Four Moves Limit?

I've been wondering about this for a while. Obviously, it's a game mechanics. I'm not too familiar with the anime to know if they keep the same rule or how they justify it...So. What do people here use to justify it? What do you think of just throwing it out of the window and have the pokemon use any kind of moves they know ala a fight in the real world?

(And as I type this, I realize that I can probably just not mention the limit at all and just have the pokemon use certain moves...but four is still too weird of a limit)

It could be an interesting mechanic to have pokemon in your fic only able to learn four moves, but I've honestly never heard of anyone going that route before. It would probably be too tedious, and possibly boring.

I justify it with a neurological explanation, interestingly enough, in my last chapter.

My fic said:

It's rather interesting: every Pokémon has in their brain what is known as the technical cortex. This controls what Pokémon can and can't learn as moves. The restriction of four moves simultaneously is common to all Pokémon, and explains why an Alakazam, despite being able to remember a series of thousands of shapes without effort, will fail miserably in an attempt to know five moves.

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Myself what I take it as, is that Pokemon can learn the moves naturally or through parenting. Now this doesn't mean a Charmander can use fire blast, but that if it really did, a small burst of flame would occur. Now once it is properly trained and even a full fledged Charizard, that it could properly make a fire blast. Thus I believe that a Pokemon, would know, or recall all moves that is poignant to their being, but only be capable of using them with proper training and the right maturity.

Crowind said:

I'm not too familiar with the anime to know if they keep the same rule or how they justify it...

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Anime also has the Pokemon know only four moves.

I'm a follower of the "know more than four moves" camp. I don't see a reason to hold the "four moves only" idea over into fanfiction, since the games only allow four moves due to data restrictions (in the beginning at least). So, I guess you can say that I break canon because I don't like it.

That's my reason why the Pokemon that I write about use more than four moves. Because I also like the strategies that can be thought up with a combination of the right moves that could be lost if a Pokemon forgets how to ram into an opponent at the right speed. (There could be, in the anime-style battles, a reason to use the lesser-powered Tackle than a Take Down.)

I also do what Feign does. A Pokemon has to work their way up from an Ember to a Fire Blast through training.

In my fic, Pokémon can know any number of moves, but to promote strategy and prevent the rich from just teaching their Pokémon twenty TMs to have a move for every possible situation, the Pokémon League restricts each Pokémon to using only four moves in any individual battle. It ends up having quite a different strategic significance than the four-move restriction in the games (instead of picking four moves for the Pokémon beforehand, the trainer just has to make sure to stick with the moves he's already used once he's ordered four different ones from the same Pokémon, and there are whole strategies revolving around tempting the other trainer to waste a move slot), but I've gotten the general impression people enjoy the implementation.

I'd hate to argue with such a sexy mod, but the anime actually doesn't really acknowledge silly things like "game rules." For example, Prima's Cloyster used five moves in the course of the last fifteen minutes of her episode. Not only that, but the anime never seems to be consistent about which moves Ash's Pikachu knows to the point where in the first season, it seems like he knows half his available movepool.

As for how I deal with it personally, I tend to also deal with it the way Astinus and Feign do it, to be honest. But it's usually never mentioned. I tend to limit how many moves I show a Pokémon using in part because the characters who are battlers don't rely on just one member of their team and the ones who aren't tend to rely on only a handful of moves. Even if I do mention a Pokémon who knows over four moves, usually, unless it's a one-shot, there's enough material that the reader most likely doesn't notice.

In other words, my word of advice is if you're writing a longer chaptered work, unless you're trying to make a challenge for yourself, you can really get away with that kind of thing, I think.

I guess this is the one canon everyone is okay to break. Thank you for your advice, guys, I really appreciate your quick responses.

Crowind said:

I guess this is the one canon everyone is okay to break.

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Well, I wouldn't exactly call it breaking because the precedence is in the anime (which most people tend to borrow from in general anyway), but sure.

The four-move "rule" is really just a game mechanic, same as the one-or-two typing rather than three, which would make far more real-world sense but simply would overcomplicate an already complicated and delicate system.

I'll probably limit myself to four or even less moves in my upcoming fanfic, but only because I intend to focus more on characters and ideas rather than battling.

Valentine said:

I'd hate to argue with such a sexy mod, but the anime actually doesn't really acknowledge silly things like "game rules." For example, Prima's Cloyster used five moves in the course of the last fifteen minutes of her episode. Not only that, but the anime never seems to be consistent about which moves Ash's Pikachu knows to the point where in the first season, it seems like he knows half his available movepool.

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I dunno. When I checked Bulbapedia because I was sure that the anime doesn't use the "four-attack limit" (since my fic is based on the anime, so I follow that canon, and I know that's what they use"), all the Pokemon that I checked used only four moves recently, according to how Bulbapedia is written. So the Pokemon know the all the moves, but they only use four at a time.

I dunno. Maybe Bulbapedia is written by a collective bunch of lying sacks.

Or maybe the humans of the Pokemon world are the ones who can only know four moves.

Astinus said:

Or maybe the humans of the Pokemon world are the ones who can only know four moves.

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Lol probably that one XD

I think Ash usually has Pikachu these attacks, like thunderbolt, quick attack, iron tail and thunder.

He doesn't use thundershock anymore though I don't think.

Ash's Pikachu recently used Thunderbolt, Quick Attack, Iron Tail, and Volt Tackle. I haven't seen the anime in years, but those are the attacks that Ash told Pikachu to use in recent episodes.

Ah, Volt tackle that was the one I forgot. Unless, could it have replaced thunder? I too can't remember XD

I haven't seen him use thunder in a while.

I'm a follower of the "know more than four moves" camp. I don't see a reason to hold the "four moves only" idea over into fanfiction, since the games only allow four moves due to data restrictions (in the beginning at least). So, I guess you can say that I break canon because I don't like it.

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Agreed. In fact, I personally don't really have a move system. The pokémon just kind of do what would stem naturally from their body structures, abilities, typing, and so forth. There are a few "canon moves" used from time to time, but they're more or less Easter eggs: I've only called one or two moves by their actual names, to put things into perspective.

I also do the "scaled strength" thing, where pokémon need to fight or train for a while before they become better battlers. In my case, though, it's more a matter of body/mind building and increased ingenuity than "holy crap, I just learned a new move!"

Long story short, I take the realistic approach to pokémon battles.

my idea, 'IF a RYHORN can not RAM something, then it is useless and there for not needed.' now for a longer version, 'If a pokemon cant remember how to run into some one, then it is a fracken retard. Really, I just want you to run into that thing and make it fall down, then I want you to do a point blank "X" attack. Not asking for Imortality here!'

Four move limit is stupid, Really, if they had enough memory to put TWO regions in one really old game card thing, then why cant they learn more than four moves!?

Four moves is also part of the game strategy now, not just memory limits (although this was probably a major reason in R/B). If you prefer that kind of strategy, then the four move limit works well.

Of course, you could have the four move limit, but still allow Pokémon to use attacks that their bodies allow for, like ramming, pecking, swooping, etc., so it's like an expanded version. (This is what I do.)

ha ha. No. I don't think on my fan fiction I can have my pokemon having four moves. But incorporating that in a storyline, you might have to give a reason why. This goes for why trainers can't have more than six pokemon. That's just me though. Someone pointed it out on fiction press before.

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