Difference between revisions of "Pokexalted/Conversion"

Revision as of 05:42, 24 November 2005

Pokemon have six basic stats. HP, Attack, Defense, Speed, Special Attack, Special Defense. Attack and Defense are used for battling with physical moves, while Special Attack and Special Defense are used for battling with special moves; Speed is used basically for determining initiative, and HP is, of course, health itself. I did my best to break things down in the spirit in which they were intended, and I'm going to show all my work here because I'm sure that somewhere, someone has come up with their own Pokemon.

                                                                 Exalted base stats
   Pokemon: Pokexalted                 Pokemon base stats      Str 1-14
HP: HL                               HP 1-255                  Sta 1-14
Att: Str\Dmg (assumed B), Brawl      Att 5-180                 Dex 2-4
Def: Sta\Soak, Temperance            Def 5-230                 Willpower 2-5
Spd: Dodge, Dex                      Spd 5-180                 HL 2-14
Sp.A: Presence, Conviction           Sp.A 10-180               Spd 2-6
Sp.D: Willpower, Valor               Sp.D 20-230               Atk 4-9
                                                               Dmg 1-14L
                                                               Dodge 0-8
                                                               Soak none-12B/6L

I wanted Pokémon to be relatively powerful compared to the standard critters, with room to grow - but not constantly overshadowing Exalted. So I wrote up some quick distribution curves for Core pg 316, and for the Pokedex, and put them side-by-side to try and agree. Any number of pages and gamefaqs have a pokedex for your use, I went with the Emerald version whenever necessary.

One of the problems I initially ran into, basically with Strength, was that 1-14 is reasonable for a core creature - but a Pokemon can, with the right evolutionary tangent, get up to 15 boosts on a stat. If they started with 14, they could end up at 29 Strength. I'm not much of an Exalted guru but that sounds pretty broken... so base Strength got nerfed to 1-4 and I threw Brawl on top to provide additional support for core stats.

To avoid three-tier evolutionary Pokemon getting too out of control, I ended up rewriting evolution so you maintained your Growth stage when evolving. That puts the cap on stat boosts at 7, so I rewrote Strength back up to 1-10.

A new problem presented itself with Presence vs. Physical attacks. There wasn't much point in going with Presence attacks, not when Per+Pre maxes out at 10 and Str+Brawl potentially went up to 15 just to start. So I subbed in Willpower for Perception, and allowed raising Willpower at Growth. This gives WP+Pre a pool of 2-12 to start, 19 maxed; Str+Bra has 1-15 to start, 22 maxed. Roughly equal, and Presence attacks tend to start stronger even though Physical attacks tend to finish stronger.

The end product is fairly self-explanatory. If a Pokemon starts with HP of 100, that means they get 6 HLs in Pokexalted.

HP: HL

01-40: 2 (-3\I) 41-80: 4 (-0\-2\-4\I) 81-120: 6 (-0\-1\-1\-2\-4\I) 121-160: 8 (-0\-0\-1\-1\-2\-2\-4\I) 161-200: 10 (-0\-0\-0\-1\-1\-1\-2\-2\-4\I) 201-255: 12 (-0\-0\-0\-1\-1\-1\-2\-2\-2\-4\-4\I)

Att: Str\Dmg (assumed B), Brawl

01-30: Str 1, Brawl 0 31-60: Str 2, Brawl 1 61-90: Str 4, Brawl 2 91-120: Str 6, Brawl 3 121-150: Str 8, Brawl 4 151-180: Str 10, Brawl 5

Def: Sta\Soak, Temperance

01-40: Sta 2 - 1L, 2B soak, Temperance 1 41-80: Sta 4 - 2L, 4B soak, Temperance 1 81-120: Sta 6 - 3L, 6B soak, Temperance 2 121-160: Sta 8 - 4L, 8B soak, Temperance 3 161-200: Sta 10 - 5L, 10B soak, Temperance 4 201-230: Sta 12 - 6L, 12B soak, Temperance 5

Spd: Dodge, Dex

01-30: Dex 1, Dodge 0 31-60: Dex 2, Dodge 1 61-90: Dex 3, Dodge 2 91-120: Dex 4, Dodge 3 121-150: Dex 4, Dodge 4 151-180: Dex 4, Dodge 5

Sp.A: Presence, Conviction

01-30: Pre 0, Conviction 1 31-60: Pre 1, Conviction 1 61-90: Pre 2, Conviction 2 91-120: Pre 3, Conviction 3 121-150: Pre 4, Conviction 4 151-180: Pre 5, Conviction 5

Sp.D: Willpower, Valor

01-40: WP 3, Valor 1 41-80: WP 4, Valor 1 81-120: WP 5, Valor 2 121-160: WP 6, Valor 3 161-200: WP 7, Valor 4 201-230: WP 8, Valor 5

I used a similar methodology for attack conversions.

Attack conversions...

Accuracy n\a, 30-100
Base PP 5-40
Base Power n\a, 10-250
Special effects: ungodly variation, no direct correlation possible

Actual damage formula: Damage = ((((2 * Level \ 5 + 2) * AttackStat * AttackPower \ DefenseStat) \ 50) + 2) * STAB * Weakness\Resistance * RandomNumber \ 100
STAB = 1.5x damage for type-matched attacks, 1x for unmatched, .5x for mismatched
Attack types: nerf opponent attribute, boost own attribute, absorb damage dealt, negate modifiers, high critical hit ratio, multiple attacks, cure status ailment, cause status ailment... etc.

Accuracy: attack modifier

01-30: -5 31-45: -2 46-60: -1 61-75: +1 76-90: +2 91-100: +5

PP: mote cost

05-09: 7m 10-15: 6m 16-20: 5m 21-25: 4m 26-30: 3m 31-35: 2m 36-40: 1m

Power: base damage; most Techniques act as one-shot weapons

n\a: no direct damage 01-20: 2B 21-50: 4B 51-90: 6B 91-150: 8B 151-200: 10B 201-250: 12B

Mote cost 1-10(+1w+1h)

Speed: I skipped Speed completely because I don't freaking understand how it works. If someone else wants to suggest a formula I'll take their word for it.

The attack effects gave me the most skullsweat here. Nearly every move has some sort of special effect, and many of them included percentile dice. That's why you'll see a lot of "opponent rolls Resistance; on failure, Status Condition". A diff 1 check represents 01-20% chance, diff 2 21-40%, etc. Things like reflexive\supplemental\scenelong, that jive, I had to pull it from my technicolor butt.

You may be wondering which attacks are "special" attacks, and which are "physical".

        Pokemon
Physical        Special

Normal          Fire
Fighting        Water
Poison          Electric
Ground          Grass
Flying          Ice
Bug             Psychic
Rock            Dragon
Ghost           Dark
Steel

These types have been simplified, but in working up the Movedex I used original Movetype to determine physical\presence as necessary. The Poketype was determined by the TCG (Trading Card Game), although in some cases there were multiple cards for the same Pokemon with different types, so I have no doubt a bit of filtering may end up being necessary. STAB itself was largely arbitrary and based on as much logic as I could muster at the time, as well as random selections from the games.

Pokexalted STAB...
Psychic (weak: metal, strong: fighting)
Fighting (weak: psychic, strong: normal)
Normal (weak: fighting, strong: Electric)
Electric (weak: normal, strong: darkness)
Darkness (weak: Electric, strong: grass)
Grass (weak: darkness, strong: water)
Water (weak: grass, strong: fire)
Fire (weak: water, strong: metal)
Metal (weak: fire, strong: psychic)

Psychic > Fighting > Normal > Electric > Darkness > Grass > Water > Fire > Metal >

Determining the moves at growth levels is a bit finicky. I use Emerald whenever possible, because the moves have been expanded a bit, allowing a more reasonable progression.

  Pokemon                         Pokexalted
-- 	Tackle                 0 - Overgrow (special ability)
4 	Growl                  1 - Growl, Tackle
7 	Leech Seed             2 - Leech Seed, Vine Whip
10 	Vine Whip              3 - Poisonpowder, Sleep Powder, Razor Leaf
15 	Poisonpowder           4 - Sweet Scent, Growth
15 	Sleep Powder           5 - Synthesis, Solar Beam
20 	Razor Leaf             With no Growth, a Pokemon only has its special abilities: for Bulbasaur, Overgrow.
25 	Sweet Scent            The rule of thumb is intended to be Growth = 10 levels of XP in Pokemon.
32 	Growth                 The other rule of thumb is to provided a rounded allotment across the progression.
39 	Synthesis              Growl and Tackle are basic moves, while Leech Seed and Vine Whip are more powerful.
46 	Solarbeam              I also wanted to keep the Condition attacks on their own tier.  There you have it.

What I did for rarity is I added together the stages for each of the six stats. A Alakazam has a 55 HP, which is stage 2 Health, so that's 2 points; a 135 in Sp.A, which is on the high end of 5 points - you get the picture. Adding all six stages together, you get a quantifiable idea of how powerful the starting Pokémon is. This isn't completely accurate, it ignores Techniques and Abilities, but I'll be damned if I know a fast way to totally balance 387 Pokémon - some of whom don't even start with offensive Techniques at all. Anyway, the stages and end results can still be found in Pokexalted\Dump.

Rarity...

6-12: Rarity 1 (common) In reviewing the Pokedex, you may spot some discrepancies. Things like 13-15: Rarity 2 (uncommon) 001 and 002 being uncommon even though 002 evolves up a step. Evolution 16-18: Rarity 3 (unusual) and Rarity are not on a linear scale. This can be explained in the game 19-21: Rarity 4 (rare) world however you like, but it basically means that I needed a scale and 22-24: Rarity 5 (legendary) that's where the Pokemon in question fit. Yay systems!