Pokémon Tabletop?

[Undrave]

I'm currently DMing a Carton Action Hour Season 3 campaign (ask if you want me to talk about it, I guess?) and we're approaching the end of our season 3 which should be the conclusion of our story.

For the next game I've had some positive comments to the idea of playing some sort of Pokémon campaign and I went around looking at some of the systems available and they feel way too complicated for my taste and the sort of more casual game I'd like to organize. Pokémon Tabletop United and its ilk seems a bit too obsessed with reproducing the same general power structure of the video games while adding the complexity of full on fighting trainer characters.

On the other hand there's some way to do stuff with like Fate and other freeform systems but after CAH I'm looking for something a bit more crunchy but not to the extant that PTU's got going on.

Personally I'd like something that's more inspired by the anime where it doesn't really matter if, in the game, the Base Stat Total of Pikachu is 320 and Dragonite is 600, if you got the level and use the right strategy you can still win. I want a lot more abstraction of the Pokémon math but with a solid basic tactical framework for battles that can lead to some exciting stuff. Especially if you have to do like 3 on 3 because you have more than 1 player a the table ya know?

If anybody's got some experience with the various Pokémon games out there I'd be interested to hear it.

Otherwise, would anybody mind if I just brainstormed ideas in here of how I would go about bashing together a game for my purpose??

 

[MichaelSomething]

Use 4th Edition of D&D, but use the monster rules to represent the pokemon.

 

[Undrave]

Use 4th Edition of D&D, but use the monster rules to represent the pokemon.

Not a terrible idea... would be a lot of work though I'm not sure how well the monster math hold up if you level them up beyond +5 levels or so?

 

[Kaodi]

I wonder if the minion rules in PF2 and the way level affects your stats would make it an ideal candidate.

 

[Undrave]

I wonder if the minion rules in PF2 and the way level affects your stats would make it an ideal candidate.

What are the Minion rules like in PF2?

See, one thing I had in mind, instead of starting up every Pokémon out there and adhere religiously to their relative powers in the game (because the game is designed to be a satisfying single player experience, not a party-based system) would be to reduce Pokémons to basically their types, one of three size category (small, medium, large) and MAYBE a bonus to one stat.

From there, each Pokémon gives you access to a few 'classes', usually using vocabulary from competitive: physical sweeper, special sweeper, tank, wall, cleric. Or the ones from the new Pokémon Masters game: Special Striker, Physical Striker, Support and Tech. Each of those classes then exist separately for your size category and they're the one giving you your base stats.

Then you just throw a level or half-level bonus on top and boom! Simple level appropriate Pokémon.

And instead of having movesets you just need to fulfill some qualifier to get access to a move, like having a specific type or class. MAYBE I'd throw in a few 'keywords' qualifiers like 'tail' 'wings' 'levitate' 'hooves' etc?

I'd also simplify types like they do in Pokémon Masters.

 

[Kaodi]

Basically you can have four minions max and you use one of your three actions per round to give them two. Limiting your "Magimon" to two actions per turn is probably decent, and you can use your other two actions to change "Magimon" or feed them potions, give them boosts, etc.

 

[Undrave]

Basically you can have four minions max and you use one of your three actions per round to give them two. Limiting your "Magimon" to two actions per turn is probably decent, and you can use your other two actions to change "Magimon" or feed them potions, give them boosts, etc.

Fairly simple all in all... what about stats-wise? What do these minions look like?

 

[Kaodi]

In PF2 minions basically look like other creatures I think. They just have the minion trait attached.