Screenshot Welcome to FE4 Randomized! Currently: This is Beowulf

[AstralSpirit]

Hi! You... Probably don't know me. Long time lurker, but a huge fan of the FE series. FE4 has always been my favorite FE game since the first time I played it, and with this recent randomizer craze (which I've been completely caught up in) I've found myself wishing that there was a randomizer that worked with FE4.

Of course, there isn't.

But what's the next best thing?

Hours of tedious manual randomizing and nightmare editing all for one run!

If I was able to use the most recent randomizer, what I did would have ended up looking like something along the lines of this:

Just add an option to randomize abilities and demote Sigurd, and this is basically what I did. I'll include a long-winded explanation of how I did it in a spoiler at the end, if anyone is interested. What I'm really doing right now is trying to gauge interest. If people are interested in watching some random new guy play some random FE4, then awesome, I'll do it! I already have the first castle screenshot and written up, all I'd have to do is get everything on here. Of course, if people aren't interested, then I won't go through all the extra work, and I'll just play through on my own time. I'd love to share my run while I do it, however, so I thought I'd give this a shot!

PLEASE let me know if this interests you! If it does, I'll work to get a first part up ASAP!

[spoiler=How I did it]So when trying to figure out how to randomize stuff, the toughest thing to figure out was growths. However, the key to doing this was a site I found. Just google "random thing picker" if you want to do one of these on your own. This site makes everything a million times easier. I decided that, due to low overall growths in the first gen, and making first gen not crazily unbalanced, that characters' growths (BEFORE holy blood) would range from 5%-90%. To calculate growth variance for each character, I simply but -30 through 30 into the random thing picker, in 5% increments. I'd roll one for each character and then add it to the character's usual total growths (again, BEFORE holy blood. Not only does this makes things easier, but it is also what nightmare shows anyway.) Once I had the character's new total growths, I'd put 5% through 90% (again, in 5% increments) into the random thing picker, and I'd start to roll growths. The important thing to keep in mind when rolling growths are the total growths of the character. If the character has 70% total growths left, and four stats to go, the highest possible growth the character could have at that point is 55% (55+5+5+5=70). So if a character couldn't have some of the higher growths at any given point, I'd simply remove the impossible options. This way, you can ensure that all 8 of their growths combined add up to their growth total.

Randomizing bases wasn't terribly difficult. In nightmare, FE4 HP bases are the character's actual base HP stat. For HP, I decided to use a variance of 10. So I put -10 through 10 into the random thing picker and rolled one to use for each character's HP base. All the other bases only have variances of 3, so I only needed to put in -3 through 3 and roll one for each of a character's other stats. Since the luck base in nightmare is, again, simply the character's base luck, I always kept my roll for the luck stat on luck. However once I had rolled a -3 through 3 number for Str, Mag, Skl, Spd, Def, and Res, I put those in the random thing picker, and let it decide how to redistribute those bases. This base randomizing strategy meant bases wouldn't get randomized to a ridiculously unfair amount, but it is still different enough to make a clear difference.

Classes are easy with the random thing picker, and should be self-explanatory. There are only two things that I would point out. First off I forced an early game healer and 1 thief on each generation for game-balance reasons. Second is that depending on character class, their Str or Mag growth could screw them over more than in GBA, when Str and Mag are just one stat. Because of this, if a character had more magic, I would list magic classes in the random thing picker more than once, and physical only once. For someone with similar Str and Mag growths, everything would be listed once. This means a character will be less likely to be screwed over due to having good magic but bad strength, and getting a class like Lance Knight.

Finally, skills. Non-child characters in the base game can only have up to 2 personal skills. (I think this is true? People like Aira who have a third should only be due to class.) Because of this, I put 0 1 and 2 into the random thing picker and rolled a number for each character. However, to make things more interesting, I listed 0 the least and 2 the most (I believe a 2:3:5 ratio). This way most characters should have at least one wacky ability. Then I put all the abilities into the random thing picker and started rolling what personal abilities people would get. There are two things to note about the way I did this:

1. I listed Pursuit, Critical and Adept 3 times, but everything else once, since these are abilities that should have wider availability.

2. I wouldn't recommend allowing Charisma more than once per generation. I've done a run with random skills before, and if you have too much Charisma at certain points, it can mess up enemy AI.

I could have randomized stuff like weapons, character holy blood, and boss classes, but as a first playthrough, I figured that this would be enough of a test. The amount of randomization already promises wacky fun anyway.

EDIT: Apparently there is the beginnings of a working FE4 randomizer. I never knew. This still is quite different from that though, this'll be a new and unique take on it. Totally not trying to make myself feel better for spending hours to get something "new and unique". I still want to do this though, if there is any interest.

Edited December 31, 2015 by AstralSpirit

[Lantairu]

Actually, Lamia is working on a randomized sample, though that works for some people and not others, others being me.

[AstralSpirit]

Actually, Lamia is working on a randomized sample, though that works for some people and not others, others being me.

That's... pretty cool actually, although it seems to try to make some edits to the game that kind of seem to surpass the term "randomizer"...

I still would love to do this, if people want. I'll make a quick update to the OP though so no one else tries to correct me.

[Lantairu]

I'll totally try it. The other one does have some problems so yeah. It'll be in patch form I'm guessing?

[sirmola]

How are you going to deal with initially equipped items/ holy weapons? Are you going to edit them to be something appropriate, or leave them as is? Will you edit any items if you get a bunch of ax users or something?

Also, how will promotions work? iirc they are by character, not class, and the game actualy treets non-promoted classes the same as promoted ones, internaly (so you could have a sage "promote" into a sword armor with complete randomization.) Also, does the class pool include classes like emporer. queen, long arch, and dark mage?

Edited October 18, 2015 by sirmola

[AstralSpirit]

I think I'll try and put a first part up tomorrow. Things got busier than I expected...

I'll totally try it. The other one does have some problems so yeah. It'll be in patch form I'm guessing?

I mean... this is an LP thread, not a new randomizer thread. I could theoretically make a patch of the exact game I'm playing, but not of a different type of randomizer.

How are you going to deal with initially equipped items/ holy weapons? Are you going to edit them to be something appropriate, or leave them as is? Will you edit any items if you get a bunch of ax users or something?

Also, how will promotions work? iirc they are by character, not class, and the game actualy treets non-promoted classes the same as promoted ones, internaly (so you could have a sage "promote" into a sword armor with complete randomization.) Also, does the class pool include classes like emporer. queen, long arch, and dark mage?

All that stuff is pretty easy to tackle with nightmare. Simply due to the distribution of classes in the game, the items seem to work out, and holy weapons... I guess the character just has to get lucky to be able to use them. Which will certainly add a bit of a welcome challenge. For promotions, I literally just plug the new ones into nightmare, problem solved. Enemy only classes can get complicated, so I left them out for now. Though I can imagine certain ones could be included easily and others... would be a bit more complicated.

[AstralSpirit]

Woo! Let's start this! I'm splitting this first castle into 2 parts, there's just a lot of character intro and stuff here, so I'd rather split it up. The next castle should probably be one.

Also if people have suggestions for how I should deal with arenas, I'm open for ideas.

[spoiler=Chalphy-Jungby Pt. 1]

It begins!

Ahh, the Grandbellian map. Gotta love it. The detail put into making into making the chapter maps look like the overworld map is fantastic.

And there's our main dude!

Prologue: Birth of the Holy Knight

Oh noes! Baddies attacking Jungby!

Am I the only one who knew Midir was a guy right away? Even to this day, I have trouble trying to figure out why people always think he looks like a girl...

Meanwhile at Chalphy...

Hey it's Oifaye! That guy who started an archetype! Except he's little now. Just wait until he grows up and gets some facial hair.

Ardan? Slow? We'll see about that!

The motley crew.

First gotta change some important stuff...

Alright now to look at our characters!

Growths: HP 30 Str 15 Mag 45 Skl 80 Spd 5 Lck 10 Def 35 Res 30

*Looks at Ardan's base speed* Hahaha slow? Anything but!

*Looks at Ardan's speed growth* Damn it, Ardan!!!

He comes with plenty of gold due to being a thief, which is nice, but no skills. He won't be terribly impressive, but he'll be useful for getting me some money at least.

Growths: HP 40 Str 5 Mag 80 Skl 70 Spd 30 Lck 20 Def 15 Res 10

I'm one of those freaks who like vanilla Noish more than vanilla Alec, so seeing such good growths on Noish makes me happy. Unfortunately, he only has Vantage in terms of skills, which won't be terribly useful on its own. At least he has some solid base Magic.

Growths: HP 35 Str 10 Mag 15 Skl 5 Spd 10 Lck 10 Def 70 Res 85

A very defensively oriented healer. And it figures he would have the best skill set yet. He can't even take advantage of it as a healer, and his growths will mean he won't be spectacular when he promotes. A little unfortunate, but the fact that he has Pursuit means he is going to be fathering someone. We need to use every Pursuit dad that we get. Also, note that he has a Heal staff. Just remember that for later.

Growths: HP 95 Str 30 Mag 5 Skl 25 Spd 55 Lck 40 Def 75 Res 5

And finally Sigurd, our Lord! He's got some damn nice growths, but he's been unpromoted, and has sacrificed Pursuit for Miracle and Critical. He definitely will be nothing like vanilla Sigurd, but he isn't looking absolutely terrible.

Oh, and before I forget...

Growths: Hp 40 Str 5 Mag 40 Skl 5 Spd 80 Lck 5 Def 45 Res 5

Midir is currently trying to defend Jungby. Spoilers: plot dictates that he fails. In vanilla, I really despise Midir, he's my least favorite unit in the game. I've gotten him purposely killed on a couple of my runs. This time around, he's an... odd unit. A magically based Social Knight Cavalier with Miracle as his only ability. Somehow, he's landed a spot as a future father, so I'll have to try and put some effort into him.

But anyway, let's get this started!

I take a bit more of a defensive stance turn 1, considering my units can't actually reach the action yet. Sigurd and Ardan hide in the forests...

... And the enemy advances.

After some plot, of course. This IS early game FE, after all.

He did?

Gandolf breaks the rules of the game with his plot-mandated critical hit! Joy!

Hmm, who could that mysterious Pegasus Knight be?

Our first battle!

Ardan dodges a 0! What skill! Such an intense battle!

Gotta love that thieves nab the enemy's money!

This village starts to burn down, but I'm not too worried about this one in particular.

And what's this? New units?

First, I take advantage of the ability to save at the beginning of turns. I honestly wish all FE games had this option, redoing a turn to fix a mistake or get out of a tough situation provides a much more rewarding playstyle to me than "Oh no, the boss crit me, guess I gotta REDO THE ENTIRE MAP!"

Beautiful.

Growths: HP 50 Str 15 Mag 70 Skl 30 Spd 50 Lck 15 Def 35 Res 10

Here's Lex, our second Priest. He's got better growths than Alec, but no skills, so it all balances out in the end.

Growths: HP 25 Str 60 Mag 90 Skl 5 Spd 20 Lck 5 Def 15 Res 5

He's got very high Strength and Magic growths, but not much else, he even has no skills. He won't be amazing, but at least he should always hit hard. It's rather unfortunate he won't be able to take advantage of that spectacular Magic growth.

Azel begins to work on saving this village up here, but it's gonna take a while.

Noish weakens a fighter, while Ardan charges ahead to attack another fighter and get more money.

And Sigurd claims his first kill.

Enemy phase again.

Money <3

These two villages will prove to be particularly difficult to save with the pathetic crew I've been given.

Look more units!

I'm sure you can see that Pegasus Knight there, so I guess we'll start with her. Did you know that Ethlin actually has really good bases in vanilla? They're just not so obvious because of her class. But now that her bases have been only slightly altered and she has a new class, we get this:

Yep.

Growths: HP 25 Str 25 Mag 20 Skl 95 Spd 5 Lck 25 Def 15 Res 5

The low speed doesn't even bother me with bases like these. Cuan is supposed to be our Jeigan/Oifaye unit, but Ethlin will be just as overpowered! She comes with Pursuit and Bargain as personal skills, which is decent. This means Leaf and Altenna will be guaranteed these skills, which is nice. I gave Ethlin the Fire Sword since you never get it otherwise in Gen 1, and it'll help with all the axe users in the first chapters.

Growths: Hp 55 Str 105 Mag 25 Skl 20 Spd 25 Lck 10 Def 30 Res 20

And Cuan looks just as promising as his lover! His Strength is a bit overkill, but a MageHero Jeigan sounds badass. Adept is a class skill, meaning his personals are Critical and Bargain. This means Leaf and Altenna will get Critical, Bargain, and Pursuit as personal skills. I wish his Magic and Strength growths were switched due his class, but at least he can use swords.

Growths: HP 10 Str 10 Mag 50 Skl 70 Spd 10 Lck 80 Def 10 Res 5

And they come with Fin, who is now a Thunder Mage. His Speed and defensive growths are a bit low, but his others are nice. And he has Pursuit, so he'll be useful as a father. I'll have to be sure to train him up anyway, since he comes back again in Gen 2.

You're getting there, Azel. You're getting there.

Noish+Sigurd finishes off the bandit.

Money!

Gotta keep Ethlin out of the range of Mr. Scary Bow Dude.

These bandits begin their pillaging.

And we'll see if they're successful next time. With all the introductions finally out of the way, we can really get into stuff next time.

Edited October 20, 2015 by AstralSpirit

[sirmola]

Enemy only classes can get complicated, so I left them out for now. Though I can imagine certain ones could be included easily and others... would be a bit more complicated.

Isn't fire mage an enemy only class?

[Ansem]

your units kinda suck

[AstralSpirit]

Isn't fire mage an enemy only class?

Okay, okay, I put one insignificant one in that I forgot was an enemy only class. Might as well even not be, just follows the same logic as Thunder or Wind mages.

your units kinda suck

Yeah... Expect that to be a pattern in Gen 1. Really happy that my only two competent units right now leave me after chapter 3...

[sirmola]

Okay, okay, I put one insignificant one in that I forgot was an enemy only class. Might as well even not be, just follows the same logic as Thunder or Wind mages.

Yeah... Expect that to be a pattern in Gen 1. Really happy that my only two competent units right now leave me after chapter 3...

What about the three non-sword kinds of armor? did you include those? (i hope not, because they are somehow even worse).

WHat happens if julia can't use narga (the only promoted classes with a light rank are sage and master night)?

Are you looking ahead to see kid's classes for pairing purposes? Did you change sword skill inheritability to be consistant with their classes?

Notably, fin's personal speed is actualy zero. What you see is entirely due to his class. Also, noish only has 1 personal magic (exactlay as much as fin). Fire mages have 10 base magic, but the difference disappears on promotion.

Did you include "life" in the skill pool? It's easy to add with nightmare, and actually appears in the in-game menu who lists who has which skill, but no one actualy gets it (exept one of the deadlords).

Also, of you have a 30% growth variance, how do you have things like azel getting a 60% strength growth? Also, what is you do if someone with a 0 base gets-1?

How did you decide weather any given magic user promoted into a mage knight, sage, or mage hero? (i'm assuuming you never picked bishop as it is enemy/npc only)

Edited October 20, 2015 by sirmola

[Zasplach]

To answer the two questions, Midir looks like a girl because of the ponytail and I think most people actually prefer vanilla Noish to vanilla Alec. Good luck with this btw.

[Emperor Hardin]

You could just have Pirate, Brigand, Hunter, and barbarian promote to Warrior?

Personally if it was me, I'd alter either Brigand or Barbarian to become a new class like Berserker.

So are the armor variations available?

It would be cool if characters recruited at tier 2 like Cuan and Hannibal could be classes like Baron. Certain enemy only classes like Baron, and Dark Mage do have player palettes, maybe that could be how you decide which Enemy classes to make playable?

Maybe you could alter stat caps to make it more even?

Edited October 20, 2015 by Emperor Hardin

[sirmola]

You could just have Pirate, Brigand, Hunter, and barbarian promote to Warrior?

Personally if it was me, I'd alter either Brigand or Barbarian to become a new class like Berserker.

So are the armor variations available?

It would be cool if characters recruited at tier 2 like Cuan and Hannibal could be classes like Baron. Certain enemy only classes like Baron, and Dark Mage do have player palettes, maybe that could be how you decide which Enemy classes to make playable?

Maybe you could alter stat caps to make it more even?

I don't think any of that is in the scope of this project, which seems to only be changing actual characters and nothing else.

As for Baron, I thought that it didn't have a player palate. (and in fact some hacks get around the fact that all barons are hardcoded to have the same palate by changing it to something that looks good on both players and enemies.)

[AstralSpirit]

What about the three non-sword kinds of armor? did you include those? (i hope not, because they are somehow even worse).

WHat happens if julia can't use narga (the only promoted classes with a light rank are sage and master night)?

Are you looking ahead to see kid's classes for pairing purposes? Did you change sword skill inheritability to be consistant with their classes?

Notably, fin's personal speed is actualy zero. What you see is entirely due to his class. Also, noish only has 1 personal magic (exactlay as much as fin). Fire mages have 10 base magic, but the difference disappears on promotion.

Did you include "life" in the skill pool? It's easy to add with nightmare, and actually appears in the in-game menu who lists who has which skill, but no one actualy gets it (exept one of the deadlords).

Also, of you have a 30% growth variance, how do you have things like azel getting a 60% strength growth? Also, what is you do if someone with a 0 base gets-1?

How did you decide weather any given magic user promoted into a mage knight, sage, or mage hero? (i'm assuuming you never picked bishop as it is enemy/npc only)

Well, well, the man with the questions, I see. In terms of armors, the best answer I can give is a spoiler-y one about units to come, and this is because:

I never get one, so it doesn't matter anyway.

Julia was forced into having certain requirements cuz I'm a coward and I'm afraid the game wouldn't be beatable otherwise. I HAVE to look ahead to see kid's classes because I need to randomize it all manually. I know who SHOULD be able to inherit sword skills based on their classes, but is that not enough? Most of my nightmare experience has been GBA, only very minor FE4 before this, so there could be something I don't know there. I'm aware what Fin's base speed is. I plugged it into nightmare myself. Same with Noish's magic. For the answer for the life skill, see the armor spoiler, although I know how easy it is to add, I've played a lot with changing characters' skills before. The growth variance works the way it does with the GBA randomizer. The 30% variance is to a character's total growths (minus holy blood), and this total is randomly redistributed. I explained how I did that in the OP. Negative bases can't exist in nightmare, so if they rolled what would have been below zero, I just left it at zero. Sage, at least in the FE4 main game, seemed to belong to certain classes like Bard or Shaman, so they stick with those. Mage Knight vs. Mage Hero (and the only other I can recall off the top of my head being Swordmaster vs. Hero/Forrest) were randomly chosen for those eligible.

Edited October 21, 2015 by AstralSpirit

[AstralSpirit]

You could just have Pirate, Brigand, Hunter, and barbarian promote to Warrior?

Personally if it was me, I'd alter either Brigand or Barbarian to become a new class like Berserker.

So are the armor variations available?

It would be cool if characters recruited at tier 2 like Cuan and Hannibal could be classes like Baron. Certain enemy only classes like Baron, and Dark Mage do have player palettes, maybe that could be how you decide which Enemy classes to make playable?

Maybe you could alter stat caps to make it more even?

I haven't had a ton of editing fooling around with this stuff, so currently adding a new class is beyond me. Armor variations is answered above. I suppose promotion to Baron COULD be something I'd just plug in, so perhaps I'll do like a poll for that or something? We'll see. Stat cap altering should be simple nightmare work as far as I know. And Hannibal's gonna be so insane he won't need Baron anyway, I can't wait to get him.

Why did those post separately? Weird. Oh well.

Edited October 21, 2015 by AstralSpirit

[sirmola]

I know who SHOULD be able to inherit sword skills based on their classes, but is that not enough? Most of my nightmare experience has been GBA, only very minor FE4 before this, so there could be something I don't know there.

The developers actually hard coded it based an character, and then made sure it matched with class. If you do nothing, latchke, ulster, patty, and leen will inherit them no matter the class, and no other characters will inherite them no matter what their class is. Fortionatly, this problem can be fixed pretty easily in a hex editer if you know what you are doing. This thread explains it: http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=38844If you want to keep one of the characters mentioned above from inheriting, you could reverse the process.

[Yojinbo]

I think randomizing growth rates is ... pretty dumb but I've always been a fan of randomized classes. Should be particularly interesting for FE4 so if this ever becomes I thing I'll probably play it non-stop. Not knowing which classes the children or their replacements will roll will make gen 2 a lot more interesting.

[AstralSpirit]

I'll try to have the rest of the first castle out first thing when I get up on Saturday! I think I'll put a little subtitle after the main title, and change it each time I make a new update, so people can be able to know just by looking at the title.

To answer the two questions, Midir looks like a girl because of the ponytail and I think most people actually prefer vanilla Noish to vanilla Alec. Good luck with this btw.

Thought I'd responded to this. FE characters with ponytails look like girls?

And I've usually heard complaints about Noish in the past... Never really understood that much either. He's not exceptional, but he has some decent potential and is a good dad.

The developers actually hard coded it based an character, and then made sure it matched with class. If you do nothing, latchke, ulster, patty, and leen will inherit them no matter the class, and no other characters will inherite them no matter what their class is. Fortionatly, this problem can be fixed pretty easily in a hex editer if you know what you are doing. This thread explains it: http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=38844If you want to keep one of the characters mentioned above from inheriting, you could reverse the process.

Wow, thanks. I haven't had too much hex editing exeprience, just a bit, but this doesn't seem terribly tough. I'll take a look at addressing this next chance I get, I should only have to address one character anyway.

I think randomizing growth rates is ... pretty dumb but I've always been a fan of randomized classes. Should be particularly interesting for FE4 so if this ever becomes I thing I'll probably play it non-stop. Not knowing which classes the children or their replacements will roll will make gen 2 a lot more interesting.

Randomizing growths tends to make characters worse in general, but that's part of the fun for me! Adds some challenge! Of course, some people like you prefer to leave them be, so the setting to do so on the GBA randomizer is understandable. I can see the advantages to both.

[Emperor Hardin]

I don't think any of that is in the scope of this project, which seems to only be changing actual characters and nothing else.

As for Baron, I thought that it didn't have a player palate. (and in fact some hacks get around the fact that all barons are hardcoded to have the same palate by changing it to something that looks good on both players and enemies.)

I've fooled around with hacking FE4, Baron has a player palette unlike several unplayable classes like Hunter, or Emperor. The Player Baron Palette is Red, while the enemy Palette is Purple. Interestingly enough in FE5, Enemy Barons were red(Also due to how palettes worked in that games coding, no unplayable classes had player palettes).

Well, well, the man with the questions, I see. In terms of armors, the best answer I can give is a spoiler-y one about units to come, and this is because:

I never get one, so it doesn't matter anyway.

Julia was forced into having certain requirements cuz I'm a coward and I'm afraid the game wouldn't be beatable otherwise. I HAVE to look ahead to see kid's classes because I need to randomize it all manually. I know who SHOULD be able to inherit sword skills based on their classes, but is that not enough? Most of my nightmare experience has been GBA, only very minor FE4 before this, so there could be something I don't know there. I'm aware what Fin's base speed is. I plugged it into nightmare myself. Same with Noish's magic. For the answer for the life skill, see the armor spoiler, although I know how easy it is to add, I've played a lot with changing characters' skills before. The growth variance works the way it does with the GBA randomizer. The 30% variance is to a character's total growths (minus holy blood), and this total is randomly redistributed. I explained how I did that in the OP. Negative bases can't exist in nightmare, so if they rolled what would have been below zero, I just left it at zero. Sage, at least in the FE4 main game, seemed to belong to certain classes like Bard or Shaman, so they stick with those. Mage Knight vs. Mage Hero (and the only other I can recall off the top of my head being Swordmaster vs. Hero/Forrest) were randomly chosen for those eligible.

Interesting.

[AstralSpirit]

Alright, now that I've gotten all my units for the first castle, it's time to charge Jungby!

[spoiler=Chalphy-Jungby Pt. 2]

Cuan activates Adept and saves us our first village! I like you, Cuan. You're going places.

Fin can't double the Archer... Dat 0 personal speed base.

Ethlin mops up.

MONEY!

Ardan and Sigurd make sure this Hand Axe guy can't reach too many people, but Sigurd takes an axe to the face in the process.

But at least this guy can't advance now.

Ethlin one-rounds these guys. Plz nerf.

Adept AND Critcal. Cuan OP.

Azel finally accomplishes his goal. Village #2 is safe.

Sigurd takes the first one.

Money?

MONEY!

Ethlin can't quite kill these guys from range. Oh well.

At least Fin can double the Fighters.

Ethlin has some nice avoid.

Ooh! The first level up!

I bet it's gonna be great!

+1 Skl.

Fuck you too, Ethlin.

MONEY!!!

Next, I bring Alec to heal Sigurd, but...

ALEC WHERE THE FUCK IS YOUR HEAL STAFF?

Turns out I derped here and accidentally gave the same heal staff to both Lex and Alec... I'll show you soon how I fix this stupid mistake, but for now there won't be any experience going to Alec...

Cuan literally hasn't failed to proc Adept yet. This guy is so good.

...And just as I say that, he fails to proc Adept on the next enemy... But he does level from it!

+1 Str, +1 Def

...Acceptable, especially for Gen 1.

Ethlin entered the range of one enemy and seems to have gotten the attention of a lot of them. Typical.

And there we go! Heal staff problem fixed, to an extent. The boss now drops a heal staff for Alec to buy later.

I have Ardan give Alec some money so he can do that. Besides, Ardan can build up his pool of money again sometime soon.

Cuan and Ethlin continue to charge forward and destroy some enemies.

+1 Skl

I'm sensing a pattern here, Ethlin, and I don't like it.

Here you can see the edge of Azel's range and how far that one village is from me right now. It's pretty much doomed, so I give up on it here. I have two other villages to focus on right now.

Ethlin is slowly getting whittled down, and our only healer who can actually heal is nowhere near her right now.

This group blindly charges forward. We gotta coax these guys out ASAP if we wanna save that village, so Azel has to take one for the team here.

Meanwhile, Alec made himself useful and saved a village that was no longer even under attack!

As per usual, Ethlin tries to provoke one enemy and gets like 5.

Azel actually dodges! I'm shocked!

Ethlin doesn't care about effective damage, she shits on these bow dudes. Can't wait to see how many kills this Fire Sword gets!

+1 Skl, +1 Mag

Better, I guess.

Ethlin charges forward, she's my best bet to save this village right now.

Fin takes out a Hand Axe guy.

Cuan gets hit? What is this nonsense?

He didn't appreciate it.

Alec will catch up eventually...

Ardan begins to build up his money pile again.

Sigurd gets his first level!

+1 Hp, +1 Skl, +1 Spd, +1 Def

Good to see some things haven't changed.

Cuan saves this village after the bandit was weakened by Azel.

And Ethlin saves this one easily.

She's dangerously low on health, but so many enemies are gone at this point, it doesn't actually put her in any danger.

Fin gets started on the castle guards and nets himself a level.

+1 HP, +1 Lck

Getting that 10% HP growth. I like it.

Heal spamming at its finest.

Cuan grabs this village.

And this one is gone. RIP in peace.

Everyone begins to move towards the castle, even if we won't need all of them.

This bandit starts moving south now that his job is done.

I like to do all the talks, even if they don't give me anything. So I start doing those now.

No! Alec! Run from the scary bandit! You don't even have a staff to protect you!

More talks.

And it's boss time!

Off to an ok start.

Run, Alec, run!

A ring?

The old lady gave Fin some speed.

Which he needs with that base and growth.

Sigurd keeps at the boss and levels up!

+1 HP, +1 Spd, +1 Def

Even Ardan claims a level.

+1 Def.

Yep. Some things haven't changed.

ALL THE MONEY!!!

+1 HP, +2 Str, +1 Spd, +1 Lck, +1 Def

Just get some Magic, and I won't be able to complain.

Ardan kills a thing!

Ow.

Better heal that.

OW.

+1 HP, +1 Spd, +1 Mag

The power of thy sibling compels thee!

Ded.

Heal get.

Time to start preparing for the next castle.

My units take cover in the forests and village...

... and we seize.

Look! A really shitty ally!

Better get him where he can at least try to be useful...

I've never understood why they felt it was necessary to give this river a name...

But that's all for now! Next time:

A buttload of enemies!

Oh, and this guy too.

Edited October 24, 2015 by AstralSpirit

[ENS]

This looks promising.

[AstralSpirit]

Never realized how uneventful this next castle is, but here goes...

[spoiler=Jungby-Evans]

First things first, it's time to go town.

Sigurd's gotta sell that heal staff.

And Alec picks it up.

I make sure to keep Ethlin out of the range of the closest bow users, but in range of a lot of the axe users.

This is actually the beginning of the enemy turn. Pictured is the defensive formation I take.

+1 Skl.

I'm never going to expect much out of your levels, Ethlin.

As you can see here, everyone who went to Ethlin on the enemy turn was annihilated. Anyone who went for Cuan was shown mercy, he decided that he was tired of activating his abilities.

+1 HP, +1 Str, +1 Mag

That's about all I could ever really expect from Azel.

And Alec finally begins to see some healing action!

I end my turn like this. What's that you say? There are bow users in Ethlin's range? She's weak to them? I have no idea what you're talking about...

Ethlin manages to dodge the first bow user, who caught me off guard and scared the shit out of me. I realize soon that there's still one more in her range, and that she's completely and utterly fucked.

Fffff...

ETHLIN YOU'RE MY HERO!!!

Even Ardan has enough strength to claim a kill on player phase.

Moving Fin out of the forest may seem dumb, but all the relevant threats should be gone by the enemy phase.

+1 HP, +1 Spd, +1 Lck, +1 Def

+1 Str, +1 Res

Ethlin runs like a coward.

By the enemy phase, most of the threats are eliminated.

Even Midir is getting some... underwhelming action.

Alvis finally walks up to Sigurd and they have a chat.

Awww yes.

Ethlin needs this...

Fin is beginning to prove himself useful.

And Ardan's money pile continues to grow.

Midir claims his first kill.

+1 Skl, +1 Spd, +1 Mag

And this group of enemies is done.

Alec goes on a healing spree before the boss and levels up after some sweet healer on healer action.

+1 Res

Fin can just live a hit from the boss, so I leave him here to start the boss fight on enemy phase.

Here we go...

Fin can double! Yay for speed rings!

+1 Skl, +1 Lck

+1 HP, +1 Skl

Wow, an actual stat other than skill. I can't believe it.

Fucker heals 10 HP each turn...

+1 Str, +1 Spd

And after a ton of work trying to get a weaker unit the kill...

Cuan crits.

And doesn't even level from the boss kill (sorry for the bad screenshot...)

Alec goes on a final heal spree for a final level...

+1 HP, +1 Skl, +1 Def, +1 Res

That's a better level than I ever expected from him. That's a 5% Skill proc right there.

And it's time to get this chapter over with.

Wow I never saw that one coming. Shocker.

Hmmm I wonder where this chapter got its name...

And that screen means it's time to end here. Next time we'll be getting into Chapter 1!

[AstralSpirit]

[spoiler=Mini Chapter 1 Arena Update]

So this is basically how I'm gonna do things before each chapter. I'm gonna show anything like new characters, and then I'm just gonna arena without screenshots. I'll take screenshots of each character post-arena so that you can see how they're doing. So with that knowledge, just sit back, relax, and enjoy this mini-update.

Yeah, this is all your fault, Aideen.

Chapter 1: Girl of the Spirit Forest

Shut up, Augustria. We'll get to you later.

This is who we care about now.

Swordsmanship? We'll see about that!

Oh... She's... The same. Well that's anticlimactic.

Growths: HP 45 Str 40 Mag 10 Skl 45 Spd 40 Lck 35 Def 5 Res 50

She's... lost her useful abilities (Pursuit is a class skill), but at least she has some decent bases and surprisingly balanced growths. She has the growths where they matter, at least. She'll be good, but maybe not as good as usual without Astra.

On to the post-arena screen shots!

Next time we get on to the action!

[Yojinbo]

That Aira honestly looks pretty bad. Vanilla Aira doesn't ORKO anything without Astra procs and she may not actually pass down anything to her children either. Your best bet at this point would be pairing her up with Ardan because Bargain allows their children to make up for a lot of shortcomings via expensive items regardless of their class.