Part 5: (Part One, Chapter 2) A Daein the life of a Pre-Promote
…wherein we dispossess people. Of their possessions.
Also, their lives.
Begnion will be on the lookout for us. Let's steer clear of towns for now, unless we want more trouble.
Don't tell me... This means another night sleeping on the cold ground with nothing but bugs to keep us warm!
Oh, Edward, it's not that bad! The forest is so beautiful and serene. I'd almost rather be out here. Right, Yune?
"Yes, that's exactly where we're headed. To town. As in, not to a place that isn't town. Why do you ask?"
Our abbot is ill. He needs medicine, but Begnion soldiers are hoarding our provisions in the manor house."Oh. Well, we're very sympathetic and all that, what with the whole hating-Begnion thing that we have going, but Sothe and the gang and I are kinda busy running the hell away right now. We plan on remaining alive, as would facilitate our function as thorns in the sides of the oppressors. We're genuinely sorry."
"There's also a tome in there that will make you into a killing machine."
The Dawn Brigade, at your service! I'm sure we can help you and your abbot.
Yep. It's definitely a manor.
I was here years ago. As I remember, there's a large armory tucked deep inside the building. And if I understand correctly, Begnion soldiers guard valuables they've stolen - from rare objects to necessary supplies - in that armory. Then the medicine will be there, too. Are you sure you don't mind? Of course not! Danger is part of our work. Leave everything to us!"(This tome had better be worth it.)"
Your abbot will have his medicine.
So, little thing. The script I'm using to double-check all of this speech simply says "Good luck!" instead of the somewhat more flowery "May fortune be with us!". Was this a US/EUR change or did the author make a mistake?
Anyway, the game wastes no valuable time in sending us directly into combat.
Just a reminder, we're still on my "dummy" file, we'll return to the "real" file next update. Again, I fully expect god-like level ups in the dummy file which will be nowhere to be found in the real one.
Note the glowing green square to the north. This objective is "Arrive", and it works exactly like Escape, with the difference being that one specific character needs to go to the given square, and sending other people first won't do anything (unlike Escape, in which you can have units literally escape from the battle).
Before that, though, numbers!
Laura is an unashamed, by-the-book Staff Chick, her only deviation from this norm being her near-total irrelevance to anything that goes on in the game. She's not the main character's love interest, though she IS the love interest of a quite capable melee fighter, as we'll see, so there's that. She's even got that thing where eventually she can learn offensive magic but it's just not enough to save her from mediocrity. In other words, Laura's purpose is to heal and to absolutely never ever be involved in any combat ever because even a murderous intention is enough to one-shot her (though she could probably survive some magic, with that resistance). Laura also continues the Dawn Brigade trend of having weird growths for her class; her most likely stat increases at level up besides magic (70% chance) are speed and skill at 70% each, which is, frankly, absurd; yes, she'll be kinda good at dodging (she has pretty good luck too), but that's useless because by the time your healer is being attacked you have already lost. And what the hell is she going to do with skill? Have a higher accuracy when using her zero-dmg staves and her 2 strength against the frontline enemy units that she shouldn't be fighting? No, all she can really do is heal - which also, incidentally, makes her a pain to level up regularly.
Oh, did I not mention that staff users can counterattack at melee range now? This is new as of Radiant Dawn, and is primarily a side-effect of staves being equipped like weapons when you use them (unlike Path of Radiance, wherein they were used like inventory items with their own menu), because it sure as hell doesn't help them defend themselves. All staves have zero base damage and healer characters tend to have very low strength, resulting in zero damage potential against anything tougher than a flannel shirt. With gaping holes in it. Hilariously, staves also tend to have comparatively high critical hit rates, so they can often deal triple the usual zero damage. They also have the most adorably pathetic crit animation ever, which I must remember to show off at some point.
All of which aside, Laura is our only healer. For now. So she's allowed on the team. For now.
Right. Where were we? Oh, right the mission.
This map introduces a few New And Interesting Gameplay Elements™.
Here's one of them right now; ledges! Note the green squares, they're points where you can climb the ledge. You can't stand on the ledge itself, but you can climb up or jump down if you have at least 4 move to spare (the green square itself costs 3 move to cross, and you have to make it to at least the square beyond that). You can't melee over the ledge, but you can use ranged attacks and magic, and - this is The Important Bit™ - attacking down a ledge grants a +50 to your hit rate, while attacking up a ledge inflicts a -50 penalty. This doesn't just apply to the green areas where you can jump up and down; you can also attack through the barriers and get the bonus/penalty, as long as there's a height difference between you and your target. This makes climbing areas incredibly important strategic points; especially if they also happen to be chokepoints. Even a weak-ass archer or mage can stand on top of a ledge and be effectively invincible, because nothing can hit them. The worst tactical error you can make if there's a ledge between you and your foe is to leave a climb-point unchecked, unless you're actively retreating.
Hang on a minute, that's exactly what the enemy here has done! Nolan capitalizes. Micaiah starts to wear down the guy to our immediate right, and
This window, which appears when you begin the process of attacking but before you select a target, shows you the weapons you have. Edward still has the Steel Sword he picked up from the last chapter's boss. The window in the lower right shows us the secondary attributes we will have if we carry the highlighted weapon into battle - all except AS (attack speed), which is the most important one right now! To appreciate the difference, we need to inspect the weapons themselves;
The Steel Sword gains 3 Mt (attack strength) over the Iron, but it's weight is higher than Edward's strength and it will thus slow him down, making it very hard to get the double hits that he needs to be effective. So let's just unequip that and stick to the Iron Sword until he gets stronger. Speaking of Iron Swords, Edward proceeds to use his to reduce that guard to 3 HP. Leonardo finishes the job.
Laura brines up the rear, being very careful to stay out of enemy attack range. The only thing Fire Emblem AI loves more than attacking units that can't counterattack is attacking healers, and we still have uses for Laura.
The gall! And the intrigue! Now, listen up, my men, catch 'em midstream and filet 'em like fish!High five if you instinctively read that in a British accent. I mean, come on, there's a weird trend of Videogame Antagonist Soldiers having awful British accents, but this guy's perfect for it. The 'stache helps his case considerably.
During the enemy turn, a guy fails spectacularly at hurting Leonardo, and Nolan's friend on the ledge begins an effort to survive the encounter.
…but it failed! So ends the entirety of anything noteworthy this turn.
It's the enemy phase, when suddenly…
Our resident thief decides to do something that actually resembles something a thief would do! And also some enemy dudes move around or something. Sothe disappears as quickly as he appeared.
Nolan beats a tactical retreat to be healed by Laura. Heal staves heal an adjacent ally for (10 + [user's magic stat]), so Nolan gets 18 health back. Note their incredibly clever positioning; Nolan is standing such that, between him and the ledge, the enemy axe-murderer can't get to Laura.
Edward and Micaiah hatch a plot to dispose of the enemy soldier in their vicinity. In the course of beginning his offensive, the soldier gets a hit in on Edward.
This was a mistake on his part.
Y'know, I hate on Wrath a lot, and will never use it on anyone other than Edward (who gets it for free but is doomed to eventually be kicked off the team), but god damn, it is satisfying when it activates.
…and, y'know, actually manages to get you a crit. No one likes critical blueballs.
(uncomfortable pause for contemplation)
(I'd like to be able to provide gifs or some such depicting critical hit animations and a few other cool things, but I lack the technical know how (lesser problem), and I question my ability to do video capture in Dolphin when the process of taking a screenshot makes my quite-powerful-actually PC lag for half a second (greater problem). Also, the only Youtube videos I can find are compilations that have spoilers. Anyone have any pertinent advice?)
So anyway, Micaiah heals Leonardo and everyone is generally very careful not to stand in the murder zone.
The enemy turn goes exactly as we planned, and the axe-guy hits Nolan so hard that he gains an awesome level up. I'm sad not to get this in my real playthrough.
Deciding he's nearing his Actual Thief Stuff Quota for the day, Sothe decides to charge headlong into a group of guards.
We are the Dawn Brigade. We go where we please. We're here to reclaim what you've stolen from the people of Daein.To balance out his Stealth Karma, he runs right up to the guards, introduces himself, and announces his intentions.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Jeigan the Tenth.
That's right - not only is Sothe a Rogue (the promoted form of a Thief) with a higher chance of gaining Strength and Skill than of gaining Speed, but he's also horrifyingly overpowered in the early game and very mediocre once enemies start catching up to him and he goes back to being "just a thief".
He is, however, our only thief, and this makes him necessary, but for the love of god, don't make Sothe a serious combatant. It won't end well in the long term.
He comes with a pre-established A-rank Support with Micaiah, which won't do him much good when he's not standing right next to her, and a support based skill called Guard, which won't do him much good when he's not standing right next to her. Guard, in theory, will cause an attack directed at a supported unit (in this case Micaiah) to instead be directed at Sothe (even if Sothe is out of enemy range), as long as both units are in adjacent squares. Sounds useful! BUT! It's not guaranteed - its activation chance is based on the strength of the support relationship, and even at max, it only seems to activate about half of the time. It could maybe save Micaiah at some point, but if you're leaving Micaiah's survival to a chance like that, then… well, I don't really know what to tell you.
Sothe, like all Jeigans, has one, great, redeeming feature.
Unequip his weapons and send him into a crowd, and every enemy in sight will gleefully swarm around and fruitlessly try to murder him.
I imagine that the game designers assumed that only non-combat units or units in disadvantageous positions (eg, archers at melee range) would be unable to counterattack, because who in their right mind would willingly unequip someone with enough stats to ruin the enemy's shit like Sothe can? They therefore made the enemy AI prioritize units who can't counterattack. So we unequip a tank-ish character that we don't want fighting anyway. Result: a great way to distract enemies from the bulk of your fighters for peace of mind, a tactical advantage, and lulz. It won't, however, stop enemies from targeting Laura if she's in range, because I'm pretty sure the AI prioritizes staff users above all other targets.
Meanwhile, Nolan finishes the fool who thought to attack him.
Note the enemies up on the northern ledge. Edward sees if he can't bait one of them down. Some enemies are set to defend certain locations, even if someone's in attack range outside it.
Micaiah and Laura meanwhile farm EXP, with Micaiah using Sacrifice on Edward and Laura healing Micaiah. Edward heals the rest of his health with a Vulnerary when he makes the move shown above.
Over in Sothe's corner, the games begin.
Back on our turn, Edward notes that the guys on the ledge have not moved to attack and thus will not unless threatened up close. This sits fine with Micaiah and Leonardo, who will have to follow. You may note the three dudes surrounding Sothe; one of them actually managed to hit him for a few damage. The guy to Sothe's south doesn't seem to want to move, though.
Elsewhere…
Did you say women? What... What color is their hair?
There are two girls. One has bizarre silver-colored hair, and the other- The Silver-Haired Maiden! Hm, very well. I want all soldiers on hand. Capture the girl...alive. Do what you will with the others, but bring me that girl! Understand!? Sir, yes sir!Is Jarod seriously the only person who noticed our rather characteristic protagonist? Maybe the other guys had all that stabbing coming to them after all…
Our cunning ploy is working! These guys are so busy with Sothe they never considered Nolan. Also, thanks to that sudden onset of speed points, Nolan is now double-hitting enemies. On my dummy file.
…this game.
Always watch out for archers when there are ledges about. Advancing etc, and the two guys on Sothe continue to try and kill Sothe, paying no attention to the guy with the axe. Nolan has no problem with this.
And here's why ledges are awesome. Nolan's Hand Axe, a traditionally inaccurate weapon, has a 100% chance to hit. The soldier's Javelin, despite his biorhythm being at it's highest, has a 9% chance. I love ledges. And of course, Nolan doubles the poor fool. Leonardo and Edward move in to help Sothe with his friends.
Edward somersaults a bitch. I never get tired of this game's animations.
…and did you know that when you kill an enemy, there's a little bit of slowdown and Dramatic Motion Blurring? It's true!
So. Guess what the last of Sothe's three friends did on his turn?
No, don't spend too long thinking.
Leonardo and Micaiah respond by pelting said friend with violence, and both level up.
Pretty good.
Also not bad!
Edward moves in to finish him off, but encounters the hard version of The Myrmidon Problem;
…which is that this guy can kill him before he can kill the guy, unless you want to count on the 16% chance of the guy missing, in which case you are a fool, or the 6% chance of Edward critting (and we're above 30% health, so no Wrath), in which case you are a bigger fool.
Hmm… if only we had a marginally more powerful weapon.
Yeah, like that one!
Still, though, we just risked Edward's life on an 82% chance. Not a bad chance, but that 18% fail chance looks a lot bigger when it can kill you if it lands the wrong way.
Well, that was stressful! Let's relieve the stress by making someone fight Sothe.
You'll do. Sothe could kill this guy with a staff, really.
As a rouge, Sothe's fighting style primarily involves doing flips and stuff. The soldier drops a Chest Key.
Nolan stands on the stairs and uses a Vulnerary, the better to bait the enemy to the north. We end the turn.
Enemy reinforcements arrive through the front door, but we've got more interesting matters at hand. Like this chest.
Chests are the second new thing in this mission, and they are why you bring thieves into battle. Chests contain things, but you need a Chest Key to open them. Usually, at least one enemy on the map will drop one, and each can be used twice, but then you have to fuss around with giving the key to someone and taking them away from the fight to get the treasure. Also, some maps have more chests than you'll be able to open with the Chest Keys in the map. But thieves can just open chests as though it were not a thing, just by virtue of being thieves, and since thieves aren't supposed to fight, you lose nothing by sending them.
The other reason you bring thieves into battle is so they can steal things from enemies. We can pinch their stuff right out of their inventories.
Anyway, what do we have here…
Fuck Yes™. This is certainly going to get demonstrated. This level. Oooooh yes.
While Sothe was busy grabbing this amazing tome, Nolan got hit by the enemy he was baiting. Well, actually, he was attacked. He wasn't hit. The other guy, was, though, and now he's about to be hit again, by Micaiah.
Nolan presses forward, standing on the edge of the enemy archer's range and equipping his Hand Axe. The archer takes the bait, completely misses Nolan, and gets a Hand Axe to the face. Only one, though, archers are a tad speedier than the other enemies here.
More treasure!
This nifty sword will be given to Edward and probably never used. It's gimmick is that it can attack at a distance, but it has really, really, low accuracy and is a pain to hit with. It's also not that powerful.
It still hasn't gotten old! Ahem. The immediate area to the north is clear, so let's hang back and maybe deal with these reinforcements.
Whee, ledge abuse! Sadly, we can't get enough guys over to plug the gap, which means Leo's going to get hit. Laura runs the hell away and heals Sothe. The enemies charge up into the gap…
…and kinda poke Leonardo a little. In response, he fucks one guy up good and kinda threatens the other with Micaiah and Nolan, who gladly make good on said threat. Two more reinforcements show up from the southeast exit.
Funfact™: This very-early-game enemy archer has a 4 strength advantage on Leonardo. This is indicative of the other trend in Dawn Brigade units.
Sothe heads north to prepare for the main offensive - Laura following - and everyone else hangs back to deal with the reinforcements. Nolan hits the first one so hard his axe skills improve, and then the two of them fail so badly at killing him that he becomes stronger.
Oh, Nolan, you and your monstrous speed growth. Just watch, when I do this mission in my real playthrough he's going to come out of this with 2 HP and a resistance or some shit. Just. Watch.
Micaiah gets a kill, too!
…oh for fuck's sake. The gods jest. I hope this is real funny to you, gods.
It takes us a whole few turns to get into position for the main offensive, so we'll skip ahead a little. One thing though, someone finally got a lousy level up;
This does, however, allow me to demonstrate something else;
Staves now have their own benefits that they bestow on the wielder when equipped. Laura is using a Heal staff, which heals her for 5 HP each turn.
Fast forward!
Sothe hands over the Thani tome to Micaiah, and stands in position to bait an enemy. He is successful.
Pictured: Correct usage of a Jeigan. Sothe won't kill this guy, but he'll leave him weak enough for anyone to just waltz in and take the kill and most of the EXP. Case in point, Micaiah.
A rare magic crit! Wait, Micaiah's been getting 0% crit chance this whole mission. Why's she suddenly getting crits now?
Here's why: She's standing right next to Sothe, with whom she has a Bond. Bonded units get +10 to Crit when directly adjacent. She's also getting the benefits of her regular support with Sothe, which are available when within 3 squares. Both units get the same benefits when active.
In any case, we move up.
I need to test a theory, so I have Sothe murder this poor archer.
The next turn, the theory is proved! This boss won't move off his square, for any reason. Not really sure what he's gaining from that, but can't complain.
We move into position, and Micaiah takes a deep breath. It's time for her to shine.
Here's our regular, common-or-garden Light tome.
And here's Thani. Good at a glance; 5 additional damage, and it's "effective" against this boss, him being a Knight. Well, I guess that means a few extra points of d-
HOLY LIVING FUCK
About the biggest existing understatement in all of Fire Emblem lore is the word "effective". Normally, the formula for the damage you deal, before enemy defense, is simply [Weapon Mt + Str/Mag (as appropriate) + bonuses]. If the weapon you're using is "effective", however, that formula becomes [Mt*3 + Str/Mag + bonuses]. That's times three. So, normally, Micaiah and her 9 Magic will deal 9 + 8 damage with Thani. Against the right target, that becomes 9 + 24; 33 points of base magical damage. And! When she's near Sothe, she gets +2 to Atk (among other things), making for a grand total of 35 damage; enough to waste Zeitan with his 30 HP and 5 resistance in a single shot. Good thing, too, since anything less and his counterattack would kill Micaiah straight up. If it hit. See previous statements about leaving Micaiah's survival down to 50% chances.
I'm afraid I have to disappoint you. Oh, how pompous! Try to "disappoint" me, and I'll break both your arms!…it's funny, because he has no idea what's coming.
Nehehehahahah…
…AHAhahahahahahah…
…AAAHAHAhahahahah
…AAAAHAAAAHHAAAHAAAHAA…
…ah… hah… heh…
Hoo, boy.
With this many, we...can't...hold them back... Call...for...rein...force...ments..."Who're you calling 'many', huh?"
And, just when this couldn't get any better,
Y'know, I shall be sad to lose this file.
Well, there's noting left to do here besides have Sothe plunder the last remaining chest for an Energy Drop, which grants someone a permanent +2 strength (like the Dracoshield before it, it's going straight to storage), and have Laura move to her square to end the mission.
Soon after, outside…
Wait! Laura's missing! She was just with me."Damnit! According to my farsight, we need her in order to bring someone awesome to our cause! And soon!"
Let's split up and search for her. Micaiah, you come with me. ...Hm, the forest is huge. We can cover more ground if we search individually. But... Let's rendezvous at Kunu Swamp in three marks' time.…and this strikes no one as being a terrible idea.
Somebody's near by...
And you saw through my ruse. You're as clever as they say, my dear. You even came alone. How brave of you. Was that to give your friends a chance to escape? What a thoughtful little thing you are."You are DAMN lucky Halbardiers don't count as armoured."
Mi-Micaiah! Don't come any closer! Laura! Let her go! She isn't one of us... Now, you know I can't do that. She's a valuable hostage, just like you! No! Yune, fly away! Argh, dratted bird! Yes, get that mangy flying bag of bones out of here before I squash it like a fly! Tch. How annoying. Enough of this! Back to the castle. As long as we have these two, the others don't matter.
Sir. All hands, withdraw! I've got a bad feeling about this...Oh, man. How's Micaiah going to get out of this one? Coming up next time: Micaiah gets out.