Why can Peck hit ghost types, but not Horn Attack?

Anyone else have these kinds of moments that they just...don't understand the explanation behind? Like, Peck for a Nidoran is probably the same as Horn Attack (both using the horn), yet one has no effect on ghosts while the other does.

also entei

It is said that when it roars, a volcano erupts somewhere around the globe.

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Yet it can't learn Earthquake, but something like Chansey can? :( logiccc

Definitely some quality control issues at Gamefreak studios

With Peck, the Nido is embodying the spirit of the bird, and birds can hurt ghosts, duh.

Probably because having ghosts be immune to physical attacks as a whole - as would make sense - would be extremely OP.

So they had to sacrifice in-game consistency for balancing issues and just picked the two types that would make more sense for it to be immune.

If you really need a Wattsonian explanation, Pokedream's work. If you see the anime, moves like Peck will often have the Pokémon's beak shining a bright light during the attack.

You could argue they're gathering energies and Ghosts aren't immune to that kind of energy.

Pokémon logic

Circus said:

Probably because having ghosts be immune to physical attacks as a whole - as would make sense - would be extremely OP.

So they had to sacrifice in-game consistency for balancing issues and just picked the two types that would make more sense for it to be immune.

If you really need a Wattsonian explanation, Pokedream's work. If you see the anime, moves like Peck will often have the Pokémon's beak shining a bright light during the attack.

You could argue they're gathering energies and Ghosts aren't immune to that kind of energy.

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As someone who watches the anime, I'm a little surprised I didn't think of that. Makes sense if they're gathering energy vs normal attacks where the mons just plainly tackle/scratch/etc. This will be my headcannon from now on 👍

Fritz said:

Pokémon logic

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lmao
A+

Pokemon and Logic just don't mix together well, I just accept it and vibe xD

i think i was just talking on stream about the peck and horn attack thing the other day lmao. yeah it doesn't make sense. esp with like nidoran-m where he gets both moves and he's gotta be using the same horn to perform both peck and horn attack so like ? how does one hit ghosts and the other not? we love logic here

also pokemon that are obviously levitating but don't have the levitate ability so they're doomed to be hit by ground moves lol never made sense to me there either.

it's interesting how different horn attacks do different things to ghosts.

horn attack doesn't affect ghosts, peck does, meawhile meganhorn isn't very effective against them.

When it comes to things like the difference between Peck, Horn Attack, and Megahorn, I believe that Pokedream and Circus are actually correct, and that the actual answer has to do with something called "Infinity Energy" which is mentioned in the later games and/or the anime. A move like Peck, even though on paper it might sound like it's doing nothing more in practice than "poke the opponent with a sharp thing," is in fact charged with Flying-type Infinity Energy, whereas Megahorn is an attack charged with Bug-type Infinity energy. I'm not clear on the details of this, but that's the impression I've gotten.

When it comes to what Pokemon learn what moves, the real answer, of course, is that Game Freak doesn't have time to examine a chart of every Pokemon versus every move to check that there are no "obvious" pairings that they have overlooked; they just need to hope that every case of an off-type move being highly appropriate for a certain Pokemon gets noticed by somebody somewhere down the line. It would be nice if they did, but I can understand why ain't nobody got time for that.

My favourite case of a Pokemon not learning a move that it really should, is the fact that Drowzee and Hypno do not learn Dream Eater by level up. They can learn it by TM in every game in which Dream Eater is a TM, but they should really learn it by level up as well; of the 898 Pokemon, nevermind the first 150, Drowzee should be #1 on a list of Pokemon that can learn a move called "Dream Eater."

There are a few amusing ones here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WV_fqgVXvW4 😄

Regarding one specific thing from that video, the fact that Levitate continues to protect against Earthquake even when the Pokemon is using Dig, strikes me as exactly the kind of thing that Game Freak would program around - it's frankly right up there with Earthquake being able to affect Pokemon using Dig in the first place - but I assume they just haven't gotten around to noticing it.