Making Attacks
Whenever you attempt to make an attack, you must make an Accuracy Roll, and to hit, this roll must meet or exceed the Accuracy Check.
An Accuracy Roll is always simply 1d20, but is modified by the user’s Accuracy and by certain Moves and other effects. Note that modifiers to Accuracy Rolls do not affect effects from Moves that occur upon specific dice results, or that increase Critical Hit range. For example, if you use Flamethrower with an Accuracy Bonus of +4 and roll a 16 on d20 before adding 4, this would neither be a Critical Hit, nor inflict a Burn.
Note that a roll of 1 is always a miss, even if Accuracy modifiers would cause the total roll to hit. Similarly, a roll of 20 is always a hit.
An Accuracy Check is the number an Accuracy Roll needs to meet or exceed to hit. It’s determined first taking the Move’s base AC and adding the target’s Evasion.
For example, if using Earthquake, which has an Accuracy Check of 2, against an opponent with a Physical Evasion of +4, you would need to roll a 6 or higher on your Accuracy Roll to hit the target.
A target can willingly choose to be hit by a Move that would hit when their Evasion is not applied – the user of the Move must still meet the Move’s base AC.
Attacks vs Moves
Attack is a broad category of action that includes: Struggles, Moves, Combat Maneuvers, some Ability activations (i.e., Pack Hunt), and certain Items (i.e., Pester Balls). All Moves are Attacks. Struggle is an Attack, but is not a Move. Effects that refer to Moves specifically cannot interact with Struggle. Orders are not Attacks.
DEALING DAMAGE When an attack hits, you apply any effects of the attack to the target, including damage. When rolling Damage, check the attack’s Damage Base. This number serves as a guide for an attack’s strength, which translates to a specific amount of damage. Many effects, such as Same Type Attack Bonus or STAB for short may alter the Damage Base of Moves. After applying all modifiers that alter Damage Base, see the corresponding Actual Damage in the Damage Chart on the right. This is the roll (or number) to which you add your Attack or Special Attack Stat. After you have added your appropriate Attack Stat to the Actual Damage of the attack, add any additional modifiers that may apply. The target then subtracts the appropriate Defense Stat. Physical Attacks have Defense subtracted from them; Special Attacks have Special Defense subtracted from them. If the target has Damage Reduction, that is subtracted as well. An attack will always do a minimum of 1 damage, even if Defense Stats would reduce it to 0. After defenses and damage reduction have been applied, apply Type Weaknesses or Resistances. A Super-Effective hit will deal x1.5 damage. A Doubly Super-Effective hit will deal x2 damage. Rare Triply-Effective Hits will deal x3 damage. A Resisted Hit deals 1/2 damage; a doubly Resisted hit deals 1/4th damage. A rare triply-Resisted hit deals 1/8th damage. See the Type Effectiveness Chart on page 238 to see how Pokémon Types match up against each other. Same Type Attack Bonus
If a Pokémon uses a damaging Move with which it shares a Type, the Damage Base of the Move is increased by +2. This is referred to as ‘STAB’ for short. If a Move has rolled damage and shares a type with the attacker, always add the +2 damage bases from STAB after all other modifications. Do not add STAB in any of the following situations:
a) the Attack is not a Move - i.e., it is a Struggle Attack
b) the Move does not match the attacker's Type - this includes Typeless Trainers not receiving STAB on Normal Moves
c) the Move does not have a rolled Damage Base - i.e., Night Shade Hit Point Loss
Effects that say “loses Hit Points” or that set Hit Points to a certain value instead of “deals damage” do not have Defensive Stats applied to these Hit Point changes nor cause Injuries from Massive Damage. Critical Hits
On an Accuracy Roll of 20, a damaging attack is a Critical Hit. A Critical Hit adds the Damage Dice Roll a second time to the total damage dealt, but does not add Stats a second time; for example, a DB6 Move Crit would be 4d6+16+Stat, or 30+Stat going by set damage. Some Moves or effects may cause increased critical ranges, making Critical Hits possible on Accuracy Rolls lower than 20. Some effects may also increase Critical Hit range; if an effect increases Critical Hit Range by 4 for example, on most moves this would indicate a Critical Hit on accuracy rolls of 16-20. Note that increased Critical Hit ranges are not counted as an effect, and do not trigger Serene Grace or Sheer Force. Injuries
If an attack deals enough damage, it might cause an Injury! Generally, this happens when an attack deals Massive Damage, or damage equal to or greater than 50% of a target’s maximum Hit Points, or when a target is reduced to a certain Hit Point Marker: 50% of their maximum Hit Points, 0%, -50%, -100%, and every -50% thereafter. For more details on Injuries,, their effects, and recovery, see page 250. Tick of Hit Points: Some effects use this term. A Tick of Hit Points is equal to 1/10th of someone’s maximum Hit Points. A Tick Value is what that amount is.
DEALING DAMAGE When an attack hits, you apply any effects of the attack to the target, including damage. When rolling Damage, check the attack’s Damage Base. This number serves as a guide for an attack’s strength, which translates to a specific amount of damage. Many effects, such as Same Type Attack Bonus or STAB for short may alter the Damage Base of Moves. After applying all modifiers that alter Damage Base, see the corresponding Actual Damage in the Damage Chart on the right. This is the roll (or number) to which you add your Attack or Special Attack Stat. After you have added your appropriate Attack Stat to the Actual Damage of the attack, add any additional modifiers that may apply. The target then subtracts the appropriate Defense Stat. Physical Attacks have Defense subtracted from them; Special Attacks have Special Defense subtracted from them. If the target has Damage Reduction, that is subtracted as well. An attack will always do a minimum of 1 damage, even if Defense Stats would reduce it to 0. After defenses and damage reduction have been applied, apply Type Weaknesses or Resistances. A Super-Effective hit will deal x1.5 damage. A Doubly Super-Effective hit will deal x2 damage. Rare Triply-Effective Hits will deal x3 damage. A Resisted Hit deals 1/2 damage; a doubly Resisted hit deals 1/4th damage. A rare triply-Resisted hit deals 1/8th damage. See the Type Effectiveness Chart on page 238 to see how Pokémon Types match up against each other. Same Type Attack Bonus
If a Pokémon uses a damaging Move with which it shares a Type, the Damage Base of the Move is increased by +2. This is referred to as ‘STAB’ for short. If a Move has rolled damage and shares a type with the attacker, always add the +2 damage bases from STAB after all other modifications. Do not add STAB in any of the following situations:
a) the Attack is not a Move - i.e., it is a Struggle Attack
b) the Move does not match the attacker's Type - this includes Typeless Trainers not receiving STAB on Normal Moves
c) the Move does not have a rolled Damage Base - i.e., Night Shade Hit Point Loss
Effects that say “loses Hit Points” or that set Hit Points to a certain value instead of “deals damage” do not have Defensive Stats applied to these Hit Point changes nor cause Injuries from Massive Damage. Critical Hits
On an Accuracy Roll of 20, a damaging attack is a Critical Hit. A Critical Hit adds the Damage Dice Roll a second time to the total damage dealt, but does not add Stats a second time; for example, a DB6 Move Crit would be 4d6+16+Stat, or 30+Stat going by set damage. Some Moves or effects may cause increased critical ranges, making Critical Hits possible on Accuracy Rolls lower than 20. Some effects may also increase Critical Hit range; if an effect increases Critical Hit Range by 4 for example, on most moves this would indicate a Critical Hit on accuracy rolls of 16-20. Note that increased Critical Hit ranges are not counted as an effect, and do not trigger Serene Grace or Sheer Force. Injuries
If an attack deals enough damage, it might cause an Injury! Generally, this happens when an attack deals Massive Damage, or damage equal to or greater than 50% of a target’s maximum Hit Points, or when a target is reduced to a certain Hit Point Marker: 50% of their maximum Hit Points, 0%, -50%, -100%, and every -50% thereafter. For more details on Injuries,, their effects, and recovery, see page 250. Tick of Hit Points: Some effects use this term. A Tick of Hit Points is equal to 1/10th of someone’s maximum Hit Points. A Tick Value is what that amount is.
Putting this all together, the process for calculating damage is as follows: 1. Find initial Damage Base
2. Apply Five/Double-Strike
3. Add Damage Base modifiers (ex: STAB) for final Damage Base
4. Modify damage roll for Critical Hit if applicable
5. Roll damage or use set damage
6. Add relevant attack stat and other bonuses
7. Subtract relevant defense stat and damage reduction
8. Apply weakness and resistance multipliers.
9. Subtract final damage from target’s Hit Points and check for Injuries or KO.
ROLLED DAMAGE
| Damage Base | Actual Damage |
| 1 | 1d6+1 |
| 2 | 1d6+3 |
| 3 | 1d6+5 |
| 4 | 1d8+6 |
| 5 | 1d8+8 |
| 6 | 2d6+8 |
| 7 | 2d6+10 |
| 8 | 2d8+10 |
| 9 | 2d10+10 |
| 10 | 3d8+10 |
| 11 | 3d10+10 |
| 12 | 3d12+10 |
| 13 | 4d10+10 |
| 14 | 4d10+15 |
| 15 | 4d10+20 |
| 16 | 5d10+20 |
| 17 | 5d12+25 |
| 18 | 6d12+25 |
| 19 | 6d12+30 |
| 20 | 6d12+35 |
| 21 | 6d12+40 |
| 22 | 6d12+45 |
| 23 | 6d12+50 |
| 24 | 6d12+55 |
| 25 | 6d12+60 |
| 26 | 7d12+65 |
| 27 | 8d12+70 |
| 28 | 8d12+80 |