Nyarlathotep's Dungeon: Week 96

[Talaysen]

Also, on a general philosophical note, while it's cool that Orlandu CAN be back-scaled rather easily, I'd rather remove the hack on Orlandu (and raise the price if necessary) than attempt to impose it everywhere else.  Figuring out hypothetical early-game stats for characters who don't exist then?  Meh.

Completely agree with this.

(The Dungeon already does this a bit for when it's sane to note the party competition - e.g. if you want to get fancy, hypothetical F2 Magus shouldn't have to worry about Ayla in the averages, even if Ayla is around when Magus himself joins.  But attempting to guess the power of early-game non-existent Magus equipment?  No.)

Don't agree with this.  F2 Magus should certainly be compared to Ayla.

[Nephrite]

 A change of that sort would have a rather significant impact on every single non-start off PC... but I can do it to make it easier, it just means I have to reprice a lot of things.

[Pyro]

Static with their joining stats from start till when they join unless otherwise specified. This is easy enough.

I guess the issue with Deis and some others is they join a bit underpowered but quickly pick up, so in the dungeon they are at the weak start point for a long time. No real way around that I think.

Just pointing out that SS's turn swapping is used more often for a reason, and kind of has to be used twice where straight turn granting has to be used only once. I don't think it costs Djinn a floor here.

[dude789]

A change of that sort would have a rather significant impact on every single non-start off PC... but I can do it to make it easier, it just means I have to reprice a lot of things.

I really don't think it would change that much. A lot of people already use this scaling or use it unconsciously if they're not highly familiar with the game in question and the price values have in most cases worked themselves out. Orlandu would go back to a 4.0, Athos should be dropped unless we keep him as an exception. Lenneth's fine where she is. She's Emily trading a lot of speed and evasion and some damage for some mediocre healing and buffing and some durability.

[SnowFire]

Athos already is an exception, so no need to change anything there.  I don't really see any need to change much else...  looking through the list of Dungeon picks...  the only potential split is whether to interpret "scale at join time" hardcore for things that are blatantly level-based, like Suikoden magic charges or FF6 MP.  Nobody should ever be caring about the presence or lack thereof of legal equipment to equip when a character literally isn't in the party; rewarding or punishing based on that is crazy.  However, it is very easy to, say, recognize that Floor 1 Strago has MP issues, or that F1 Sasarai has fewer magic charges.  I'd be fine with either interp in such circumstances; Sasarai would like a scale-to-join-time interp that gives him a bunch of magic charges on F1-F5, but it's also very easy to not give him that benefit while scaling his general stats to join time.

* Billy doesn't join THAT late and has the same problem of "no equipment for him exists earlier so buh."
* Rosa & Rydia have long periods outside the party, so I guess a crazy voter could see Rydia as some kind of puny on Floors 3 &4, but meh to that, she should magically jump from either her time just before she leaves in Fabul to her rejoin time.  (And she can probably equip Porom / Palom / Tellah's stuff anyway.)
* Magus has the same "I don't even know how to interpt him like Orlandu" issue due to lack of equipment.  Hypothetical earlygame Ayla is probably really strong since she has a midgame weapon in her fists, but the only people who know for sure are those who do CT LLGs, which shouldn't be required to be able to interpret the Dungeon correctly.
* Elincia is easily interpreted for weapon availability at least.
* Sasarai, Gilder, & Strago are discussed above.
* And I stopped reading at 1.5.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Hmmm... well, even if there's no GR Lenneth damage respect, there's always Spell Reinforcing Ivan for awesome damage (and it's GT, so I can even get some of the other opponents at once as a bonus). It's a little resource intensive, but Might Reinforced Lenneth can take over for matches where Ivan's higher damage isn't needed. In the later fights, Ivan can even become a resourceless damage dealer by using Marco's and SS's turns to Release a bunch of Djinni at once and then Summon a massive L4 summon for great MT damage. Admittedly, this may end up a little slower in practice, but it leaves Lenneth to be a buffer/healer, and all her buffs and heals are great.

Anyway, all teams pass.