PTU class guidelines

Hey everyone. During the course of working on PTU 1.03 and drafting new classes, we've come to realize it might be useful to give all of you guys writing homebrew classes some idea of the guidelines we work with ourselves when creating new trainer classes. A lot of the same issues tend to be brought up rather often here in critques of homebrew classes, and it seemed like it'd be handy to have access to the standards the devs themselves use for the purpose of balancing homebrew and having a framework to work from.

I've separated this post into two sections, with the first just listing the guidelines we use in a simple and short manner. For someone wanting to know about the reasoning for these, I've spoilered more in-depth explanations below.

Mechanically speaking:

1. Trainer classes tend to number at 7 or 8 feats. Note that each level of a ranked feat counts as a separate feat, meaning a Ranked 5 feat would count as 5 feats, for example.

2. Trainer classes don't tend to grant more than one ability (not in terms of choices offered but how many you end up with on your character sheet).

3. Trainer classes geared for combat don't tend to get access to more than two non-Normal types with their attacks.

4. Trainer classes tend to excel at Pokemon or Trainer combat, not both.

5. Trainer classes generally don't have feats whose sole purpose is to replicate something that can be done through RP or skill rolls.

6. Trainer classes should not, by merely existing in a party, heavily alter the balance of the game.

6b. As a corollary to this, it's good but not necessary, for support classes to be a bit selfish too.

Fluff-wise, what we think about, for those wondering why a particular class is/isn't included or whether we'd consider including something from homebrew in core:

1. Trainer classes are kept to what we think are significant archetypes in Pokemon media and not super fringe concepts or ones not well based in canon.

2. Trainer classes generally have feats based on what they actually do, rather than more meta or narrative-altering tools.

3. Trainer classes generally are not built around manipulating a piece of equipment, and gained equipment doesn't tend to take the form of feats.

4. Trainer classes generally function well without the GM having to shoehorn in a particular plot element to give them something to do.

<THE FOLLOWING IS UNDER THE SPOILER>

Mechanically speaking:
1. Trainer classes tend to number at 7 or 8 feats. Note that each level of a ranked feat counts as a separate feat, meaning a Ranked 5 feat would count as 5 feats, for example.

2. Trainer classes don't tend to grant more than one ability (not in terms of choices offered but how many you end up with on your character sheet). This isn't necessarily because of balance reasons in a lot of cases, though there are instances where to let a trainer take both of the ability options available to a single class would be overwhelming (Ambush + Dodge in Rogue comes to mind). Think of it more as a design standard that keeps things consistent.

3. Trainer classes geared for combat don't tend to get access to more than two non-Normal types with their attacks. This is pretty straightforward - coverage is king in Pokemon, and making a class too versatile is very dangerous. There may be exceptions to this rule, but they will be incredibly minor. Ex: Ninja in 1.03 will have access to Fling, which puts them at being able to gain Flying, Dark, and Poison typed attacks. However, an Infiltrator Ninja can only get Poison Sting as a damaging Poison move, which is very weak, and a Poison Touch Ninja can't get the Flying Type attacks at all, leaving them still limited to two non-Normal Types.

4. Trainer classes tend to excel at Pokemon or Trainer combat, not both. There are always small cases of overlap such as Martial Artist's Sparring Partner or how Juggler gets a range boost to throwing weapons, but to give an example, one thing we're moving away from is how Channeler is both an incredible Pokemon support class through Channel Strength and Shared Fate and an incredible Trainer combat class with Borrowed moves. As a little preview, Channeler will be losing Borrow because it's too versatile in potential type coverage, because it lets them excel at both Pokemon and Trainer combat, and because borrowing moves doesn't have much of a basis in Pokemon canon and is more of a relic of old PTA design than anything at this point.

5. Trainer classes generally don't have feats whose sole purpose is to replicate something that can be done through RP or skill rolls. For examples of what's meant here, PTA feats like Let's Get That Lock Open don't exist because you should handle that with a Stealth skill roll. We don't want to put people in a position where a GM is forced to say they can't do something that a character should be able to reasonably accomplish simply because a feat exists that's meant to grant access to it. It seems silly, for another example, to make it impossible to use disguises without a Master of Disguise type feat like PTA Detective has.

6. Trainer classes should not, by merely existing in a party, heavily alter the balance of the game. This was a large part of why Smith was removed as a class - it was difficult to balance making it an interesting class to play without also making any given party with a Smith in it strictly better than parties without one due to the better equipment buffs available all around. The crafting classes we do have, such as Chef and Scientist, are designed not to be overwhelming in that way, and Hatcher's current design is also a product of this concern. Dream Doctor, Breeder, and Fashion Designer were examples in PTA of single classes having a huge effect on an entire game's power level simply by being in a party, and we didn't want those kinds of wild swings in PTU.

6b. As a corollary to this, it's good but not necessary, for support classes to be a bit selfish too. That is, to have benefits only they can gain from. With Mentor for example, Guidance and Life Long Learning are effects only they benefit from, even if they can use their tutoring feats to benefit the whole party. Chefs can use more vitamins on their Pokemon than other trainers can, as another example. This allows us to give these classes nifty buffs that would be too overwhelming if spread to the party at large.

In terms of fluff, we have some rough guidelines as well, which may answer the question for some of you guys when it comes to why a certain class is or isn't being implemented. Obviously, many of these are necessarily thrown out when doing homebrew (and some of these thrown out when working on splatbooks too!), but given the number of times we've been asked whether or not we're gonna think about implementing X or Y homebrew class or about whether or not we consider drawing from homebrew, it seems like this is a good list to publicize as well.

1. Trainer classes are kept to what we think are significant archetypes in Pokemon media and not super fringe concepts or ones not well based in canon. If you've seen the concept come up in a major way in a movie or featured as a common trainer role in the manga (before you ask, really fringe media like Reburst don't count) or anime, it's more likely we'd be disposed to working with the idea. Generally, when making a new class, we're not just asking if someone anywhere out there would play it and have fun - it'd be impossible to include everything that met that criterion. We want the core set of classes to be tightly focused as well, and something that doesn't contribute a lot to the game as a whole just won't be included.

(You may be wondering what's happening to Elementalist, given this, and the answer is we are cutting them from the core pdf and giving them their own splatbook once Gen VI is out, along with making each a separate class with its own focus instead of trying to fit them all into the same template. You may have noticed Arcran's reworked elementalists - his idea to work on that came about due to hearing about us planning on this change.)

2. Trainer classes generally have feats based on what they actually do, rather than more meta or narrative-altering tools. As an example of what we mean here, the PTA Detective feat Evidence Search essentially forces a GM to come up with a piece of evidence for a PC to find, even if they planned on a scene being swabbed clean. What would be more appropriate here is a detective role character taking a Skill Stunt edge to Perception for searching crime scenes for evidence.

3. Trainer classes generally are not built around manipulating a piece of equipment, and gained equipment doesn't tend to take the form of feats. This is why Capture Stylers were divorced from the actual Ranger class itself, especially seeing as not all Rangers have a Styler. Pokeballs and tricks done with those are a marked exception to this as they're a core concept in Pokemon as compared to, say, mech arms or radars or what have you. You might ask about weapons here too, and as far as we're concerned, it's sort of a necessary evil to have some edges connected to their use. There's a reason we shunted most involved weapon things off to an Armory splat.

4. Trainer classes generally function well without the GM having to shoehorn in a particular plot element to give them something to do. Note that contests don't necessarily fall much into this as it's possible to make those side activities and not plot points. But this is why the Coordinator and Style Expert classes are built to be rather functional without a focus on contests. More to the point, this is why most concepts dealing with Legendary Pokemon have been put in their own splat. Not every GM wants to cater to a trainer who's built exclusively for interacting with Legends, which is why you'll at most see little nods to Legendary Pokemon in Researcher's Cryptozoology field of study. Even Rune Master functions on its own with Unowns being only a side attraction in a campaign.