Hello everyone,



I wanted to share what's going on with me and Pokemon: Tabletop Adventures. I've been very busy in life, moving, getting married, starting a new job and seeing Pokemon continue to come out with more and more content. Therefore...



Announcing Pokemon Tabletop Adventures III



Planned pdfs:

Pokemon: Tabletop Adventures 3 – Player’s Handbook

Pokemon: Tabletop Adventures 3 – Pokedex (Red Pen)

Pokemon: Tabletop Adventures 3 – Pokedex (Blue Paper)

Pokemon: Tabletop Adventures 3 – Pokedex (Green d20)

Pokemon: Tabletop Adventures 3 – Move List

Pokemon: Tabletop Adventures 3 – Game Master’s Guide



Six books!? Yes. The Pokedex is way too large. There’s a thousand of them already once you start counting forms. My aim is to incorporate many diverse families across multiple Pokedex guides. Pokemon do not have as many options as they used to and many will think they’ve been dumbed down. The Charmander family’s entire entry fits on two pages. The idea here is to streamline combat and make play happen more than book keeping. Moves and Abilities will be usually available in each book whenever mentioned, however a separate pdf will also include the move list and ability list- at least all of the moves/abilities that will still be included. Many are being removed.



Let’s talk about the player’s handbook.



In 3, trainer growth has been revamped. Instead of waiting for your first level up to select a class- you will start with one. The assumption being, you’ve probably already trained enough to become the entry point of that class. For that matter with the addition of origins (backgrounds), players HAVE trained and are somewhat competent enough to travel through new lands, take on a league circuit, or maybe even save the world. When trainers gain certain levels, they will get ability score increases and at certain levels, gain advanced classes. Advanced classes no longer have real barriers to entry, save that you need to get to a level that lets you take them. Choosing features is gone, too. Instead, features will automatically be added to your character as they level up/meet prerequisites for a given feature. You can see what you will/will not be able to reach before you even have to take a class.



Let’s talk base classes.



Ace Trainer was okay. It got some touching up. Chaser and Enduring Soul had a bit of an issue with limiting players. I want players to be allowed to be aggressive without feeling like they need to take a class to ‘do it right.’ Enduring Soul was simply misplaced into the wrong class and I couldn’t find a reasonable home. Both suffered from having too many if/then abilities- we’re moving away from those since I want players to make active choices, not react to a GM’s choices they’d have to incorporate to make your abilities matter.

Rangers are seeing revision, but not too much drastically. They lost Coach and Commander. Detective was changed to Officer but that’s mostly thematic. Signer is also changing to Invoker and will not be able to summon pokemon without relying on having allied legendary pokemon.



Breeder is in a good place, but has had some changes. Hatcher is gone, because Breeder should already do the things Hatcher does. Hatcher also suffered from ‘waiting for things to happen’ in game. I want players to have more active choices. Groomer is out of Breeder, because anyone should be able to groom Pokemon, but I felt it didn’t belong with a class that doesn’t focus on Contests.

Coordinator had way too many if/then abilities, in PTA3, coordinators have many active roles where they get to make use of their expertise during our outside of combat without waiting for something to give them permission to do something. For that reason, Groomer has been added to Coordinator. In addition, the Fashion Designer has been reworked into the Designer. It includes not only fashionable items, but other items from the Pokemon games. The choreographer has been changed drastically to move away from making many Pokemon needing certain things to do anything ever. Coach has been moved to the Coordinator and while doing similar things, has more tools to help Pokemon succeed if they should ever enter a Pokethalon. Finally, the Rising Star advanced class adds a bunch of ways for a player to interact with human NPCs. The Beauty Modeler, Cool Trainer, Cute Idol, Smart Teacher, and Tough Guy have all been removed. The abilities worth keeping have been compacted into the base class of the Coordinator and it has really upped the active role of a coordinator.



Researchers are losing some things and gaining a large thing. Cryptozoologist and Dream Doctor are both more ‘needs too much of something to do another thing’ class so they got dropped. Professor got collapsed into the base class. Petrologist is being changed to Archaeologist, now focusing in fossils, stones, and rare items. Photographer and Watcher are seeing slight revision. New to Researcher is the advanced class: Capture Specialist. Capture Specialist had a very high amount of ‘if/then you may’ abilities while also making players keep track of tens of pokemon in order to advance in class. It’s gone now and the very best of it are all packed into this tech-oriented advanced class.



Psychic and Martial Artists are pretty unchanged, though will be a part of an expansion coming later. Mystics are gone. They required too much set up time to do anything and in PTA3, players can just choose a pokemon from one of the pokedex guides and play it without having to have a convoluted trainer path to do so. I will miss Rune Masters and Bards, but I’m sure someone will homebrew whatever they need, or I will include additional advanced classes to the Psychic in the future to cover any lost treasures.

GM guide



There is no release day planned at the moment, but work has been underway since the Sword/Shield announcement. There’s something about a new generation of pokemon that really gets me working. Before the gen 8 announcement, there’s actually a more important thing that pushed me forward. Players. You all have so much passion for Pokemon and Tabletop and it fills me with joy. I see play podcasts and fanart from campaigns and it just blows my mind how many people love P:TA. I can’t promise any of you will like PTA3 any better, but I know there are people out there who will give it a try and that gives me the energy to make it happen.



Thank you trainers.

-Dr. Mr. Stark