In (sort of) defence of Dark Mage and Dark Bishop

[Jotari]

21 minutes ago, SnowFire said:

The more plot & setting you make, the more plot & setting you need.  It's like fractal expansion.  Despite being so incredibly huge, the world of 3H is still frustratingly incomplete in parts.  Why are people so blase about monsters when the Gautier Inheritance is portrayed as a big shock?  How are Demonic Beasts controlled by armies (clearly it doesn't seem to require Agarthans to help out)?  Where did Rhea get her Golems?  I think "what's up with Dark Magic" is one of those.  Since nobody boggles at seeing Lysithea or Hubert train at Garreg Mach or use Dark Magic while fighting (don't forget all those battalions!), and they don't seem to know Black Magic, I think we can safely assume that Dark Magic isn't actively scandalous. If Dark Magic is just part of life, how come so many of the Slitherers seem to prefer it?  Why weren't Hubert & especially Lysithea interrogated more after Tomas/Solon's shenanigans - Manuela seems at least vaguely familiar with the magic, so would they know more if this was some Dark Magic curse that never comes up again?  etc.  I think answering some of these questions would help with finding an identity for Dark Magic, but as is, eh, people just use Dark Magic and nobody really cares and we gotta roll with it.

 

If this change was made, be sure to add some more Dark Seals to the Crimson Flower route - CF misses a Dark Seal due to not fighting DK in C12, so you'd need to perfectly collect all 3 to make Hubert a Dark Knight.  Although at that point just benching Hubert might well make more sense.

I do think an alternate-3H where class progression was a little more locked down would be interesting, but that definitely goes against the philosophy of the game we got.  I think that the first and most important thing is to give Dark Mage & Dark Bishop different identities so that the player even cares about such a special route to begin with.  I do think an alternate option for what we got was to throw the idea of Dark Seals in the trash, make it so the Dark magic crew (Lysithea / Hubert / Hapi) have Dark Mage / Dark Bishop outright replace Mage / Warlock, then vary up the passives / stat profile / etc. substantially more.  (Edelgard gets access to both sides of the magey class tree since she's the only dual-user?)

I think you get an extra free dark seal in Crimson Flower from Jeritza's inventory (and if that's just something I dreamed up then you definitely should). Thpugh you still come out less by missing two or three death knight fights in part 2.

21 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

It'd probably be looked at in a more negative light (aside from screwing over male mages even harder than this game already does). Even ignoring the aggravation that stems from the whole bit about "you must have certified for this other class before you can try to certify for this class", it'd make it harder to get into due to Dark Bishop needing A reason for guaranteed certification.

By the way, my aggravation about Dark Knight stems from needing significantly more investment to access for what is ultimately very marginal gain - something that just does NOT sit well with me. Sure, it has the perks of being mounted, but unlike is the case in most FE games, being in a cavalry class isn't all upside in 3H. Then the DLC comes along and adds other mounted mage classes that aren't as much investment to get into (albeit with the caveat that only females can access them)... Dark Knight has a damage edge over those classes, but it just ain't enough to justify the extra effort.

Thirding this. This kind of stuff aggravates me, to be honest. It's like they learned nothing from FE Fates, where Oni Savage ended up being a massive afterthought.

Nope. Dark Tomefaire is a different skill from Black Tomefaire. Warlock, Mortal Savant, and Dark Knight all have Black Tomefaire, but only the latter has Dark Tomefaire.

You insistence that Three Houses is particularly unfriendly to Cavalry is just as baffling really. I have never found cavalry to be disproportionately hindered by terrain compared to infantry units with the exception of the single optional desert map.

 

[lenticular]

6 hours ago, SnowFire said:

The more plot & setting you make, the more plot & setting you need.  It's like fractal expansion.  Despite being so incredibly huge, the world of 3H is still frustratingly incomplete in parts.  Why are people so blase about monsters when the Gautier Inheritance is portrayed as a big shock?  How are Demonic Beasts controlled by armies (clearly it doesn't seem to require Agarthans to help out)?  Where did Rhea get her Golems?  I think "what's up with Dark Magic" is one of those.  Since nobody boggles at seeing Lysithea or Hubert train at Garreg Mach or use Dark Magic while fighting (don't forget all those battalions!), and they don't seem to know Black Magic, I think we can safely assume that Dark Magic isn't actively scandalous. If Dark Magic is just part of life, how come so many of the Slitherers seem to prefer it?  Why weren't Hubert & especially Lysithea interrogated more after Tomas/Solon's shenanigans - Manuela seems at least vaguely familiar with the magic, so would they know more if this was some Dark Magic curse that never comes up again?  etc.  I think answering some of these questions would help with finding an identity for Dark Magic, but as is, eh, people just use Dark Magic and nobody really cares and we gotta roll with it.

Personally, I don't have a problem with a story leaving unanswered questions. If anything, I quite like it. It makes the world seem bigger and more alive if I feel that I don't know everything about it. When there's an answer to every question, that makes everything feel just a little bit too neat to me, a reminder that this is all just a story. Real life is never that neat. So for stuff like Rhea's Golems, I don't really feel that I need to know where they came from. I'm happy for that to be a mystery, with a few clues that I can try to piece together to make an educated guess.

For dark magic, though, I think I agree with you. It's not just that it's left unexplained; some of the things we do see about it seem to be contradictory. I forget the exact wording used, but after Tomas reveals himself to actually be Solon, there's a line about how shocking it is that Tomas actually turned out to be a dark mage. Which makes it seem like it is something scandalous. Except that, as you say, it's something that we can have our students learn, which seems to imply that it isn't. It's a bit of a mess.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, lenticular said:

Personally, I don't have a problem with a story leaving unanswered questions. If anything, I quite like it. It makes the world seem bigger and more alive if I feel that I don't know everything about it. When there's an answer to every question, that makes everything feel just a little bit too neat to me, a reminder that this is all just a story. Real life is never that neat. So for stuff like Rhea's Golems, I don't really feel that I need to know where they came from. I'm happy for that to be a mystery, with a few clues that I can try to piece together to make an educated guess.

For dark magic, though, I think I agree with you. It's not just that it's left unexplained; some of the things we do see about it seem to be contradictory. I forget the exact wording used, but after Tomas reveals himself to actually be Solon, there's a line about how shocking it is that Tomas actually turned out to be a dark mage. Which makes it seem like it is something scandalous. Except that, as you say, it's something that we can have our students learn, which seems to imply that it isn't. It's a bit of a mess.

Does Gaerrk Mach actively allow students to become Dark Mages though? Because it's actually not part of the regular course. You need to have the Dark Seal. So how does all that work? Maybe it's not a standardized test but some kind of special bonus research course by reviewing the new material gleamed from the Dark Seal (which comes from the Agarthans via the Death Knight).

[lenticular]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Does Gaerrk Mach actively allow students to become Dark Mages though? Because it's actually not part of the regular course. You need to have the Dark Seal. So how does all that work? Maybe it's not a standardized test but some kind of special bonus research course by reviewing the new material gleamed from the Dark Seal (which comes from the Agarthans via the Death Knight).

I can see that it might not be something that's officially taught, that seems reasonable. But even then, it seems like something that Rhea et al are at least vaguely aware of. Not only in the sense of "how incompetent would you have to be not to keep track of what your new teacher is up to?" but also in that you can have a Dark Mage on your team directly in front of Rhea (in the Ashe & Catherine paralogue) or Seteth (in the Seteth & Flayn paralogue) and neither of them seem to care. It could definitely be something a little off the books ("Why are you teaching them about the Yuan Dynasty? That's not part of the syllabus!") but I don't think it's anything scandalous ("Why are you teaching them Satanic rites? That's really not part of the syllabus!")

[Jotari]

44 minutes ago, lenticular said:

I can see that it might not be something that's officially taught, that seems reasonable. But even then, it seems like something that Rhea et al are at least vaguely aware of. Not only in the sense of "how incompetent would you have to be not to keep track of what your new teacher is up to?" but also in that you can have a Dark Mage on your team directly in front of Rhea (in the Ashe & Catherine paralogue) or Seteth (in the Seteth & Flayn paralogue) and neither of them seem to care. It could definitely be something a little off the books ("Why are you teaching them about the Yuan Dynasty? That's not part of the syllabus!") but I don't think it's anything scandalous ("Why are you teaching them Satanic rites? That's really not part of the syllabus!")

I was thinking more that it's a branch of magic that is too obscure to be vilified. Because against all liklihood, Rhea has somehow managed to go like ten thousand years without discovering the Agarthan's existence. So that she just plain has no idea about their brand of magic actually tracks.

[lenticular]

29 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I was thinking more that it's a branch of magic that is too obscure to be vilified. Because against all liklihood, Rhea has somehow managed to go like ten thousand years without discovering the Agarthan's existence. So that she just plain has no idea about their brand of magic actually tracks.

But if that's the case, then how come there's the scandalised expression about Tomas actually being a secret dark mage? I looked up the part I was thinking of. After the mission where Tomas is revealed to be Solon, Rhea says "More importantly, I was shocked to hear that our own Tomas was actually a dark mage. I must reflect on our blindness." Which definitely seems to indicate that Rhea knows what dark magic is and doesn't like it.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I agree that the way dark magic is portrayed in the game feels a bit inconsistent. While I'm definitely on board with the idea that we shouldn't have everything explained, I do feel like the dark/black split feels a bit half-baked and I'm not sure what to make of it in-setting (also the names are terrible; it feels like they took white/black from Final Fantasy/etc. then remembered that Fire Emblem often does anima/light/dark and decided that anima = black... while also having dark. Which is just confusing).

10 hours ago, Jotari said:

You insistence that Three Houses is particularly unfriendly to Cavalry is just as baffling really. I have never found cavalry to be disproportionately hindered by terrain compared to infantry units with the exception of the single optional desert map.

The last two maps of Crimson Flower, the last in particular, as well as the last map of VW are all pretty tough on them as well. So are the monastery defence maps (CF 15, non-CF 14) with all their thickets.

Having said that, when cavalry are disproportionately hindered by terrain, that at worst just reduces them to standard infantry levels. A cavalier can move 2 squares through thickets... same as a brigand, archer, mercenary, etc. Even in the rare cases where they somehow might be more hindered, Dismount is an option. That hand-wringing about Dark Knight is particularly baffling, as a dismounted Dark Knight still has 6 move... which is still more than Gremory, Warlock, or (Dark) Bishop. Among advanced/master mounted classes, only Great Knight really suffers for move compared to standard infantry, as dismounting takes them down to 4 (which does indeed make them quite poor in the specific maps mentioned above).

 

[Jotari]

4 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I agree that the way dark magic is portrayed in the game feels a bit inconsistent. While I'm definitely on board with the idea that we shouldn't have everything explained, I do feel like the dark/black split feels a bit half-baked and I'm not sure what to make of it in-setting (also the names are terrible; it feels like they took white/black from Final Fantasy/etc. then remembered that Fire Emblem often does anima/light/dark and decided that anima = black... while also having dark. Which is just confusing).

The last two maps of Crimson Flower, the last in particular, as well as the last map of VW are all pretty tough on them as well. So are the monastery defence maps (CF 15, non-CF 14) with all their thickets.

Having said that, when cavalry are disproportionately hindered by terrain, that at worst just reduces them to standard infantry levels. A cavalier can move 2 squares through thickets... same as a brigand, archer, mercenary, etc. Even in the rare cases where they somehow might be more hindered, Dismount is an option. That hand-wringing about Dark Knight is particularly baffling, as a dismounted Dark Knight still has 6 move... which is still more than Gremory, Warlock, or (Dark) Bishop. Among advanced/master mounted classes, only Great Knight really suffers for move compared to standard infantry, as dismounting takes them down to 4 (which does indeed make them quite poor in the specific maps mentioned above).

 

Yes, the last map in Verdant Wind is no doubt a flier's game, but it's also kind of super easy in spite of having a decent idea behind it. Cavalry can run into trouble in Crimson Flower's last map, but only really in specific sections.

[Armchair General]

19 hours ago, Jotari said:

You insistence that Three Houses is particularly unfriendly to Cavalry is just as baffling really. I have never found cavalry to be disproportionately hindered by terrain compared to infantry units with the exception of the single optional desert map.

Outside of the minor penalty to growth rates, there's hardly an lot of maps that slows down cavalry. Sure, stairs exists; but the only time that I ever had an issue against using cav units is that desert map, the paralogue for Fodlan's Locket, and the Valley of Torment. Other than that, it's business as usual; considering how most of the terrain has neutral movement until you see an grove or the rare chokepoint of unfavorable terrain.

 

Only bad part is that there isn't a lot of opportunities to chase after people in 3H with their high mobility.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

22 hours ago, lenticular said:

Oh, damn, I really love that idea and can't believe I'd never thought of the possibility of mastery spells before. Possibilities for what each class could have, if we're sticking to existing spells:

I like this list overall. I'd personally exclude Noble/Commoner, Monk, Trickster, War Monk/Cleric, and Dancer from learning them. Otherwise, very solid. Suddenly mastering Priest would be worth something, haha.

22 hours ago, lenticular said:

I'm not going to try to come up with one for every class here, but ideas are pretty easy to come by. Dark magic users could get a siege tome (Fenrir?) or a brave tome, or even just a version of Nosferatu that doesn't suck. Holy Knight or Enlightened One could get a Purge spell. Trickster could get Entrap. Mortal Savant could get some sort of self-buffing spell (eg, "Haste: Until the start of your next turn, you have +5 speed, +20 avo, and +20 crit. (1 use per battle)"). Or maybe you could just give it Rewarp instead. Healers could get something that combines healing with condition removal or healing with buffing. Black Mages could get something that does damage and sets the enemy on fire for some extra damage over time. Or something with some AoE splash damage. Or something that effects terrain. Or you could even do spells that reproduce gambit effects but only on a single target.

Mortal Savant: teleports behind you "Nothing personnel, kid."

Yeah, I think this is an even more interesting way to turn things. It does raise the question - should units keep the spells in other classes (like the repositional arts)? Or should they be exclusive to the class that learned it (like Hunter's Volley)? If Dark Bishop got a brave spell, for instance, it could find some use as a genuine endgame class. Likewise, Purge on Holy Knight could give the class a niche over Dark Knight. Being able to carry these skills into other classes may dilute the class uniqueness somewhat. On the flip side, having to stay in Mage to use the Mage "mastery spell", if one such existed, would be pretty dumb.

21 hours ago, SnowFire said:

If this change was made, be sure to add some more Dark Seals to the Crimson Flower route - CF misses a Dark Seal due to not fighting DK in C12, so you'd need to perfectly collect all 3 to make Hubert a Dark Knight.  Although at that point just benching Hubert might well make more sense.

Jeritza shows up with a Dark Seal, right? I believe 4 are obtainable on Crimson Flower, as a result.

On 12/19/2021 at 3:03 AM, Jotari said:

The whole splitting of black and dark magic is just really weird in general and does indeed feel like some kind of enemy only aesthetic they randomly decided to give to the player. Funtionally theres no difference at all. They have combined weapon ranks and I think even the faire skill combines them. The only thing distinguishing them is that Warlock doesn't grant extra dark magic use (gremory does though).

Others have pointed out that the Faires are separated, but I will chime in that the Prowess skill is combined (Reason Prowess)... yet "Black Magic Crit +10" and "Black Magic Avoid +20" also exist without helping out Dark magic. Skills that aid Dark Magic are in short supply.

[lenticular]

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

Yeah, I think this is an even more interesting way to turn things. It does raise the question - should units keep the spells in other classes (like the repositional arts)? Or should they be exclusive to the class that learned it (like Hunter's Volley)? If Dark Bishop got a brave spell, for instance, it could find some use as a genuine endgame class. Likewise, Purge on Holy Knight could give the class a niche over Dark Knight. Being able to carry these skills into other classes may dilute the class uniqueness somewhat. On the flip side, having to stay in Mage to use the Mage "mastery spell", if one such existed, would be pretty dumb.

I'd had that thought as well. I think that just following the leads of mastery combat arts would make the sense. With those, the arts from beginner and intermediate classes are learned permanently (all the repositional arts, Triangle Attack and I'm pretty sure Subdue works that way too though I'd be lying if I said I'd ever used it) whereas the arts from mastering advanced, special and master classes are all tied to their class. UI might be an issue, since I'm not sure where all these extra known spells would fit, but this is fantasy game design so we can handwave it away and say that it's the fantasy UI designer's problem now.

Another advantage of using unique spells for masteries would be that it wouldn't step on the toes of existing spell lists. For instance, if everyone could pick up Physic and Fortify from mastering Priest and Bishop respectively, then that would make Mercedes a terrible choice for a Bishop and Manuela a great one. Mercedes would still have a niche as "the character who can learn Physic and Fortify even if you put her in an offensive class", but that doesn't really fit the story and character.

16 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

(also the names are terrible; it feels like they took white/black from Final Fantasy/etc. then remembered that Fire Emblem often does anima/light/dark and decided that anima = black... while also having dark. Which is just confusing)

Agreed. I can understand that they would want a name for the combination of what used to be light tomes and what used to be staves, and calling that white magic is reasonable. And, in fact, they are properly unified, with White Magic Avoid working just as well with Heal as with Nosferatu. But then Black and Dark are kept separate, even though the names are so similar? I know that I've had conversations about the game with friends where they've said Black Magic when they meant Dark Magic or vice versa, and I've had to stop them to clarify exactly which one they meant. Which is never a good thing.

And speaking about gripes with dark magic naming, what is with the Greek letters in the names of dak magic spells? What actually are they supposed to represent? What's gained by having them? Are they supposed to make the spells seem more mysterious and other? And if so, then why did they have several of them use letters that share a glyph with a letter of the Latin alphabet? Also, while I'm being petty about this, "Luna Lambda" sounds way too similar to "Lunar lander" in my non-rhotic accent and I'm entirely unable to take the spell seriously because of this.

[Jotari]

5 hours ago, lenticular said:

I'd had that thought as well. I think that just following the leads of mastery combat arts would make the sense. With those, the arts from beginner and intermediate classes are learned permanently (all the repositional arts, Triangle Attack and I'm pretty sure Subdue works that way too though I'd be lying if I said I'd ever used it) whereas the arts from mastering advanced, special and master classes are all tied to their class. UI might be an issue, since I'm not sure where all these extra known spells would fit, but this is fantasy game design so we can handwave it away and say that it's the fantasy UI designer's problem now.

Another advantage of using unique spells for masteries would be that it wouldn't step on the toes of existing spell lists. For instance, if everyone could pick up Physic and Fortify from mastering Priest and Bishop respectively, then that would make Mercedes a terrible choice for a Bishop and Manuela a great one. Mercedes would still have a niche as "the character who can learn Physic and Fortify even if you put her in an offensive class", but that doesn't really fit the story and character.

Agreed. I can understand that they would want a name for the combination of what used to be light tomes and what used to be staves, and calling that white magic is reasonable. And, in fact, they are properly unified, with White Magic Avoid working just as well with Heal as with Nosferatu. But then Black and Dark are kept separate, even though the names are so similar? I know that I've had conversations about the game with friends where they've said Black Magic when they meant Dark Magic or vice versa, and I've had to stop them to clarify exactly which one they meant. Which is never a good thing.

And speaking about gripes with dark magic naming, what is with the Greek letters in the names of dak magic spells? What actually are they supposed to represent? What's gained by having them? Are they supposed to make the spells seem more mysterious and other? And if so, then why did they have several of them use letters that share a glyph with a letter of the Latin alphabet? Also, while I'm being petty about this, "Luna Lambda" sounds way too similar to "Lunar lander" in my non-rhotic accent and I'm entirely unable to take the spell seriously because of this.

I don't think the UI would be that much of an issue. We already have spells tied to a class. The spell could just be added to the class skill slot. The only issue with that would be if the class already has 3 class skills (as I think that's the max on the UI). It wouldn't need to be added to the combat arts list or anything. And I think the only classes that currently exist that would have the UI problem are Dark Bishop and Holy Knight, with Dark Bishop having the rather useless Maelfic Aura skill (or whatever that evade lowering one is called) and Holy Knight having the near equally useless terrain resistance.

[SnowFire]

11 hours ago, lenticular said:

And speaking about gripes with dark magic naming, what is with the Greek letters in the names of dak magic spells? What actually are they supposed to represent? What's gained by having them? Are they supposed to make the spells seem more mysterious and other? And if so, then why did they have several of them use letters that share a glyph with a letter of the Latin alphabet?

In the world where Dark Magic is the near-exclusive domain of the Agarthans and a mysterious legend to most Fodlaners, it fits the ancient Greece theme they loosely have.   (Mostly just their names, but also just being an analogue for 'civilization that once ruled the world but fell.')  Also, a tau and a T look similar,  but they are slightly distinct characters.   Same with a chi and an X.

--

Also, yeah, I forgot PC Jeritza's dark seal in CF.  Still a bit of a shortage there IMO, the Eagles are the worst team for beating the DK by default unless you power grind dark spikes on Hubert.  No early Catherine, no Sylvain/ Lysithea.  (Can obviously recruit Sylvain with F!Byleth or do a variety of 'fair' ways to beat the fight, but still.)

[Jotari]

16 minutes ago, SnowFire said:

In the world where Dark Magic is the near-exclusive domain of the Agarthans and a mysterious legend to most Fodlaners, it fits the ancient Greece theme they loosely have.   (Mostly just their names, but also just being an analogue for 'civilization that once ruled the world but fell.')  Also, a tau and a T look similar,  but they are slightly distinct characters.   Same with a chi and an X.

--

Also, yeah, I forgot PC Jeritza's dark seal in CF.  Still a bit of a shortage there IMO, the Eagles are the worst team for beating the DK by default unless you power grind dark spikes on Hubert.  No early Catherine, no Sylvain/ Lysithea.  (Can obviously recruit Sylvain with F!Byleth or do a variety of 'fair' ways to beat the fight, but still.)

Isn't Stealing a simple enough, albeit boring method of securing them? I can't say I've ever done it myself, in fact I don't think I've ever used the steal function in Three Houses at all, but it's there.

[lenticular]

23 minutes ago, SnowFire said:

In the world where Dark Magic is the near-exclusive domain of the Agarthans and a mysterious legend to most Fodlaners, it fits the ancient Greece theme they loosely have.   (Mostly just their names, but also just being an analogue for 'civilization that once ruled the world but fell.')

It still seems out of place to me. Like, why do the individual spells carry the letters that they do? Is Death Γ the third iteration of the Death spell? Or is the spell normally just called Γ by the Agarthans and the Death part is just the Fódlan name? Neither one of them really feels believable to me, but I can't think of any other way they'd end up with that naming scheme.

27 minutes ago, SnowFire said:

Also, a tau and a T look similar,  but they are slightly distinct characters.   Same with a chi and an X.

There is normally a difference in representation in any given font (or any individual person's handwriting), but the variance within each letter is greater than the variance between the letters. If I see a single glyph and am told that it's either a T or a Τ but am not told what the font is or given other reference text to check it against, I really have no way of knowing which is which.

14 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Isn't Stealing a simple enough, albeit boring method of securing them? I can't say I've ever done it myself, in fact I don't think I've ever used the steal function in Three Houses at all, but it's there.

Stealing it can be tricky to make work because of the requirement to be faster than the target you're stealing from. The Death Knight has speed of 19 (Maddening) or 17 (Normal and Hard) when you fight him in Chapter 4. It's certainly possible to make work (and I have done so), but it's not trivial. I generally think it's easier just to kill him, honestly.

[SnowFire]

3 hours ago, lenticular said:

It still seems out of place to me. Like, why do the individual spells carry the letters that they do? Is Death Γ the third iteration of the Death spell? Or is the spell normally just called Γ by the Agarthans and the Death part is just the Fódlan name? Neither one of them really feels believable to me, but I can't think of any other way they'd end up with that naming scheme.

We probably shouldn't overthink this one - they added it because they thought it sounded cool and made it more distinct.  And I think it is kinda cool?  Although per earlier conversation, it probably makes more sense if knowledge of Dark Magic was even more restricted among Fodlaners to explain the archaism.  I agree that maybe all-Greek terms would have been more flavorful (although maybe latinized forms - Thanatos rather than Θάνατος), but clearly playability won out there.  Anyway, if we do want to overthink this, there's lot of reasons for a weird mish-mash of languages in a single word (a check of Google pops up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_word ).  Josephus, when writing his histories (aka the works we actually have access to today and weren't lost in antiquity), was sometimes working with Greek translations of works originally in Hebrew that just kinda phoneticized out the Hebrew word into Greek, and it got garbled into essentially a new word, especially for things like place names or people names, and modern historians have to guess what term started the game of telephone.  Or for a modern example, various words in Japanese that are really just bad phoneticizations of English words ("telebi" for television), so might have an English component & a Japanese component.  It happens! 

Edited December 22, 2021 by SnowFire

[Dark Holy Elf]

The benchmarks for stealing on Maddening are definitely quite tough. I suppose you can mission assist in a Rally Speed-user to make it more practical, but yeah, realistically, it's never that difficult to defeat the Death Knight if you know what you're doing (a big if, granted) and are ready to abuse divine pulse. In particular, recruit Sylvain by Chapter 5 (freebie for FByleth, not a bad choice for M particularly on Eagles where training Reason gets you Lorenz too) -> Lance of Ruin Knightkneeler will defeat his Chapter 6 and 8 appearances regardless of route, which gives you 3 seals minimum.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

13 hours ago, Jotari said:

I don't think the UI would be that much of an issue. We already have spells tied to a class. The spell could just be added to the class skill slot. The only issue with that would be if the class already has 3 class skills (as I think that's the max on the UI). It wouldn't need to be added to the combat arts list or anything. And I think the only classes that currently exist that would have the UI problem are Dark Bishop and Holy Knight, with Dark Bishop having the rather useless Maelfic Aura skill (or whatever that evade lowering one is called) and Holy Knight having the near equally useless terrain resistance.

Make it so that the "class mastery spell" shows up at the bottom of their spell list when they're in the proper class. Like how class-mastery combat arts are depicted. "Skill that gives the unit a spell" feels like an unnecessary step, even when it's used in-game for Mage or Dark Mage.

4 hours ago, SnowFire said:

Or for a modern example, various words in Japanese that are really just bad phoneticizations of English words ("telebi" for television), so might have an English component & a Japanese component.  It happens! 

Awkward transliterations? In MY Faia Enburemu? It's more common than you think.

On 12/20/2021 at 11:13 AM, lenticular said:

But if that's the case, then how come there's the scandalised expression about Tomas actually being a secret dark mage? I looked up the part I was thinking of. After the mission where Tomas is revealed to be Solon, Rhea says "More importantly, I was shocked to hear that our own Tomas was actually a dark mage. I must reflect on our blindness." Which definitely seems to indicate that Rhea knows what dark magic is and doesn't like it.

Good catch. I tend to interpret the fact that classes with Miasma demand a Dark Seal as a sign that going into Dark Mage isn't exactly kosher. Then again, it's strange that Hubert and Lysithea never mention their Dark Magic as a source of judgement from society, or friction relative to the Church. Like, if they got more common "Black Magic" lists, I don't believe anything would need to be changed in-narrative.

[Jotari]

7 hours ago, lenticular said:

It still seems out of place to me. Like, why do the individual spells carry the letters that they do? Is Death Γ the third iteration of the Death spell? Or is the spell normally just called Γ by the Agarthans and the Death part is just the Fódlan name? 

The true answer is that the Agarthans are actually from the Mother series. It's not magic, it's PSI!

[Cysx]

6 hours ago, Jotari said:

The true answer is that the Agarthans are actually from the Mother series. It's not magic, it's PSI!

That'd be why Tomas was included in the Smaaaaaaash reveal. Makes sense.

[lenticular]

14 hours ago, SnowFire said:

We probably shouldn't overthink this one - they added it because they thought it sounded cool and made it more distinct.  And I think it is kinda cool? 

Yeah, avoiding overthinking is probably for the best. If you think it's kinda cool and I think it's kinda silly then we can probably just safely file it away under "works for some people but not others" and be done with it.

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

Make it so that the "class mastery spell" shows up at the bottom of their spell list when they're in the proper class. Like how class-mastery combat arts are depicted. "Skill that gives the unit a spell" feels like an unnecessary step, even when it's used in-game for Mage or Dark Mage.

I think the bigger issue would be if we were hypothetically allowing for some class masteries to grant permanent access to spells. If someone had mastered Priest, Mage and Dark Mage, then gone into Warlock and mastered that too, then that would potentially mean four extra spells to fit in somewhere, which would be more of a pain than just one.