Characteristic

Characteristics are a feature in the Pokémon games, introduced in Generation IV. A Pokémon's characteristic indicates which stat contains a Pokémon's highest IV. It is displayed on the Pokémon's profile screen where its nature, date met, place met, and flavor preference are shown.

A Pokémon's characteristic is determined by the remainder of its highest IV divided by 5 (known as modulo operation in programming). Since it is built this way, Pokémon transferred from the games of Generation III via Pal Park have a characteristic without their stats being changed.

List of characteristics

Possible Individual Values	HP	Attack	Defense	Special Attack	Special Defense	Speed
0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30	Loves to eat	Proud of its power	Sturdy body	Highly curious	Strong willed	Likes to run
1, 6, 11, 16, 21, 26, 31	Often dozes off	Likes to thrash about	Capable of taking hits	Mischievous	Somewhat vain	Alert to sounds
2, 7, 12, 17, 22, 27	Often scatters things	A little quick tempered	Highly persistent	Thoroughly cunning	Strongly defiant	Impetuous and silly
3, 8, 13, 18, 23, 28	Scatters things often	Likes to fight	Good endurance	Often lost in thought	Hates to lose	Somewhat of a clown
4, 9, 14, 19, 24, 29	Likes to relax	Quick tempered	Good perseverance	Very finicky	Somewhat stubborn	Quick to flee

Note that having a certain characteristic does not necessarily imply that the highest possible value for an IV is present. A Pokémon with an "Alert to sounds" characteristic could have a 6 in Speed (and thus very low IVs across all of its stats since none could be higher than 6) instead of a 31 in Speed.

Examples

A Mudkip has the following IVs:

HP	Attack	Defense	Sp. Attack	Sp. Defense	Speed
24	18	17	29	24	27

Since its highest IV is 29 in Special Attack, its characteristic will be "Very finicky."

A Ditto has the following IVs:

HP	Attack	Defense	Sp. Attack	Sp. Defense	Speed
8	0	0	10	17	10

Since its highest IV is 17 in Special Defense, its characteristic will be "Strongly defiant."

Ties

In the event of a tie in highest IVs, the IV that determines the Pokémon's characteristic is decided in the following manner:

Start with the Pokémon's personality value mod 6. The result is an index number of a stat in this order: HP, Attack, Defense, Speed, Special Attack, Special Defense. In the event of a tie in IVs, the first IV checked is the IV corresponding to that index number. If that IV is not part of the tie, the game moves on to the next index number in the aforementioned order. If it goes past 5 (Special Defense), it wraps around back to 0 (HP). When the game finds an IV that is part of the tie, that is the IV that will determine the characteristic displayed.

Pokémon individuality
Level • Stats • Friendship • Gender • Ability (Hidden Ability) • Nature • Characteristic Effort values • Individual values • Go Power • Effort level Condition • Performance • Affection • Memory

This game mechanics article is part of Project Games, a Bulbapedia project that aims to write comprehensive articles on the Pokémon games.