Session 3 saw a large decline in players due to 3 of them not being able to make it. We ended up with a druid, a paladin, a rogue, a scout, and a sorceress. It was a nice balance despite being without a healer. The makeup of 4 girls and one guy didn’t seem to factor into play much, the group worked fairly well together.

It started with the sorceress waking up from an extended nap (she missed the session prior) and meeting back with the group. They had all just finished a delivery to a small town located in the woods of an island state.  The town had approximately 80 people and was self sustaining, unfortunately for them there had been strange sounds coming from the graveyard and the townspeople had no real fighting force.

In the first session the sorceress used a Detect magic spell and saw that there was a faint glow in their cargo. After being paid the rogue and druid searched for this item but had no luck finding it. Everybody else did things like buy minor items and in one case a spear from the town store.

The mayor had invited them to a minor feast and bonfire that night and they kindly accepted. During the night nothing eventful happened, everybody investigate their own things (the paladin spoke with evil people, the rogue questioned about the item and boys, and the druid learned how to make potions from a mountain man).

The next day everybody but the druid decided to help out around town with things like chores and a bit of field work. The druid decided to create potions from plants she had found. She was able to make 2, +1hp pots as well as 1 pot that would make the person who drank it become ill. After this she joined the group until night came, when they had planned to head to the graveyard.

I’ve gotten a (hopefully) working beta of the Pokémon D&D I’ve been working on for a few days. It’s a very simplistic take on it and boarders closer to a board game with a bit of character creation. I’ll be giving other players a chance to look it over tonight in one of the campaigns I play in and hopefully will get some feedback.

To summarize what I’ve got so far, there are 18 Pokémon evolution trees to pick from, all from the original 150. The only exceptions are characters which are part of an evolutionary tract that did not appear in the first series of games but was later filled in. There are 13 levels and at each new level you gain a new ability. Abilities include physical attacks, elemental attacks, buffs, and debuffs.

The way combat works is you prepare the order of your party ahead of time, as does the opponent (prior to players deciding or at random). After the order is chosen the players are laid out against their opponents. Each player fights one npc, and combat goes down the row like in D&D. Players can use buffs on themselves and allies, use their turn to switch spots with a willing ally, or attack the enemy directly across from them.

Abilities are used for the following:

STR: Physical Attacks

DEX: Some physical attacks and movement skills.

CON: Health related skills.

INT: Determining how many times a player can use a skill in a single session of combat.

WIS: Casting skills.

CHA: Performance skills.

Combat works like D&D. Attack rolls are against an AC and spell castings are against either CON (Fortitude) or DEX (reflex). The difference is that successful reflexes save means taking no damage. Another difference is the inclusion of element types. Fire does double damage to plant, but only half to water. This goes for all the elemental types.

I have the Player Cards and Class Cards all made up and if everything goes well I might get some more feedback. If anyone is interested in receiving the rules or the cards in digital format just send me a message.