Not a whole lot of point in having a Pokemon role play without Pokemon, is there? We'll be covering a variety of topics below, so feel free to scroll until you find the header of the section you came for. 

battle

First and foremost, SKYDROP! works primarily on the honor system.  We aren't looking to make things too complicated, and thus, you won't find stats here. You'e free to implement things such as coin flips or dice rolls on an individual basis with the person you're role playing with if you feel that would help to keep things fair, but they aren't required. While Gym Leaders and Contest Masters may implement specific regulations that you must follow when battling them, otherwise, anything goes - we encourage you to be creative with your moves, make use of objects that might logically be in the setting, and have fun with it! However, make sure to leave room for common sense as well - a level 50 Wailord, under normal circumstances, for example, probably wouldn't take much notice of a level 5 Ratatta assailing it with tackles with the intent of causing it to faint. Otherwise, the ball will (mostly) be left in your court without a great deal of supervision from staff.

However, in order for the honor system to work, we need fairness - something that the mod team is willing to trust you and your fellow players with for the time being. If you feel someone is not being fair and you are unable to work the matter out between the two (or more) of you, feel free to retrieve a mod and we can discuss the case together. However, try to only use this as a last resort - we're all well out of preschool here, and we trust you're more than capable of solving your own disputes.


exp

"But if there's no focus on word count, and the staff of SKYDROP! is laissez-faire about battles, then how do our Pokemon level up and learn new moves?" you ask.

Good question! The answer to that is that on SKYDROP!, the 'experience' part of experience points comes from... well, actually experiencing things! Are you facing a Pokemon you've never encountered before? Challenging a trainer you've never battled? Setting foot in an area you've never been in before, and, with your Pokemon's aid, finding ways to press further in ways no one else has before? All good experiences! After all, wisdom doesn't come from doing the same old thing over and over, right? Not to say you CAN'T do the same old thing again and again, but the experience you will receive from it will be halved.

As you might have anticipated, experiences are measured in the form of threads, which in turn go towards levels. Any thread that something notable has happened in with at least 8 posts in may qualify as an experience - if you want it counted, add up your total based on the list below in your final post of the thread. This can be done with abandoned threads as well, provided they meet the criteria - just notify a mod of what occurred so the thread can be archived.

You can find a list of experience types and how many points they award in the spoiler tag below;


Do the events of your thread cover multiple categories in the list above? Great! Feel free to add them together. For example, if it's your first time fighting your new rival's newborn Torchic, which is the same level as your newborn Mudkip, and you win, the point gain would look like this;

Battling a Pokemon (trainer owned) - 0.5
Battling a new Pokemon (trainer owned species) - 1
Winning against a similarly leveled opponent - 1
Battling against a Pokemon with a type advantage - 0.5
-------------
= 3

Congrats! Your theoretical Mudkip earned 3 experience points. Now, how would that translate into levels? Let's take a look.


So, assuming your Mudkip was level 1, he's now grown to level 2 from this experience! That third point gets rolled over, so now he only needs one more experience point to grow to level 3. He'll get there yet!

Just as traded Pokemon gain bonus EXP in-game, a Pokemon that is traded in SKYDROP's setting will have it's experiences reset. After all, it's a whole new set of fresh experiences when you do things with a different person.

moves

Now, as you might have seen in the experience section, learning moves also qualifies you for exp. There's a special reason for this - namely that Pokemon do not just... automatically have mastery of their moves upon leveling up. No, here at SKYDROP!, we have to put in a little work for that luxury - but in exchange, you may begin to teach your Pokemon any move available to them in-game - whether that be an egg move, a move tutor's attack, or a technical machine move - right from the get-go.

Remember, however, moves can come from a multitude of different sources. Your garden variety ones can be found in the Pokedex, with instructions on how your Pokemon can be taught to perform them. That isn't to say leveling up has no purpose here, however; higher level moves are easier to learn and master by higher level Pokemon. Likewise, non-level based moves have additional requirements that will be elaborated on below.

But how do you learn a move? Similar to EXP, your Pokemon must go through the motions of being taught - we ask you provide a short segment within your post of your Pokemon actually 'learning' the move. This could be anything from being guided through it's use, practicing it through training, or trying out the move in battle (although perhaps they may be slower and not as successful in the execution as a Pokemon that has fully learned the move). Once you reach the post quota set out below, your Pokemon may have full mastery of the move to use tactically in battle. That easy!

It should be noted that move usage is not influenced by a Pokemon's gender here. An attract from a male Skitty would have just as much effect on another male or genderless Pokemon as it would a female. It's equality.

Post Quotas


TMs are a bit of a special case, since while they can be found scattered in and around the islands, they're quite a bit harder to come by and currently correspond with those on the Hoenn TM List only. As Agresti expands, so too will the Pokemon and TMs available to it as a greater variety of trainers are taken into it's breadth. Your Pokemon can still take the long route to learning TM and HM moves, however - if you don't posses the TM or HM itself, they can be learned in the same way move tutor attacks are.

Don't think any of your effort is wasted if you want your Pokemon to learn new attacks, however! In exchange for having a slightly more laborious system, there is no cap on how many moves your companions can know at one time. Knowledge is power!

It should also be noted that you can learn to communicate with your Pokemon (ie. Pokespeak) if you so prefer in a similar manner - however, the process will take about 15 posts of conscious effort to learn to understand each other if you aren't affiliated with the Deliverance (in which case, it's a skill you gain innately). After that point, you will be able to communicate freely with that Pokemon - the process must be repeated with every other Pokemon you capture after, but it will only take 10 posts for each consecutive team member.

evolution

You will be delighted to discover that there is no special gimmick with evolution - things are pretty much the same as they are in-game. When your Pokemon reaches the required level, has a special stone used on it, is traded or given to another player's character or whatever else have you, it then has the capacity to evolve. Pokemon that evolve via friendship will be covered in the appropriate section - for special cases, such as Pokemon that evolve in different environments, check the spoiler tab below.