The Safari Zone
The BBP League provides a wide array of Pokemon to trainers of all sorts, battling or otherwise. In addition, it curates the thoroughfares known as Routes—traditional paths through semi-wild areas; sometimes alongside more modern modes of travel, and sometimes much less direct.
However, some more expert trainers are pulled by the allure of more wild locales, where supplies are scarce and the Pokemon are more challenging to tame. To facilitate this, the Safari Program designates zones in climates both tame and wild, where open capture is permitted for any trainers bold enough to brave the hazards.
The Safari Zone is the perfect place to quickly fill holes in your team, obtain rare and exclusive Pokemon, or just to challenge yourself under new conditions!
( Art by Pissog )
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( Data Thread | Rewards )
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- Exploring the Safari Zone costs JC, depending on the Habitat challenged.
- JC Costs for each habitat are listed in the Data Thread, above.
An explorer brings two Pokemon and a well-stocked backpack of items to brave the various climates of the Safari Zone in hopes of capturing new, interesting, or powerful Pokemon. Explorers can expect to be handsomely rewarded, depending on how many wild Pokemon they survey.
The quality and quantity of rewards the player earns increases with the amount of Pokemon the explorer manages to capture and catalog during their expedition. Players will even have the option to permanently recruit one of their captures, if they would like.
Before exploring the Safari Zone, prospective players should familiarize themselves with the Pokemon they'd like to capture. Each wild Pokemon in the Safari has certain preferred actions they rely on in battle, called Wild Behavior, that savvy explorers can exploit to ease their experience.
Explorers will have to carefully attack the Endurance the of Wild Pokemon they wish to survey. Their Wild Behavior changes, depending on their remaining endurance. Explorers will also need a plan for easing the capture itself: If the explorer overtaxes the Wild Pokemon, they'll escape capture and get away.
Explorers are on conservation duty, and thus battle using their own Pokemon, instead of captured Pokemon. However, the explorer can count on their currently-captured Pokemon to act as their Wayfinder, providing crucial field, capture, or battle assistance!
Default Format
b2p2 vs. Safari Battle
DQ: 48 hours / 72 hours for Refs
Battle Level: Habitat-dependent
Player Recovery / Chill: 3 / 3
Player Switching: On
Referee Recovery / Chill: 1 / 0
Referee Switching: Off
Tech: 1 per Trek in Pinnacle, 0 Otherwise
Backpack Size: Habitat-dependent (typically 10.)
Contents
- Patch History
- Expedition Flow
- Capturing Pokemon
- Starting an Expedition
- Ending an Expedition
- Challenge Form
- Rewards
2024-Feb-16: Polishing, pending release.
- Problematic assists, especially player-sabotaging ones, are reworked.
- Conservation EXP rewards are instead replaced with more traditional progress-based rewards.
- Poke Ball fatigue values, and wild Pokemon minimum EP, have been squashed to be less granular.
- Habitats have been polished and adjusted.
- Wild Pokemon have EP and Ft instead of HP and EN.
- The player can advance Treks after a single capture, KO, or escape.
- Capture mechanics are entirely replaced with new ones.
- Every Poke Ball is either reworked or reserved for later.
- Players can receive assistance from a Wayfinder Pokemon, captured during their challenge.
- Rewards obtained are now the cumulative Conservation Reward of Pokemon released during the challenge.
- Adjusted several Poke Ball types.
- Increased the quality and variety of items available in the Standard Supplier.
- Reworked how Capture Methods interact with capture:
- Before: The Capture Strength of balls is multiplied by the number of fulfilled Capture Methods on the Capture Target.
- Now: Capture Strength is unchanged. Fulfilling all methods is required to attempt capture.
- Normalized Fatigue values across all wild Pokemon.
- Added a mechanic where wild Pokemon are initially Flinched, to simulate being surprised by the player.
- Disallowed wild Pokemon from initiating switches, or from counterswitching.
- Adjusted several Poke Ball types.
- Reduced the number of capture conditions per wild Pokemon.
Expedition Flow
Over the course of a Safari expedition, challengers will battle through a sequence of Treks (waves, essentially) in the chosen Habitat.
Preparing a Backpack
Using an extra-large explorer's backpack, challengers can bring up to 10 items with them. However, the items in the backpack can come from more than just their own profile.
Items from the Standard Supplier and the Habitat Supplier can also be brought in the player's backpack. These suppliers are the player's primary source of Medicines and Poke Balls for their expedition.
Ten items may sound like a lot for just two Pokemon, but you'll need lots of advanced Poke Balls and Medicine, as well as held items, to have a successful Safari. Make sure to plan ahead, based on what you're going to catch!
Both suppliers have finite stocks of the items they offer. Challengers can only bring as many of these offered items as there are on offer (and that their backpack has room for, of course). Each individual item counts as one selection for the backpack, rather than "stacking". Three Fast Balls would occupy three backpack slots.
The Standard Supplier offers the following goods:
"Ten items may sound like a lot, but once you're out there in the field... Well, you'll feel the pinch.
Try not to overfill on junk. This isn't Route 1, y'know — you can't fit ninety-nine Potions in the bag and call it a day!"
Poke Balls
Each explorer has an unlimited supply of
Poke, 
Great, 
Ultra, 
Safari, and 
Park Balls from outside of their Backpack, but advanced Poke Balls can be vital to the act of catching Pokemon.
Luxury Ball x1
Heal Ball x1
Nest Ball x1
Level Ball x1
Quick Ball x1
Without proper medicine, explorers have little hope of reaching the last Trek and cataloging the rarest Pokemon.
Super Potion x1
Hyper Potion x1
Ether x1
Elixir x1
Full Heal x1
Revive x1
The inhabitants of the Safari Zones can be very challenging opponents, so explorers may need help to even the odds.
X Attack x1
X Defend x1
X Sp. Atk x1
X Sp. Def x1
Guard Spec x1
Explorers searching for a specific Pokemon in a specific Trek will be well-served by these handy, disposable distractions!
Fluffy Tail x1
Poke Doll x1
Poke Toy x1
Expedition Treks
Each Trek in a Habitat has its own list of (typically, but not always, four) possible opponents. In each Trek, the referee will randomly pick one of those Pokemon at a time to appear as the opponents for that Trek. The referee plays with their Switching rule Off. The rest of the Pokemon in the Trek are the referee's reserve. Each Trek also has a list of "wild items" that serves as the opponents' backpack, and its own arena that can further modify the battle.
The referee will then battle the challenger with the chosen Pokemon, trying to forestall capture, deplete the challenger's resources, and defeat the challenger's Pokemon. Prioritizing these sometimes-competing objectives is left at the referee's discretion.
The battle can have one of the following outcomes:
- The challenger loses a battle: Their challenge ends.
- The wild Pokemon escapes or faints:The challenger must remain in the current trek. Another as-yet unencountered Pokemon from the current trek will be selected to be the next opponent, using the same arena, battle conditions, and so on. The new wild Pokemon will order first in their first round.
- If the trek runs out of possible opponents for the challenger; the challenger's expedition ends in failure.
- The challenger captures a wild Pokemon: The challenger must choose whether or not to make that Pokemon their Wayfinder, releasing any current Wayfinder they have. The challenger also must declare whether they wish to remain in the current trek or proceed from it.
- The challenger can remain or proceed regardless of whether or not they changed Wayfinders.
- If the challenger proceeds from the last trek of the Habitat, they successfully complete their expedition.
- If the challenger remains, they'll battle again in the same trek, just as if the wild Pokemon escaped.
- If the challenger decides to remain in their current trek, they'll have to capture another wild Pokemon to get another chance to proceed.
Most Habitats have just three Treks, that are always played in the same sequence. Some Habitats may have multiple Treks to choose from, or may progress to different Treks depending on actions taken during the expedition.
MarkingThe challenger can choose a species of Pokemon they'd to stalk, called the player's "Mark", when signing up for Safari. That species of Pokemon will always appear as the first opponent in a Trek if they're present and not Elusive (see below). Marking an Elusive species or a species that doesn't appear in the Habitat is poor planning, charitably speaking.
Elusive PokemonSome Pokemon in a Trek have the tag "Elusive" in their profile, and on the hide tag of their profile.
Elusive Pokemon can't be rolled as the first opponent in a Trek, even if their species was Marked. They can be rolled normally starting from the second opponent per Trek, onward.
(If every Pokemon in a Trek is Elusive, one of them has to be first. In this case, it just means that they all ignore Marking.)
AttritionFar from civilization and Pokemon Centers, explorers must make do with what they've brought into the field. The usual methods of recovering fully between battles are unavailable in these hostile climates. This necessitates that explorers devote valuable backpack space to medicines, such as Potions, with them on expeditions.
The following changes in status carry from Trek to Trek within an expedition:
- Lost HP, Energy, Recoveries, and Chills.
- Major Status, their durations, and their markers. (Except Frost markers, because those go on the Pokemon.)
- Items consumed, spent, or destroyed.
Other changes, such as lost Combo Tokens, non-major status, Mega Evolution, Terastallization, or trainer status such as spent Tech, are not retained between Treks.
Battling Wild Pokemon
The act of wearing out a Wild Pokemon in a conservation environment differs greatly from battling a trained competitive Pokemon in a professional circuit or venue. Rather that exhausting the opponent's HP or Energy to render them unable to battle, you're trying to tire them and wear their resolve — but not too much!
Wild Pokemon don't have HP or Energy. Instead they have two new parameters:
- Endurance Points, or EP, represents the Pokemon's willingness to continue battling you. It replaces their HP: any HP damage or healing, as well as any effects that refer to their HP, instead use their EP. However, certain other events also reduce EP by large amounts, and it has different minimums and maximums than HP typically does.
- Until they're captured, a Wild Pokemon's minimum EP is a tenth (x0.1) of their maximum EP, rounded down. (Once they're accompanying the player, their minimum EP is zero.)
- When a Wild Pokemon is inflicted with a Major Status by a non-attack action: That Pokemon takes 20 EP damage.
- When a Wild Pokemon is inflicted with a Major Status in any other way (including attacks), they take 10 EP damage instead.
- Fatigue, or Ft, represents the strain placed on Wild Pokemon by repeated capture attempts. It doesn't replace Energy; instead, Fatigue is its own new parameter entirely. Wild Pokemon don't have, spend, or require Energy. Fatigue is accumulated on Wild Pokemon based on the effect of each Ball used in capture attempts against them.
- A Pokemon whose remaining EP is lower than their Fatigue will attempt to Escape at the end of the round; see below.
Wild Pokemon won't put their all into fighting you right away. Their mood, and thus their behavior, sours as rounds pass, and they'll fight with increasing desperation as they remain in battle.
| Rounds Active or Benched | Wild Mood | Modifiers Applied |
|---|---|---|
1st Round | Curious | The Pokemon's attacks, that share no types with the Pokemon, have no types and at most 8 BAP. The Pokemon can't create Major Status or Protection. The Pokemon can't attempt actions that cost HP/EP. |
2nd and 3rd Rounds | Irritated | None. |
4th Round onward | Threatened | At the end of each round: The Pokemon attempts to Escape. |
Regardless of their mood, Wild Pokemon will never attempt a Self-Sacrificing move or a combination unless instructed to by an arena effect — only trained Pokemon know how to use these actions safely. This restriction remains even after a Wild Pokemon is captured, until they are permanently recruited. (This can be relevant for the Assistance certain Wild Pokemon can provide.)
They're perfectly capable of attempting moves that lower their own stats or EP, though. If the Pokemon you're chasing has such moves, make sure to be well-prepared!
EscapeA Wild Pokemon whose remaining EP (not percent) is lower than their Fatigue, or whose mood is Threatened, will attempt Escape from the challenger at the end of the round, after all steps and capture attempts for the round have finished. (Even of both are true, they'll still only attempt to Escape once per round this way.)
Each Wild Pokemon will automatically fail their first Escape attempt in each expedition. After that, every subsequent Escape attempt that Wild Pokemon makes will succeed unless that Wild Pokemon is Trapped or Partially Trapped.
A Wild Pokemon who Escapes is removed from all teams and from the battle, and the player loses their chance to capture or defeat them.
Capturing Pokemon
Pokemon Capture
While the explorer issues orders to their Pokemon, they may choose to include a variety of Poke Ball from their backpack as an additional Capture Order, alongside their Battle Orders. The explorer can order the capture before or after their Pokemon orders; resulting in a capture attempt at the start of the Battling Phase or at the end of it, respectively. If more than one Wild Pokemon is present, each Capture Order must specify one of them as its Capture Target; otherwise, the one present Wild Pokemon is assumed.
While in a Safari Zone, an explorer will always have more Poke, Great, Ultra, Safari, and Park Balls available for use. These items stow away easily and are in plentiful supply, and are called "standard balls". Other varieties have to be brought by the explorer in their Backpack, taking up valuable space.
Poke, Great, Ultra, Safari, and Park Balls available for use. These items stow away easily and are in plentiful supply, and are called "standard balls". Other varieties have to be brought by the explorer in their Backpack, taking up valuable space.
Each type of Poke Ball has an effect called a "Fatigue Roll". When a capture attempt is made with that Poke Ball, that Poke Ball is discarded from the backpack and a random number is rolled, in a range beginning with the lower number and ending with the higher number, with equal odds for each integer result. The capture target's Fatigue is increased by the amount rolled.
Example: A Fatigue Roll of 5-8 can be 5, 6, 7, or 8 at random with equal odds. If only one number is possible, such as a range of 5-5, just use that number without rolling.
After the Fatigue Roll, if the Wild Pokemon's remaining EP is now exactly equal to their Fatigue, that Pokemon is Captured by the explorer.
Traveling with a Captured Pokemon
When the player Captures a Wild Pokemon, they may choose to either release them or make them the Wayfinder — a navigator and guide that helps them traverse the Habitat. If the explorer has a Wayfinder already, choosing a new Wayfinder releases any previous ones. Released Pokemon leave the expedition and can't be re-obtained during that challenge.
Any Pokemon that is released during an expedition, or released at the end of one, gives the explorer their Conservation reward if any. When a Conservation reward is gained mid-expedition, the explorer gains it right away. Conservation rewards such as Medicines or Poke Balls can be valuable lifelines during a challenge.
The Wayfinder won't take the field on the explorer's behalf under typical conditions, but they'll provide up to three kinds of Assistance from the explorer's sidelines:
- Field Assist: The Wayfinder might let explorers skip an opponent without the use of an item, heal HP or EN between Treks, gather additional items in the field, or more.
- Capture Assist: The Wayfinder might make certain types of Poke Ball more effective, prevent Fatigue from overtaking EP, offer additional capture orders per round, hinder enemy Escape, or more.
- Battle Assist: The Wayfinder might perform certain actions from the sidelines when ordered, enhance the explorer's Pokemon with bonus effects, grant or inflict Conditions to Pokemon in play, change the Weather or Terrain, or more.
Certain Wayfinders might, conditionally, personally join the fray on the explorer's team—for example, against a rival of theirs.
At the end of the expedition, the player will have the option to either release their current Wayfarer or permanently recruit them at Level 1. The recruited Pokemon can have pooled EXP allocated to them from the Safari Rewards, just like the Pokemon the explorer brought.
The Wayfinder retains their EP, status conditions, and so on. This can be relevant if certain arenas or effects allow them to act, or to be acted upon. Explorers can use Medicine on their Wayfinder just like their own Pokemon, if desired.
Just like when the referee plays them, Wild Pokemon who are acting as Wayfinder still can't attempt a Self-Sacrificing move or a combination, even as a Battle Assist. They won't be able to do this until they're permanently recruited, if they should be retained that long.
Starting an ExpeditionPlayers can start exploring the Safari Zone by posting here, in the Safari Signup Thread.
- Players post which Habitat they'd like to explore, and the profiles of the two Pokemon they would like to explore with.
- For their Backpack, the player selects items from the Standard Supplier and from the chosen Habitat's Supplier, up to their backpack size or until the items in the supplier are depleted. The player may bring items from their own profile in any remaining space.
- A referee takes players' challenges from this thread. Players challenging the Safari for the first time (e.g. those with no Safari Thread of their own) are prioritized over repeat challengers.
A Safari expedition will end under the following conditions:
- If the challenger loses or forfeits a battle, including if the challenger lets all of the Pokemon in one Trek Escape without capturing any.
- If the challenger Proceeds from the final Trek.
The challenger can forfeit the expedition at any time. This can be useful if they feel they've earned enough rewards for their needs.
Challenge Form
When signing up for the Safari Zone, copy or approximate the following template in your signup post.
Code:
[B]Name:[/B] (name)
[B]Thread:[/B] (thread)
[B]Habitat:[/B] (habitat)
[B]Mark:[/B] (marked species, if any)
[B]Backpack:[/B]
(10 items by default; check the habitat's info)
[B]Pokemon 1[/B]
(profile)
[B]Pokemon 2[/B]
(profile)
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TC, equal to the habitat's Level.
JC and 
RC based on the Habitat, plus more for each wild Pokemon that escaped (representing the extra workload for staying in a Trek and playing multiple wild Pokemon).
Lure Ball
Dream Ball
Flame Orb
Mystic Water
Premier Ball x2
Potion x1
Shell Bell
Choice Band
Life Orb
)
)
Scope Lens
Berserk Gene
Eviolite Extraction Cave
)
)
).
Challenging Lumiose City Flower Park. Mark 
Floette-e.
Expert Belt
Max Potion
Friend Ball), but most of your captures should happen in one round.
Moon Ball
Max Elixir