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Pokemon Dungeon
Topic Started: Jan 15 2017, 12:59 PM (700 Views)
l33tmaan
Pokémon Trainer
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I've been thinking about running a gigantic dungeon crawl as an entire campaign, more or less. My (very basic) premise is that the PCs are all prisoners, either wrongfully or lawfully imprisoned, in a quasi-medieval setting being shipped off to an island where hardcore criminals are sent to die. It's a small spit of rock that, for some reason, has a vast, sprawling underground full of wild pokemon and criminals, and the wilds are actually far more intelligent than their mainland counterparts, for some reason.
But all that is to justify the mechanics. The players are being sent to the island with nothing except the clothes on their backs - they'll need to scavenge from the surroundings to survive. But wait, this means they aren't being sent with any pokeballs. Short of apricorn balls being everywhere, how do the players catch pokemon?

Well... they don't. They recruit them. It works just like normal capturing, except rather than using a ball to catch something, you are trying to convince it to join your side semi-permanently. Instead of getting a bonus like you would with an Ultra or Great ball, you simply roll the social skill of your choice and use half of that. The benefit to this is that now, the intelligent pokemon have their own social skills and can recruit one another. Perhaps the Salamence you've raised since the start of the dungeon strikes enough fear in your opponents to just cause them to submit to you.
The flipside to this is that, because they don't have a ball, they just... follow you around. How is this even balanced?

Simple - the PCs can each have a maximum number following them equal to their Command rank. Just max it out and you can have a full party of 6, just like in the games. To stop them from all being usable at once, a PC can only command a number of them in combat equal to half their Focus rank, rounded down.This way, you can control anywhere from 1 to 3 pokemon at a time, which can be quite interesting.
The astute might notice that 1 cut in half and rounded down equals... zero. A PC with Pathetic Focus couldn't control any pokemon, even the ones they follow. They effectively wouldn't be pokemon trainers if I allowed that, and I thought about it and... why not? If you choose, you can completely forgo controlling pokemon and just be a hardass dungeon crawler who fights monsters alone. That's fine, in return they should get a bonus to Trainer XP accumulation since they'll never spend any time levelling up a party.

Those are really the only changes I was thinking of making that would lend itself to a "Pokemon dungeon crawl" style of play. It's slightly different to go with the setting, but not enough as to significantly alter how the game is played.
I'm really just posting this here to bounce this off you guys and see how balanced it sounds. Naturally, Commanders and classes that demand high Command will have more in their party, but the way I see it, if you only have 1 or 2 pokemon you're using, then you hardly ever have to split their experience.
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Ren
Pokémon Trainer
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I would certainly be interested in this. But before going any further, how were you planning to run this? play by post, Roll 20, skype? Furthermore what would be allowed in terms of (starter) classes? Any limitations. With medieval I assume most of the Sci-fi splat won't be allowed. Anything else, supernatural, I'd imagine contest based classes aren't appropriate either? Not sure how it's gonna turn out, but I would be interested to find out.
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Inksword
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The idea itself is fine, though I'm not sure why you need the focus limitation on ordering pokemon around since the books already pretty much say you can only command one pokemon at a time except for special conditions.

Also, by basically requiring players to dump skills into focus and command, you're going to eliminate pretty much any class combination that doesn't use one of those as one of it main skill sets. Or at least, be prepared for very slow trainer progression if they don't, as they won't be able to upgrade their other skills as fast as an unrestricted trainer and will have to split their edges between skills they need for their classes and skills you're making them take to have pokemon. A commander/fortress is going to basically be way ahead of anyone who wants to play a rogue or cheerleader.
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Professor Scamander
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Suffice to say Duelist/Ace Trainer would be a popular combination for many people as well.
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l33tmaan
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Ren
Jan 15 2017, 01:24 PM
I would certainly be interested in this. But before going any further, how were you planning to run this? play by post, Roll 20, skype? Furthermore what would be allowed in terms of (starter) classes? Any limitations. With medieval I assume most of the Sci-fi splat won't be allowed. Anything else, supernatural, I'd imagine contest based classes aren't appropriate either? Not sure how it's gonna turn out, but I would be interested to find out.
Well, I only play with a couple friends of mine in real life, so I'm not too worried about them powergaming or anything. I'm willing to get rid of the Focus and Command aspects, but how else can I limit them like in the normal games? I'm really tied to the idea of the players recruiting pokemon through force of personality rather than simply throwing a ball.

Given that this is a good old fashioned dungeon crawl, the supernatural is inevitable... at some point. But perhaps a PC could have been sent to the island for the crime of witchcraft, that's not very farfetch'd. As a general rule, I don't allow the elementalist classes or elemental connection to be picked up through levelling - that strikes me as narratively wrong. If they don't start off with supernatural powers, then they should talk with me about what they want so I can weave them gaining it somewhere in the dungeon.

Plus, I never got what those special conditions for commanding multiple pokemon were. What would the other 5 even do while the PC and main pokemon are fighting? Staying out of the way? Making potshots?

EDIT: Wait, duh, what if I just tied the amount of pokemon they can have in their party to some sort of collectable item? Like a magic necklace that needs 6 gems to control 6 pokemon or whatever.
Edited by l33tmaan, Jan 15 2017, 01:54 PM.
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Ren
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also one other thing to take in mind is that the telekinetic class is also going to be rather powerful. They just got to raise command and they have a small army of pokémon with themselves as supernatural leader. Also for your item I suggest you search the franchise Shin megami tensei a bit. It also has concept very similar to what I read here. Just a suggestion though. Other suggestions could be to tie them to multiple skills like instead of command also let the social skills count and instead of focus you could add some other skills like poké edu or intuition to that pool.
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l33tmaan
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SMT used to be one of my favorite video game franchises, it's why I like this idea so much. I do suppose one could have any social skill control their maximum party size, as opposed to just Command. But then that just forces the PCs into maximizing one of them, right?
But is a full party even necessary? If max party size is tied to a social skill and not Command, then they'd still need to raise Command to train them to gain experience with any effectiveness, and any battle experience is going to be split up more than a trainer with just a couple pokemon and Charm rank 2 or something.
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The Black Glove
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A Man Of Heart
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Rather than using levels, you might consider instead having some sort of achievement or accomplishment they can complete to improve their party size. That way, they have build freedom, and you have the ability to control just how many they can keep with them at a time.
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l33tmaan
Pokémon Trainer
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Another idea, although I'm not so certain about it: I haven't really used Loyalty much in my campaign so far, as nobody's really mistreated their pokemon or anything, but why not utilize it here, since Pokemon only follow you out of social compulsion?

I'm already planning out this dungeon months in advance since I want it to be big, interconnected, and tight, so... why not plot up a quick ecosystem? After all, if pokemon are living on this island, they have to eat something. And, as such, the players need to feed them or else they'll get pissed and leave them to go find food. For mundane pokemon like Charizard, that's not much of an issue, since it'll chow down on most things you kill, but for something more exotic like a Sableye, it requires special care to keep around for a long time. Obviously, I'd need to think of ways for each individual pokemon the party collects to have their own unique needs, so it mostly balances out, but it might add a touch of realism that could be enjoyable or result in some interesting situations.
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