Combat

Combat Introduction

Combat is handled in a turn-based structure on a square gridded battle map. Much like other party-based tactical combat games, Pokémon Odyssey makes the assumption that you will have the entire party face off against a threat at once, whether that be a group of wild Pokémon, a set of criminal Team grunts, or a Gym Leader fielding multiple Pokémon at once or battling alongside Gym Trainers. Despite being based on Pokémon, this game system is absolutely not designed for 1v1 battles.

At any given time, a player will have both their Trainer and one Pokémon on the battlefield, called a Battling Pair. Combat is separated into units of time called rounds, and each Battling Pair takes one turn during a round. Generally speaking, one battle is usually its own Scene, but sometimes back to back battles can constitute a Scene when grouped together.

The reason only one Pokémon per Trainer is active at a time is for game balance. You can come up with an in-world reason for this if you want, but it might be better just to not directly address it. NPCs will often command multiple Pokémon at once for encounter balance, and it’s fine to not directly address that either. Let’s be honest, this is one of the less weird things about Pokémon we have to gloss over or ignore to make the premise work.

Initiative and Turns

Once combat is declared to begin, any Trainers who do not have a Pokémon released immediately release one Pokémon. At this point, anyone who has a Pokémon out may also freely swap to a different Pokémon. Then, all Battling Pairs are put into a turn order by the Initiative value of their Pokémon. Enemies will not always be separated into Battling Pairs and may have their own Initiative value, even if they are humans, machines, or other non-Pokémon entities.

Then, the Battling Pair or enemy with the highest Initiative takes the first turn. After their turn is over, the next combatant takes their turn. And so on until all combatants have taken their turns. Then the round ends, any end of round effects occur, and a new round begins.

A Battling Pair may choose to hold their turn until a later Initiative value. If they do, that becomes their new Initiative value for the rest of the Scene (unless they Switch or their Initiative is changed in another way).

On their turn, a Battling Pair:

• Each take a Movement Action
• Take other actions with a total cost of 2 Action Points, or AP, shared across the pair, but may use at most one Strike action between the two of them
• Resolve any start and end of turn effects that may occur

You may take your Movement Actions and other actions in any order, but you cannot interrupt a Movement Action to take another action and then complete the rest of that Movement Action.

The Map

Combat occurs on a map made of squares, and all measurements of size and distance are made in terms of squares in Pokémon Odyssey. Whenever measuring distance, treat a diagonal as having a distance of one square. There is not a standard conversion between Pokémon Odyssey combat squares and real world distances—they're an abstract measurement used for spacing combatants apart on a battlefield.

Characters take up spaces on the map based on their Size. There are three size categories:

• Small: 1x1 Token, 1 size value
• Medium: 1x1 Token, 2 size value
• Large: 2x2 Token, 3 size value

Movement

A character may spend their Movement Action to:

• Move a number of squares up to their Movement value
• Stand up from being Prone
• Use other effects that cost a Movement Action (ex: the Sniper's Take Aim Role Ability)

Additionally, characters can combine their Movement Action with an expenditure of AP to take a special form of movement called a Disengage. Disengage allows you to move without enemies getting a chance to use most reactions against you, mostly the Punish Attacks that Defender Roles are able to use. A character may Disengage in the two following ways:

• By spending their Movement Action and 1 AP to Disengage 1 square
• By spending their Movement Action and 2 AP to Disengage a number squares up to their Movement value

Many types of terrain and environmental effects can affect battle, but most can be summarized in the following categories:

• Slow Terrain: Terrain like mud or deep sand that is more difficult to cross. A square of slow terrain requires 2 movement to traverse. Size can sometimes be relevant to whether or not a given terrain type counts as slow - a shallow but swift river might be slow terrain for Small Pokémon but not for Large ones.
• Blocking Terrain: A wall, a cliffside, a tree. Blocking terrain cannot be moved through, breaks line of sight, and cannot be attacked through. Characters count as Blocking Terrain for foes of their size and smaller.
• Rough Terrain: Rough terrain is tall grass, smoke, or other obscurations. Ranged attacks passing through rough terrain take +1 Bane to Accuracy rolls. See the next section for details. Many forms of rough terrain are also slow terrain.
• Cover: Cover is a physical obstruction that isn’t large or complete enough to count as blocking terrain but still provides some protection from attacks. Cover acts as rough terrain and in addition causes damaging ranged attacks passing through it to deal damage as if resisted one step further. A character adjacent to a square of Cover does not take penalties attacking enemies through that Cover that are not also adjacent to that square. See next section for details on resisting damage.

Actions

All actions you take in combat are categorized in the following ways:

• Strike: A damaging attack action.
• Trick: A usually non-damaging action that impairs or interferes with enemies in some way.
• Maneuver: An action in combat that does not directly interact with enemies.

Most of the time, these classifications are used in the context of Moves—a term for codified combat techniques that Pokémon (and some Trainers) can learn, but they also apply to a variety of other actions. We'll cover attacks first because they comprise the majority of actions taken in combat.

Attacks and Damage

An attack is generally any action that targets an enemy and usually involves making an Accuracy Roll against their Defenses. Attacks may or may not be Moves—characters have basic attacks they can perform, and improvised actions such as spraying someone with a fire extinguisher also count as attacks.

To make an Accuracy Roll, roll 1d20, add any modifiers to the roll, and compare it to the relevant Defense value on the target (as specified by the attack). If you meet or exceed the relevant Defense, your attack succeeds. There are three different Defense types:

• Evasion: used to react quickly and dodge attacks
• Vigor: used to hold your ground against an attack or withstand noxious substances
• Resolve: used to resist mental and social influences in battle

Accuracy Rolls can have Boons and Banes applied to them. For each Boon, roll 1d6, then take the highest result of all d6 rolls and add that to your Accuracy For each Bane, do the same, but subtract the highest result from your Accuracy Boons and Banes cancel out on a 1:1 basis

Attacks that don’t deal damage will specify what effect they have on the target - often applying a Status Condition, moving them around, or debuffing them in another way.

Attacks that deal damage have an associated damage value measured in “xd6” terms - seen as “1d6”, “2d6”, “3d6”, etc. This means you roll that many d6 for that attack’s damage roll and then add modifiers.

Damaging attacks also have two important characteristics - Type (Fire, Water, Grass, etc) and Category (Physical or Special). Type determines whether the attack is resisted, is super-effective, or even does nothing at all. Consult the Pokémon type chart from the video games for these interactions. Category denotes whether or not a target’s Armor applies, and many Move and Ability effects key off of whether an attack is Physical or Special.

All damaging attacks and some non-damaging attacks can Critically Hit. By default, you must roll a 20 on the 1d20 of an Accuracy Roll - don’t count modifiers, Boons, or Banes - to get a Critical Hit. Some effects modify your Critical Hit range and decrease the value you need to roll. For example, if you have +2 to Critical Hit range, you Critically Hit on an 18 or higher. Your Critical Hit Range cannot be increased past +6. On a Critical Hit, you deal maximum damage for your dice roll instead of rolling.

Some attacks also have an extra effect which occurs upon hitting with a Critical Hit or a Super-Effective attack.

To make an attack, do the following:

• Choose your targets - the targeted characters, objects, or areas must be within the range of the attack you are using.
• Determine if any Boons, Banes, or other modifiers apply to the Accuracy roll for your attack. The most common source of these is terrain.
  • Melee attacks do not incur penalties from rough terrain or cover
  • Ranged attacks incur a 1 Bane penalty if they are made against an adjacent target
• Make the 1d20 Accuracy roll for your attack, applying any modifiers and check to see if that meets or exceeds your target’s specified Defense - Evasion, Resolve, or Vigor
  • For attacks that hit multiple targets, roll separately for each target

So once you have determined an attack will deal damage, calculate damage in the following steps:

• Roll the base dice value
  • The attack you’re using determines how many of those dice you roll
  • For each Tier you are above Tier 1, add 1d6 to your damage rolls
• Add your Damage Bonus - this is always equal to half your Level, rounded down
• Add any damage bonuses you have from Traits, Abilities, and other effects
• Subtract any Armor your target has
• Apply Effectiveness modifications
  • Normal effectiveness means the damage is unchanged.
  • If an attack is resisted, divide the damage by 2.
  • If an attack is super-effective, add +5 additional damage
  • If the target is immune, the attack does no damage but may still inflict additional non-damage effects

Unlike the video games, different effects for multiple steps of Resistance and Super-Effectiveness don’t exist in Pokémon Odyssey! Fire is Super-Effective against both Bug and Steel, but a Bug/Steel Type Pokémon doesn't take any more damage than a pure Bug Type Pokémon from a Fire attack. However, just like Boons and Banes, Resistance and Super-Effectiveness can cancel each other out—if a Bug/Steel Type Pokémon has an effect that makes them take damage "as if Resisted one step further" from a Fire attack, that only cancels out one instance of Super-Effectiveness, and the attack is still treated as Super-Effective.

Boosting Attacks

Trainers have a narrative resource called Boost Points, or BP, that represents a combination of tactical acumen, practiced plays your Pokemon can exercise with the right setup in battle, and the focus and reflexes to take opportunities and openings in a fight. When you declare an attack, you may spend a Boost Point to improve it in some way, such getting a bonus effect on an attack, hitting more targets, doing more damage, or other effects.