Dancer Lord: Good Design Decision?

[AnonymousSpeed]

Alright guys and gals, it's time for Uncle Anon to start ROM hacking, and that means we have to do some serious gameplay analysis so we can produce a quality game. I'm considering making the main character of the game a dancer, but I'm not quite sold on the idea and would like some input on the potential pros and cons of such a design decision.

PROS

• Reduces functional forced deployment
  • Most of us deploy our dancer. It's practically a given, but deploying our lord is actually a given because they're forced deployed on every map. This means you functionally have two force deployed units, but unlike the lord, the dancer is a unit we actually want to deploy. Combining them in the same unit effectively frees up to a character slot for someone you prefer to Eliwood.
• Creates neutrality
  • Since dancers don't use weapons, they exist outside the weapon triangle. We've all heard complaints about there being too many sword lords, and I think part of the problem with that comes from their relationship to the weapon triangle, though I'm not quite sure how to articulate it. Since dancers exist outside the weapon triangle, their effectiveness (and vulnerability) is more consistent.
• Unique functionality
  • There really isn't another unit type that does what the dancer does, so a dancer lord has special utility both in story and in the moment-to-moment gameplay beyond seizing thrones.

CONS:

• Cannot dance and seize in the same turn
• Who gets the rapier?
• About half the lords in the franchise are mostly there to be escorted to thrones, but even those lords can be trained to handle enemies pretty competently. A dancer, however, will always be frail and ineffective at combat.

There are probably some other concerns and advantages which I've missed, and that's why I'm taking the discussion to you all.

[Axie]

i am fine with a dancer lord (though, to be nitpicky, they'd be a bard or songstress, i don't think a noble would be dancing like that lol). the cons are very minor (specially the rapier one), it's very easy to explain storyline-wise, it makes it more comfortable to add some BlaBla/heron-esque special powers instead of just keeping it simple, and it would be different and interesting. i am very on board.

(now imagine a game with three lords, BlaBla-style, but they are this dancer lord, a micaiah-esque mage lord with crap durability, and an archer lord. i want it.)

[joevar]

mostly agree about pros

 

23 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Cannot dance and seize in the same turn

is this hacking existing game, or making a new one? if new one why not just remove seize ? or why not just throw the throne in the dump altogether.

ideally, seizing is done by any troops thats on the frontline, altho in stories you often see teh soldiers make way for their leader to sit on the throne after conquering the site

23 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Who gets the rapier?

makes a new class ? or just give it to swordmaster or smth. i mean they are swordmaster or in other word... MASTER OF SWORD(s). you get it.

23 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

About half the lords in the franchise are mostly there to be escorted to thrones, but even those lords can be trained to handle enemies pretty competently. A dancer, however, will always be frail and ineffective at combat.

if only dancer can also be tweaked to have debuff effect to enemy

------------------------------------------------------------------

a bit oot, but its harder to imagine a lord thats supposed to lead army instead keep dancing around in the battlefield like a cheerleader... (considering this is not 3H dancer which can do battle too)

Edited December 6, 2020 by joevar

[Acacia Sgt]

As I've mentioned before... yes! Refresher Lord unit would be quite a novelty idea!

And should they gain anything else, be it from promotion or something, have it be something like healing staves. Pure support Lord!

[Interdimensional Observer]

18 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Who gets the rapier?

Sure she lost access to it with New Mystery, but the Rapier was available to her in FE3. 

19 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

About half the lords in the franchise are mostly there to be escorted to thrones, but even those lords can be trained to handle enemies pretty competently. A dancer, however, will always be frail and ineffective at combat.

I wouldn't say it has to be entirely that way. Most FE dancers are frail but with high Lck and Spd, provided you them a middle-of-the-road growth & base in one of Str or Mag, and Skl that wasn't the absolute worse, they could still pull some weight in combat. Not the shining star, but they don't have to be if they've sufficiently mad support powers.

 

7 minutes ago, Axie said:

it makes it more comfortable to add some BlaBla/heron-esque special powers instead of just keeping it simple, and it would be different and interesting. i am very on board.

Not to mention we already have had the Charm skill on lords and Authority Stars (and or massive quantities of pre-6 "supports") a few times, indicating their noble presence has some kind of supportive effect.

And then there is the Etrian Odyssey take on Sovereigns, which is a class entirely built around the premise of the aura of regality buffing allies. 7th Dragon Princesses could buff by virtue of their Nobility or debuff through their sinful Cruelty skills or get low on life and punish the bad guys with a whipping. And, you have Valkyria Chronicles where the commanders can issue various Orders to support or strengthen their soldiers when you don't need them moving around in their tanks. FE could certainly go down the route of making their royalty rock the reinforcing powers.

And considering the main character probably deserves to be at least good, a support lord deserves some good exclusive enhancement abilities. It's all balanced if they can't solo the game, or make someone else warpskip it.

[L3xandr3]

Let's see if I can get out of my sickened stupor for a sec...

A Dancer Lord? Never been done, as far as I've seen. Personally, I think this could be great, depending on a few things.

1. Can this Dance-lord fight? Swords, Magic, or something else entirely?
2. Will they get a Promotion? Maybe they can fight after Promotion?
3. Can they get those special Rings the FE7 Refreshers had?

Numbers 1 and 2 aren't really an issue, more of a flavor thing. 3 is the more important question (at least for me).

[Sooks]

Who says the dancer has to be frail and ineffective at combat? This is a ROM hack!

[Acacia Sgt]

Nah, that beats the purpose of having a gimmicky lord.

Lords capable of combat are dime a dozen. Give us one who can't actually attack!

[Stones]

The lord being a dancer seems fine, if gimmicky, but how does the dancer being the lord change how the dancer works? I feel like they would just be a regular dancer with some minor additions like seizing, force deployment, being a Game Over condition and high-to-perfect availability. Most people always deploy their dancer, and protect them from death, and if they did die they'd reset, so making them the lord would just remove the options of not doing that. The dancer being the only one to seize makes them more inflexible on the last turn which isn't something I think is more annoying than anything else. The only thing that makes a dancer lord different to any other kind of lord seems to me to only be the extra availability the lord has over a typical dancer, but you could just give the dancer high availability. Since the lord and the dancer are usually pretty unique units compared to everyone else (less so in ROM hacks though), making the lord and the dancer the same unit means you have 1 interesting unit instead of 2.

[Jotari]

I assume you'll be using Fire Emblem Builder GBA. It is possible to give dancers weapons, so that's an option if you want. Bows would put them out of the weapon triangle. Or you could have them be a mage (bard) who can use magic. Magic triangle can also be removed (and sucks enough that a lot would argue it should). Someone also suggested a staff user too, that would work. Are you going to have them promote? It's possible to promote a dancer but some if the animation stuff needs a bit of reworking to make two dancing classes.

[Parrhesia]

Just don't have there be any seize objectives. Does anyone, really, regard that as anyone but Defeat Boss with added inconvenience? And there doesn't need to be a rapier.

I think a dancer lord is a good idea, tbh. They were the lords of my ROMhack, back in the day - though it only ever got two chapters in.

[Hello72207]

11 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Refresher Lord unit would be quite a novelty idea!

Anakin from TLP.

He was pretty good, and used light magic along with dancing, and got staves on promo. Didn't have the best combat, but he still worked pretty good.

10 hours ago, L3xandr3 said:

Never been done, as far as I've seen.

zzzzz.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

This could be a cool thing to do, sure. Having a Lord who is more about supporting than combat. I do think, though, there should be a disincentive (aside from turncount) against just letting your Dancer spam their way to level 20 (and hence higher survivability). Either with a fixed "game over" turn limit, or a late-arriving OP ambush spawn.

[vanguard333]

Isn't Azura from FE: Fates basically a dancer lord? Might be a good idea to look at her and see what worked and what didn't gameplay-wise.

A fair number of FE lords weren't all that useful. I basically mainly used Marth for his ability to access the convoy. Having a lord also be a dancer would be a good way to make them more useful. I agree with a lot of the pros you mentioned. One that I would like to add is that the dancer lord could theoretically access the convoy, give another unit an item, and then use dance on that unit all in the same turn.

As for the cons, I rather disagree with them:

Why would they ever need to dance and seize in the same turn? If the lord is in a position to seize and end the map, and you want the lord to use dance on another unit, then you probably don't want to end the chapter that turn anyway.

Why wouldn't the lord get the rapier? I can see it still seeing use, and if you're really worried about it, you could make the rapier a weapon available for any infantry unit. 

A dancer lord doesn't necessarily have to be frail and ineffective in combat; Azura was a good glass cannon even if you kept her as a dancer due to her high strength and speed growths. 

[X-Naut]

A refresher Lord is a very interesting concept because for how powerful the Dance command is, it is intrinsically limiting with how little incentive it leaves to do anything else. Unless there is a must-do action that no other unit can fulfill, it's more economical to have the refresher make someone else do it. Whether or not the dancer is armed makes little difference; if they can hold their own then good for them, but it's no skin off their nose if they can't fight or can't fight well. In fact it's arguably better if a refresher Lord can't: it enforces the team effort aspect of Fire Emblem gameplay, and having such a powerful utility option tied to them ensures your Lord is never dead weight or just a Seize bot.

Two of the drawbacks you mentioned in the first post aren't all that relevant when refresher combat is a bells-and-whistles or is easily worked around. The only real drawback is Seize and Dance being mutually exclusive, which hinders quick-seize strategies that rely on ending the chapter to avoid a last-minute trap and/or deadly enemy phase. You could always get around this by having multiple Lord characters, and Fire Emblem is no stranger to frontliner-supporter dynamics.

1 hour ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

This could be a cool thing to do, sure. Having a Lord who is more about supporting than combat. I do think, though, there should be a disincentive (aside from turncount) against just letting your Dancer spam their way to level 20 (and hence higher survivability). Either with a fixed "game over" turn limit, or a late-arriving OP ambush spawn.

Or bring back the Fatigue systems and add immediate consequences for running out of Stamina, like being unable to use Arts (including Dance).

Or give Arts PP like Three Houses magic. It'd probably have to be a really low number (1-2-3) or high (10) to work this way.

[Fabulously Olivier]

Instead of making them a dancer thematically (though that would be okay), giving lords a command skill that refreshes someone's turn could work.

 

But also, modern dancers can use weapons. Let's not backtrack on that.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

My only issue in theory is being able to grind levels on your lord indefinitely. I guess I've also kind of took issue with giving the player a dancer early into a fire emblem game. A lot of those early resets are "oops, that's right, archers can't attack at 1 range, or "oh no they can reach my healer", and I feel like that teaches them the permanence of unit placement. Then when you do get the dancer it feels like the world has really opened up when you can remove that limitation for just one unit. Buuuuut, since we're talking ROM hacks, everybody playing your game is going to have a background in fire emblem so it's kind of a moot point. And I do think there are merits to having the lord and dancer wrapped into one unit. I would just personally save that dance skill for the lord's promotion. Maybe also have it be contextualized as something less flamboyant, like maybe they possess the fire emblem an ancient relic that lets them rejuvenate allies in battle. 

[Interdimensional Observer]

8 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

Does anyone, really, regard that as anyone but Defeat Boss with added inconvenience?

Technically, Defeat Boss can take less time in a game without a ferrying command or if you don't have Warp or Rescue yet. But these are very rare circumstances. I'm not entirely sure if they've ever existed actually.

 

4 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

Why wouldn't the lord get the rapier? I can see it still seeing use, and if you're really worried about it, you could make the rapier a weapon available for any infantry unit. 

Not to mention Rapiers aren't a sine qua non for lords or FEs. Sigurd and Seliph have no such things, the Thracian Rapier can be used by anyone from Lifis to Leif and Leif doesn't start with it or get it in any special to him way. Alm and Celica didn't have it in NES Gaiden and for SoV anyone can use it. 3H is the same as Thracia and SoV. Fates has no Rapier or Rapier replacement like Thani and the Regal Sword at all either.

 

1 hour ago, Glennstavos said:

My only issue in theory is being able to grind levels on your lord indefinitely.

Fixable. How? A simple calculation change.:

• EXP gained from the Dance command = 10 + X
• X = Danced Recipient's Level - Dancer's Level
• If 10 + X < 1, then EXP from Dance is set to 1. Or, if you want to banish any pretense of potential Dance grinding, 0.
• Negatives are an acceptable value for X, so a Dancer who exceeds the level of all their allies, will see their EXP gain slow. On the other hand, it makes it easier for a Dancer to catch up if they fall behind in levels.

Also, didn't Fates use this Dance formula or something? I don't remember, and SF never made a calculations page for Fates. Yet, this formula was used for other SRPGs I've played.

Staff units become an issue with this system, because the fixed EXP gain from Staff use means you could still make a super-leveled Staffer who lets the Dancer grind off them. This could be remedied by applying the a similar formula to Staffers, albeit with a way of accounting for the traditional increased EXP gain from rare staffs. But, a Dancer and a Staffer could stay evenly leveled and bounce off each other that way, which would require some other form of restrain, perhaps a turn limit on Dance/Staff EXP gain, not exceeding say 30 turns, which is enough for almost all casuals to finish a map methinks.

Edited December 6, 2020 by Interdimensional Observer

[Yexin]

well, a dancer lord (more specifically, a dancer with light tomes) has been a wet dream of mine since 2 years or so, to the point that i sort of created a DnD/Pathfinder class that could represent this concept in a campaign i'm playing

my main problem is EXP: either you use this unit in combat, at the cost of not making use of the Dance command, or you raise the amount of EXP dancing grants to a decent amount (20/25), so that you don't get to the final chapter with an unpromoted  level 18 lord

[L3xandr3]

1 hour ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Also, didn't Fates use this Dance formula or something? I don't remember, and SF never made a calculations page for Fates.

It does something like that. You gain ~17 EXP per dance bellow Lv5, and each level after that reduces it by a point or so. I think it bottoms out at about 5 EXP per dance, but don't quote me on that, seeing as it's been a while since I played Fates.

[Venger_06]

Its an interesting idea. Would love to see a healer lord or a dancer lord.

[Jotari]

Disable exp for dancing, have the lord get a level at the end of every chapter. Turn them into Blazing Blade Melinus!

[AnonymousSpeed]

Wow guys, that's a lot of input. Thank you all very much! Now let's see if I can make some responses and hopefully contribute some to the discussion.

re: Experience

Spoiler

8 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

My only issue in theory is being able to grind levels on your lord indefinitely.

11 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

This could be a cool thing to do, sure. Having a Lord who is more about supporting than combat. I do think, though, there should be a disincentive (aside from turncount) against just letting your Dancer spam their way to level 20 (and hence higher survivability). Either with a fixed "game over" turn limit, or a late-arriving OP ambush spawn.

7 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Fixable. How? A simple calculation change.:

• EXP gained from the Dance command = 10 + X
• X = Danced Recipient's Level - Dancer's Level
• If 10 + X < 1, then EXP from Dance is set to 1. Or, if you want to banish any pretense of potential Dance grinding, 0.
• Negatives are an acceptable value for X, so a Dancer who exceeds the level of all their allies, will see their EXP gain slow. On the other hand, it makes it easier for a Dancer to catch up if they fall behind in levels.

Also, didn't Fates use this Dance formula or something? I don't remember, and SF never made a calculations page for Fates. Yet, this formula was used for other SRPGs I've played.

Staff units become an issue with this system, because the fixed EXP gain from Staff use means you could still make a super-leveled Staffer who lets the Dancer grind off them. This could be remedied by applying the a similar formula to Staffers, albeit with a way of accounting for the traditional increased EXP gain from rare staffs. But, a Dancer and a Staffer could stay evenly leveled and bounce off each other that way, which would require some other form of restrain, perhaps a turn limit on Dance/Staff EXP gain, not exceeding say 30 turns, which is enough for almost all casuals to finish a map methinks.

6 hours ago, Yexin said:

my main problem is EXP: either you use this unit in combat, at the cost of not making use of the Dance command, or you raise the amount of EXP dancing grants to a decent amount (20/25), so that you don't get to the final chapter with an unpromoted  level 18 lord

5 hours ago, L3xandr3 said:

It does something like that. You gain ~17 EXP per dance bellow Lv5, and each level after that reduces it by a point or so. I think it bottoms out at about 5 EXP per dance, but don't quote me on that, seeing as it's been a while since I played Fates.

52 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Disable exp for dancing, have the lord get a level at the end of every chapter. Turn them into Blazing Blade Melinus!

Grinding for levels is not something I had considered, which just goes to show that it was a good idea to ask for more input.

There are several issues brought up and two of these concerns actually pull us in opposite directions. As Yexin pointed out, dancers level up a bit slowly and that can be a bit of a pain. On the other hand, dance is infinitely renewable and so you could hit level 20 very easily.

The main limit with the default experience formula would simply be the player's patience, because grinding for levels on a dancer is super tedious. Having EXP from dancing decrease when the dancer is higher level than the unit is one possible solution, but there are a few concerns. Not only do we have to worry about  healers and dancers sustaining each other's levels, but we also have to think about dancing for the Jeigan.

The Merlinus solution might actually be the best one. A solution may not be required, since players typically don't grind their dancers to level 20 anyway. I'll be making this in FEBuilder and I'm not sure how possible it would be to apply Merlinus leveling to the lord, but it's worth considering.

re: Promotion

Spoiler

23 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

And should they gain anything else, be it from promotion or something, have it be something like healing staves. Pure support Lord!

8 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

I would just personally save that dance skill for the lord's promotion.

22 hours ago, L3xandr3 said:

Will they get a Promotion? Maybe they can fight after Promotion?

17 hours ago, Jotari said:

Are you going to have them promote? It's possible to promote a dancer but some if the animation stuff needs a bit of reworking to make two dancing classes.

I was not planning on having them promote on account of dancers not typically promoting. Of course, I'm open to arguments that they should. Since I wasn't thinking of a combat dancer, the main benefit of promotion would be +1 movement. However, if your dancer starts with 6 move instead of 5, that wouldn't really be a problem. You could also have them learn Celerity at a certain level to compensate for the lack of promotion.

 

re: Seizing and Multiple Lords

Spoiler

23 hours ago, joevar said:

is this hacking existing game, or making a new one? if new one why not just remove seize ? or why not just throw the throne in the dump altogether.

ideally, seizing is done by any troops thats on the frontline, altho in stories you often see teh soldiers make way for their leader to sit on the throne after conquering the site

19 hours ago, Stones said:

The dancer being the only one to seize makes them more inflexible on the last turn which isn't something I think is more annoying than anything else

10 hours ago, X-Naut said:

The only real drawback is Seize and Dance being mutually exclusive, which hinders quick-seize strategies that rely on ending the chapter to avoid a last-minute trap and/or deadly enemy phase. You could always get around this by having multiple Lord characters, and Fire Emblem is no stranger to frontliner-supporter dynamics.

23 hours ago, Axie said:

(now imagine a game with three lords, BlaBla-style, but they are this dancer lord, a micaiah-esque mage lord with crap durability, and an archer lord. i want it.)

15 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

Just don't have there be any seize objectives. Does anyone, really, regard that as anyone but Defeat Boss with added inconvenience?

Ditching the "Seize" victory condition is one option, but I do kind of like seize. It's a little more than just Defeat Boss because you not only have to rush strong units towards the throne, but escort a weak unit there as well. I was considering having another lord character (potentially a manakete) who could also be given throne seizing abilities, so that's worth thinking about, but whether that's a good idea or not depends on how that manakete lord was designed as well.

Another option would be to replace "Seize" with a Fates-style "Arrive" objective where any unit can take the throne, but at that point you really have made Seize into Defeat Boss with an extra step, since your powerful units that beat the boss can just take the throne next turn. So I don't exactly favor that solution.

11 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

Why would they ever need to dance and seize in the same turn? If the lord is in a position to seize and end the map, and you want the lord to use dance on another unit, then you probably don't want to end the chapter that turn anyway.

This wouldn't be likely in a casual playthrough, but in LTC scenarios you may find yourself seizing the throne with the map still filled with enemies and dancing of often required for the Lord to reach the throne that quickly.

 

re: Combat

Spoiler

 22 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I wouldn't say it has to be entirely that way. Most FE dancers are frail but with high Lck and Spd, provided you them a middle-of-the-road growth & base in one of Str or Mag, and Skl that wasn't the absolute worse, they could still pull some weight in combat. Not the shining star, but they don't have to be if they've sufficiently mad support powers.

22 hours ago, L3xandr3 said:

Can this Dance-lord fight? Swords, Magic, or something else entirely?

17 hours ago, Jotari said:

I assume you'll be using Fire Emblem Builder GBA. It is possible to give dancers weapons, so that's an option if you want.

9 hours ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

But also, modern dancers can use weapons. Let's not backtrack on that.

6 hours ago, Yexin said:

well, a dancer lord (more specifically, a dancer with light tomes) has been a wet dream of mine since 2 years or so, to the point that i sort of created a DnD/Pathfinder class that could represent this concept in a campaign i'm playing

Interesting. I was assuming this dancer would not fight, but I was unaware there was so much popular support for the idea of a dancer having combat capabilities. Whether dancers should have weapons could be a whole thread in itself, but to keep this short, I think tomes would be the best weapon for them to have if you had to give them one. A sword would put them back in the weapon triangle, which I don't think we want. Staves are only used on player phase, where the dancer will mostly be dancing. However, I'm concerned that arming them distract from their main purpose and I wonder if keeping the dancer lord out of harms way would be a good challenge to present the player with.

 

re: Rapier

Spoiler

15 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

Just don't have there be any seize objectives. Does anyone, really, regard that as anyone but Defeat Boss with added inconvenience? And there doesn't need to be a rapier.

I think a dancer lord is a good idea, tbh. They were the lords of my ROMhack, back in the day - though it only ever got two chapters in.

11 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

Why wouldn't the lord get the rapier? I can see it still seeing use, and if you're really worried about it, you could make the rapier a weapon available for any infantry unit.

23 hours ago, joevar said:

makes a new class ? or just give it to swordmaster or smth. i mean they are swordmaster or in other word... MASTER OF SWORD(s). you get it.

7 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Not to mention Rapiers aren't a sine qua non for lords or FEs. Sigurd and Seliph have no such things, the Thracian Rapier can be used by anyone from Lifis to Leif and Leif doesn't start with it or get it in any special to him way. Alm and Celica didn't have it in NES Gaiden and for SoV anyone can use it. 3H is the same as Thracia and SoV. Fates has no Rapier or Rapier replacement like Thani and the Regal Sword at all either.

Yeah, the Thracia approach the rapier would probably be best here. On review though, I think what I meant when I said "who gets the rapier?" was a concern about how the player will handle bulky cavaliers and knights without having to really on their Jeigan. This could still be done with a non-prf rapier or an early mage or something, though.

 

re: Flavor

Spoiler

23 hours ago, joevar said:

a bit oot, but its harder to imagine a lord thats supposed to lead army instead keep dancing around in the battlefield like a cheerleader... (considering this is not 3H dancer which can do battle too)

8 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

Maybe also have it be contextualized as something less flamboyant, like maybe they possess the fire emblem an ancient relic that lets them rejuvenate allies in battle. 

9 hours ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

Instead of making them a dancer thematically (though that would be okay), giving lords a command skill that refreshes someone's turn could work.

I did have a narrative idea for why the lord character would be a dancer, but I wanted to make sure it worked mechanically before I committed to it.

 

re: Miscellaneous

Spoiler

22 hours ago, L3xandr3 said:

Can they get those special Rings the FE7 Refreshers had?

 As a matter of fact, I was planning on incorporating those.

 

23 hours ago, joevar said:

if only dancer can also be tweaked to have debuff effect to enemy

22 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

7th Dragon Princesses could buff by virtue of their Nobility or debuff through their sinful Cruelty skills or get low on life and punish the bad guys with a whipping.

Debuffing enemies is an interesting idea. I have a couple concerns. If it's an aura skill that extends a certain number of tiles, it would be kind of weird since the dancer isn't typically near the front lines. If it's a seal skill, it would be kind of weird since the dancer isn't supposed to be in harms way. Something like Seal Speed could still work as an interesting "compensation" for your dancer getting attacked though, that might be kind of neat.

 

11 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

One that I would like to add is that the dancer lord could theoretically access the convoy, give another unit an item, and then use dance on that unit all in the same turn.

Oooh, I did not think of that. I like that a lot actually, very cool.

 

18 hours ago, Jotari said:

Magic triangle can also be removed (and sucks enough that a lot would argue it should).

I am one of those people, but I'm not quite sure how to implement that change just yet. Again, it could fill a whole other thread. You know, do you get rid of all but one magic type or do you keep two, and which ones do you keep? If you keep more than one magic type, how do you differentate them? Wouldn't it be weird for bishops to use Fire? How would you rearrange the promotion trees to account for these changes? There's a lot of concerns there, but maybe I'm making it into a bigger deal than it really is.

 

19 hours ago, Stones said:

The only thing that makes a dancer lord different to any other kind of lord seems to me to only be the extra availability the lord has over a typical dancer, but you could just give the dancer high availability. Since the lord and the dancer are usually pretty unique units compared to everyone else (less so in ROM hacks though), making the lord and the dancer the same unit means you have 1 interesting unit instead of 2.

This is an interesting point and I do get it. There are a lot of weird unit types which the lord could be and having the dancer be the lord character does kind of shut out those other ideas, like if you wanted a War Monk lord or something. However, I could still potentially incorporate new classes or personal classes to utilize those weird ideas. That would require a little more careful implementation, though, since it affects promotion trees and what classes other units have available and all that.

 

11 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

Isn't Azura from FE: Fates basically a dancer lord? Might be a good idea to look at her and see what worked and what didn't gameplay-wise.

Oh yeah, that is a pretty good idea. I think Azura worked out pretty similar to a regular dancer in practice, dragon veins aside.

 

10 hours ago, X-Naut said:

Or give Arts PP like Three Houses magic. It'd probably have to be a really low number (1-2-3) or high (10) to work this way.

That would definitely be something I'd be interested in doing for combat arts, but for dancing I'm a little more uncertain. I don't want to encourage "hoarding" dance charges.

 

I would like to sincerely thank you all for your well considered input. Even if I didn't get to what you said, everything has been helpful and insightful to read.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

4 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

The Merlinus solution might actually be the best one. A solution may not be required, since players typically don't grind their dancers to level 20 anyway. I'll be making this in FEBuilder and I'm not sure how possible it would be to apply Merlinus leveling to the lord, but it's worth considering.

A hilarious idea, but if you're doing an "every map is sieze" style game, you could just make Siezing worth an instant 100 exp. Not sure if FEBuilder is equipped for that, though.

6 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Interesting. I was assuming this dancer would not fight, but I was unaware there was so much popular support for the idea of a dancer having combat capabilities. Whether dancers should have weapons could be a whole thread in itself, but to keep this short, I think tomes would be the best weapon for them to have if you had to give them one. A sword would put them back in the weapon triangle, which I don't think we want. Staves are only used on player phase, where the dancer will mostly be dancing. However, I'm concerned that arming them distract from their main purpose and I wonder if keeping the dancer lord out of harms way would be a good challenge to present the player with.

A man after my own heart. "Dancer with spells" seems so obvious, for something we've not yet gotten (aside from Three Houses, kind of).

7 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

I was not planning on having them promote on account of dancers not typically promoting. Of course, I'm open to arguments that they should. Since I wasn't thinking of a combat dancer, the main benefit of promotion would be +1 movement. However, if your dancer starts with 6 move instead of 5, that wouldn't really be a problem. You could also have them learn Celerity at a certain level to compensate for the lack of promotion.

Radical thought, and it might not fit with the styling of the game, but... maybe the promotion could be the Lord character literally sprouting wings? Now they have one extra move, and flying mobility. Although, it'd definitely demand a new dance/battle animation.

10 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Yeah, the Thracia approach the rapier would probably be best here. On review though, I think what I meant when I said "who gets the rapier?" was a concern about how the player will handle bulky cavaliers and knights without having to really on their Jeigan. This could still be done with a non-prf rapier or an early mage or something, though.

The Rapier could also go to the game's "Caeda" figure (if there is one), or just another playable noble character. This might depend on how you feel about Prf weapons, though.

14 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

I am one of those people, but I'm not quite sure how to implement that change just yet. Again, it could fill a whole other thread. You know, do you get rid of all but one magic type or do you keep two, and which ones do you keep? If you keep more than one magic type, how do you differentate them? Wouldn't it be weird for bishops to use Fire? How would you rearrange the promotion trees to account for these changes? There's a lot of concerns there, but maybe I'm making it into a bigger deal than it really is.

I've been theorycrafting a system in which all three exist, but are differentiated outside of the triangle. Roughly speaking - Light Magic is defensive, and 1-range; Dark Magic is offensive, and 2~3-range; and, Anima Magic does effective damage, and is 1~2-range. Were you planning on cutting out a magic type, or just the "triangle" dynamic?

[L3xandr3]

53 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

The Merlinus solution might actually be the best one. A solution may not be required, since players typically don't grind their dancers to level 20 anyway. I'll be making this in FEBuilder and I'm not sure how possible it would be to apply Merlinus leveling to the lord, but it's worth considering.

...

I was not planning on having them promote on account of dancers not typically promoting. Of course, I'm open to arguments that they should. Since I wasn't thinking of a combat dancer, the main benefit of promotion would be +1 movement. However, if your dancer starts with 6 move instead of 5, that wouldn't really be a problem. You could also have them learn Celerity at a certain level to compensate for the lack of promotion.

...

Interesting. I was assuming this dancer would not fight, but I was unaware there was so much popular support for the idea of a dancer having combat capabilities. Whether dancers should have weapons could be a whole thread in itself, but to keep this short, I think tomes would be the best weapon for them to have if you had to give them one. A sword would put them back in the weapon triangle, which I don't think we want. Staves are only used on player phase, where the dancer will mostly be dancing. However, I'm concerned that arming them distract from their main purpose and I wonder if keeping the dancer lord out of harms way would be a good challenge to present the player with.

The best I can think of would be to make them a Merlinus-Leveling Dance-lord that can (Maybe?)  promote after reaching Lv20. And the best compromise for the Fighting/No fighting for Dancers debate would be for them to get Combat access after promotion.

42 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Radical thought, and it might not fit with the styling of the game, but... maybe the promotion could be the Lord character literally sprouting wings? Now they have one extra move, and flying mobility. Although, it'd definitely demand a new dance/battle animation.

That's... an Angel, then? Or a Laguz-like protagonist? Any way you cut that, it's a bit out of place in FE, but we are talking about a Hack here, so... Sky's the limit, aye?