PokéFiends

Given the combat and storytelling focused play of PokéFiends, it's frequent that a character’s abilities and skills, both inside and outside of combat, might come up. Rules and guidelines on abilities are fairly lax, but the general rules of thumb can be found below.

Experience: Just like how you can make a character at any level of experience in their Pokémon training, you can make people who have mastered abilities, fighting styles or skill sets. That being said, don’t take this fact for granted. While we enjoy thoroughly thought out characters with robust skill sets, anything too over the top can still be rejected.

Format: You absolutely must use the provided formatting for the abilities section. Do not remove the ASCII or underscores in the format. Do not re-title the sections. Do not reorder the sections. Do not include subsections that are empty.

Simple Stupid: "Keep it simple, stupid." A general rule of thumb is to make sure any unique or original power is simply explained. If it’s not, you’ll have to spend some time rewriting things until it is.

Supernatural: As per the Supernatural Characters section, we allow a fair deal of oddities on the site. But just like the last guideline, try not to cross into too many sections and keep it simple. This isn’t to say you can’t have a jack-of-all-trades, just that you need to consider how that would balance against your character’s skill in all of those schools, rather than honing in on one.

If you’ve looked around the board some, you’ve probably seen some profiles with abilities listed on them. The format you’ve seen them in looks something like the image below. The header is a section, which appropriate abilities are organized into. The drop down information is generally referred to as the ability’s “tag”, and every power needs one. There are specific rules that go along with listing your character’s abilities and their tags.

Section: Abilities are organized into sections, with certain kinds of abilities going into certain sections.

• Regular Abilities: All Talents.
• Martial Abilities: All Physical abilities. Some Ki abilities.
• Supernatural Abilities: All Psychic, Aura, Astral, and Void abilities. Some Ki abilities.
• Elemental Abilities: All Elemental abilities.
• Unique Abilities: Abilities of any kind that are unique to the character.

Names: Abilities are checked against a master list of sorts that lists every submitted ability on the board from every character. As such, names are unified in the sense that if you submit an ability called “Kinesis”, you will be asked to change the name to “Telekinesis” to match the abilities of characters that share it.

Descriptions: The description is generally left up to your imagination or character’s specific strengths and weaknesses in that ability. The master list typically has generic descriptions and people are welcome to use them, but expansion upon that description is required. The description itself should be fairly well thought out and explained. It is you telling us how the power works, its limits and so on. Try to shoot for a paragraph, though there is no length requirement.

Classification: This is what kind of ability it is overall. Think of this as the school. The classifications are listed here, but are further expanded upon later in this guide. Occasionally this is referred to as type.

• Talents: Mundane skills or abilities.
• Physical: Fighting styles and weapon specializations.
• Psychic: Psychic abilities.
• Aura: Aura abilities.
• Ki: Ki abilities.
• Astral: Astral abilities.
• Elemental: Elemental abilities coming from an acquired Plate.
• Void: Void abilities gained from union to the Darkness.

Category: This is the type of ability under a specific class. Think of this as the sub-school. This is typically the hardest for people to peg down and adjustments will be requested at profile or ability submission if necessary. To get a better description of what category of abilities there are in each class, check the Types of Powers page in this guide.

Power Level: This is your character’s skill at that ability. It is a rough guide for people to be able to ascertain your character’s strengths, focuses and also their weaknesses.

• Novice: Someone who has just begun to learn the skill at hand. Not much experience.
• Apprentice: A decent amount of experience in the skill at hand, but not enough that they can use it without mistake often.
• Journeyman: Moderate or average amount of experience in something.
• Expert: A good amount of experience in something.
• Master: The person has nothing left to learn in the area. The usual end level for most abilities.
• Grandmaster: Achieving a further understanding of the area of skill, the person has most likely devoted a lifetime to the ability or has been enlightened through further means on its knowledge. Generally a character's most focused area of study or something they were born inherently good at or something they achieved a Legendary Pokémon's aid with. Grandmaster abilities ought to be few and far between for your character unless they have good reason not to be.
• Inherent: The "level" given to abilities that are traits, and not specifically trainable skills. Eidetic memories, inherent genius or the ability to see Shadow Pokémon auras falls in this. Think of these as inborn abilities that can not be improved via training or further understanding of them.

In every thread you partake in, regardless of whether or not they focus on training your abilities, you are allowed to discover, or learn, one new ability and level up two existing abilities. New abilities start at novice level and existing ones may advance one power level stage per a thread. In order for an ability to be eligible for creation or advancement the thread you are in must last at least 10 posts. This is mostly a catch all, so people don't start small, short threads just to level powers.

• Example 1: Chao just received her Fire Plate in a thread, so she would be able to learn one new novice level skill in the thread she is in. Since she has no existing powers, that would be her only option.


• Example 2: Ren has had his Dragon Plate for three threads now. He has more than a handful of abilities and can level two of them up a power level stage in this thread and also make a new novice level ability should he want to.

While the above examples handle Plates, this applies to any kind of ability. There are some special rules, however...

• Mentors: If you are being mentored or trained by a character that has mastered (as in a power level of Master or Grandmaster) at least three abilities of the same class (i.e. Physical, Supernatural, Elemental, etc.) as your power in question, and that character is present when you are leveling an ability up, you may progress two stages in one power in a thread in addition to another power progressing one stage.


• Fighting & Psychic Elemental Abilities: For Fighting and Psychic Plate users, due to the unique nature of their Plates and their acquisition of the ability Fighting Adept or Psychic Adept, the acquire and master abilities as double the rate of other Plate users. While all other rules apply to them, they are allowed to discover, or learn, two new abilities and level up four existing abilities per thread.


• Grandmaster Level: Achieving Grandmaster level in an ability is a special endeavor. It is required that your thread focus on combat or training this ability and that it last 20 posts or more. No other abilities or leveling up of abilities may occur. Only the Grandmaster ability may be gained from this thread. Finally, Grandmaster abilities are subject to staff approval, and may be rejected if your character does not seem equipped to handle the level at the time.

And, finally, to make new abilities or level up abilities after you've submitted a profile, you simply fill out the form and post in the Ability Creation & Leveling Form topic.