Design Guidelines

Here are some design guidelines we use for making Pokémon Odyssey content. Note that not everything follows these strictly, and the guidelines are still evolving. Hopefully though, you find them useful for homebrewing your own content or for just understanding why the system is written the way it is.

Moves

As a note, Move damage will auto-scale by Tier, so there’s (probably) very little need for higher Tier Moves to have higher baseline damage values.

1 AP Strikes

• 2d6 baseline damage
• Simpler additional effects
• No on-miss or always active effects
• Usually should not have a Boost effect (some do now, we can trim this down)

1 AP Tricks and Maneuvers

• Simpler, straightforward effects most of the time
• No on-miss or always active effects

2 AP Strikes

• 3d6 baseline damage
• Try to have effects that always happen or occur on a miss, but not usually always having damage
• Boost effects
• More complicated effects okay

2 AP Tricks and Maneuvers

• Need to give similar action pay-off to a Strike - ex: action denial status, defensive buffs that can make you last another turn, buffs that you can trade in to make a Strike
• Boost effects
• Tricks NEED on-miss or always effects

Misc

• Try to vary the defense type used for your attacks!
• Scene-limited Frequency can give a Strike a damage and complexity boost. It should also be applied to action denial effects.
• Try to limit the number of frequency limited Moves at Tier 1
• Easy to use AOE shapes should give a 1d6 damage penalty. Or have lesser or no additional effects. Right now, this needs to be fixed for Pass and some other Moves
• Inaccurate can go on AOE action denial or anything with higher than baseline damage
• Normal Type Strikes need some slight buffs probably
• Dragon gets Moves that are SE against specific Types (see: Dragon Rush)

Higher Tiers (note that we aren’t super worried about this yet)

• Tier 2 is where conditional effects like Hex can live or more complex elemental interactions. Higher POTENTIAL damage but same or lower baseline damage. Also start introducing more Scene Strikes but not TOO many
• Tier 3 can have improved versions of staple Moves, fancy nuke effects, and very niche specialized role effects

Abilities

Weak effects like status immunity, immunity to a Type that the user already resists, etc should be Traits instead of an Ability.

For passive defensive effects:

• Fluffy is a good baseline for what qualifies for damage-related effects.
• Inner Focus is borderline because it has multiple effects built in.
• Sweet Veil is what a status immunity effect should look like because it affects the user and allies

For activated effects that modify actions, err on the side of writing Scene limited Abilities to lower the number of effects a player is combining (1 or 2 moves + ability + trainer talents can be a lot) to determine what their action actually does in total on their turn.

Weaker effects can still get AW frequency though, especially if they’ll be something you build into a normal routine (ex: setting up spikes turn after turn slowly) or if their activation trigger is rarer or outside of player control

Pokemon

Traits

• Almost all Pokemon should get 2 Traits
• Very often, at least one will be a standard stat-modifying Trait: Physical Attacker, Special Attacker, Physical Armor, Special Armor
• Hustle is a good example of a non-standard stat-modifying trait we can experiment with
• Rarely, Pokemon can get Traits that are an activated 1/Scene effect, especially if they get an Ability that refreshes this, but most Traits should be passive
• In addition to stat Traits, the following make good Traits:
  • Immunity to a given status effect
  • Immunity to an already-resisted Type (often self-Type)
  • Small changes to basic actions like Quick Feet (sprint for 1 AP instead of 2 AP)
  • Battle Armor
  • Soundproof

Roles

• Pokemon get 3 Role choices
• Be cognizant of the fact that Brawler and Ranger are very catch-all Roles, and it’s easy to accidentally give them to too many Pokemon
• Roles will impose a requirement of certain Moves on a Pokemon’s list. For example:
  • Giving a Pokemon multiple Support Roles will often put a heavy burden on their moveset to have appropriate Moves since so many of those roles need Tricks or Maneuvers specifically
  • Artillery means a Pokemon needs ranged AOE, which is slightly rare atm
• For a lot of Pokemon, it’s okay to be very focused with Roles. Few Pokemon should have Roles of ALL one type (DPS, tank, support), but unless a Pokemon is conceptually very versatile don’t feel you NEED to give one of each

Move Choices

• 3 Starting Moves, 3 Natural Moves per Tier, 2 Tutor Moves per Tier
• Standard amount of coverage in damaging Moves is 3 Types from Natural Moves and an additional Type from Tutors
• Moves are chosen with reference to Roles and ensure a Pokemon has good options that fit all of their Roles and Abilities
  • DPS Roles need Strikes of the correct categories
  • Tanks could use defensive Moves, and it’s also useful if they get Moves that are usable as Punish Attacks
  • Support Roles are very demanding on Tricks and Maneuvers
  • Specific Roles have more demanding requirements like Artillery or Roles that use Hidden as a mechanic