Roster Size and Deployment Limits: Less or More?

[FailWood]

3 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Ignatz does get some rallies, but he's not as good at it as Annette is

I think you forgot we were talking about in house comparisons, so that argument doesn't work here.  And while talking about magic classes, Ignatz can make decent use of Mortal Savant (another 6 Move magic class) if you don't feel like being a Sniper.  "But it has low spell uses."  Levin Sword, as the class gives Swordfaire, and it can be forged to give it 1-3 range.

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, FailWood said:

I think you forgot we were talking about in house comparisons, so that argument doesn't work here.  And while talking about magic classes, Ignatz can make decent use of Mortal Savant (another 6 Move magic class) if you don't feel like being a Sniper.  "But it has low spell uses."  Levin Sword, as the class gives Swordfaire, and it can be forged to give it 1-3 range.

And that's supposed to matter why??? Because my point is that Ignatz is not that good as a support unit when he only gets two useful rallies, and one of those needs an S in authority, which is well beyond the point where investment in authority is no longer useful. Also, Mortal Savant is a pitiful excuse for a Master class, being one of the proud tradition of awful hybrid classes; it's not a good defense for Ignatz either. If I find Lorenz to be awful due to not excelling, what possesses you to think Ignatz won't suck when in an awful hybrid class???

[Vicious Sal]

3 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

And that's supposed to matter why??? Because my point is that Ignatz is not that good as a support unit when he only gets two useful rallies, and one of those needs an S in authority, which is well beyond the point where investment in authority is no longer useful. Also, Mortal Savant is a pitiful excuse for a Master class, being one of the proud tradition of awful hybrid classes; it's not a good defense for Ignatz either. If I find Lorenz to be awful due to not excelling, what possesses you to think Ignatz won't suck when in an awful hybrid class???

And yet you still haven’t given a single solid reason why Marianne is better than Lorenz and Ignatz.

Even if they suck, you haven’t demonstrated why should doesn’t suck even harder than them.

[UNLEASH IT]

On 6/27/2021 at 6:21 PM, Jotari said:

That's not really true. Three Houses is on the lower side of the casts with 40 characters (41 if you count Byleth twice).

Three Houses has less than 40 playable characters (24 students, Byleth,  and 9 staff members). And you're bascially locked out of at least 3 characters regardless of the path you choose

Edited July 6, 2021 by UNLEASH IT

[Jotari]

52 minutes ago, UNLEASH IT said:

Three Houses has less than 40 playable characters (24 students, Byleth,  and 9 staff members). And you're bascially locked out of at least 3 characters regardless of the path you choose

24 students, 1-2 Byleths, 9 staff members and 6 DLC characters (one of which, Jeritza, I think is free regardless). Brings the total to 40-41. Though you're absolutely right in pointing out that for gameplay quite anunmber of them are locked off on certain routes, though I believe the comment I was referring to was talking about characters in terms of plot.

Edited July 6, 2021 by Jotari

[AnonymousSpeed]

On 7/5/2021 at 3:31 AM, Jotari said:

Ahem.

Shhhhhhhhh.

Close enough.

DLC should not count towards the roster size, because I do not buy DLC characters.

[joevar]

personally i like bigger, larger cast with also big deployment limit since i like big war feeling. kind of suck when you like many character only to be restricted by deployment limit. especially when the previous chapter has bigger limit than the next one. im sure many player has met that feeling when you already planned whos to include next chapter after their timely promotion only to bench them because the next one is smaller deployment map with gimmick (requires more thief or ranged or large movement for example)

but realistically for a Fire Emblem both spectrum has its issues, whether large or small. everyone knows what happen with too big or too small from plot perspective. but i just want to add specific problem with FE deployment: you will met a deployment limit where you get more slot than you can insert them either because many of your unit already dead or just wont add to the overall gameplay since they are underlevelled due to previous chapter(s) lower limit. And the opposite also happen,  got so many good unit that you cant deploy due to limit and ends up having a heated discussion with others which one is better to use in long term

so, ideally i want the size & limit to change every so often. since we got 3 house with more limiting units, the next preferably a little bigger than that (with matching plot ofc)

[Jotari]

9 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Shhhhhhhhh.

Close enough.

Actually upon reading your initial comment I see that you said you haven't seen anyone argue against it, when I thought you said you hadn't seen any one argue for it at all. Though, eh, yeah, I kind of covered my  bases by both arguing for and against it simultaneously in my first comment XD

9 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

DLC should not count towards the roster size, because I do not buy DLC characters.

Developers still have to go to the extra to make them though. Granted the fact that it's done ipso facto does kind of muddle the lines about whether more characters decrease the quality of writing for the cast when the base cast has already been written by the time they're implemented.

Edited July 7, 2021 by Jotari

[Shadow Mir]

On 7/5/2021 at 5:11 PM, Jotari said:

Dark Knight has a -5% speed growth. That means 1 less point of speed every 20 levels. And you are not going to be spending 20 levels in a Master Class. And any terrain based issues with being mounted (which from my memory are very minimal) can be negated by simply dismounting. And even if your using it purely dismounted, it still has additional movement over Gremory. Dark Knight is a flat out better class if you can qualify in it. And Lorenz can qualify for it extremely easily. Probably more easily than Marianne can qualify for Gremory. Lorenz might not be the best mage in the game, but his class access is absolutely not holding him back as a unit.

The way I see it, a typical mage build is going to invest in Reason and Faith, and you're probably going to invest in authority as well for good battalions. Dark Knight requires Riding and Lance investment as well. That's FIVE skills you're investing in, which means you're spreading yourself thin. And for what? A measly two extra damage? That doesn't remotely scream "worth it" to me. And that stands out because if I'm going to go for a high investment option, which Dark Knight is, the results BETTER DAMN WELL JUSTIFY IT... and I am NOT convinced that Dark Knight succeeds at this. Sure, using them dismounted is an option, but then that leaves me to ask, what the hell was the point of all the investment that you needed to get into Dark Knight in the first place if you're going to forgo what is supposed to be the main perk of it??? As a result, I only consider Dark Knight viable for males (but considering how lackluster most of the male mages are, I'd probably forgo them altogether), OR for females who have a faith weakness and a reason strength (of which there's only one - Edelgard - and in her case, reason is a budding talent). Long story short, cavalry classes need to offer a lot to even be worth giving the time of day, in my book.

On 7/6/2021 at 12:39 AM, Vicious Sal said:

And yet you still haven’t given a single solid reason why Marianne is better than Lorenz and Ignatz.

Even if they suck, you haven’t demonstrated why should doesn’t suck even harder than them.

You must have missed the part where I roasted Lorenz as a Master of None then (which is to say, he's mediocre at best). Anyway... Earlier Frozen Lance (in comparison to Lorenz; she gets it as a budding talent, whereas he needs to get C+ lances for it), better stats, more utility, better boon set, more charm, access to better magic classes... long story short, I find it hard, bordering on impossible, to find ANYTHING Lorenz does better than her (by the way, I find this a recurring concern with Lorenz; whatever he can do, someone else can do it better). About the only noteworthy thing he has over her is that he gets Pavise and Aegis from Thyrsus... which is not that useful, given that Pavise and Aegis are only useful if you're being attacked, which Thyrsus, with its extra range, helps prevent. RE: Ignatz, most of these are still true. It doesn't help Ignatz's case that about the only way to make him a useful combat unit is one that about half a dozen others can do better.

Edited July 8, 2021 by Shadow Mir

[Jotari]

3 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

The way I see it, a typical mage build is going to invest in Reason and Faith, and you're probably going to invest in authority as well for good battalions. Dark Knight requires Riding and Lance investment as well. That's FIVE skills you're investing in, which means you're spreading yourself thin. And for what? A measly two extra damage? That doesn't remotely scream "worth it" to me. And that stands out because if I'm going to go for a high investment option, which Dark Knight is, the results BETTER DAMN WELL JUSTIFY IT... and I am NOT convinced that Dark Knight succeeds at this. Sure, using them dismounted is an option, but then that leaves me to ask, what the hell was the point of all the investment that you needed to get into Dark Knight in the first place if you're going to forgo what is supposed to be the main perk of it??? As a result, I only consider Dark Knight viable for males (but considering how lackluster most of the male mages are, I'd probably forgo them altogether), OR for females who have a faith weakness and a reason strength (of which there's only one - Edelgard - and in her case, reason is a budding talent). Long story short, cavalry classes need to offer a lot to even be worth giving the time of day, in my book.

We're not talking about mages in general. We're talking about Lorenz. Who has an aptitude in all three skill ranks that Dark Knight requires. His Faith spell list also isn't really great, so you're free to ignore it, unless you really, really want Ward. But even then training up decently in Faith, Reason, Authority and Riding is not a major challenge. He starts off with D lances and only needs C for Dark Knight, so they can be pretty much ignored (though devoting a week or two into getting him to C+ for Frozen Lance will probably not hinder him at all) and Riding is worth investing in in general for Movement+1, a pretty good skill for mages. I'm not saying every mage in the game should go into Dark Knight, I'm saying any unit who easily can absolutely should as it is the best magic class in the game, outright better than Gremory unless you're using warp etc. Some units will struggle to get into it, while some units will find it pretty easy to reach. Lorenz is the unit that will find it very easy to reach. Which brings us back to why we're talking about this to begin with. You say Marianne is better than Lorenz because she has access to Gremory, an inferior class. I say Lorenz is better than Marianne because he has access to Dark Knight.

Edited July 8, 2021 by Jotari

[Vicious Sal]

29 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

 

You must have missed the part where I roasted Lorenz as a Master of None then (which is to say, he's mediocre at best). Anyway... Earlier Frozen Lance (in comparison to Lorenz; she gets it as a budding talent, whereas he needs to get C+ lances for it), better stats, more utility, better boon set, more charm, access to better magic classes... long story short, I find it hard, bordering on impossible, to find ANYTHING Lorenz does better than her (by the way, I find this a recurring concern with Lorenz; whatever he can do, someone else can do it better). About the only noteworthy thing he has over her is that he gets Pavise and Aegis from Thyrsus... which is not that useful, given that Pavise and Aegis are only useful if you're being attacked, which Thyrsus, with its extra range, helps prevent. RE: Ignatz, most of these are still true. It doesn't help Ignatz's case that about the only way to make him a useful combat unit is one that about half a dozen others can do better.

I haven't missed that, I pointed out that even though you said all that, you provided 0 evidence as to why Marianne is better than Lorenz and Ignatz, even if the would suck as badly as you say.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

3 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

And that stands out because if I'm going to go for a high investment option, which Dark Knight is, the results BETTER DAMN WELL JUSTIFY IT... and I am NOT convinced that Dark Knight succeeds at this. 

Being a 7-move unit with Canto and full spell access is awesome, though. Holy Knight can do it (but it has a worse Tomefaire), while Dark Flier is DLC- and female-exclusive. These classes can launch magical attacks on targets 9 spaces away from start, which infantry mages can't match. A Riding boon makes Movement +1 achievable, while Caduceus or Thyrsus extends this potential yet further. Closer enemies can be attacked and Canto'd away from, thus helping the Dark Knight secure their safety on enemy phase.

3 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

long story short, I find it hard, bordering on impossible, to find ANYTHING Lorenz does better than her (by the way, I find this a recurring concern with Lorenz; whatever he can do, someone else can do it better).

Lorenz has better bulk on either side than Marianne (slightly less Res, but significantly more HP, means better magical bulk). His spell list includes higher-Might options than Marianne's, while his personal ability offers a cool free 2 attack points beyond the earlygame. While they tie in Speed, Lorenz's higher Strength improves his weight-offset, and his base spell of Fire has lower Weight (3) than Marianne's Blizzard (4), giving him a better shot at doubling.

[KMT4ever]

As...fascinating as this Lorenz vs. Marianne debate is, it isn't exactly relevant to the topic. At least take it to the 3H subforum.

Anyway, I realized I never gave my opinion on my own topic. I personally lean more towards more characters and higher deployment limits, mostly so I have maximum freedom to build my team however I want it. The feeling of having more units at my command also helps the later chapters feel more epic, provided the enemies are up to the challenge of course. I'm also not a fan of maps randomly lowering the number of units you're allowed to use unless they're very well designed around it. One particularly annoying aspect of the GBA games that I'm glad later games have moved away from is that the endgame suddenly drops the deployment limit massively. Aside from meaning you have to leave several good units on the bench, it comes off as a cheap way to increase difficulty.

[FailWood]

2 hours ago, KMT4ever said:

As...fascinating as this Lorenz vs. Marianne debate is, it isn't exactly relevant to the topic. At least take it to the 3H subforum.

The debate itself isn't, but how it started was.  It started because someone commented on what I said about not doing out of house recruiting in Three Houses (because of my preference of smaller rosters, answering your topic's question).  They mentioned how they think there's a balancing issue with the idea, and used the Golden Deer as an example, and I attempted to counterargue which then devolved from there with others jumping in.  So sorry, all that was my fault.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

3 hours ago, KMT4ever said:

As...fascinating as this Lorenz vs. Marianne debate is, it isn't exactly relevant to the topic. At least take it to the 3H subforum.

Fair point, guess we got carriesd away.

Regarding the actual prompt - I'm really not sure. In theory, I like the option of "full deployment", a la Genealogy or Echoes. But this can also make the game a bit slower, as the player often feels obligated to train everybody. Then again, overly strict deploy limits restrict the player's ability to experiment.

This may go against the grain, but I kinda like variable deploy counts between chapters. Like how "Clash!" in PoR permits you to bring everyone and their mother (thus letting you try out new prepromotes you probably haven't touched yet). Or how the Armads/Durandal chapters in FE7 encourage you to bring only your toughest fighters. It really makes those maps more memorable.

What would be ideal? Hard to say. While I'd like an FE4 remake to retain full deployment, I don't think it'd be good design for a new title. Maybe generous deployment most of the time, with a few more restrictive chapters mixed in there?

[FailWood]

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

Or how the Armads/Durandal chapters in FE7 encourage you to bring only your toughest fighters. It really makes those maps more memorable.

 

I find the Tower at the end of Radiant Dawn memorable for that same reason.  6 Units you're forced to bring, then you pick 10 others and a Heron of your choice.  Plus it's a multi part chapter.  Duma Tower and Duma Temple in SoV left a similar impression on me.

[AnonymousSpeed]

On 7/7/2021 at 6:48 AM, Jotari said:

Developers still have to go to the extra to make them though. Granted the fact that it's done ipso facto does kind of muddle the lines about whether more characters decrease the quality of writing for the cast when the base cast has already been written by the time they're implemented.

my boy did you not read my epic pandan quote?

[Jotari]

4 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

my boy did you not read my epic pandan quote?

Alright, lotta air need clearing here XD Largely I agree that a bigger cast doesn't necessarily, as I said in this quote.

On 6/28/2021 at 12:21 AM, Jotari said:

I'd also object to the notion that Radiant Dawn has a weak cast, in fact I'd say it has one of the stronger casts in the series, especially for its size. Sure the characters newly introduced in Radiant Dawn tend to be on the weaker side, but it handles the returning characters from Path of Radiance very well. And I don't think that is all due to the goodwill of Path of Radiance's supports, as I played Radiant Dawn before playing Path of Radiance and still found the newly introduced characters underdeveloped. I've also only played Path of Radiance once, so I haven't seen the slightest fraction of the supports it has to offer, yet characters like Nephenee and Haar are still pretty well defined to me based more on their appearance in Radiant Dawn than Path of Radiance, this especially goes for Calill who is just sort of randomly added to Path of Radiance almost like they were foreshadowing New Mystery. Yet in Radiant Dawn she has a bar and a kid and everything.

Now why I was talking about Three Houses at all was because someone said that Path of Radiance and Three Houses have some of the largest casts in the series and handle them well in terms of character.

On 6/27/2021 at 11:56 PM, Fabulously Olivier said:

In what FE is this really a criticism? Path of Radiance and 3H have some of the largest rosters in the franchise, and both also have some of the most consistently liked casts in the franchise. 

 

Those with weak casts (Radiant Dawn and Shadow Dragon) tend to be weak because they lack support conversations entirely, or are full of literally disposable characters (Geneology and Shadow Dragon replacement units).

I responded by pointing out that no, regardless as to whether a large cast is good or bad for characterisation, these two games fall below the average for a Fire Emblem roster size.

On 6/28/2021 at 12:21 AM, Jotari said:

That's not really true. Three Houses is on the lower side of the casts with 40 characters (41 if you count Byleth twice). The only games it has a larger cast than are Gaiden, Shadows of Valentia and Sacred Stones. It's on par with Birthright/Conquest and exceeds Genealogy if we're talking in terms of number of characters you can use in the campaign, but since this topic is about character writing it pretty solidly loses to both of them in terms of characters created for the project.

Path of Radiance meanwhile has 47 characters which is a bit more but still falls below average. It beats out Blazing Blade and both Old Mystery books, but still manages to lose to the original Shadow Dragon (and it's remake), Genealogy's combined cast, Thracia, Binding Blade, Radiant Dawn, New Mystery and Awakening.

In terms of number of characters that need to be written for in the game the series (including both genders of Avatars and their kids) is as follows

New Mystery: 78
Radiant Dawn: 72
Fates: 71 (technically this could outstrip New Mystery if you count the capturable bosses, which I haven't)
Genealogy of the Holy War: 63 (knock it down 14 if you want to discriminate against substitutes)
Shadow Dragon: 59
Binding Blade: 54
Thracia 776: 52
Dark Dragon and the Blade of Light: 52
Awakening: 50
Path of Radiance: 47
Old Mystery: Book 1- 47  Book 2- 45 (combined it's something like 60, I think)
Blazing Blade: 44
Three Houses: 41
Shadows of Valentia: 38
Sacred Stones: 33
Gaiden: 32

There's some room for error there with unit choices and avatar genders that might cause a mistake or two, but the margin should be small enough that the relative placing of games is largely unaffected and overall the average number would be the same. Said average number of playable characters in a Fire Emblem game currently is 51.5, which is the number of characters in the first game, funnily enough (at least when you count both the Mystery books separately, when they should really be combined, but I'd have to count the exact number between the two books myself which is a pain).

Then someone corrected the number of characters I listed for Three House, because they didn't count the DLC characters. I pointed this out and you said DLC characters don't exist because you don't pay for them, but wether or not you pay for them doesn't matter for the fact that they take development time. So to sum up, I don't think a larger cast needs to mean a weaker cast, but if we are going to make comparisons we should actually compare the larger and smaller casts accurately and DLC characters still require something of the planning and writing budget and should be factored in at least somewhat.

 

 

[AnonymousSpeed]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Alright, lotta air need clearing here XD Largely I agree that a bigger cast doesn't necessarily, as I said in this quote.

Look man I'm sorry it's a lot of text.

I am but a poor level 1 goblin I will not drop good items.

Please forgive me.

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

So to sum up, I don't think a larger cast needs to mean a weaker cast, but if we are going to make comparisons we should actually compare the larger and smaller casts accurately and DLC characters still require something of the planning and writing budget and should be factored in at least somewhat.

So, a hypothetical- an "even if it were true" type thing. Got it.

Well, I understand that a lot of Nintendo games develop the DLC after the game itself is finished, but this might not apply to Fire Emblem because it is a degenerate series prone to bad decisions. So whether DLC characters would have an impact on the main game cast depends on whether they're developed during or after the rest of the game.

[Jotari]

7 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Look man I'm sorry it's a lot of text.

I am but a poor level 1 goblin I will not drop good items.

Please forgive me.

I'll consider it.

7 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

So, a hypothetical- an "even if it were true" type thing. Got it.

Well, I understand that a lot of Nintendo games develop the DLC after the game itself is finished, but this might not apply to Fire Emblem because it is a degenerate series prone to bad decisions. So whether DLC characters would have an impact on the main game cast depends on whether they're developed during or after the rest of the game.

It seems Jertiza at the very least should be considered as part of the main game cast from a development perspective, as it seems they always wanted to add him but just didn't have enough time (apparently Gilbert was more important >.>), so when they did eventually add him they just patched him in for free.

[Shadow Mir]

On 7/8/2021 at 5:40 PM, FailWood said:

The debate itself isn't, but how it started was.  It started because someone commented on what I said about not doing out of house recruiting in Three Houses (because of my preference of smaller rosters, answering your topic's question).  They mentioned how they think there's a balancing issue with the idea, and used the Golden Deer as an example, and I attempted to counterargue which then devolved from there with others jumping in.  So sorry, all that was my fault.

Actually, my response to that post was initially about Revelation and its roster. I commented that the real problem with Revelation imho was not its roster size, but rather that it had big gaps in terms of unit quality. I then added later on that I'm of the mind that every house has a big gap in terms of unit quality among its initial roster, with it especially standing out in the Golden Deer because the non-Claude boys just struggle to keep up with everyone else (something I found out on my first run, as it was with said house; the moment that I realized that Lorenz and Raphael were burdens and not much else, I also realized I had to make like Gordon Ramsay and cut the fat if I didn't want to sink like the Titanic); for comparison's sake, I think there's only one obvious problem child in the other two houses (Caspar for the Eagles and Ashe for the Lions). It's much easier to deal with a cast that has only one unit of dubious quality than one where almost half of my team struggles to pull their weight.

Anyway, as to the topic, I find that maps that have really restrictive deployment limits tend to be pretty awful, which leaves me in support of higher deploy limits (for example, chapter 4 in Awakening). As to roster size, I don't really know, other than agreeing that Sacred Stones's roster is too small (granted, Shadows of Valentia does have about the same, considering the choice you have to make (at least before considering DLC), but it has less classes and the characters are split by route for most of the game).

Edited July 10, 2021 by Shadow Mir

[SSbardock84]

I love it when there are more characters and that was why I was not excited about the roster of Three Houses at first, there were far less characters than usual. But, these are probably some of the best written and most fleshed out characters we've ever received. To an extent, I'd prefer well written characters with a smaller roster than more characters. It depends on the game too. I think Radiant Dawn could've done better in terms of writing and giving more information on characters, but I think most of the characters were interesting and fun to play as.

As for deployment, I've always hated low deployment. I don't know about other people, but I pretty much only work and use the same characters on every map. I don't switch up and use different characters on different maps. So higher deployment is better because then I'd be able to utilize more characters and it would be more fun.

[joevar]

On 7/10/2021 at 8:23 AM, AnonymousSpeed said:

Well, I understand that a lot of Nintendo games develop the DLC after the game itself is finished, but this might not apply to Fire Emblem because it is a degenerate series prone to bad decisions. So whether DLC characters would have an impact on the main game cast depends on whether they're developed during or after the rest of the game.

🙄

so which one do you think will be better for FE, pre-planned dlc character, or added as an after-thought and/or by-demand dlc character

6 hours ago, SSbardock84 said:

To an extent, I'd prefer well written characters with a smaller roster than more characters. It depends on the game too I think Radiant Dawn could've done better in terms of writing and giving more information on characters, but I think most of the characters were interesting and fun to play as

im sure part of what makes radiant dawn bigger cast relatively okay in terms of overall writing quality was because its a direct sequel. or in other words, so many character are a returning cast that already has established characterization.

does someone already count how many non-returning/new char vs returning char in radiant dawn roster?

[Shadow Mir]

6 minutes ago, joevar said:

im sure part of what makes radiant dawn bigger cast relatively okay in terms of overall writing quality was because its a direct sequel. or in other words, so many character are a returning cast that already has established characterization.

does someone already count how many non-returning/new char vs returning char in radiant dawn roster?

Daein has 5 returners and 8 new
Crimea has 26 returning characters and only 2 new 
Begnion has 8 returning characters with only 1 new
The beast laguz have 5 each
Only 1 bird is new, while all the rest (7) and all the dragons (4) are returning characters

This leaves 17 new characters and 55 returning characters (I counted characters that were in Path of Radiance but not playable as returning characters).

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

Daein has 5 returners and 8 new
Crimea has 26 returning characters and only 2 new 
Begnion has 8 returning characters with only 1 new
The beast laguz have 5 each
Only 1 bird is new, while all the rest (7) and all the dragons (4) are returning characters

This leaves 17 new characters and 55 returning characters (I counted characters that were in Path of Radiance but not playable as returning characters).

Who's the new Begnion character? Sanaki, Tanith, Sigrun, Sephiran, Oliver are all the characters I'd class as definitely Begnion. The likes of Makalov, Astrid and Marcia could be counted as Begnion too, though they've migrated to Crimeia in Radiant Dawn. Counting them that gets to 8, but with no new character (there's also Haar, but he emigrated quite a while before even Path of Radiance). Alternatively instead of the Crimeians, we could count the desert crew with Tormod, Muriam, Vika and Stefan, which gives us 1 new character, but it also give us 9 in total and Vika would be counted twice as both a bird and Begnion (if she's even from Begnion, she just sort of shows up with Tormod). So I'm a little lost as to how you're counting Begnion and who the new character is. Are you counting Micaiah as a new Begnion character? Rafiel? He's from the Serenes forest which is in Begnion and he's a new character, but he's also a bird and that would mean counting Reyson and Leanne as Begnion characters too.

Edited July 11, 2021 by Jotari