Pokemon - Battles

Alright, let's take a look at how the all important battles will work.

Encounter
The first thing needed for a battle is someone/something to battle. These can come from Travel cards (Wild Pokemon, Trainer battles and Team battles), or be part of a Story Point.

Choose Move Set
If battling a trainer, each player involved in the battle must choose their move set that they are going to use. Currently, each Pokemon can learn a total of 10 moves, but only 4 can be used in battle at a time. Players will most likely come up with a 'default' set, and will only look to change it for specific battles. This gives that 'deck building' element to the game that I wanted, without all the cards. However, if this starts bogging the game down too much with players changing movesets all the time, I'll place some sort of restriction on it (EG: Movesets can only be changed at Pokemon Centres).

Who Goes First?
Unlike the game, when a wild Pokemon appears, the player gets to decide which Pokemon to send out, instead of automatically using the first one in their roster. Once a Pokemon is selected and sent out, you use the Pokemon's Speed stats to determine who attacks first each turn. If Speeds are the same, simply roll a D6 to determine who attacks first.

In a trainer battle, things work the same way, but start off a little differently. At the start of the battle, player's roll a D20 and add their Luck stat (if it makes it into the game). Whoever rolls the highest can choose to go first or second. The disadvantage of going first is that you have to send out a Pokemon blind, not knowing what your opponent has, whereas going second means you'll see what your opponent sends out, and can choose to send out something to counter that. Once both players have Pokemon out, use the Pokemon's Speed stat as normal to determine turn order.

EG: Chris and Louise are battling each other. Each player rolls a D20 and adds their Luck - Chris scores a 14 and Louise rolls 18. Louise can now choose to either send out first or second, and she chooses to go second. 

Chris sends out his Growlithe to kick things off. Based on this, Louise decides to start off with Geodude. Growlithe has the higher speed, so Chris now gets to move first. 

Attacking
Much of the combat itself will be lifted from Pokemon Tabletop Adventures, with a few changes to better streamline things and keep the action moving.

Much like D&D, combat in Pokemon Journeys works with 2 sets of rolls; a roll to hit, and a roll for damage. Each move in the game has an Accuracy Check (or AC) associated with it. Once the player has selected a move, they must roll equal to or above the AC to hit.

Evasion
All Pokemon have an Evasion stat, which is currently calculated by their Speed. For every 5 points of Speed a Pokemon has, they add +1 to the AC roll of an attack, up to a maximum of +6. If the attack hits, they roll damage on the move.

Damage
Once damage is calculated, the attacker adds either their Pokemon's Attack stat or Special Attack stat to the total, depending on the type of move used. The defending player then subtracts either their Pokemon's Defence or Special Defence stat from the damage total (depending on the type of attack). The remainder is the damage that makes it through and hits the target Pokemon.

Weaknesses and Resistances
Once the appropriate defence has been taken out of the damage, any weaknesses or resistances are applied, either boosting or lowering the damage taken. Note that resistances cannot lower the damage below 1 - all attacks that hit are guaranteed to do at least 1 damage.

Using the above example, lets see how a couple of turns of combat would work:

EG: 
Chris' Turn
Chris attacks first with his Growlithe's Ember attack. Ember's AC is 2, and since Geodude has a low Speed of 2, Louise can't add anything to this. Chris rolls an 8, hitting with Ember. 

Ember does 1d12 + 6 damage, and Chris rolls a total of 11. Chris adds Growlithe's SpAtk stat to the damage (7) for a total of 18 damage. 

Geodude is resistant to Fire attacks, so that damage is halved to 9. As Ember is a Special Attack, Louise then subtracts Geodude's SpDef stat (3) from the damage. Geodude takes 6 damage. 

Louise's Turn
On Louise's turn, she has Geodude use Rock Throw. Rock Throw's AC is 4, and Growlithe's Speed of 6 adds +1 to the AC, making it 5. Louise rolls an scores a 14, hitting comfortably.

Rock Throw deals 2d8 + 6 damage, and Louise rolls a total of 15. She then adds Geodude's Atk stat (8) for a total of 23 damage.

Growlithe is weak against Rock moves, and so that damage is doubled to 46. Chris removes Growlithe's Def stat (5) from the damage, for a total of 41, which knocks Growlithe unconscious. 

Switching Pokemon
On a player's turn, they are able to switch out Pokemon if they wish, though doing so takes up their whole turn. The only variation from this is when a player's Pokemon is knocked out - they are then free to switch to another Pokemon, and a new battle is commenced in the order of the battling Pokemon's Speed stats.

STAB
STAB, or Same Type Attack Bonus, is still something I'm working out and will need to play test. Pokemon Tabletop Adventures is by no means perfect, and STAB is one place where this shows, only giving Pokemon an extra 1 damage every 5 levels, a pitiful amount as opposed to the games, where STAB grants 50% bonus damage. I'll play around with this and see what works and what doesn't.

Damage Values
The same can be said for Pokemon Tabletop Adventures' damage values for different moves, which seem to be all over the place at first glance (though I'm sure there's a method in there somewhere). What I'm thinking of doing is removing the suffix from damage rolls (2d8 +6) and replacing that with the Pokemon's Atk or SpAtk stat instead, similar to how damage is calculated in D&D. This way, each attack would have a damage dice roll, to which the appropriate stat is then added. It seems cleaner to me, and removes the ambiguous suffixes from the PTA system.

I'd like to try and base the dice rolls on the Power Values of the moves from the game somehow, but I'll have to play around more with that in testing.

In any case, that's a good look at how battles work in Pokemon Journeys. If you've played D&D before, it won't be anything new, as well as being easy for newcomers to pick up.

Next time, we'll talk about capturing Pokemon.

Until then!

- Jamie