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Pokemon weights; Balancing for more realistic weights
Topic Started: Jan 24 2015, 08:57 AM (1,306 Views)
schandgalgen
Pokémon Trainer
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Hi everyone,

So this will be a big post, especially for a first one. Please excuse any grammatical errors, as English is not my native language. Also excuse any errors on Pokemon names, as I am most familiar with their German names. I tried using the search function and couldn't find anything related to the topic. If there are old threads I would appreciate a link to them.

I'm in the middle of creating a Pokemon game for some friends of mine. First I set out to build it all from scratch but a little Google-Fu turned up this site and I really liked the PTU System, so we will be using that. I was especially relieved when I found out, that PTU comes with a full Pokedex.

When I began working on the campaign setting I started to run into the classic problems, e.g. do people eat Pokemon (I decided on yes)? But all this I can settle relatively easily. We have, however, run into a more serious problem: Most Pokemon are ridiculously light.

Let's look at some examples to see where I'm coming from:

  • Rapidash (height: 1.7m | weight: 95kg)
    A normal horse of that size typically weights about 500kg to 600kg.
  • Kangaskhan (height 1.76m | weight: 80kg)
    This seems reasonable for a human. I'm 1.72m and weigh about 85kg. However, Kangaskhan is much sturdier than a human and the thick hide will most likely weigh much more than human skin. It's whole body build seems much heavier. Not to forget the young in it's pouch.
  • Bouffalant (height: 1.6m | weight: 95.5kg)
    This Pokemon is clearly inspired by the American buffalo. A buffalo of that height would normally weigh about 500kg.
  • Arcanine (height: 1.9m | weight: 155kg)
    Arcanine is basically a dog the size of a draft horse, even somewhat larger. Draft horses typically weigh up to 1000kg. As the canine body build is bulkier it would seem a fair estimate to put Arcanine at over 1000kg.


Our first intuition was to basically just multiply the weights by 10, but this does run into problem with some Pokemon, especially bipedal ones.
Does anyone have any experience in rescaling the weight of Pokemon?

TL;DR: How can I create realistic weights for Pokemon?
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Gear_Skitty
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Just Another Cat In The Machine
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Posted Image


I've run into this enigma in Pokemon Physics as well.

Slugma would burn your eyes out, Pidgeot would tear itself apart moving at Mach 1, and the geographical destruction that a single Tyranitar is said to be capable of is... worrying to say the least.


It is understandable though. If an Arcanine pounced on it's owner, they'd be severely injured ~at best~. If an Aron crashed into a kid the way the Pokedex said it actually can, they wouldn't be walking for awhile, if ever.


Gamefreak didn't care about the physics of Pokemon when they started, and because of that they haven't bothered bringing realism to the series that much. And that's carried over into the tabletop games.


Zubat can carry Squirtle because reasons.
Electrode explodes and doesn't die forever because reasons.
Rattata, an average little rodent, could learn Water Gun in Gen 1 and has access to a plethora of elemental attacks because reasons.



My personal headcanon is that Arceus knew realistic weights and power in his creations would wreck too much damage on both humans and the environment, so it fudged with the Pokemon and general physics to keep things from being overly deadly.
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SinGin
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Eisgekühlter Bommerlunder
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Wailord Blimps. Peace!
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Gear_Skitty
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SinGin
Jan 25 2015, 09:16 AM
Wailord Blimps. Peace!

I figured anything Wailord was a low hanging fruit.

It's a WHALE THAT IS LESS DENSE THAN STYROFOAM, ARCEUS PLEASE!!!
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schandgalgen
Pokémon Trainer
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Oh yeah, Wailord... I forgot that one.
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Kairose
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I don't recall the exact math, but wasn't Wailord less dense than air? Clearly not going for realism on some of these pokedex entries.
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Dark_Star
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Kairose
Jan 25 2015, 06:26 PM
I don't recall the exact math, but wasn't Wailord less dense than air? Clearly not going for realism on some of these pokedex entries.
Well how do you think they manage to not only survive on land, but float in mid-air?
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