This brew covers two special battle types: Star Battles from the Scarlet Violet games and Unite Battles from Pokemon Unite. They’re both built around the idea that you’re doing larger scale battles against lots of foes, and strips away some element of the Pokerole system to speed those battles up. Star Battles are covered first, as Unite Battles are in essence and evolution of Star Battles.

Pokemon in Royale Battles can be assigned a Royale Badge. In Star Battles, all enemy Pokemon will get one, and in Unite Battles all wild Pokemon will.

A Royale Badge has a numerical level that goes with, typically from 1-4. This level is referred to as it’s Badge Level. Pokemon with a Royale Badge observe the following rules.

• The Pokemon does not Evade or Clash attacks.
• When a Pokemon attacks this Pokemon, the multiple actions rule does not determine the Accuracy required to hit this Pokemon. Instead, the Accuracy is fixed at the Badge Level of this Pokemon.
• If this Pokemon takes is damaged more than three times, it faints immediately.

These changes have the effect of making Royale Pokemon quick to battle. They are more difficult to hit at higher Badge Levels, but are not dodging attacks. They put their focus into doing damage before they enviably are defeated.

An important rule of thumb for Royale Pokemon is that they should at most the same rank as the player, and usually a rank below. Royale Pokemon are meant to be squishy and pretty easy to take out in two, maybe even one hit. Don’t build for high defense, or even high damage when creating these Pokemon. Their strength is in numbers, not the individual.

Star Battles take the form of one or more trainers battling a large group of opponents. In Scarlet and Violet, a single trainer with three Pokemon would take on an entire gang of Team Star delinquents! The pokemon used by the large group are weaker though, and meant to be fodder for the smaller group to carve their way through.

You can use a Star Battle for cutting through grunts before getting to the boss, a horde of Pokemon in their nest, or an organized group of weaker mons in a mystery dungeon.

In Star Battles, the players always take the role of the smaller team.

Star Battles are structured into Lanes. The default number of Lanes is equal to the number of players you have, but you can increase or decrease the number as you see fit. Smaller lanes means some allies can rest while the others battle, and large number of lanes means more simultaneous fights and more allies required to meet them all.

As implied, each Lane represents a battle. A single Pokemon will battle in each lane from the players. The Storyteller will place a number of enemy Pokemon in each Lane to battle against the player Pokemon in that Lane. Enemy Pokemon in Star Battles all have a Royale Badge. The Level of the Royale Badge is up to the Storyteller, but it should be a mix of different levels. Pokemon do not need to evenly spread in the Lanes.

Ex: To visualize this, Ash, Serena, and Brock are fighting in a Star Battle. The Storyteller is using the default number of lanes (3, one for each battler) so they send out Pikachu, Fennekin, and Onix respectively. The Storyteller then starts to fill the enemy lanes with some Team Rocket grunt Pokemon. The lanes will end up looking like this at the start of this Star Battle, with the badges of the enemy Pokemon noted in brackets.

Once setup is complete, the Star Battle begins! In a Star Battle, no one rolls for initiative. Instead, the action goes left to right across the lanes. Players go first by default. After all players have taken an action, then the front row of the enemies each get to make an action. Pokemon in rows after the front do not interact in the battle. After the players and the front row of the enemies take their actions, restart the order from the player in the left Lane. Multiple actions are in effect as normal.

Ex: In the above example, Pikachu would go first, then Fennekin, then Onix. After Onix, the Pokemon in row 1 (Zubat, Zubat, Rattata) would get to take actions. That is a complete rotation through the Lanes, as row 2+ do not get to take actions.

The battle continues like this until the round ends from all Pokemon passing. If an enemy Pokemon faints, the Pokemon behind them moves up to take it’s place. The replacement Pokemon takes over at the same action count as the faint pokemon was at, and ignores the usual Switching in Battle rules. (Thematically this is because the enemy pokemon are already out and involved in the combat, just not the one currently exchanging blows.) If a player pokemon faints, a new one can be sent out before the round is over, but the normal rules for Switching in Battle apply to players.

Ex: If Rattata faints after taking two actions, Grimer will take over and it’s first action will require three successes.

Before a new round starts, the Storyteller may do two things: they can add more Pokemon to the Lanes, and/or swap neighboring Pokemon in the enemy rows. The former is simple, queue up new Pokemon at the end of the Lanes. The latter allows the Storyteller to swap any two neighboring Pokemon in the enemy lanes, either to a neighboring Lane or forward/backward in the same Lane.

Star Battles are unique in that they can continually add more and more Pokemon to the Lanes, keeping the fight going indefinitely. The victory condition for a Star Battle is flexible, it could be clearing all the Lanes, defeating a certain number of Pokemon, or defeating a particular Pokemon in the enemy Lanes.

The defeat condition is also variable, it could be a total knock out of the player’s Pokemon, or it could be simply an enemy attacking into an empty Lane. The Storyteller will have to determine what they want for the battle in their game.

Unite Battles are a unique type of battle that take place on Aeos Island in Pokemon Unite. These are typically 5v5 battles where Pokemon not only compete on the battlefield, but also compete to score points after their victories.

In the games, Pokemon evolve while collecting Aeos energy during the match, this aspect isn’t modeled in this homebrew. It’s something you could add in for your own games. (perhaps a great way to test builds before investing the training time). You do not have to run Unite Battles as 5v5 either, you can do whatever team size you choose.

In a Unite Battle, two teams compete to score points by getting knock outs of either the opposing team’s Pokemon, or wild Pokemon that nest in the battlefield. This battlefield is setup in a number of zones, shown in the below image. The zones that are on the “track” surrounding the center are Goals, 5 are for the team on the left and 5 are for the team on the right.

First, you’ll need Wild Pokemon that live on the map. These Pokemon pop up between rounds and hang around until defeated by a competing Pokemon. All Wild Pokemon in a Unite Battles are Royale Pokemon, with a Badge Level. When defeated, they award the Pokemon that defeated them a number of Aeos Points equal to their Badge Level. Choose a few species, decide which zone they spawn in, and have their sheets ready.

Next, you’ll need an opposing team. This team is built normally, and should be a fair challenge for your players. Players will begin in the left most zone, while their opponents begin in the far right.

A Unite Battle should take place over a set number of rounds. Ten is a good baseline to start, but you may want to adjust based on your team compositions.

The team with the highest score at the end of a match wins. Aeos Points are cashed in at one of the Goals owned by the opposing team. A Pokemon can use it’s action on it’s turn to Score, which count the Aeos Points it’s carrying towards it’s team. This also prevents the Aeos Points from being stolen: any time a competing Pokemon faints, it drops all it’s Aeos points for the opposing team to pick up!

Asides from the goals the competitors start in, each goal has a limit on how many points may be scored in it. Once that limit is reached, Pokemon will need to go further toward their opponent’s side of the field to score. This limit is defaulted at 10, but it can be adjusted as needed.

Each competing Pokemon rolls initiative and takes turns as normal. In addition to the Action they can normally take on their turn, Pokemon can also move up to two zones. The zones you’re moving to must be connected. Pokemon can only do combat with Pokemon in the same zone as them. A Pokemon may move before or after they make an Action, but they may not split movement.

Wild Pokemon spawn in their zones and do not leave them. They’ll battle a competing pokemon in the same space, and always act after a competing Pokemon takes an Action in that zone. Whoever uses the move that faints a Wild Pokemon get the Aeos Points from it. Be careful not to have your points stolen!

A Storyteller might want to rule that Pokemon are only aware of other Pokemon in zones they or an ally is in. This “fog of war” can create some interesting tactics, but will complicate things for the Storyteller.

At the end of each round, the Storyteller is able to restore wild Pokemon to any zone they wish, even if the zone wasn’t occupied at the start. You can put Pokemon with high Badge Levels in distant spots to force a fight between the two teams!