Player Handbook

Your starter is one of three, but not always the famous three

Every world offers three starters: uncommon creatures that can evolve, each of a different type. One server might choose between Eevee, Dratini and Bulbasaur. Everyone in a server is offered the same three.

Would you rather always get Bulbasaur, Charmander and Squirtle?

You set out with 5 balls and 500 coins

Enough to catch a few things before your first trainer battle pays out. In Red and Blue you started with 3,000 money and no balls at all.

Is that too stingy?

A world is one region, with that game's dex and moves

A Johto world has the 251 species in Gold and Silver's Johto dex, Pidgey and Onix included, and they learn the moves they learned in Gold and Silver. Every region from Kanto to Paldea works the same way. In the last three days of a season, everyone playing in your server votes on where the next one goes with /region vote, and can change their vote until it closes; the season you're in stays where it is. The most votes wins, a tie is drawn between the leaders, and with no votes at all it's the bot's home region. /region show has the tally. A private world can pick its own when you /start it in a direct message.

Which region would you vote for next season, and is three days long enough to vote?

Eight gyms, each a random type

Gym types are drawn from the region, as different from each other as possible. Your eighth gym might be Fairy. Levels climb steadily: the first gym leader is level 14, the last level 56. The way to the first gym starts gently, with at least three stretches of wild beginning at level 2 and climbing no more than three levels each.

Should gym types follow the originals (Rock, Water, Electric…) instead?

Gym trainers first, back to back

Every gym has trainers before its leader: two at the first gym, four by the eighth, using the gym's type a few levels below the leader. You fight them in order with no healing in between, and the leader won't see you until they're all down. Lose to anyone, or step out to heal at the Center, and they're all waiting again.

Too harsh, or just what a gym should feel like?

Rare creatures hide in one spot each, and some aren't in your world at all

A few rare ones hide in a single place each, usually a cave. The rest simply don't exist in that world, so which ones you can't get changes from world to world. That's what makes playing more than one season worth it.

Is "some rares just aren't here" exciting, or annoying?

Where you are changes what you meet

Routes have lots of trainers and common creatures. Caves have few trainers and more unusual ones. Bike roads and tunnels are packed with trainers, and there's no way around them.

Anything you'd expect a cave or a route to have that we've missed?

Villain hideouts: three or four grunts, then a boss

From the third gym on, a couple of hideouts sit in the way. You fight straight through with nowhere to heal, and if you black out you start the hideout again from the first grunt.

Is losing the whole run too harsh?

Everyone has a name, and something to say

Trainers suit where they stand: a Youngster or a Lass on a route, Hikers underground, Bikers on the bike road, Ace Trainers in a gym, Grunts in a hideout. Each one has a line when the fight starts and another when it ends: “I've been lost for three days. Battle me so it feels like progress.” Leaders talk about their type and hand over the badge themselves. In every town a local has something to say that changes each day, and it's often a real tip about what's ahead, like where something rare hides or what type the next leader uses. The nurse, the shop clerk and the preserve's warden say hello too.

Which line made you smile, and which one should we rewrite?

One new stretch of map per day, unless your server speeds up

Leaving a town for ground you've never seen costs your day's move. Inside a stretch you can go as far as you like, so you can always finish a day somewhere safe. At a faster pace you get two or three new stretches a day instead.

Would you play more or less if this limit weren't there?

A new day starts at midnight where your server is

Each server picks its time zone with /timezone set, suggested as you type. Until it does, days turn over at midnight UTC. Changing it never costs or gives anyone a day: the day you're in just runs on to the next midnight in the new zone, so it can get longer, but never shorter. Private worlds stay on UTC.

Is midnight the right time for a new day, or would the morning suit your server better?

The first person to reach a town opens the way for everyone

A server moves through the map together. Nobody can go past the furthest town anyone has reached, and whoever gets there first holds the door for the rest. The server hears about it: "Ada reached Fernford City first."

Fun race, or frustrating wait?

Healing at a Center ends your day

Heal up and you're done until tomorrow. Or pay coins to keep going, which costs twice as much each time you do it in one day (200, then 400, then 800). You never have to heal to finish a day: it ends by itself at midnight, and once you've used today's new ground you can keep searching, battling and training where you are.

Is ending the day the right price for a full heal?

Blacking out costs half your coins, but not your day

You're patched up and sent back to the last Center you passed. If blacking out ended your day too, fainting on purpose would be a free heal and nobody would ever use a Center.

Half your coins: too much, too little?

Every throw uses a ball

Plain balls are the basic throw, Great Balls are 1.5 times as likely, Ultra Balls twice. A catch pays you 10 coins a level, so a good catch roughly pays for its ball.

Should catches pay coins at all?

One wild creature in 1,024 is shiny

A shiny comes in its own colours, with a sparkle beside it and a ✨ by its name, and a shiny encounter opens with “✨ A shiny Pidgey appeared!” It's no stronger than any other. It stays shiny when you catch it and when it evolves, your server hears when you catch one, and your trainer card counts the shinies you own.

Is 1 in 1,024 rare enough to feel special, but common enough that you'll meet one?

You carry six, and the box holds everything else

Anything you catch with six already in your party goes to your box, and the box has no limit. A cap would only make you let creatures go to make room. The Party button swaps creatures between party and box whenever you're out of battle. They go as they are, so the box won't heal them.

Would you ever want to release a creature, or trade one away for good?

Everyone who fought shares the experience

Like Red and Blue: every creature that was out against a foe and is still standing splits its experience evenly, and catching one gives the same experience as knocking it out. The third gym leader hands you the Exp. Share, and from then on the rest of your party takes half as well. It's part of that world's run, not something you keep: nothing permanent makes you better at the game.

Is the third badge the right time for the Exp. Share?

No two creatures are quite alike, and they grow by what they beat

Like the later games. Every wild creature, and your starter, has a nature: most raise one stat by a tenth and lower another, a few do neither. It also has potential, 0 to 31 in each stat, which your party screen grades S to D. Both are fixed for life, so a second Pidgey can be a better Pidgey. Beating a creature trains everyone who earns experience from it in the stat its species teaches: a Pidgey teaches Speed, an Onix Defense. That's up to 252 in a stat and 510 in all. Trainers' creatures have more potential the higher up the trainer: the Elite Four have the most.

Is this fun to chase, or too much to keep track of?

Swap creatures whenever you like, for a turn

Call one back and send another out. It costs your turn, like using an item, and the other side gets a free hit on whoever comes in.

Is a free hit on the newcomer too harsh?

Gym leaders and champions switch back

Gym leaders, everyone in a villain hideout or guarding a shrine, the Elite Four and Hall of Fame champions read your creature's type. If it hits theirs hard, they call it back for one that takes it better, and when one falls they send out whichever suits the fight. Their ace always comes out last. They see your switch a turn late, and they never guess: the same position gets the same answer. Route and gym trainers send theirs out in order.

Should ordinary trainers switch too, or is that best kept for the big fights?

Beating wild creatures pays a little

Three coins a level. Trainers are the real money, but once you've beaten them all there needs to be some way to afford balls again.

Is grinding wild creatures for coins something you'd do?

Poison, burns, paralysis, sleep and freeze last until they're cured

A creature has one at a time, and it carries it from battle to battle until a Centre, a cure from the bag or a berry fixes it. Fire types can't be burned, electric types can't be paralysed, and so on. Poison doesn't hurt between battles, because there's no walking. A sleeping or frozen creature is twice as easy to catch.

Should poison bite between battles, the way it did with every step in Red and Blue?

Growl, Swords Dance and Confuse Ray are in

Creatures learn their status moves as well as their attacks. Stat changes go up to six steps either way and wear off when it's called back. Confusion wears off after a few turns and sometimes makes it hit itself. Attacks like Bite can make the target flinch.

Do opponents using Growl and Tail Whip slow battles down too much?

One hit in 24 is a critical hit

A critical hit does half as much again, and ignores the attacker's lowered Attack, the target's raised Defense and any screen. Slash, Razor Leaf and the like land them one time in eight. This is the later games' rule; in Red and Blue fast creatures crit far more.

Do critical hits feel fair, or just random?

Recover, Rest, Giga Drain and Leech Seed are in

Recover and its like heal half your HP. Rest sleeps for two turns, cures whatever ailed it and wakes at full HP; hold a berry that cures sleep and it wakes at once. Draining moves heal half of what they deal, and Take Down and Double-Edge cost recoil. Leech Seed saps an eighth of the target's HP each turn for whoever is out on your side. Grass types can't be seeded. Dream Eater only works on a sleeping target. Stockpile stores up to three and toughens you as it does; Spit Up hits harder and Swallow heals more for each one stored, and both use them all up.

Does Recover make battles drag?

Screens and weather last five turns

Reflect halves physical damage to your side and Light Screen halves special, and they stay up if you swap. Rain powers up water moves and weakens fire ones, and harsh sun does the reverse. Sandstorm and hail chip everyone a sixteenth a turn, except rock, ground and steel types in sand and ice types in hail. Snow, from the newest games, hurts nobody but toughens ice types' Defense, and a sandstorm toughens rock types' Special Defense. Red and Blue had no weather, so in a Kanto world only abilities bring it. You can see it, too: rain falls, sand blows and snow drifts across the battle picture.

Would you build a team around weather?

Quick Attack goes first

Some moves jump the queue whatever the speed: Quick Attack, Extreme Speed, Aqua Jet. A few, like Roar and Counter, always go last. Between two moves of the same kind, the faster creature goes first, as ever. Prankster puts its user's status moves ahead.

Do quick moves make slow creatures worth using?

Fury Attack, Wrap and Hyper Beam work like the later games

Moves that hit two to five times hit two or three times most often, and each hit can crit. Wrap, Bind and Fire Spin trap the target for four or five turns, taking an eighth a turn. A trapped creature can't run or swap, but it can still fight, unlike in Red and Blue. Hyper Beam costs you the next turn to recharge.

Is trapping annoying or fun when it's done to you?

Every creature has an ability

Each has one of its species' usual abilities, and keeps it when it evolves. One wild creature in twenty has its species' hidden ability instead, and your party screen marks it. Levitate dodges ground moves, Intimidate lowers the other's Attack as it comes out, Swift Swim doubles speed in rain, Static may paralyse whoever hits it, and so on. When one does something, the battle says so. Your party screen says what each one does. Around two in three do something here. The rest are for exploring or double battles, which this game doesn't have. Abilities that care about the kind of move work as in the games: Static only triggers on moves that make contact, Iron Fist powers up punches, and Soundproof blocks sound moves. Opponents know your ability too: they won't throw an electric move at a Volt Absorb.

Is one in twenty the right rate for hidden abilities?

Teach a move back whenever you like

With four moves full, a new one gets skipped, but it isn't lost. From the bag, a creature can swap any move it knows for one it's learned by its level. The new move takes over whatever share of PP the old one had left, so swapping isn't a free heal.

Should relearning cost something, like the Move Reminder did?

By level, after a battle you win

Once a creature has reached its level, it evolves when the battle's over, one step at a time. It learns anything its new form learns at that level. A fainted creature waits for the next win, and nothing evolves after a loss.

Is waiting until after the battle the right moment?

Hold an Everstone to stay as you are

Shops sell the Everstone for 3,000 coins. While a creature holds it, it won't evolve by levelling up, and it's never used up. Take it back and the creature evolves after its next win. A stone or the Linking Cord still works on it, because using one is already your choice. Now and then a wild creature is found holding one.

Would you rather have a "don't evolve" button after each win?

Stones, as in the games

Pikachu needs a Thunder Stone, and the stone you choose decides whether Eevee becomes Vaporeon, Jolteon or Flareon. Use one on a creature from your bag. Shops sell stones from the third gym's town, at 3,000 each.

Is 3,000 about right for a stone?

Trade evolutions happen when you trade, or with a Linking Cord

Trade Kadabra, Machoke, Graveler or Haunter to a friend and it evolves as it arrives, unless it's holding an Everstone. With nobody to trade with, a Linking Cord from the shop does the same, the way a later game did it. It costs 8,000.

Would you trade a creature away just to evolve it, knowing you'd have to ask for it back?

Every hideout's boss leaves a stone behind

Clear a villain hideout and its boss drops an evolution item: one that evolves something you've got, if anything you've got needs one. It leaves a piece of held gear too (see Shops and items).

What else should bosses and gym leaders give you?

The first two towns never close; the rest open about two days in three

So you can always restock at the start. When a shop's open, it always has plain balls. Everything else is a coin toss, with better stock further into the map.

Fun to plan around, or just irritating?

Using an item in battle takes your turn

Same as the games: heal, and the other side still attacks. Outside battle, items are free to use on anyone in your party.

Which items do you want next: PP restores, Repels, something else?

Each creature holds one item

Give it from the bag, take it back whenever you're out of battle. Berries get eaten when they're needed, at half HP or the moment an ailment strikes. Now and then a wild creature is carrying a berry, and if you catch it, the berry comes too.

Should beating a wild creature that's holding something drop it?

Gear is earned, never bought

Every gym leader hands over the booster for their type, like Charcoal for fire, which makes those moves hit 20% harder. Every hideout boss leaves you Leftovers, a Quick Claw or a Focus Band, one you haven't got while there's one left. Very rarely a wild creature carries one. Like the Exp. Share, it all belongs to that world's run.

Is a type booster from every gym leader too generous?

Red and Blue's Safari rules

Your team never fights. Each turn you throw a ball, bait or a rock, or leave. Bait makes it stay but harder to catch; a rock makes it easier to catch but likelier to run. Fast creatures bolt often.

Were Safari rules fun or frustrating when you played the originals?

Two of the rarest live only in there

Before the caves pick their rares, the preserve takes two. In Kanto that's usually two of Chansey, Lapras, Ditto and Snorlax. If you want them in this world, the preserve is the only place.

Should the preserve have more, or different, creatures?

A legend that gets away can be earned back

Catch it or beat it and it's gone for good. If it runs or beats you, it watches you, and it'll face you again once you've proved yourself: 25 worthiness for a second try, 60 for a third, 120 each time after. Worthiness is what you do in the meantime: 1 per trainer beaten, 2 per new dex entry, 3 per hideout cleared, 5 per badge. Coins can't buy it. Your chances are yours alone, and a shrine's legend is six levels above that stretch's gym leader.

Too easy, too hard, or about right?

A wild legend fights half as hard again

Met at a shrine or roaming, a legend has half as much again in every stat except HP. The battle screen says so. Catch it and it loses that, and is only as strong as its level, so a caught legend doesn't break the rest of the game.

Should the aura be stronger, or cover HP too?

Beating a legend instead of catching it blesses your creature

Whichever creature lands the knockout is permanently 10% stronger in every stat. It's the one power-up training can't give you, so passing on the catch is a real choice.

Would you ever choose the blessing over the legend?

Your server picks its pace

Server admins choose one of four with /pace set. The map is about fifteen stretches, so every pace leaves slack for real life.

Standard is where every server starts. A new pace changes the stretches a day from tomorrow, and the season length from the next season, so nobody's season is cut short.

Which would your server pick?

You can join any day of a season

Ground somebody has already opened costs no day, so a latecomer can walk straight up to where everyone else is and catch up on the way.

Would you join a season that's nearly over, or wait for the next?

When a season ends, your world becomes yours

You get a private copy of the world you played, with your team, your box and your progress, and you can keep playing it forever at your own pace, with no daily limit. A reset is a graduation, not a wipe.

Would you actually go back and finish old worlds?

The same Elite Four in every region

Lorelei (Ice), Bruno (Fighting), Agatha (Ghost), Lance (Dragon) and the Champion (Normal) wait at the end of every world, whatever the region. Their teams change from world to world, but always come from that region, stick to their own type and are fully evolved and strong: no Ditto, no Delibird, no legendaries. When a region is short of a type, they bring a Haunter or Dragonair, or a second copy of something strong, the way Agatha had two Gengar.

Should the Champion bring a mixed team, like your rival did?

Your winning team enters the Hall of Fame

The team is saved exactly as it was when you won: every creature, level and move. Your server hears about it, a trophy goes on the back of your trainer card, and your team can turn up in other people's Elite Four rematches.

What should winning get you besides bragging rights?

After you win, real champions take the Elite Four's seats

Once a day you can run the Elite Four again, and other players' Hall of Fame teams sit in it, from any region: a Johto champion brings their Johto team into your Kanto world, with their exact creatures, levels and moves. Champions take the last seats; any seat left over keeps its original member. New faces tomorrow.

Would you rather fight your friends' teams or strangers'?

A leaderboard, for your server and for everyone

Five boards: maps won, total levels across every creature you own, legendaries caught, dex entries, and your record: trainer battles won, with losses beside them. You can see just your server, counting every season it has played, or everyone on the bot. The top three stand on a podium in their own clothes.

What else should be ranked?

Trade with anyone in your server

/trade offer @friend puts up one of yours, from your party or box. They answer with one of theirs using /trade answer, you accept, and they confirm, from /trade list. Until it's done or called off, both creatures wait on offer, out of your party. A traded creature arrives rested, but can't be traded on until its new owner heals at a Center, so nobody trades just to skip one. Your server hears about finished trades.

Four steps: careful enough, or too many?

Challenge a friend's team

/challenge @friend in your server asks them in the channel. If they take it on, you fight a copy of their team, played by the bot the way champions play: switching to suit the fight and saving their best for last. Your team walks in fit too, so there's no need to heal first. No items, and running means conceding. The result goes on both your win-loss records, with a tally between you two: "You lead 3–1." There's no experience or money in it.

Do you like that the bot plays their team, or would you always rather they played it?

Or battle them live

/challenge @friend live:True and, once they take it on, the two of you fight in the channel where anyone can watch. Each of you presses Pick your move for a screen only you see, and the turn plays out when you've both picked. You have two minutes a turn: if you haven't picked by then, you lose, and if neither of you has, it's called off. When one of yours faints, you choose who comes out next, and the battle waits on you. Otherwise it's a challenge like any other: both teams fit, no items, and it counts on both your records.

Is two minutes a turn about right?

A raid boss every week, brought down together

A week into the season, and every week after, something strong turns up in your server's world for the day: fully evolved, a little above the gym you should have reached by now, and never a legendary. It has HP enough for everyone playing. /raid shows it, and you can fight it three times with a fit copy of your team, so it costs you nothing. Whatever you knock off counts for everyone. When it falls, everyone who helped gets one throw at catching it: likely, but not certain. Catch it, and it joins you at the boss's level.

Would you rather have more fights at it, or better odds on the throw?

Each server picks what gets announced

By default it's only the big moments: a new season, someone opening the way to a new town, a legendary caught, a new Hall of Fame entry, the vote on the next region opening, and the week's raid turning up and going down. A server can turn it up. Normal adds gym badges, villain hideouts cleared, legends knocked out (and who got blessed), roaming legends spotted, rare catches, Elite Four rematches won, challenges won and trades. Chatty adds whole teams knocked out and uncommon catches. Any one of them can be switched on or off by itself.

Which would you want your server to hear about?

Dress how you like

Skin tone, hair colour, hairstyle (short, spiky, long, a ponytail or pigtails), shirt, and trousers, shorts or a skirt are free to change whenever you want. There's no boy or girl to pick: anyone can wear anything. On top of that you wear one hat, one outfit and one accessory, from what you've earned.

What would you want to wear that isn't here?

Earn the rest, and keep it forever

Nothing is for sale. A cap for your first badge, a hoodie for two, a backpack for three, a beanie for four and a champion's jacket for all eight. A bandana for clearing a hideout, glasses, a sun hat, a ranger vest and a lab coat as your dex fills, a scarf from a legend's blessing, a cape for the Hall of Fame, and a crown for beating a rematch full of champions. They carry over to every world and season.

Which achievement deserves something special we haven't thought of?

Everyone sees it

You stand on every area's picture, and if friends are in the same place they stand beside you. You step into battle from behind before sending your first creature out. And when you sit in someone's Elite Four rematch as a champion, you're wearing what you wear.

The card shows your win-loss record and your trophies now. What else should it show?

What should come next?

A feature you miss from the games, something that would bring your server together, or a rule you'd change.

If you could have one of these tomorrow, which?

Anything else?

A rule that bugs you, a favourite bit of the games we've left out, a name for the bot that isn't "Super Adventure Bot".

What would make you play every day?