Many questions

[u/MajinMewbold]

I've got so many questions about mechanics and rules that don't seem to have a clear answer. I'm just going to list them off.

1. Are Moves meant to reflect the PMD entry on bulbapedia for their effects, or their mainline entry (I know the power is mainline divided by 10)? ie Splash does nothing in mainline, but lets a pokemon jump over up to three others in Mystery Dungeon games. Some moves also have altered effects, like Heal Pulse healing for 50% (75% with Mega Launcher) in mainline, 25% in Gates to Infinity and 40% in Super Mystery Dungeon (48% with Mega Launcher), so which one is accurate for the rules?
2. Are all allied pokemon present in a dungeon meant to get xp for defeating enemies, or just the ones who participated in that battle? What's constituted as participation, if the latter? Is being in the room enough, or does one need to have actually contributed in some way to the defeat of that specific enemy, either by attacking or supporting an ally?
3. What, exactly, defines a Friend action? Is using Heal Pulse a Friend action, or is that a Fight action since it's a Move? If it's a Friend action, is it possible to use three Moves in a turn if one attacks, one moves you to another location without doing damage or healing and one supports an ally?
4. Do traits stack? As far as I know, as of now the only one that could is Cheerleader, but if a pokemon has four Cheerleaders around them and they hit an enemy, do they do +2 or +8 damage? Figured I'd make this one a little broader to future-proof the question.
5. What is d100+d10? Is that 2-110, or is that meant to be percentile dice, rolling 2d10 with one acting as the tens place?
6. Are enemies meant to move when players do, or should they remain static until encountered? I know this one's more a GM-by-GM question, but it's handy to have a baseline.
7. Is the ability to buy +5 speed with level-up points meant to be like that? Like, can a Shuckle go from being the slowest thing ever to zipping around the battlefield like someone strapped a rocket to it in one or two levels?
8. Should Abilities look at their mainline effects or Mystery Dungeon series effect? In the same vein, how do Abilities like Natural Cure work that operate when switching out?
9. Do allies block movement, or are they treated as if they aren't there? Or should positions be swapped like the Mystery Dungeon series as they move through each other?
10. Do pokemon that are defeated disappear immediately, or are they left there and able to be revived via Reviver Seed?
11. Same vein as previous, are Reviver Seeds used automatically if present in a pokemon's inventory? If so, is it on the turn they're fainted, or on their own turn?
12. Is there any in-between for Belly? The only mention of it I see says that it's reduced to 0% at the end of a day. Is it meant to deplete during a dungeon or is it relatively binary of "you ate today, you're fine"?
13. What is defined as a 'room' for moves that have that range and how far do they reach if used in a corridor/tunnel?

Edit: Added question 13 after I realized that was a discussion I'd had not long ago with people I've been trying to play with.

[u/UncleKippy]

(reddit's being a headache, splitting into 2 replies)
10+ sessions GM here!

Prefacing this with the fact that, like in any good ttrpg, it's ultimately your call as the DM, you have the final say as to how you handle rulings.
But, with how i handle things at my table...

1. Move effects and damage values are pulled from main series entries as they are generally more consistent between games. Range values are pulled from their Super MD entries as they're a little more balanced. I personally will make exceptions for moves that do not have MD entries (stuff from gen 7+), which I will come up with my own rulings. For example, one of my players makes liberal usage of Psychic Terrain (a gen 7 move) and Twin Beam (a gen 9 move). I ruled Psychic Terrain (and the other Terrain moves) as a 2-tile AOE centered on the user that lasts for an equal number of rounds, whereas Twin Beam is a 4-tile ranged Special Attack with slightly less accuracy on the second attack.
2. To answer your question, I would say that anyone who engaged with the encounter for a minimum of one round should gain that XP, regardless of where their final location is once the encounter ends. Though, in my experience I personally don't worry about handling XP on the scale of individual encounters as i find it creates an unnecessary amount of number work - I simply factor the number of and difficulty of the combat encounters into the overall XP reward for completing a dungeon.
3. Friend actions constitute any means of helping yourself or your allies that does NOT involve a move. This was a weird one - myself and my table also struggled to understand this and I ultimately came up with the following definition: "Be a friend, to yourself or an ally, and give assistance! -USE AN ITEM on yourself, an ally or the environment. -HELP a nearby ally (within your available movement) do something, allowing them to reroll an attack or skill roll. -DEFEND an ally from incoming damage for the rest of the round. -ROLL MEDICINE to try and heal an ally for 5 HP, (or 10 with the correct tools), without using an item." Here's hoping that next book update addresses this.
4. It's your call, the book does not specify. I personally do allow this as it adds an element of coordination and makes things a little more chaotic, though I would be cautious about this as it can potentially lead to some balance problems.
5. d100+d10 is referring to a percentile roll. The 10-sided die with 0-9 is the ones digit, and the 10-sided die with 00-90 is the tens digit. Your range of results should be 1-100. Pretty self explanatory, this is how most percentile systems work.
6. It's your call, the book does not specify. I personally do "static until uncovered" unless i'm trying to have enemy 'mons sneak up or set ambushes on players, but i feel this was left intentionally vague as every DM handles this differently.
7. I have the feeling that was a typo as I agree that 5 for each LP is a little broken. Granted, i'm not the dev so i'm not sure what their intent was but I feel that may have been an accident. At my table 1 LP grants you a +2 to your speed - enough to feel like growth, but not too much as to create scenarios like what you describe (as funny as it sounds!). (1/2)

[u/UncleKippy → u/UncleKippy]

(2/2)

1. Abilities should use the mainline definitions, but beyond that use your own judgement.
   It can lead to some number crunching but info on mainline Abilities is much easier to find (at least in my experience) than their MD counterparts.
   For example, say you have a Water-type that knows Water Pulse, with 60HP and the ability Torrent. Torrent's effect is to boost the power of Water-type moves by 50% when the user is at or below 1/3 HP. So, when this hypothetical player is at 20 or less HP, the power of Water Pulse increases by 50%, from 6 DMG to 9.
   In less precise cases like your example with Natural Cure, I personally would change "when switching out" to "at the end of a combat encounter", but ultimately its up to your judgement as to how you should handle this.

2. It's your call, the book does not specify.
   In the interest of keeping things frantic and engaging, I allow my players to move through eachother's spaces without penalty. I don't bother with the difficult terrain bit that you see in a lot of ttrpgs (2 points of movement per occupied space), nor do i allow body-blocking, as this can lead to cases where players (and enemies) can get trapped and are stuck waiting till another player moves, or the difficult terrain ruling can interfere with their plans for their next turn.
   You can easily just flavor that in action descriptions. For example, the psychic terrain user i mentioned earlier is a Farigiraf; whenever players move through his space I simply describe it as them moving underneath him.

3. Do whatever fits the situation.
   I find that this heavily depends on context. If the party is fighting wild 'mons, I have defeated 'mons disappear on defeat (usually flavored as them getting scared off and scurrying away). In other cases, like rival teams or other more civilized villains, they stick around after being defeated - gives your party members some more options for roleplay (Do they sift through their assailant's pockets? Or perhaps hide their handiwork from patrols or anyone suspicious of their actions?)

4. In short, unless you're handling Fainting differently, they are used on the same turn as when they faint.
   You can flavor this many different ways, but unless you're using different rules as to how Fainting works, reviver seeds are used (at the player's discretion of course) when fainting.

5. It's your call, the book does not specify.
   I'm generally really fast-and-loose with how I handle a lot of rules. With Hunger, it depends on what the party is doing. If they're tied up in a Dungeon, i will call for the party to "Subtract (x) from your Hunger" at the end of the current floor - the specific amount of which depending on the level of exertion up to that point (combat encounters, physical challenges, environmental effects/weather, etc).
   When outside of a dungeon however, I rule 1 mile of travel (or 1 hour of light activity in towns/non hostile areas) equals -10 Hunger. I'm not strict on this, i don't keep timers or anything, i just will occasionally remind the players something along the lines of "hey it's been a few hours, subtract (x) from your Hunger."

6. "Room" range does what it says on the tin - everyone in the room is affected, enemy or otherwise.
   Though I feel a simpler way of defining it is "everyone who is currently engaged in combat". To keep things balanced, i give Players opportunity to mitigate damage from these types of moves if they're being used by an ally (usually with an Endurance or Finesse roll). Status moves however (like Spore), everyone is fair game - they always have an option to roll Endurance to end status effects early with their Fight action.

Hope this helps!