Pokemon Skill Blurb

Pokemon and Natural Skill Variance

Not all Pokemon in a species are exactly alike. Just as they may vary in their base stats according to their natures, they may also vary in their default skill levels compared to others in their species. We recommend GMs occasionally create Backgrounds for the Pokemon their players capture, similar to the Backgrounds that Trainers have. For example, a Pokemon may have a Scout Background that gives a rank up to Perception and Stealth while decreasing Athletics and Combat by one rank each. A Brute Background may give a rank up to Combat and Athletics while decreasing Focus and Stealth. These backgrounds shouldn't decrease Skills which are already at a Pathetic Rank for a Pokemon. Whenever the rules refer to Skills at their default level for Pokemon, include the changes made by these Backgrounds.

Pokemon and Social and Knowledge Skills

You may have noticed we didn't include Survival, any Education skills, or any social skills in most Pokemon species' default statblock. The reason is that these tend to vary a lot depending on how a GM decides to portray Pokemon intelligence in their world as well as the personality of a particular Pokemon. It's recommended that GMs assign these values as appropriate depending on these factors. Most Pokemon won't have any education skills, with the exceptions being very intelligent Pokemon such as Metagross or Alakazam. A Pokemon's Survival skill will depend on its upbringing. A Pokemon born into a breeder's home or was captured while still relying on a pack for food and shelter will likely have a very low Survival skill, whereas a Pokemon that raised itself in the wild after its parents were killed would have adapted very well and have a high rank in Survival.

A few guidelines can be followed for the social skills. Large and imposing Pokemon will obviously have higher Intimidate ranks than Pokemon such as Pachirisu and Emolga. Conversely, however, these Pokemon will generally have high Charm scores. Exceptions exist, however, which is why we have left these social skills unassigned. Guile and Intuition vary a lot depending on a Pokemon's upbringing, and those that grew up in isolation will likely have low ranks in these skills, even if the species is naturally intelligent.

While the Skill Improvement Pokeedge can only be applied once per skill, GMs may decide, at their own discretion, to allow knowledge and social skills to ignore this limitation or even rise independent of applying the Pokeedge as a Pokemon changes in personality and learns more about the world.