Difference between revisions of "Pokexalted/Conversion"

Revision as of 08:07, 5 April 2010

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: 4 41-80: 6 81-120: 8 121-160: 10 161-200: 12 201-255: 14

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

For the WoD set, Presence was replaced by Wits and Willpower by Resolve, since Presence was no longer used to represent Special AttacksPokexalted/Conversion/Defense and Willpower was based once again on Virtues.

Sp.A: Presence, Conviction

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

Sp.D: Willpower, Valor

01-40: Resolve 1, Valor 1 41-80: Resolve 2, Valor 1 81-120: Resolve 3, Valor 2 121-160: Resolve 4, Valor 3 161-200: Resolve 4, Valor 4 201-230: Resolve 4, 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.

Shadow: The Shadow moves natively have no PP pools. You could use 'em as much as you want. Shadow Pokemon are already frickin' tough compared to their compatriots (strong against all types, ye gods), so I did my best to introduce balanced mote costs.

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, initially determined by the TCG, has been simplified by subbing some types under others, and turning Flying and Ground into specials rather than types.

Pokexalted STAB...

Water (+Ic) > Fire / Rock (+St) > Grass (+Po+Bu) > Electric >
Normal (+Dr+Da) > Psychic (+Gh) > Fighting >

Rarity was determined at first by, basically, numerology. It didn't work so well. I've implemented actual in-game rarity at this point, as best as I can.

Rarity...

6-12: Rarity 1 (common) 13-15: Rarity 2 (uncommon) 16-18: Rarity 3 (unusual) 19-21: Rarity 4 (rare) 22-24: Rarity 5 (legendary)