Kaizo Ironmon+ Simplified Ruleset | Kaizo Ironmon+ Full Ruleset
Ironmon+ Touring Ruleset | Kaizo Ironmon- Ruleset
Kaizo Ironmon+ is a variant of the Kaizo Ironmon Pokémon randomizer challenge. Changes have been made to the original ruleset with three main goals in mind:
- Remove rules that feel arbitrary.
- Minimize unavoidable instant-lose situations that only exist due to quirks of the original ruleset.
- Actually be enjoyable for players of Gen 5 and above.
The full ruleset is available here, and a simplified version is available here. If you don't know how to set up a Pokémon randomizer, check out the Getting Started guide.
Ironmon+ has two variant rulesets:
Ironmon+ Touring is the Ironmon+ spin on Ironmon Survival, designed for play across all generations.
Kaizo Ironmon Minus- is a low-BST challenge to give some underappreciated Pokémon a chance at glory!
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Held items are allowed in Gen 5+.
In the original challenge, held items are banned to make the challenge more difficult. However, held items are one of the more interesting and strategically diverse aspects of Pokémon, and ignoring them entirely both reduces the total decision complexity of an Ironmon run while also making most item pickups feel worthless. Additionally, Gen 6 and above have so much variance that allowing held items doesn't trivialize the challenge even a little bit. It is still unbelievably hard.
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TM compabitility is set to Full.
The original challenge only allows players to teach TMs if they are earned from gym leaders. By turning TM compatibility to full, the player is actually able to take advantage of this consistently, and thus gym TMs feel like a worthwhile reward.
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Legendaries are allowed if their base stat total is less than 600.
I genuinely do not know why this isn't allowed in the original ruleset.
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You may select any starter.
This just cuts down on starter resets, since you can't learn any of the details about the starter before you pick it anyways.
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You may swap out if you are affected by Perish Song
Perish Song is consistently cited as the most frustrating way to lose a run. Allowing a swap also introduces the risk of getting Roared, Whirlwinded, etc, and thus this introduces another layer of player decision.
There are more differences than just these, and you should check out the full ruleset before starting.
Most runners use Universal Pokémon Randomizer ZX. You can find pre-configured settings files for all the variants on their rule pages. You can find a full guide on getting started with Ironmon+ here.
Do whatever you want, I'm not your mom. Play the game in a way that's fun for you, you'll be happier for it!
The original ruleset is cool and unique. It's also something one person made for themselves that kinda just spiraled in popularity, and was never designed for anything other than Gen 3. If I thought the original ruleset sucked I wouldn't be putting time into making changes to it.
naming is hard okay. blame this i guess.