[quote=Imperfectionist]
Hmm. Making Pokemon battles realistic in a satisfying manner is... very problematic, now that I think about it.Mostly, what it seems to me that would do is make types of Pokemon completely unbalanced. Psychics have already been mentioned and the nerf discussed, but what about Electric, or Fighting, or (god forbid) something like Onix or Steelix? How superpowerful do we make them? If they're all completely nerfed, it, ironically, makes the setting less realistic...So, are we more married to realism, or to "fairness" in Pokemon battles?
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I'd say a balance of the both, but the most powerful moves are simply impossible in this, which might make nerfs kind of natural. Non-legendary Pokemon aren't really capable of creating Earthquakes, nor can they summon thunderbolts from the sky. As far as elemental attacks go, we're talking about the elemental power equivalent of perhaps a Charizard breathing a plume of flame, generally speaking, as an upper-middle level of what they can do. Yes, the fire would suck, but they won't completely incapacitate battle ready Pokemans, and so we could say the same for most elemental moves. I imagine elements will primarily be used as augments to physical combat, on the whole. Fightings are therefore balanced by not having an elemental boost (generally) and are forced to outmanoeuvre or simply overpower the opposition. Flying Pokemon will generally be fragile but have the advantage of being airborne, forcing the opponent to defend and counter well. A lot of this stuff balances itself to my mind.

To be honest, the main reason for sorting this out beforehand is just to guarantee that nobody dickstorms in with a Pikachu and brings Ragnarok down upon us being all "But he learns thunder though". Fortunately, I trust that players in this won't just dickstorm and so balance and fairness will reign anyway. The idea isn't to prescribe every possible action and let the players choose: it's to make sure the players know roughly how this will work and let them be creative with it.

Imagine Onyx and Steelix would, indeed, but horrifying monsters to battle. On the plus side, their enormousness will probably make them rare in the wild, and so they hopefully won't turn up. If worst comes to worst, go for the eyes. :P

Not all Manz are made equal. Onyx and Steelix would be a solid choice for a Trainer if they could train one (doubtful, but hey) and probably steamroller untactical opponents while Sunkern doesn't really have anything to fight with, limbwise. Some Pokemon will be more suited to the battle aspects of this RP than others.