For the average sized Fakemon region (150ish Fakemon) about how many stand-alone unevolving Fakemon would you say is best to include?
(Sorry for the delays in answers and submission posts, all. As you can see, I’m answering all the questions I have and then stocking up the queue again! I’ve found a pretty cool new blog to get ideas from, too!)
Hm… Not really sure, honestly. Let’s have a look at each canon region and see what they’re doing!
Brief clarification: I’m only counting pokémon introduced in that generation. I’m also counting pokémon as their lines were during that gen’s release (e.g., I’m pretending that steelix and elekid don’t exist while going through Gen 1).
First number is total lines in the dex (e.g., every basic, whether or not it evolves), second is the number of those lines that are single-stage, third is the number of those single-stagers that are legendary if you’d rather subtract those for the purposes of your question.
Kanto (151): 79 lines/25 single-stage (5 legendary)Johto (100): 52 lines/27 single-stage (6 legendary)Hoenn (135): 73 lines/29 single-stage (10 legendary)Sinnoh (107): 45 lines/19 single-stage (14 legendary)Unova (156): 82 lines/27 single-stage (13 legendary)Kalos (72): 37 lines/11 single-stage (6 legendary)
maaaan I sure hope I counted all that correctly. veekun needs a way to filter by pokémon that didn’t evolve within their introductory generations, not just things that don’t currently evolve :( trying to count electabuzz is pain
So the relative amount varies between each generation, but discounting the super-tiny Kalos the average number of single-stagers is ~25; Kanto and Unova specifically (the two closest to your desired size) have around that much. So if you’re looking to stick relatively close to canon I’d just say keep it under 30 if you can, and remember that that 30 includes legends. Hope that helps!
ETA a more general takeaway from this, just in case you're working with a much larger or smaller dex size: The canon ratio of single-stage lines to evolving lines appears to be roughly 1/3 to 1/4 (except for Johto, which is ~half... and honestly closer to what I'd first thought before I actually went and counted). One single-stage for every three or so evolvers should give you a decent amount, no matter how many total lines you have.
(Aaaand now I'm curious and I need to go see how that works out with New Logora. Hm.)