"the big guns"

How many "main characters" (ie Pokémon you like to keep at roughly the same power) do you put in an average playthrough and how does that affect your experience?

For example, I usually have 6 "main" characters that I keep at the same level, so that usually results in me being extremely underleveled by the time I go to the 8th gym. Annnnnnnd grinding.

i always have 6. the only time i struggled was with black, because i couldnt find a sixth i like. but i usually tend to manage to have them at pretty decent levels for each gym without having to grind

If i go with bugs...and plan to do a playthrough with a full party (of bugs) -- meaning i beat elite four with equally-leveled ones. I do trades for that extra EXP boost. No kidding, it's tough as hell most of the time. For some other cases, a 6-party non-traded, underleveled party is also okay. But that means I'd have to cover a few blind areas such as keeping Ice, Psychic, Fighting, or Electric type moves so I won't have much of a struggle end-game.

But most of the time, beating the game with 3 pokemon is good enough. Rest could be anything -- from eggs to HM slaves to pokemon I'd want to experiment with.

It actually heavily depends on the gen. More often than not though I'll have three by Gym 4, four or five by the game's climax (excluding gen 5) and five or six by the Elite Four depending on what my team formed into.

It depends on the game, but most of the time I have 6 main Pokemon in my team however I'm not really under leveled, I grind a lot whenever I can! ... The only games I've never had to have a full roster of 6 Pokemon is Diamond (4) and Pearl (5) which resulted with me being over leveled really.

I usually go with 6. BW2 was the only exception, where I only raised 4.

My first time playing the game always results in 5 main Pokés and one HM slave. During the second play through, it depends on what game I'm playing. When playing games like Emerald and HeartGold that have three water-type HMs, I'll have five main Pokés and a water-type HM slave (usually red Gyarados in Johto lol), and in games like the 5th Gen. versions where HMs aren't needed that often and Audino allows for easy level grinding, I'll have a full team of main Pokés, with an occasional HM slave making a cameo. Anything goes once I start the post-game, my number of main Pokés varies.

droomph said:

How many "main characters" (ie Pokémon you like to keep at roughly the same power) do you put in an average playthrough...?

Click to expand...

Dozens.

Right at the moment, in Black 2, I've got 28 in my main box and the six on my team, so 34 total. I'd potentially have even more than that, but I'm close to filling that box, and I don't really want to expand out to two "first string" boxes, so I've been dropping some down to auxiliary boxes along the way.

...and how does that affect your experience?

Click to expand...

To me, it makes it more fun. I love using lots of different pokemon and lots of different strategies, and get bored if I just keep using the same few over and over.

For instance, earlier today I got to Victory Road and met N, so I got the Waterfall TM. I went through Route 23 with a premier traveling team - Crobat, Scrafty, Excadrill, Vaporeon, Leavanny and Chandelure. But since I'm going to go back now and explore all the waterfalls I passed up, I'm going to swap in Azumarill and build a different team around him. Probably take Swanna, since she's got both Surf and Fly already, and I'll want a Psychic since Swanna's a bit weak and can't handle all the Fighters on her own (and that'll probably be Reuniclus). Yeah, and put Krookodile in the Ground slot, and he can handle Dark duties too. Take a fast Fighter - probably Mienfoo (who's pretty close to evolving). And since I'll be spending a lot of time on water, I'll want an Electric or a Grass - probably an Electric, since I'm going to have two Waters along to handle Grounds and Rocks. I could use some bulk, so Magnezone would be good. And boom - there's an entirely new team, with an entirely different set of pokemon, for an entirely different purpose. And when I get done doing that, I'll put together another team for whatever I'm going to do next. That, to me, is fun.

Depends, but I'd say around 4 "main" Pokemon. Which tends to screw me over in the long run, but meh. I'm too lazy otherwise.

Back in Gen I it was usually a one-man-army for me. But That god harder as the games got harder and now i usually have about 4 'big guns' and a few HM slaves in the team. Only rule is that there must be a Fighting type and a Steel type in the team. So whenever i can i get Lucario cos he covers both of these.

Diamond: My first game, and I made the mistake of having 7 team members. It was disappointing having to constantly box a family member behind.

Soulsilver: 6. I paced out how slowly I added team members, with my 4th team member being added after having 3 gym badges, 5th member being added as the Gyarados from the Lake of Rage, and 6th member being right before the 8th gym.

White: I purposely only caught 5 pokemon, that way I could use Zekrom against N without leaving anyone behind.

Black2: I made the mistake of only having a team of 4. I thought that having less pokemon would make the game more challenging, but it resulted in my pokemon being higher levels.