Revision as of 19:01, 8 March 2012

n4xnaD Major thanks for the post.Thanks Again. Keep writing.

The Particulars

So if this is a school, doesn't that mean kids graduate and leave eventually?

Not exactly. The PCA runs on what some call "Simpsons time", or "sitcom time" if you prefer. Basically even though the sun rises and sets, days pass and seasons come and go, time doesn't really move forward. To put it another way, you know how Saved By The Bell ran for roughly 10 years and yet the main characters remained in the same grade the whole time? It works kinda like that. "Next year" is considered sort of as that ambiguous time that's always around the corner, but never really comes.

Does that mean my characters can never advance in grades or graduate?

Well, no. You can bump them up a grade or graduate them out when the time comes if you like. But also you have to keep in mind that other folks may not be moving their kids ahead at the same time (or ever really), so this can cause confusion with personal relationships and such. If you do decide you want a student to move up a grade, you should take care to wrap up any "loose ends" beforehand so it doesn't look out of place when the change occurs.

Do students have to fight? What if something happens where they can't, do they get kicked out?

No, not at all! Though in a bit of a minority, the PCA does have "non-combatant" students who focus their studies entirely on other areas of pro battling like medical and coaching positions, as well as several others that don't directly involve knocking the stuffing out of someone. They will be expected to practice and learn new moves if they're physically able to, but this is more for general physical education and personal growth than actual combat readiness.

Movesets and Abilities (and how they work in the PCA)

Hey wait, these Pokemon know more than four moves?!

Yep. Just like you don't have to forget how to ride a bike in order to learn how to drive a car, PCA Pokemorphs don't have to "delete" moves to learn new ones, nor are they limited to just four. In fact, a student who graduates will have officially learned 20 moves, and is capable of learning even more if they want!

Here's how it works: A freshman student who is just starting out will have a "registered" moveset of four moves, and also four moves they're learning through out the school year. When they move up to sophomore level, the learning moves are added to their registered moveset and they choose four more moves to learn, starting the process all over again. Thus a sophomore has eight registered moves, a junior 12, and a senior will have 16.

What's the difference between a "registered" move and one they're still learning?

"Registered" moves are ones a student has mastered and can pull off consistently and safely. These are the ones they've put a year or more of practice into and have battle-tested on many occasions. Registered moves are a fighter's bread and butter, the moves their strategy and fighting styles are built around as they're the ones they know will reliably do what they're supposed to. As a result, they're also moves everyone else likely knows they have in their moveset.

"Learning" moves, by contrast, are ones they're still getting the hang of and may have not even used in an actual fight before. As a result there's a chance these moves may hit the wrong target, 'fizzle out' and not work, or even backfire and injure the student trying to use it. But while using a move they're still learning is risky, it does have the benefit of potentially catching an opponent by surprise with something unexpected.

How do PCA students learn various types of moves?

There's a number of ways, really. It depends on what category the move is in.

Standard moves: These are the ones a Pokemon would learn by leveling up in the games. Students learn these in their classes primarily, as they are often what make up the bulk of their movesets. They can also hire a "move tutor" to help them along as well, if need be.

TM/HM moves: As these are widely available moves that just about any Pokemon can learn, these are treated like "take-home" courses that students can learn on their own time to free up their school schedules for other things. Like the standard moves, there are dedicated tutors for these kind of moves that can help them to learn these moves quicker.

Tutoring moves: These are advanced or off-type moves that are usually outside a species' normal moveset. Since these moves require special tutoring, usually from outside sources, like pro battlers or dedicated move tutors, and can take much longer than normal to perfect, students usually (but not always) don't have that many of them in their movesets.

Breeding moves (aka "Egg Moves"): Since these can't be learned by normal means, the general rule surrounding them is that students can have one or two in their freshman moveset (note that these will count towards the four registered moves, NOT as extras), and it's generally a good idea to give some backstory on how they came to learn these moves. (This would make for an interesting story arc, hint hint!)

Are students allowed to learn more than the normal four moves per year?

No. The limit of four moves per year is in place to keep students from overexerting themselves, and to make sure they properly learn the moves they do choose. Having 20 registered moves in your sophomore year isn't useful if you just barely know how to use any of them!

Also remember that it's quite common for PCA students to have some sort of training in some style of hand-to-hand fighting or martial arts as well as the various moves they learn. Moves in general require a lot more energy than a simple left hook or dropkick, so relying on them exclusively isn't always the best route to go.

Do PCA students have to learn moves in a specific order, like how Pokemon learn moves by leveling up?

No, if they are able to learn a move then it can be part of their moveset at any time. However, it's generally assumed that they'd learn at least a couple of the basics earlier on before starting in on the more complicated stuff.

Also keep in mind that knowing more powerful moves early on isn't exactly a guaranteed advantage. A freshman's Leaf Storm, while more powerful than the basic stuff, will be relatively weak compared to a senior using the same move.

There's a move in an older generation moveset that doesn't appear in the newest ones. Can my student learn that?

Sure! If it appears in a moveset from any of the "main line" of games, it's allowed. So if you really want a Pikachu that knows Pay Day (which it could learn via TM in Red/Blue/Yellow), then that's perfectly fine. You might want to give a bit of a backstory of how they came to know a move if it's something from that far back, though... again, this would make for an interesting story arc.

I have an evolved student, but there are moves their species could only learn before evolving. Can he/she not learn those now?

No, evolved students can learn "pre-evo" moves later on. However this isn't a two-way street, and unevolved students can't learn moves that only their evolved forms would know. For example, A Raichu can learn moves that would normally only be available to a Pichu, but an Eevee can't learn moves that would specifically require evolving to a Glaceon or Leafeon.

Can I "delete" a move from my character's moveset to make room for something else?

99.9% of the time, the answer is no. "Forgetting" a move really doesn't make sense in the PCA-verse outside of suffering severe memory loss, and it would also mean that the weeks or months a student spent learning that move would be essentially wasted (since they wouldn't have time to learn an extra move to make up for it).

It's okay to drop a move being learned to pick up another one if need be, but once a move is on their registered moveset it's permanent, and they'll just have to learn to compensate if it becomes obsolete for whatever reason. If a student learned Helping Hand two years ago to benefit their teammates and then the team broke up last week, they can't just drop that move even if it's no longer useful.

How do abilities work in the PCA?

For the most part, abilities function just like they do in the game: they're innate, natural things that can create special effects depending on certain situations. It's generally assumed that by the time someone gets to the PCA, they have an idea of what their ability is and how it works. Whether or not they know how to use that to their advantage isn't always clear, though.

However, there are some abilities (and a few moves for that matter) which normally wouldn't have a useful effect in a battling situation, though. For those, feel free to use some creative liberty to make them workable. For example, Run Away would be rather pointless in its original state since fleeing from a school battle wouldn't be of any benefit. So rather, many folks instead say that ability makes their character highly evasive, or is just a reflection of their natural speediness. This kind of flexibility makes sure no one gets stuck with an unusable ability... unless that's what you want, of course.

Another thing to keep in mind is that abilities can have effects in social situations, too. Someone could possibly use their Intimidate or Cute Charm to get someone else to see things their way, or maybe cause some kind of unintentional havoc by being Unaware or a Klutz.

What about held items? Are those allowed?

Indeed they are, and for the most part their function is unchanged. Students are allowed to have one such item with them in a battle, and are free to change which one they have at any time (just not during a battle). Of course opinions of whether they should be used at all vary greatly; some students think they're just a crutch to make up for lack of skill, and never use them. Others have gathered a rather large collection of held items and switch them out before every battle to get as much of an advantage as they can.

Everstones are the exception to the "one held item" rule. Since they have no effect in battle and are used only to prevent evolution, they generally aren't counted as a held item in this case. Forcing someone to choose between possibly evolving when they don't want to or not having something to give them a boost in battle is hardly a fair deal, after all.

Poke Combat Academy
World:	General \| Regions \| World Characters \| Character Creation Guide \| PCA General FAQ
Academy:	The Board \| Faculty \| Student Body \| School Layout
Battle:	The Basics of the Battle \| The PCA Arena \| Types of Battles
Students:	Freshman \| Sophomore \| Junior \| Senior
Teams:	Team Name List \| Team Basics \| Freshman \| Sophomore \| Junior \| Senior \| Mixed
Community:	Forums \| DeviantArt \| FurAffinity \| IRC \| Player List \| Useful Links \| Template Info

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-= The Basic Stuff =
+n4xnaD Major thanks for the post.Thanks Again. Keep writing.
-* '''What is the PCA, exactly?'''
-The PokeCombat Academy, PCA for short, is an on-going group project between artists, writers and roleplayers that follows the general theme of Pokemorphs (anthro Pokemon) and the world they live in. The PCA has had a large, varied and quite active community since it was first started in 2007, with the primary goal of having fun and sharing creative works with a common theme.
-* '''What's the setting like?'''
-Primarily, the project centers around the academy itself, a specialized type of school that trains and teaches its students to prepare them for the vast world of professional Pokemon battling leagues (which is considered a major sport in this setting and is also a part of everyday life in many ways). Though training fighters is its main function, the PCA also offers training for skills for a number of other pro battling related careers for those who have ther goals in life, in addition to the usual high school subjects a real world school teaches.
-The academy itself is a high profile, privately-owned school located just outside Viridian City that deals with students from all over the world who have shown exceptional promise either in their battling abilities or some other related skill. Many former and current champions and well-known fighters are PCA graduates, and in addition many of the teachers and instructors of the PCA are former pro fighters themselves. A couple have even been around almost as long as pro battling itself has, which is quite a long time!
-The PCA-verse isn't restricted to just the academy though. There are several places all over Viridian City that are frequent hangouts for students and faculty alike, ranging from arcades and malls to large indoor sports complexes and professional arenas to the suburbs around Viridian where many students' families make their homes, and even natural getaways like the forests and lakes outside the city limits.
-A more in-depth explanation of the PCA and its surroundings can be found here: [SETTING LINK PENDING]
-* '''What's the cast of characters like?'''
-The PCA focuses mostly on the students themselves, who generally range from 14-19 years of age depending on what grade they're in. Just about every single species of Pokemon can be found in this huge, diverse bunch, who come from all manner of backgrounds and families. Much of the PCA is made up of their lives in and away from the school, the training and wild battles they go through and the crazy ups and downs of a teenager's daily life.
-There are also the teachers and staff of the school as well, who play just as important a role even if they're not "on-camera" quite as much. With background and personalities just as colorful as those of the students themselves, not only do they help train the next generation of pro battlers and those that support them, but also make sure that there's rarely such a thing as a boring class (usually, that is). Once in a while, one of the pro league champions may even stop by to make things even more interesting.
-* '''Okay, so how to I join then?'''
-The first step is to make a character (or more if you like, though starting out with one to get the hang of things is a bit easier). There's a lot of freedom in how you can create one, but we've also got a guide to character creating that'll help you make someone who fits in with the setting and avoid things that might cause problems later on.
-The second step is the really important one... be active! This means doing things with your characters: drawings, stories, and the like. Show off how your characters get through their classes, how badass (or maybe not) they are in battles, how they may or may not get along with each other and the other students in the school. Get in on any community events posted to the main PCA page if they catch your interest, and post shouts there with links to your work. Don't be afraid to leave comments on other folks' submissions if you like them, and maybe ask a question or two about stuff that interests you (pretty much every PCA submission ends up in the main page's favorites section eventually, so checking in on it once in a while is a good idea too!) As long as you're active and show an interest in contributing, you're a part of the PCA.
 = The Particulars =

PCAFAQ

From Pca Central

Revision as of 19:01, 8 March 2012

The Particulars

Movesets and Abilities (and how they work in the PCA)

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