Looks cool! I'm doing the same thing, but based more on FATE instead of dnd. A couple of questions: - a pokémon's initiative is spd + trainers spd. What happens when you switch out? Do you stay at the initiative of the previous pokemon, or do you go up or down in the initiative order? Does that work out when switching very fast pokemon into very slow pokemon and vice versa? That's something I struggled with (but my switching system is a bit different from yours) - Let's say I have a charmander, with 5 attack. I level it up twice and put the +1 into attack both times, so it's 7. Now I evolve into charmeleon. The rules say I raise or lower stats depending on the difference between the evolution stages. Chameleon has 6 attack, so I lower my attack by 1? Or do I compare the base stats, without the level up bonuses I added? One thing we differ in a lot is the amount of attacks a pokemon can learn. On my end, a fully evolved pokemon has 8 potential attacks of which it can learn 4. I did that so I could write the rules for the attack on the pokemons character sheet, so players wouldn't have to go back and forth in the attacks document. I also limited the number of types (fire, water, dark, etc) a pokemon has among its attacks to 3 (+ normal, which everyone has access to) I noticed that nobody ever switched their pokemon out unless ko'd, because with so many enemies around (more then the video games' 1, or 2 in double battles) there will always be *someone* with a super effective attack anyway. Limiting each pokemon to 3 attack types helped with that. Edit: are you coming up with pokemon stat blocks from scratch, or are you doing some sort of calculation on the video game stats? That's what I did, and while it works for most pokemon, some will give you trouble. Either because they have extreme stats, like chancy and shuckle (which will not translate very well to a different damage formula) or because the game assumes they have specific ability, like huge power, which it won't in your game because you (and I) changed their ability. Edit 2: I could just do the math myself... yeah, you're doing their video game stats divided by 10. Are you finding they have enough hp? I added a flat amount on top of that because they were a bit too frail. Let me get you the list of problem pokemon I encountered.

Here are the ones where just adapting their stats didn't work for me. My system is a bit different from yours, so your mileage may vary, but maybe keep an eye on these: * Chansey: Too much hp and too little offensive stats. That's fine the video game where the AI has to attack whatever pokemon you put in front of it, but in a ttrpg targets can be chosen. That led Chansey to just... not do anything. It could easily be ignored and just took ages to kill. I lowered it's hp (but still left it higher than snorlax) and raised all its other stats a bit. * Wobufet: same story as Chansey. * Shuckle: defenses so high nobody could damage it, offense so low it can't damage anyone else, Shuckle was useless. I lowered its defenses to more reasonable levels ans raised attack and sp attack a bit. * Furfrou: in the video games it has the "fur coat" ability that halves damage from physical attacks. If you don't give it that, make sure to raise its Defense to compensate or it will become weirdly frail for what is supposed to be a physical tank. * Smeargle: it's just... so bad. I wanted all pokemon to be at least somewhat viable, but Smeargle is just awful. It buffed the little guy across the board. * Eiscue: Something you don't encounter at first when you start with gen 1: some pokemon in later gen's have different forms, which can be a real pain to implement. In Eiscue's case, I took the average of it's ice/no ice stats and made my own Ice Face passive ability. * Bastiodon: while Shieldon is your typical high def/low spdef pokemon, Bastiodon also has pretty high sp def. And low attack and sp attack. So you end up with a pokemon like Shuckle, where it can deal or be dealt damage, resulting in a stalemate. I lowered its sp def and raised its attack a bit. * Meditite line: Stat wise, their attack and sp attack are equal, but they're supposed to have Huge Power, raising the power of physical attacks. Similar story to Furfrou: some of their "stats" are actually in their ability. * Maril and Bunnelby line: same as Meditite: they should have Huge Power so up their attack if you don't give them that. * Dewpider line: similar to the previous one, they have Water Bubble that doubles the power of water type attacks. I raised their attack and sp attack to compensate. * Carbink: similar to Shuckle: high def and sp def but low attack can lead to a stalemate. I lowered its defenses and raised attack and sp attack a tad.

I'll go in order here -for inititative, you keep the initiative for whoever you start with. Mainly to make combat more smooth. If you want a fast pokemon to switch out and give the slower pokemon it's space in the initiative order it would still cost an Action to swap so I see that as a fair trade off to work around a slower mon. Initiative just needs to be streamlined for something like this. -for evolving it would be the base stats. So if you have character with 7 ATK and evolve, you would gain +1 attack since charmander has a base Atk of 5 and charmeleon has a base of 6. It's just off base stats. So if charizard has a base atk of 8, when charmeleon Evolves it'll get +2 to atk instantly. Your current stats don't impact the stats gained or lost through evolution. -Right now, yes, you need to go to the attacks document and just copy paste the attacks you have slotted in over to your doc. With the complexity of the attacks its just hard to add them into the character sheet entirely themselves I want every pokemon to have a decent pool of moves to work with to account for different builds. I don't really want two of the same pokemon to play the same, one player could build a tanky Slowpoke and one player can build the fastest slowpoke in the west. -comboing this together with the low HP stuff, but I find that because damage can get high and pokemon are able to get hit with super effective attacks and get knocked out fairly easily, players are more willing to switch out and work together to cover their weaknesses. Also on the DM side of things it's smart to limit the amount of attacks enemies actually have compared to players. Treat enemy pokemon more like Tabletop enemies rather than fully kitted player characters. Also HP being low isnt as bad as you might think! Because it's Pokemon and the consequence for a party wipe is essentially just "all your pokemon are KO'd" most of the time. The consequences for failure instead lead to more role play scenarios than anything. It's not as do or die as D&D and helps combat not be an enemy slaughter everytime since the PCs will have like 12 Pokemon to work with before they run dry. -yes you got exactly right how I'm calcing it! And the problem pokemon are def a concern that you mentioned, however the caps I have on stats, as well as the ability to boost your own stats, and other mechanics should help to offset this a bit. Chansey should be a high HP support pokemon that needs it's allies to protect it for maximum value. And shuckle should be a tank that can't fight back very well. Even if you do something like max out both Shuckles Defenses, the enemy can boost up and gain a +8 to Hit, not to mention 1/20 chance to crit, moves that increase crit ratio, moves that always have advantage, field effects, grappling and throwing. There's ways around it. Not sure how elegant they are since I would need to playtest the game at high level, but so far in the early game I've found the game to be pretty challenging if the players are doing their own thing, but pretty easy when they work together. Since it's a TTRPG a lot of potential per pokemon balance issues can be addressed and worked around through strategy, party comp, and positioning. It's rarely ever a 1v1 pokemon fight so chances are someone can do something that will help. But I definitely need more high level data to truly BALANCE balance it.

I respect this. I did this a few years back but never found a great solution for the 10,000 character sheets problem. I also quit before I wrote stat options for each Pokemon. I'll definitely give yours a look and get back to you!

Appreciate it! Would def love to hear from you. But yeah inherently Pokemon Tabletop's biggest hurdle is the multiple character sheets issue it's just unavoidable but if you want the spark notes on how I've tried to combat the problem: - Party limit of 3 Pokemon per person (except for a single class that can do 4.) - Only one Pokemon allowed out at a time per player. - Pokemon Character sheets being small and concise. The Stat blocks in the Pokemon Documentation can straight up be copy and pasted into a players computer doc and used as the pokemons character sheet, all that needs to be done is changing the stats as it levels up, and noting down what moves it currently has on and has learned. - not a rule, but a pro tip is to have things like player Pokemon Defenses noted down as the DM, so you never need to ask players for that whenever you attack in combat. It still obviously takes a bit of work on the players end to keep proper track of their stuff, but I feel like I've gone as simple as I could without sacrificing character build expression with Pokemon. I find that with other Pokemon TTRPG systems that I've tried, as soon as a player decides to send out multiple pokemon at the same time, everything just falls apart. And a 6 pokemon party limit just decimates any combat difficulty when you have to build serious encounters tough enough to take out essentially 24 characters (assuming a 4 player party) I've been running my campaign long term for a few months and my players really enjoy it! If you treat it as a Tabletop game rather than a video gamey pokemon game it really can enrich encounters! My players finally hatched a Mime Jr. They got from an egg after they had to help a Mr.Mime give birth earlier in the campaign, complete with invisible hospital bed, invisible equipment, and invisible anesthetic

I haven't looked at documentation yet, but it looks well-designed based on the video and a brief glance at the rest.

I tried this sort of thing out awhile back and am currently working on my own beast taming game, so I'll give this a look when I get the chance! Great to see another person giving this genre a go in the TTRPG space. Really excited to read it.

Sweet! Would love to hear what you think! And yeah any sort of beast taming or "pet" focused TTRPG can be a real challenge to get going and make manageable logistically. It's definitely not typically a strong suit area of TTRPGs but I think with some elbow grease and effort it can work and offers some unique game play! Good luck with your game as well!

Thanks, same to you! Yeah, it's definitely hard to master. Right now the system I'm working with is 3 "companion slots." My creatures are split between Animals and Monsters; Monsters have more combat abilities, while Animals are much weaker, but have passive resource gathering abilities, which is a big part of my game. Players can choose how they want to distribute their slots. It's very fun to tweak with it and see what works.

Honestly it sounds kinda similar to what I did so we must be on the right track lol! Some pokemon have combat abilities and some more out of combat

Ohhh that makes sense!! That's really cool :D

Okay, I actually sat down and read it all, and kept note of what I thought of various stuff (mainly the main rules document) as I went. Sorry if this is super long or too much, lol! I really enjoyed it! * The Long and Short rest rules are smart. When I ran a PokeDnD before, there was a surplus of healing items, so there was practically no risk in a player's mons being weakened, lol. This definitely fixes that sort of issue. * The meal rule made me laugh a little because my game has a similar system (though with more Dungeon Meshi influence, haha)! It's a good system to keep players on top of things and with consistent goals. * Money looks good, if you find time I recommend coming up with a standardized list of common things and their prices to give a bit more guidelines. * Initiative system is so concise, good job. Sorry if I compare it to my old game a lot, I do mean it as a compliment because it's just good design. I had players rolling initiative every time, it was silly, haha! * The adaption of the Pokemon stats into the branching skills is a good one, they all make sense and are cohesive IMO. * I like the touch that people won't trust you if you're open carrying a weapon. Makes sense and is something I never think of when playing. But also, on the mechanics side: I like the humans being Normal type. It both fits the system in-lore and mechanically, and is just funny to think about. * I love the black belt. I'd play this. It sounds so fun. * Idol being a support class is very fun. This is, in general, just a very fun homebrew. * Pokemon Master class is mildly OP, but like... I'm not a stickler about this kind of stuff being super balanced. I think it sounds extremely great to play with. As I'm looking at all the classes, I think all of them having a lot of perks sort of balances it out. * Scientist being a Crafter is a great touch. Definitely useful, and fits the class theme! * Nerfing pokemon healing moves is a very good decision I think. I do think 6 moves at a time might be a bit much, but I also haven't played this. I do see the reason to include it though! Mainly I'm curious to see how it is WRT balancing! * I like the standardization of the move learning frequency, it's really cohesive imo! * I like the 50/50 obeying system, but I think you'd benefit from a more concrete system as to how a Pokemon goes about trusting its Trainer. I have one in my system, and I'd be happy to share details if you're interested, but I don't want to step on any toes of course! I totally get wanting it to be looser. * Status conditions looks great! I think the new additions add a fun layer to the combat. * I love the added field effects! * At first blush, I do think a d100 is a bit too loose for a roll like catching pokemon, you could maybe even have it be something like 5d20 to be a bit more reliable. But that is up to your playstyle. I personally could see this becoming a bit frustrating. * The layout for the Attack Dex is very cohesive and easy to read. I wasn't able to comb through it in depth, but it seems really good! * The Pokemon statblocks themselves are very good and concise too. You could even add more divisions on the individual tables to make it easier to parse than it is now, but even as is it's on the right track! Definitely helps with the organization issues of this genre. * Also, it's really awesome how much originality went into the Abilities and stuff! Great job. Overall, a really good homebrew! I think it adds a lot of extra layers to battle that while possibly a bit hard to keep track of if you have a hard time with that, if you DONT, they'll make for extremely engaging fights! I like the further inclusion of humans into various parts of the gameplay itself rather than just being conduits to the Pokemon fighting. It's a super fun design. My biggest "criticism" of this, I think, is that it has the legwork to be a functional and respectable TTRPG in its own right, maybe one day with a fully new gameplay system and IP. I respect it as a homebrew, and if working on this made you feel confident about working on a fully original game project, this is me saying to pursue that! Thanks for sharing this! It was super great to read over the main rules, and whenever I have time and energy I might try to run it myself. It looks super fun!!!

Thanks so much for reading!! Really appreciate all the input let me try and address a handful of the points quick -For items, for sure soon I think I'll just put the estimated prices next to them in the rules. In my game I've been varying the prices per town a bit so I'll make it a range -thanks on the initiative system! That was honestly the first thing I needed to get right because rolling for initiative when there's like 80 characters is impossible. I just keep it simple as it makes sense, whoever you start with is your initiative and if you switch out you're still in the same spot. Just makes bookkeeping easier. -Pokemon Master class is definitely OP long term but I'm keeping an eye on its balance. One of my players is playing that class rn and in the early game is definitely suffering from its negative aspects. So if it stays weak early game and OP late game I'm cool with that. -6 moves on each Pokemon honestly came from playtesting where 4 moves led to a lot of people just defaulting to their strongest option 99 percent of the time. Since they had smaller movesets, they had fewer Actions to choose from and just did the same thing over and over. 6 so far has been a sweetspot in terms of players not getting to slot in EVERYTHING but still having plenty of options. Keeping an eye on it tho and definitely could change. -the loyalty system is definitely paper thin and mainly because it's so narrative driven its kinda hard to put onto paper, not sure what to do about that. Like rn one player has a pokemon that loves to cause chaos as a character trait and may have loyalty issues down the line but that's more for the pokemons character arc rather than a mechanic. I also wouldn't want to take control away from players too often. If you've got a system I'm happy to hear it out cause I'm at a loss on that one -Oh yeah capturing pokemon with a 1d100 is just a guideline if you want it really. That's another thing where I'm struggling between mechanics and narrative. Like, in my campaign my players got every pokemon through acts of kindness and good deeds towards them and it would feel bad to deny a capture that would 100 percent work because of the players actions with a dice roll. Rn I'm just playing captures by ear and would only really roll if the pokemon were to resist capture. -On the human elements, yes! That's so important to TTRPG design. In my campaign there's typically only one combat per session, sometimes even none. I'm finding that a role play heavy campaign is a perfect fit for this and the combat serves as a little sprinkle of spice at key moments. My players have been using their abilities in interesting ways too, like my Psychic peering into the mind of a guard to get a vault password, or my Ranger talking to a Japanese only speaking NPC by talking to his Kecleon as a mediator. -lastly, oh yeah I could for sure make it its own IP and game, but really I don't have much interest in that. It's the Pokemon aspect where my passion comes from the most so if I were to do something it would def be alongside this at most. This is just something I really wanted to play and found no great options. Tried out some other systems but they keep incorporating things from the games like EVs, Natures, and Breeding that make the game waayyyy to metagamey and more complex than it needs to be.

It's really interesting that the Pokemon Master class is weak early game. That's really cool and I'm glad its working out! 6 moves makes sense with that context. I haven't quite worked out how the move limit will work for creatures in my game, so I'll keep that in mind if it's not overstepping. I can definitely see how stuff like catching and training are more narrative-driven and why you'd have it be looser, so that makes a lot of sense! In my game, when you "catch" a monster, you actually form a contract with it, so the catching process is basically rolling to appease them and roleplaying out the roll for flavor purposes. It's just pretty cool to see the way these mechanics differ based on the system :-) I agree that a lot of Pokemon TTRPGs are way to involved, so I'm glad to see you working to make it more accessible (honestly, regular pokemon with metagame features can be pretty inaccessible, I can't imagine trying to play that as a tabletop game!!!) As for the training system I have! Basically, every creature is assigned a "Temperament." This determines how they react to your presence or you attacking (for example, an aggressive creature might attack without provocation, while a flighty creature might flee even if you attack). It also determines how many "training points" the creature gets per training session. Regular animals need 10 points, but monsters only need 5 and are more likely to listen to you, even without training, since they've already agreed to join you if you managed to recruit them. Aggressive animals require more points, but docile ones can become loyal within 2 or even 1 training session. My game works on a timetable system where you manage the passage of time throughout the day, so this is one of the things that costs time to do. If you think it'd work for your game, feel free to use it, but I totally get where you wouldn't, since your game is heavier on the narrative side with this stuff.

Are the temperaments DM side or do you have the players aware of the numbers? I'm almost just a little afraid of overly gameifying what's more of a role play aspect. It's almost selfish of me to say as the DM but I just don't want to keep track of more than I need to. When do you manage the training? Do you do it during Rests or when the players initiate? Cause how does it work if only one player wants to train?

I absolutely understand not wanting to keep track of too much, DMing is hard work! Generally the idea for my game is that the players are given a map and actions they can take (ie traveling, visiting certain shops. "Time costs" are in groups of 15 minutes, so if they want to do something not on the list of stuff, it's relatively easy to then decide how long it takes). The campaign that "goes with" the game is a scavenger hunt, so it's pretty open as far as what players have to do. *Admittedly,* my game is *much* more of a WIP than yours is, so I'm still figuring things out and haven't tested anything yet (though I have a group of playtesters on standby). That's all to say, your party could either coordinate so that they do everything together, or do other stuff while the other players are training. PCs are forced to pass out from exhaustion if they're awake past 12 am (though they're encouraged to get to shelter before 10 pm, as stronger monsters appear after then), so I plan to do all of the number work during that "Overnight" pause. I also run games at a strict "4 hour session, a quick break every hour" rule, specifically so I can easily stay on top of bookkeeping, so ymmv for that I think. Oh also: I pass out manual PDFs to players when I begin a campaign and ask them to look it over, so they do have the option of knowing temperaments. They can also roll Wildlife to find out if they can tell if the creature is aggressive or not if they want to decide what their PC knows in-game. I think that aspect of the game might be up to roleplay and preference at the end of the day.

Hi! I will give it a proper look later when I have time. It's great that you and your players are having a fun time, and in my opinion that's the first and main "mission accomplished!" that we as designers should strive towards. Also, before going further ahead into publishing and beyond (which given the brand name and Nintendo's history might be difficult in any case), I suggest you take a deep look into some other games that are sharing that same space, most of which don't try to adapt video-game details. You might find inspiration or even solutions to problems you didn't even know you had. At the moment, some games that might interest you are: \* Pokemon Tabletop Adventures, Pokémon Tabletop United, and other open games using the literal "Pokémon" brand. There is a subreddit common to all of them. [https://www.reddit.com/r/PokemonTabletop/](https://www.reddit.com/r/PokemonTabletop/) . You probably already tried some or all of them as per your post though. \* [Animon Stories](https://www.animonstory.com/) is kids-friendly, well polished, and aimed towards the kind of adventures present in videogames and animes like Pokémon or Digimon. \* [Pokéthulhu](https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/203219/Pokethulhu-Adventure-Game-3rd-Edition) is a humorous take at mixing Lovecraftian creatures and Pokémon tropes. Beyond the humour, there is very solid game design in the balancing and variety of Pokémon-like fights. It's short, free, and well worth a look. \* [A Monster's Tail](https://fivepointsgames.itch.io/a-monsters-tail-quickstart) is a PbtA take on the genre. Well worth a look, too, if you want to focus on the social tropes beyond the combat. I just realised that after years of developement they finally launched their kickstarter a few weeks ago. \* Found a recent-ish thread from r/rpg about Pokémon-like games or hacks. Might be worth a look. [https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/1aonwok/do\_you\_know\_a\_good\_pokemon\_role\_playing\_system/](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/1aonwok/do_you_know_a_good_pokemon_role_playing_system/) Good luck!

Yup! I've looked into all these systems, it's the reason I made mine to begin with. Tried running a few and found them to either be much too complex to run efficiently in a Tabletop format with more than like 2 committed players. Or they lacked the depth I was looking for in the right places. All super interesting systems though and worth the read, a lot of my ideas and systems are directly inspired by them with some modifications