Playthrough Platinum Nuzlocke Changes! What's Your Opinion?

[Chocolate Death]

Hello fellow PokéBeachers and PokéNerds! As you can tell from the title of the thread, I'm making a Pokémon Platinum Version nuzlocke! If you don't know what a nuzlocke is, allow me to fill you in...

A "Nuzlocke Challenge" is a fan-made "hard mode". It was started by someone who had been doing a Ruby Version playthrough comic with 3 rules...
1. Nickname all Pokémon
2. Only able to catch the first Pokémon you encounter
3. If a Pokémon faints, it dies
It got the name Nuzlocke due to his first casualty, a Nuzleaf with the face of Lost's John Locke. Since then, there have been people who have added and modified the rules to create all kinds of lockes. Wedlocke, Deathlocke, Monolocke, etc.

I'm going to be doing a nuzlocke with those rules plus item count restrictions, heal prices, and death restrictions. I'll explain what I mean.
Item Count- only 10 Pokéballs of any kind (ex. 3 Heal Balls, 1 Ultra Ball, 6 Dusk Balls), 20 healing items total, no berries, no Master Balls
Heal Prices- I pay $500 when I heal at a Pokémon Center by going to a PokéMart
Death Restrictions- Rival Battles and few others will not result in death by fainting (most will, however)

Anyway, so I felt it would be best to add a few extra things to the story in order to make it more interesting. I'd like your opinions, but I'll have to type those up as soon as I get home.

 

[Chocolate Death]

Okay, I'm home now with my phone charged up. I'm planning on doing the following...

Adding more in-depth lore regarding the legendaries and ties to Johto
Changing Looker (making him more serious and giving him the alias "Don Stantler" because John Doe)
Changing the Galactic Commander names to Celeste (Mars), Stardust (Jupiter), Cosmo (Saturn), and Pluto (that scientist dude)

I'm also going to be adding bigger changes that affect the story more, such as...
Volkner/Flint arc revolving around a major problem between Volkner and his parents
Stark Mountain arc that's all about going around with Buck to find evidence of this legend of the magma pokemon somewhere in Sinnoh
Roark and Byron family conflicts, which will affect the gym battles partially
and much more still being worked on. (those ones are done, though)

I'm also going to be giving some pokemon some changes, like...
Lake Trio having human forms to disguise themselves
Dialga and Palkia having Altered forms and Origin forms (which will be called Astral forms)
And shiny changes (like black Garchomp)

 

[Athena]

Death Restrictions- Rival Battles and few others will not result in death by fainting (most will, however)

Oh, come on, seriously? This is just cheap. Faint = Death is one of the most important part of a Nuzlocke. IMO, you'd be better off skipping some of your other restrictions and keeping perma death always in, otherwise it's not really a Nuzlocke.

As far as your other points go, adding more plot bits to the story is definitely fun. The plots of the Pokémon games aren't exactly stellar, so adding things to spruce it up is nice if you want to make your Nuzlocke more of a serious story than a jokey/funny one. I'm personally kind of "eh" on the gijinka lake trio and adding forms and stuff since those are kind of standard tropes, but whatever floats your boat.

 

[Chocolate Death]

Well since you don't exactly kill your rival's pokemon (unlike that Raticate, possibly), and your pokemon are magically healed by your follower (Cheryl and co.) or don't let you remove them (Battle Frontier), they don't die. Those are the only cases. I mean, Barry's not a jerk so he's not like "YOU BEAT ME I HATE YOU!!" or anything, so...

Also, the lake trio gijinka thing is just for before they are seen at their lakes, and the only way they stand out is barely with their hairdo (Mesprit with 4 big pink ponytails, 2 on each side. Azelf with hair similar to Silver but blue and shorter kinda, and Uxie with I guess giant afro cornrows?)

 

[Athena]

Well since you don't exactly kill your rival's pokemon (unlike that Raticate, possibly),

So? You aren't your rival. Just because you're nice enough to not kill his Pokémon, doesn't mean yours might not die from a battle with him, either from him going a lot more all out, or from an accident, or whatever. There are plenty of ways to write narrative justification for your Pokemon dying to fulfill the faint = death aspect of a Nuzlocke.

and your pokemon are magically healed by your follower (Cheryl and co.)

Yes, but they could (and should!) still die in battle. Even if game-mechanics-wise they get healed after battle by your partner, storywise they should still die. That's the point of a Nuzlocke that Pokémon "die" even if they can be healed by in-game means. Just because that in-game means happens automatically after combat instead of requiring you to walk to a PC, doesn't make it any different from any other faint = dead.

or don't let you remove them (Battle Frontier).

From what I understand of BF you literally don't have a choice but to keep using all of your Pokémon, so that's really the only situation where it should be fine, but that's post-game anyway.

 

[Chocolate Death]

Have them die! Have them all die! Mwahahahahahahaha!!

I actually realized what I planned with the death restrictions was kinda stupid after you said that, so yeah I should do some narrative stuff to explain it with the rival I suppose :>

Also, for the Volkner/Flint thing... I'm needing a bit of assistance with that.
So, I plan to make Volkner and Flint be in a relationship (only pokeshipping I support besides originalshipping) and have there be some drama. So, Volkner takes an exam to become a gym leader, and when he passes and tells his parents, he figures it's the best mood they'll be in so it'd be a good time to tell them he's gay. Then they flip out and disown him and are revolted by him and start to try to get him kicked out of the gym or have it closed. Then Cynthia, Lucian, and Flint (ofc) go investigate what the problem is and stuff, and the protagonist kinda becomes friends with Volk and Flint. Then after the problem is settled, gym battle and Pokémon League. (I'm adding in just a few mini-arcs just to take necessary breaks from time to time)

So, the help I need is how old Volkner and Flint should be. All I know is no younger than 15 and no older than 25 :/