Do you think it would get too tedious to calculate the missing health percentage every time you’d have to catch a Pokémon? I mean, yeah you could have a calculator handy at all times (and most of us do, with our smartphones), but still. I don’t know. I’m personally a bit loath to do math at the table where I need machinery to help me.
Yet I find the rest of the formulas simple and to the point, which is a great thing. If you get an explosion of your throw, it could turn into a huge bonus for the follow-up capture.
If you want, you can increase the capture DC for legendary Pokémon, like using a base DC of 150 instead of 100.
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Yeah I guess it would be a pain to calculate, I just couldn’t think of another mechanic to represent a Pokemons weakened state unless… You go in increments of 5 (which seems to be an OL thing anyway lol) for every 5hp below max, minus 20 to the capture DC
Finally started working on the site for PokemonOL. will hopefully be able to test drive it next week. I’m trying to capture the essence and rules of Pokemon but still keep the OL theme.
Hello, all! New member here. I’ve been thinking about this, too, and my ideas went in a somewhat different direction. Here are my ideas:
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For simplicity, make a distinction between “BFF” Pokemon and other Pokemon. Your BFF would be the only one with a full character sheet, using the Ally feats. All others would be mechanically treated more like weapons. “Squirtle, attacks using the owner’s Creation or Alteration stat, water element, advantage 1 when inflicting the Slowed bane.” You could add a note about the personality, too.
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Capture mechanic: give each a wild Pokemon a challenge rating, on a scale of 1-10. Assume that their attack is 4 + half the challenge rating, while their defense is 10 + double their CR. The Pokemon trainer makes an Agility/Precision attack against the wild Pokemon’s defense, with advantage 1 for any of the following banes inflicted: Blinded, Charmed, Deafened, Demoralized, Fatigued, Knockdown, Persistent Damage, Sickened, Slowed, or Stupefied. They get advantage 2 for Stunned or Immobile, and advantage 3 for Incapacitated.
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Someone asked about copyright. That’s something I’ve studied a bit, so here are quick tips for fair use:
-Make something that builds on others’ copyrighted work, not just duplicates it
-Encourage people to buy the copyright holder’s work
-Don’t make money off the copyright holder’s brand
Fair use is based more on legal guidelines than hard-and-fast rules, but the above should keep you well on the safe side. 
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Hrmmm, that definitely is food for thought and keeping in within the OL ideal of KISS 
. Working out how Pokemon level is doing my head in
One advantage of my system is that it ties the Pokemons’ strength to the trainer’s. One disadvantage is that it assumes almost all of your Pokemon are equally powerful. It basically assumes that if you’re a level 10 Pokemon Trainer, and you send out a Pidgey, it’s going to be one heck of a Pidgey.
The key here is this:
Don’t make pokemon like the card games
don’t make pokemon like the video games
Think about what pokemon is attempting to accomplish
Attempt to reproduce the line above in the system
You don’t need 100 levels of pokemon, that is just for a video game to give you something to grind.
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Thanks for the advice @Great_Moustache. I was never intending on 100 levels!! That grind would of sucked hard. Once I rework my design document I’ll have a clearer picture of what I want to achieve with this idea. Cause it’s being a persistent bastard and won’t leave my headspace
There are a few key "Themes"I guess is the right word that are integral to a Pokemon System
- Types of pokemon are better or worse at attack other pokemon
- Only having 6 pokemon at a time
- Pokemon know “moves”
- Its about going out into the world with you and your pokemon and having FUN
- Catching Pokemon
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On #3:
If treating Pokemon (mechanically) like a weapon, we could say…
The number of extraordinary abilities that they can attack with + the number of bane affinities = # of moves known
If a Pokemon has its own character sheet, then the “Actions” (typical attacks/banes/boons) might be their list of Moves. You could even title them, based on a rough approximation to the games. Low-level normal Agility attack = Quick Attack.
On #4:
I think a “sandbox” Pokemon tabletop RPG would be way more fun than a railroaded adventure path. The best sandboxes I’ve seen have pre-planned characters and encounters, with more than one possible outcome. Some of the encounters are triggered by visiting a certain location, while others are triggered by the passage of time.
Yup that’s what I’m kinda looking into with creating Pokemon character sheets using some combination of simple npc creation and companion feat tree. Haven’t had a chance to try and math it out.
And totally go for sandbox, railroads never work haha
I had already been thinking about Pokemon in OL before I found this thread, but I wonder if capturing is being a bit overcomplicated. Here’s a bit from my idea for capturing.
Pokeballs are an extraordinary item.
Throw a pokeball and roll (something vs. something, idk yet), but low HP is handled like a damaging attack. Maybe you don’t have to fully beat the target’s HP, so the pokemon gets advantage 1 per 5 or 10 points of extra HP it has. The pokemon gets three chances to escape the pokeball, just like shaking off a bane, and that’s where the advantage applies. The pokemon also gets disadvantage on that roll for non-pokeball banes on it; either disadvantage 2 for having at least one bane, or disadvantage 1 per bane.
And of course, higher level pokeballs give disadvantage of some level to the pokemon against escaping.
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The idea has merit actually, saves trying to work out the percentage left of the pokemon being captured. The only question is what is the CR of the pokemon to escape the ball? And the threshold for the Low HP point? Heres a thought
Throw the pokeball action: Agility vs Guard
Capture CR 10 + pokemon level
The pokemon being captured has Adv 1 per 10HP over its Low HP threshold (10%Max HP include this on its Monster Entry)
Pokeballs grant Dis 1 per tier of Pokeball
Banes grant DIs 1 per Bane applied
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And then I find this gem on the internet, pity they don’t come with their types etc, lol
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Currently building the Levelling table for the Pokemon themselves at the moment, and a thought occurs…
Is it just me or are the stats of Pokemon in the game itself very random in nature? If so, would it be to complex to start all pokemon (for now) at level 1 and using the Simple NPC stats, generate their Starting HP, Defenses and Attributes?
Here’s what I have so far…
Level 1
HP: 10 + 1d12
Defenses: 10 + 1d6
Primary Attribute (as determined by you OR type(s) Will more than likely be Extraordinary) : 1d4
Secondary Attributes (Agility (AND/OR?) Might, Presence, Perception ) 1d3
Favored Actions: 2
After 3 battles, Level UP!!
Gain 2 HP, 1 point in each defense stat and when each attribute point changes, gain a point.
Learn 1 new move per level (if possible)
At levels 5, 10, 15 Evolve to next stage Evolution stats yet to be determined
Evolution stones force evolution and have different effects apply to different pokemon
The attribute section I’m still not sure about, and of course there will be feats involved Coming Soon that will makes your Pokemon a Companion, which you can then customize a bit more
Now that I’m typing this, perhaps adding items that you can purchase or earn, to increase stats will be a good idea as well
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I do think that leveling up is too linear. Maybe beating a certain number of levels Ex: defeating a lvl 2 Pokémon counts as winning two battles. This way each level up could scale, and there is no advantage to battling lower level trainers at a higher level. The way I read it right now my level 99 Pokémon could smash three level ones without flinching and become level 100 automatically.
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Fair point, I’ll look into levelling scaling curves. Ugh Math 
Well it could just be as simple as to level you have to earn that level in battles for example
Level = Total Wins Needed
2 =2
3 = 5
4 = 9
5 = 14
And so on
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That’s a good idea until I can think/find something better. Thanks 