Pokémon skills: Bulbasaur, Charmander, Squirtle, Magikarp, Dratini

Okay, so last week I was thinking, it sucks how in the Pokémon games you start with just one Pokémon, and by the time you find another one that you want to capture, there's no point because your starter has sucked up all the xp and is now an unstoppable juggernaut with no need for allies. So I had the idea that instead of getting just one starter Pokémon, you should be able to pick several out of a long list and start with, like, three guys instead of just one. It would be more fun that way, right?

And then I thought, wait a minute, Dungeons of Dredmor already does that. Except there aren't any Pokémon in Dungeons of Dredmor.

And then I had an idea.


Anyway, here are your three starter Pokémon: Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle. These guys seemed like a good place to start because, well, that's what they're for, right? They're starter Pokémon. Also, for the low, low price of only 500 zorkmids, I'll toss in this extremely rare and valuable Magikarp! (No refunds)


Bulbasaur has some spells and stuff.

1. Vine Whip deals / and has a 1/3 chance of snaring the enemy in place for 6 turns.
2. Leech Seed deals to an enemy over 5 turns and heals you over 5 turns.
3. Evolving into Ivysaur buffs 1 3 3 2 1
4. Razor Leaf is a missile that deals in a 3x3 square.
5. Evolving into Venusaur buffs 2 2 2 1 5 1
6. Solarbeam is a beam attack that deals lots of and causes stun.

Charmander is a warrior skill with some fire attacks that scale based on .

1. Ember is a single-target missile with a 12-turn cooldown.
2. Evolving into Charmeleon buffs 5 8 1
3. Rage is a buff that boosts 1 1 2 every time you get hit, stacking up to six times. Requires 1 mana every 10 turns.
4. Evolving into Charizard buffs 5 3 7
5. Flamethrower breathes fire on the three squares in front of you, dealing . 7-turn cooldown.
6. Fire Spin snares an enemy for 5 turns while dealing each turn. Cooldown is only 10 turns, so have fun with that I guess.

Squirtle is a warrior skill because can you imagine a turtle as a wizard or rogue? That's ridiculous. He ended up with a million defensive skills, so I guess the turtle is good at defense, as usual. Oh, and it comes with these babies:

Squirtle Shades, which buff you 1 1.

1. Bubble is a single-target missile that deals a small amount of and has a chance of causing a 3-turn stun. 5-turn cooldown.
2. Water Gun is another single-target missile that knocks an enemy back and deals a small amount of and . 10-turn cooldown.
3. Evolving into Wartortle buffs 4 2 2 1.
4. Withdraw is a copy of Duck and Cover from the shield skill. Does the exact same thing. (Sue me.)
5. Skull Bash knocks an enemy back with a melee attack and gives you a 10-turn 5 2 -1 buff. 12-turn cooldown.
6. Evolving into Blastoise buffs 4 4 4 8 2.
7. Finally, Hydro Pump is a souped-up version of water gun with a 28-turn cooldown, dealing heavier / damage, knocking the enemy back further, and scaling with .

Magikarp is sort of a joke, really. The idea is that the first four levels literally do nothing (actual nothing, like, they're blanks), then at level 5 it evolves into Gyarados and you get massive boosts. I have no idea how to balance something like this. The goal was to get something that's completely useless, but if you put up with it for long enough, it suddenly transforms into an absolute powerhouse--just like Magikarp. I'm interested to find out what you guys can make of it.

1. Splash does nothing.
2. Tackle targets an adjacent enemy for 1. Not your normal attack plus 1. Just 1.
3. Super Splash targets 4 adjacent squares for 1.
4. Flail targets adjacent and diagonal squares for 1.
5. Evolving into Gyarados buffs 10 5 15 7 5 15.
6. Dragon Rage blasts an enemy for 40 (see what I did there) and creates a damaging flamefield in a large area. 32-turn cooldown.
7. Hyper Beam is a beam attack that deals and and destroys walls. The damage scales generously with both and . 36-turn cooldown.

Dratini is a mage skill with some big spells.

1. Wrap is like a regular attack, except it also snares and deals and damage over time.
2. Twister is a short-range area attack.
3. Evolving into Dragonair boosts 2 3 1
4. Thunder Wave paralyzes enemies in a 3x3 square.
5. Dragon Dance is a buff that boosts 1 1 1 and stacks up to six times.
6. Evolving into Dragonite boosts 2 1 2 2
7. Outrage fires off three area attacks around you, then applies a confusion debuff that makes your next three attacks have a 50% chance of hitting yourself.
8. The capstone is Draco Meteor, which is a large targeted nuke spell (dealing to the target, to tiles adjacent to the target, and in a wide area) that applies a -10 penalty.

Hopefully there are no bugs and it's adequately balanced.

Also, you may notice I've given all of them weaknesses and resistances based on their types (so Squirtle resists conflagratory and hyperborean damage, but is weak to voltaic). This just seemed appropriate.

Pokémon are a bottomless well of skill mods thanks to sheer numbers, so if you're getting a nostalgic kick out of these, I expect more will be forthcoming. I've already got some ideas lined up for Caterpie, Weedle, Pidgey, Pikachu, Abra, Ditto...

Changelog:

5 June 2012:

• Applied custom damage scaling to Charmander, Squirtle, and Magikarp. Their attacks now scale with melee stats--or at least stats that don't get dropped by melee armor.
• Evolving into Wartortle and Blastoise now adds . Blastoise is no slouch in the special defense department either.
• Evolving into Gyarados now gives even more and because if there's one thing Gyarados does best, it's going haywire.
• Added a couple extra points of to the evolutions for Charmander. Everyone loves crits.
• Buffed the damage on Bulbasaur's spells because they kind of sucked.
• Rage now requires 1 mana every 10 turns instead of every 4.
• Vine Whip now has a 50% chance to snare instead of 33%. Although now I think I should probably just make it 100% since they'll resist it sometimes anyway.
• I probably also made some other changes that I forgot about.

 

Add in Dragonite (and possibly a few other dragon pokémon, and that would be awesome! XD Downloading now.

 

Gyarados and Charizard are honorary dragons, right?

Here's a brainstorm for Dratini, by request. Look good?

1. Wrap. Attacks an adjacent enemy, snaring and dealing / damage over time.
2. Twister. Cone-shaped damage spell.
3. Evolve into Dragonair. Buff to , ,
4. Thunder Wave. Stuns a target for 3 turns, kind of like Nerve Staple. Heck, let's make it hit a 3x3 square, why not.
5. Dragon Dance. Buff that gives 1 1 1 . Stackable up to six times.
6. Evolve into Dragonite. Buff to , , ,
7. Outrage. Attacks in a radius around you for three turns, then applies a debuff that has a 50% chance of dealing damage to you whenever you attack.
8. Draco Meteor. Targeted AoE spell that deals lots of , , and . Applies a debuff that reduces your .

Definitely want to use all 8 slots on this one to convey the feel of leveling up slowly.

 

Looks really good. Thunder Wave was one of those skills that hit both enemies in a 2 vs 2 battle so makes sense to make it a 3x3. As for Wrap, is there a way to cause the debuff to drop if you move away. Then again, might make snare kinda useless depending on how snares work.

On a related note, might want to see if we can figure out what which damage types in DoD can closely match the attack types in Pokémon. That way you can add resistances and vulnerabilities to kinda give it more of that Pokémon feel. For instance, I know dragon type Pokémon are vulnerable to attacks of their own type and ice (maybe one or two more). On the other and, they do have a fair amount of stuff they resist as well so might be a tad overpowering. *shrugs* Something to think about, however.

 

Besides reading the XML, is there a way to figure out any of this pokewhatever stuff? (I must be getting old. I have never once seen any of the pokestuff video junk, and I honestly find the idea of crazy Japanese animal gods insulting.)

Sorry if that bothers anyone. I may well did have an incorrect perception about them. That is why I am asking.

Bear in mind that I do not even own a television, and I simply will not watch ten years of television shows in any format to understand this stuff. But it is stuffed into several mods and seems to be a common social standard for loads of stuff, so some reading may help me understand it and perhaps clear up my incorrect preconceptions.

I expect I will get loads of flak for this post. But I am honestly not being insulting by choice. (If I am insulting, it is unintentional.)

What are they? Where do they come from? And what is their purpose? (Also when did this Pokemon stuff get started? And why, dear lord why... Does "Pokemon" exist in Firefox's dictionary when half of my proper English vocabulary does not?)

 

I am.... I am speechless. Truly and utterly speechless.

Omni, you may have pulled off one of the most amazing feats I've ever heard of, assuming you are not just trying to be ironic.

Basically, Poekmon = Nintendo's biggest franchise since ever. It's not just a TV show, it's a card game and a series of video games (with reasonably engaging gameplay) as well. The gimmick is that everything involved is small (pokemon is a compound Japanese word that means pocket monster) so the games have only been released for handheld systems, with one or two notable exceptions. They're not gods, I think skills have been patterned after them because they'd be a pain in the buttocks to do as summons.

They're also incredibly popular with people who like cute things, as most pokemon are supposed to look incredibly cutesy.

 

This page should explain everything.

 

Thank you each. I amended my previous post, and am reading the link now.

 

I'm mostly a fan of the games. Not real razy about the cutesy stuff, but I kinda watched one episode where this kid has his Pokémon brutally beat the crap out of another Pokémon so that he could then smack it with a ball to stuff the poor critter into it, and I'd been playing the games since. Add in the fact there some Pokémon are considered dragons and well... Suffice to say I try to catch all the dragon Pokémon I can and do my best to make an awesome team with them.

P.S. No Pokémon were harmed in the making of this post, though the episode I saw cannot necessarily say the same. >.>

 

Odd. Pokemon started in America in 1998. That was the same year as one of my favorite games of all time, X-Com: Enemy Unknown.

That may be half the reason I am so ignorant of it. I played X-Com for almost two years before I realized how obsessed I was with it. The other half of my ignorance is undoubtedly due to it not being on the PC.

Or at least almost never being ported off of Nintendo systems. I searched and found this, but I swear I have never even heard there were such games for the PC and I am a PC exclusive gamer. I was paying attention to upcoming games.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pokémon_games_for_PC#PC_titles

Since I mentioned X-Com, I will go ahead and spew out the details. There is an upcoming X-Com game for PC that will be out in Fall. It aims to be true to the original.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO:_Enemy_Unknown

Now I will stop polluting your mod thread. Nice mod BTW.

Oh, several Pokemon were harmed in making this post. As was at least one kitten.

 

Magikarp learns Tackle at level 15, so perhaps you could add a mildly useful proc on hit ability to rank 3 Magikarp?

 

Magikarp does learn Tackle. But as it turns out, Magikarp does not have a very high attack stat; its Tackle attack only deals 1 damage. So you're probably better off using your sword.

I thought about making Flail do extra damage if you're at low HP. But I rejected that idea because a. I don't know how to code it and b. it's probably not a supported function anyway.

 

I had a crazy, amazing idea.

Magikarp's a fish.

The Lutefisk God is a fish.

Therefore, ranks one through four should have Lutefisk-related properties.

For example, an ability with, let's say 15 cooldown that creates one lutefisk.

You could also get to summon one of the (kind of weak) lutefisk warriors that occasionally show up on the first few levels.

...Or maybe this should be its own mod. Perhaps I'll look into making a lutefisk worshipper skill tree later once I'm done with this playthrough. (Trying to independently verify if Bulbasaur's stats are high enough to be a legitimate spell tree; I don't appear to be getting a whole lot of power from his spells, Leech Seed in particular doesn't seem to do much at all, but I haven't put many points into my other casting trees yet and I am on level four or so).

 

Lutefisk-spawning would make more sense for a Pokémon like Pelipper that catches fish, rather than for the fish itself. But it's a good idea. Some sort of food-spawning ability would be great on, like, Snorlax, or something.

I just checked my code for Leech Seed and I actually messed up the healing...it's currently only healing 1 + (0.05 * ) for 5 turns, which is, uh, a little weaker than I intended. Let's up that a little to 2 + (0.2 * ), which is half the damage.The damage it deals is about the same as Arctic Vortex, so it's not that bad, it's just that it's asphyxiative damage so it doesn't work on a lot of things.

I'll buff up the damage for Razor Leaf and Solarbeam too, since giving it another pass, they're looking on the low side compared to spells of comparable levels in other skills (especially since Razor Leaf's slash damage gets blocked by armor absorption, doesn't it?). Tweaks'll go live when I finish rolling in this Dratini skill; should be later this week.

 

There is a slight problem with Dragon Rage. The icon is too big for the skill box. Very minor because everything still works fine and the skill that takes the other half of Dragon rage works but just something I noticed. ( I have it in two skills in the picture so people can see what happens if its in the middle of the skill spots)

 

The icon for Dragon Rage should look like this:

And it should have a cooldown instead of a mana thing. So I guess what's happening is it's conflicting with another mod?

 

Thats possible...Don't know what mod it would be though.

 

Gonna see just how powerful Magikarp is when leveled. I've just started a permadeath Going Rogue run with Blood Magic, Promethean Magic, Mathemagic, Staff Mastery, Magic Training, Burglary, and Magikarp. Planning on having Hyper Beam before I hit Dredmor.

...You know, you could make those skills from the first four ranks be teleports with a range of a number of squares in any linear direction equal to the rank at which the skill is learned, possibly with a bit of Jump Discontinuity in the mix. It makes an unusual amount of sense, really...

 

It seems Razor Leaf makes the game crash. Not sure what the problem is.

Code:

    <spell name="Razor Leaf" type="missile" icon="skills/razorleaf32.png" smallicon="skills/razorleaf32.png" >
        <requirements mp="16" savvybonus="0.2" mincost="5" />
        <effect type="damage" slashing="16" slashingF="0.4" />
        <effect type="trigger" spell="Razor Leaf AoE" amount="0" />
        <anim sprite="sprites/sfx/celestialring/celestialring" frames="8" framerate="80" centerEffect="1"/>
        <description text="Ivysaur tosses razor-sharp leaves to slash up a group of enemies." />
    </spell>
 
            <spell name="Razor Leaf AoE" type="template" templateid="20" anchored="0" >
                <effect type="damage" slashing="15" slashingF="0.4" />
                <anim sprite="sprites/sfx/impact_slash/impact_slash" frames="6" framerate="50" centerEffect="1"/>
 </spell>
 

Dratini is mostly working. Still testing.

 

Razor Leaf's still working in the old build, to make sure you're aware.