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Pokemon Non-Physical Interaction Additions

Elizhaa

VS Battles
Administrator
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I have been thinking about giving pokemon Non-physical Interaction. All pokemon, in general, can hit non-corporeal/intangibles entities like Ghosts Type with special moves. As far as I know, I know, only physical attacks from fight/normal type don't work but everything else works. It could be Game Mechanics because of there tons of others moves like those bugs and plant-based that are physical in nature which can hurt ghost type. Maybe, it is Game Mechanics with solid Non-Physical Interaction or at worse pokemon have limited Non-Physical Interaction. Honestly, I think it is Solid Non-Physical Interaction but with Game Mechanics PIS.

 
Are ghost types permanently intangible?

I had the impression many can go intangible if they want to, but usually have tangible bodies.
 
Not sure, Ghost Type pokemon have like Selective Intangibility, they can't affect normal types (Selective Invulnerability for Normal Type) nor can't be affected by fighting and normal types, but literally everything else can (a normal type could launch a boulder and damage them normally). Is there an in-universe explaination of how they intangibility works?
 
DontTalkDT said:
Are ghost types permanently intangible?
I had the impression many can go intangible if they want to, but usually have tangible bodies.
Intangible, the lore and gameplay mechanics described as intangible to normal and fighting type based move in the series, but all other types of moves can damage them.

There also a normal type move that removed their immunity to fighting type and normal type of ghost pokemon.

 
Honestly, their whole Intangibility thing is not clearly explained in Pokemon lore. Plus, even the Normal and Fighting type arguments falls through a bit since, in the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon franchise, Pokemon can just ram into Ghost types without using a move and can deal damage that way. And both the anime and manga are really confused as to whether Ghost-types should be treated as ghosts or what.

Also, the Gengar line should be given Longevity due to the existance of Black Fog, on an unrelated note.
 
In some cases, some ghost type pokemons were allude to be actual ghost from the dead. I do remeber that selective intangible has never being mentioned, but concrete immunity to fighting/normal types have being refer by numerous helping characters in the games.
 
Hm, I looked into the side characters mentioning Normal types can't hurt Ghost types, and it turns out this is true in-verse. Sage Ping, the first trainer you fight in the Ecruteak Gym in Gold and Silver, states at the beginning of his battle, "Can you inflict any damage on our POKEMON?" And after his battle is over, he cements this by saying, "We use only ghost-type POKEMON. No normal-type attack can harm them!"

Plus, during Ash's battle against Pyramid King Brandon, Ash's Charizard attempted to use Seismic Toss on Brandon's Dusclops, which it promptly disappeared out of. So, there likely seems to be enough here to warrant Non-Physical Interaction here, I believe. I'll keep looking for more proof of this, though.
 
Pokémon can harm Spiritomb which is a collection of 108 spirits bound to the odd keystone and the Gastly line is made of gas, and both can be interacted with any non normal or fighting-type attack.
 
Starter Pack, right and thanks for trying to look for more info!
 
Everything12 said:
Pokémon can harm Spiritomb which is a collection of 108 spirits bound to the odd keystone and the Gastly line is made of gas, and both can be interacted with any non normal or fighting-type attack.
Right, all Pokemon can harms ghost types if there are not using fighting/normal moves. Normal/fighting moves can work against them with some special move like Foresight
 
The issue is that they can be harmed by physical attacks, like rocks, slashes, and even bites. Is weird as few normal/fighting such Hyperbeam, Vacuum Wave, Swift, etc.are unable to damage Ghost Types despite being not physical.
 
And again, there's the "attack" Pokemon can do in Mystery Dungeon that can damage ghosts.

That's one of the reasons why I think Pokemon probably should get Non-Physical Interaction, but then we'd have to define what exactly causes Normal and Fighting type moves to miss. Which I have no idea how we're supposed to accomplish.
 
I mean, how can a ghost type be immune to Vaccum Wave and get vulnerable air attacks? Despite the type of the attack, Vacuum Wave is Vacuum Manipulation (form or Air Manipulation).
 
Antoniofer said:
I mean, how can a ghost type be immune to Vaccum Wave and get vulnerable air attacks? Despite the type of the attack, Vacuum Wave is Vacuum Manipulation (form or Air Manipulation).
Pokemon Type Weakness and Immunity are incredibly emphasize in the main cannon games. If it not an Immunity, it will work against the Pokemon.
 
Ghosts in Mystery Dungeon and in the anime are shown to phase through walls. They're unaffected by 'basic' attacks, with only Struggle and regular attacks being the main exceptions (probably game mechanics, since struggle used to be normal type in Gen 1). Many ghost types are also literal ghosts/spirits.

It's a feat for Pokemon if they're able to hit them, not an anti feat for their intangibility imo
 
NeoZex6399 said:
Any pokémon is able to hit the spirit/soul of a Marowak, among other things...
I was going to mention this but it has already been said. Pokémons can affect ghosts, so whatever ghost type mons are non-corporeal or not doesn't matter.

I agree btw
 
Ghost Types intangibility IS pretty weird and unexplained. But it has been shown to be actual intangibility several types, on top of normal types being unable to affect them replicating passive intangibility.

It's already on some profiles as well, so yeah, it should be fine, although this only applies to non-normal/fightning type moves.
 
I agree with Saikou, although, i don't know if there is a Pokémon that don't learn any other damaging move besides Fighting and Normal type moves
 
Yeah, but it still should be noted that Non-Physical Interaction only applies to elemental moves and not random attacks on their profiles.
 
What if the "Ghost type" is only intangible to Normal/Fighting type moves and are actually physical (Aka, being able to harm them by using moves that aren´t of the two before-mentioned types isn´t a Non-Physical interaction feat)?
 
Most of the time work that way, as elemental attacks such Earthquake, Sandstorm and Hail can normally damage them. And as I said, not all normal/fighting attacks are physical. The other option is that they have non-passive intangibility, and they're corporeal by default.
 
Antoniofer said:
Most of the time work that way, as elemental attacks such Earthquake, Sandstorm and Hail can normally damage them. And as I said, not all normal/fighting attacks are physical. The other option is that they have non-passive intangibility, and they're corporeal by default.
I somewhat agree wtih this for now, unless there´s something more to be bringed up.
 
Antoniofer said:
Most of the time work that way, as elemental attacks such Earthquake, Sandstorm and Hail can normally damage them. And as I said, not all normal/fighting attacks are physical. The other option is that they have non-passive intangibility, and they're corporeal by default.
It would be the first option.

The other option is a no-go, many ghost have being referred like spirits. Many characters in games like helpers and those from trainer school (requirement for current for recent main games) said immune to fighting/normal in the main games. There was never selective Intangibility activated for ghost types in games. Also, it is not written as a special abilities in the main games which highlight that their Intangibilities are always active
 
I'd like a valid explanation as to why they'd be always immune to normal and fighting type attacks yet vulnerable to everything else if this intangibility wasn't passive.
 
I believe there are explanations from the helper in ghost/type games in many games since gen 3. I believe trainer school also explain the weakness and immunities in gen 4 at least in Pokemon Diamond.
 
Yeah but I mean.

It doesn't make sense to assume that ghosts are only selectively intangible when they're immune to normal attacks at all times, even if they're blitzed. Especially since non-normal/fighting moves won't be blocked even if they attack way after the ghost type pokémon.
 
Saikou The Lewd King said:
Yeah but I mean.
It doesn't make sense to assume that ghosts are only selectively intangible when they're immune to normal attacks at all times, even if they're blitzed. Especially since non-normal/fighting moves won't be blocked even if they attack way after the ghost type pokémon.
True.

Regarding, the normal/fighting move not bring block point, it is usually follow by something like this:

Perform X, but it has no effect.
 
Two ways I can think of to resolve this:

  1. Verse-wide Non-Physical Interaction. Doing what has been suggested in this thread, with at most excluding some Normal-/Fighter-Pokémon, but every Pokémon otherwise obtaining Non-Physical Interaction.
  2. Limited Intangability. Basically making it so that the intangability of Ghost-Pokémon gets verse-equalized stopping short at anything even remotely sci-fi/supernatural/magical/psychic. For example any attacks with conventional weapons (unless imbued with non-physical interaction) fail, but if someone uses even the slightest amount of Ki (or maybe not, since that could be "fighter" equivalent), magic, ESP powers, or perhaps super-advanced energy weapons, then the intangability would be useless. That would reflect how Pokémon attacks are basically treated like some sort of super power that can break through the ghosts' limited intangability.
Basically it's a choice of whether to deem the Pokémon as universally having a hax, or deeming the Intangability of Ghost-Pokémon as being weaker than the usual on VS-Battles.
 
NeoZex6399 said:
Any pokémon is able to hit the spirit/soul of a Marowak, among other things...
GyroNutz said:
Ghosts in Mystery Dungeon and in the anime are shown to phase through walls. They're unaffected by 'basic' attacks, with only Struggle and regular attacks being the main exceptions (probably game mechanics, since struggle used to be normal type in Gen 1). Many ghost types are also literal ghosts/spirits.

It's a feat for Pokemon if they're able to hit them, not an anti feat for their intangibility imo
It doesn't matter if ghost types are intangible or not, Pokémons have shown the ability to interact with ghosts outside of that.
 
I'm for what is stated in the OP. Assuming that ghosts turn intangible when hit by only normal and fighting attacks without changing appearance, and that they don't turn intangible for any other physical attacks, definitely doesn't seem right to me.
 
If it's solid non-physical interaction then that would mean that the Pokémon attacks are by default supernatural in nature (aside from maybe normal/fighter types), regardless if it's physical attacks or SP attacks?

Not sure if this is relevant to the issue at hand or not, but in the Pokémon verse scientific devices work on ghosts too, like the Silph Scope.
 
NeoSuperior said:
If it's solid non-physical interaction then that would mean that the Pokémon attacks are by default supernatural in nature (aside from maybe normal/fighter types), regardless if it's physical attacks or SP attacks?
I guess; it would because of a verse things though. Just another some normal/fighting moves type are still supernatural in nature like focus blast but don't work against Ghost types.
 
So we have evidence that Pokemon can effect elemental intanigability, such as with Gastly's gas, Slugma's lava, and Rotom's (Normal) plasma bodies, as well as Immaterial Intangibility with Marowak's ghost in RGBY/FRLG, though Marowak's ghost is Ground-Type so Normal and Fighting-Types can damage it? So any reason Pokemon can't have Non-Physical Interaction?
 
Everything12 said:
So we have evidence that Pokemon can effect elemental intanigability, such as with Gastly's gas, Slugma's lava, and Rotom's (Normal) plasma bodies, as well as Immaterial Intangibility with Marowak's ghost in RGBY/FRLG, though Marowak's ghost is Ground-Type so Normal and Fighting-Types can damage it? So any reason Pokemon can't have Non-Physical Interaction?
I am pretty sure this CRT has been accepted. All this is left is to add the updated
 
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