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

[Bobbin Cranbud]

Another Dorter

Another plot observation: Gaffgarion gives every indication he plans to leave the group here, and never really explains why he stays.  Yet he's being paid to accompany and betray Agrias's little band.  Seems odd he'd force Ramza to 'persuade' him to remain.  Also, Dycedarg has assassins impersonating Goltana's men, yet Goltana has NO REASON to want Ovelia dead or out of the way.  He'll end up propping her up AGAINST Larg and Ruvelia/Orinas, the latter being Larg's sister and nephew.  Why would Larg possibly want Ovelia on the throne?  So why doesn't Agrias, or at least Simon, ever question the uniforms?  Doesn't anyone NOTICE this?  I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!

Anyway, before leaving Orbonne Monastery, I have a lot of reconfiguring and learning to do.

Agrias, Lavian and Alicia are all stripped (!); so are Gaffgarion and Radd.  The three non-specials are then sent packing since this isn't based on the PSP version.
Ramza becomes a Gutsy Thief and learns Move +1 from spillover Knight JP.  He gets Radd's old chain shirt.
Rudy learns some new battle skills and becomes an Archer Breaker, intending to both be effective by ranged breaking now, and set himself up to become a ninja later.  Charge being really awesome now doesn't hurt, either.
Naesala becomes a Priest with Black Magic secondary.  He's apparently training for either Bard or Calc, or maybe both.
Susan considers becoming a Mediator but stays Oracle for now (until we get t3h gunz).

I decide not to give Agrias and Gaffgarion my old, cheap gear just yet, since I don't want them to interfere with Crystal Get in the next battle.  But, this may change...

On to Dorter!

Susan, being my highest-level non-Ramza character and only non-Agrias female, sits this one out.  (I don't feel like having her charmed and dropping status spells on me!)  So the roster is Thiefza, Archer-Rudy, Axe Knight-Dawson, and the holy and pious (black magic using) Naesala.

Ramza begins the fight by suavely charming one of the enemy archers to fight for us.  Naesala shells out for the party, Agrias advances to slap a thief for the affront of attacking us, and the charmed and charming Mary-Ann leaps to a rooftop to shoot her own mages.  Rudy Power Breaks a thief as he advances toward the high ground, and the enemy unload a bunch of charged attacks to little real effect (aside from dropping Agrias, but really, that's... not relevant.)

A thief drops Rudy (bad!) and Gaff raises Agrias (sort of neutral).  Naesala bolts a pair of (now-tortured) thieves while Ramza, having been rather rudely yelled at by Dawson, charges the mages.  Speaking of whom, in a truly bizarre sequence, one readies ice-2 on Ramza and Agrias, another moves into the target area (?!) to hi-potion the one who's casting, the caster ices Agrias, Ramza and his buddy, and said buddy COUNTER-MAGICS on his own ally!  Wacky.

Despite this nonsense, Ramza no sooner Wishes Rudy were alive than both of them AND Naesala go down to concerted thief/archer attacks, and charm wears off.  TPK ensuses.

Dorter Redux, Attempt the Second

Well THAT didn't work...

This time, Agrias and Gaff get the excess weapons, and the party's setup is quite different.

Ramza learns Equip Sword instead of Move +1.  Armed with a Power Wrist, he is now a mini-two-swords-ninja, hopefully a ginsu engine of destruction!
Rudy goes back to being a punch artist knight, because that just works too well to leave.
Naesala stays a black mage.
Susan comes with the party instead of Dawson.

I let the guests take point, for obvious reasons, and start Ramza's accumulation of assured destruction.  Naesala happened to learn Jump +3 from monk spillover JP, so he heads for the rooftops.  Slowly, I begin my advance, and –

Holy crap, Gaff's already down.  Agrias dodges the second blow in a pair of two knives attacks but dies to the first hits and a spell.  Everybody's poisoned.  The archers are out of reach and raining death.  This seems to be another of those battles that's MUCH harder than it used to be, presumably due to the buffing of thieves...

TPK 2.0.

Trade City III: The Search For Dorter

(Or a way out thereof.)

This time, I'm trying something really radical: Knight x3 + Swording Thiefza.  Susan joins Dawson (axe knight) and Rudy (punch artist knight) by become a paladin (knight with white magic).

Setting up my knightly order seems to work well.  The initial exchange of blows only manages to drop Agrias, and in short order I slay both thieves with my nigh-indestructible force of tanky goodness.  Stasis Sword even manages to Stop one of the mages for a while, buying me some time.  The mages and archers take Gaff down (one of the former after Stop expires RIGHT before his turn -sigh-), but it's not enough to save the pointy-hatted ones.  Which leaves me with just...

... a small problem: there's no way the archers can kill me, because I have chakra+raise-2 on knights they would take multiple full rounds of attacking to drop.  But the only way I can actually HURT the archers, barring their coming down from on high, is with Ramza's counter flood!  O_o  This leads to a really, really bizarre battle in which Ramza, the only non-knight and thus seemingly the best target, gets arrows rained on him and once in a while tosses back geomancy.

Eventually, I discover that Ramza does have sufficient Jump to pursue the archer on the northern rooftops, so up he goes to charm her down to where she can be slaughtered by Dawson.

Before proceeding, I grab all the available propositions – JP, precious JP! – and gear up.  The long drought in shops between Teta's kidnapping and defeating the mercs in Dorter always seems to solve my monetary troubles.  I now have cash enough to purchase all the equipment I might need prior to arriving in Lionel, and do so.

Araguay Woods

I go into this battle with trepidation.  There were big mobs of gobs inside!  So this job's a... well, we'll see.

Party consists of Thiefza with his two swords, thief Rudy with two knives and punch art (possibly a mistake since thieves have low PA), knight Dawson still axing for trouble, and Naesala as a summoner with black magic secondary.

Boco may be strong in a fight, posits Ramza.  Personally, I'd rather have one of the gobs attacking him since they're so much upgraded, but whatever.  Save the chocobo, save the world?  Ramza advances and accumulates, Gaff night swords a gob, Rudy persuades one to at least temporarily take our side.  Boco behaves in a most un-guest-like manner and ACTUALLY RETREATS BEHIND MY LINES.  Crazy.

But now it's the gobs turn.  Confusion comes (to Rudy and Ramza) and partly goes (Dawson pitches a rock at Ramza's thick skull).  Damage is dealt to both sides, mostly mine until Naesala leaps onto Boco's back and unleashes Ramuh, followed up by Gaff's night sword.  Ramza strikes down another gob, poaching it – and the black gob strides up and drives our fearless leader's nose up into his brain, causing instant death and simultaneous bowel evacuation.  This is a major pain.

Seriously, though?  ONE HUNDRED PERCENT DEAD?

Definitely rather have the gobs than Boco.

At this point, I realize that, fortunately, I forgot to set Naesala's black magic secondary.  I say 'fortunately' because it means I have someone else to do the raising, which he promptly does.  Ramza returns to the land of the living and Dawson chucks another stone, clearing Rudy's head at the expense of cracking it.

Despite the gobs of awesome abilities (that the gobs have gobs of), the battle turns clearly in my favor.  I just have too much stopping power to fail easily, and the fight ends with three gobs poached and the rest simply cut down where they stand through a combination of sword techniques, spells and thiefly double attacks.

Zirekile Falls

Before I proceed to the Falls, I check my status.  Sure enough, both Ramza and Rudy are now ready to become members of my favorite class to level in: ninja!  Rudy goes for the classic martial arts ninja setup, while Ramza selects a half-swordja, half-flail combo.  Naesala becomes a priest, this time ACTUALLY setting black magic as his secondary.

I'm going to try to do this battle 'straight' – that is, without stripping Gaffgarion of his equipment.  He's got old, crappy gear and I've either never done the battle this way, or not in many years.  In any case,  Delita landing a successful Instant Death with crush punch goes a long way toward making that seem viable, but we'll see.

Gaff himself proves to be little trouble.  After ineffectually night swording Ovelia, he drops to critical from two ninjas and a Naesala bolt.

The Hokuten knights, however, quickly show they won't go down so easily!  A sword swing, a wave fist and a crossbow bolt conspire to drop Naesala on the bridge (Jump +3, remember).  Their initial assault proves impressive, but they shortly fold before the astonishing accuracy of Delita's crush punch!  At least half of his attacks leave a Hokuten bannerman dead at the foot of the falls, while Ovelia easily escapes.

In fact, my biggest problem (once Naesala gets revived by Rudy's inspiring shout) becomes killing Delita and Agrias before they can end the battle!  These knights possess a wealth of abilities and I Do Want!  We end up having to rez one of the enemy to buy us the time to drop the two Holy Knights, but in the end, the PCs pull it out and Dawson acquires almost a complete set of geomantic powers, along with several other useful abilities for he and Ramza.

Zaland Fort City

The party decides to seek the aid of Cardinal Draclau, because OBVIOUSLY someone whose name is an anagram of 'Dracula' is trustworthy.  Before we make for Lionel, however, Ovelia must make a donation of her entire wardrobe to the 'give my mages halfway decent gear' fund.  Naesala acquires a lovely Wizard Robe he's likely to wear for the rest of the game, and a Triangle Hat that will do until Holy Miters come along.

Ramza proclaims the need to rescue Mustadio and, with Rudy, leaps into the city to do just that.  They promptly get Charged and Bolted into oblivion, but, hey, they bought time for Mustadio to escape, right?  Actually, this works out fine for me, as every member of my party can raise and saving our guest was my biggest worry.  Naesala and Susan each rez one of the boys.

With Mustadio secure, mostly (he'll later run into a somewhat dangerous position rather than staying on the wall) and the boys back, we go to town.  Wizards die first, for obvious reasons, then archers, then, last but pretty much least in this instance, knights.  One of the knights is quite obliging and spends most of his time using items to heal himself in a far corner while I kill Agrias and wait for the crystals and boxen.  In short order, these appear and I secure an averagish haul of new abilities, followed by the inevitable butchery.

Barias Hill

Mustadio Get!  Well, sort of.  I relieve the young machinist of his firearm and give it to Susan, who becomes a mediator.  Naesala embraces the way of the oracle as he continues bouncing around the various magic-using classes.  Rudy, Naesala and Susan go on a couple of propositions, we gear up with some new adaman vests, and it's time to enliven the hills with the sound of battle cries.

Lancers and geomancers?  Interesting.  Here's a battle that's VERY different than usual – it's normally knights and archers, IIRC.  Anyway, I can't help but wonder if this won't make the fight EASIER... but perhaps I underestimate the new lancer.

Well, I can't say if I've underestimate the new lancer, but I definitely took this battle too lightly.  I had Susan try to invite a geomancer rather than just killing him outright, and the resulting failure snowballed into a TPK.  Admittedly, I had a good chance (both summoners dead in exchange for my ninjas, two rezzers in range of bringing back said ninja) until a raise with a 95% hit rate missed >_< and, after Susan went down, Agrias decided to bring back the person at 2 who couldn't get a turn, rather than the two (rez-capable) people at 0 who WOULD have got turns. -_-*

Thank the Principle I'm almost done with the 'every battle is 4 + guest(s)' section of the game.

Bariaus Hill Lives!

Same setups, since what went wrong last time had more to do with my play than my plans.

The geomancer proves more resilient this time, but it doesn't matter.  Ramza and Dawson hunt down the two summoners and terminate them in an extremely prejudicial manner before they can drop their spells; in both cases a successful summon would have killed the character who stopped it.

The geomancers fall next, albeit only after a tense stretch during which I have to race rezzing to the rate at which my people drop.  Fortunately, Agrias makes good (if lucky) use of her white magic to join in this process.  Her timing and choice of targets could have been better, but hey, she randomly got the job done.

Even with all but two enemies down, this battle isn't truly over.  The lancers are close – so very close – to OHKO'ing my characters.  Agrias once again proves what an ingrate I'm being toward her, Stopping one just long enough for me to heal up and kill the other.  Of course, that doesn't mean I'm not going to drop Agrias, too – I DID say I was being an ingrate, after all.  Rudy stabs her in the back and it's crystal time.

Actually, I don't get any crystals at all.  ,-_-,  It's all treasure chests, and really crappy ones, too.  Susan eventually ends the battle by Inviting the last lancer, Randy, to join my cause.  And by 'join my cause,' I of course mean 'get stripped and kicked to the curb like -Trash-.'

Post-battle observation: What does Dycedarg mean when he says “There will be many chances to capture Ovelia, as long as she's with Agrias.”?  I don't remember how or if this line changes in the PSP version, but it strikes me as an odd thing for Dyce to say to Gaff.  Is he dissing her competence or claiming to Gaff that she's party to their plot?

Zigolis Swap

Rudy learns Sunken State, since he's got ninja JP to spare and is so strapped for reaction abilities he's currently using Catch.  O_o  Immediately, he switches.  Ramza, however, saves his copious ninja JP because he'll eventually want to shift to two swords something.  Susan expands her abilities as a diplomat and Dawson saves up JP for Speed Break, after which he may finally be ready to leave the knighthood and rush ninja for the two swords.  Unlike Rudy and Ramza, however, I don't intend to leave him a ninja for any length of time; he's the tank-spec.

Random storyline observations: The 'password' or intention expressed here re: St. Ajora makes... absolutely no sense.  Have to check it against the PSP version.  Also, is this the only reference to Agrias's order as the 'St. Konoe Knights?'

Before progressing past this point, I buy up all the castle equipment I might need (particularly if I end up doing another three or four knight squad or go samurai or lancer) and clean out the propositions.

Zigolis Swamp is the first multi-monster-type plot battle since Sweegy Woods.  Memories of the terrors of that dark place still fresh in my mind, I expect a devastating battle with lots of resets.

My expectations are not met.

I can see how this COULD be a very dangerous fight.  Shadow Stitch on the ghouls makes for a nasty surprise and the undead always have the potential to reraise and be tricky to put down.  Arrow guard on the skeletons would certainly make them a pain to kill with archers, and MP Switch is one of my favorite reaction abilities.

Nontheless, my current characters face little trouble.  Even with multiple people getting Stopped, I have enough firepower – especially now that I'm allowed all five PCs rather than being saddled with guest Agrias – to drop the enemy in rapid succession, too fast for any of their timers to wear out.  My only disappointment is that my multiple attempts to Invite one of those shadow stitching ghouls all fail. -_-

Goug Machine City

Susan briefly becomes a white magic LANCER, of all things (she's going for samurai), and Dawson becomes an archer because he's trying to get ninja specced (for two swords) before going back to the knighthood.  Ramza temporarily switches to two-sword knight because I suspect I may need that setup for the coming fight.

My suspicion proves ill-founded.  Ramza's knighthood probably HELPS, but I don't seem to need it.  The only PC to go down is Rudy, and even he only briefly.  Both summoners use their first actions to que up spells with long charge times immediately before Rudy and Susan's turns, respectively; both summoners die before they get to do anything.  The thieves either don't have steal heart or don't bother trying it on Susan; one gets trapped in a corner and pounded with status spells by Naesala while I wait for crystals.

This time, the crystals actually come, increasing my knowledge of archery, chemistry and conjuration.  Between the JP gained here and the propositions I can do in Goug and Warjilis, Naesala unlocks Calculator (and no, I'm not using calc for the Gaffgarion battles... although I should arguably at least check and see if the horrible speed is no longer such an issue), Susan unlocks samurai, and Rudy gets MP Switch.

[metroid composite]

Before I forget: We've been noting something about the Talk Skills that are newly MT. They don't seem to hit everyone they target, but rather just randomly target one person.              For example, yesterday, when we tried to reduce three CT's to 0, two of them monsters and one a knight, we saw it go after one of the monsters, but without monster talk it was very obviously guarded. It didn't seem to go after anybody else, and when we checked, there was absolutely no difference. So it's not like the animation only shows up once. (Otherwise the knight most likely would've been hit, thanks to a hit-but-no-monster-talk on the monster)

Pretty sure that one works, actually, and does go multitarget (and has done so for the last three versions).  However last I checked it has a 30% hit rate, so.....yeah, not too surprising that you'd miss all your targets if you've only tried it once.

[Dark Holy Elf]

It only ever animates on one target in the group and it's never hit anyone it has failed to animate on. We don't use it often so this could be bad luck, granted.

[Laggy]

The animation only appears once, but from the testing I did it does work on targets it doesn't animate on. You're probably just seeing it actually miss, since Persuade's hit rate isn't exactly reliable.

[Excal]

Another week, another log.  We present to you the first chapter of...

LFT: The After(game)

This tale begins with an uneventful trip to Warjilis from Murond.  Well...  uneventful if your name isn't Mustadio, as we encounter a dancing robot along the way.  We note that you never tell dancing robots, or the people they love, to do better than that, and move on.

And so we come to Nogias.  Despite entering the Deep Dungeon, we're still in something of a training build, with Oracle Cyril, Samurai Shaker, Time Mage Charge Gunner Fargus, and Morning Star Draw Out Ninja Jasmin.  Our first battle is actually entirely unchanged.  It's just a swarm of bombs with some goblins and a cat.  Jasmin starts off by trying to snipe the bombs with Water Ball only to discover how utterly useless that is.  Fargus and his gunning, thanks to the cliffs, are similarily useless.  Though both beat out Shaker and his Move +1, leaving him in good position to be utterly useless.  Cyril, by virtue of his ability to Threaten himself and Move-Find Item, is not expected to be overly useful, and picks up some sweet loot for the party.

Of course, things go badly, and really, they didn't start well, when Jasmin gets charmed by the cat.  With her Blade Grasp, we don't actually have anyone overly capable of breaking that Charm.  Moreover, she decides to run off to sit in the middle of her new teammates and chuck stuff at us.  This leads to her new buddies hitting her with Death Sentence, leaving us with only Shaker the Teamster as capable of revival.  All he needs to do is cut a path through the entire enemy force.  Which, well...  isn't that hard.  He's two shotting the Knights, and hitting everything else for about 700 damage.  Of course, blade grasp, as awesome as it is, can't catch fire, and he gets spark swarmed to death, and to a reset.

Our second attempt has Shaker with Germinas Boots, and Fargus as a Mediator so he can equip Item as his secondary and keep his gun.  Jasmin continues with her attempts to learn Two Swords, and Cyril moves over to Calculator for the Math Skill and the Teleport 2 - Move-Find Item Combo.

We return to roughly the same battle, except with slightly different scrub enemies (oh no!  A cuar instead of a second goblin!).  We off the Cuar fairly quickly as we all try to avoid the cat's charm range.  Cyril gets his two Threatens in before picking up the Glacial Gun, then finds an Elixir at the same time as the Reraise spam starts.  Not a moment too soon as the battle begins in ernest at this point as the cat can be evaded no longer, and Jasmin rushes in for the kill!  But, even with three swings, she can't do overly significant damage, and Fargus can't drive it into critical either.   Through all of this, the random damage Jasmin's been taking (including the goblin breaking through blade grasp) lands her in critical, which entices the cat to attack instead of charm, and then retreating.  As we celebrate this turn of luck, another bomb comes up and shocks Jasmin, making us pay for the pot shots we took earlier.  We scramble to revive her as we pull back, into a strong defensive position.  And while the initial setup is compromised by the Goblin landing Eye Gouge on Fargus, Fargus, in his confusion walks right behind the injured Shaker and triggers the Steel Needle trap there, breaking confusion, and giving him an action, letting him use an X-Potion on Fargus.

At this point, we need to fight back.  Unfortunately, Jasmin can't reliably kill with her physical, and she's the only one with Secret Hunt.  As well, all of the bombs are near full HP, because if they can start getting good shocks off, we lose.  So, while Jasmin has twice their speed and 2HKOs with Water Balls, and Shaker .5HKOs with his physical, they can't deal with the Reraise.  And our defensive position will last only as long as the scrub corpses do.  Enter Cyril.  At this point, not only does Cyril have a turn, but all of the bombs have foolishly set themselves up on prime heights, and so a mass Dispel Magic comes down, allowing our offense to be used unfettered.  At this point, the rest of the battle is mopping up.  We leave the last goblin alone on the top layer and find the exit as well as getting the Kiyomori which the cat decided to perch on (and subsequently killed himself).

No one really managed to finish what they set out to do in that first battle (or at least, those who were training didn't), and so we continue on with roughly the same setup.  This time Cyril is at 40 Brave, with is quite unelegant for treasure hunting, but we have ways to work around that.  Namely, Threaten Twice, Praise Twice, one turn as a chicken.  For some reason, Jasmin decides to start with the Praising.  This matters, as by the time we get to Cyril's turn, there's far more pressing things to do.

Which battle is this?  It's the mass skeleton battle, with a ninja, monk and ghost for support.  Fargus opens with a pot shot at the Ghost and gets Ice 2 in order to nuke its MP.  Shaker opens with a rush at the Skellies, poaching one with his slightly less ludicrous attack.  And Jasmin opens by Praising Cyril, and then swinging at the Ninja.  Fittingly, the ninja, well, ninjas Jasmin's attacks.  At this point, the ghost, monk, ninja, and nearby skeleton mob Jasmin, leaving her quite dead.  Meanwhile, Cyril drops a haste on himself and Shaker, getting a nearby skelly as the price for this.  Then he warps off to find an exit.

At this point, Shaker gets swarmed, and grabbing the bolts of elemental power tossed at him just doesn't seem to help much.  So soon Shaker goes down, and Cyril gets mobbed.  Sure, his Abandon/Venetian Shield combo keeps him safe from the humans, but the Aqua Soul sent his way manages to avoid his shield and hit, and that's a 2HKO.  So, Cyril pulls back on his turn, getting to where no one can get at him, and tosses a reraise on himself, Fargus, and the enemy monk.  At this point, Cyril can't help besides status slinging, so it's Fargus vs. the world, holding out to the hope that a) Auto Potion won't fail, and b) that morning star ninja won't randomly get lucky, since four high damage hits will OHKO the chemist, and he ha no evasion.  Fortunately, the RNG loves us, and between Phoenix Downs and Reraises, we get back on our feet, managing to find the exit and have enough leeway for Cyril to Threaten himself.  Unfortunately, it seems that skin of the teeth victories leave him far too chipper to be properly cowed, and it fails, and Shaker drops, again, as the price of this.  We decide reviving him is less important than just finishing the battle, and Fargus does so.

At this point, Fargus is done with samurai, so he toddles off to lancer.  Jasmin, for her part, returns to the magical classes with Draw Out as well.  This turns out to be vaguely fortuitous as we reach our first rare encounter.  The boss here feels like a one trick pony, and all we really see here is his sniping, but dang is it good sniping.  In fact, that'd kind of be the theme of this battle.  His main snipers, we're lucky enough to have Draw Out to deal with, but this doesn't stop the real threat in his party, a really lucky item thief who came loaded with Elixir.  Killing him becomes a high priority, and while we do eventually kill him for good (or so we hope, bloody White Mage Mediators) it's already too late for us.  In large part because of the assassin knife thief that managed to repeatedly pierce Blade Grasp and land Death Sentence.  Really, the only person he was unable to do that to was Cyril, and that's just because no amount of hax can break 100% evade without skills to back it up.  Regardless, we're summarily crushed.

So we outfit the party a bit better.  Namely, Armour Bard Shaker, and Chemist Fargus.  As well as some armour changes for those of us not following the bardic ways.  Sadly, we face squids.  As much as I'd like to say we steamrolled this, it'd be a misleading thing to claim.  So, yes, we win what is our easiest victory yet in the upgraded Deep Dungeon.  But, we also, as part of this, end up in a lovely T formation which has the entire party hit with status attacks three times.  Only one person manages to avoid berserk, and one person avoids confusion.  Sadly, they are not the same person.  Fortunately, the guy who avoided confusion is berserker battle bard Shaker, who shows that with the power of music, you can reduce anything to a fine red mist.  While he does this, Jasmin is generally useless, and Fargus and Cyril team up on the poor bard, threatening him with science, and nuking both his Brave and Faith.  In the end, he decides that the extra Bard JP is worth the loss of 5 Brave/Faith.  The rate with which status whiffs on him in the next battle though suggests he may have been wrong in that.

The next battle is, of course, another run at the Bi-Count and his pet workers.  This time the thief of doom only has Hi Potion, and we take care of the other two thieves by boring them to sleep.  Of course, we also break our Kiku-ichimoji supply early in, getting rid of our ability to hit item thief with impunity, which leads to Jasmin rushing in where angels fear to tread.  This is also the map of Cyril based incompetance, as he manages only about 50% on his Reraise rate, losing the party a valuable buffer against instant painful death.  Also, our good friend the Bi-Count gets close enough that we see more than one move out of him, and learn why he should be feared.  That said, the battle bard can handle the other worker, and with a foray into the middle of enemy territory (and oddly enough, getting Zombied) Jasmin manages to off the item thief and stop his devastating Jihadbot strategy (Phoenix Down + self-distructing Dispose-bot, happened roughly half a dozen times, all painful) before getting offed herself.  At this point, our only real hope is that her undead state will ressurect her.  Not that it matters.  Before we hit the end of her timer, the cavalry arrives, and we get gunned down.

With plans to attempt more looting next time, we call it quits for the week.

[metroid composite]

Okay, equipment changes:

Black Hood: gets PA+1.  Even with absorb: Dark and cancel: Don't Move/Don't Act Laggy wasn't happy with it.  I mentioned that the insulting thing is that physical fighters equipping for HP against Wiegraf/Velius always went with Golden Hairpin.  (Mages, sure, but fighters?)  Now they'll probably go for Black Hood instead.

Power Wrist moved to Chapter 1, cost changed to equal Battle Boots (1000G)
Magic Ring moved to Chapter 1, lost its status immunities gained MA+1, cost changed to equal Battle Boots (1000G)

The following accessories lost their status immunities: Rubber Shoes, Magic Ring, Angel Ring, Diamond Armlet, 108 Gems (they didn't need 'em).

The 17 status immunities (18 immunities if immune: Chicken actually works) will be divided between the...remaining four pure status protecting accessories (Defense Ring, Jade Armlet, N-Kai Armlet, Defense Armlet).  Most likely each of them will half a random element too (the same way N-Kai halves Dark).  Half Water, Half Holy, and Half Earth currently don't exist in the game, so those are the frontrunners.

If anyone has a strong opinion on how the status immunities should be divided between the four accessories, here's the list of statuses
Sleep,
Death Sentence,
Dead,
Darkness,
Silence,
Berserk,
Petrify,
Stop,
Undead,
Blood Suck,
Frog,
Poison,
Confusion,
Charm,
Don't Move,
Don't Act,
Slow
(Chicken) (Not yet tested--immune chicken may not work)

[Dark Holy Elf]

Ooh, I like this. Cutting down on the number of statusblockers is good.


Jade Armlet - Stop, Petrify, Don't Move, Don't Act
Halves Earth

Logic: These all fit together really well thematically, they're all various forms of paralysis. Earth seemed a logical element for something made of jade stone to resist. Gameplay note is that this screws over Galaxy Stop in a single accessory, but I at least am quite fine with that.

Defence Armlet - Frog, Blood Suck, Undead, Poison
Halves Water

Logic: If this list looks familiar, it should. I shamelessly borrowed it from 108 Gems. All things being equal, I'd rather keep statuses that were already together, together... easier for FFT veterans to keep track. Anyway, Poison + Frog logically suggest Water to me as an associated element. I'm not altogether happy with Defence Armlet as a name, here (all things considered I'd rather keep 108 Gems) so if you guys wanted to rename it I would be all for that. Amulet would be my suggestion, the FF6 accessory that blocked both Poison and Zombie.

Defence Ring - Sleep, Death Sentence, Dead, Darkness
Halves Darkness

Logic: Death Sentence and Death immunity on the same equip make sense to me, intuively. Darkness comes along for the ride since it was attached to Angel Ring before, and honestly, it works well here... Darkness is associated with both sleep and death thematically. Attaching the Dark element to this (yoinking it from N-Kai) just felt too right to not do. I wouldn't be opposed if you switched the Dark and Holy resists to keep Dark in its original location, but I like this better.

N-Kai Armlet - Confuse, Charm, Berserk, Silence
Halves Holy

Logic: The mental statuses all together. This was the last accessory I came too but I really liked the mix anyway, and Holy as the attached element makes perfect sense. I no longer like the name N-Kai Armlet, though... like Defence Armlet it now feels inappropriate. To borrow from other FFs again, something like Peace Armlet would make more sense. Then again I have no idea what the origin of the word "N-Kai" is so it possibly still works.

Slow immunity - Granted by Battle Boots

Yep. I wanted the statusblockers to stick with 4 each, which left an odd man out. I'd actually be quite all right with this one sticking on Diamond Armlet... but then I figured that this never made much sense. Shoes of some sort should really prevent Slow. Now, every other footwear has a unique use. Battle Boots, though awesome, are eventually outclassed by both Red Shoes and Germinas Boots. (Even Spike Shoes retain some use now due to Jump+2). Why not give them an extra perk?

Chicken immunity - Granted by a heavy armour or helmet. Because knightly types totally are associated with bravery, and heavy equips, as always, need some sort of bone... and this one's actually thematic! Perhaps Gold Armour?


EDIT: Regarding the other changes... I fully applaud the change to the Black Hood, which certainly needs it. I'm of two minds about the Power Wrist/Magic Ring in Chapter 1, but before I comment, I'd like to hear your rationale.


EDIT: Another upside of putting Chicken immunity on heavy armour? This would make the ultimate treasure hunting unit in the game the EQUIP ARMOUR CALCULATOR. Now think about that in the context of original FFT and reflect for a moment on just how awesome LFT is that it created this situation.

[metroid composite]

Yep. I wanted the statusblockers to stick with 4 each, which left an odd man out. I'd actually be quite all right with this one sticking on Diamond Armlet... but then I figured that this never made much sense. Shoes of some sort should really prevent Slow. Now, every other footwear has a unique use. Battle Boots, though awesome, are eventually outclassed by both Red Shoes and Germinas Boots. (Even Spike Shoes retain some use now due to Jump+2). Why not give them an extra perk?

(18:14:53) Laggy: NEB responded; I'll let you explain the C1 accessory rationale. I like his suggestions a lot, albeit I don't want to really stick Cancel: Slow on BB. Spike Shoes are a more likely candidate for that than anything >_>
(18:15:13) mc: Exactly what I was going to say about that suggestion >_>
(18:15:30) Laggy: (His rationale was that BB gets outclassed completely, but so does Power Wrist and mantles. Hardly the first situation for this.)
(18:15:42) Laggy: Now, what I still don't know what to do with are the billions of useless mantles...

I'm of two minds about the Power Wrist/Magic Ring in Chapter 1, but before I comment, I'd like to hear your rationale.

A lot of it is general accessory rebalancing.  Battle Boots were falling wayyy wayyy into the overused category, and Laggy wasn't comfortable with this.  However the big reason they're so overused is that there is almost no competition for a chapter and a half (unlike most of chapter 1 equipment--most weapons and clothing get outdated pretty fast).

On the other hand, Power Wrist was showing up two battles before Wizard Mantle, and five battles before Diamond Armlet; I mean, it was the earliest of the three, and that felt right, but not really early enough to get much attention.  Once we decided to move Power Wrist, we decided to put Magic Ring there too for a mixture of symmetry reasons, and the fact that mages still had a no-brainer accessory decision even if fighters had to pause and think about their accessories now.

I suspect Battle Boots is still the best overall accessory in Chapter 1, just because it's a time when not many people have movement abilities.  The effects this might have on Chapter 1...the fights might end faster...however Chapter 1 fights are easily the slowest fights in the game (if someone told me they took more attacks to kill Grefter than they took to kill a Zodiac demon, I wouldn't be surprised).  So speeding up Chapter 1 fights actually doesn't bother me.  (Now if only I could figure out how to slow down late Chapter 4 fights...).

[Dark Holy Elf]

Yeah, that's all fair. My concern with the C1 accessories was primarilly based on "huh, is more offence really what the game needs?" although yeah probably doesn't matter much since it's Chapter 1. Secondarily based on helping Monk more than other classes... but then I remember that Monk's money move is Repeating Fist now, and that's linear, so... maybe not! Yeah, go for it.

The Slow/Battle Boots thing is weird. I agree that BB are overused in the extreme, but by the time Slow immunity actually matters, they aren't any more. Still, I can see the argument that, when you do want to block Slow, it's kinda unfair that you get Move+1 at the same time, whereas for the other statusblockers all you get is an elemental resistance that barely matters outside specific fights.

I hate the idea of Spike Shoes getting Slow for some reason, though. <_< Hmm. Maybe throw Slow back on the Diamond Armlet after all? Now that it is 5000 gil instead of 1000, it's far from a no-brainer upgrade except for those who use both PA and MA, so an extra little perk is all right. Also keeps all the statusblockers on armlets, now, for consistency.

(Now if only I could figure out how to slow down late Chapter 4 fights...).

Well, from least to most drastic...

-Defence Up and Magic Defence Up slapped on more enemies.
-Enemies more consistently use higher-end gear, and use it earlier. e.g. Black Costume from Level 32 on instead of Level 37. No more random Linen Robes.
-Higher HP boosts from C4 equipment, particularly Black Costume, Light Robe, Crystal Mail, Reflect Mail, and anything above them.
-A shift in the growths of HP, PA, MA to slow things down at higher levels... would need a significant look-over, though.

[Bobbin Cranbud]

Bariaus Valley

Samurai works quite, quite well for Susan.  Her draw outs give me the fast, reliable multitarget damage I've wanted for a while.  In the future I'll probably kit her out with a wiz robe and white magic, but for now she has talk skill secondary.  (Samurai didn't use to be able to equip robes, did they?  I like this change a lot both for gameplay and thematic reasons.)

Despite this, I manage to screw things up rather badly by allowing Ramza to go down when only one other person has rez capability: Rudy, who is on the other side of the map.  Despite rushing to raise our fallen commander, Rudy actually still manages to kill both enemies on his side of the map WHILE RUNNING AWAY.  Punch art is still cruise control for cool.

We invite a priestess back to the camp, where she is robbed and left by the wayside in a display of ice-hearted banditry.  Also, Agrias Get.

Golgorand Execution Site

I enter with almost a max heavy armor build: Ramza as a two-swords knight, Dawson as a lancer, Susan still kitted out as a diplomatic samurai and Agrias.  Only Mustadio breaks theme.  This is my first mission with special characters playing significant roles and I'm curious how they stack up to the improved opposition and base classes.

As it turns out, not terribly well.  Oh, Gaff dies fast and easily to Agrias, Ramza and Dawson, and Mustadio does manage to lock down several enemies.  But even as I'm merrily slaughtering my foes, a couple of people go down and I realize... no one had any raising capabilities even at the start of this battle. >_<

Despite screwing up the setup in this manner, I ALMOST win because Charge on the more powerful physical characters is incredibly lethal.  But midway through dispatching the knights, I realized my predicament when I wasted one of Ramza's turns, and later I forgot to have Dawson charge.  One easily correctable action away from finishing the last knight, Agrias, Mustadio and Susan all crystallize.

Reset.

Return to Golgorand

This time, I took Rudy instead of Mustadio so I had at least one person capable of using raise.  He tried being a lancer for a while.

The battle went essentially the same as last time, except that instead of killing Gaff I broke his speed and power until he sat there night swording every couple dozen turns for a whopping 8 damage, while I killed all his support and waited for crystals.  With Rudy's greater power I didn't even really need the rez he'd come to provide to win, although I did have to get Agrias up in order to wait out the last enemy's counter.

Finally, I took pity on Gaff and dispatched him.

Has battle skill's hit rate changed?  It seems much, much more accurate than I remember, and speed breaking was already one of my main strategies.  Maybe I'm thinking of the PSP version?

Duel at Lionel Castle

After the last battle, I decide to leave Agrias and Mustadio behind unless a battle particularly cries out for their services.  I go into Lionel with Ramza as a knight with punch art and two swords, Rudy as a ninja with punch art and martial arts, Naesala as a priest with black magic, Susan as a samurai with white magic, and Dawson as a lancer with charge.

Ramza proves essentially immune to Gaffgarion's attacks, taking about a tenth his starting HP with each night sword.  A power break later and that's reduced to 8 HP per sword; a speed break later and Ramza leaves Gaff ineffectually swinging his blade once in a blue moon, to help outside.

Because outside, I DO need the help.  Despite snagging some early kills from draw out and black magic and having three people with revival, I'm barely breaking even.  No sooner have Rudy and Naesala been brought back from their early deaths than Susan, who did the rezzing on Rudy, suffers a back attack and takes their place.  Dawson is the only one who can consistently get hits in, and he has by far the lowest Speed of any of the combatants after leveling exclusively in squire and knight.

When Ramza joins the fray, however, the battle turns decisively in my favor.  He's yet another rez-capable person and also packs enough power to drop many of the enemy in a single round.  It's more than the closely matched combat can bear and in short order Gaff's forces are routed.

As for the man himself?  He gets surrounded and feebly slap-fights my characters while they wait for crystals and boxen to farm.  I let him keep his speed; it gives Rudy something to chakra.

Inside Lionel Castle

The first lucavi battle!  For this, I'll be taking Agrias.  Rudy and Ramza will have their usual setups: ninja, Rudy with punch art and Ramza with battle skill.  Susan becomes an oracle for extra MP when status curing, as well as the possibility of dropping Holy should the opportunity arise.  Naesala rounds out the team, geared up as a priest.

Queklain opens with nightmare, with the usual effects: Ramza and Susan fall asleep and Agrias is sentenced to death.  Rudy stigma magics sleep off of Ramza and we set up to return fire.  Ramza starts Speed Breaking – it's super effective.

No kidding it's super effective.  It basically shuts this battle down.  If I have one criticism of LFFT so far, it's that the changes to knight skills, especially coupled with knights' incredible toughness, make these no-brainers.  Every boss I've faced since getting ninja and speed or even power break has been utterly trivial.

Sadly, there's nothing to farm off the unsupported Impure King, so he goes down like a load of blubber shortly after I negate his ability to fight back.  He does manage to counter-magic a bolt onto Naesala because I wasn't paying attention, but it's not enough to drop the plucky priest and I make sure to Magic Break him before Susan drops the battle-ending Holy.

End of Chapter 2!

[metroid composite]

Yeah, that's all fair. My concern with the C1 accessories was primarilly based on "huh, is more offence really what the game needs?" although yeah probably doesn't matter much since it's Chapter 1. Secondarily based on helping Monk more than other classes... but then I remember that Monk's money move is Repeating Fist now, and that's linear, so... maybe not! Yeah, go for it.

It...actually helps Monks remarkably little even for their non-repeating fist damage.  They're 6 PA for much of Chapter 1, so that goes to 7 PA.  This means instead of 36 Wave Fist damage they deal...40 Wave Fist Damage.  Whoo.  Knight with Iron Sword, on the other hand, goes from 36 to 42.

The biggest kick to damage that does feel like "that was a bit unnecessary" is that Wizards go back up to their original 8 MA, which gets strengthened to 10 (as opposed to 7 MA getting strengthened to 8).  I feel like the fault here is more with the elemental rods, though (why were they the only item in all of Chapter 1 to boost a skillset??) so maybe the answer is to push those a bit later, or spread them out one at a time, or something.

[Dark Holy Elf]

To be fair, that's a 60 damage Wave Fist late in the chapter, but I don't see anything wrong with that.

Fire Rod after Zeklaus Desert (just in time for a battle in the rain!), Ice Rod after Dorter 2 (just in time to see hilariously high numbers against Goblins!), Thunder Rod after meeting Draclau (same time as Lightning Bow, at least, for some symmetry there) would actually work pretty well, thinking on it. Certainly makes the decision about spells to buy a more interesting one, though if you did do that I'd move Fire 2 back to 12 MP. Granted you may want to balance the elements in other ways.

[metroid composite]

Could also do it Sand Rat Cellar -> Lenalia Plateau -> Chapter 2 start, the logic being mages have interesting store checkpoints from Zirekile Falls onward (Zirekile Falls being Rainbow Staff, Cypress Rod, POISON ROD (hax), Triangle Hat......and the checkpoint after that is Wizard Robe AND Wizard Mantle AND Green Beret, among other things).

On a side note: only having Flame Rod at Thieves Fort entertains me, because it means that someone might actually set Any Weather as their movement ability.

though if you did do that I'd move Fire 2 back to 12 MP.

If anything, Ice feels like the most neglected element to me now; always sort-of caught in the middle.  I mean, at Thieves Fort you can use Any Weather + Flame Rod for +25%.  You can use lightning for +25%.  And...then there's ice, which is always +0%.  Two entire classes having access to only strengthen fire (Flame Whip) is noteworthy too.


EDIT, just got back from testing: Status Immunity Chicken works!!!!!

[Excal]

As much as I love me my Venetian Shield hax, it seems the time may soon be coming for the Full Metal Calculator.

Also, have you considered the effect of mixing the PA +1 Axe with the Power Wrist?  Since that would be a +2 boost for the Monk, which may be slightly more significant.  Especially if you leave monk behind for Geomancer or Squire, both of which can pair it with PA+.

[Tonfa]

Death and Death Sentence immunities should not be on the same accessory since DS ignoring ID immunity is neat, I'd say. >_>

[Excal]

Yeah, Tonfa's suggestion feels right to me as well.  Though, the Elf's general groupings are nifty, so, I think I'll suggest taking what he said, except swapping Death with Undeath.  That way each accessory will remain thematically similar, while allowing Death and Death Sentence to be immuned by different pieces of equipment.  All at the low, low, cost of things not being quite as easy to remember for the hard core FFT nut.

[Grefter]

Time for me to do what I do best.  Stupid pointless shit.

I like NEB's status sets (above is noteworthy though), but I don't think you need to change two of the three silly names.  N-Kai Armlet blocking Darkness and Death isn't to bad in my mind, neither is say Defence Ring blocking Holy and a bunch of pain in the arse status that make you lose control of your character.

Defence armlet sucks though yeah.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Well, for the Tonfas (and I agree with the concern there!), remember that the most common way of Death blocking is still through the Judo Outfit and Chameleon Robe. Rarely was Angel Ring used to block Death specifically, and the Defence Ring will inherit the same status there. I expect the Defence Ring will more likely be used to block Death Sentence anyway, along with Sleep. So you'll still see Death Sentence going through the pure Death blockers.

EDIT:

On a side note: only having Flame Rod at Thieves Fort entertains me, because it means that someone might actually set Any Weather as their movement ability.

This. Is. Genius.

[Shale]

Just throwing it out there, but given the abundance of status-blocking armor and headgear in FFT, I don't see why it has to be absolutely mandatory that each status also get a blocking accessory.

[metroid composite]

Just throwing it out there, but given the abundance of status-blocking armor and headgear in FFT, I don't see why it has to be absolutely mandatory that each status also get a blocking accessory.

Armor and headgear only blocks 5 statuses IIRC, AND if you are doing, say, a Knight SCC, you don't get access to Don't Move/Don't Act, for example, except through accessories.  Death is the only status blockable by every class through their armor/headgear.

Also, have you considered the effect of mixing the PA +1 Axe with the Power Wrist?  Since that would be a +2 boost for the Monk, which may be slightly more significant.  

Ooh, forgot about that.  That shows up at the same time as elemental rods (or the first elemental rod, anyway) so...now I don't feel so bad about the elemental rods

Especially if you leave monk behind for Geomancer or Squire, both of which can pair it with PA+.

Well...there's always Equip Axe, and PA+ hats don't show up until Chapter 2, so it's not really anything inaccessible to the Monk class (and both Squire and Geo would require learning Martial Arts as well which is still 200 JP itself--not cheap by Chapter 1 standards).

[Bobbin Cranbud]

Goland Coal City

I finish up all the propositions; at this point I've clearly committed to save-stating through the main game randoms to preserve a measure of challenge in the plot battles.  As a result, Bard get, Dancer get, and Calc get – Rudy, Susan and Naesala enter these classes to try them out, as they seem some of the most changed.

The actual Goland battle turns out to be extremely easy.  Slow Dance + Cheer Song + Ninjza Speed breaking = battle I can pretty much toy with.  Ramza ends up breaking the speed of MY OWN PEOPLE, not just guests and invitees, to give Naesala a bit more calc practice.  I'm seriously tempted to shoot for the 9999 JP I need for non-charge! ^_^

Lesalia Imperial Capital

I'll wait to do Goland props until I have the easy back and forth between it and Lesalia.

For now I'm sticking with bard, calc and dancer.  The real question is, will I drop Zalmo's party to 1 SPD before ever emerging from behind the wall?

Oh, Geomancers.  I guess I won't be sitting in a clump behind the wall after all...

FAST Geomancers, too.  Ramza gets critically injured and Alma barely has time to MBarrier herself for the reraise before they drop her.  Ramza falls soon after, when Zalmo attacks in an amazingly aggressive manner with his rod.  If I don't get the chance to steal or grab crystals because of this, I'm going to feel downright shafted.

A couple of dances and songs reverse the speed edge, Dawson and Naesala engage the enemy, but I'm worried about Ramza – only Rudy has rez and it's touch range.  Time for him to get his bardic butt into battle!  Rudy reaches Ramza and raises him; Naesala is down by now and Rudy tries to get him, too – but the enemy are on to us by this point and, shortly after a rez on Naesala and another on Ramza, who has gone down AGAIN, Rudy himself falls.  One of the geomancers goes axe crazy on Susan and one-shots her, removing even my reliable speed drain!

I can't farm this battle, largely due to screwing up in my setups.  But I'm not willing to concede defeat.  Dawson, my least experienced character, is the only one still standing (neither Ramza nor Naesala managed to get anything done before they dropped again), but he's facing a heavily speed broken force and was enhanced early on by bardic music – and he has charge.  Despite terrible compatibility with the surprisingly tanky Zalmo, Dawson gets him down to killing range and readies a charge.

Then Zalmo raises the first monk to fall.  The first to fall, which means she only lost speed once.  Gulp.

Sure enough, she interposes her turn between Dawson and his charge, runs over to him and launches a repeating fist.  Damage is rolled...

... and Dawson comes out of it in critical condition – but alive.

A charged double attack later, Zalmo isn't.

Plot Observations:

In retrospect, I have to wonder what would have happened if Ramza had turned himself in to Zalmo.  Zalmo was no Lucavi; he was either a true believer or part of High Priest Funeral's side of the scheme.  (The latter seems more likely, considering that he recognized Delita for who and what he was.)

Would Funeral have had Ramza killed out of hand to cover things up?  Or would he have listened to Ramza's warning about the holy stone and investigated Vormav's band more thoroughly, perhaps even recruiting Ramza?  Ironically, at this point, Ramza didn't know ANYTHING solid about the Church's involvement in the war, nor had he ever even heard of the Germonik Scriptures.  He would have been a prime recruit if Funeral managed to convince him that the corruption was limited to the Shrine Knights.

Of course, the Church didn't know what Ramza didn't know, so...

Anyway, on to new propositions!  (And Orbonne, eventually.)

Orbonne Monastery: Underground Book Storage 1st Floor

Once again, I'm down to  l i t t l e   m o n e y.  Admittedly, I'm trying to buy enough gear for multiple class combinations because I'm not sure yet what I'll need for the underground book storage, but after doing all propositions I'm a bit stunned to be down to 83 gil.  Is this a side effect of the mod, of not doing any randoms, or of overbuying?

Ramza has 0 XP right now so I'm not worried about him leveling.  I consider switching him to squire to get the JP for his remaining ubersquire abilities, and discover that he can't equip a Giant Axe!  I never used axes in vanilla; was ubersquire always thus deprived?  Since the Main Gauche is now available, I switch Ramza to weapon guard thief and give him an elf mantle.  >100% evade off best-in-show speed FTW?  I have no idea.  Obviously this will change for Wiegraf, who ignores evade, but I expect good things in the next couple of battles.

Rudy on the other hand is 2 XP from leveling, so ninja it is!  Dawson goes geomancer (to learn attack up and possibly counter flood), Naesala stays a calc with summon, and Susan goes back to samurai (with white magic).

With the setup, my first try at Underground Book Storage 3 is... a pathetic, not-even-close TPK.  The enemy lancers have superb equips and destroy my armor, every enemy seems to have Item, the terrain doesn't allow me to get in good position to tank with what amount to defensive setups, and both my rez-capable people go down like chumps.

1st Floor, 2nd Try

These enemies have an incredible array of items I'd like to acquire, both for my use and cash purposes.  This time, I go into the battle set to destroy their speed, raise mine, and invite as many foes as possible.  In particular, I'd like to turn all three lancers to my side since they have better lances and armor than I can purchase at this point.

What I DON'T do is go into battle with enough rez capabilities to survive until the speed adjustment is complete.  And by “enough” I mean “any.” >_<

1st Floor, 3rd Try

Giving a couple of people the ability to bring others back solves my remaining problems.  Speeds are broken, songs and dances abound, and the lancers all get invited, stripped and booted.

Contra Izlude

Same strategy as last time, both knights invited.  Bard & Dancer hax on large map ftw.  Possibly the easiest battle so far?

Izlude's willingness to recruit Ramza lends credence to idea that R's best move would have been to go with Zalmo and explain what happened.

Wiegraf Part Deux

Knowing how much damage even vanilla Wiegraf can do, I go with a full tank-spec force: knight w/ punch art and two swords for both Rudy and Ramza, lancer for Dawson, samurai for both Naesala and Susan.  It's nice to have a “magic-tank” option for the casters where they can benefit from their stats.

Tank-spec allows me to survive the initial barrage.  I don't lose anyone, even with Dawson taking Wiegraf's attack AND two from geomancers.  Oddly, despite the fact that geomancers are a great fit for the terrain of this battle, it seems less dangerous overall than the vanilla version.

Mostly, I suppose, because power break removes Wiegraf as a threat in one round.  Only his status matters now.  Between that and his support the enemy actually do manage to drop three of my characters – arguably, I'm past the point where chakra is sufficient healing to actually keep people on their feet –, but it's not even close to enough to keep me from dropping the crippled Wiegraf.

Grog Hill

With brigandine, germ boots and move +3 on ninja Rudy I have the option of making him Move NINE.  That's awesome.  (I go for Power Sleeve anyway.)

The battle at Grog Hill ends up being extremely easy, as usual.  It's a shame – many of these enemies have new setups from the looks of it, but my team is sufficiently well-honed that the opposition doesn't get the chance to show its stuff.  While I wouldn't expect challenge from vanilla FFT at Grog Hill's plot battle, I... guess I'm sort of disappointed that LFFT isn't harder?  If anything, I found Orbonne EASIER than in vanilla, where it's often one of the tougher sequences, and this is no exception.  This without doing any randoms!

Yardow Fort City

And just as I complain about challenge, Yardow delivers!

Ramza immediately rushes to the archway and tanks the entire enemy force.  Dual main gauches work perfectly here, despite disappointing me in the past.  Rafa escapes without difficulty.  Naesala stands in the back, awaiting a chance to sing a cheer song since this neatly dodges the calc speed issue after the first turn.

But that's the extent of my early success.  Rudy, Susan and Dawson trade off dropping to a dizzying array of attacks.  Malak's hell skill and ninjas' two swords prove highly effective at carving up Rudy's shield of MP and getting through to deal damage.  Dawson as a monk just isn't tough or experienced enough to survive at the ranges he has to engage.  And Susan... takes over 200 damage from a water ball?!  Man, what?

Despite no one being able to stay up for long except Ramza, I manage to pen Malak's forces up inside the city for quite a while.  At last, though, Ramza has to move to enable some of my healing.  Yardow vomits forth a flood of ninja, who fortunately are not also doctors (although the summoners apparently are, since both have white magic secondary and use it aggressively).  Fortunately, cheer song has started to work its magic and Ramza considerably outspeeds them – doubly fortunate because Rudy and Susan, the two rez-capable people, are both unconscious (and Susan's reraise from Heaven's Cloud has already triggered).

Dawson, who was roused by raise-2 just before Susan fell, smacks the surviving summoner... and crits, pushing her away with his first hit so his second misses. >_<  Ramza kills one of the two ninja outside; he's never attacked the other so I don't know how compatible he'll be.

Dawson gets another action before the summoner and finishes her off, but Rudy is at 1 and fading fast thanks to his high speed; Susan isn't far behind.

Ramza approaches the last ninja, and...

... he has superb compatibility.  Each hit, even with prot-spec gear, does over a hundred damage.

I breathe a sigh of relief and advance forward.

Yuguo Woods

I screw up by not bringing anyone with talk skill to recruit awesome ghosts. ,-_-,  Aside from this oversight, Yuguo is an easy battle.  Most of my characters can two-shot the enemy when the enemy aren't charging, and all the enemy mages prove happy to charge spells within range.  Even the ghosts' powers can't do more than slow down my victory.

Riovanes Castle Gate

I finish the Yardow props and buy sprint shoes and some new gear, but are too poor to get fully kitted out.  Most notably, I can't afford golden hairpins for the clothie set, which could potentially hurt in the coming sequence.

Oh, the battle?  It's... Riovanes Castle Gate.  It's a farming battle, as always.  The initial wave of improved archers + improved knights + improved (I think) Malak SHOULD be challenging, and it DOES make me spend some time slowly chipping the enemy HP down while Susan dances and Naesala sings, but at no point am I in serious danger of losing the fight.  It's pretty sad when, even though the enemy classes here are probably the most improved in LFFT, they're STILL not close to competitive.

Then I settle in to grind for items and calc JP, since it's one of the best story battles in the game for the latter.  I'm OVAR 4000!  Question regarding both LFFT and regular FFT: Why do enemy knights with no spellcasting ability always come with robes?  I understand the white robes for elemental resistance, but...

Inside Riovanes

I go tank-spec, for the most part.

Wiegraf has Scream? :gulp:  This plus the changes to Yell don't completely solve his problems – I'm still able to speed break and power break him and then run off to at least Accumulate, and Speed Save gives me decent speed despite not being able to yell myself – but it definitely makes this trickier than it used to be, and Ramza less prepared for Velius than usual.

I take Wiegraf down without really going crazy on the accumulation, mostly because I don't want Ramza to level too much in knight rather than ninja, and we're on to Velius.

Rather surprisingly, Ramza double-turns everyone at the start of the battle.  I guess he gets carryover CT and I just never noticed it because I either didn't have a high Speed or had SUCH a high Speed it didn't matter. -_-'

Velius uses Loss, which is very nasty and, I think, new.  One side effect of confusing almost my whole team is, however, that their random attacks quickly start to cure each other of the status.  Another benefit – samurai Susan uses her draw outs while confused and has only beneficial effects anyway. ^_^

Indeed, this battle proves to be no challenge at all.  Velius doesn't immune speed break, his support can't survive Ramza's attacks and couldn't have even if he hadn't spent a while accumulating.  I'm half-tempted to go back and redo this sequence to avoid those pesky level-ups as a knight.

In short order we're all quintuple-turning or more the big sheep, which makes defeating him fairly trivial; his meatbone slash is pretty nasty, but it merely signals the end of his futile resistance.

Inside Riovanes Voluntary Reset

As expected, neither Wiegraf nor Velius is able to present a challenge even to an unaccumulated Ramza and co.  Wiegraf gets power broken, then killed in two rounds of attacking; Velius's support is no longer one-shotted... but almost.  Velius himself gets his speed broken and is then callously nuked – all for the cost of Ramza gaining only a single low-speed-growth knight level.  Much better.

Roof of Riovanes Castle

I triple up on ninjas (Ramza, Rudy and Dawson) with full speed-and-power kit: power sleeves, sprint shoes, and either twist headbands or green berets as the balance of speed and attack power calls for.  With this loadout, I should be able to drop one of the assassins before they can do much to Rafa or the team.

Yep.  Lede goes down to 1 HP before Elmdor or his harem can act, and they decide to settle on the better part of valor.

Rafa and Malak get!  Yay?

I have to wonder why the Zodiac Stone healed Malak.  Was Ramza correct about it responding to the user's emotions?  Yet we know the stones aren't just power sources – they're the magicite of Ultima's twelve scions who rebelled against the gods.  It's apparently Queklain/Cuchulain's Scorpio she uses, and I can't see any particular reason for himto intervene on Malak's or Rafa's behalf.

Alternately, one could take it that the Galthanas are descended from the Dynast King and that Rafa therefore could control the scions in accordance with the pact between her ancestor and the Occuria, but AFAIK there's nothing else to support this interpretation, nor do I recall it being specified that Ashe has to be present to bind the espers in FF12.

Does Revenant Wings explain how Ultima and her set went from being “rebels against the gods, bound to serve humanity by their magicite” to “rebels against the gods, able to possess humans by their magicite?”

Anyway, with this, we have –

End Chapter 3.

[metroid composite]

So...Laggy was growing bothered by Speed Break against zodiacs.  We discussed some possible changes, discussed the relative power of speed break compared to other abilities that are good against zodiacs.  Conversation from here went something like...

Laggy: You know what
Laggy: I'm not going to bother changing it
mc: ?
Laggy: Making zodiacs resistant to Speed Break. You've convinced me. And I've convinced myself that the people saying this really don't understand that the amount of setup they're putting into it could have been invested elsewhere and still break the game in half

And then the followup:

mc: It's a question of "who's your audience", I think.  Spectacular players don't see Speed Break as all that special, but more than one playtester has complained that they feel they have to use breaks because they're so good.

So...we decided to limit how much you can break Zodiac demon speed.  In the next update, for most zodiacs you'll only be able to break it down to 4 speed, not 1 speed (4 speed is still quite slow, so this is still fairly powerful).  There were two directions we could have gone:

Direction #1: "Speed on Zodiacs can only be lowered by -insert number-, not more" I.e. if the number is 5, Queklain would go 9-5 = 4 speed, but Hashmallum would go 13-5 = 8 speed.
Direction #2: "Speed on Zodiacs can only be lowered to -insert number-, not lower" I.e. Queklain can be lowered to 4, Hashmallum can be lowered to 4.

We chose the second option, because speed breaking gets less effective as the game goes on (i.e. you need to speed break Hashmallum 9 times to get him to the minimum, compared to 5 times for Queklain).

Next, where the number 4 comes in--when you cast slow on a speed 4 person, they become speed 2; when you cast slow on a speed 3 person, they become speed 1 (and it feels like we're trying to avoid speed 1 effects with this change).  In other words, I didn't really want to go lower than 4.  On the flip side, much higher than 4 is unimpressive--using 6 instead of 4, you lower a Zodiac's speed more with a single casting Slow than you do by speed breaking multiple, multiple times; that doesn't feel right.  4 felt like the right balance between "this is a powerful effect on a Zodiac demon, worth the effort" and "I can let my dog finish the boss fight now."

[Dark Holy Elf]

I assume you pull this off by giving them three Sprint Shoes (or Thief Hat + Sprint Shoes, whatever, some equipment) and Maintenance?

[Laggy]

Correct. Sprint Shoes in this case as Thief Hat would add some extra HP.

[Grefter]

Haha!  Neat.

Edit - How would you have accomplished capping the speed break at minus a set ammount of speed then I am wondering?