[System] Experience, Happiness, and Leveling Up

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Experience Gain

Here, experience gain is a relatively simple process. When a Pokémon is defeated, the victor gains experience equivalent to that of the defeated opponent's level. So, if a level 15 is defeated, 15 experience is gained. A level 45 would give 45, etc. Simple enough, right? Well, if multiple Pokémon help in defeating their opponent, the experience will be divided between them as best it can be. If there is no way to evenly divide it, the largest portion will go to the Pokémon of the lowest level. So, if 3 Pokémon participate in a battle against a level 30, then they will each gain 10 exp. If it were 4 Pokémon instead, the two higher levels will gain 7 exp. while the remaining lower leveled ones will gain 8.

A Pokémon may also gain experience if they participate in a battle in which a wild Pokémon is caught. The experience gained will be that of half the exp. they would have earned if they were to have defeated it. Catching a level 12 will heed 6 while a level 13 will give 7, as odd numbers are rounded as a result.

There are items and conditions that will help alter this method in a Trainer's favor after a battle (It should be noted that these boosters are NOT considered when it comes to Training Topics). The Experience Share can be used to distribute a portion of exp. to the entire active team after a battle (more on that below). A Lucky Egg will make the exp. gained toward the Pokémon holding it multiplied 150%. If this results in a decimal number, it will be rounded to the nearest whole.

Finally, a Pokémon that has an Original Trainer that is not the Trainer currently in ownership of it  will also gain 150% more exp. This can be coupled with the Lucky Egg. However, if it is receiving Exp. Share exp. from the party, this multiplier will not be counted. It must have participated in the battle for the multiplier to be effective. Pokémon not with their Original Trainer will often rebel because of their superior growth, though.

Experience Share

The Experience Share is a rare item that can be used to help train a Pokémon team quicker. If a character is in possession of this item, at the start of a battle they may indicate that they have it switched on. This MUST be noted at the beginning of a battle or else the Exp. Share will be considered unused. It cannot be used with Training Topics, only battles. When in use, the Exp. Share will reward half of the gained exp. (rounded in the instance of a decimal) to the active team members that did not participate in battle. Those that did participate will gain whatever they would have with the system explained above.

If the participant gained 20 exp., then the team gains 10. If two Pokémon participating in battle gained 12 each, the rest of the team will only gain 6 (we are aware that this is different than the in-game exp. share, this is a means of still encouraging battle participation, the team members will never gain the same amount of exp. as those that actually battled). Pretty simple, right?

[Avaritia]

Happiness

Happiness gain, just like exp., is a relatively simple process to grasp. In order for your Pokémon to gain Happiness, they must either participate in a battle or in a training topic. The latter will be explained down below in the Training Topic section, but the former is the most common. Simply put, a Pokémon will gain 10 Happiness for every Pokémon it defeats in battle. However, it will lose 20 Happiness if it is fainted in battle. If multiple Pokémon are used against a single opponent, all that helped in the defeat of a single other Pokémon  will gain 10 Happiness if they all remain unfainted and the opponent is defeated. This caps out after 3 Pokémon are used, however, so only the first three used against that certain Pokémon will gain Happiness. The Pokémon that did not gain Happiness may still do so if they defeat the opponent's next Pokémon.

When a Pokémon's Happiness reaches 150, it is considered to be at max Happiness. At this point, it will no longer gain Happiness after success in battle and cannot move beyond this number. If it were to lose in battle, however, it will still lose its 20 Happiness and no longer be maxed out, making it need to defeat two opponents in order for it to regain its full Happiness stat. Pokémon that require friendship to evolve will do so once their Happiness stat is maxed out.

If a Pokémon is traded, its Happiness will be wiped to zero once it gains a new trainer regardless of what its Happiness was with its old one. Even if traded back to its old owner, the Pokémon will still have no Happiness, so keep this in mind!

There are two buffs to Happiness, both of which have to do with what the Pokémon may be caught in. If caught in a Friend Ball, the Pokémon will start off with 20 Happiness instead of 0. If it's caught in a Luxury Ball, it will start with 30 Happiness. Both of these balls also cut the Happiness loss from fainting from 20 to 10.

Happiness Evolution

Pokémon that evolve through Happiness will do so after leveling up with a Happiness at 120+. Other requirements, if necessary, will also be taken into account, such as if it needs to be daytime out. It's as simple as that! Once a Happiness evolution takes place, it is permanent regardless of if the Pokemon's Happiness lowers after the fact.

[Avaritia]

Leveling Up

Leveling up requires gaining exp., which was covered above. In order for a Pokémon to level up, it must gain exp. equal to that of its own current level. Thus, a level 3 would need to gain 3 exp., a level 67 would need 67, etc. Pretty simple, right? Good! If a Pokémon happens to gain exp. beyond that of its current level, it may even level up beyond just one time. In the case of a Training Topic giving 15 exp. to a level 4, that level 4 will then grow to level 7 (15-4=11, 11-5=6, 6-6=0; this results in it leveling to 7). If such a number results in an overflow of exp., that will be left as a remainder.

Training Topics

A Training Topic is an alternate means of gaining exp. and Happiness. This is done through writing descriptively and focusing on training a Pokémon. Please be aware that just posting for story and saying it counts as a Training Topic will NOT work. You must clearly state it as training at the start of the post, and it must focus on actual training of Pokémon. Before I move on to what constitutes training, I'll explain how these posts work:

In a Training Topic (which CAN be a post rather than a topic, it's just what we call them), every 10 written words count as 1 exp. point. Thus, the relevant word count divided by 10 will give the amount of exp. gained. If this results in a decimal, it will be rounded to the nearest whole. Similarly, at 100 words, 10 Happiness will be gained. This does not function like exp., however. It will take 200 words to gain 20 Happiness, and only writing 60 words will give no Happiness at all. 130 will only give 10. If multiple Pokemon are involved, it will be split as evenly as possible, but maintaining steps of 10. If 50 Happiness is gained for two Pokemon, the least happy will gain 30 and the most happy will gain 20.

Now then, because this is a function of word count, we are rather picky with what counts as relevant to the training. The following are things that won't be counted toward the word count of a training topic:

• Describing setting up the training or the lead up to it. This is not training itself and will not be counted.
  
• Over-use of dialogue and description. Describing the effort, feeling, and effect of the battle is fine, but if you're spending a paragraph describing what the ground the Pokémon are currently battling on is like, it will not be counted. Some dialogue like commands can be counted, but if your character is suddenly giving a speech about how hard working their Pokémon are for training just for the sake of making your word count larger, it will not be counted.
  
• The after-effects and cleanup from training, just like the setup, is not the training itself and will not be counted.
  

You may be creative with your Training Topics, and can describe an NPC or Pokémon appearing for a battle in order to describe a battle in training (Though the description of this NPC appearing and their challenge will not be counted toward training, as mentioned above). If you go with this route, the battle will not yield the exp./Happiness from a battle itself and rely solely on exp./Happiness gained from a Training Topic. If you make it a battle against a wild Pokémon, you CANNOT decide to capture it. It is only there for the sake of training. Similarly, you can't have a trainer NPC you've made for Training turn around and give you items or money... it's all just there for training. Using an NPC isn't required, and you're free to describe your Pokémon battling each other, working on Contest appeal of their moves, or anything else pertaining to training that you can think of!

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