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Powerful Pokemon
Topic Started: Sep 10 2015, 11:48 PM (1,476 Views)
Shirokiba
Pokémon Trainer
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So, one of my players wants to run an all poison team, which is fine but he's asking to get a Ghastly eventually. I've known a few GMs that have trouble with well built Gengar, so it has me feeling a little worried so for the time being, I've told him it's tentatively a no.

I know I could pick on Gengar's type disadvantages and stuff but such things tend to aggravate people when it's done too much, also doesn't help that the rest of the party aren't really trying to be battle effective, so in battles where they are all attacked, they'll hardly be able to help so something capable of going toe to toe with a Gengar would probably destroy everything.


Also, regarding type shifted pokemon, how many would be acceptable for a given player to have? Because, the person building the all poison team wants 3-4 of his team to be type shifts (Poison/Fire, Poison/Electric, etc etc) I feel half or over half the team being a type shift is a bit much.

Also, I think my biggest worry is his reasoning for this is "I can't win, if I don't"
Edited by Shirokiba, Sep 10 2015, 11:50 PM.
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castfromhp
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Mawile Ace
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I'm not sure who you've been talking to, but Gengar isn't really any scarier than any other fast special attacker from a pure combat perspective. It has a lot of potential coverage, sure, but that requires a lot of TM and tutor support to get there (and if the player has access to those, it means the other players should too, which would narrow any potential gap). There simply aren't very many Pokémon in PTU which are a problem from a sheer effectiveness standpoint. Most examples of that are Pokémon with advantages at specific points of the game, like Meowth as a starter with Technician and STAB boosting Moves like Fury Swipes, or Pokémon which simply cause problems with their gimmicks, like Shedinja. At the levels where you'd be looking at Pokémon like Gengar, a great number of Pokémon really just even out with each other.

It sounds to me like a bigger issue here is getting all of your players on the same page about the level of optimization they're putting into their Pokémon teams so that everyone feels like they're on the same level. That's something your group should have a talk about. That said, PTU is a system that is mainly built around its combat mechanics, so it sounds a bit odd to me to not be "battle effective" with any character. If your players are building their Pokémon's stats and move lists sensibly, they'll already hit a pretty good minimum level of effectiveness (even before counting in boosts from Classes), and you can help make sure everyone has a good grasp of the system to help do this. Of course there are varying levels of optimization, but that isn't something that should require you to ban a Pokémon like Gengar.

You haven't provided enough info for me to tell if your player is doing something particularly cheesy (flinch-fishing builds, forms of action-economy abuse, etc), but if they aren't, then simply providing every player equally with the tools that would be needed to make Gengar good anyway should even things out for the most part. Just watch how your players build, get them to cooperate and talk with each other, and get them to come to an agreement on how far they can push the min-maxing.

As for Type-Shifts, you should really just decide whether you want to allow Type Sync or not, IMO. Given it's a whole Feature which has limited uses already, I think it's diminishing a player's investment in that too much if you limit it even further than it already is. You can disallow Type Sync as a Feature and still say you'll toss your player a Poison-Shift or two at some point in the campaign, but if you're allowing it, I think it would leave a bad taste in their mouth if they had to take a whole Feature and not get to make the most use of it.
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Shirokiba
Pokémon Trainer
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that's really all the information I have, I'm gonna talk to them and try to get them to at least focus somewhat on being able to fight effectively.

I'm definitely not allowing Type Sync I even said I'd give some type shifts just not half his team.
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castfromhp
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Mawile Ace
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I actually had assumed when your player was listing specific Type pairings for their poison-shifts that they were gonna use Type Sync to do it. If Type Sync isn't on the table, then they have no reason to expect that many Type-Shifts, nevermind ones that are tailored for their team and specific Type combinations in such a way.

Wishlisting is already tricky enough to handle in PTU. You lose a lot of the fun of the game if everyone is requesting their whole teams, but somone saying they just want a certain not-so-rare species or two to show up and be capturable at some point is very reasonable most of the time. Requesting a quota of shinies/type shifts though is way over the line. Poison isn't even a Type for which it's difficult to find Pokémon to fill out a team.
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Shirokiba
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That's what I tried to tell him but for some reason he thinks I'm just gonna constantly poke at the weakness of his poison types.
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Sypher667
Pokémon Trainer
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The one thing i would be worried about the player doing is actually something I did in a game; status stacking. I built a psuedo poison team with parasect, venomoth, vileplume, hypno, houndoom and dewgong. My goal in game was to take the enemy pokemon out of the fight, and make them suffer. Parasect's Dire Spore did a lot of the grunt work, but back to topic. The GM had a rough time dealing with both me and the party at the same time. I worry that other poison players will do the same, due to my success. Just something to think about.
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Shirokiba
Pokémon Trainer
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Sypher667
Sep 11 2015, 08:35 AM
The one thing i would be worried about the player doing is actually something I did in a game; status stacking. I built a psuedo poison team with parasect, venomoth, vileplume, hypno, houndoom and dewgong. My goal in game was to take the enemy pokemon out of the fight, and make them suffer. Parasect's Dire Spore did a lot of the grunt work, but back to topic. The GM had a rough time dealing with both me and the party at the same time. I worry that other poison players will do the same, due to my success. Just something to think about.
Well, he's wanting more an all poison team, to go with his Type Ace. Though he can use Bulbasaur to do some status stacking.
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Doxy
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The PTU Guy
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Seconding Cast's advice/opinions.

Gengar isn't scary at all, it's a pretty standard frail sp.attacker. Ghosts can be a bit problematic under level 15~ or so, but it's probably a lot easier to deal with than a lot of other Pokemon out there.

I would tell your player not to worry about their 'weaknesses' too much... Poison is one of the SAFEST types. Ground and Psychic are harder to abuse than a lot of other types out there.

Just give them a Ghastly and tell them to settle down. They're being paranoid/misinformed at best, and at worst playing up fears to try to fish for shiny Pokemon.

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Shirokiba
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Thanks a lot, everyone, this has been quite helpful.
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