Fire Emblem Tropera Rules & Discussion

Kiri: HP, Str, Spd, Def

Prof: Sword

Sophia: HP, Mag, Skl, Spd

Prof: Anima

• Character: Osroes
• Weapons: Kontos, Holy Lance, Shortbow, Brave Lance
• Items: Speedwing, Elixir, Pure Water
• Relic: Mirror Shield
• Starting Position: I10
• NPC Vote: Diane, taking the Genji Glove (narratively appropriate against Ailes, pinching enemy weapons is nice and, most importantly, we need the healing)

Edited by Existential_Tempest on Nov 6th 2020 at 2:50:31 PM

• Bette
  • Onyx Bangle, Nosferatu Tome, Lightdrinker Tome, Fenrir Tome
  • Angelic Robe, Power Ring, Energy Ring
  • Acirema's Shield
  • Vote Diane
  • Start: I27

Edited by nman on Nov 7th 2020 at 12:11:09 PM

• Character: Cassandra
• Weapons: Retort, Dark Lance, Silver Lance, Short Spear
• Items: Power Ring, Secret Book, Angel Robe
• Relic: Triangle Guard
• Starting Position: I8
• NPC vote: Diane if we have nobody else with staff proficiency, Malia if we do.

Edited by Izshta on Nov 6th 2020 at 6:44:26 AM

I'm sick of playing Astra.

• Character: Grendan
• Weapons: Hero Axe, Swordreaver, Tomahawk, Throwing Knives
• Items: Elixir, Elixir, Pure Water
• Relic: Orb of Keponom
• Starting Position: I9
• NPC Vote: Diane

Edited by Suttungr on Nov 5th 2020 at 10:21:38 AM

• Railen
• Weapons: Ambush, Killing Edge, Blood Sword, and Mage Masher
• Items: 2x Wrath Charm and a Secret Book
• Relic: Master's Blind
• Location: I24
• NPC: Malia

• Kiri
• Weapons: Wyrmtongue, Mambele, Bravesword, Zanbato
• Items: Power Ring, Power Ring, Angelic Robe,
• Relic: Might Ring
• Vote: Malia
• Position: I25

Alright, so I've mentioned in discord that I've been contemplating some more changes going into the final map, and it's probably about time I actually put them up here for consideration. These are not finalized, and some may not be implemented at all. Feedback would be appreciated.

ACTIONS

• Defend: Adds your Skill to your Avoidance until the start of your next turn.
  • I feel like the flat 10 Avoidance bonus that Defend has provided up to now has become progressively less and less worth spending an action on as the game goes on. Scaling it with Skill seems like the appropriate stat.

ITEMS

• Angelic Robe: Hit point bonus reduced to 4.
  • While 7 is the value granted by these items in the original games, unit hit point totals in those games also tended to be much higher in general, making 7 proportionally less impressive compared to this game's balance.
• Blood Weapons/Tomes: Now have limited uses.
  • While not nearly so out of control as they once were, these weapons remain too easy to cheese when they can be used for literally every attack.
• Heavy Weapons: This weapon type now has the special effect "does not get an extra strike from Speed," but their Might values have been increased.
  • I haven't been satisfied with Heavy Weapons' usefulness. Their current higher Might has consistently not been worth the lower accuracy and weight. This weapon class was intended to be suited toward low-Speed characters, but the mechanics haven't borne that out. I haven't settled on how much the increases are going to be, but I'm leaning somewhere in the ballpark of 2x their Standard Weapon counterparts or slightly less. On a related note:
• Weapon Weight: Weight has largely been a complete non-issue throughout the game. That's not terribly surprising, as I had originally excised that stat from the game as overly convoluted, and only brought it back as some reason to potentially use lower rank weapons over higher ones, which it has spectacularly failed to do. The speed penalty that is currently its only mechanic has barely ever come up, as the Str/Mag reduction means that it rarely amounts to more than a 1 Speed difference, if any at all, which even more rarely makes the difference between double attacks. This also meant that the most efficient way to overcome potential weight problems was to stack not Str/Mag, as you need 6 of the stat to overcome 1 point of weight penalty, but to stack Speed, which matches the penalty 1:1. This stat either needs to matter more, or be dropped from the game again as dead weight. To that end, I'm considering a few possible changes:
  • Accuracy Penalty: In addition to the Speed penalty, Weight now incurs an accuracy penalty to attacks. In the same vein, this penalty is reduced by Str/Mag.
    • This comes with some of the same problem of Skill likely overcoming the penalty more efficiently than Str/Mag does depending on the exact numbers I choose, but at least it makes Str/Mag the stat that counters all weight penalties, while Skill and Speed only reduce one penalty or the other.
  • Higher Speed Penalty: Weight now reduces attack speed by (_)x the weapon's weight instead of 1x.
    • This moves emphasis for overcoming weight to Str/Mag instead of Speed, but could be overwhelming for low-Str/Mag builds if set too high. A lower increase (say, 2x weight) in addition to the Accuracy Penalty might be the way to go.
  • Remove Str/Mag Reduction: Weight penalties to attack speed are irreducible. Deal with it.
    • This certainly makes weight much more significant, but unfortunately has the consequence of making Speed the only counter to weight, reinforcing its position as God Stat that many of my design decisions have been explicitly about moving away from.
  • Inventory Weight: Characters would now have an inventory weight cap, most likely based on Strength, exceeding which would incur penalties to either Speed, Avoidance, Movement, or some combination thereof.
    • Honestly, this is mostly only being included here for the sake of having all my thoughts in writing. While this sounds potentially interesting at first blush, it would likely just make inventory tracking more of a hassle for both you guys and myself, and the strategic element it would add to loadout planning would be redundant with planning around other weapon properties, at best.

PROFICIENCY

As discussed the other day, single-proficiency focus has turned out to be somewhat underwhelming compared to the inherent benefits of being able to use multiple weapon types, and a stacking crit bonus hasn't closed the gap. To that end, these are my current ideas for what each S Rank might award instead:

• S-Rank Progression:
  • S: +5 Critical Hit.
  • S+: You no longer have triangle disadvantage with this weapon type.
  • S+2: When you make an attack with this weapon type that benefits from True Hit, you take the lower roll instead of the average.
  • S+3: You gain an extra strike with this weapon type.

Perform and Staff Proficiency both require their own S-Rank scaling:

• Perform S-Rank Bonuses: Whenever you take the Perform action, you can add the effects of another performance with the same range to that performance. The rank of this bonus performance is based on your S Rank: S=D, S+=C, S+2=B, S+3=A.
• Staff S-Rank Bonuses: You can use some staves without expending charges. The rank of staff you can use this way is based on your S Rank: S=D, S+=C, S+2=B, S+3=A.

The suggestion that S+ bonuses be different depending on weapon type that someone made is a fun one that feels very appropriate, as well. S Rank represents the pinnacle of mastery with a specific weapon type, and it feels very right that each weapon should get its own unique bonus effect. That said, there's no way I'm both coming up with and remembering four different unique bonuses for every weapon type from S+ up. If I go that route, such a unique bonus would be the capstone for the highest Proficiency rank you can attain in a weapon, replacing the generic extra strike option from the above list:

• S+3: You gain a special effect depending on weapon type:
  • Sword: You gain an extra strike with swords.
  • Lance: Your maximum range with lances increases by 1.
  • Axe: Your attacks with axes ignore half your target's Defense.
  • Bow: Your minimum range with all bows is 1.
  • Clips: See equivalent weapon bonus.
  • Anima: TBD
  • Light: TBD
  • Dark: TBD

I admit I'm at a bit of a loss for what to do for the various magic proficiencies here other than just copying the physical weapons, which feels rather less special. I know Tempest suggested that Anima could gain additional elemental effects, but that runs into the same problem mentioned above of my having to remember multiple different bonuses, now within the same weapon type in addition to the different bonuses between different weapons. I'll continue thinking on this, but would appreciate ideas.

FEATS

• Cleave: Whenever you hit an adjacent enemy with a weapon attack on your turn, you make a free attack against a different adjacent enemy with -15 accuracy. This effect can repeat off of itself, the accuracy penalty stacking with each successive Cleave. This free attack does not trigger counterattacks.
  • I've never been satisfied with this feat since adding it. The feat's usability is already dependent on enemy positioning, has the innate drawback of triggering counterattacks from a second source, and its current iteration draws from the action economy. I'm coming to find that the circumstances for this feat to be used at all are infrequent enough on their own that it doesn't warrant the additional restrictions and consequences.
• Focus: You gain a proficiency rank. In addition, you gain a +5 Critical Hit proficiency bonus. This bonus increases by +5 at each rank in this proficiency above S.
  • Single-weapon-focus buff.
• Gamble: You no longer benefit from True Hit, but you add your Luck to your Critical Hit Chance. S+2 returns True Hit with its weapon type.
  • While I really liked the idea of letting the user determine the exact numbers, I feel like it makes this feat unnecessarily unwieldy. Note that losing True Hit in this context is actually a buff to your critical hit chance, as it means you only have to roll within crit range once, rather than land within it with the average of two rolls, and also has the benefit of applying to counterattacks, which the current iteration doesn't.
• (New) Guard Break: Whenever you hit an enemy with an attack, their Avoidance is reduced by 15 until the start of your next phase.
• Heavy Armor/Laguz: Dragon: You take half damage from attacks targeting your Defense, but you do not gain extra strikes from your Speed. Movement penalty removed.
  • This feat change will not be implemented during this game, as it would basically break both Cassandra and Osroes as characters in ways that aren't easily fixed without basically allowing both characters to be remade from the ground up. It is included here as a record for changes that'll be made to the game mechanics post-game, pre-release. Being able to stack up on damage output as well as defense through double attacks, high avoidance, and halved physical damage has simply proven to be too much.
• Miracle: Effect now only triggers once per round instead of once per phase. I've been inconsistently treating the effect this way for a while anyway, and enemy units with this feat have proven excessively frustrating when I don't.
• Overload: You gain the Overload action. When you take this action, your Magic stat doubles for the duration of your next phase.
  • This feat has repeatedly proven to be a headache, and I've struggled with what to do with it other than make it a Power Attack clone. The biggest issue is that it keeps proving excessively strong on enemy units, who have on multiple occasions been able to deal massive damage to PCs with their initial attack. I like the idea of an enemy mage with this ability being a major threat and priority target, but the reality in play has borne out badly, as these units are rarely in position to be the first targeted when the party aggros a group with one in it, allowing them to get off their powered up attack unhindered. This change should give the party more ability to play around units with this feat, while also letting players with the feat themselves set it up on the way in.
• Power Attack: You no longer benefit from True Hit, but your Strength-based attacks deal extra damage equal to half your Strength.
  • Similarly to Gamble, allowing the user to determine the stat trade off is unnecessarily wonky. More than that, as a feat designed in part for use by certain high-Damage, low-Accuracy enemy units, it's a total failure as actually using it practically guarantees a miss. I may choose a different bonus than 1.5x Strength, though.
• Recover -> Fast Healer: All healing effects on you are increased by 1/4 (rounded down, minimum 1). Additionally, whenever you take the Defend action, you recover hit points equal to 1/4 your level (rounded down, minimum 1). This healing is not increased by this feat.
  • While I like this feat's interaction with Defend, it's simply underwhelming, especially if you don't also have Sentinel. These changes should make it a bit more appealing and useful to other builds.
• Split Shot -> Multishot: Whenever you take the Attack action targeting an enemy that is not adjacent to you, you can divide however many strikes you are eligible to make against that target between any other targets within your attack range. You only provoke counterattacks from your initial target.
  • Like Cleave, the positional requirements for this feat to be usable in the first place are restrictive enough that it does not need additional requirements or drawbacks on top of them.
• Strong Back -> Arsenal: You can carry one additional weapon and item. Additionally, whenever an ally sends a weapon, item, or relic to storage, you can send one of your carried items of the same type in its place.
  • This feat has been underwhelming and needed some further form of utility.
• Sure Strike: Your Skill counts toward your Hit Chance 3 times instead of 2.
  • 4x Skill to Hit has proven to be excessive. It basically never misses. This nerf should reign things in a bit while still leaving the feat worthwhile.

Can't really comment on all of these proposed changes, but for the ones that I can...

• Heavy Weapons: Honestly, I'm surprised that you included them in the first place. Even if they get changed, I can't see them being very useful to players (honestly, I've always seen them as "enemy-only weapons" from the beginning, and wondered why you gave us some when we'd rarely, if ever, use them, like Devil weapons). It might be best to just remove them entirely.
• Weapon Weight: Out of those, I'd say Add Accuracy Penalty would be best, though I'd understand the Bigger Penalty thing too. Not 100% sure on whether both of those at the same time would be a good idea, though.
• Focus: How would the new Focus effect skills that usually aren't directly used for offense (Staff and Perform)? I don't think we can judge it properly without knowing about that.
• Heavy Armor: Yeah, I can see the "no Speed doubles" thing fitting the armor. Not sure if it's a good idea, but understandable.
• Miracle: Once a phase is ludicrously broken anyway, since you'd need to kill someone twice at the same time for it to actually stick. Making it explicitly 1/round is definitely the way to go.
• Overload: Not sure I'm understanding this. Do you mean, like, Enemy X uses Overload, and then during the next enemy phase Overload takes effect or something?
• Power Attack: Would this be an activated ability or an always-on thing?

• Defend: Seems reasonable! (My first instinct was to say the improvement probably wouldn’t be that impactful but, well… Osroes.)

• Angelic Robe: 4 seems a reasonable place to set this… In another game it might be a thought to give a unit 2 HP for each growth, though that might be an overcorrection.
• Blood Weapons/Tomes: While possibly overpowered at the moment, limiting uses arguably gets rid of an entire playstyle in Nosferatanking… Perhaps it might be worth considering reducing their hit chance instead to make them somewhat less reliable (in which case that might only be needed for the Nosferatu tome, since Blood weapons can’t do quite the same thing due to their 1 range).
• Heavy Weapons: Certainly worth a look – we don’t really have a build that can make good use of them at the moment but some playtesting might bear out their usefulness in this new state.
• Weapon Weight: I honestly think that Inventory Weight sounds wonderful (having to decide between the versatility of having a full inventory of weapons and the stat benefits of only taking one or two is interesting in itself, adds realism and lays the groundwork for a more flexible inventory system if you also apply weight to stat-boosting items) but, as you say, the admin that would require basically creates an entire subsystem and necessitates substantial spreadsheet automation, which is probably not worth doing for a single map! Perhaps getting rid of the Str/Mag reduction and incurring an accuracy penalty would do the trick – that way Skl would be just as important to boost as Spd (even if it would be painful for Osroes).

These ideas are certainly steps in the right direction! I do worry that even gaining four different bonusses as you increase to S-rank and beyond on its own might be a little much; moreover, I’d argue that the S+2 benefit (possibly also S+1) interferes too directly with the core mechanics of the game… Perhaps it might be preferable to simply add a unique bonus at either S or S+ and apply the standard +5 crit to other S-ranks. (If not, I would also second what Nman noted about ignoring the Weapon Triangle being meaningless for archers.) Regardless, ideas for magic:

• Dark: When taking the Attack action with a Dark tome or magic weapon, you may apply one special effect from another Dark tome that you have in your inventory. Dark magic is all about reaching for power beyond the strictures of reality; getting creative with that magic seems appropriate!
• Light: Your attacks with Light tomes and magic weapons ignore half your target's Resistance. or Your hit chance with any Light tome or magic weapon is increased by its Might (x n, depending on balance). Light magic exemplifies faith, will and devotion; I would argue that the former fits that well (and helps with Light magic’s core weakness of low damage) but if the similarity to axes’ bonus is a problem then a boost to hit chance also sounds sensible!

• Cleave/Split Shot: On the one hand, I like these. On the other, I fear what someone with a build like Aza’s, or even Vera’s, might do with them… Suspect they’ll need proper playtesting to establish how useful they are.
• Focus: I’ll second Suttungr’s concern… Moreover, this is just a nerf to those without the proficiency in question above S-rank. While single-proficiency builds do need a boost, I’m not sure that reducing the number of use cases for Focus is the way to do it.
• Gamble/Power Attack: Like the potential S+2 rank bonus above, I’m really not sure about these. Applying a modifier to hit chance is clear and easy to understand, whereas interfering with the process by which hits are calculated feels clunkier, somehow, disrupting a system that’s fundamental to how the game works. That said, the reason for the proposed change does ring true; it will interesting to see what LightToAll has to say, considering that he’s been using Gamble.
• Guard Break: I’ve always liked the idea of support-oriented units that disrupt enemies more than they deal damage – this is very much a Feat for them. Also potentially useful on high-Spd builds!
• Heavy Armour/Laguz: Dragon: Agreed with all of what’s said here – also somewhat realistic, since armour doesn’t tend to reduce mobility (see: any number of videos of people doing somersaults in plate) but does tire the user out more quickly, meaning that they have to take care not to overexert themselves!
• Miracle: This is fair enough! May be worth a look at Shield too if this is getting nerfed, since it does for the first strike against a unit what Miracle does for what would be their last…
• Overload: This may well be my favourite change here – excellent conceptually (Dragonball fans will be pleased), useful mechanically and well thought out to avoid it being completely overpowered in combination with a performer. Superb!
• Fast Healer: Potentially finicky maths, though a step in the right direction… That said, perhaps still underpowered as compared to Quick Salve (even if that does rely on items and inventory space) – maybe just boosting the healing when you Defend is an option.
• Arsenal: Gets rid of an annoyance that we’ve been dealing with for a long time! That said, it’s only an annoyance; while a good change, this could potentially be buffed further.

Edited by Existential_Tempest on Jan 13th 2021 at 2:35:19 PM

Azadokht's Level-Ups:

• Taken: Str, Skl, Lck, Res
• +1 Light Proficiency (Light C)

Osroes' Level-Ups:

• Taken: Str, Spd, Lck, Res
• Free Point: HP
• +1 Bow Proficiency (Bow A)

Edited by Existential_Tempest on Mar 30th 2021 at 4:10:47 PM

Levels for my minions!

• Astra: HP, Mag, Def, Res, Staff.
• Grendan: HP, Str, Spd, Def, Swords. Free points: Luck, Res.

Railen: STR, SKL, DEF, RES, Free HP. Sword S+3

Xel: HP, STR, DEF, RES, Free SKL and LCK. Clip S+3

Amy: +MAG +SPD +LCK +DEF, Dark S+4

Cassandra: +STR +SPD +LCK +DEF, Lance S+1

It wouldn't get rid of it, it just wouldn't be sustainable as literally every turn's action anymore. Right now I feel like Nosferatanking is too exploitable as a Dark build. While I want that to be a valid strategy, I do want it to be strategy, and not a unit's default move. For that reason, I'm pretty opposed to lowering the accuracy of Blood weapons, as their accuracy is already reduced, and an emergency weapon that you can't count on to hit when you are, in fact, in an emergency, is a bad weapon. With this change, their accuracy would likely go up, if anything.

Basing double attacks on Strength instead of Speed is an interesting idea I hadn't considered, but I'm not sure that's the route I want to go. I feel like it would be stepping on Brave weapons' niche. Honestly, at this point I'm starting to wonder if the only solution to the Speed problem is to turn Speed granting an extra strike into a feat instead of a baseline mechanic.

Well, that's three completely different responses, and the more I think about it, the more I'm leaning toward the latter. My original intent for bringing weight back into the game was to give a reason for players to use lower rank weapons after better ones became available, but really, it should be okay that older equipment becomes obsolete as objectively better equipment becomes available. Weight is a solution to a nonexistent problem, and making it more complicated just creates an actual problem. Weight is gone.

I'm not sure what you mean by S+2 interfering with the core mechanics. The bonus just further reinforces the likelihood of high-accuracy attacks succeeding. It shouldn't interfere with the mechanics any more than adding True Hit to the game in the first place did.

Ugh, bloody bows... alright, in that case, bows now have triangle advantage against targets 2+ spaces away, and disadvantage against adjacent targets I'll have to keep thinking on this. I'd really like to keep this one, as mastering a weapon to such extent that you've learned how to compensate for its weaknesses is very thematic, but if I can't come up with some way for it to apply to bows, I'll change it out.

Right, forgot about that. Their current bonus is +15 Avoidance, so in the new version it'll be +5 Avoidance per S rank to match the +5 Crit for weapons.

I'm having a little trouble parsing what you're saying here, Tempest. How is it a nerf to under-S units?

The other alternatives I thought of were either A) Reduce Speed's benefit to Avoidance to 1:1 from 1:2; or B) Instead of halving physical damage taken, the unit gains an extra point to Defense every X levels in addition to normal stat allocations (Resistant would get the same treatment).

A) didn't feel like it quite accomplishes what I want, as it turns Heavy Armor into a trade off of one form of defense for another, instead of trading offense for defense, while B) is a much more radical change that would result in a much weaker benefit, but thereby eliminate the need for a penalty to balance it out at all.

Yeah, if anything I'll be watching on this final map to see if 1/round is still too much.

As for Shield, I'm less concerned about it as I feel it's easier to plan around. For one thing, it doesn't come paired with an avoidance bonus that doubles down on its negation, and as far as its use on enemy units goes, Shield enemies typically have lower avoidance and the majority of their weapon options are static ranges, which make them much easier to deal with than Miracle units, which have higher avoidance and default to 1-2 range weapons, to say nothing of Retribution Tome (plus, there are more unit types with Miracle than there are with Shield). Further, because Shield is always stripped off by the first attack to hit the unit per phase rather than by the first killing blow of the phase, it's easier to plan around, since you'll pretty much always know which hit it's going to eat when planning your attack phase, while there's more uncertainty to what attack will trigger Miracle.

That said, it will be something else to keep an eye on.

Yes. The idea is that the unit would essentially not act in one round in order to buff themselves for the following round.

Always on.

Again, I'm not really following what you're getting at, Tempest. True Hit wasn't even part of this game for the majority of its lifetime, and even now it doesn't apply to all attacks; attacks made with 59 or less Hit Chance already don't get True Hit. This should also be easy to understand: you're widening your attacks' risk/reward ratio.

And yes, I definitely would like Light's feedback on the Gamble change in particular.

Note to self: Clarify that this debuff does not self-stack.

The unlimited nature of this feat vs. Quick Salve is definitely its benefit. I also don't want to boost the Defend healing too much. We've already seen what an effective strategy defending while on terrain can be, the defending unit doesn't need to be capable of unlimited self-healing of any damage they do take on top of that.

Probably, yeah.

As for the S+3 rank proficiency bonuses, I'm leaning more and more toward the universal extra strike. As much as I like the idea of the unique benefits, 7 different individual ones are just going to be a lot to have to remember to apply for me as the DM, especially once considering that enemy units will be getting them, too. Not to mention that with the way the proficiency advancement is structured, S+3 is only attainable with both maximum level and a specific feat. This is too much design space to dedicate to such a tiny niche, especially when some of these are ideas I could be applying elsewhere. For example, if I got this route, bows being able to counterattack at 1 Range could be their S+1 bonus in place of triangle disadvantage negation.

Further feedback still welcome.

What Tempest meant by the "Focus nerf" thing is that... well, take Astra for example: They're just barely hitting Staff S-rank here, so, the way you're talking about it, their Avoidance would drop by 10 points with this change. While understandable in the spirit of balancing it between attacking and support weapon ranks, it still qualifies as a nerf because the bonus they were enjoying up to now will now be exclusive to someone who put almost all their ranks into Staff or Perform skill.

Meanwhile, anyone below S-rank apparently just doesn't get anything at all beyond the one weapon rank. Comparing that to Versatile giving you a rank in three different weapons, that seems... underwhelming, almost to the point of coming off as an overall nerf to the abilities of single-weapon units.

Dark horse suggestion (which even I won't complain if it gets vetoed, because it seems overpowered at first glance): Merge your proposed modified Focus with Versatile. That way, nobody can complain about it being underpowered even for someone like Grendan (who spent pretty much the entire game with his weapon ranks spread too thin), while those who want to focus on one weapon get more benefit than just a weapon rank before they reach... what was it, 10? 12? (If you do go with this, maybe rename the combined feat to something like Armsmaster.)

Gotcha. Alright, so first off a clarification, the first +5 crit/avoid comes immediately with choosing the feat.

But more importantly, I think I'm okay with that nerf to perform/staff focus. 15 avoidance out the gate was too much, I think, and didn't reward further investment into S+, which is the intent of the feat. Focus is ideally meant to be for single-proficiency builds. While you can take the feat and not build that way, it's kind of like taking Adept and not raising your Skill stat. I should probably note here that as usual when I make major feat changes, anyone who wants to swap out of or into one of the changed feats will have the opportunity to.

You do raise a good point about its contrast to Versatile at low levels, though.

• Focus: You gain one rank in a proficiency of your choice, and a +2 Proficiency Bonus to Critical Hit if the proficiency is a weapon, or +2 Avoidance if it's Staff or Perform. You gain this bonus again with every rank you have in this proficiency.

This change should equal out to the same maximum bonuses at maximum S+ rank, just spread out across the full rank spectrum instead of condensed into S+ alone. The math goes:

Focus (+2), D Rank (+4), C Rank (+6), B Rank (+8), A Rank (+10), S Rank (+12), S+ (+14), S+2 (+16), S+3 (+18), S+4 (+20).

Side note, I've just realized that I have one more S+ rank than I'd come up with bonuses for. S+ doesn't cap at +3 with Focus, it goes to +4. My current consideration is to bump the Extra Strike to +4, and add "Your attacks with this weapon type gain triangle advantage against this weapon type" at +3.

Edited by Wryte on Jan 23rd 2021 at 11:38:50 AM

This "+2 for Feat, +2 per rank" version seems good to me now that it actually scales properly with weapon ranks. Granted, it might require further fine-tuning in the future, but for now I'm satisfied with that (enough so that I feel no need to swap Astra's Focus out).

I'm not really sure how you'd justify that "S+3 gives weapon advantage against something new" thing. I mean, it's probably safe to assume that the new advantage wouldn't be against the weapon that normally has advantage against you (permanent -reaver without the drawbacks would be broken as hell), which means you'd need to pick something that it's normally neutral against, which means you need to justify it in-universe. Melee vs. bows, okay, bows vs. melee, that's fine too, but physical vs. magic is just confusing because they're such different combat methods.

Or, of course, I could be misunderstanding again and you mean, for example, "S+3 Swords has triangle advantage against Swords." Which... admittedly makes more sense in-universe, but still seems... mechanically dubious, I guess. And means you need to make a ruling on what happens when two people who have S+3 in the same weapon fight.

You should probably get more feedback on this topic from the people who actually have a weapon rank over S, though; they're the ones it effects most.

Alright, so following the discussion in Discord, I have another draft of Gamble and the new S+ ranks, as well as a small change to Luck's baseline effects, for feedback.

First, Luck. I am considering increasing Luck's benefit to Hit Chance from 2:1 to 1:1. This will have the inevitable effect of making all attacks, both friendly and hostile, a bit more accurate, but shouldn't radically affect enemy accuracy as most generic units have fairly low Luck in the first place.

Luck currently competes mainly with Skill and Speed as a potential stat to spend points on. In theory, Luck should be competitive with Skill and Speed, as while Skill and Speed increase Hit and Avoidance respectively at a higher rate than Luck does, Luck increases both while Skill and Speed only affect one each. However, Luck's impact on Hit is currently too low to keep up, having only 1/4th the impact on Hit that Skill does (Skill counts 1:2, Luck counts 2:1). This change should level out the field, as 2 points in Luck would now grant an equal amount of Hit and Avoidance as 1 point each in Skill and Speed.

However, this still leaves the issue of secondary benefits. Skill contributes to Critical Hit Chance, and Speed determines chance and resistance to extra strikes, while Luck's only additional benefit is to Critical Hit Avoidance, which tends to be a rarer concern. Should I look at giving Luck another secondary benefit?

Weapon S Ranks:

• S: +5 Critical Hit Chance.
• S+: You no longer have weapon triangle disadvantage with this weapon type. (Bows: You can now counterattack at 1 Range regardless of your equipped bow's range).
• S+2: Your attacks with this weapon type gain weapon triangle advantage against this weapon type. This effect cancels out against another unit with this benefit.
• S+3: You gain an extra strike whenever you attack with this weapon type.
• S+4: +15 Critical Hit Chance.

Gamble: You add your Luck to your Critical Hit Chance. Additionally, you are no longer affected by True Hit, making very high and very low Hit Rolls more likely.

Speaking as the guy who's gotten downed by crits like 3 times on the last map: I think that Crit Avoidance is good enough to make Luck competitive with Skill, so long as its other benefits are brought up to par (which doubling its Hit effect would probably do).

No idea what to do about the Speed problem; as has been stated by other players in the Discord, Speed is god.

Right! Finally! To writing!

My central point around the S+2 bonus and the new Gamble/Power Attack is that they all interfere with the method of calculating whether something hits or not, which is a fundamental part of the game; this creates exceptions to a rule that is foundational to a player’s intuitive understanding of the ruleset, thereby weakening that foundation.

To my mind, at least, there are certain rules within any game’s ruleset (literal or metaphorical) that should be consistent and unitary. This allows players to build an intuitive mental framework for the game, making it more satisfying and enjoyable to engage with and play within. Such foundational rules include things like ‘pressing the WASD keys moves your character in virtual space’ and ‘kicking the ball past the goal posts scores a goal’. These rules can be changed, of course, and doing so universally simply alters the nature of the ruleset – deciding to go from ‘kicking the ball past the goal posts scores a goal’ to ‘carrying the ball past the goal posts scores a goal’ is how we got rugby from football, after all – but instances of them being inconsistent within the same ruleset, creating exceptions to these foundational rules, should not be taken lightly, since they damage the mental framework that a player uses to understand and engage with the game. The most obvious example of using this to beneficial effect that I can think of is to drive home a narrative or thematic point – creating an exception to the rule ‘pressing the WASD keys moves your character in virtual space’, for instance, in a cutscene where your character is suddenly paralysed and taunted by the main villain, to create a feeling of powerlessness and dread – but even that relies on your intuitive understanding of the rules in question to be effective because it is the breaking of those rules that is so shocking.

For further clarity, here are a couple of analogies that I’ve been considering on and off over the past few days! Firstly: chess. In chess, pieces rest on squares and move along ranks, files and diagonals across those squares. They always stop on a square; they never stop on the boundaries between squares. This, then, is a foundational rule of chess: ‘all pieces must start and end the turn on a single square each’. Of course, you could play chess the second way; with a 9x9 board, a game of chess played with the foundational rule ‘all pieces must start and end the turn on the meeting point between four squares’ would actually be exactly the same game – a game that looked odd to anyone tangentially familiar with chess but still an interesting, cohesive game! Consider, however, if you introduced a piece (I don’t know – the ‘Spymaster’ piece, say, to go with the general theme) to a regular game of chess that sat on the meeting point between four squares. Even if you put in place rules to clarify the piece’s properties in the game’s system – that piece might take on and be taken from their adjacent four squares, for instance, but have the ability to move past other pieces in those squares – there’s still something off about a piece like that, a feeling that it doesn’t fit. The reason for this is that it disrupts the player’s intuitive framework for understanding the game by breaking one of its foundational rules, ‘all pieces must start and end the turn on a single square each’. Introducing this piece might be fun for an experimental variant game but probably wouldn’t be a good change for chess as a whole!

For the second analogy, something that I know both of us are familiar with: D&D 5e! Fifth edition’s nature as a tabletop game means that its foundational rules vary between groups but one of the most universal is ‘attack rolls, ability checks and saving throws are determined by rolling d20s’. Advantage or disadvantage, whatever modifiers are applied, you always roll at least one d20 to determine the outcome of any of those three things! That universality gives the system an intuitive foundation that’s very much needed to support the often complex and nuanced structure of a TTRPG, even a rules-light one like 5e is. For this reason, you wouldn’t see a new class or subclass released with a feature that allowed them to make attack rolls with two d10s – it would break a foundational rule of the system and weaken the player’s intuitive understanding of that system as a result. Of course, 5e could be reworked so that every class used two d10s for attack rolls, ability checks and saving throws – there would need to be substantial balance changes to accommodate the more predictable nature of these rolls but the resulting system would maintain the basis for intuitive understanding that allows for engagement with the game. What differentiates the former and latter changes is that the foundation in the latter’s case remains unitary; in the former’s, it does not.

The same distinction, I would argue, is applicable to the use of regular percentages and True Hit to determine hit chances in the context of the proposed changes. Hit calculation is even more important to Fire Emblem games, Tropera included, than attack rolls are to D&D 5e – Fire Emblem, after all, doesn’t have ability checks or saving throws. As I understand it, Tropera’s system began with the foundational rule ‘whether a unit hits is determined by a single roll of percentile dice’; that rule has now changed to ‘whether a unit hits is determined by two averaged rolls of percentile dice’. That rule, of course, does itself have a major exception, ‘unless the required roll is lower than 60’, but it is an exception that is major and frequent enough that it is relatively easy to remember – not ideal, then, for maintaining intuitive understanding of the system built upon it but not terribly damaging to it either and arguably worth it to give low-percentage hits more chance to land. Both versions of this foundational rule are, therefore, capable of producing the intuitive understanding needed for engagement with the game. Introducing two feats and an S+ bonus that modified this, however, would create three independent exceptions to the rule that would substantially weaken that understanding; the units to which they applied would be much like the chess piece between four squares or the class rolling two d10s to hit. While calculation based on hit chance as shown was used for a substantial part of Tropera’s history, it is not the reversion to it where the problem lies but the fact that the reversions are rare cases that disrupt a foundational rule supporting the player’s ability to intuitively understand, and thereby engage with and enjoy, Tropera as a game. Doing so without any substantial benefit and with scope for the creation of other options would needlessly damage the ruleset.

Tropera’s previous and True Hit-based hit calculation rules have served it well thus far, being simple, coherent and consistent enough that players have been easily able to build an intuitive understanding of the game atop them in either iteration. To introduce Gamble, Power Attack and the S+2 weapon rank bonusses in the forms proposed would weaken that understanding, making Tropera a less engaging and enjoyable system. For this reason, I ask that alternative changes be considered.

Edited by Existential_Tempest on Jan 30th 2021 at 6:32:41 PM

Suggested compromise between Wryte's Gamble proposal and Tempest's wall-of-text lecture on his problems with it: Give Gamble some kind of reduction to accuracy in exchange for adding Luck to Crit (a variant of the "sacrifice accuracy for crits" version we had up to now).

My first thought was essentially removing Luck's influence on accuracy, but for the Luck-focused builds that would benefit from Gamble most that would be a pretty severe hit, so my second thought is a flat -10 or so (or split the difference and have a Luck-based penalty with a cap of some sort). It's not my system, though, so I'm just making suggestions.

That sounds promising!

Huh boy. Alright, let's see if I can break this down.

You have a point about a game's rules needing to be intuitive and consistent, of course, but absolute consistency makes for a boring game. Exceptions to the rules are what enable gameplay and strategy in the first place. As with anything, there's a give and take between these extremes of order and chaos. A version of chess with absolutely consistent rules would mean that all pieces can only move the same number of spaces per turn in the same direction, which would be a boring-ass game where the only deciding factor is which player goes first. The key to game design is finding right balance point between consistency and exceptions, which is going to be subjective.

You give the example of chess having a foundational rule that pieces end inside their turn inside a single space. You could just as easily say that it's a foundational rule of chess that each piece only moves in a straight line, be it vertical, horizontal, or diagonal, and this would be completely true, with the exception of the knight. You could say that it's a foundational rule that the game doesn't end just because a piece is captured, and this is true, with the exception of the king. It's a foundational rule that nothing happens if a piece reaches the opposite side of the board, with the exception of pawns, who also break the rule that pieces can use their movement in any direction.

The issue with your hypothetical spymaster isn't that it creates an exception to the rule, but that the specific exception it creates is then inconsistent with all of the game's rules. Not only with rules of movement, but also with rules of capturing. Does the spymaster capture every piece in a space that it's touching? Does it only capture one? How does it decide? How is it captured in turn if nothing can move to its "space" except another spymaster?

This game's Feat system is made up almost entirely of exceptions to the foundational rules of the game. It's a foundational rule of the game that units can't move through spaces occupied by hostile units, for example... unless they have the Thief feat. Units' Hit Chance is calculated as (2x Skill + 1x Luck)... unless they have the Sure Strike feat. Units make one attack against each other each time they engage in combat... unless one's faster, or they have the Adept feat, or the Sentinel feat, or a Brave weapon, or some other exception applies. As you point out yourself, the True Hit system even already has a major exception in the current game that it only applies to 60+ Hit Chance attacks. Is "Gamble removes True Hit" really "the Spymaster engages with the game board in a way that doesn't make sense with literally any other rule of this game," or is it "the Knight moves in an L"?

Of course, it does lead to problems if the guy running the game forgets about a particular unit's feats and their effects (case in point: you have forgotten that Grendan has Quick Draw). Whether those problems are as severe as Tempest seems to be implying, though... is another question entirely, which I am too tired to contemplate at this moment.