How to Pick Starters

Oh lawd we pickin' starters.

The only things we'll assume here is that your starter is at a reasonable early game level of 5 to 10 and no Legendaries.

1) Base Stat Totals - 30 to 36 is the ideal range.

2) Typing - avoid Ghost, Steel, and Rock types. Many low level Pokemon are reliant on Normal moves and it can be difficult to threaten these Pokemon in any significant way (and that often means disproportionately affecting the other players).

3) Move Pools - should have a solid STAB by level 10 to 15. Also be wary of suspect options like Pineco's level 6 Self-Destruct or Shellder's level 13 Icicle Spear, these can swing low level fights in single hits.

4) Progression - ideally, starters should be able to grow alongside their trainers as their iconic or signature Pokemon. Pokemon with natural Evolutions have an advantage here, but a thoughtful GM can alter things as needed.

YES: canon starters, most multi-stage Pokemon with similar stats (Growlithe, Shinx, Poliwag), high stat babies (Elekid, Magby, Smoochum)

MAYBE: low stat babies (Pichu, Cleffa, Igglybuff), low stat multi-stagers (Wooper, rodents, birds)

NO: Honedge, Aron, Abra, Gastly

HONORABLE MENTIONS: Spheal, for being the best all around starter in the entire Pokedex.

DISHONORABLE MENTIONS: Ralts and Eevee, for being symptomatic of the worst players and even worse people.

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Honedge - This Pokemon gets a LOT of questions in the Discord and may be worth addressing in more detail here beyond simply listing it as a NO starter. Honedge is a double whammy of defensively powerful types (at low levels) with Ghost and Steel, rendering it immune or resistant to most damage until at least level 10. Past low levels, Weaponize allows it to pass those defenses to the trainer, artificially boosting a Combat trainer's defenses beyond what is reasonable. And on the other hand, despite being defensively unbalanced, Honedge's move list is truly terrible, with its first STAB move at 20, making it really just a wall. Players looking to take Honedge in low level games KNOWING that it will affect game health should be treated with suspicion and ostracized whenever possible.

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After fielding a lot of questions and hurt feelings about Ralts and Eeevee, please see the following addendums:

Ralts - suffers from disastrous base stat totals until fully evolved (Kirlia has lower stats that Squirtle), and has an extremely shallow, slow to develop movepool. These are things that can be fixed, but the GM must be aware of them and be willing to do some heavy overhauls to most parts of Ralts, mechanically. Ralts (et al) is also the target of some of the worst, most intrusive obsessive fandom within Pokemon. If you are recruiting random players from the internet and one of them wants a Ralts, you should ASSUME it is a sex thing and not wait for things to get weird. Keep your head on a swivel.

Eevee - okay base stats, but somehow an even worse movepool than Ralts above, Eevee's only natural non-Normal move is Bite, which it doesn't get until 17 when other starters are breaking into third and fourth coverage types. The Eeveelutions skip a step to third stage starter stats, which can be unbalancing if allowed to evolve too early, but their movepools NEED early evolution because of how poorly they are laid out, too. Mechanically, Eevee can be addressed by creating a halfway point in stats corresponding to other starts second stage levels and by shuffling moves around. Like Ralts, Eevee-stans also tend to violate the social contract at the drop of a hat, but usually they do so by demanding they be allowed to breed out a team of Eevees, ignoring any interesting wild Pokemon the GM puts in the game, and refusing to interact with the table except to make more Eevees.