New Nyarlathotep's Dungeon Topic, Updated 10/1/14 with new rules

[dude789]

There's a decent amount of difference between them. The BJ&K body can heal humans well early on and has nice burst damage. Rabbit body trades BJ&K's human healing for more speed and still has Magnify. Engineer Car body is one of the most useful since it can also heal mechs WP which could be useful for Wren or Demi but it's also the slowest. The PzkwV body looks like the most durable and Zeke body has the best speed.  Once she gets to floor 6 or so she will probably want to stick with the Omega body though outside of very specific teams.   

[Scar]

11 points huh? I might as well try my hand!

Chris Lightfellow 2.5
Raquel Applegate 3.0 (Neo Speed) - I think it works on her.
Crono 2.0
Citan Hyuga 3.0
Rena 0.5

Done! Not the craziest magic group, but passable I think.

edit: Took out Nina and added Rena.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

The healing on that team is amazingly awful.

EDIT: To elaborate, you don't have revival until floor 4, Chris' resources utterly -suck- for her to work as a healing battery and Citan's healing takes two turns to become MT and becomes progressively worse with time. You'd probably want to stick someone like Mint or Rena on that 0.5 spot, since Nina3 offense sucks anyway and her durability is an endless liability.

[Tide]

EDITTED FOR CONSISTENCY:

Ramza - 3.0
Citan - 2.5
ACF Cecilia - 2.5
RAP MASTA SEIFER - 1.0
Raynie - 1.0

Yeah I realize this doesn't use all 11 points, this is due to the use of Body Charge and having some freedom moving the stone around after chatting about it with Neph. So yeah. Should be fun. Old team scrapped because I had no one for Magic damage other than Cecilia and that's probably going to run into problems at some point.

Also, that's right, I am using SEIFER. Fear me.

[Nephrite]

So I have been considering two (rather major) dungeon changes.

The first is to allow equipment swapping before any fight on a floor. This means that there will probably be more "Fight X, then fight Y" final boss fights on floors (which isn't a bad thing, necessarily...) but it may  have farther-reaching impacts and change costs a lot, especially with characters who have good blockers vs. ones that don't.


The second change would be to limit skillsets on characters who don't join until later until they'd logically receive them in-game. This really affects people like Deis who would theoretically have her skillset reduced. I'm not really sure this one is worth it because it, again, completely changes certain dynamics. I might just go through and try and weed out some of the strange scaling issues and bring notice them.

As always, thoughts and opinions are encouraged and welcome.

[Yoshiken]

First one.. no preference either way, I guess, although I think it makes more sense to just have equip changes allowed at Full Heals and not between fights. That said, don't care enough either way to push for anything.

Second one, I'd specify characters on. Someone like, say, Teddie is bad enough over the first few floors. (Mabufula, Mediarama, Energy Shower. That's a pretty terrible skillset to keep hold of for the first 3 floors.) If there's a few offenders for it, then point them out as specific rulings on the Wiki, but I wouldn't punish everyone who joins later across the board.

[dude789]

Not really a fan of either of the changes. It seems like it would create a really disproportionate gap between those who can block one or two elements or status at a time and those who can't. It feels like it would also devalue characters who can cover a lot of elemental and status resists with one setup compared to those who can only hit one or two at a time. I think allowing characters to replace broken weapons or with a new one or allow for a full change at Full Heals is fair though.

As for the second change, it seems like it would just be confusing and create interp issues. For the most part, characters like Deis who start out with strong skill sets already have it reflected in their cost. 

[ThePiggyman]

So I have been considering two (rather major) dungeon changes.

The first is to allow equipment swapping before any fight on a floor. This means that there will probably be more "Fight X, then fight Y" final boss fights on floors (which isn't a bad thing, necessarily...) but it may  have farther-reaching impacts and change costs a lot, especially with characters who have good blockers vs. ones that don't.

I don't know if this one would be THAT much of an issue? As far as elemental blockers go, certain characters might benefit from swapping between them, but from what I've seen in the dungeon, I think it's only really been an issue a couple of times. For example, in the elemental fiend floor, I'd say the only element that you really need to worry about is Fire. The other fights aren't a walk in the park, of course, but the reliance on a single element isn't as great as the Rubicante / Ho-oh / Kary fight, and most teams can generally manage the rest of the floor if they can survive that floor without too much damage. I think what might be more worrisome is switching between status blockers. I recall one floor where someone had Orlandu, and the team failed because Orlandu could only block so many statuses at once with his equips. All things said, it doesn't bother me, and I'd be fine with it if we decide to change it. It might finally make Eiko a 2.0 (which, let's face it, is probably where she should be as is).

The second change would be to limit skillsets on characters who don't join until later until they'd logically receive them in-game. This really affects people like Deis who would theoretically have her skillset reduced. I'm not really sure this one is worth it because it, again, completely changes certain dynamics. I might just go through and try and weed out some of the strange scaling issues and bring notice them.

Ehh, I don't think this one's necessary. I mean, some characters are already a little impaired by their in-game join time, and I don't think this would really do much for anyone. Like dude said, characters with strong skillsets are more or less already denoted by their higher value.

[Dhyerwolf]

I particularly dislike both changes.

The first creates a large split over status blockers, as there is pretty rare occasion to change otherwise. As there are certain floors (the 4th especially) where enemies are dependent at throwing multiple statuses at you, this would be an easy way for a few people to trivialize those floors. However, longer boss fights are good since if well planned they can deemphasize speed.

The other is a headache. Voting is already complicated enough without reducing skillsets that people start with.

Teddie is stuck with that skillset the first few floors even with current rules.

[dude789]

It's not that terrible of a skillset really. It's sparse, but Mediarama should be really good healing for floors one and two and MT averageish damage is never a bad thing.

[Dhyerwolf]

It's a bad skillset off that speed and durability (and Lightning weakness!) combo. Note that I just think that he's kind of a horrible choice even later.

[Yoshiken]

That's pretty much the point. As it stands, he has that for 3 floors, then starts getting some stuff that actually makes him useless. He has some capable damage/healing early on, and then gets some crazy good buffs, which help make up for the weakness. With the proposed change, his damage/healing is no longer good, so he's just dead weight for 3-4 floors.

[Nephrite]

I think you meant useful, not useless.

Regardless, I'm certainly not going to make things more complicated, so I'll just leave things alone but try and clarify that you can't change equipment.

Maybe I should make an EQUIP CHANGE SEALSTONE??? (no I will not)

[Talaysen]

I like the first change.  Always felt like an arbitrary limitation to not let characters switch equips between fights.  And I think it will help a lot with balancing since you don't have to scale everything around the fact that the characters must use the same setup for the ENTIRE FLOOR.

Second one I dislike because then you're considering characters who can't even exist in-game.  You have to somehow extrapolate backwards and at worst make arbitrary decisions on where they get what.  If they're that much of a problem, just remove them from the dungeon honestly.  Late-joining PCs just aren't a good fit for the system and trying to hack them in is just a pain.

[Yoshiken]

Just glancing through the Wiki, some of it needs updating. Not sure if character values have changed or what, but I can see that Kyogre's still listed on the Specific Rules page, at least. Might not matter much, but I know there was discussion on changing values and don't know if that was ever reflected in the Wiki.

[Nephrite]

The values of characters should be up-to-date. I can take another pass at it if there's anyone people think is outlying in terms of cost.

[Nephrite]

Speaking of character values, I think it's time I retire Rikku.

I only say this because I feel like she's a free pass to a lot of later floors.

I am aware that OK used Rikku and failed very early on, but I think that had less to do with Rikku and more to do with the rest of his team.

I am, as always, open to suggestions on this particular matter, as well as retiring (or introducing) other characters.


I just don't like the idea of a character that can more or less solo entire floors until later on, which I realize some sort of do, but not as badly.

[dude789]

I think it's a bit premature for now. I'd need to look more closely at the floor 7 fights status resists before I'm comfortable saying that she is a free pass for the floor. With that team being so small they really need to completely stop the opponent team with status or else they're in trouble.

Edit: Looking at the floor, it looks like only people who block sleep are Jude and maybe one of the other FF characters (Terra doesn't though and she's the biggest threat) this seems like more of a flaw with the floor than a flaw with the character. As it stands now, there are probably quite a few characters who could trivialize that floor with status (Toadstool, Songstress and Nash come to mind.)

[Nephrite]

It isn't that she trivializes one floor, it's that she seems to trivialize multiple ones. From Floor 3 to 7 she more or less has the tools to shut them down. Are those faults of floor design? Possibly.

[dude789]

Right now it's her status that's trivializing floors more than her other options. So adding more characters like Gilder or other characters who can shut down status should help. Hand out Ribbons or Status Symbol Law sealstones to characters in certain fights. If you really wanted to get creative you get incorporate more characters who shut down item use like Bowyer or say a Weavile (from Pokemon) that knows Embargo. It's the same problem we've always had with characters who have accurate status or ID.

[ThePiggyman]

Right now it's her status that's trivializing floors more than her other options. So adding more characters like Gilder or other characters who can shut down status should help. Hand out Ribbons or Status Symbol Law sealstones to characters in certain fights. If you really wanted to get creative you get incorporate more characters who shut down item use like Bowyer or say a Weavile (from Pokemon) that knows Embargo. It's the same problem we've always had with characters who have accurate status or ID.

Well, I wouldn't say it's just her status. I mean, the super-accurate-lethal-MT-status-that-comes-in-different-flavours is definitely part of it, but I know a lot of people see Rikku as being able to charge her Overdrives by leaving the weakest opponent and alive and letting her hoard turns. And Overdrives like Super Mighty Guard off her crazy first turn speed can certainly trivialize a fight as well. Rikku murders PCs, but can easily trivialize boss battles, too.

I don't know if I like the idea of making certain fights completely status immune, or unable to use items, since I feel it'll hurt a lot of teams, all for the sake of shutting down status users. I mean, there are others with good status, like you mentioned, but Rikku has batshit crazy first turn speed. Songstress borders on average speed (and is really fragile), while someone like Nash's status is arguably not even MT. When it comes to status use in the dungeon, the primary objective is to prevent the opponent from getting a single turn. Most people in the dungeon don't live beyond a single turn, unless you're a durable boss, so if you can't prevent that single turn, status isn't really that worthwhile. Rikku excels at it thanks to her speed. And when she can't nuke with her status, she's got an actual backup strategy with Overdrives.

I mean, she's definitely worthy of being a 4.0, but I can understand Neph's gripes. =P

[Yoshiken]

I can definitely see getting rid of Rikku, mostly for the reasons Pigs said. It's not just "fast with status", but "fast with a variety of status, both positive and negative"

[Random Consonant]

Yeah, I have to agree with dude, I'm not quite sure exactly what the problem is.  I can think of a few people who trivialize multiple floors with MT status, I can think of a few who've trivialized floors with positive status, which is also being overhyped as a concern as well.  Yeah Use makes her next turn come up really fast, but you know what?  Until she hits an overdrive, it's all ST and hitting that overdrive doesn't exactly take a trivial amount of time until she gets a Triple OD weapon, which is something like F6/7.

I mean, you say things like this:

I am aware that OK used Rikku and failed very early on, but I think that had less to do with Rikku and more to do with the rest of his team.

But I can say the same thing about any number of teams, ones that have both succeeded and failed at making it to F7.  All the hype in the world for 4.0 PC of your choice here isn't going to make a difference if the rest of your team sucks at handling the things that 4.0 PC also sucks at handling, which doesn't seem to be the case for Monkey's team.

[Nephrite]

Petrify Grenades are not ST. There are quite a few other skills of hers that are MT that don't involve Mix at all.

I'd be curious to see another individual character who can trivialize (let's say) floors 5, 6 and 7 by themselves, actually.

[dude789]

Petrify Grenades are not ST. There are quite a few other skills of hers that are MT that don't involve Mix at all.

I'd be curious to see another individual character who can trivialize (let's say) floors 5, 6 and 7 by themselves, actually.

I wouldn't say that she's trivialized all of the floors, Floor 7 just ended up being one that had a bunch of status vulnerable PCs. Virginia and especially Body Charge KOS-MOS were both integral to Team Monkey's success on floors 5 and 6. Nall's also a really good pair with Rikku once she get's Al Behd Potions. A poorly designed Rikku team would have crashed and burned against the boss floor, but Monkey's team is pretty well designed. KOS-MOS and Virginia do a solid job of covering up Rikku's lack of damage while boosting the team's overall versatility. 

Edit: Since it looks like overdrives are a big argument for while Rikku is overpowered, why not restrict her to a certain Overdrive mode like Stoic or something so she can't build up overdrive as easily unless the team is specifically designed around it.