This game could use some more playable characters

[Shiki]

It's a bit funky how Three Houses has a small roster but they decided to not include some more route-specific, non-student units. Somehow only BL gets this privilege in form of Gilbert who is technically not even affiliated with the Kingdom anymore (as he is a Knight of Seiros). They could have done more with that.

GD has 2 obvious choices in Judith and Nader. It's very weird how Judith is not playable considering she joins your army and only hangs around the monastery. Nader is a bit of underbaked character considering his title as "the Undefeated" as you don't see much of him beyond the Alliance part on the True BE route and one chapter in GD. Also he is jacked-up Wyvern Rider, I need to break this game even more.
Another unsung hero of the Alliance is Holst. He is apparently one of the best generals in the Alliance and everyone strokes his shaft, only for him to get his butt handed to him by Nemesis and poisoned mushrooms.

BE really should have made Randolph and Ladislava playable. You don't get any perspective on their characters, even on BE, and they come off as cannon fodder at best (no joke, that's how they die on all routes). Especially Ladislava doesn't have anything beyond "I owe Edelgard for some unnamed reason" and that's pretty sad.

I guess they ran out of resources to make more support convos?

Edited August 28, 2019 by Shiki

[Slumber]

Nah. 30-40 is the sweet spot for FE casts.

[Timlugia]

The problem with these characters is that they don't fit well into the setting

Randolph and Ladislava are only introduced as imperial general in part 2, both died in two chapters every route with no time to develop. There was no reason why imperial general would participate school activates in Part 1

Judith and Rodrigue were both introduced early on, but they were also lords in their country, make it hard to justified why would they be fighting bandits with students than ruling their lands if playable.

 

The only characters really fit into current setting are Jeralt and Rhea. But Jeralt dies in chapter 7 so some players might be pissed they "wasted" time on him (obvious counter argument would be in BE route you lost characters mid game either way)

On the other hand, I really think Rhea should be playable, especially in the church route. Her perspective would be much better represented if she has support convo outside just Byleth. She supposedly fight side by side with you in Shambala, yet she only appears in the cutscene.

[Humanoid]

No reason to force them to join pre-timeskip. You can just have them pop in as an NPC for a chapter or two to introduce them, and not have them join until the timeskip. They'd join one chapter after Seteth does, so plenty of time to play and develop them as units.

While there are a good number of playable units in the game already, it can get pretty stale because there's minimal variation in who you have available per route. Other than the lords, Hubert, Dedue and Gilbert, no one else is route-exclusive. Having a few more exclusives can be a breath of fresh air, one of the few things to differentiate the routes.

[zuibangde]

The fact that Judith explicitly says she’ll join you and just hangs around the monastery and not join you despite having all the character models, crit quote etc. feels a bit weird to me. 

Holst is also weird because he’s constantly mentioned. There’s a whole scene of Hilda, Claude and someone else talking about Holst and how he wants to join us. The game gave characterization to Holst through Hilda and the fact that the person that’s rumoured to lead the alliance doesn’t even have a face annoys me.

It almost feels like they ran out of time to make certain characters playable and will be released as DLC instead.

[NobodiePichu]

im personally of the opinion that they should have bumped up the number of students in each house just a bit. 12 for instance which would mean with bleyth included and no other optional recruits your trudling off through the game with the standard fe on map army size, maybe bump up the difficulty to recruit students from other houses as well if just a bit, hell maybe even have a 'if you recruited x, y will refuse to join' deal going on to have the player consider who they will recruit a bit more instead of just aiming for everyone possible because honestly its not that hard to recruit other students.

[bethany81707]

I found myself bothered, when Sylvain was turning out dodgy, that there was a lack of characters coming in to replace him.

[Flere210]

This games just need some characters that joins later in the game. And i hate how every fucking students is a turncoat that can join every faction, so having some routelocked characters like Judith would be a decent alternative. And i am still laughing at Caspar Hyping his father while he is not even a boss.

I understand this trend of wanting every playable character to have time to be known, but you don't need everyone to roam the monastery either. You can just have people come in from a month or so like Rodrigue did or meet them in paralagues. 

And you can just have the late joining characters gain support points at an accellerated rate. 

I want back my actual Ests, my Gothos and my mid games prepromotes.

[NegativeExponents-]

I agree. Judith and Nader should have absolutely been playable. Judith was pretty much already implemented as one having her models, quotes, and even appearing around the monastery except for some reason we can't actually use her. Nader would have been neat to keep around just because I would like to know more about him instead of him just leaving and never even mentioning him again. And although I dislike Rhea, she would've been the perfect Gotoh archetype for the game.

I would also like more deployment slots to go along with an increased playable cast (actually I would like three extra slots even without added characters) so I could actually deploy them though.

1 hour ago, Timlugia said:

Judith and Rodrigue were both introduced early on, but they were also lords in their country, make it hard to justified why would they be fighting bandits with students than ruling their lands if playable. 

What? I don't know about Rodrigue but Judith explicitly says she'll join the war and leave her land in care of a retainer to go along with us and then just hangs around the monastery doing nothing. I find it a lot harder to justify her just being an npc rather an a playable character.

54 minutes ago, zuibangde said:

Holst is also weird because he’s constantly mentioned. There’s a whole scene of Hilda, Claude and someone else talking about Holst and how he wants to join us. The game gave characterization to Holst through Hilda and the fact that the person that’s rumoured to lead the alliance doesn’t even have a face annoys me. 

Not just Holst but also Lorenz's father, Raphael's sis, Caspar's dad, and maybe Alois's wife and kid (though I'm sure his family doesn't actually exist). These are all characters that deserved at least some cameo with how often they are talked about. Especially Caspar's dad since he hypes his dad up so much only for him to somehow get killed offscreen from some unknown threat for reasons I don't fully understand since we never encountered him in the first place and the Empire had already fallen therefore the fighting should have stopped.

[timon]

Students wise it's fine, a wider casts would have removed attention from them, but post timeskip there needs to be some fresh air coming in. It's also a matter of playing Classic, if one doesn't reset and doesn't recruit the cast doesn't cycle. Though lower deployment helps.

Judith and Fleche would be the most obvious, and Gilbert is already there for BL. tbh I'd like to see the others as well (Randolph, Ladislava, Nader and Rodrigue), but they're less obvious, and the story would need to be changed slightly.

On Holst, I think it's supposed to be exactly what he is, an incredibly powerful general always mentioned and yet never seen, either he's a legend or he's very good at talking the talk (just like his sister).

[charcoalswift]

No, there are enough units. 10-12 is the maximum that I can focus on using without becoming underleveled

[Flere210]

You still need 15 for the adjutants.

[Vorena]

I dunno. I think the amount of characters is fine. The extra playable are the staff. I suppose like +1/2 would not be bad post time skip, but its pretty good sized so far.

[Eltoshen]

Surprised nobody mentioned

 

Jeritza for Edelgards non church route

as a late game recruit considering he is essentially on your side in the war isn't he? That persons route already has the least amount of recruit able characters so it would make it a bit more special.

Edited August 28, 2019 by Eltoshen

[timon]

21 minutes ago, Eltoshen said:

Surprised nobody mentioned

  Reveal hidden contents

Jeritza for Edelgards non church route

as a late game recruit considering he is essentially on your side in the war isn't he? That persons route already has the least amount of recruit able characters so it would make it a bit more special.

Spoiler

Probably because it's such a bad character that no one wants him lol, that said if he joined as Death Knight instead there would be at least some meme potential.

 

[Fabulously Olivier]

27 minutes ago, timon said:

  Hide contents

Probably because it's such a bad character that no one wants him lol, that said if he joined as Death Knight instead there would be at least some meme potential.

 

Spoiler

I would have wanted Jeritza, tbh. The game's supports are actually pretty high quality now that they don't all have to end in romance, and having Jeritza as a playable character with support conversations would provide an opportunity for him to not be "such a bad character."

 

[Flere210]

I kinda just forgot he exist lol. But yes, he is a good option

Edited August 28, 2019 by Flere210

[Fabulously Olivier]

Fleche would be a good candidate for Black Eagles Crimson Flower, given that she outlives Randolph.

[Book Bro]

Part 2 recruits could've been really beneficial, yeah. I really wanted Ladislava and Randolph to join in BE, and when I saw Judith I thought she would be perfect for GD. Nader also makes a lot of sense. For BL I guess Rodrigue could be added, but I can't think of a woman they could add to make it even across the houses. These characters all have potential and if they were added as DLC I would be pretty happy. 

[UNLEASH IT]

8 hours ago, Slumber said:

Nah. 30-40 is the sweet spot for FE casts.

Yeah, but you're definitely not getting 30-40 characters in one playthrough of this game. There are about 36 playable characters in all and you're locked out of at least 3 of them (7 if you play BE), regardless of which route you take. Then, even with that, you're only going to have over 30 characters if you recruit literally everyone from the other houses. I had about 25 characters in my BL playthrough

Edited August 28, 2019 by UNLEASH IT

[Stroud]

I mean its confirmed that we get a few additional Characters with the DLC in April next year. I just don't know how many and if it will be some we know. But I am not against characters we will first see by then. "The Phantom House". 

Edited August 28, 2019 by Stroud

[NobodiePichu]

7 hours ago, timon said:

Students wise it's fine, a wider casts would have removed attention from them, but post timeskip there needs to be some fresh air coming in. It's also a matter of playing Classic, if one doesn't reset and doesn't recruit the cast doesn't cycle. Though lower deployment helps.

Judith and Fleche would be the most obvious, and Gilbert is already there for BL. tbh I'd like to see the others as well (Randolph, Ladislava, Nader and Rodrigue), but they're less obvious, and the story would need to be changed slightly.

On Holst, I think it's supposed to be exactly what he is, an incredibly powerful general always mentioned and yet never seen, either he's a legend or he's very good at talking the talk (just like his sister).

idk, id argue that even with a larger student cast the amount of attention character writing wise that has been attributed to them would still be perfectly possible. the characters are nicely rounded and written but no more complex and focused on then most other fe games, so adding a few more wouldn't have hurt the student cast. that being said i agree that adding a few more post timeskip would be preferable. fes been kinda lacking in late game units as of late and having a few spares to stand in for any students that didnt develop well would be nice (bl gives you an armour knight substitute in gilbert so say why not add a cavalier substitute as well on that route like some general from gautier or somthin) although this also comes with the assumption that the games also been changed to have better design and higher difficulty in mind to make something like this even necessary.

[Timlugia]

8 hours ago, NegativeExponents- said:

What? I don't know about Rodrigue but Judith explicitly says she'll join the war and leave her land in care of a retainer to go along with us and then just hangs around the monastery doing nothing. I find it a lot harder to justify her just being an npc rather an a playable character.

 

Like I said, that's in part 2. In part 1 it's hard to justified why a major lord would spent their time in academy with bunch of students instead ruling.

[magnetic_cactus]

I suspect some of the characters discussed in this thread will be made available in DLC, with partial route lock. Possibilities:

Spoiler

Holst: Joins GD via Paralogue a few chapters post-timeskip. Other routes (other than BE-Edelgarde) can also access this Paralogue if Hilda was recruited. 

Judith: Auto-joins GD after the post-timeskip chapter in which she brings reinforcements. Other routes (other than BE-Edelgarde) can also access via Paralogue if at least two GD characters were recruited. Finally, BL has an option to recruit her during the cutscene in which Claude gives you Failnaught, if you rescue her, assuming she wasn't earlier recruited via Paralogue.

Ladislava: Offers to join BE-Edelgarde immediately post-timeskip, which, if accepted, changes her role in the story slightly. Other routes can access her via Paralogue if you recruited Ferdinand into your house.

Death Knight: BE-Edelgarde unique (makes up for no Holst and no Judith), post-timeskip.

Nader: GD unique, can be recruited directly after the Enbarr assault mission, before engaging Edelgarde. This would be a very late recruit - just the Edelgarde mission, Thales mission and Nemesis mission - so he'd have to be pretty strong/cool/unique or we'd need the mission DLC to offer a continuation to the story, rather than be just a gaiden approach. Otherwise the story would need more significant modification than the above additions, I think.

Gatekeeper: Church unique. Let's be real, this is the guy we all really want. Give him a unique and OP vanguard class too, please.

 

Edited August 28, 2019 by magnetic_cactus

[Eltoshen]

11 hours ago, timon said:

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Probably because it's such a bad character that no one wants him lol, that said if he joined as Death Knight instead there would be at least some meme potential.

 

 

Manuela has some unique dialogue referencing the Death Knight so I could actually see him develop as a character if he were recruitable. It would also give Mercedes a route where she's actually able to have a happy ending with her brother. Also include the potential for a Lysithea support because of reasons.

Edited August 28, 2019 by Eltoshen