Gotta Catch 'Em All!: Pokemon Tabletop Adventures

Look what I found.

Oh wow, definitely going to give that a shot.

I think I'll do the Harmonia for black and Nuzlocke on white.

edited 30th May '12 10:35:41 AM by KyleJacobs

Soooo. Hi.

Came across this. Was interested in starting a campaign with this. Yeah. Has anyone here actually ran a campaign with it?

.*tentatively raises his hand*

Sorta kinda did. Didn't get very far for a plethora of reasons, none of which the system is at fault for. If I can impart one piece of wisdom, don't have wild Pokemon boss encounters.

Interesting, why not?

Because wild Pokemon get caught, which makes for one VERY overpowered player character.

There are some ways to get around it, but most of them are so painfully obvious, it's better not to even bother in the first place.

Ah, I see. Got it. OK. Makes sense. I tend to assume wild bosses should be legendaries.

But thanks, this will help immensely.

Also, psychic and mystic classes seem a tad...over powered?

edited 11th Jan '13 12:59:07 PM by MrAHR

Psychics, while more powerful than Martial Artists on paper, don't really turn out to be so in-game, provided you don't ban Arms Features. They make M As usable.

Also, keep in mind that a lot of classes are not able to use their abilities in League Sanctioned battles.

edited 11th Jan '13 5:44:09 PM by EviIPaladin

Ok. I had been planning on getting rid of them because I wanted a plot of an old forum rpg where people took on legendary pokémon abilities, which would be a bit less special if there was an entire two classes that could do that.

All right, not league sanctioned. Will keep that in mind.

edited 11th Jan '13 5:45:10 PM by MrAHR

The damage calculation is (roll (+ roll if crit) + atk - def)*type. Befor I forget again.

Update: Have had two sessions so far, and it's going great. I have a party of 6, and I actually made a decent threat with 4 pokémon vs. all of theirs.

So I've discovered that some of the fans of PTA made a sister system in Pokemon Tabletop United.

Having looked through it, it seems a fair bit more balanced, but I won't know for sure until I begin a campaign with it. Which I plan on doing in the near future.

Really, Frish?

Yes, because Pokémon is a great read.

edited 15th Jul '14 9:21:30 AM by Frishman

Bumping this thread, but these boards are slow anyway.

PTU is incredible if you didn't go through with it back in July. I've been updating the trope page for it recently and I'm currently running a game in a Kenya-esque setting who's villains are the (genuine) polar opposites of Team Plasma. First time G Ming, too, so it's been an interesting learning experience.

I've had all of two sessions with it so far, but the only issue I have with the system so far is the low AC of most Moves. I understand that Evasion is supposed to help with that, but its still weird to me as an experienced roleplayer to have attacks hit so often.

You'll start running into 30+ speed characters sooner or later, Dancers with Spinning Dance, and Instinct users, and things will get familiar again real quick. I've seen AC rolls (plural) of 19 miss because of that ability.

I've done a single game of PT:U with some friends. I think the system did wonders to simplify what PT:A set in motion. Having the players using the same stats as the Pokémons fits perfectly in combat, especially for the classes who actively uses attacks. Min-maxing isn't as prevalent as it was, leaving with more "sensible" trainers, that don't have 18 Strength and 4 Wisdom at level one.

There's still an awful lot of info to digest when you first read the book, and there are some fine points I think could use some polishing (the action economy, for instance). But overall, a great step forward.

So, I have finally went insane and downloaded PTU.

And I'm now thinking of running a game.

What should I keep in mind when running it?

• Don't limit yourself to what the handhelds are, or even common fan interpretations of the franchise - do things how you would do them, not how gamefreak would (which is to say, extremely formulaic and stale) Humans can fight in this one if that's what you want, so even if you do the whole league + 8 badges spiel, you can very easily mix things up.
• If you haven't bothered with Pokemon in a while, do a little looking into the new guys. They have some really crazy designs and concepts that work great as bosses or together as just unusual or memorable encounters in general. Just remember that, if what you're throwing at a player is wild, there's a chance that they'll catch it and upset the party balance early on.
• Classes are pretty well balanced in this game for the most part, and the Pokemon can serve as substitutes for whatever might be "missing", so don't get too caught up in party dynamics like you would in something like Pathfinder or D & D. Ace Trainer is kinda cheesy imo but it's far from broken.
• Let people know from the jump if it's going to be gritty and realistic or more abstract and silly - some people like anime-like near-sapient Pokemon with distinct personalities, others like snarling beasts.
• Ask folks here questions in the PTU section. The devs are pretty active and helpful.

Does the system still have the weird design that makes it so humans can easily become stronger than Pokemon? I never actually played it and would like to, but the idea that a human character can, without too much crazy powergaming, become much better at heavy lifting than Torterra is just weird. The stat growth system seems odd to me, too. But maybe I just didn't really understand it that well.

Also... isn't it a pen-and-paper rather than a tabletop game? I mean, don't tabletops use figurines and such?

Technically, a trainer has the potential to be a bit stronger than a Pokemon, but to do so they have to invest heavily in combat classes that usually provide little to no benefit to their Pokemon, and even than a human has a lot of restrictions and inherent weaknesses that Pokemon have an easier time overcoming (Pokemon get STAB for free, have access much wider range of moves than a trainer will, have more levels for stats, most have unique abilities that make them far more potent than a trainer could ever be, etc.)

As a rule of thumb, you're going to have extremely potent Pokemon, be an extremely potent fighter yourself but have middling Pokemon (relative to someone more dedicated), or you'll meet somewhere in the middle. The Middleman won't be able to go toe to toe with just any Pokemon himself due to lacking type coverage and raw stats, usually, but they'll put up a decent fight.

And I dunno? Semantics, I guess.

edited 22nd Sep '14 10:14:12 AM by Hashil

Has: Okay.

I actually took a look at the rules and they seem kinda complicated.

I'm mostly wondering about the Features and Edges.

Also, I'm not sure how the tests work.

They're really not all that terribly complex. They're just worded funny.

For a Skill Test, the player rolls a number of d6 equal to their Skill Rank and then adds their Trait Score to the total. So a Trainer with 3 ranks in "Intuition" and a Spirit score of 4 would roll 3d6+4.

For an Accuracy Test, roll a d20 and add your Accuracy (if you have any Accuracy modifiers). If that total is greater than the Move's AC (Accuracy Check, not Armor Class) plus the opponent's Evasion stat, then the Move hits.

That part's easy. Its when you get into Combat Stages that you get to have fun with math.

I can hardly wait.

Hmm, I'll probably be doing a fantasy setting that's a complete ripoff of Tales Of Vesperia.

The players will probably be either bounty or monster hunters.

Probably bounty hunters because I'm not sure how well the monster hunting would work in a world that's filled with Pokemon.