(Finally!) Own Path Of Radiance. Any Help for the New Girl?

[daisy jane]

I finally (FINALLY) own this game, I just bought it today for the cool low price of 70.00 (woo!).

I am 100 percent "new school" Fire Emblem, which is to say, I play casual mode and normal. so. i know that PoR + Radiant Dawn will not have that safety cushion and I have to re-consider my game plan (ie: not rush in and kill everyone, or have a sacrificial lamb, teehee). but because this is my first foray into "Real" fire emblem for lack of a better phrasing is there anything else i need to know? (like is Normal Mode still there (please say yes?) anything i need to know? 

It will be weird for me to play my first FE without DLC and uber grinding haha. 

[Dragoncat]

Enjoy it! It's great!

Beware of Black Knights in houses in the chapter called Blood Runs Red. Perhaps play on easy mode if you're not used to classic FE gameplay.

Edited May 25, 2018 by Dragoncat

[Shadow Mir]

Only two units can recruit a certain unit in the desert chapter. Both of them are laguz. Speaking of which, laguz units don't work like most units. They need to transform before then can fight. Also, two of your units will leave early on. You can get them back, but it'll take some doing (one requires recruiting a level 1 unit that can easily get killed if she gets attacked - I would recommend shoving Ike to get to her before that happens. The other requires having a certain unit talk to him first, then having Ike defeat him. Warning: said unit is in range of a long range mage.) Also, avoid the house right above your starting position in chapter 11. An extremely dangerous enemy unit will pop out of that house. In addition, a named Wyvern rider will spawn behind your starting point in that same chapter. Do NOT kill her; she's recruitable, but not in that chapter. Plus, you'have to talk to the Pegasus knight in chapter 3 to get her later.

Edited May 25, 2018 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Dragoncat]

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Also, avoid the house right above your starting position in chapter 11. An extremely dangerous enemy unit will pop out of that house.

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Beware of Black Knights in houses in the chapter called Blood Runs Red. 

We can't stress this enough.

[daisy jane]

okay Black Knights BAD. 
Dangerous Enemies in Chapter 11 BAD. 

Got it! :)

and phew. thank goodness there is an easy mode! 

[Dragoncat]

Black Knight IS the dangerous enemy, actually. Just one of him but he can totally ruin your day if there's anybody by that house when he comes out.

[Vince777]

Easy mode is actually still challenging enough that you can't run through it blind so don't feel bad about picking it. You'll still have to be careful.

I say look up a recruitment guide unless you don't mind missing units. 

(also, don't give your mages knives on promotion)

Edited May 26, 2018 by Vince777

[Dr. Tarrasque]

Mounted units can move again after attacking. Makes them the best in the game generally speaking.

Other than that, I can't think of much since the game is generally very easy and effective damage is 2x instead of the common 3x. You can stick to about 8 units to train up and fill the rest of the slots with good prepromotes as most of them can fill in just fine.

Edited May 26, 2018 by Dr. Tarrasque

[Dragoncat]

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(also, don't give your mages knives on promotion)

Reminds me: Give Oscar bows when he promotes and try to get Boyd promoted ASAP too, the triangle attack in this FE is between them and Rolf and uses bows.

Promotion happens automatically at level 21 but you can use master seals, but they're rare.

[bethany81707]

9 minutes ago, Dragoncat said:

Promotion happens automatically at level 21 but you can use master seals, but they're rare.

There are two of the things, if memory serves.

[Tsak]

I'd probably play on easy.
I've played many of the FE in my day and my blind run of Path of Radiance has been pretty interesting. Not as hard as i thought it was going to be, but if you're used to casual and such you really need to play carefully and on a easier difficulty. The map design definitely stressing defending your healers more then some other fire emblems.
You can be caught off guard by high movement enemies sometimes so just be aware of that.
And yes Black knight on Chapter 11 will ruin your day. just looking at his stats is enough to give me a headache.

[Shadow Mir]

46 minutes ago, Dragoncat said:

Reminds me: Give Oscar bows when he promotes and try to get Boyd promoted ASAP too, the triangle attack in this FE is between them and Rolf and uses bows.

Speaking of, the horse units can choose a new weapon type when promoting. Personally, I find the triangle attack too impractical to bother with (requiring the use of Rolf alone is enough for me to write it off as such).

[BrightBow]

Until you get access to the base menu, you do not have an item storage. So if one of your units picks up an item when their inventory is already filled, you will have to discard one. So watch out for that. Just in case this is unclear, once you get access to the base menu with the shop and all the other good stuff, items will get send to the item storage, just as you are probably used to.

Speaking of shops, their inventory changes with each map. It's not too big of a deal, it's usually something like one chapter they have Steel Swords and no Iron Swords or something like that. So it's not like they only ever offer you a fraction of the inventory.

Weapon weight is a thing in this game and it's counteracted by the Strength stat. So be careful when using Steel and effective damage weapons early in the game, as they will absolutely kill your speed. By the time of promotion, weight is essentially a non issue.

 

 

[Alex95]

My favorite FE game, I could probably talk about all the chapters in full detail. So, to go along with what everyone else said:

• As said, avoid the center house in and the Wyvern Riders that appear later Chapter 11. There is a unit and a weapon you can obtain in this chapter, though.
• Get to the Pegasus Girl in Chapter 3 before the bandits do, and you can recruit her in a later chapter.
• During "arrive" missions, you can have every character leave, but only Ike will end the chapter. I forget if something special happens if everyone leaves first, but other than extra dialogue, I don't think so?
• In the level with all the priests as enemies, don't kill any of them! The Aether skill can also be obtained in this chapter, iirc. Make sure Ike gets that.
• Once you're on the boat after Chapter 11, look through the base conversations with "Unknown" I think it is and you'll get Sothe. Actually, just look through base conversations whenever you can, you get stuff sometimes.
• Chapter 17. Four part chapter. Brutal.
• In the prison level, don't bother trying to sneak around. Just attack the nearest guard and get some experience.
• At the very end chapter, when it asks which character you want to bring in, answer Giffca. Doing so will unlock his portrait in the gallery after the game is completed. Unless you don't care for that, in which case, go with Tibarn.

[bethany81707]

2 hours ago, Power Master said:

• During "arrive" missions, you can have every character leave, but only Ike will end the chapter. I forget if something special happens if everyone leaves first, but other than extra dialogue, I don't think so?

Incorrect. You're thinking of "Escape" maps. I don't know if Escape gives BEXP in this game, though...

"Arrive" maps are different. Arrive is functionally identical to Seize, except any character can Arrive, while only Ike can Seize. RD on non-Easy difficulties introduces "specific character must Arrive", but that's not in this game.

[ping]

When in doubt, throw Titania at the problem. Unless, y'know, Black Knight. But otherwise, she's incredibly powerful.

There's a mechanism called "bonus experience" with which you can level up your characters during battle preparations (and yes, you can use that to rig level-ups). Most of the time, you gain more BEXP by finishing the chapter quicker, so there is an incentive to not dawdle too much.

Character supports grow simply by deployment - you don't have to keep them next to each other or anything silly like that. The bonus you get is dependant of the two units' affinity, with Earth being the best by far because it boosts evasion by quite a bit. Ike/Oscar (who are available chapter 1) in particular can make both of them nigh invulnerable. Note that any character can only have 5 support convos per game, though. (1xA/1xB, or 2xB/1xC and so on)

Characters are fairly even in terms of stats (except Titania), so you don't have to worry too much about who to use. Thanks to bonus experience, every single character in the game is perfectly viable. Of course, some units are still better than others: Sword and bow users are generally worse because they lack weapons with 1-2 range, your first thief isn't that good at combat despite good stats because knives absolutely suck in this game, all mounted (and even moreso flying) units are good units at worst because they can move after attacking... But your really, really don't need to use or avoid specific characters to beat the game.

The best skill combo on Ike is Adept/Wrath in order to have the best chances in a luckbased and optional boss fight. Resolve/Wrath is even better, but you don't get the Resolve skill in time. Aether (learned via Occult scroll) isn't that much worse and looks a whole lot cooler, though. ;)

Forges are pretty good in this game. You'll become filthy rich fairly early in the game, so it's a good idea to spend your money quite aggressively on stronger weapons, especially on units with low base strength.

5 minutes ago, bethany81707 said:

Incorrect. You're thinking of "Escape" maps. I don't know if Escape gives BEXP in this game, though...

It does.

[Cornguy]

7 hours ago, Dragoncat said:

Reminds me: Give Oscar bows when he promotes and try to get Boyd promoted ASAP too, the triangle attack in this FE is between them and Rolf and uses bows.

Promotion happens automatically at level 21 but you can use master seals, but they're rare.

Come on, don't point a new player towards using Rolf. The triangle attack is novel, but not worth keeping Oscar from the best weapon type in the game, and also using Rolf.

That said, any character is somewhat usable in easy mode, so if you love Rolf, you can baby him into having good stats. I recommend playing blind though, maybe even no restarts if you're feeling brave. I think you'll have a lot more fun focusing on beating the chapters rather than worrying about missing little details. There are no sidequests or alternate endings, so you can't be locked out of anything amazing by missing a detail. 

If you stick with going blind, you would be excused for looking at a guide for the desert chapter. Side objective, hidden items, new unit to recruit(with a very specific recruitment). If you decide to play blind, I would at least recommend peaking at a map for the desert.

[daisy jane]

thanks so much everyone! :)

right now I just beat the pirates, and i am babying soren and rhys.

i'm trying to baby those two now. 

[bethany81707]

9 minutes ago, daisy jane said:

thanks so much everyone! :)

right now I just beat the pirates, and i am babying soren and rhys.

i'm trying to baby those two now. 

Chapter 4, and Chapter 8 later, are the banes of my runs even on Easy (to be fair, for Chapter 4, you don't exactly have a lot of the benefit from Easy's EXP boost over normal). Don't be afraid to start using Titania more than you're comfortable with. My infamous run where I got an entire screwed earlygame party got Titania to level 6 just from carrying their sorry asses through those maps.

[redlight]

Mia and Zihark aren't that great as myrmidons as they are locked to swords and are infantry even with promotion. Their stats and growths are a bit too favored towards speed. I heard Stefan is good, but don't quote me on that.

Don't feed Ike any bonus Exp in the base. I don't know how, but I noticed that for a lot people he caps before promoting.

Promote Mist as soon as you get a master seal. Mounted healers are too great to pass on.

Archers are bad in general unless you're Astrid who is okay and can catch up with Paragon. Plus horse and canto

You can remove certain skills, but beware! They disappear.

You get only a few occult scrolls in the game so don't waste them

If you want to recruit Shinon, have Rolf talk to him and defeat him with Ike

[Alex95]

6 hours ago, bethany81707 said:

Incorrect. You're thinking of "Escape" maps. I don't know if Escape gives BEXP in this game, though...

"Arrive" maps are different. Arrive is functionally identical to Seize, except any character can Arrive, while only Ike can Seize. RD on non-Easy difficulties introduces "specific character must Arrive", but that's not in this game.

Ah, yep. Had those switched around :P

[redlight]

Always pick axes for paladin promotions. A lot of your enemies are going to be lance users and steel axes are E rank

[Dragoncat]

5 hours ago, Cornguy said:

Come on, don't point a new player towards using Rolf. The triangle attack is novel, but not worth keeping Oscar from the best weapon type in the game, and also using Rolf.

Rolf is my precious arrow shota and he always turns out awesome for me.

[Shadow Mir]

29 minutes ago, Dragoncat said:

Rolf is my precious arrow shota and he always turns out awesome for me.

That's fine, but the reality is, Rolf is too much input for not enough output. There's also the fact that the 3 brothers triangle attack is honestly one of the least useful ones to ever exist. Three units all equipped with bows to kill one enemy is a poor deal when it means three sitting ducks on Enemy Phase.

[Dragoncat]

Just now, Levant Mir Celestia said:

That's fine, but the reality is, Rolf is too much input for not enough output. There's also the fact that the 3 brothers triangle attack is honestly one of the least useful ones to ever exist. Three units all equipped with bows to kill one enemy is a poor deal when it means three sitting ducks on Enemy Phase.

Good points.