Part 31: Interlude 1: Mechanics and Stats

Interlude 1: Game Mechanics and Stats

Prepare for

Combat

Easiest thing to explain first. When a unit moves in range of an enemy unit and selects 'Attack', combat begins. The attacker goes first, and then the defender (if still alive) counterattacks. Whoever is 'faster' will then get a second attack.

• Damage: Attacker's Power + Attacker's Weapon Might - Defender's Defense
  
  • For magic attacks, Power = 0 and Resist is used instead of Defense
    
  • If a weapon is strong against the defending unit class its Might is tripled
• Attack Speed: Speed - Weapon Weight
  
  • Double-attacks: A unit will attack twice in a round if it has a greater Attack Speed
• Hit Rate %: Attacker's Skill + Attacker's Weapon Hit Rate - Defender's Attack Speed - Defender's Terrain Bonus
  
  • For magic attacks, Skill = 0 and Luck is used instead of Attack Speed
• Critical Rate %: (Attacker's Skill + Attacker's Luck)/2 + Attacker's Weapon Critical Hit Rate
  
  • A critical hit triples Damage but can still miss if the Hit Rate roll misses

The main difference here from later FE games is that double-attacks only require +1 Attack Speed, and there's no 'Con' stat to offset the weapon's Weight so heavier weapons always subtract directly from Speed.


Terrain

I was going to go into full detail on all the terrain types here, but it just felt boring. So if you want all the numbers, just go here instead (spoilers of upcoming class names though). All you really need to know is that most 'rough' terrain adds evade and costs more movement to pass through - no terrain adds defense in this game though. Flying units get no bonuses or penalties, other than healing from forts, castles, and thrones like every other unit. The big mountain peaks can only be crossed by flyers, and the ocean tiles can only be crossed by Pirates and flyers.


Promotions

Upon reaching Level 10, certain classes can promote into a new class with the use of a special item. There's no fixed promotion bonuses to any stats - if the unit has a stat that is lower than the new class's base stat, it will get an increase to bring it up to the base level. However, the base figures are typically smaller than what the Level 20 averages would be. Levels cap at 20 for all classes, so those that can promote can get to 40 levels compared to 20 for everyone else. I'll go into these as we come across the promoted units so as not to spoil the other classes here.

• Social Knight -> Paladin (Knight Medal)
  
• Pegasus Knight -> Dragon Knight (Dragon Whip)
  
• Archer -> Sniper (Orion Arrow)
  
• Cleric/Magician -> Priest (Priest Ring)
  
• Mercenary -> Hero (Hero Proof)

Armor Knights don't get a promotion even though there's an obvious class we'll see later that they should promote to (Generals). Marth also can't promote, one of his major drawbacks. Every other class not listed (including Thieves, Hunters, and Pirates) all can't promote.

Promotions are nice but it's not as critical to wait until Level 20 to promote here since (at least as far as I could tell) all the stats still cap at 20 even for promoted units. There's still an advantage to waiting, but it's a lot smaller than in future games. On the other hand, units that can promote can often get away with lower growth rates if the stats would cap out at 20 eventually anyway, and balanced growth rates are preferable to a bunch of 80/20 combos.


Experience

Characters gain experience based on what happens in combat. For most units, they will gain experience equal to how much damage they dealt, or a higher bonus if they killed an enemy unit. The bizarre exception - Clerics don't get any experience for using their wands - they have to survive an attack, and then they gain experience as if they killed that unit instead.

There's only a limited number of enemies to fight over the course of the game, so there's only a limited amount of experience overall (excepting Arenas, anyway). As long as we don't spread it too thin over too many units, we shouldn't ever have a problem here.


Weapons

Just from what we've seen so far:
The big thing with weapons is that all weapons are created equal; there's no inherent advantage of any weapon type over another. No 'weapon triangle' of swords -> axes -> lances -> swords to play with, so your only tradeoff is in the raw stats. No 'magic triangle' either; every Tome is vanilla. As I said in the last update, there's also only one Weapon Level stat, so a class that can wield multiple weapon types has the same Weapon Level for both.

Also, axes suck. But the only units that can use axes are stuck with only axes anyway, so there's not really a trade-off there.

Marth, Thieves and Mercenaries/Heroes can only use swords, while Paladins, Generals, and Social, Pegasus, Armor, and Dragon Knights can all use both swords and lances. Archers, Hunters, and Bow Knights can obviously only use bows, while Pirates and Fighters can only use axes. Clerics can only use wands, and Magicians can only use tomes; Priests can use either. Mamkutes obviously can only use Dragonstones, and Shooters can only use Catapults.


Other Stuff

Other things that aren't in this game, that you might expect if you're played any Fire Emblem game that actually left Japan:

• There are no supports between special characters, so no bonuses for using the same groups over and over. This also means that most characters - particularly the handful that we started with - have no personality whatsoever and never speak any lines.
  
• There are no hidden chapters or extra difficulty modes. Everything is laid out in plain sight right in front of you. (Well, almost.)
  
• When you select your units to move them, you can't actually see their movement range at all. You just have to move your cursor until it stops. You can't see enemy movement/attack ranges either, you have to actually go look at their stats page and figure it out yourself.
  
• You can't sell any of your extra or unused equipment, and can only visit shops on the maps - if there are any there.
  
• Thieves can't steal items, so if you let an enemy Thief take a treasure chest from you, it's gone.
  
• Every map is won by seizing either the castle (outdoors) or throne (indoors). No kill-the-boss, no kill-all-the-enemies, no survive X turns, etc.
  
• There aren't any fog of war maps, you can always see everything that's going on.
  
• There's no way to preview combat results before you actually attack, so you either get a good feel for how things will go or you spend a lot of time crunching numbers in your head first.
  
• In some games strong or mounted units can rescue other units in trouble. Not so here.
  

Plus some other special surprises reserved for later.