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[Skyrunner]

I kinda want to run a PTU game, but I have no idea how the system works. Has anyone here ran or played a PTU game? How was it?

I remember hearing from someone that PTA/U games are a loooot of effort for the GM to run, but I have no concrete reviews to go off of.

[Powder Miner]

Weirdsound runs a campaign of this now and then, and I've been in a couple of his games. It's REALLY complex, yes, as it goes with a tactical map sort of deal, and then multiple trainers, pokemon, and enemies are then run on this map. So it can be complex and kinda slow, but it can also be a lot of fun to do this semi-tactical kind of battle and nail enemies with leaf blasts, and such, which is why I keep playing his games... that and the fact that character creation latitude is simply incredible, and I've made a wide gamut of characters, from a woman with cyborg fire arms to a sewer orphan poison pokemon-using ninja.

KujiUn is actually a PTU staff member.

[Criptfeind]

I've played a few games of it. It's like, comparable to D&D I think it's actually not that complex on the player side of thing. At least, it's easy to make an okay pokemon, making a trainer is a bit more difficult but that's sorta icing on the cake (most of the time.) Never GMed (although I do want to run a game someday) but I imagine that GMing is not hugely complex but does require quite a bit of paperwork and it might be tricky to make sure that everything is the appropriate level of challenge.

As for my opinion on the game itself, I quite like it. It's a very well made mix of complexity on a very simple base with an enjoyable main gameplay that has room for customization and lots of fiddling around with but is easy to be... Useful. All in all I'd say it's not nearly as complex and hard to play as something like D&D 3.5 but manages to achieve similarly enjoyable tactical battles. Pretty well made I think.

[Skyrunner]

I see ... My main motivation for wanting to make such a game is this one Pokemon fanfic called "The Origin of Species," which describes a world that's quite different from the 'canon.' For one, pokemon die quite frequently. Wondering if that sort of world could be described by the base PTU rules w/o too much modification.

[Powder Miner]

Death mechanics are inbuilt.

[Criptfeind]

Yeah. That's a bit harder, the system does have rules for death, but as they stand they are pretty unlikely to actually occur unless you're abusing your pokemon or using a lot of healing items to keep it fighting. If you wanted pokemon to die you might be able to lower the limit (it might take some testing/thinking to figure out the right numbers) on the number of injuries or negative hp that cause death. Edit: Off the top of my head, I think if you halved the limit it'd still mean pokemon normally don't die in just a single fight, but have a chance to at least, and healing will be very dangerous. I think it might also take quite a bit of a shift in the base mindset of a lot of players mindset if you want people to to be okay with a revolving door for their pokemon, after all no one likes to see progress and possessions wiped out in an rpg, even one where you gain such things at a higher rate. But I can't think of a reason that you COULDN'T have a modified for high lethality game... Maybe a few class abilities and such that give bonuses to pokemon that you are training would no longer be as good. And also class abilites that buff certain types of pokemon might lower in value if players have to work with whatever surviving pokemon they find and not build up a roster.

[birdy51]

Absolutely.

It would only take perhaps a little bit of fiddling with the ol' death rate. Most Pokémon and Trainers faint when they hit 0%, but they can continue to take further damage after that. At -200% or 10 Injuries (There is a system for that!), they die. Which, that makes death actually a bit hard to achieve. But if you move the threshold to about, say -50-75%, you're much more likely to see fatalities start flying.

As Cript mentions though, the class in particular that might hurt the most for it would be Taskmasters. They essentially thrive off the concept of pushing their injured Pokémon to the brink in order to grant them bonuses in combat.

[Skyrunner]

Maybe something like -20% + 5% per HP stat? So if you have 9 total HP it's -65%...

[Criptfeind]

Well, people gain a lot of hp, I think with that system you'd find that unless you stay in the lower levels that some pokemon are going to become even harder to kill then in the base game! 

Just a random stab in the dark, but depending on you want, if you want pokemon to normally survive a fight, but have a serious chance of death if hit hard or have healing items used on them, something like 50-75% or five injuries sounds about right. If you wanted the game to be very lethal 25-0% or 4-3 injuries would probably see pokemon dying with regularity.

Thinking about it a bit, you might want to lower injuries less then you lower the % threshold. In the base game it's pretty unlikely to die of injuries without healing (practically impossible in fact) their point is to stop heal spam. If you have like, 5 injuries and 25% pokemon will still probably die a lot, but you'll have a bit of ability to heal... Might be good. Maybe, unless you dislike healing.

[birdy51]

Touching the injury system is dangerous as it would hamstring Taskmasters. Five injuries is actually ideal for them, as it's the nice medium between having a good amount of bonuses and not being so close to the edge that they threaten to topple off easy.

I would definitely agree on the whole HP thing though. HP is one of those lucrative stats that most people are going to end up pumping stuff into, so after a while you may have trouble killing anything!