Chapter 11: Stats, Dungeons, and Just a General Mechanics of the World
WARNING! MINOR SPOILER ALERT! THIS CAN BE SKIPPED!
PROCEED ONLY IF YOU WANT TO LEARN THE IN-DEPTH MECHANICS OF HOW THE WORLD WORKS
Here, I'll briefly talk about the mechanics of this novel. This will include the stats, how the Mystery Dungeons work, how much a day is, and other minor things. Expect the discussion regarding the stats to be a little heavy in number.
Some of the things here may already be explained or will be explained in the novel through Dante's POV, while others, such as how I determine what Dante does per day.
First of all, let's talk about the stats.
If you've tried playing Pokemon competitively, you must know about the base stats of a Pokemon. The stats of a Pokemon are divided into HP, Attack, Defense, Special Attack, Special Defense, and Speed. The base stat of a Pokemon is their stats at level 50 without modification from the Pokemon's Nature, IV, or EV.
In this novel, there will be no such thing as Nature, IV, and EV. The maximum stat a Pokemon can have is their base stat, also called the 'racial limit' here. Of course, the same as all fantasy novels, every Pokemon can break through their racial limit.
The reason I did this? Well, it's because the maximum stat that can be achieved in the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon game is 255 each. It coincides with the maximum base stat of the Pokemons in the mainline games, so I had to find a way to combine the two and make it work.
As a side note, I WILL NOT REDUCE any of the Pokemon's base stats. I will even increase the base stat of some Pokemon which I judge is lowered in order to balance the game. An example of this is the Onix which I mentioned in the early chapters whose attack stat I increased. Most probably, however, I will increase the base stats of most of the legendaries.
Because I removed the Nature, IV, and EV, a problem occured. Pokemons like Blissey and Shuckle will have a base stat reaching above 200. Blissey will even have 255 HP, which is the maximum stat possible. I don't think something like, let's say a legendary Pokemon who lived for thousands of years and broke through their racial limit to finally achieve 250 HP, will still have less HP than a Blissey.
Blissey can effortlessly reach and surpass that stat as long as she practices diligently and has sufficient nutrition for a year. In fact, most Pokemons can achieve their racial limit in just a year or two.
Therefore, to avoid the problem of nerfing Pokemon that have high stats, I used a multiplier for the stats starting from when it reached 100.
At 1 to 100 stat, the value remains the same, which is a 1x multiplier.
At 101 to 150, the stat gains a 2x multiplier. Therefore, the base stat will be divided by 2 after exceeding 100. For example, Espeon has 130 base Special Attack according to the Pokedex. It exceeds 100 by 30. Therefore 30 will be divided by 2, resulting in Espeon having a racial limit of 115. The power still remains the same, which is 130. But the displayed stat will be 115.
At 151 to 200, the stat gains a 4x multiplier. Therefore, the base stat will be further divided by 2 after reaching 150. Blissey will be the best example here. Its HP base stat is 255. 155 of it exceeds 100. Therefore, 155 divided by 2 is 77.5 or 78 (round up). 100 + 78 will result in 178. 178 exceeds 150 by 28. 28 will be further divided by 2 resulting in 14. 150+14 will cause Blissey to possess a 164 HP racial limit.
Thanks to this mechanic, there will be no more Pokemon with a racial limit that exceeds 200. Every Pokemon will still have a lot of room for their stats to grow. And nothing like Garchomp with 130 Attack, would have 260 Attack after their stat is boosted by two times, will happen.
Starting from 201, the stat will gain a 10x multiplier. So gaining 10 stats here is equivalent to the 100 starting stat. At 251 and above, each stat will have a 20x multiplier.
The primary reason I did this, is again, because the PMD games only have a maximum stat of 255. I also use the stats to determine how a confrontation between two Pokemon will go.
For instance, a Skitty with 45 Attack and a Chikorita with 49 Attack engage in a physical confrontation. If the moves used have the same base power and are the same type as them, then Chikorita will have a slight advantage.
When the difference in stats reach 10 or more, if they confronted each other again under the same condition, then Skitty will lose the confrontation.
The damage she will get after that is dependent on her defense.
If it's lower than Chikorita's attack by 20 points or more, Skitty will sustain full damage. If it's higher than that, then depending on how much, Skitty can receive from slight to serious damage. If it's greater than Chikorita's attack by 20, depending on what moves are used, Skitty can basically shrug it off or suffer a slight injury. Of course, how Skitty took the attack is still a factor in how much damage is caused.
The same mechanics apply to Special Attack and Special Defense.
Next, we'll talk about stat boosts. For stat boosts, I will follow most of the PMD game mechanics. In short, this means that the stats can only get a maximum of 2 times increase.
The mechanism behind stat increase in PMD begins with a 10/10 fraction instead of the 2/2 in the mainline games. Getting a stat increase will increase the numerator by 1 and a stat decrease increases the denominator by 1. Therefore, each increase will only give a 10% increase or decrease in stats, capped at (20/10 or 100%) or (10/20 or stat is halved).
Other than that, the batting mechanics will follow the mainline Pokemon games. Type immunity works as opposed to the PMD games, damage calculation will follow a simplified version of the mainline game, and the base power is the same as in mainline games.
By the way, the stats after the stat boost also follows the same rule as the base stats. Garchomp's attack has a racial limit of 115. If the stat is boosted to the maximum of two times, it will not be 230 Attack.
From Garchomp's 115 Attack, the value from 1 to 100 only has a multiplier of 1x. Therefore, because they exceeded 100, they will be divided by 2. The value from 101 to 115 is already divided by 2, so it stays the same. Therefore, Garchomp's stat will be 115 + 50 + 15 = 180. 180 exceeds 150 by 30. So 30 will be divided by two again, resulting in Garchomp's final Attack stat to be 165 after being boosted two times.
Next are the Mystery Dungeons. For the dungeons, I took inspiration from the Danmachi world. The dungeon is self-repairing, with the stairs located at a fixed point. However, the walls will constantly rearrange itself every day, so the pathway is not necessarily the same as the day before.
I will just attribute the items spawning at the dungeon every day as part of why it's called a Mystery Dungeon. The Pokemon Mystery Dungeon has its own laws.
Lastly, let's talk about how time passes. In the PMD games, the player can take on as many tasks as possible as long as they are located in the same dungeon. However, because I am playing the game while writing this, I obviously can't do that, or else I'll get burned out and probably lose motivation writing.
Especially if a timeskip happens, I'll have to spend more time playing the game and not have any time to write. As my solution, the protagonist can only take one task per day in the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon world. I have found what I think can be a very suitable explanation for this in the story. And because of this, I can still take on many tasks at the same time in the game, and each task counts as Dante having spent 1 day in the novel.
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