Part 4: Mechanics Interlude 1: Stats

Well I can at least get this out. I doubt it's necessary considering that there are 4 Fire Emblem LPs going on, but for posterity's sake, I suppose:

Mechanics Interlude the First: Stats

AKA What the fuck do all these numbers mean?

Fire Emblem is a bit unique among SRPGs in that there are zero deviations from your stats. That is to say, if you know your stats, there are absolutely no surprises in the game for you. You always know your damage output, you always know your hit rate, etc. I touched on all this stuff in the updates, but this is going to be a bit more detailed, so if you already know all this stuff, feel free to skip this.



So let's look at Lyn here. As a quick refresher:

- Strength (or Magic, for relevant units) increases your damage done.
- Skill increases critical rate and hit rate
- Speed increases evasion and your ability to attack twice
- Luck increases evasion and hit rate, and deals with one very specific item
- Defense and Resistance decrease physical/magical damage



In addition, each weapon has stats of their own:

- Weapon Type (in this case Sword)
- Weapon Level is how proficient you need to be with that weapon type to use it. In this case, the Mani Katti is unique to Lyn (hence the "Prf"), but usually there would be a C, or an E, or whatever.
- Range is obviously how far away you can attack. Most weapons have 1, though a few can hit two away (such as Hand Axes, Javelins, etc.), while Bows can only hit 2 (or 3, in the case of the Longbow) spaces away, and can't counter a unit directly next to them. Magic is its own beast here, ranging from 1-2 to 3-10 or even Magic/2.
- Might (Mt) is the base damage of the weapon.
- Weight (Wt) is how heavy the weapon is.
- Hit is the base accuracy.
- Critical (Crit) is the base critical chance. For most weapons, it's 0, but Slim weapons start with 5, Killer weapons start at 30, and unique weapons can be just about anywhere, though most of them fall between 10 and 20.

These numbers all combine in various ways to give us the stat block at the bottom there, which is our "Gross" stats if you will:

- Atk is our base damage, found by adding the unit's Strength/Magic score and the weapon's Might score. So Lyn's 6 Strength + the Mani Katti's 8 Mt give us 14 Atk.
- Hit is found by totaling weapon accuracy, Luck/2, and Skill*2. In Lyn's case, 80 + 20 (2 * 10, Skill Bonus) + 3 (6/2, Luck Bonus).
- Crit is found by adding weapon critical, Skill/2, and any relevant bonuses. Certain classes get a passive 15 bonus to critical, and you get 5 Hit and Crit with any weapon type for S-ranking that weapon class. Here, Mani Katti's 20 plus Lyn's 10 Skill give us 20 + 5 (10/2).
- Avoid is found with Attack Speed * 2 (see below), Luck, and any terrain bonuses. In this case, Lyn's AS is 11, so it comes out to 22 (11*2) + 6.

In addition to those formulas, there's also a potential support bonus for everything, but they aren't available until Eliwood's story, and I'll go into more detail then.

There are two other stats they don't actually show you unless you use the advanced attack preview window. The first is Attack Speed, which is ludicrously important. Attack Speed is the main factor in Avoid, but more importantly it determines whether or not you get to attack twice in battle. It's found by taking your speed (So 11 for Lyn), and then subtracting the difference between the weapon's Wt and the unit's Constitution [So: Attack Speed = Speed - (Wt - Con), where the quantity is taken as 0 if negative]. You can only double attack a unit if your Attack Speed is at least 4 more than theirs. The second stat is Critical evasion, which is simply Luck and any support bonuses.

When it comes time for actual battle, these stats are combined logically to give you the numbers you see in the attack preview window. Atk minus the defender's defensive stat will give you how much damage you do, and their attack minus your defense is how much you'll take; your hit minus their avoid is your hit rate (maxing out at 100), etc, etc.

This is also when the weapon triangle bonuses are applied, so if you're using an axe to attack a lance-wielding unit, you add 1 damage and 15 hit to your stats, and the enemy will lose 15 hit and 1 damage. In addition, if a weapons is "effective" against a given enemy (such as the Mani Katti against Cavaliers or Knights), the weapon's Mt will be tripled before all these calculations take place (which more than triples the actual damage you do, all things said and done).

So that's a bit more in-depth look at how the game actually comes up with these numbers, if there's anything else I should explain, or isn't clear just let me know and I'll do my best to clarify.