I'd imagine that the interest for the little critters would be rather low on this forum, but I felt like doing a quick write up on how pokémon works... out of boredom mostly.
A little background. With the release of Pokémon Diamond/Pearl and Platinum (Often refered to as generation 4, we're currently in gen 5 with gen 6 scheduled for October), the pokémon franchise received an unexpected surge of new interest as a new kind of pokémon player emerged; The competitive player.
A lot of gamers that normally wouldn't bat an eyelash towards the franchise was drawn in by the advanced mechanics and rewarding strategic gameplay that had developed since the franchise inception.
With the growing presence of online features and the internet maturing into the beast it is today communities focused on breeding, battling and competing started to emerge. Which puts us where we are today.
Part 1: The Pokémon.A pokémon got a number of unique characteristics that determine the effectiveness it will have in battle, some of it is determined by the species (not all pokémon is created equal, I'll cover that later), some of it is determined of the pokémons "genes" and some of it by it's training, I'll go into each of these seperately.
Species: Currently there is around 650 different species of Pokémon (compared to the original 151) Each with unique characteristics. A pokémons specie determine it's type, ability and base stats.
Type: The type of a pokémon determines what weaknesses and resistances it possesses aswell as it's STAB (Same Type Attack Bonus) It's possible to have a pokémon with dual typing, giving it access to all of the resistances and weaknesses of both types aswell as double stab.
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An attack from a resisted type attack have it's base power halved.
An attack from a weakness type attack have it's base power doubled.
An attack of the same type as the pokémon using it has it's base power multiplied by 1.5
There's currently no dual-type moves.
Base power is the term used to describe the damage of an attack before stat bonuses are applied.
Stats: Each pokémon possesses, 6 stats determined by three variables, stats determines the effectiveness of a Pokémon in Battle.
These Variables are refered to as
Base stats, IV's (Individual Values) and EV's (Effort Values)
Base stat:
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The base stat is determined solely on the pokémons species and is always static, they cannot be influenced in any way, shape or form. This naturally means that some Species are weaker then other species
IV's
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These are the pokémons "genes" and are determined randomly among wild pokémon. Each value range from 1 to 31 and each point provides 1 extra point in that stat at level 100. It's Possible to affect this value through breeding as your pokémon inherent three random stats total from either of it's parents, certain items makes this passing down garantueed.
EV's
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This represents your pokémons training and is aquired by fighting, newborn and wild pokémon starts with 0 EV's.
For every 4 EV's your pokémon gains 1 extra point in that specific stat at lvl 100, you may have up to 252 EV's in a single stat up to a total of 510.
EV's are aquired at a static rate depending on the species of the pokémon you defeat, each time you gain XP from defeating an opponent pokémon (wild or trained) you gain 1 to 2 EV points depending on the specie defeated (there's charts that can tell you what specie gives what, general rule of thumb. If a pokémon excels in an area it gives that stat)
Certain items, drugs and virae (yes really) can speed up this process
Natures
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Each pokémon possesses a nature that influences it's total stats after Base stats, IV's and EV's are added together. Each nature gives a 10% bonus to one stat and a 10% penalty to another, there's 25 natures in total one for each combination and five neutral ones.
Nature is determined randomly but can be influenced to reflect a parents nature if the parent is holding a certain item during breeding.
As you can imagine nature can mean a world of difference.
The Stats are as follow
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Health points (HP)
Determines the total hp of your pokémon.
Attack (Att)
Added together with other modifiers to determine the total damage of physical attacks
Defense (Def)
Detracts from the power of physical attacks
Special attack (SpA)
Same as attack but for special attacks
Special defense (SpD)
Same as defense but for special attacks
Speed (Sp)
Determines which pokémon goes first in a turn, the pokémon with the highest speed stat always go first, unless a priority move is used.
Character limit already? I haven't even covered all of what makes a poké tick yet... I'll continue this later.