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    Raid Battles

    Narrative Notes

    These mechanics are for any kind of one versus many battle that’s intended to be difficult. The difficulty can swing based on various factors though, so you can have a raid battle that won’t be boss tier difficult as well.

    Flavorfully, you can lean into regional mechanics (Tera, Mega, Dynamax…) or you can just treat the boosts the Pokemon will be receiving as a “knowing the terrain” bonus. There are lots of ways to flavor it.

    Raid Badge Mechanic

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    A Pokemon with a Raid Badge is stronger than a normal Pokemon. This can be because of a regional phenomenon, knowing the terrain, weird experiments, Arceus’s blessing, or anything else that fits your game. When you see the term Raiders, it refers to all the opponents battling against the Pokemon with the Raid Badge.

    A Raid Badge has a numerical level that goes with it. This level is referred to as it’s Badge Level. Pokemon with a Raid Badge observe the following rules.

    • This Pokemon’s Max HP is multiplied by it’s Badge Level. (This is best imaged as multiple health bar layers, when you clear one, the next one starts taking damage.)
      • Ex: Pikachu has 5 Hp (4 Base, 1 from Vit). If Pikachu is given a Level 5 Raid Badge, Pikachu’s HP at the start of the fight is now 25, not 5.
    • This Pokemon has a Breakpoint at each multiple of it’s Badge Level below it’s new Max Hp.
      • Ex: 5, 10, 15, 20 are the Breakpoints of the Pikachu listed above.
    • Whenever this Pokemon’s health is reduced to a Breakpoint, it ignore the rest of the damage from the move that brought it to the Breakpoint.
      • Ex: If Pikachu is at 16 HP and takes 4 damage, it only loses one health.
    • Whenever this Pokemon is reduced to a Breakpoint, this Pokemon uses a Raid Move before the next Pokemon takes their turn.
      • Ex: When Pikachu is reduced to 15 HP, it decides to take an Aggressive Stance, one of it’s Raid Moves.
    • The Pokemon cannot Evade or Clash moves.

    The Raid Badge mechanic works around the observation that a number of weaker Pokemon have so many more actions than a lone stronger Pokemon that the stronger Pokemon doesn’t stand a chance. Raid Badges give the lone Pokemon back the actions it would spend on evading and clashing by giving it enough HP to absorb tons of damage from the weaker Pokemon. The lone Pokemon also gets the

    Raid Moves

    At a Breakpoint, a Pokemon with a Raid Badge gets to use one of the special actions listed here. These actions do not require a roll and do not count towards actions for the current round. Actions that target Raiders cannot be evaded or clashed. Whenever the Pokemon with a Raid Badge targets All Foes in Range as part of a Raid Move effect, all Raiders are targeted, even if there are more than the the Pokemon’s rank would allow it to target normally.

    The Pokemon Takes on… Effect
    an Aggressive Stance! When this Pokemon uses this action, all damaging moves it uses may target All Foes in Range for the rest of the battle.
    an Intimidating Stance!When this Pokemon uses this action, reset all increased attributes and traits from the Raiders.
    a Restorative Stance! When this Pokemon uses this action, reset all reduced attributes and traits from itself.
    a Defensive Stance! When this Pokemon uses this action, This Pokemon uses both Light Screen and Reflect.
    a Gigantic Stance! This Pokemon Dynamaxes, following all rules in the Dynamax section of the core book except the HP increase.
    a Shining Stance! This Pokemon Terastallizes.
    a Evolving Stance! This Pokemon Mega Evolves.
    a Confident Stance! This Pokemon uses a Support move that Increases or Decreases Attributes and/or Traits from it’s move list, even if that move is above it’s current Rank. When it Decreases Attributes and/or Traits, it targets All Foes in Range.
    a Energized Stance This Pokemon increases the max number of actions it can take per round by 1. This can be done multiple times.

    FAQ & Advice

    • Steel types are naturally tanky and reduce the amount of damage done to themselves via high defenses. Keep that in mind when using a Steel type as a Raid Boss: I reduce the star by one just for having the typing on the Raid Boss.
    • Aggressive Stance is very swingy and can do lots of damage very quickly. It’s best saved for the last or second to last breakpoint, unless you’re feeling cruel.