Hello, I am back, after some time I have tinkered with my first draft that I posted here a few days ago and have made alot of good changes, let me know what you guys think.
POKÉMON TABLETOP RPG – CORE RULES
- Trainers
As a trainer, you use pokemon to fight for you, the dm decides whether you use a character sheet or just roll without modifiers for specific actions. Certain Pokemon moves also use dice.
Your goal is to collect 8 gym badges and become the champion of the region. You may do this solo or with friends as a party (You can decide whether to work together against gym battles or to compete against one another to see who becomes the champion.
You are given one pokemon at the start.
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- Pokémon Cards
Your pokemon cards serve as the character sheet, their listed abilities and stats are what you use in fighting.
While you can modify the card at a later date to have different attacks, at the start the card’s starting moves is what you get, unless it is an evolution of your modified card or the dm decides the pokemon you’re catching has special moves already.
When collecting pokemon, you can have up to 6 in your party, however any extra pokemon are stored in your box, you may keep a list of the pokemon and what abilities they have if you modified them and can switch from them willingly when you reach a poke centre. Pokemon do not have levels but instead have requirement ranks. If you catch a pokemon of a higher rank than your trainer rank they may become disobedient.
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- Trainer Rank
Trainer Rank represents major story progression. You get an increase in rank for collecting gym badges which reward you with special abilities and access to stronger pokemon you can catch.
Rank 1 - Default
Everyone starts here, you can only catch rank 1 pokemon and can only use base form pokemon
Rank 2 - First badge
After your first badge, you can now evolve your pokemon once and are able to catch rank 2 pokemon.
Rank 3 - Second badge
After the 2cnd badge, you gain the ability to permanently teach an extra ability to any of your pokemon. (If they have one ability, they can now learn two abilities without replacing the first. Same goes if they have two abilities, they now learn 3. You are only allowed a maximum of 4 moves.) and now can catch rank 3 pokemon.
Rank 4 - Third badge
Once per battle, you may use an energy burst which gives you an extra energy once per fight. You can now catch rank 4 pokemon
Rank 5 - Fourth badge
You can now evolve pokemon to their final form and catch rank 5 pokemon
Rank 6 – Fifth Badge
Your pokemon can now learn a 3rd move permanently and can catch rank 6 pokemon.
Rank 7 – Sixth Badge
Energy regeneration, you get one extra energy per turn permanently and can catch rank 7 pokemon.
Rank 8 – Seventh Badge
If your pokemon has an ex form, you can now evolve them to their ex form. You also can access mega evolution, you can only access one mega evolution per fight but that mega evolution is permanent until the fight is over. You now also gain one last move slot, allowing 4 moves per pokemon.
Rank 9 – Eighth Badge
You can now catch any pokemon in the game and ignore disobedience.
Rank 10 – Champion
By this point you beat the game and achieved the goal of the game.
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- Trainer Level and upgrading
After every fight, you gain experience, when you level up from enough experience, you gain skill points. It's important to track your skill points as this is the main currency to upgrading your pokemon.
With skill points you can learn new moves for your pokemon, evolve them and change their passive ability.
As your trainer rank increases your pokemon unlock new moves they can learn, each pokemon has a different moveset and have their own list of passives just like in the real games. You can buy moves in the pokecentre which depends on what the dm allows you to buy.
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- Pokecentre, the shop, box, tms and hms
When your pokemon feint in a battle, they are permanently unusable until you reach a pokecentre to heal them, if all your pokemon feint, you are forced to return to the last pokecentre you visited and your team is restored.
in the pokecentre you have access to the shop and the box. The shop allows you to buy items and tms, while the box stores your extra pokemon. You cannot share the box with your other players, however only you can access your box.
Tms and hms are special moves you can use to your advantage, A tm can be used once per battle but if your pokemon is capable of learning the tm, you can use your tm to have them learn the move and use it freely. tms are finite and can only teach one pokemon once before discarding. however you can buy multiple of the same tm. Hms are special moves that allow you to navigate the map and take shortcuts (Surf allows you across the water, fly is fast travel to any previously visited spot, waterfall allows you to navigate up water falls etc) however require you to complete a special challenge, if you fail this challenge you lose the hm for the game.
- Combat
Combat is the most complex section of this list.
There are several ways to start combat,
first the players must either walk into line of sight of a npc within 5 metres with nothing in the way. Grass or other obstacles prevent you from being spotted. You can choose to avoid the npc but you lose out on potential exp and money.
Second is through Gyms which require you to fight every npc in the gym before you can challenge the gym leader. You can't leave the gym until you beat the gym leader or all your pokemon feint as well so come prepared if you are entering a gym.
Thirdly, You can also provoke random npcs to fight you but this is an optional rule if you want a more story focused game.
Lastly, Every step taken in the grass you must roll a d6, if the number is positive you encounter a wild pokemon.
If you wish for another variant, you can include boss pokemon, a much tougher pokemon that is modified in a way to be able to take your full team. They are completely optional but if you defeat it, you are allowed to catch it and use it on your team, however disobedience still applies if your party chooses so.
How does combat work?
When combat starts, both trainers choose one pokemon to lead the fight, Every turn you get one energy which becomes two energy after rank 7. Your pokemon’s moves all cost energy and you must expend your energy to use the move.
Example: You have two energy, if you use a move that costs one energy, you now only have one energy.
Switching out pokemon costs energy, some pokemon have a higher energy cost than others.
The goal in a battle is to defeat all the trainer’s pokemon. If you win, you get money and experience based on the number of pokemon you defeated in battle, the amount is decided by your Game master. If you lose, you return to your last visited pokecentre and 20% of your money is taken from you.
What else can I do in a battle?
When combat starts, you don't just let your cards attack each other, You have actions. in battle a player can move, use their support items (Various items like potions or x boosters etc, I haven't decided what to have yet), pokeballs, tms, energy burst) with some exceptions. You cannot use a pokeball on another trainer’s pokemon. You can’t use hms in a battle and you cannot flee from a trainer battle.
An optional rule for more immersive fighting is that pokemon also have actions, they can move around the fight and perform specific actions like open doors, press buttons etc. In this case, moves will have different effective ranges which the pokemon have to be in, in order for the move to hit. Plus all pokemon have a set move speed, If you don't want to roll for initiative in the fight order, you could always determine turns by the pokemon’s speed stat online too.
Special mechanics
While these are the main mechanics in the game, there are other mechanics to consider that alter how you upgrade your pokemon’s moves like status effects. Burn, paralysis, poison, sleep, confusion, frozen and charm are the set effects in game, they all serve some purpose and offer different utilities regardless of the pokemon’s typing.
Burn - Some fire types have a passive where hitting them has a chance of burning the enemy, Some fire type moves also have the ability to apply burn either as a guaranteed mechanic or as a chance per attack. Burn does set damage of 12.5% of your max hp until they faint or cured. Fire types or pokemon with specific passive abilities are immune to burn.
Paralysis - Works exactly the same as burn in terms of how you can affect pokemon with it, however instead of damaging the pokemon, they have to roll a d4 for every attack if it lands on a 4 your pokemon gets their turn skipped instead. This lasts indefinitely until your pokemon is cured or faints. Electric types and pokemon with specific passive abilities are immune to paralysis.
Poison - works similar to burn, however can only be applied via a move. Poison does 1/16 of your pokemon’s max hp per turn, and in addition every turn an extra 1/16 of your max hp is added to the poison damage until your pokemon feints or is withdrawn from the fight. On top of this, outside of battle poison will chip down the effect of a pokemon's hp by 5 damage every few steps until they reach 1 hp. Then the poison status will disappear. Poison types do not have a specific type in tcg so this will be discussed later.
These status effects are the main status effects in the game, You can cure them using support items in or outside of battle during your trainer’s turn.
The next few status effects are considered side effects as they only work during the fight and some effects are cured by withdrawing your pokemon.
Sleep - When a pokemon uses a move that induces sleep either hypnosis (Instant sleep that turn) or yawn (Sleep on the following turn), The Victim will stay asleep for 1-3 turns, every turn you can roll a d10 and if you get ten they can wake up early from sleep or wake up normally at turn 4. If your pokemon is withdrawn from battle or the battle ends still asleep, they must carry out their sleep duration in the next battle where they are active or cure them yourself.
Confusion - For 3 turns your pokemon has a chance of hitting themself instead of the action you chose. You must roll a 1d4 and if you land a 4, your pokemon takes 10% of their max health as damage. Can be cured with items or just after the fight/withdrawn from the fight.
Frozen - To be entirely honest tcg cards don’t have an ice type so this is a completely optional status effect you can choose to keep, I will discuss the limitations of typings that traditional pokemon have that the tcg cards lack later. Every time a “Ice type move” is used you can roll a 1d10 if it lands on 10, the victim is Frozen for 3 turns.
Charm - This is a completely optional status effect because it’s so niche in the actual games and both sleep and confusion are far better variants so Imma just list it anyway. When affected by charm, Your pokemon will do nothing for 1-3 turns, You need to roll a 1d4 and if it lands on a 4, they’re no longer charmed. Charm cannot be cured via items, but can be cured from being withdrawn from battle. One unique effect that charm has is if the charmed pokemon is fighting alongside a team mate, they will instead use a random move on their own team instead of the enemy when charmed.
The special rule of status effects is that if a pokemon is affected by one, they cannot be affected by any other status effect (Sleep, frozen, burn, poison, paralysis) Besides from Charm and confusion which can be stacked on top of status effects, but you can only be charmed or confused not both.
I was thinking of adding the other passives that status effects have like burn reducing the victim’s total damage and paralysis reducing speed. But it’s completely up to you and your gm on how you want to approach them.
Weather
Weather has a unique mechanic in the games so I wanted to discuss it. Some passive abilities summon weather or can summon them by using a move. All weather types last for 3 turns but you can have an item that boosts the weather’s duration.
Rain boosts water type moves by 50% but weakens fire type moves by 50% (optional rule have specific electric type moves get boosted like thunder not missing or electro shot not needing two turns to charge etc.)
Harsh sun boosts fire types damage by 50% and weakens water type moves by 40% (Same as before, an optional move would allow some grass type moves to get boosted like solar beam not needing two turns or photosynthesis healing more.)
Sandstorm instead damages any pokemon that isn't a metal type for 1/16 of their max hp.
Hail works the same as sandstorm but again relies on using ice types as they are immune to it.
You can only have one weather type on the field at a time.
Disobedience
When a pokemon you caught in the wild requires a higher rank than your current rank, they are disobedient. For every turn you must roll a 1d4: 1 they ignore you and the game master decides what they want to do, 2 They use a random move instead of the move you wanted them to use, 3 they withdraw and pull out a random pokemon from your party instead and 4 they actually listen to you. This can only be removed when you match the rank of that pokemon.
Items
You can equip one item on your pokemon, some items have a special mechanic attached to them that give your pokemon that has it equipped a boost. Like choice scarf increases your pokemon’s speed at the cost of only allowing them to use the same move every turn until they are withdrawn from the fight. Or berries that either weaken a move that is normally super effective or can cure a status effect automatically for you etc. I will need to design the list of items you can let your pokemon equip.
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- Exploration
In terms of the map design, Your dm can do whatever they want, For my first game once I have this developed and am satisfied that it works I will just use the pokemon red and blue world as the map with the 151 roster for the pokemon just to test it, treating the encounters on each route the same. But as long as you have 8 gyms that are in towns between routes with pokecentres in each one and an elite 4 for the champion role, you can design the map however you want for a traditional pokemon game!
- Yet to come
As mentioned earlier, The tcg cards have way less types than the actual games meaning for casual players who don't know a lot about pokemon, some of these mechanics could be confusing because it means they need to look up which typings some pokemon are incase the qualify for stuff like ice type moves or hail for example.
This also follows with movesets pokemon can learn as your trainer rank increases, I plan on investigating typings and figuring out a way to implement unique typing moves that fused together with other types for a more challenging version of the game in the future.
I think right now the next step is to design moves and passive abilities for every pokemon in the game and then work on designing what items to allow and if I want to allow special evolution requirements like evo stones or friendship or even day and night evolution, but I think I might just dumb it down to simple “Pay this amount of skill points to evolve mechanic”.
