the same for Gym Leader Trainer levels unless it's a full contact fight. You should essentially scale things up or down depending on when your players are encountering them. I find it's easier to envision a Gym Leader in their full or completed build and adjust from there than to design them as a low level fight for, say, a full contact Gym, and then improvise the rest of their build later.
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Jarv
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Generally I just toss in whatever features fit the leader without actually statting them, and then I just need to make sure it isn't OP.
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TM93
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I have to agree with Cast here, unless the PC's have a ridiculous amount more or less Features and Edges than the Leader, it's not going to impact the fight much unless it's a full-contact Gym. It's the Pokemon's levels that matter more (I generally plan a selection of 2 to 5 Pokemon which are about Average PC Pokemon Level (try to keep outliers out of the picture here, like a Level 5 Pokemon in an otherwise Level 30 Team), then an "Ace" which is 2 to 7 levels above the PC's average, but that's just me. Obviously if the PC's have a seriously overleveled Ace in the Hole, which really should never happen in PTU, that'd asking to get steamrolled by a GM later, but that's beside the point, then you have to adjust accordingly. And here I go rambling again, apologies.)

Unless of course you decide to set the Gym Leader to Level 50 for the first Gym they come up against when the PC's are like, Level 3 to 6 at best. Then the Leader has, presumably, a plethora of Training Features and Orders to toss at the Players, to the point where there's almost nothing they can do against them.

Edit: of course, for the former problem, you can always just make the Leader to be Level 50 then just not UTILIZE all of the Features that they have access to, putting them more on-par with the PC's as you see fit, but that doesn't sit well with everyone.

But, on the other hand, I've had Level 7 PC's fight Level 12 Gym Leaders with relatively little issue, so there's give and there's take here, I'm just going to judge based on that personal experience that 1 to 5 levels of difference probably won't make or break a fight too badly, but once you start going into a double-digit-difference, it may be a bit of an issue, and once the Gym Leader is upwards of 20 levels higher than the PC's (or vice-versa)... well they can just toss out Orders and Training like nobody's business in a manner that makes the opponent's heads spin (not saying all Gym Leaders are Ace Trainers or the like, but it's a solid Pokemon Support Class which should almost always be taken into consideration when building a Gym Leader in a non-Trainer-Combat-Gym, at the very least due to the vast amount of Customization options it offers). Luckily this allows you to go "Yeah, I expect the PC's to be about X level by the time they hit this area, so a Gym Leader Level of X should do the trick", but then have the PC's either be below, or exceed, your expectations by a small degree and not have it effect too much, while still having the Gym Leader planned out ahead of time to an extent.
Edited by TM93, Jan 8 2015, 09:24 PM.
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Dark_Star
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Thanks for the suggestions. I wound up following Cast's suggestion and just made my first Gym Leader at what I think would be his "Fully Realized" state is, which is a level 21 Scientist/Researcher/Ace Trainer. He only has about 5 features to toss around mid-combat (Agility Training, Focused Training, Climate Control, Extreme Weather, and his Custom Order), plus Elite Training and Signature Technique. I suppose if that's too much, I can just have him hold back a bit to compensate for the group still being relatively inexperienced.
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