Pokemon HERO

[Snarf]

I like that Vulpix. I think I'll steal it for one of my games.

 

2d6 of Drain Dexterity might be a little low. It's going to take about 2 hits to drain a single point of CV, and after 3 or 4 hits, the battle will be over, if they have no substantial PD/ED and attacks as powerful as flamethrower are typical. I guess it's not supposed to be that powerful though, since it's a supplement to a damaging attack. It all depends on the effect you're going for.

[Almafeta]

I'm now using a spreadsheet to balance things out, so.

 

I just did the elements (I'm leaving the dual-elements alone for now). Although it wasn't extremely difficult, it wasn't balanced -- a few elements (Psychic, Ghost, Dragon) gained 50+ points of powers, while poor Grass is more than -40!

 

I'm wondering if I'm doing something wrong...

[Snarf]

To me, they don't seem all that balanced in the video game either, so I don't worry about the final point cost. The main thing is that owners can choose the monsters they want and switch to whichever one is best for the current situation.

[Fenixcrest]

I don't see any real reason to make the attacks Stun only. Just make them all normal damage- that way they can still damage the environment and create the risk of permanent damage to victims; In Pokemon episode one (kill me now...), Pikachu is brought almost to the brink of death when it is attacked by a flock of Spearow. Also, bits of the environment (landscape, parts of buildings, etc) are often destroyed in the process of battles.

 

For this reason, I think it makes more sense to simply make all attacks normal damage unless it's something that should be Stun only, such as certain poison attacks.

 

Anyway, even in the games there are attacks which damage the environment- "Cut," anyone?

[Kintara]

Ah, but is the game or the show that determines the canon? I never played the game, nor watched the show for any longer than a couple minutes, but I'm pretty sure that Pokemon are pretty safe from eachother in the video game.

 

Edit: Ah, as for things that damage the environment in the game, it sounds to me like they are the exception, and so should be built as exceptions.

[Snarf]

I agree that it depends whether your basing your write ups off of the show or the game. Cut is more like a dispel vs. a specific type of bush in the game, or something like that. You can't just destroy any bush you want with it. In the show, video game nonsense like that doesn't happen and the attacks are more "realistic."

 

Anyways, since stun only is a +0 modifier, you can take anyone elses write up and change it to normal damage easily.

[Guest Kolava]

"cut is a dispel vs. a specific type of bush"

 

LOL

 

Anyway, don't forget to have a megascale teleport and very high Drain STUN against the trainer with the trigger "out of pokemon," since, in the game, having nothing left to fight with made you faint and wake up in the pokemon center.

[Snarf]

Originally posted by Kolava

"cut is a dispel vs. a specific type of bush"

 

LOL

I could spend hours and hours trying to make sense out of the insane things that routinely happen in video games.

 

That reminds me, how does everyone write up "area opening" powers like cutting the invincible bush or bombing through the otherwise invincible wall in Metroid?

[Guest Kolava]

I'd build it like this: The barrier has desolidification with the limitation "cannot pass through solid objects," which works both ways. The desolid is defeated by the specific method.

[Almafeta]

Re: Pokémon HERO

 

Okay, another problem.

 

Is there a way to have a mental attack higher than a mental defense, or vice versa?

[Snarf]

Re: Pokémon HERO

 

Okay, another problem.

 

Is there a way to have a mental attack higher than a mental defense, or vice versa?

I'm not totally sure what you're asking, but I'm pretty sure the answer to your question is yes. Could you elaborate a bit more?

[Almafeta]

Re: Pokémon HERO

 

Well, in Pokemon, you have a Special Attack stat, and a Special Defense stat. However, the closest thing to either is represented by one stat in HERO: ECV. ECV is used for both offense and defense, as far as I know.

 

Well, is there a way to buy up one but not the other?

[Snarf]

Re: Pokémon HERO

 

To me, the closest thing to special defense is Power Defense, but I digress.

 

Anyways, although it doesn't list it on sheets normally, you actually do have a seperate Offensive Ego Combat Value and Defensive Ego Combat Value. It's just listed as one stat because the two stats are normally the same. Kind of like how you sometimes see OCV and DCV just written as CV. If you want to buy OECV and DECV seperately, just do it the same ways you do it with normal CV.

 

The most typical way to do this is with Combat Skill Levels. Figure out what equivalents are and use the appropriate costs. For instance, OECV with one attack is two points, a general purpose ECV CSL would be 5 points, and so on. You may want to apply limitations to the CSLs like "Only For DECV (-1)" or invent new CSLs based on the cost of the existing ones, to get the precise effect you want.

 

Another way to do it, which is appropriate if you think special defense is always on and not flexible, is to just buy EGO and apply a limitation that it's "Only for OECV" or "Only for DECV."

 

Another way is to look at how much it would cost using the normal rules, and invent a new stat or power with a similar cost.

 

It all depends on how much work you're willing to do and how picky you are about the details.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Pokémon HERO

 

I'd recommend taking a bit from the Saturday Morning Supers article in an old Digital Hero; the attacks are all Stun Only unless used used against an inanimate object.

[Almafeta]

Re: Pokémon HERO

 

Well, here's my current document. Five pokémon converted, and all 28 of their normal moves. No notes on the world or the like.

[Dumok]

Re: Pokémon HERO

 

Has anyone did a write up on the Trainer Package Deal? I am working on one for a Fantasy/pet monster type of character but I would like some notes for comparison.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Pokémon HERO

 

Good Gaia (not to take Her name in vain, but...) talk about Threadcromancy. Ironically, Klaital & I were just discussing doing this a few months ago. The problem, of course, is that there really are a silly number of powers, and an equally silly number of Pokemon. Putting it together will take For. Ev. Er.

 

However, there is good news. And it has nothing to do with my car insurance, and everything to do with the Ultimate Energy Projector. It allows actual differentiation among types & kinds with a little work and revision. I don't know that I would even have bothered considering it without that text.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Pokémon HERO

 

Okay, so I've gone ahead and started on the powers list just to see what they'd look like; these are in order according to Veekun, and I started with R/B/Y figuring that's the safest bet.

 

 

In the new rules (which I'm using) you end up with this strange combination as you go; I'm using "only" Hand to Hand or Energy Blast for most of these; I'm going by the canon of the GAME, not the SHOW, which means that all powers instantly pick up "Charges" as a limitation. Finally, I'm converting power on a 10:1 ratio; so a 40 Power move is 4d6. Variations from 40 to 50 are handled with the +1, +1/2 or +1d6-1 modifiers as necessary as this seems like the cleanest, most obvious means of translation.

 

I'm also assuming that this will be of ZERO interest to anyone so I'm mainly doing it for my own bemusement. Unless there's suddenly some weird demand for this, I won't be doing much of it, but it's keeping me busy while I think about a girl and sort of watch this football game.

 

10 Pound [Normal/Physical]: Hand-To-Hand Attack +4d6, 35 Charges (+1/4) (25 Active Points); Limited Power Power loses about half of its effectiveness (Physical; -1), Hand-To-Hand Attack (-1/2)

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Pokémon HERO

 

This one was an interesting exercise because I think I broke the rules. I don't know that I can use CSLs "Only to Increase Critical Hits" but that's exactly what I did. Like I said, I don't know how LEGAL it is, but that seems to be the most obvious way to do it. Also here you can see the category combination; this is a FIGHT move and it's a PD attack (Physical). In the new system, TYPE (Fire, Fight, Ice, etc.) was divorced from CLASS (Physical, Energy, Mental). Additionally, there is no "Mental" in Pokemon, despite their being a Psionic class of attacks, so that'll have to change for this version.

 

Also, you'll need to employ the official match up chart to really understand how all of this should interact with itself, but using Steve's mechanics straight for now is working nicely. However, in the Pokemon Templates, you will see things like "Vulnerability: Water, Ice" (and so on) "All the time, X impairing" depending. It'll make more sense as the project expands.

 

14 Karate Chop [Fight/Physical]: (Total: 35 Active Cost, 14 Real Cost) Hand-To-Hand Attack +5d6, 25 Charges (+0) (25 Active Points); Limited Power Power loses about half of its effectiveness (Physical; -1), Hand-To-Hand Attack (-1/2) (Real Cost: 10) plus +2 with HTH Combat, 25 Charges (+0) (10 Active Points); Limited Power Power loses about half of its effectiveness (Only for Determining Critical Hit; -1), Linked (Karate Chop [Fight]; -1/2) (Real Cost: 4)

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Pokémon HERO

 

This is a great example of one of those weird, low power attacks that seem to stick around early on in a Pokemon's life (until it can be replaced). One of the things that Klaital and I were talking about was how to manage the "4 moves at once" mechanic. Our inital thought was MP, which seems Kludgey to us, although we were also talking about game-specific rules to 'sell back' powers that you wanted to replace, even though they remain in the Pokemon's memory bank. NPCs exist in game that allow the Pokemon to re-learn a forgotten move.

 

4 DoupleSlap [Normal/Physical]: Hand-To-Hand Attack +1 1/2d6, Autofire (5 shots; +1/2) (12 Active Points); Limited Power Power loses about half of its effectiveness (Physical; -1), Hand-To-Hand Attack (-1/2), 10 Charges (-1/2)

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Pokémon HERO

 

I may have my power a little off for this because it's technically 18 (which should convert to 2d6) but I made DoubleSlap 2d6 and it's 15. Hmm. I should be consistent. So by the time YOU read this, I'll have changed it (to 2d6, rounding up as HTH doesn't allow 2d6-1 in HDv3 for HtH attacks).

 

5 Comet Punch [Normal/Physical]: Hand-To-Hand Attack +2d6, Autofire (5 shots; +1/2) (18 Active Points); Limited Power Power loses about half of its effectiveness (Physical; -1), Hand-To-Hand Attack (-1/2), 15 Charges (-1/4)

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Pokémon HERO

 

So this is normally an 80 power attack; I don't think I've done any with Questionable Accuracy yet -- I'll just use the "Inaccurate" rules for those, although I'll have to make sure it's a scalable mechanic.

 

Mega Punch [Normal/Physical]: Hand-To-Hand Attack +8d6, 20 Charges (+0) (40 Active Points); Limited Power Power loses about half of its effectiveness (Physical; -1), Hand-To-Hand Attack (-1/2)

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Pokémon HERO

 

This was a strange one, because it "makes money," which in Pokemon terms, the money I've alloted to it is almost meaningless, but I didn't want to make it insanely expensive, so that's really a question of GMO. You can make it a 10:1 value (every BODY = 10 Yen) which is probably closer to the game mechanic (although in game it's done by level, I believe).

 

32 Pay Day [Normal/Physical]: (Total: 50 Active Cost, 32 Real Cost) Hand-To-Hand Attack +4d6, 20 Charges (+0) (20 Active Points); Limited Power Power loses about half of its effectiveness (Physical; -1), Hand-To-Hand Attack (-1/2) (Real Cost: 8) plus Cha-Ching! Major Transform 2d6 (Force into Money, Spending Money), 20 Charges (+0) (30 Active Points); Linked (Pay Day [Normal]; -1/4) (Real Cost: 24)

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Pokémon HERO

 

Here we go with another niffo Compound Power; this is Fire Punch, so let me explain this again. Yes, the SFX is Fire, but that's more important to the type of Pokemon you're fighting; it's part of the Rock/Paper/Scissors strategy that goes into the game. Many Pokemon templates have things like "Damage Reduction 50%, only vs. (this)," so that's where the Fire SFX comes into play, even though this attack goes against PD, not ED.

 

With me so far? There are only a few other things you'll need to understand if you've never touched the game to grasp how this is supposed to work. Fire Punch (and it's brothers, Ice & Thunder Punch) have additional effects chained onto them, hence the Activation Rolls (which are as low as I could make them; officially it's 10%). The Burn! effect, however, IS an Energy Defense, which is really cool if you can get it to go off. However, the damage is meant to be fairly minimal, so I only went with 2d6 (20 power). I believe officially it's "1/16th of your hit points" or something; there's also "Burn" and "Badly Burn." Badly Burn will likely be made 4d6. Regardless, all of the powers follow the same principal. A continuous charge that deals damage on every one of your phases until it runs out (I set them to 1 minute) or you're given a counter-item.

 

28 Fire Punch [Fire/Physical]: (Total: 63 Active Cost, 28 Real Cost) Hand-To-Hand Attack +7 1/2d6, Limited Power Power loses less than a fourth of its effectiveness (Fire/Heat; +0) (38 Active Points); Hand-To-Hand Attack (-1/2), 15 Charges (-1/4) (Real Cost: 22) plus Burn!Energy Blast 2d6, Limited Power Power loses less than a fourth of its effectiveness (Fire/Heat; +0), 15 Continuing Charges lasting 1 Minute each (+1/2), Continuous (+1) (25 Active Points); Activation Roll 8- (-2), No Range (-1/2), Linked (Fire Punch; -1/2) (Real Cost: 6)

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Pokémon HERO

 

And here's Ice Punch. And I'm busy pining at the moment, so I'm done for now. I hate pining.

 

32 Ice Punch [ice/Physical]: (Total: 113 Active Cost, 32 Real Cost) Hand-To-Hand Attack +7 1/2d6 (38 Active Points); Limited Power Power loses about half of its effectiveness (Ice/Cold; -1), Hand-To-Hand Attack (-1/2), 15 Charges (-1/4) (Real Cost: 14) plus Suppress Suppress Speed 10d6, 15 Continuing Charges lasting 1 Minute each (+1/2) (75 Active Points); Activation Roll 8- (-2), Limited Power Power loses about half of its effectiveness (Ice/Cold; -1), Linked (Ice Punch; -1/4) (Real Cost: 18)