Raising at the Day Care

The Day Cares on Route 117 and Route 5 each raise one of your Pokémon while you play. It earns a share of the experience from the battles you win in that region, and you pay for the levels it gained when you pick it up. For Eggs, see Breeding & Day Care.

Where

On Route 117, go inside the Day Care and talk to the Day-Care Lady, then choose Raise. On Route 5, the man inside the Day Care asks whether you would like him to raise one of your Pokémon; say yes. Both open the Day Care window, which shows the Pokémon the Day Care is raising, the experience it has earned and what picking it up costs.

Sinnoh has no Day Care that raises Pokémon yet.

Leaving a Pokémon

Each Day Care raises one of your Pokémon at a time, so you can have one on Route 117 and another on Route 5. Leaving a Pokémon is free.

The Pokémon must come from your party. The Day Care does not take:

• an Egg;
• a Pokémon held for a trade, a letter or a market listing;
• the last Pokémon in your party that is able to battle.

What it earns

Every wild or trainer battle you win in a Day Care's region gives the Pokémon there a fifth of the experience the battle is worth. Wins in Hoenn count for Route 117 and wins in Kanto for Route 5. Your party still gets its own experience in full.

The share is worked out from the Pokémon you beat, so a trainer battle is worth more than a wild one, as usual. A Lucky Egg or a traded Pokémon's bonus does not add to it; the Exp rate run modifier does. Walking earns the Pokémon nothing, and it stops earning at level 100.

Picking it up

Go back to the Day Care you left the Pokémon at. Picking it up costs ¥1,000, plus ¥1,000 for each level it gained, so a Pokémon that grew five levels costs ¥6,000. Without enough money you cannot pick it up, and it stays at the Day Care until you can.

When you pay, the Pokémon:

• gains its levels and learns every move its species learns at those levels. When it already knows four moves, the move in its first slot is forgotten for each new one;
• comes back with full HP, no status condition and full PP;
• does not evolve and gains no EVs.

It goes back to your party, or to the first free box when the party is full. If the party and every box are full, make room first.

With a level cap

On a run with the Level cap by badge modifier, the Pokémon leaves no higher than your level cap, and you pay only for the levels it actually gained. The experience above the cap is kept: the next time you leave the same Pokémon at a Day Care, it starts with that experience already earned. The window tells you how much is waiting.

While it is away

A Pokémon at the Day Care is in neither your party nor your boxes. Until you pick it up, it cannot battle and cannot be traded, sent by letter or listed on the market. A character cannot be deleted while it has a Pokémon at the Day Care.