LFT: An FFT mod (The final release is a lie. Download here!)

[Grefter]

Well fuck it, OK took my idea pretty much (I was going to use Oracles with Sticks and MAttack Up or something, but still).

[Laggy]

That indeed works and amuses me.

re: Grefter, either will do honestly, be as detailed (or not) as you want.

[Grefter]

Nah, Dancers is better than Stick army anyway and I can't think of anything better than that.

Edit - Actually if you can make them all male Dancers that use Ramza's butt pants sprite and call them Victor, Felipe, Randy, David, Glenn and Alex (fill out the rest with either sex groupies) and you can make a Village People reference.

Edit 2 - And bonus points for male PA of course.

[metroid composite]

Fun fact we discovered yesterday: Meatbone Slash + Two Swords = double the Meatbone Slash damage.

[Laggy]

The frue final version has been uploaded. Yes, this is the last one, really. Unless someone finds some game-breaking bug.

Check the first post for links.

This features many numerous balance changes since the last version (the main post has been painstakingly updated with details), modified fights, a custom DD fight for each floor, fixed documentation issues (including the Job Wheel!) after I fiddled around with a hex editor, and post 7 or so fairly thorough test playthroughs.

Comments as usual are always appreciated. If any of you have been holding off downloading this in waiting for the final release, this is it.

[Archmage]

Well, Laggy got ahold of me last night and informed me that he'd put this thing together--and as a big FFT fan, I had to indulge him and give it a try. He also requested that I chronicle my play on the forum, if at all possible, so I'm going to do just that.

Starting out I've stripped and dismissed my initial units post-Gariland and thrown together an army based on a number of people I know whose astrological signs wound up being eeriely compatible. I wasn't going to worry about signs, but when I generated Laggy's character his sign was right without my asking him what it was first, so...well, I did what I had to do. I'm intending to build some of these characters by requests of their namesakes, so I'm going to have an un-optimized female fighter and male mage, but who cares? I'm also probably going to build Ramza as a mage this time because I've never really done that before.

Without further ado, our cast of characters:

Hakaril (Ramza), Virgo
Laggy, Cancer
Zane, Cancer
Ashley, Pisces
K-Variable, Capricorn

Laggy and K-Variable are going to become physical fighters of some sort--I intend to bottom-out K-Variable's Faith score. Zane and Ashley are going to probably be mages. Hakaril will be a mage as well. I usually do 3-2 physicals-mages, so let's see what happens when I invert things.

Mandalia Plains:

I refuse to save Algus because I hate the bastard. After a few rounds, he becomes wounded and retreats behind my back lines. Ashley stabs him in the face and drops him. Take that, bourgeoise scum.

Basically everyone knows Accumulate because they have enough JP to learn it already, giving everybody something useful to do even if they can't reach the enemy.

OW, Hakaril gets double-attacked by the thief for a total of 30 damage. He is forced to retreat and use a potion. Getting hit like that this early in the game was kind of a shock, but I expected the dual-wielding since I've read the changelog. Poison Nail inflicting slow is kind of a surprise, but the bowgun-wielding squire went down before he caused my any trouble.

Of course I get in a random battle recrossing the plains after Igros; K-Variable is charmed by a red panther. Because of zodiac compatibility, a strike from Laggy will kill her. Laggy follows, seduced by the allure of the red panther. Wish revives Zane after he is one-shotted by a panther's claw attack. Charm completely obliterates me. charmed Laggy is also one-shotted. So is K-Variable. The reset button is my only savior.

Let's try this again!

[Archmage]

After the reset, I stop being an idiot and buy gear at Igros. Laggy upgrades to knight, but equipping him breaks the bank. I can only afford a staff for Zane, who is now a priest, and afterward I am completely broke.

Sweegy:

I don't bring Zane into this battle because I want Ashley to get XP so I can promote her to wizard or something.

Holy crap, everyone has reraise because the bombs' spark ability grants it to...whoever it hits. Uh. Charm and confusion make a mess of my army. A charmed K-Variable dies, but...with reraise, she continues fighting and drops a red panther (who has reraise). When the panther gets back up, he drops K-variable in response and runs off. A confused Delita runs around accumulating for a while...I intentionally have Ashley attack a bomb to damage it and try to provoke spark so she'll get reraise (and it works!) Wish resurrects the fallen K-Variable. Man, Wish raising the dead has been handy. I don't think I ever used that ability before except as something to do to gain JP.

After several rounds, everything is dead but the bombs because they keep granting themselves reraise and the red panther because it fled like a sissy. Wish raises several more party members to keep me ahead in the battle of attrition; poor chemist Ashley's low HP don't do her any favors in this fight.

Confused Delita (never got around to fixing him--oops, no throw stone) attacks Laggy, who counter-tackles and ends Delita's descent into madness. Delita then promptly Wishes Algus hadn't died and the fallen brat is standing again. Of note--everyone is blind because blind doesn't go away when you die and I don't have time to stand around using Heal to fix it. Hakaril gets put on Wishing duty to keep K-Variable alive because she keeps getting picked off by bombs using Shock from long range (and I don't have any potions left). I finally work the CTs out so that he's Wishing her back on a subsequent turn after moving toward the enemy and he takes out the bomb that's been harassing me the whole time, ending the battle.

Allure has me scared to death of red panthers now.

After the battle, Ashley learns to yell and throw rocks (now she can live up to her namesake), but this is ultimately not a big deal since she's changed to wizard and can now throw fire and lightning instead. Hakaril picks up some more squire abilities and becomes a chemist. Other miscellaneous abilities are purchased and I stock up on feathered hats.

And it's a random encounter in Sweegy!

Why does goblin Turn Punch have range? AHHH!

Skeleton arrow guard is a non-issue. However, priest fragility causes Zane to go down relatively early after he is wasted from range by Thunder Soul. Hakaril is mobbed and also dies. Lack of foresight on my part means nobody can revive, but I eliminate the remaining enemies quickly enough that it isn't a problem. Man, random encounters are a huge pain now.

K-Variable is knighted, upping our tankiness. Break abilities still kinda suck. Oh well.

Dorter:

"I guess we must fight. Eaggggh!"

For my first go at Dorter K-Variable becomes an armor-wearing monk, Zane becomes a time mage with white magic, and Hakaril has become a wizard. Ashley stays behind this round. I'm expecting that I can send K-Variable up the left building immediately at the start to take out the pesky archer that's up there. Hee. Time mages have auto-float.

Then I remember that Algus and Delita's AI tends to cause them to do this.

LAGGY. You kept the unarmed archer. Whyyyyyyy. XD

Enemy knights are disgustingly durable now. Turnabout is fair play, I guess.

I lose round 1 at Dorter because I stupidly forget that I can't send wizard Hakaril to the front lines without him getting hacked to bits. This is what happens when you usually play Ramza as a physical type and it's late in the evening. Zane doesn't have enough MP to raise him, so I reset. Whoops.

I'm interrupted on the way to Dorter round 2 by a random battle. This one is largely uneventful. There are no red panthers. I'm starting to adjust to the buff monsters now, but I'm thinking that Yell and Raise are inadequate and that I might want to grind a little JP to teach someone Phoenix Down or something.

Second try at Dorter goes well. Hakaril gets moved up onto the left building to rain death on foes. Laggy OHKOs the wizards after we pound the knight into submission. Archers are easily mopped up.

After the fight, Zane becomes an Oracle. Laggy is probably going to spend some time as a Monk next; I honestly haven't thought out what I'm going to do very thoroughly. I want to avoid using the same overdone tactics I always use, so I'm just kind of trying things out at the moment.

[Dapifer]

Greetings!

I learned about this Mod by the post made in the FFT board at GameFAQS

I have only been playing for a good 6 hours or so...

And thus far let me tell you...

This is some fine piece of work, I love that monsters now have more abilities, and are overall more of a threat, harder to control and more agressive...

I love the innate supports, and LOVE that Samurai has innate Two Hands, always felted it should have it...
I have always used Knights, even when they were Snails... but now they are just so broken =P I have no complains about this n_n and now, Maintenance is looking pretty good...
I like how the game is mostly the same... instead of completely nerf the human skills, you have(at least in my opinion) evened the playing field for the enemies...

I have been fighting mostly monsters, so I don't know if the story enemies have more skills learned of better equipments, I surely hope so...

Contrary to other hacks I have played, this one feels really great, it's more challenging and has added new playing elements (Battle Skill with Gun users = Broken) so Mediators are looking pretty good right now... even without the guns, with they enhanced Talk Skills, and the posibility of insanely break skills... maintenance is definitly looking more and more sexy...

Anyways, that is all for now, I will keep on playing this, it seems this is really a great mod, thanks to everyone involved for making it happen, and really KUDOS for a job very well done! n_n

[Archmage]

I wanted to avoid doing a lot of grinding (or really any) this playthrough, but I decide to go do one more battle in Sweegy.

Oooh. That's right, oracles have Move MP-up. At this stage in the game, that could be really useful since MP pools are low and MP restoration items aren't really worth it.

Using spillover JP, Hakaril and Ashley both have the monk's Jump+3 ability, which is kind of hilarious. K-Variable becomes a geomancer and Laggy gets his turn as a monk (with equip armor).

Sand Rat Cellar:

"Cellar means 'a rat's nest." Man, this place has a redundant name.

Three knights. Man. I am not looking forward to dealing with this. They actually turn out to be not-so-bad. Laggy punches the everloving life out of one of them with Repeating Fist for 80 damage while the knight is attempting a Charge attack! Hilariously, Hakaril is actually capable of jumping up onto some portion of the wall thanks to Jump+3, but this isn't really a great idea, so I don't bother.

Oh, MAN! The archer hops up onto the wall of the building (thanks to ignore height) and uses Head Break from range to destroy K-Variable's iron helmet. That's obnoxious. He breaks Hakaril's feather hat next round as well. K-Variable uses Hell Ivy from a choice location (since that's the only elemental ability she knows) and Hakaril chases it with lightning bolts. Another knight down.

The only enemy left is the archer--he's up on the wall, where no one can reach him without being able to jump up there themselves or using magic. Interestingly, he isn't smart enough to maintain that position and he jumps down after a couple rounds, but he hops right back up and continues sniping on his next turn. I use Chakra from K-variable to restore Hakaril's MP and finish the archer with a shot of Bolt2. Chakra is such a fantastic ability early game.

The army then heads back to Dorter. Thunder rods and linen robes for everyone! Laggy has a burning desire to become an archer, so I buy him a bow at Igros.

The changes to summoners and the increased costs of abilities have discouraged me from going that route. Wizards are more than sufficient for Ch1 anyway since I can just bolt everything to death.

Thieves' Fort:

A thief rushes down the ramp and double-attacks Delita, taking out a good chunk of his HP. Delita counter tackles, moves, and attacks. Algus moves next and finishes the thief off. So much for him. Miluda and her priesthood start moving in, the priest charging a black magic spell; I set Hakaril in position to fire back with Bolt2 and K-Variable hops up onto the plateau so she can use Carve Model. The far left thief is petrified. Hooray!

Bolt2 makes quick work of Miluda's first priest and Zane throws a protect on Hakaril and K-Variable.

AHAHAHAHA. Miluda starts her speech about equality, Algus backtalks her, then she runs down the ramp and slaughters him. AWESOME. Delita, at 1 HP and standing in water, inexplicably accumulates before fleeing from Miluda. I guess it's my fault, since I don't have any potions.

Carve Model petrifies the other thief. Because archers ignore height, Laggy flees to the top of the stage where he can rain arrows down with impunity. Miluda drops Delita. Don't care. Whoa! One of the priests fixes the petrified thief with Esuna. She's going to pay for that. Laggy drops the thief with an arrow and Hakaril's Bolt2 fries the priest, then K-Variable uses chakra to restore her HP and Hak's MP.

Now I'm going to toy with Miluda for a while and collect crystals and chests from the fallen, because I'm evil like that. She runs across the stage and smacks Hakaril, cutting his HP in half. You know, I sure could use a decoy right about now. I wish Algus weren't dead. Oh, wait. I Wish Algus weren't dead and he rejoins the fight. Laggy inherits a crystal from a fallen priest and gains a ton of elemental spells, haste, hi-potion, and antidote. Sweet. He doesn't even need those, but nobody else could've gotten the crystal in time.

As predicted, Miluda kills the raised Algus again, buying me another turn. You can probably guess what I do next. Miluda kills him again and flees. Remaining enemies drop chests, not crystals. Sad. I get some spike shoes and a leather vest out of the deal. We yell and accumulate for a few rounds; Hakaril has 600 JP now, so I think it's probably a good idea to end the battle. Miluda limps away after K-Variable blasts her with Hell Ivy and Algus throws a hissy fit. I'm going to enjoy killing him at the end of the chapter.

Zalbag cuts a bitch. Hakaril learns MA UP, Zane learns Regenerator and Cure2, K-Variable learns some more geomancy and becomes an archer so she can continue to climb the physical job tree, and Laggy becomes a thief. With equip armor. Zane then becomes a summoner; he'll be a mediator next, because I think I want to make him to be able to become a bard. Choosing between punch art and geomancy for K-Variable's secondary while she climbs the job ladder at the moment is kind of tough; chakra has been invaluable for MP restoration. I decide to stick with punch art as a result.

Random battle with some chocobo. Holy crap, auto-poach! I have a confession to make--in all the years I've played FFT, I have never poached anything. Ever. Also, I have never bought so many blind knives. I have two thieves and a mediator now, and dual-wield means I need a lot of knives.

Lenalia Plateau:

I go into this battle with two wizards, two thieves with 2x blind knife and equip armor, and a mediator. Delita has become a knight and I've got him fully-equipped; hopefully he'll be a good tank. Amusingly, because I've had spare monk JP for most everyone, all my soldiers except K-Variable (whose monk JP went to chakra and repeating fist) have Jump+3. So everyone is very...jumpy.

Laggy tries and fails to impress a female knight and she breaks his helmet. Damn! Zane uses Negotiate and inflicts stop on an enemy wizard (64% to-hit). The enemy time mage casts...Haste2!? Numerous spells go off, an enemy wizard falls to Hakaril's Bolt2, Laggy ganks an enemy wizard (man, dual-wield makes thieves...good) but Miluda hops up and kills him. Oh well. Zane will raise him. K-Variable ganks the time mage and her corpse floats peacefully in the air.

Miluda busts out secret fist (!?) and applies death sentence to K-Variable. Uh, OK. A knight breaks Zane's hat (goddamnit). The rest is just mop-up. I contemplate tormenting Miluda for a while to gain JP, but it doesn't seem worthwhile.

I decide that Laggy and K-Variable can stay thieves for a while; dual-wielding daggers is actually not that bad. On Laggy's advice, I'll try out Death--Hakaril picks it up. A steal at only 400 JP.

Fovoham Plains:

Showdown with Wiegraf!

Delita rushes in and gets his helmet broken. A female monk throws Earth Slash across the battlefield and nicks Hakaril--triggering regenerator. Yay! The other monk uses geomancy and K-Variable is inflicted with "Don't Move." Fantastic. -_-

Earth Slash tickles. Teehee!

EVEN THE MONKS HAVE BATTLE SKILL AND THEY BREAK MY HELMETS. WHAT.

Delita wishes Laggy hadn't gotten blasted with stasis sword and he lives to fight another day. Rock. Or he would, if he didn't get wasted with stasis sword himself in the middle of casting it. Bolt2 and judicious use of K-Variable's knife stabbings win the day. Overall, not a hard fight.

Before I head to kick Algus around I go back to Gariland to restock on hats since the AI keeps breaking them. ;_; Zane becomes a summoner again, gets equipped to max out his MP, and it's time to head to Zeakden.

Fort Zeakden:

I dispatch Hakaril, Zane, K-Variable, and Laggy--that's two thieves, a wizard, and a summoner, plus knight Delita.

I spent part of this battle thinking about how hilarious a party of archers perched up on the top of the map would be. Ignore Height FTW.

Algus performs his act of superior bastardry and whistles for backup. Laggy and K-Variable move in, and...AAAAGH! Algus is going to use equipment breaks too!? What the HELL?

A female wizard targets Hakaril, so Hak moves into melee range with her and targets Algus. Bolt2 goes off, strikes Hak and the wizard. Hak's Bolt2 goes off, hitting Algus and his knight backup. K-Variable asks one of Algus' knights
 on a date; smitten with her, he temporarily switches sides. Laggy settles for stabbing an enemy in the face since he's being approached by a male knight and as far as I can tell he doesn't swing that way. An ice spell drops Hakaril and Delita gets shot by Algus.

The charmed knight apparently has a bow-gun. He shoots one of the female wizards and breaks her helmet. Uh. Zane introduces two knights to his little friend, Ramuh. K-Variable's armor is broken (GODDAMNIT). Laggy charms the female wizard and Zane heals him. Hilarious, the female wizard's ally turns around and breaks her weapon--which does NOT uncharm her. Then the f-wizard heals Laggy and K. Awesome.

Zane raises Hakaril. I have a charmed knight and a charmed wizard. The knight breaks his fellow knight's bow gun. K-Variable wails on Algus, auto-potion doesn't trigger, and the blind knife procs. Hopefully he'll hit me less now. Thief dodge has been way helpful so far...until a knight breaks Laggy's armor with his fist. GARAGAGH. Chakra from K-Variable restores some of Zane's MP. Algus moves to a stupid location and Hakaril finally finishes him off with Bolt2.

Chapter 1 ends. Onward!

[superaielman]

Algus getting breaks there is mostly an annoyance. He can't handle breaks or ranged damage himself, and magic still whips his ass. Both times I went through LFT the fight was academic due to that.  Excellent writeups by the way, enjoy reading other's thoughts on the game.

[Archmage]

I'm playing the game very differently from my usual mode of operation, which has been very interesting. Typically I sit down and grind for a while in Ch1 to set up the jobs I want and start working toward specific "good" abilities. As I told Laggy, I've specifically attempted to eliminate my own preconceptions about what is and isn't worth doing; I'm obviously not a total newbie, but I'm not playing the game like a super optimizer (and I'm not the world's greatest FFT player anyway).

I'm appreciating the increased range of options. Thieves as mini-ninja is cool even if I could probably get more physical damage out of some other job because their dodge rates are so good (and weapon guard with the changes to knives makes them even better). This is the first time I've ever considered equipping maintenance, but I still probably won't; having gear broken in battle is not actually that debilitating (the annoying part is having to buy new gear to replace the broken stuff).

Also, the changes really make me want to try an archer SCC. Innate ignore height opens up all kinds of possibilities early game; I keep seeing really crazy places to stick archers that you wouldn't otherwise be able to move (and the AI keeps taking advantage of them, to the best of its ability).

[Laggy]

Edited in more detailed encounter changes after some requests for the information. Note that those changes go hand-in-hand with the class and monster changes, of course. You can find it on my second post in the thread. (I'd still personally avoid reading it until I played through at least once, but I like being surprised!)

[Archmage]

Rad, Alicia and Lavian bring gear to replace the crap the knights broke last chapter. I strip Gafgarion AND Agrias except for weapons and dismiss the named generics. Zane changes back to mediator since I didn't get him to level 3 yet to unlock bard. Laggy and K-Variable, decked out in Agrias and Gaffy's armor, have stupid amounts of HP. Everyone is still under level 10.

Dorter, Part 2:

Laggy and K charge in...and...WHAT THE HELL? Agrias catches K-Variable in friendly fire with stasis sword, stopping her!

One of the archers perches on a chimney. Wow. Thanks to a HUGE AoE, everyone is now poisoned as a result of an enemy spell. Hakaril bolts the lead enemy thief for 80 damage and drops him.

The rest of the battle is basically uneventful, but I have to chase the roof-perching archer for a bit. K-Variable picks up steal weapon, catch, and a couple other things from a crystal. Laggy gets a few abilities as well, including head break.

Hakaril learns Bolt3 after the battle; Zane learns threaten; K-Variable learns steal accessory and shield; and Laggy learns steal helmet and secret hunt. K-Variable goes back to being a geomancer and Laggy joins her.

I lose part of my gamelog due to a system crash. Blah. Nothing exciting happened in any of the intervening battles. Gafgarion joins the clergy so I can slaughter him when he betrays me at Zirekile. Zane is a bard for a little while, but since harps aren't available yet this is honestly a silly option (though the songs are still good).

Fun AI quirk I hadn't noticed before: Since wounded enemies run away and hide as long as allies are still standing, if you poison them, they'll simply sit and die from the poison instead of doing anything productive.

I inadvertently unlocked dancer for K-Variable. Um, okay! I've honestly never tried a dancer. Maybe I'll have to do so now.

Because you can move back and forth between Orbonne and Dorter without triggering random encounters, I send Zane, K-Variable, and Ashley on a proposition. K-Variable had a good feeling and I make 13k gil on the deal, plus everyone gets ~140 JP. Also, Boco must be some sort of androgynous hermaphroditic creature capable of great feats of parthenogenesis because my army is now filled with chocobo despite him/her/it being all alone unless I haven't been locking the chocobo stable before going to sleep at night. Ashley learns Ramuh and K-Variable picks up Vert Jump8.

Zirekile Falls:

Hakaril's level is 12, the others are slightly behind.

Ovelia does her thing with the buffs and runs off; Gaffy eats a lance and goes down in a single strike. Bolt3 and Ramuh from Hakaril and Ashley nuke a knight; another knight breaks Ovelia's armor. Awww, man, I wanted that. Agrias attempts to drown herself at the bottom of the waterfall. Laggy sits in the water using geomancy to hit everyone on the field. I bolt some more knights and Delita instakills one with Crush Punch. One enemy left.

Ovelia buffs both K-Variable and Hakaril with MBarrier over the course of the battle, which is pretty sweet. Despite the durable knights, the battle is a total joke.

I steal Ovelia's triangle hat for Hakaril.

Zaland:

I volunteer to save Musty. Layer upon layer, make your mark now! Haste! I fail the mission because a wizard nukes him. Damnit!

Round 2--to hell with Mustadio. You know, it never occurred to me before that he really looks like he's wearing a tube-top. What's the deal with that?

Zane hastes himself and Hakaril; I'm going to try to catch some enemies in Slow2's HUGE AoE. A wizard tests Mustadio's resistivity and he goes down. A knight shoots Zane (who is up on the wall) with a crossbow; the critical hit forces him backward! The enemy wizards are Slow2'd. Hakaril readies a Bolt2 through the wall...and a knight runs over and breaks Laggy's cross helmet. ;_;

An enemy wizard...Accumulates...what?

A knight breaks K-Variable's spear. Seriously. Half of my notes are about archers and the other half are about knights breaking my stuff.

The only thing left to kill are the two female archers. Zane and Hak are basically out of MP and K-Variable is deep in enemy territory, so using chakra to refresh them is going to take a bit. Laggy is waiting for the knights to crystallize so he can steal their abilities (hopefully). Nope, treasure chest (mythril shield)...all treasure chests. Bah. Nothing exciting.

Laggy sits on the wall accumulating for a few rounds while K chakras back some of Hak's MP. Geomancy does a lot of damage after a few Accumulates! Hak Bolt2s the remaining archer and the battle ends.

All right! I can buy sticks now! Hmm, the poison rod is kinda buffed up, but there's no way in hell I'm going to send wizards into melee, so...even the promise of Bio3 and the AT+2 upgrade isn't really tempting enough. K-Variable's lance is broken and I don't want to go all the way back to a castle town to buy a spare. I'm tempted to make her a dancer, but I don't think I'll do that just yet, especially without rugs available. Zane picks up Haste2 and Hakaril learns Ramuh.

[Archmage]

Bariaus Hill:

Mustadio is a hot commodity, and some knights want to take him from me. He promptly shoots a summoner in the arm and disables her. Archer charge+4 misses Agrias and Hakaril unleashes Ramuh on the knights; the other archer hits Agrias for 95 (ow) and the knights get a second blast of Ramuh from Ashley. One dies. Mustadio continues his assault against the female summoner and shoots her in the face. Agrias hits an archer with stasis sword and he's stopped. Laggy and K-Variable use elemental to pick away at the distant enemies, stopping a knight with Hell Ivy.

Enemy summoner heals the archers with Moogle; the other enemy summoner still can't act. Ashley and Hakaril nuke the three conveniently-close enemies and they're all dead. Laggy and K-Variable mop up the rest with elemental.

Mustadio continues to be shifty and we head for the castle.

I always have trouble deciding between wizard's mantles and battle boots for my casters. I know this should be easy, but...anyway, let's go with mantles. Laggy gets one, too, because he was using a power wrist and MA makes more of a difference with elemental. With a battle axe, weapon guard, and wizard's mantle, Laggy has pretty impressive dodge rates.

ZIGOLIS THE EEEEVIL SWAMP:

Party at the moment is Summoner 2x, priest, geomancer 2x.

Ghosts have MP switch? Crazy! Musty's first shot plugs a ghost for 42, but the ghost takes no actual damage thanks to his MP buffer.

I really like Haste2 now. Zane hastes most of the party in one go and the increased speed means it activates instantly. Rock on. The enemies move in and Hakaril and Ashley start charging summons. Laggy chips away with geomancy. A second casting of Haste2 will get my whole party moving at super-speed. Ramuh 2x nukes three enemies into submission.

The flotiball tries to stick Ashley with death sentence, but misses despite a 74% hit rate. Hakaril bolts the flotiball and it dies a horrible death. I don't want to waste MP, so Ashley throws a bolt at the ghost who still has MP left. Oh. The reaction doesn't trigger and the ghost's ectoplasmic figure winds up being a conductor. I have Hakaril smack Zane to get some JP, but the thunder rod procs and adds 112 damage to the 12 damage rod attack, killing him. Oops. The last skeleton goes down quickly.

Laggy learns counter flood (he's almost mastered geomancer) and K-Variable only has one geo ability to learn (lava ball). I'm going to save Ashley and Hakaril's summoner JP until I can afford something a little beefier; however, Salamander seems to be the only available ability unless I want to save up 800-900 JP and pick up Leviathan, Cyclops, or Odin.

Haste2 and Slow2 rock so much that I turn Zane back into a time mage. I want him to learn Demi. I always liked time mages, but now I'm even happier with them. K-Variable becomes a monk again for a short period because she needs Lv4 monk to become a samurai.

Goug Machine City has nothing to offer me gear-wise because I don't need to buy guns, so after the job adjustments it's time to fight.

Goug:

Oh crap. The thieves are actually threatening. Dual-wielding dagger stabbings drop Mustadio's naked ass immediately and take a chunk out of Hakaril's HP. Archers finish the job, and Hakaril drops. Zane raises Hakaril. Oh, shit. Enemy summons go off. Ramuh + Shiva is too much for Hak, and both Laggy and K take considerable damage. Ashley's Ramuh nukes a thief; the other thief attacks Laggy and drops him to 2 HP. He's also silenced. Doesn't matter. An archer shoots Laggy and he drops.

Ashley dodges her second arrow, Zane raises Hakaril. Chakra restores his and K-Variable's HP and they both survive another Shiva. A blast from Ashley with Ramuh drops a summoner who has moved onto the middle of the map. I preemptively tell Zane to raise K-Variable since an archer's charge will kill her; she's right back on her feet. Hakaril unloads Ramuh and kills the remaining thief and summoner. Ashley uses Moogle to heal K. Damnit! An archer breaks K-Variable's gold helmet. The other archer tries and fails to steal Hakaril's heart; as a polite refusal, he Bolt2s her into submission. Zane raises Laggy. Moogle heals Hakaril and Ashley.

I Haste2 my entire party so we can begin a crystal harvest. K-Variable picks up magic break, steal armor, and equip crossbow. Laggy learns ether, steal armor, and level and vertical jump2.

Hakaril, after several rounds of toying around, attacks the enemy archer with his rod. Thunder procs and the bolt wastes her. Mustadio wonders whether his father will be alright. Such an existential question. Will anyone's father be alright, Mustadio? I recruit him, because we could use a good philosopher-mechanic.

Zane learns Demi; I decide to wait for Hakaril to be able to learn Cyclops or Leviathan. Laggy becomes a lancer. K-Variable goes back to being a geomancer...or maybe not. I can buy katana! And harps! Holy crap, the Ramia harp's AT is insane! There's no other option. Zane is going back to the bard's life. K-Variable becomes a samurai.

Since I can move back and forth between cities, I send Ashley, K-Variable, and Zane on a proposition job to go work in a coal mine. Zane had a practically-religious experience, citing the job as a "gift from God." I make 20k on the deal and all three get 105 JP. I get another 12k and ~110 JP by sending the three of them to go save a sunken ship. Zane learns angel song and magic song; Ashley's at 720 JP. Almost there!

My chocobo pen is getting overfull, so I dismiss a bunch of birds. Man, it's like they're born pregnant. We leave beautiful Warjilis Trade City and head for...

Bariaus Valley:

Some thugs are giving Agrias trouble. Geronimo!

Zane starts singing a nameless song. Everybody gets buffed with at least one beneficial effect; time to switch to cheer song, or even move in and attack with the harp. Or, hell, let's go nameless for one more round. Hak blasts a knight with Ramuh, but he's still standing; Laggy jumps on an enemy oracle. K-Variable wades into the center of the melee and unleashes kotetsu to kill the wounded knight and damage an enemy oracle. A priest's Cure3 spell fizzles. Nameless song spreads some more buffs around. Zane's harp playing deals damage to an enemy knight (40? Wait, that's a knight. That's not bad at all! Agrias only does 30 with stasis sword!)

A knight breaks K-Variable's armor with his crossbow (;_;) and Hakaril heals Agrias with moogle. K-Variable homes in on the oracle on the far side of the river with Ramuh (damage--288, HFS). Wow, an enemy priest raises an ally knight. Kotetsu draw out finishes the oracle off, but the knight kills K-Variable. Laggy circles around back to impale some priests. Hakaril bolts an enemy knight and kills him; man, these priests are going nuts with raise. Raise misses the fallen oracle. Zane casts raise on K-Variable. I have got to kill those priests! One priest eats a Ramuh from Ashley and goes down.

Zane starts singing the cheer song. An oracle casts pray faith on himself for some inexplicable reason before Bolt2 wastes him and the remaining priest. Agrias ends the battle shortly by hitting the remaining knight with stasis sword.

I'm not exactly disappointed in Zane's bardiness, but he was honestly a lot more useful as a priest or time mage--bard's support songs are good and infinite range, but their slow speed is kind of annoying. I contemplate making him an oracle; sticks and battle dictionaries aren't too bad, but I honestly have more than enough offense. Hak and Ashley can nuke the hell out of everything and everything while Laggy and K-Variable soften things up.

Something I've noticed before, but feel a need to reiterate now--physical classes are weak compared to magic classes, from a certain perspective. Nothing clears the battlefield like a summoner. Mage fragility isn't a huge problem, either. Lancer MA sucks, so Laggy's elemental secondary is terrible, but he doesn't really have anything better unlocked (though even Basic Skill might be more useful at this point). It's kind of hard to find good secondaries for physical classes that have poor MA. Mages, at least, have some great synergy happening.

K-Variable learns two-hands, since draw out abilities are greatly hampered by the lack of better katana in the early game. Ashley is 8 JP short of learning Leviathan. Damn!

[metroid composite]

Something I've noticed before, but feel a need to reiterate now--physical classes are weak compared to magic classes, from a certain perspective. Nothing clears the battlefield like a summoner. Mage fragility isn't a huge problem, either. Lancer MA sucks, so Laggy's elemental secondary is terrible, but he doesn't really have anything better unlocked (though even Basic Skill might be more useful at this point). It's kind of hard to find good secondaries for physical classes that have poor MA. Mages, at least, have some great synergy happening.

To be fair, you are in Chapter 2, which is probably the single best chapter for mages.

Secondaries I'd personally look at for physical classes that have poor MA:
Punch Art
Jump
Dance/Sing
Item
Yin Yang/Time Magic (if they have enough MP and faith--status spells aren't very affected by MA.  White Magic for Raise is noteworthy here too)
Talk Skill
Charge and Battle Skill are useable these days, but mostly if your character is built towards physical attacks (Thief, gun users, etc).

[Dapifer]

Well... I am in mid-chapter 2, about to face my first Zodiac =D

And... really, LFT is exactly what I was looking for... I can't believe I am concidering using Charge... I mean... <b>charge!</b> Also, I really aprettiate the enhanced Talk Skills, Ramza is a Squire with Talk Skill second, and works great, my Samurai is wielding his Koutetsu with both hands! (as he always should have ) I still believe archers breaking stuff from a distance is pretty sick... but that's why Maintenance is a really good support now n_n

Really, thank you so much for this! I am having the best time this playthrough, I am falling in love for this game all over again =P

And if you allow me to say this, congratulations on your chronicles Archmage! They are very well written and fluid, I am having a lot of fun reading, and looking forward for your fight with Queklain, to compare it with my experience, really, keep up with the Chronicles, I for one, really like reading them n_n

Anyways, sorry for posting like this, but I am having so much fun that I just felt I should thank everyone involved in this fine piece of work at least once again n_n

Seriously, KUDOS for a job really well done!

[Grefter]

How dare you express gratitude for free work!  Opinions are meant to be dictated to you, not expressed.

Seriously though, no need to apologize for enjoying yourself and saying so.

[Talaysen]

Hey, Charge is awesome in LFT.  I OHKOd Wiegraf2 with Charge +20 and a Harp and it was awesome.

[Dapifer]

That's exactly my point...

Now, Charge is not only a viable option as a secon command for most physical set ups, it is a very solid choice, with their increased speed, now it actually delivers, so an Archer with Concentrate and Battle Skill is a real threath (I believe this was the pre-set intended for the Archer, I mean for concentrate), she can get to high ground quickly, snipe away, and never miss her targets... sweet...

My Lancer with Charge is a great damage dealer, for enemies far away I use Jump, for enemies close by I use Charge, and almost always OHKOs his enemies... never in my life I would have though of using Charge as second before... or learning the higher Charge Skills for that matter =P

And Talk Skill is awesome, just awesome... I have always liked the Mediators and the job command in general, but it was more of a personal choice than a functional one... now Talk Skill is a great option in battle, on-par with the status changes of Yin-Yang IMHO...

I am trying so much things I would never do in the original FFT... and that's why I think I am playing the game for the first time again... it feels just like what I needed...

Man I sound like a fanboy... ok... I'll stop now... but seriously, LFT for the Win!!

[Archmage]

Golgorand:

Party is 2x summoner, samurai, lancer, time mage.

Why the hell did I put my summoner in the square that starts underneath the stone walkway? Goddamnit. Hakaril nukes two knights with Ramuh after K-Variable softens them up with kotetsu.

A lot of deaths and revivals; this battle was kind of a pain in the ass, but after a while I won.

Lionel Castle:

Lost this one the first attempt because Gaffy managed to kill Ramza. Damn. I swap his triangle hat for a green beret.

A knight power breaks Zane (priest). Good move! Leviathan rocks Gafgarion. Another Leviathan cleans up most of the enemies out front.

...did I give my summoner MP switch? No, I didn't. But a knight struck her and MP switch triggered. What? Must've been magic break. I wasn't paying attention.

Queklain:

Party is summoner x2, priest, lancer, and samurai.

Queklain opens up his gut, shows teeth, and my party gets inflicted with Death Sentence. Zane opens with Haste2. Laggy jumps.

HOLY SHIT. Queklain melees Ashley for 351 damage. Uh. Zane raises her. Death Sentence kills Hakaril. And Laggy. Oh. Oh no. Queklain eats a Levian than...countercasts it. Ashley dies a horrible watery death. What the hell was I thinking? Total party wipe.

OK. Second go at Queklain. I'm going to try something...slightly different.

Hakaril: Archer/Battle Skill
Zane: Priest/Time Magic
K-Variable: Samurai/Punch Art
Laggy: Lancer/Charge
Ashley: Summoner/White Magic

The plan is for Hakaril to speed break Queklain a couple times with his bow. With two raisers and Laggy equipped with dragon spirit I should be able to outlast him.

Queklain opens with nightmare; Laggy and Hak are slept, K-Variable gets death sentence. Zane casts Haste2 on the entire party. K-Variable smacks Laggy with repeating fist to wake him and Ashley heals him with moogle before running into the corner. Laggy moves up to Queklain and uses Charge+3. He doesn't have reraise; assuming that he will die, I have Zane queue up Raise--the action order will be Charge, Queklain, Raise. Laggy stabs Queklain, but Quek casts Bio3 instead of killing Laggy, so Raise fizzles. Damn. Hakaril speed breaks Queklain. K-Variable heals Zane and restores his MP by using chakra. Zane readies Cure2 to patch up Hakaril; Laggy moves in and Charge+3s again. Another 135 damage (total 270 so far). My units are very spread out now; Quek nightmares and Hakaril gets death sentence. Speed break again, and Quek is now down 2 speed total.

Knowing that Quek will ignore Hak because he's got death sentence, I order him to wait instead of moving so his turn will come again more quickly. Death sentence drops K-Variable. Ashley raises K and Zane hits Quek with slow. Quek countermagics slow and hits Zane. Laggy decides to Jump on Queklain; Hak's speed break misses. Ashley heals K-Variable with Moogle. Laggy lands--144 damage (up to 414). K-Variable moves and chakras. I check the AT; Quek is 5th, but Ashley is 4th at 73 CT, so I decide not to risk jump since I can't know for sure when Quek is moving and I can hit him with Charge+5 (for more damage) at 88% to-hit. Hakaril dies from death sentence. Zane immediately raises him.

Ashley really doesn't need to do anything, so she waits. Laggy stabs (153 damage, total 567). Queklain wastes him with a physical attack and slow wears off. Hakaril moves behind Quek and hits him with speed break. Ashley prepares to raise Laggy; K-Variable moves up to the top of the stairs and uses kotetsu to chip at Quek. 72 damage...and...he's dead. Total damage dealt: 639. Win!

Chapter 2 ends, Delita cuts a bitch, Ovelia takes the throne, Larg throws a hissy fit, and war ensues.

Edit: I realized that dragon spirit was a mistake for this fight because it's only triggered by physical attacks, not spells. Whoops. Oh well, I won anyway.

[Excal]

LFT Communal - Start!

So yeah, got this working, so now my weekend group is playing it.  Only two of the characters were named as we got insanely good starting Brave/Faith on the opening set of generics.  So, we've got a random guy name of Fargus under the control of the Elf, and I'm the voice in Ramza's head, only Ramza's going by the name of Cyril here.  I think he'll need to be a lancer at some point to pick up equip spears.

Prologue - Everyone gets to marvel as the Knight is tanky, and breaks are used to moderate effect (the guy with Weapon break never does get a chance to use it on Gaff/Agrias).  But it's still just the prologue.

Gariland - Is Gariland.  We go in with no healing save Wish, and survive just fine with no noticable differences.

It is around this point that we realise that vanilla squire is Move 5, but Ramza is not.  Freaky.  This means he gets to be the same move as the Chemist when his boots get moved over. 

Mandalia - Alright, the game finally begins.  We also pick up some people with Item, basically being everyone but one person has it as their secondary or is a chemist, and the other person is an accumulating knight who is still our tankiest character despite the enforced nudity.  Algus lives, despite our apathy in that regard, and the thief is hosed by bad compatability and good positioning.  The cat takes main priority in the threat list as it pulls out Allure, forcing us to knife up our naked knight a bit.

Alright, at this point our esteemed squire, Fargus, decides to move up in the world, and faces the daunting choice of Archer or Knight.  Sees that the Bowgun has not been improved and decides on Knight.  Cyril decides to go with the Bowgun to get some range, only...  nope, no Bowgun for him.  So he feels a little inadequate as the party gears up two knights and two non knights.  Jasmin the Chemist moves over to Black Mage, and all is good for...

Sweegy Woods!  This is the first battle that really strikes home the everything is different feel.  Namely the Bombs with Reraise, Meatbone Slash, and Detonation.  And us with two AccumuKnights who will need to power up twice before they can simply one shot the buggers.  Cyril starts by Yelling at one of the knights, before they gangrush the Black Gobbo so that it can't use its much large spin to doom us all.  The temps run down and spar with a regular gob.  The cat gets off an Allure before getting knighted to death, and soon it's just us and the Bombs.  One Bomb is simply beaten to death by a Knight with the PA to do it, while the other gets a bolt to the face, no time for them to come back to life.

Dorter 1!  Due to some class swapping shenanigans we end up with no item users in this battle.  Our previous item users became a Time Mage with Black Magic, and a Knight with our only healing in Wish and Heal.  Our goal has now become keeping Cyril from dying at all costs.  Fortunatly, he's a Knight, so that's not all that hard.  As for the knights?  One of them has become an Accumumonk, which is badass, but not as badass as the randomly floating Time Mage.

So, actual battle time.  Monk runs up to the top to fight there with the archer.  Delita and Algus draw fire.  Time Mage goes to mid tier to offer support and stick fight.  And finally, the knights hang out on the bottom to face their equal and the mage.  Plan bait the mage goes awry as Algus gets too close and one shots it before any of us can.  So it changes to Plan beat the knight, which is equally successful.  Archer on the roof gets taken to critical and so hops off, does a backflip off the lower level of building and then sommersaults in midair before landing on the dirt street below.  Granted, early PSX so it couldn't actually depict all that, but it's how I imagine it happening.  He then spends the rest of the fight running far away.  The other two archers are a pain, but the monk and Time Mage combine to kill them.  Time Mage also one shots the remaining mage, and the rest is mop up.  Wish was not needed.

Sand Rat Rat's Nest. -  Jasmin (played by Ryan, for those who know him) goes from TM to Summoner, Shaker (the Monk, played by my brother) goes from Monk to Geomancer, and Fargus picks up Move +1 and is briefly a Move 6 Knight before heading over to do the Accumumonk thing himself.  Fight starts with Cyril/Fargus together, and Shaker/Jasmin being the other pair.

Now, before I get into the real play by play, I'll start with the following factoid.  The Elf has been translating Knight HP into non-knight HP the whole time.  The first Knight that hops up we get to hear "And that one's HP is more like one hundred and eighty.   Wait...  what?"  So we take a look, and he does indeed have badass gear and earns the title "Tankier than any vanilla Ch1 Boss.  We then note the name, and decide Grefter can die last as it'll be the end of us if we focus on him first.  Team Cyril opens up well, mopping up the one foe faced there with ease despite Worst/Bad compatability.  Team Algus less so as they're facing everyone else, and while Grefter's offense isn't astounding, it's not insignificant either.  So team Cyril rushes in, taking out a knight in the process, and Wishing the mage was alive again.  Meanwhile, in their fighting retreat, Team Algus did manage to take out the Monk (Grefter also ate both of those hits, but shrugged them off relatively unharmed)  There was a tense scrum after that, but it ended with the other knight falling, after which it was easy enough to pick off the archer and contain Grefter, whose last stand involved killing Algus and Delita before stepping out of his hidey-hole where we could all rush him.

And this is where we end.  Stay tuned next time more exciting adventures, possibly including a fifth PC!

[Archmage]

I go to Igros, change Laggy and K-Variable to archers, and send the two of them plus Zane on a mission to mine gold at Gulg Volcano. K-Variable had a good feeling! We acquire an "M-Fiction Novel" and achieve Treasure Hunter Lvl1. Both Laggy and K can become ninja now, so...Laggy does. Two more propositions later and we're all out of odd jobs to do. This is the way! Laggy learns to throw shuriken and balls. Zane is at 734 JP; saving for holy. I dismiss a bunch of chocobo.

You know, feather boots are an item that nobody ever, ever uses. I wonder what sort of modification to their stats might make them worthwhile?

I decide to make K-Variable a knight because I notice that she doesn't have any Move ability and I should get her Move+1 or something at the bare minimum. Ashley becomes an oracle with summons (because this is an awesome idea) and we head to Goland.

Goland Coal City:

Olan is so crazy uber.

A thief jumps (?). Yay, the mediator enemy has a battle dictionary! Laggy tries to charm a female thief and fails. A thief double-stabs him and a mediator shoots him. Laggy is dead. Long live Laggy! Hakaril guards the mediator's attempt to enrage him and galaxy stop goes off. Most of the enemies on the map are now not going to be doing much of anything for a few rounds. Ashley pokes a thief in the eye.

Zane raises Laggy--or not, it misses--Olan attempts to read an enemy thief to death, and the thief responds by stabbing the poor astrologer. Hakaril nukes the enemy mediator with Ramuh. Zane really raises Laggy. Laggy slashes a chemist. Ashley and Hakaril both heal Olan with Moogle. Galaxy stop wears off. Zane Haste2s Laggy and Ashley. K-variable's murasame draw out heals Laggy a bit and Laggy finishes off the chemist. Olan charges galaxy stop again. Ashley charges Leviathan targeting a female thief. The thief and her chemist friend are both stopped. Laggy charms the thief on the roof. Hakaril targets her with Ramuh. The charmed thief walks into Leviathan's AoE and both theives die when the spell goes off; Ramuh fizzles.

I decide to let the remaining chemist live for a little bit; Laggy tries to steal his armor and fails. K heals herself with murasame. Olan throws a rock at the chemist. Laggy fails to steal his armor again. I slow Olan to prolong my fun. Laggy fails to steal. Again. The chemist hi-potions himself. When tormenting the chemist gets old (just a few more rounds), I nuke him.

Zane learns holy; K-Variable learns Move+1 and goes back to being a samurai; Ashley learns foxbird.

Lesalia:

Zalmo says hi. Like always when someone attempts to arrest him, Hakaril resists.

Oh, yeah, I forgot to buy shuriken for Laggy. Um. Whatever. I move him out onto the wall and the enemy geomancers advance, blasting Alma and Hakaril with elemental. K-Variable counterattacks with some geomancy of her own. Zane heals, Hakaril uses Haste2. Laggy whacks a monk; Zane gets stopped by a geomancer with Hell Ivy. Stupid geomancers. K retaliates; another geomancer whacks Laggy with his axe and Laggy gains reraise. Laggy then acquires death sentence from an enemy monk. How convenient! Ashley locks onto an enemy geo with leviathan and Laggy finishes off the monk he wounded before. Hakaril locks leviathan onto K-Variable so that she can "deliver" the spell to the enemy.

Ashley's Leviathan wastes a geomancer...Laggy charge+3's Zalmo, crits on the second swing, and kills him. GG. Zalmo says something about how he's going to have to fix my unbelieving dog and warps away in rage. Must be on a spay/neuter kick.

I strip Alma (hawt). It's proposition time! Laggy, K-Variable, and Ashley get some JP. And holy miters for the mages. Ashley learns life drain. Zane needs to be a wizard for a little while since for some odd reason he doesn't have MA UP. At Dorter, Laggy upgrades to 2x ninja knife. K-Variable gets a heaven's cloud and learns the draw out for the same. Let's go visit Orbonne Monastary! Strangely, there are corpses everywhere. Must be part of a new interior decorating project.

Orbonne:

Where're Tronne and the Servbots? Oh, right. Wrong game. Izlude leaves his posse to fight and Laggy moves onto the stairs. The enemy lancer blocks both his attacks and gains reraise, then begins charging up an attack. His buddy stabs Laggy in the face for 100. K-Variable chops him for 165 from behind, then Laggy dies. An enemy time mage hastes their chemist; Hakaril Haste2s my entire army except Laggy, Zane raises Laggy--nevermind, miss--and Ashley unleashes Ramuh on two lancers, dealing a nice chunk of damage.

K-Variable avenges Laggy, but the lancer's gonna reraise. The chemist slings a fire spell at my clumped-together units. Regenerator procs; Ashley is slowed by a time mage. Hakaril locks Ramuh onto an enemy lancer. Enemy units attack a bit; Laggy gets raised. The chemist stabs Laggy and procs dragon spirit. A lancer lands on Hakaril, aborting his Ramuh, but Ashley's goes off, wounding the chemist. Laggy ganks an enemy time mage. Lancer stabs Ashley; chemist uses a potion. K-Variable unleashes heaven's cloud and kills the chemist and damages stray lancer before the time mage hits her with stop. The prodigal Laggy returns and throws a fireball at the remaining time mage.

Zane has raised Hakaril somewhere in all this mess. He throws a cure at Ashley. Laggy gets lanced and goes down; the time mage whacks K with her staff. Reraise brings Laggy back up and he jumps up the stairs to destroy the lancer menacing Ashley. Ashley summons moogle to heal both Laggy and K. Ramuh finishes off a lancer. One lancer and one time mage remain. Laggy cuts down the time mage. The enemy lancer uses a potion and runs off.

Ashley and Hakaril heal up with moogle while I contemplate foxbirding the lancer into chickendom and harassing him for a while--or at least harvesting a few crystals. A time mage crystal yields nothing interesting and the other enemies become treasure boxes. Laggy ends the lancer's life and the battle ends.

Zane learns MA UP; he goes back to being a time mage. Laggy doesn't need those silly knives; he learns Martial Arts and prepares to punch things to death. I also give him Ignore Height, just for fun.

Underground Book Storage:

For some silly reason, both of the archers in this fight have "move underwater" set as their movement ability. Uh, OK!

Laggy goes first and waits; I'm going to let the enemy come to me, but Izlude's jumping might make that tricky. K-Variable hops onto the stone overpass and uses kotetsu on a defending knight, an archer shoots Ashley, and an enemy summoner starts charging Shiva. Laggy nearly kills the charging summoner with a fireball; Ashley life drains a knight for 52 HP, and Zane hastes himself and Hakaril--then Hakaril hastes Ashley and K.

Izlude jumps. Shiva hits K-Variable only (for only 95) who runs over and nearly kills an archer. Hakaril gets petrified by carve model from a knight; Zane evades due to auto-float. Izlude is going to land on Ashley and kill her (damn); sadly, I have no way to fix Hakaril (double damn). I decide to have Zane save his MP for holy.

A knight puts K-Variable to sleep with his sword and then an archer finishes her off. Saving for holy seems like a less good idea, so Zane starts casting raise on Ashley. Izlude jumps, Zane raises, Ashley guards an armor break, Laggy shurikens an archer to death. Zane lives through the jump; Ashley gets sworded and dies. Zane prepares to raise K-Variable; instead of jumping, Izlude smacks Laggy and triggers his dragon spirit. Laggy moves behind Izlude and punches his ass; he is countered and dies, but reraise will bring him back. K-Variable uses heaven's cloud to chip away at Izlude and an enemy knight, then the knight drops her.

Bah, it's a loss; too little attention paid to defense. Zane goes down when an archer smacks him. Retry!

No adjustments made to team or equipment; I know my current setup can handle this fight, I just got unlucky with petrify and made a few bad moves.

Geomancy afflicts Ashley and Zane with don't act (gah) and Izlude leaps. K-Variable heals the party with murasame. Izlude lands on Laggy and dragon spirit procs; Hakaril uses Haste2. The summoner casts fire, killing Laggy, who reraises immediately; Laggy runs over and punches the summoner to death because he's annoying.

Izlude moves, but doesn't act. K-Variable hops over the wall and uses heaven's cloud to damage two knights and Izlude. Sadly, the sword breaks. A knight attacks her and she counters. An archer shoots and kills K and Hakaril begins charging Ramuh. Geomancy knight kills Laggy with carve model. An archer shoots Hak, but he lives. Ramuh goes off, killing a knight, but Izlude lives; Zane and Ashley still can't act (;_;). Izlude melees Hakaril to death. Both my standing characters have Don't Act thanks to bad luck...and it finally wears after Ashley's turn. Zane dodges a knight and an archer shoots Ashley. Zane throws Slow2 at Izlude and a knight. Izlude chases and melees Zane.

An archer finishes off Zane and the other drops Ashley. Bah. This is not normally a hard mission.

I send Laggy out toward Izlude a few spaces to draw the knight-geomancer's attack, which works fine; he takes 20 damage from carve model, but nothing else happens. An archer charges; K-Variable smacks him for 135. He shoots at Zane, but Zane guards. Zane hastes the party except K-Variable. Laggy punches a knight with charge+3 and Izlude jumps. Ramuh blows away the archer from earlier despite his being healed with Moogle by the enemy summoner.

I queue up cure with Zane so that when an enemy archer's charge attack shoots Ashley that she will be immediately healed. Hakaril charges Ramuh. Izlude lands on Ashley; Laggy charge+1 double-punches an archer to death. An enemy knight kills Ash with geomancy. Hakaril's Ramuh fizzles (damnit). Izlude jumps, targeting K. Laggy punches a knight; he's almost dead. Hakaril heals Laggy and K-Variable with moogle. Izlude lands on K; Zane raises Ash. Laggy finishes off the knight.

Most of the enemies are still dead, but Izlude is still being a frog and leaping around. OK, now everyone is dead except a knight, since Laggy punched the summoner to death. I heal up a bit, chip at Izlude with geomancy, and re-haste. Izlude melees Laggy; he survives, and dragon spirit triggers. K-Variable chops him from behind. Laggy readies charge+3 vs. Izlude. Zane casts protect on Hakaril; Ashley readies moogle to heal K and Laggy, as does Hakaril. Izlude guards both Laggy's attacks (damn), counters and kills him. Ashley gets slashed; Laggy reraises. Life drain misses Izlude. Hakaril slows Izlude. Izzy counters K-Variable and then kills her. K's body blocks Izzy, so Laggy throws a shuriken at him. That reduces Izlude to critical, so he flees.

Zane learns Demi2; Laggy learns abandon; Ashley learns silence song.

Wiegraf:

Wiegraf moves out and blasts much of the group with lightning stab, killing Ashley. Geomancy blasts the remaining characters and only K-Variable and Zane live. Hah. Well this is a lost cause! I'll spread out my units a bit more next time...

...and he wastes me then, too, spread-out units or not. Clearly I need to rethink my strategy. I think I'm going to have to try some more durable units; even though this is an assassination mission, the enemy is too fast to simply summon-bomb Wiegraf and I'll just kinda die. Repeatedly.

I make K-Variable a ninja for the extra speed. Laggy learns Haste2 and gets time magic as a secondary. That doesn't work out so well either. Bum-rushing Wiegraf isn't going to do the trick with such fragile characters, especially when I can't really effectively do it since all the enemies are faster than I am and those stupid geomancers keep finishing Wiegraf's job after he wounds me.

I try replacing Ashley (whose sign compatibility with Wiegraf guarantees he OHKOs her) with a red chocobo! After another loss, I'm starting to think my problem is that I didn't come prepared for this battle--I have no chameleon robes, for example, and all of the enemies are faster than my characters and as a result they tend to slaughter me before any non-ninja characters get to move.

Laggy informs me that chameleon robes wouldn't help now. Oh.

After a couple more losses I finally win, partly out of sheer luck. Wiegraf charges through; lightning stab and geomancy killed Zane. The red chocobo meteors Wiegraf for 54. K-Variable uses heaven's cloud draw out for 75. Laggy gets a lucky double-punch in for 168. Wiegraf, however, is still standing...with 1 HP. I finish him off with geomancy as soon as K-Variable gets a turn.

Wiegraf makes a dark bargain and we depart from Orbonne.

Grog Hill:

Wow, the squires are yelling at each other to boost speed. Turnabout is fair play? The lead squire has 8 move, so he charges down the hill and OHKOs Ashley. When wounded, he retreats and the chemists patch him up.

Laggy and K gang up on the female thief and she goes down. Zane Haste2's the party. The squire gets his attack against Ashley blocked this time (yay!). One of the chemists attempts to raise the female thief, but it misses. Laggy punches the squire dead.

This battle is pretty uneventful.

[Vimes]

Hello.  I read about this patch of yours on gamefaqs and I'm going to try it out.

I was banned from ffhacktics, and I'm wondering, would it be okay to make a topic dedicated to my patch on this board?

[superaielman]

You're not going to get much feedback for that here. This community's not devoted to FFT or hacking, this is just a side project that sprung up. You would be better off trying Gamefaqs.

[Archmage]

Hakaril learns Odin after the battle and becomes a time mage. Ashley gains Move MP-Up and becomes a summoner. K-Variable learns blade grasp.

Yardow:

Man, I have to save Rafa. This never goes well. Some ninja throw things at her and she dies before I even get to move (2x magic shuriken and an orichalcum).

Round two! Only two of the ninja throw things at her, so Rafa lives! Laggy draws a shuriken and dodges it. He returns fire; Rafa charges an ability and runs. K-Variable chops him. Heaven thunder actually hits something! Hakaril Haste2s, Ashley charges Leviathan, and Zane heals Rafa.

Malak throws "Sky Demon Back" out. It triggers once and hits nobody. Man, somebody burned down a whole town to get their hands on these kids' skills? Why!?

A summoner wipes K-Variable out with salamander. Ouch. Hakaril busts out Odin and kills one enemy ninja and drops another to single digit HP. I decide that it would be really funny for Zane to nuke Malak with holy...so he does. It's just cleanup from there.

I contemplate a bunch of stuff I could do, decide to do none of it, and head to Yuguo.

Yuguo Woods:

Undead! Hooray! An enemy time mage hits me with Slow2, but Zane counters with Haste2.

A ghost uses shadow stitch on K-Variable; well, that's annoying. Enemy mages nuke K-Variable and Rafa; Hakaril's Odin goes off, seriously wounding a ghost, and Rafa finishes him. The enemy time mages really, really like Slow2. This battle isn't really a big deal. Killing things with Cure3 is always fun, though. And the shadow-stitching ghosts are kind of a pain.

Zombie touch turns Hakaril undead at some point, which is kind of amusing.

Riovanes:

Laggy runs out onto the moat and all three archers decide to shoot at him. Only one hits. Ashley heals the damage with moogle. Go archers! I wind up sending Laggy to jump up the castle wall; he's going to deal with the archers.

A knight breaks K-Variable's helmet (bah, I don't think I have a spare) and at the end of the battle I spend some time grinding JP.

After the battle, Laggy becomes a monk with two-swords; Ashley learns Lich and Fairy; Zane learns Raise2 and Protect2 and switches back to summoner.

Inside Riovanes:

Oh, the Velius fight. I fully expect to lose this one first try and have a need to play with my setup. Wiegraf runs forward and lightning stabs Hakaril. I do what any self-respecting mage would do and run like a sissy so I can Haste myself. Then I die horribly because I forgot to move away again. Whoops!

I need to outspeed Wiegraf, stay away from him, and kill him without running out of MP. Hakaril will have 8 speed as a time mage versus 7 as a summoner, so I might as well keep him that way. A golden hairpin, sprint shoes, and brigandine will hopefully give me the speed and mobility that I need to deal with Wiegraf. If not, well...we'll just have to try something else. Also, speed save should be a good reaction ability. Let's try that!

Wiegraf's lightning stab triggers speed save. Sweet, now I'm faster than he is. Run to the wall. Haste2 widens the gap. Heal self, run to the corner. According to the AT, I'm gonna get this turn, then he'll get one, then I double him...let's try slowing him. Fuck. He guards. Luckily, I survive lightning stab, don't get silenced, and speed save. I hit him with Leviathan for 221...ah, hell, I misjudged the distance and he kills me. I can't believe slow missed at 83%. The brigandine's extra space of movement isn't gonna matter, I don't think. Black robe goes back on.

OK. This run, I get hit with lit stab, speed save triggers, I run, haste, and heal. Slow Wiegraf. Get lightning stabbed again. It's a crit, and I'm down to 11, but speed save triggers--Ramuh is still charging as a result. I move, Ramuh goes off. Haste wears, and it's my turn again. I'm out of range to use Ramuh, but Leviathan will go off in time, so
I charge it
 and move. wiegraf approaches, Leviathan shows up, and Wiegraf is dead. Heeeeere's Johnny!

...and...Velius...has...auto-Innocent. OH NO.

Ramza hastes his allies. I slow a demon. Then Velius hits Zane and he goes down. K-Variable eats a dark holy; another demon moves forward and starts charging, but Laggy punches him to death. Laggy guards Velius (50%). Hah! Hakaril has stupid speed now but no MP to use it for anything. Oh, Velius' innocent status wears off. Uh, OK, it's initial-Innocent. Laggy aborts another dark holy spell by punching the casting demon to death. Haste wears. Raise misses K-Variable (damn)...Ashley weapon guards Velius. XD

Giga flare kills Hakaril. Laggy kills the last demon, since he can't reach Velius. Velius charges a spell and Ashley raises K-Variable. K slashes charging Velius in the back...clops kills Ashley and Laggy. Velius uses shock on K-Variable for 256. Game over. Man. If that first raise hadn't failed I might've had a chance.

Round 2. Hakaril suicide charges with Ramuh to kill an ultima demon and weaken the other to critical. Oh, he gets another turn, so he hits the two living demons with Slow2. Laggy yells at Zane, Zane Haste2s. A demon charges dark holy; Ashley raises Hakaril. K-Variable moves in and uses Heaven's Cloud; 105 to Velius. Dark holy kills Laggy. Hak hits Velius with his staff (40 damage) and flees. Zane raises Laggy; Velius drops Hakaril again by using Shock. K-Variable takes 210 from dark holy, but she's still standing. She kills the wounded demon with geomancy. One demon left. Velius' innocent status wears.

Zane raises Hakaril again. Ashley charges moogle; Laggy kills the last demon. Now to blitz Velius. Velius physicals Hakaril for 252 and he's down. K-Variable slashes Velius (110; total damage 255). Hakaril has NO MP, so he staffs Velius again for 40 (total damage 295). Laggy could use Chakra to restore Hak's MP, but I think I'll just punch Velius instead. Two hits, total 288 damage. I think that was the right call (total 583). Zane reapplies haste to his allies. Velius runs off and charges clops. Ashley charges Leviathan. K-Variable hops across the water and hits Velius for 165 (748 damage). Clops kills Zane and Laggy. An enemy demon crystallizes and Hakaril runs toward it. Leviathan inflicts 175 damage (923)...then Velius uses shock for 923 on Ashley (ow). Hak gets the crystal, restoring his MP, and hastes himself. K-Variable runs forward and slashes Velius--the right option, as it deals 110 and drops him (total damage inflicted 1033).