PP

Revision as of 00:30, 9 May 2005 by Coppro (talk | contribs) (links)

Power points, or PP for short, are the energy that a Pokémon requires in order to perform a move.

Each move has a set number of Power points. Under the PP system, a move starts out with PP values of 1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, or 40. Up to 3 PP Ups can be applied to each move, and each PP Up increases increases the moves maximum PP by 20% of its original value (except if the move has 1 PP, in which case it has no effect). In Generation I and Generation II, the maximum PP values for moves that have base PP values of 40 is 61; this was increased to 64 in Generation III. Typically, the stronger or more desirable a move is (as compared to other moves), the lower its maximum PP. When used, PP is not deducted from the moves Shadow Rush and Struggle, effectively giving them infinte PP.

Once a move runs out of PP, it can no longer be selected as an attack. After the PP of all of a Pokémon's moves has run out, the Pokémon will have to revert to Struggle. In Generation I, this could be bypassed by allowing the game to automatically use a move to attack, which can happen to any attack if a pokémon attacks immediately after being defrosted, or to a handful of moves (Bind, Clamp, Fire Spin, Hyper Beam, Metronome, Mimic, and Wrap) because of the autoselection involved with partial trapping moves (if a move is used when it has 0 PP, it will afterwards obtain a current PP count of 63, and full PP ups will be applied to it). Starting in Generation II, a check was added to see if a move has 0 PP when executed, as well as selected.

Outside of battle, Hidden Machines may be used even if the current PP of the HM move is 0.

Elixirs and Ethers restore a move's PP, and a visit to any Pokémon Center will replenish PP to its maximum value.

Power points, like many other game mechanics, are absent in the Anime and Manga. The Trading Card Game, however, employs a system similar to the games, which requires a certain number of Energy cards to be attached to a Pokémon before it can perform a move.