Number of moves

[PRESS EJECT]

Hey, guys.

I have a question about moves and how many a pokemon has access to. How many moves do your pokemon have in your stories? Do you follow the games and keep it at four, or allow them to choose from the full range they can learn (provided they've earned the experience to be able to use all their attacks, I should probably add)?

 

[Beth Pavell]

I find that four is too restrictive, especially in the context of a pokémon that's going to make multiple appearances. There are only so many different ways you can combine four moves to make interesting strategies in battle. Six tends to be a good balance between having plenty to choose from, and having so many that strategies become meaningless

There's plenty to be said for giving pokémon access to families of related moves - so a pokémon that knows Vine Whip might also be able to also use Power Whip, Bind, Slam, etc, because the all very closely involve the use of the vines

 

[CrystaI]

The kind of question that will come up in the writing corner every once a while.

I don't restrict the number of moves a pokemon may learn and use within my fic, because like it was mentioned by Beth Pavell, it may restricts strategies to make battle interesting. No I don't increase the move number limit, rather I just eliminated that limit, so within my fic a pokemon may learn and use as much moves as it can, only restricted by its learning ability and physical vitality.

However, I will restrict the kind of moves a pokemon may access to, meaning the kind of movepool it may learn. For wild and natural pokemons, I will have it only using the level-up moves. For trainers' handhelds, they may use a whole lot more moves taught by their trainer, restricted by its learning ability. For egg moves, rather then simply inherit genetically from its parent, I interpret it as it learned by constantly observing closely from its parent, aka self-learning from imitation, hence egg moves are also like moves taught by someone else, though it is the ones that may be learn by the pokemon itself without external support. So it is not surprising that some wild pokemon in my fic using in-game egg move despite its parent is nothing special, as it may had learned a move from closely observing other pokemons in the surrounding. Therefore, by observing the move variety knew by a pokemon, one may roughly guess what kind of pokemons were living together in its habitat. Of course again, it is restricted by its own learning ability.

Although there is no level nor experience in my fic, but still I kind of using a similar technical approach when it comes to move learning. When a pokemon is still weak and inexperience in its battle performance, it can only uses "weak" moves and/or general moves that are known by many. As it gains experience and more well-trained, it is then physically more fitted to use some more "powerful" moves. However, I do not fasten the power of the move by its name, meaning even it is for the exact same move, its power varies according to the pokemon and skill of the pokemon. Just wanted to mention again, as there is no rigor numerical figure for level nor experience, hence this is just a very general approach to reflect the immaturity/competence of the pokemon. Use this approach loosely, not strictly.

 

[PanicAttack]

In my story, I'm restricting the amount they currently know, but not the amount they learn altogether. My approach to levels is to use them as a guide for roughly when the trainers' Pokémon learn certain attacks (based on ORAS) and evolve, but take them rigidly. Techniques should take practice, so to me it makes sense that they shouldn't have access to more powerful or complex moves at first. Not every move has to be learned on-screen, as it were, though.

 

[PRESS EJECT]

Much appreciate the input, good people. Thanks.

 

[CronusNuzlocker]

It depends on my protagonist.
In "Siam only knows" the main character is mainly mute and has to direct his pokemon with finger clicks, of which he can only make four distinct ones.
In "Fashion and Fyre" the main character is a teacher/electrician and teaches his pokemon to do things within their capabilities and not strictly moves they have.
In "Desolate Unova" the main character preplans combats or gives generic, on the fly, orders which are interpretted by the pokemon.

The only one I'd say uses 4 moves is Siam.

 

[Gengarzilla]

In my fanfic on another forum, a retelling of PMD Red and Blue Rescue Team, I'm sticking to the four move limit.

 

[Glitchipedia]

I reference the four-move limit as standard practice in battles between League-registered trainers, a rule arising from the common tendency of trainers to favor around four moves or less over any others the Pokémon might know, and the Pokémon's subsequent tendency to forget the rest due to disuse. In other situations, a Pokémon may use as many moves as it has ever learned.

 

[Juliko]

I also find just having four moves to be too restrictive. Even though at the end of my Pokefic chapters I list four moves for each Pokemon, I always make sure they remember old moves as well. Because, come on, who forgets attacks easily? I highly doubt Pokemon can just have four moves and even attempt to survive in the wild with them.

 

[MisheardWhisper]

It doesn't really make a lot of sense to restrict Pokemon to four moves, logically speaking - Pokemon are pretty smart, after all, and many moves are simply things that they should know how to do naturally (Bite, Slash, Take Down etc) - but it's also true that the games use a four-move limit for very good reason. If your Pokemon could learn more moves than that, there would be no opportunity cost when selecting movesets. As it is, you have to prioritise. Say you have a Dragonite with a STAB damaging move, a coverage move and a boosting move. Outrage, Earthquake and Dragon Dance or something. You're forced to choose between multiple options for your last slot. Do you take ExtremeSpeed for priority? How about Fire Punch for perfect coverage? Maybe Roost to sustain and reactivate Multiscale? That said, how about switching out Outrage for Dragon Claw? You'd do less damage, but you're not locked into a move that could get you killed. Each of these choices has an opportunity cost, and while it may not make logical sense for a Pokemon to be limited to four moves, it definitely makes sense from a balance perspective. If a Dragonite in your fic knows Dragon Dance, Outrage, Dragon Claw, Fire Punch, Earthquake, Roost, ExtremeSpeed and sure, why not Superpower, Fly, Iron Head and Thunder for the hell of it, it's gonna be broken as all hell because it doesn't have to pay that opportunity cost. Even having just five moves opens up a whole raft of options for coverage, sustain or flexibility that aren't available with four.

So it's up to us to find a happy medium, really. Personally I stick to four moves per Pokemon, but it's not the end of the world if you have to bend the rules a bit for plot purposes. Just gotta be careful not to go off the deep end and ruin the balance.

 

[Stratelier]

I agree, narrative balance and game balance are distinct concepts that should not be conflated.

For example, in one of my fics, I had a Sceptile and if I counted the techniques she had knowledge of, they would be something along the lines of:
- Leaf Blade (naturally), Fury Cutter and False Swipe
- Solar Beam, Hyper Beam
- Dragon Claw

 

[Bloodstained]

I don't limit actual knowledge to just four moves and having families of moves sounds great. I do, however, restrict use to four moves or move classes while in battle so the Pokémon don't overload themselves. Example: A Pikachu could use Iron Tail, Thunder Punch, Juuman Volt and Volteccer. Juuman Volt can switch up to Kaminari for more power or down to Electric Shock Attack to conserve it. It can't add something like Dig to this moveset in the current battle, though.

 

[VeniaSilente]

It doesn't really make a lot of sense to restrict Pokemon to four moves, logically speaking - Pokemon are pretty smart, after all, and many moves are simply things that they should know how to do naturally (Bite, Slash, Take Down etc) - but it's also true that the games use a four-move limit for very good reason.

QFT.

Gameplay-wise, we also have to consider that the games started very long ago and for handheld platforms, meaning they were very limited in what they could offer for moveset management. Four moves not only is easy to handle on screen, but it's also easy and fast on the machine (only for bytes per Pokémon, times (6 Pokémon on hand + let's say 15 times 15 boxes) = 924 bytes, just short of a kilobyte in SRAM. With the advent of G3, some different avenues could have been taken for move management (I personally would have liked something like Golden Sun's, where you don't manage your moveset but the "category" and "level" of moves you can have, and the machine goes from there) but the decision to stick with the four moves limit proved to be a mostly sound one when stuff like Natures and Abilities were thrown into the mix. It's only with the advent of G6 and G7 that the moves limit starts to feel a bit short, in particular due to constraints of the ingame narrative where you are forced to pack a HM slave or at least three HMs for certain sections of the game, but the easier access to the move deleter and move relearner help remedy that a bit.

Narrative wise, I've chosen to combine two different approaches into a workable model forwhen developing my characters.

First, I make Pokémon be able to use any move within their natural (level + egg) moveset. Up to within their actual level (age, maturity or whatever it can be interpreted as) and some limitations and specific cases of course, such as Smeargle who rather than be limited to 10 Sketches (what sense would that make?) has access to Sketch plus Tackle (pretty much everything mammaloid learns Tackle in the games), and Double Slap and Tail Slap, which it can learn in the TCG (Working with several canons is helpful), or Unown, who can use both Hidden Power and any move whose name starts with their letter (but still with that terrible stat distribution). Second, Pokémon can learn any and all of the TMs, HMs and tutor moves that they are able, but as with any skill and talent, there's a sliding scale from skillful to rusty; there's only so much you can do when spreading yourself thin, while at the same time overspecializing can become crippling. Certain characters only learn say four TMs and specialize in them, using them exclusively, even creating their own variant moves, whereas other characters will learn a wide array of moves, but they won't be specialized or even any particularly performant in any of them.

The added cost narrative wise is having to keep track of what each Pokémon character has chosen to specialize into and how, but I think the end result makes the characters feel and act more unique. In one of my stories I have an Electabuzz who has modified his Thunder Punch to become able something akin to the Vulvan Nerve Pinch, for example, whereas in another story I have a Masquerain who has learned to take advantage of her small size to hold a charged Water Pulse in front of her to shield herself from incoming attacks, not much unlike the ship shields in videogames like Gradius.