The Most Normal Run of FE7

[pandoraElf]

Part 0: Foreword

Hello, everyone! It’s been…a few years, huh?

Back in the day, I posted a Lord-Only run of FE7, then lost interest in it - and didn’t even let anyone know it was abandoned because I was too ashamed to show my face.

Thankfully, I’m…a bit more mature about things now, I’d say? At the very least I don’t think I’ll dip out without any warning this time.

I might end up doing the Lord-Only run again at some point, because it’s a fun one, but I’m instead doing something…a bit different.

As the title expounds, this is The Most Normal Run of FE7 - but what the hell does that mean?

Well, if you want a shorter name, you could call it a ‘Normalized’ run - but that implies that I’ve done something to the game in some way. And unless you count emulating it and using savestates, this is all-natural on the game’s part.

What this run is about will take a bit to explain, so I’ve devoted a full post to it. It is a bit technical, and I’m hardly the biggest expert on how FE works in all its aspects, but I believe I know all I need to for this run. There will be a TL;DR at the end of the foreword if you want to skip to that.

The main thing we need to talk about for this run is a little thing called RNG manipulation. Some of you may already know about this, but bear with me.

Here, we have a scene from the end of FE7 Chapter 3 - in fact, the same one I ran in the preparation for this very run. As you can see, everyone but Migal has been dealt with - and as you can’t see, Migal has been run down to 4 HP on the prior turn.

Now, the character I’m going to be using to illustrate this point is Florina (hence why I got Migal’s HP so low) as Pegasus Knights not only have high movement, but no obstruction to that movement for the most part (as you can see).

Now, first of all, let’s attack Migal with a Slim Lance. As you can see, this will kill (although Florina may take some pretty hefty damage in the process).

We finish him off, take that hefty damage I mentioned, and level up - I believe this is a fairly standard level for Florina, although the lack of strength is disappointing.

Now, instead of proceeding, let’s use a savestate (which will not be featuring too heavily in this run itself, though the prep I do will involve quite a bit of it) and head back a step. Let’s say we want to finish him off with the Iron Lance and avoid taking any damage, even if the chapter is about to end.

Like so, and…

…Would you look at that. A different level. Better in some ways (hello strength), worse in others.

Now, this may seem fairly standard - doing things differently ends up with different results.

But now, let’s head back again, and this time…do something special.

There’s multiple ways to do this next step, but the one I prefer is to head all the way out to the edge of Florina’s movement range, and then go beyond it, so that my cursor is outside.

Then, we bring the cursor up a couple spaces and back into her movement range.

Now, the game has a decision to make - what is the shortest path that arrow can travel? ‘Does it matter?’ you ask. Not really - but the game thinks it does. So, in order to make that decision…it rolls a random number.

As you can see, it can end up fairly straightforward, like this…

Or all squiggly, like this.

‘So?’ you ask again. So, that random number I mentioned just rolled - what do you think would happen if we went back and attacked Migal again?

…yet another different level. See, by basically forcing the game to roll a random number before the attack, we’ve shifted everything out of alignment - meaning the result of the random rolls are now different.

And, of course, if we decided the level wasn’t good enough, we could always fiddle around some more…

Hmm…better, but what if we wanted some strength?

(Note: this can also backfire, as seen above)

Aha, there we go! Now that’s a nice level!

And now, you know how to manipulate the RNG in a GBA FE game. Congrats!

…and now that you know that, say goodbye - because you’ll never be seeing this trick again (at least in this run).

‘...Well then what the hell was the point?!’ you ask. …Man, you’re doing a lot of that.

The POINT, you see, is that while many don’t do this RNG manipulation on purpose, it does often happen on accident. Like I said, this is one of multiple ways - another is to fold the arrow in on itself so it recalculates.

So what, I ask, would happen…if we never let that happen on accident?

Because FE7, as it happens, is not really random. Not truly, you see. Because while it does roll a random number over and over, those numbers are always rolled in the same order - hence why, if you go back to a previous savestate and take the same action, you will get the same result, the same level-up.

Furthermore, FE7 always starts on the same 'seed' - meaning, if you boot-up a brand-new game, and take the exact same actions as you did last time, making sure not to let any accidental RNG manipulation happen - you will get the exact same result.

So what do you do with that knowledge? Well, if you’re me, you’ll find that intensely interesting, and wonder how far you can take it. Could you, perhaps, make a walkthrough of the game, that if someone followed it exactly, could always get you all the way to the end with no casualties?

Maybe, maybe not - as the game goes on, things will get more complicated, definitely - and I might tire of this concept before long. (And I don’t know if it would work on, say, FE6 or FE8 - or even outside of Lyn Normal Mode)

But until then, I might be able to show you some interesting things - like, for example, a way to get through the first few chapters without taking any damage, guaranteed (barring tutorial fights, as…FE7 has a lot of those). If you follow along with this walkthrough exactly, you should be able to get the exact same outcomes (though I would like confirmation on this. Having someone else at the very least try out the first chapter following my guide on an emulator, or hell, even on a real GBA, would help a lot)

Now, would you want to do this for the full thing? …Admittedly, probably not. You can still have a lot of fun with a game even if you follow the basic steps a walkthrough provides, FE included (I know this from experience) - but already knowing the outcome before you start would take the fun out of it, if it isn’t already sucked out entirely by having to follow step-by-step so meticulously. Still, I won’t stop you from doing it, just…be warned.

Now, if this isn’t going to be fun to follow, why do it? Well, it has been somewhat fun for me to check out on my own, at least so far. Messing around with RNG this way is somewhat fascinating to me. And I hope that the rest of you will at the very least have fun reading my experiences.

 

TL:DR - RNG abuse is a thing, but what if we went all the way to the other end and removed any chance of randomness entirely?

[pandoraElf]

Part 1: The Beginning

(OBLIGATORY WARNING: If you are following along, be careful not to accidentally manipulate the RNG with the movement arrow, as it WILL change what results you get. If you get something different, that’s the most likely answer - that being said, if you’re sure you didn’t do it, let me know. If my own work is faulty, I’ll do my best to correct it.)

 

Now, I’m doing this on an entirely new game, fyi - I don’t know if having a previous save file would ruin it or not. Maybe, maybe not, but best not to risk it.

…Oh, right, forgot about this. I can never remember what effect the tactician has on things, in all honesty - but either way, if you’re playing this yourself, I’d once again recommend following me exactly. I’m just leaving things as the default.

Now, I am going to cover the prologue, even though there’s very little for me to talk about there - just for completion’s sake.

I’ll skip over tutorial bits, and just point out how I moved - for the most part, I don’t think changing this should change the outcomes? Unless, once again, you accidentally manipulate the RNG with the arrow.

Moving Lyn to the directed square 5 to the east…

The brigand approaches, and I go around to attack (fun fact - just for the sake of spicing up this boring-ass tutorial chapter, I always go around back to attack this guy. Omae wa mo shindeiru, nothing personnel and all that)

…Side note - I hate having to take screenshots of the battle window with the x2 floating around. It’s not so bad on the left side of the screen, but the right side makes it all but impossible. Like, look at this. What is she even dealing here?

Anyway, the Brigand spontaneously ceases to exist, and after heading left one and up two, I follow the tutorial’s only good direction for this map - use a Vulnerary.

Then, next turn, it’s time to do something ill-advised again and attack the boss. As most veterans know, fighting a boss that does more than half your health in damage on your turn is not the way to go. Thankfully, we have tutorial magic to help us.

Wait…shit, it’s Batta the Beast! Not even tutorial magic can help us against him!

Oh wait, nevermind, we crit. Tutorial magic!

Now, this has been mostly bog-standard so far - but now that we’ve reached Lyn’s level-up, let’s talk about something interesting.

You’d be forgiven for thinking this level up is scripted - after all, literally everything else in this tutorial is. However, if we go back to a savestate right before the boss…

…and start fooling around with the RNG…

…Voila! We get…a worse level. …Yeah, not sure why you’d ever want to fool around with the RNG here - the original level is actually pretty good. No defense, but this is Lyn, after all.

That being said, with that, we can move on from this chapter to something ACTUALLY interesting.

Before we do, here’s a quick thing I’ll be keeping track of - how good character are doing on their level-ups!

 

Lyn

Lv +1 (+1.65)

HP +1 (+0.3)

Str +1 (+0.6)

Skl +1 (+0.4)

Spd +1 (+0.4)

Lck +1 (+0.45)

Def +0 (-0.2)

Res +0 (-0.3)

 

The number in the parentheses indicates how far ahead they are from their averages, as seen in here: https://serenesforest.net/blazing-sword/characters/average-stats/ - and the number in the parentheses next to the level is the total of that. Let me know if I’m off on any of my calculations!

Now, onto…!

The first chapter we actually get to do stuff!

…though not until after a boatload of scripted tutorials. Hooray.

Once again, going over the tutorials just for completeness’s sake. Sain goes right 4 here, attacks the Brigand…

And, the predictable happens. We do get a free Iron Sword, though.

Kent does the same thing, only smarter, and deals some damage…

And Lyn heads up two, right one, and finishes the job.

Next turn, Sain heads down four, right one, and does something a bit smarter…

…Okay, this one isn’t his fault - it’s the game’s. Though missing at an 87 isn’t exactly unheard of…

Once again, Kent heads to do his partner’s job better, heading right one, down one, then right one, and attacking…

While Lyn heads up here at the tutorial’s behest.

Admittedly, I’m not sure this Brigand’s counterattack is actually scripted, but that doesn’t make too much of a difference at this stage.

And our final tutorial for the day, Sain heads up four and grabs a Vulnerary from Lyn, healing up. Leading us to…

Our first Actual Choice! Decisions, decisions…

Unlike in my previous Lords-Only run, this one doesn’t extremely matter, but I decided to move him right one just so that he’d be closer to the action next turn.

Meanwhile, Lyn heads up two and attacks the Brigand there. And although this seems like it won’t kill…

Ta-da! Coming to you live from The Most Normal Run of FE7, it’s our first guaranteed crit! If any of you are following along at home, here’s the chance to prove once and for all whether or not this method works! Anything else might have been happenstance, but it’s hard to argue with a crit.

Meanwhile, Kent does exactly what you’d expect from someone in his position and murders a Brigand.

Next turn, Lyn heads up one and right four in preparation for the eventual bossfight, while Sain heads right two to hunker down in a forest and deal with the remaining enemy. Kent, meanwhile, heads right three to the edge of the enemy’s range so that he can stay out of it. Strictly speaking, as there’s no plan to use him for the rest of this chapter, I might as well just keep him where he is, but why not.

Our Brigand friend comes down with a severe case of ‘Miss’, and Sain deals over half his health in retaliation…

…leaving him prime and ready as easy pickings as Sain circles around him (up one, right two, down one) to finish the job.

Meanwhile, Kent moves right one, up three, and left two, and Lyn moves down one and right three, right up to being diagonal to the boss.

Our final turn left me with a choice - who do I kill the boss with? Lyn and Sain were both approaching their level-up, and some testing proved that either would be a reasonable choice - but as I’ve tested out the route where I kill with Sain more, and I’m partial to spreading EXP around, that’s what I’m going with.

That being said, while I don’t have the screenshot on hand for it, if I had killed with Lyn, I would have gotten the exact same level-up I got in the first chapter, which is…interesting, to say the least. Here’s the stats in question:

 

Lyn

Lv +1 (+3.3)

HP +1 (+0.6)

Str +1 (+1.2)

Skl +1 (+0.8)

Spd +1 (+0.8)

Lck +1 (+0.9)

Def +0 (-0.4)

Res +0 (-0.6)

 

But, with that firmly in the realm of AU fanfiction, let’s let Lyn head up a square and take the first strike instead.

Although Zugu is perfectly capable of two-shotting Lyn on a bad day, that’s not anywhere near to in the cards this time.

Meanwhile, Sain heads right three and up three, and finishes Zugu off nicely.

And of course, here’s that level-up I promised - and not a bad one, either.

 

Sain

Lv +1 (+1.1)

HP +0 (-0.8)

Str +1 (+0.4)

Skl +1 (+0.65)

Spd +1 (+0.6)

Lck +0 (-0.35)

Def +0 (-0.2)

Res +1 (+0.8)

 

And with that, we beat our first chapter - without taking a single lick of damage outside of tutorials, as you may have noticed. While that may be actually pretty par for the course in a chapter like this one with so many axes vs swords, the likelihood is going to get far slimmer as we continue on - but here in The Most Normal Run, ‘odds’ means little to us…

[Zapp Branniglenn]

I've got some fond memories of playing around with save states on Sacred Stones over a decade ago, discovering that it was the arrow movement that dictated level ups. So I, too, got carried away with this information. Rigging the system to make a No Hits run of FE7? I'd be interested to know if its possible. How committed are you to that particular element of the run? Will it affect which units you choose to deploy and invest in? Or can our man Dorcas hope to pull some dodges with the best of them?

Edited September 21, 2022 by Zapp Branniglenn

[pandoraElf]

16 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

I've got some fond memories of playing around with save states on Sacred Stones over a decade ago, discovering that it was the arrow movement that dictated level ups. So I, too, got carried away with this information. Rigging the system to make a No Hits run of FE7? I'd be interested to know if its possible. How committed are you to that particular element of the run? Will it affect which units you choose to deploy and invest in? Or can our man Dorcas hope to pull some dodges with the best of them?

You've misunderstood me - I did not say that I was going to do a No Hits run for the entirety of FE7. I'm pretty sure that's impossible without SEVERE RNG abuse, and I gave up doing that as soon as I hit Chapter 4 (for what I'm sure are fairly obvious reasons). You CAN, however, go through Chapters 1-3 without taking any damage whatsoever, and I'm going to at the very least show that off.

Also, currently testing stuff out with Chapter 5, and I've decided it's somewhat for the best - it prevents healers from being usable for anything but healing HP level-ups if I were to do that.

As for deploying and investing in units, I have to admit I'll probably need to figure something out once I hit Chapter 7 and actually have to start choosing what units to use and where to put them in the starting formation. Because once that happens, the list of probabilities balloons wildly.

I am happy that someone else is interested in this concept, though - I'm aware it's somewhat technical and can suck the fun out of it for some people. But now that I know someone's interested, it's full steam ahead!

Edited September 21, 2022 by pandoraElf

[pandoraElf]

Part 2: I don’t have funny names for these, sorry

(OBLIGATORY WARNING: If you are following along, be careful not to accidentally manipulate the RNG with the movement arrow, as it WILL change what results you get. If you get something different, that’s the most likely answer - that being said, if you’re sure you didn’t do it, let me know. If my own work is faulty, I’ll do my best to correct it.)

 

Hey, all! Back again, with…

Still more bandits. What did you expect from FE7?

Once again, just covering the tutorials for completion’s sake - although in this case the Canto movement afterwards may be a bit important. As you might expect, I just moved Sain and Kent so that they would be closer to the action afterwards.

 

Then, for the next turn, getting into position for the inevitable attack from the first Brigand.

And the inevitable miss. Admittedly, that’s not too different from a regular battle between a Brigand and Lyn on a forest tile…

But this one gets us a level, which is...still exactly the same as the prologue, and the one we didn’t actually get in the previous chapter.

…I’ll be the first to admit, I don’t quite get this. Are levels in Lyn Mode semi-scripted or something?

Ah well. Here’s the stats.

 

Lyn

Lv +1 (+3.3)

HP +1 (+0.6)

Str +1 (+1.2)

Skl +1 (+0.8)

Spd +1 (+0.8)

Lck +1 (+0.9)

Def +0 (-0.4)

Res +0 (-0.6)

 

For the next turn, setting up the characters I don’t intend to use…which is actually interesting, as in a regular playthrough you’d only want to do this after you’ve made sure to deal with the enemy in front of you. What if you miss, after all? I had been thinking hit chance, crit chance, and level-ups were the main things that would be affected that I would show off, but I suppose little strategies like this change as well.

…Although it doesn’t matter in this case, as it’s guaranteed either way. You know the drill.

Anyway, after the enemy phase (and some healing)...

We do some more fighting, which…

…nets Kent his own level!

 

Kent

Lv +1 (+1.1)

HP +1 (+0.15)

Str +1 (+0.6)

Skl +0 (-0.5)

Spd +1 (+0.55)

Lck +1 (+0.8)

Def +0 (-0.25)

Res +0 (-0.25)

 

Now that the Brigand is dead, Lyn comes in to take his place and force the next one to attack her.

You can probably guess how that goes.

Sain’s job, meanwhile, is to go up and attack the wall - in any run, he’s likely going to be best for this, as he has the strength to two-shot it with a lance.

I…apparently lost the screenshot for the battle forecast, but given Kent has had 100% chances on previous attacks, I think you can safely assume things are legit here.

Next turn, Sain takes out the rest of the wall’s health, and Lyn proceeds inside to attack the Brigand.

Once again, everything’s usual here.

Kent heads in and finishes the guy off…

And next turn, Lyn heads down to the main entrance to take on the Brigand.

Meanwhile, Kent heads up to attack Glass, and here’s where things get a little interesting. Everything up till now has been well within what you’d expect - swords vs. axe-wielding Brigands is a pretty clear matchup, so it’s not that far outside the realm of possibility to expect to get through everything so far with clean hits and without taking damage.

Glass, however, is different - he’s a Mercenary, he’s got a sword, and he’s sitting on a throne. The odds are still in our favor - but not nearly as much, this time.

Still, that’s where our method comes in handy - I can tell you, 100%, that Kent will hit and Glass will miss.

‘But you’ve already played this’, you say, ‘of course you know!’ Well, yes, I…don’t really have a way to disprove that’s the reason. But, if you take the exact same path I did through the game so far, you will get this exact same outcome.

Of course, he’s not dead yet, meaning Sain has to come up and finish the job.

And Sain gets his own quite-good level! And a Vulnerary.

 

Sain

Lv +1 (+3.2)

HP +1 (-0.6)

Str +1 (+0.8)

Skl +1 (+1.3)

Spd +0 (+0.2)

Lck +1 (+0.3)

Def +1 (+0.6)

Res +0 (+0.6)

 

Of course, we still have one enemy left to deal with - and this one annoyingly is going to take multiple turns, no way around that.

Sending Lyn up and AVOIDING seizing for now, I send Kent down to take out the straggler…

And with this…not-quite-as-good level, everyone’s now at Lv3.

 

Kent

Lv +1 (+2.2)

HP +1 (+0.3)

Str +1 (+1.2)

Skl +0 (-1)

Spd +0 (+0.1)

Lck +1 (+1.6)

Def +0 (-0.5)

Res +0 (-0.5)

 

You don’t need me to tell you what happens next - with that, Chapter 2 comes to a close.

Next chapter, things’ll be a bit more interesting, with more Mercenaries and some Archers on top of that to deal with. See you then!

Edited September 22, 2022 by pandoraElf

[Zapp Branniglenn]

On 9/21/2022 at 2:01 PM, pandoraElf said:

You've misunderstood me - I did not say that I was going to do a No Hits run for the entirety of FE7. I'm pretty sure that's impossible without SEVERE RNG abuse, and I gave up doing that as soon as I hit Chapter 4 (for what I'm sure are fairly obvious reasons). You CAN, however, go through Chapters 1-3 without taking any damage whatsoever, and I'm going to at the very least show that off.

Well that's why I've asked about whether it was a goal of the run. It doesn't have to be of course. Taking damage isn't a serious consequence in Fire Emblem so long as you don't die. But I do like the idea of using RNG abuse to discover "the perfect, reproduceable run". Eeeking out statistically unlikely wins, getting relavent stats on every level up, and nailing perfect Rankings. How about Rankings? Are those a priority?

[pandoraElf]

8 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Well that's why I've asked about whether it was a goal of the run. It doesn't have to be of course. Taking damage isn't a serious consequence in Fire Emblem so long as you don't die. But I do like the idea of using RNG abuse to discover "the perfect, reproduceable run". Eeeking out statistically unlikely wins, getting relavent stats on every level up, and nailing perfect Rankings. How about Rankings? Are those a priority?

Yes and no.

I've never been one for obsessing over rankings, as they feel like they just get in the way of a good time. That being said, if there's one thing I'm paying attention to, it's my turn count - I'm basically making sure to finish chapters as quickly as I reasonably can, give or take a turn or two.

[pandoraElf]

Part 3: Things Get Interesting

(OBLIGATORY WARNING: If you are following along, be careful not to accidentally manipulate the RNG with the movement arrow, as it WILL change what results you get. If you get something different, that’s the most likely answer - that being said, if you’re sure you didn’t do it, let me know. If my own work is faulty, I’ll do my best to correct it.)

 

And here we go, with…

This is the last chapter where I can promise a no-damage run - but it’s also probably the first chapter with any semblance of difficulty (though not by much), so there’s that.

Once again - behold, tutorials. Sorry, you’ll still be seeing those for a while.

In any case, the first ACTUAL thing I get to do is send Sain over to attack this archer. Kent, obviously, works just as well for this, but it’s a bit indicative of who I’m going to be relying on in this first section.

After bringing up Kent to form ranks, the enemies move, and we hit turn 2.

Sending Lyn to join her allies, while also sending Florina to visit the village and get a couple thou’, before backing up a bit.

Wil similarly joins his (soon-to-be) colleagues, but I don’t move the others just yet. While I COULD send one of them up to plug the forest hole there, such a thing would kill any possibility of taking no damage. Not that it’s a bad strategy - it’s perfectly valid for this chapter.

You’ll notice the Brigand goes for Sain - I seem to remember when testing things out that if I swapped the two around, he ends up hitting Kent, but I can’t remember.

Onto Turn 3, and I bring down Florina to rejoin the group…

While Wil moves up and takes out the Brigand.

NOW is when we plug the hole with Sain - while also bringing up the other two stragglers into a place they won’t get tagged by the archer.

…Now, this is something I confess I can’t explain. I have, multiple times, fooled around with having someone right there - and as far as I can tell, there is nothing FORCING that Brigand to move first. Yet, in this situation, he always goes for Sain instead of the Mercenary, who lacks the weapon triangle disadvantage. Why? Hell if I know. Some FE AIs make sense, such as prioritizing not being countered, prioritizing low-health units, or prioritizing attacking the Lords (even if those three aren’t always the best strategies at the time) - this is not one of them.

And as it happens, we also get the one unit to be worried about in this chapter for a no-damage run - while the first archer could be taken out pretty handily without getting attacked back, and the Brigands and Mercenaries can have the odds evened with a weapon-triangle advantage, there’s no such thing you can do to help with this Archer. His hit rate is his hit rate.

…which is why it’s a good thing I mentioned ‘not taking damage’, not ‘not getting hit’. This is why Sain was important for this section.

Now, we bring Florina up past the wall - once again, I can afford to do this, as I already know what happens next. Meanwhile, Wil quickly takes a moment to steal a Vulnerary for Sain, in preparation for the Cavalier’s next action…

…Before taking out the Brigand.

Next, Sain goes to the Armory and picks up an Iron Sword and Iron Lance each, before retreating a step. …As it turns out, I probably could have done without the Iron Sword - you get an extra one as a drop in Chapter 5 - but I feel it doesn’t make that much of a difference.

Next, Kent heads up to take out the archer - making sure to use a lance in preparation for our mercenary friend. Finally, Lyn moves up to complete the turn.

Here comes the Mercenary - I may have fibbed when I said the archer was the only hit rate to worry about, Mercenaries are actually pretty accurate - but he misses.

Now, when the next turn rolls around, we move up Sain and have him hand over that shining new Iron Lance to Florina, so she has some extra might to work with.

Kent impales a Mercenary, and Lyn moves up to attack the Brigand - with the Mani Katti, I should mention. Sadly, ORKOing a Brigand with an Iron Sword just isn’t in the cards for her at the moment. Of course, with the Mani Katti…

…the predictable happens.

Wil chips away at the Mercenary…

And Florina finally gets to hit something! The Slim Lance works just fine here, though - as accurate as the Mercenaries might be, they aren’t particularly tanky at the moment.

Next turn is spent bringing the characters up towards Migal - Florina COULD take a shot at him now, but…

…yeah, no. Let’s wait a turn, get all our ducks in a row.

First, let’s send Lyn to take a chunk out of him. …Hm? Why are we still using the Mani Katti, if we don’t want Lyn to kill? …Well, you’ll see.

For one, it doesn’t crit, surprisingly (for a certain measure of ‘surprise’ - as I said, I know all that is about to happen)

Then, we send Florina to finish the job with her new Iron Lance.

And…

She gets a good level!

 

Florina

Lv +1 (+0.95)

HP +0 (-0.6)

Str +1 (+0.6)

Skl +1 (+0.5)

Spd +1 (+0.45)

Lck +0 (-0.5)

Def +0 (-0.15)

Res +1 (+0.65)

 

See, here’s the thing - while I’m not abusing RNG by any means, I am messing with it. I wouldn’t qualify this as really cheating, as I’m not doing anything that couldn’t happen normally just by playing the game (as opposed to messing around with the cursor for hours on end just to get a perfect level). Even a couple chapters later, where I take a pot-shot at a boss with Javelin on a ~50% chance - that’s still something a first-time player might be inclined to do.

 

Of course, what I’d originally been PLANNING to do was use Wil AND Lyn to whittle Migal down, before swooping in with Florina for a level. While the results weren’t quite as good as this one, they were…interesting. Here, take a look.

First, Lyn with the Iron Sword, then Wil…although I will say if you want to get this result you CAN do it in the other order. Then, Florina, and -

…well would you look at that! A crit! That happens WHETHER OR NOT you use the Slim or Iron Lance!

No real reason to show it off - I just thought it was funny. I will, however, also show the levels she gets by using the Slim Lance…

Florina

Lv +1 (-0.05)

HP +0 (-0.6)

Str +1 (+0.6)

Skl +1 (+0.5)

Spd +0 (-0.55)

Lck +1 (+0.5)

Def +0 (-0.15)

Res +0 (-0.35)

 

…and the Iron Lance.

Florina

Lv +1 (-0.05)

HP +1 (+0.4)

Str +0 (-0.4)

Skl +1 (+0.5)

Spd +0 (-0.55)

Lck +0 (-0.5)

Def +1 (+0.85)

Res +0 (-0.35)

 

Not exactly BAD levels, mind you, but not great either.

In any case, that’s all for this chapter! I’ll see you next time, for a chapter where…no damage will sadly become a thing of the past.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

I wonder if there's a scenario where an iron lance can crit, but a slim lance doesn't, like in that Florina example at the end there. Because it's clear that choosing a different weapon rolls different RNG for a level up, so shouldn't it roll different RNG on hits and crits? 

It reminds me of some RNG oddities you can observe in a normal playthrough of Three Houses. With divine pulses, you can try again at landing a risky attack by simply changing the order of who attacks who. But with crits they almost seem set in stone. If you know your unit got a crit on an enemy, you can keep that in mind as you're changing things around, and no matter what your unit using that specific weapon will always crit that specific enemy. I don't think this RNG behavior exists in any older Fire Emblem game, but does FE7 have any events that are "set in stone" with its RNG?

Edited September 25, 2022 by Zapp Branniglenn

[pandoraElf]

1 hour ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

I wonder if there's a scenario where an iron lance can crit, but a slim lance doesn't, like in that Florina example at the end there. Because it's clear that choosing a different weapon rolls different RNG for a level up, so shouldn't it roll different RNG on hits and crits? 

It reminds me of some RNG oddities you can observe in a normal playthrough of Three Houses. With divine pulses, you can try again at landing a risky attack by simply changing the order of who attacks who. But with crits they almost seem set in stone. If you know your unit got a crit on an enemy, you can keep that in mind as you're changing things around, and no matter what your unit using that specific weapon will always crit that specific enemy. I don't think this RNG behavior exists in any older Fire Emblem game, but does FE7 have any events that are "set in stone" with its RNG?

Actually, while I won't profess to have things completely down pat, I can explain some things.

First off, using a different weapon in and of itself does not guarantee a different level up. The difference, I believe, comes from whether it doubles or not, which forces another roll - plus another one if the enemy got to retaliate.

As for crits, I believe this is how it works in both this game and Three Houses - say your crit chance is 25%. If the RNG roll is 10, since that's below 25%, it crits. Then, if you go back to a savestate, or use Divine Pulse in the case of Three Houses, and use a different weapon that gives you a 15% crit chance, it will still crit - because the RNG roll is 10, and still below 15%. In the case of Florina here, it was already an extremely low roll (though obviously I don't know exactly what it was) that was within the crit chance for both a Slim and Iron Lance. So I do believe that, since a Slim Lance has a higher Crit chance, there won't be any situation where you will crit if you use an Iron Lance but not crit if you use a Slim one.