Part 17

Shiny777

Okay, so here's the results of poking around in Nightmare with what's been seen already.

Lilina Lilian isn't in a modified Lord class, instead the author seems to have just renamed the female Mage and called it a day. Didn't even give it the special properties designating it as a Lord or anything. The class base is 16, and she has no base addition there, (or any base additions except 5 luck, in fact...just like Lyn in the base game, what a shock!) but is autoleveled from 1 to 4, so 19 HP is the correct number, and the result of her getting lucky on her 70% growth. Her growths are completely identical to Lyn's, by the way. The Kent and Sain replacements have the same growths (and base additions) too, in fact, so I'm gonna tentatively assume the hacker didn't change those at all.

I've figured out where the extra 7 HP comes from. The Bolt tome gives a stat bonus when equipped: +7 max HP.

The Peer class has a base Con of -1 and a base Def of 0, and Kent Elbert Zack has a -1 base addition to Def, so both of those are -1 for him. Similarly, the Soldier has a base Spd of 1, and Batta has a -2 penalty. Base 0 and -1 penalty for Zugu Oswin, etc. So that's what the -- stats are.

Shiny777

The Peer class has Steal and the ability to use Lockpicks. And Wo Dao access. And Lethality. Presumably in an attempt to (over)compensate for the fact that it has no promotion.

Shiny777

Well, it's not so much about the tome's properties as a weapon, but... Bolt's just Thunder with some stat edits, is the thing. Which was, y'know, a generic low-end staple tome in the base game.

The hacker, uh. Forgot to remove it from the shops. Or change its price, which was 20g per use. So from fairly early on in Eliwood/Hector's story, you can freely buy anti-armor Brave tomes that give +7 max HP for 200 a pop. You could fill a mage's inventory completely with them for about the price of an unmodded Thunder tome and a half, and have roughly as many total uses.

But their low individual number of uses and the resulting loss of room for Vulneraries or whatever totally balances that out, right?

...Right?

Shiny777

Let's talk baffling weapon decisions again!

The Mani Katti? It hasn't just been de-Prf'd to account for the main character not using swords. It's also been cut down from 45 uses to 20. And has had its anti-armor/horse bonuses taken away. Meanwhile, its stats (8 mt, 80 hit, 3 wt, 20 crit) are unchanged. For comparison, a common Killing Edge has 9 mt, 75 hit, 7 wt, and 30 crit. Also? Killing Edges are C rank. The Mani Katti is B. Literally the only reason to ever use the Katti over a generic Killing Edge is for the weight, and unless there are other -- Con PCs floating around (admittedly a distinct possibility), Zack is the only one who even cares about that, so it's...waaaaait a second...does that 21 mean what I think it does...?

...The Mani Katti is a Brave weapon now! Well shit, never mind all that, you've got a Brave Sword with a crit chance and less crippling weight, thus, uh...basically obsoleting the Brave Sword Zack started with! At least until those 20 uses run out, since I doubt the author made them buyable, because .

God this hack is just endlessly magical.

Shiny777

Some Ostian Princess bits: I'm pretty sure the author just didn't bother to dig around and set any custom promotion pointers, and Peer doesn't have any by default since it was never intended to be a PC class (or to exist outside of cutscenes at all), so Zack is stuck with 20s across the board forever. Sad, really, since basically any promotion, even to an unpromoted class, would give him like +10 Con or thereabouts. Axel is similarly screwed out of a promotion, which is also going to hurt because the Bard Flute Mage caps are the same as in the base game. Given that he has Sain's growths, he is going to ram the FUCK out of that 10 Mag cap and then choose between either doing shit damage or tanking his Spd pretty badly (since Light is still heavy and he has 3 goddamn Con) to use stronger tomes.

Also uh. Silver hair in a sorta similar style. Blue eyes. Katana. Named Sephyz. ...Did you just recruit a genderflipped Sephiroth? I think you just recruited a genderflipped Sephiroth.

Shiny777

The Thief issue is due to autolevel. Specifically, a lack of it. In addition to bumping them to the appropriate level, autolevel also gives generics whatever weapon level they need to use their equipment. Without it, they're stuck with their base rank. And even level 1 mooks can be set to autolevel, so the Thief being level 1 is irrelevant.

Not sure why Sephyz'd be getting poor EXP. My theory was that her class was actually just Blade Lord with another name and assigned a different battle sprite, but no, she really is a female myrm. Also it turns out female Myrms have Lethality now! ...But female Swordmasters don't.

The reason for Mundo's even weapon ranks is that he didn't bother to change Dorcas' ranks, so he gets the C axes Dorcas would have had, and without a lower/higher set rank overriding it he gets the base C lances all Generals get.

Shiny777

The Armory village can probably be explained away with the original map having an armory, but no village, and it being more effort than our beloved hacker cared to put in to actually tweak things to remove the armory and insert a proper village, since that doesn't look like something Nightmare can do.

Also, I notice you aren't putting in the R button character descriptions. You probably should, or at least some of them. They would reveal, for example, that Serra now works for House Laus, for...some reason... Even though uh. This being after FE6 probably means House Laus isn't even a thing anymore since there was no indication Eric had any heirs lined up... Oh, and that Corsa is Renault's brother! Which...would make him probably like a hundred years old or so at this point so why does he still look like Renault did did he make a deal with Nergal too or _{oh god my brain it hurts I need to stop asking questions.}

But yeah the point is some of the ones that have actually been changed noticeably are worth showing. Did you know Zack, in addition to being Marquess Thria, is also the commander of Ostia's first armada? Why, you ask, does a landlocked territory have an armada at all, let alone several? An excellent question! And one the hack will almost certainly never even attempt to answer!

And no idea how the hell the Natalie thing happened, but for whatever it's worth, from having seen scraps of what awaits it looks like that gets fixed eventually. In probably about the dumbest way possible.

Shiny777

:magical: as ever!

Now, let's talk weapon gimmicks! Aureola now gives +20 HP, +6 Str, +10 Skl, +8 Spd, -40 Def (yes, MINUS 40), +10 Res, and +6 Luck. The -40 doesn't display properly, possibly because weapons were never really intended to give penalties like that. Also it pierces defenses! The Luna effect is like the only thing Mig loves more than the brave effect, so expect to see it a lot on unique weapons!

Frequently combined with the Brave effect. Because that's totally a thing that can be done. Oh, and those batshit stat modifiers? Pretty much par for the course for special weapons, really. Forblaze and Gespenst are pretty weird in their lack of them, really. Gespenst doesn't even get better stats or a minor mod like +7 HP or something as compensation. Poor, sad Gespenst, always doomed to be the most worthless S rank...

The Sol Katti gives +10 HP, +5 Str, -20 Skl, +5 Spd, -10 Def, +60(!!!) Res and +5 Luck. And also pierces defenses. It's presumably meant as a gimmick "hope for a crit to kill one dude of your choice!" thing, but...it's not that great at it, with its unchanged stats, and there's another weapon later that is so much better at that niche that the SK becomes hilariously awful. It's pretty bitchin' if you need to run out a seige tome or status staff or whatever, though, I guess, what with. Making you literally invincible against non-defense-piercing magic. Oh, and it and Aureola are both still anti-dragon, so there's that too, I guess. Eh.

And these are just the beginning of the batshit superweapons in this game. They are pretty much the most amazing non-plot aspect of it, no real contest.

Shiny777

Making Ninian not move should have been trivial. He could have just copied AI settings from Murdock and voila, she'd be rooted to the spot. This is entirely doable with Nightmare, and not at all difficult.

Despite being level 9 promoted, Enemok only has a C in swords, which is...pretty pathetic. Silver Swords have been knocked down to C specifically so he can still use one. And as a minor spoiler for something coming up shortly, he leaves after the next map, so make sure to empty out his inventory first.

Also, did you notice the godawful hit on the Brave Lance Soldier? Brave Lances have 0 hit in this hack! For...some reason. None of the other three basic Brave Weapons are altered, and the Lance doesn't get any special bonus effect this might have been intended to "balance," so...I guess Mig just fucking hated Brave Lances...?