Class Mayhem! Let's Hack Fire Emblem + Sword of Seals!

Thing is, Axes aren't that much more inaccurate than Swords (there's only about a 10% difference between equivalent weapons) and the game hands you like three or four Skill Books over the course of the game to fix things if he falls too far behind. On the other hand, he gets a higher Str cap as a Berserker, and between that and the 15% critical hit boost after promotion, you can just slap on a Killer Axe and slaughter even the toughest foes in a snap (especially those with 0 Luck, which can boost his critical rate even higher since they have no means of mitigating it).

Also: A ton of enemies use Lances in the second half of the game (there are tons of Wyvern Riders in Bern, and Cavaliers are a fairly common class for the enemy), and Hand Axes let you attack some enemies at a distance as well as go toe-to-toe with Archers, so having Axes trained up will make dealing damage more reliable in the long run.

I can see liking Heroes being a big factor in the decision, but Berserker is such a dominating class it's not even funny. Besides, Bartre's really the only (useful) character where the Brigand class works aesthetically so pleeeeaaaase?

Except in order to promote Bartre, he actually has to survive long enough. Yes, Axes are only 10% less accurate, but that's pretty bad when your Skill growth isn't that hot and you're on Hard. Besides, Heroes can use Axes anyways. Finally, Hero Crests are much cheaper and more frequent than Ocean Seals, and I'd rather not destroy my Funds ranking too much.

I get that you really want to see a Brigand, but if you want that just wait till I finish FE7 and start up FE6.

...I did mention I was playing both games on Hard back to back, right?

You did, yeah. It's just that I didn't think the game would start showing its fangs until the Dread Isle or so. o_o

That said, I'd honestly be surprised if an early Brigand didn't make things easier. The game has a ton of Lance users to throw him against - Chapter 14 has something like 13 Cavaliers alone for him to kick sand in their faces - and that's saying nothing of the armies of cannon fodder Soldiers you'll meet in the early goings. Plus 5 Skill isn't really that bad at that point in the game (Eliwood, Rebecca, Lowen and Hector all have about that much) and 35% can easily be rounded up to 40% without much change in variance (in 18 level ups, that equals to about 1 point in Skill on average) which in itself is a fairly solid growth. If worst comes to worst, you can always use those Skill Books to fix the stat if the RNG decides to spite you*.

I dunno, making him an Axe user seems like a winner to me. Besides, Lyn and Wil seem more than happy to fill the role of Swordmasters (and so far seem to be doing an excellent job of it) and Eliwood isn't too far behind either. Hector, meanwhile, seems to be the only viable Axe user on your team so far and all of the potentially-great Berserkers and Warriors seem to be spoken for at this point.

Unless it really does make the game that much harder (in which case, I'll concede), is it possible we could split the difference at least? There's no reason why we can't just promote him from Brigand to Hero by the time he hits Level 20. Plus having him as an Axe Hero means you can justify using both him and Harken on the same team, who from what I've heard is absolutely invaluable in HHM.

*Not like it seems it wants to - you already have a better Lyn than Tanto ever did only 10 chapters into the game, and not a single character seems to be getting Str- or Spd-screwed at this point beyond maybe Sain or Matthew (who can always just use Luna to patch up that Mag stat). I guess this is its way of saying sorry after tormenting you in your latest playthrough Pokémon?

You've reminded me of Harken's existence. Considering he's pretty much the best Hero ever, I guess I'll open Bartre up for class changing.

You win this argument.

And the only reason I'm getting good level ups across the board is because I'm manipulating the RNG. I intend to explain how later on.

Those are amazing.

Noice. You know which class my vote is for.

Oh God, I can't stop laughing

Chu, are you trying to kill me through laughter

That second picture, oh god... Chu, never stop doing what you're doing.

how did I not see this this is amazing oh my goddess

That being said, Rebecca has to be THE STRONGEST unit. I refuse to negotiate on this matter. (also I like the idea of making her a mage, since that's like having her as an archer but better)

That being said, I hope /someone/ uses her unique adorable archer sprite.

no, I don't have a fetish for energetic pigtailed archers

EDIT: Chu you are amazing and made of magic.

Alright, I'm sure you guys have noticed by now that I've been getting a lot of really good level ups. Why is this happening? Is it because I'm lucky? Hell no. This LP is called "Let's Hack Fire Emblem", remember? And though what I'm doing isn't exactly hacking, it's totally impossible without the aid of save states.

As I explained earlier, Fire Emblem determines what you'll get from a level up by generating seven random numbers. However, the numbers that will come up aren't exactly random. I'm not quite sure how it works, but basically the game generates most of its numbers ahead of time and just works down the list every time it needs to check a calculation.

So let's say Lyn's about to level up. Her growth rates are 70 - 40 - 60 - 60 - 55 - 20 - 30. Meanwhile, the next twelve random numbers are 100 - 23 - 15 - 67 - 28 - 12 - 56 - 98 - 11 - 22 - 79 - 4.

Lyn enters a battle against a weaponless enemy Brigand with a sword so heavy she can't double attack. To calculate her chance at hitting, the next two numbers (100 and 23) are averaged and compared to her hit rate (100) and her critical rate (20). 61 is lower than 100 but higher than 20, so she hits but doesn't get a critical. This doesn't kill the bandit, but the resulting experience is enough to level her up. Let's look at the next seven numbers from there: 15, 67, 28, 12, 56, 98, and 11. This will only boost her HP, Skill, Speed, and Resistance. That would be a pretty standard Lyn level up, but it's still bad. If you were playing on an actual cart, you'd have to choose between restarting the level or just sucking it up. But I'm playing on a ROM, so I can take a third option. Look at that twelve digit list one more time. Wouldn't things go a lot better if that starting 100 were removed? But how can I do that? I guess I could have another unit attack another enemy, but (assuming the enemy would counter attack) that would slice off the first four digits instead, and then another two once Lyn does her attack. Since what I want to do is just remove 100, this obviously isn't a good idea.



The answer is extremely simple. Look at this panel.



There are five ways Lyn can reach this panel from her current position.



If I place the cursor here and press right, which of these paths will the game pick? The answer is any one of those five. But how does the game decide? You guessed it: with a random number. If I subsequently cancel the movement decision and have Lyn attack her enemy, 23 and 15 will be used for the hit calculations, letting Lyn get a critical hit and kill the Brigand. Then 67, 28, 12, 56, 98, 11, and 22 will be used during the level up, boosting Lyn's HP, Strength, Skill, Speed, Defense, and Resistance.

The problem with trying to do this on a normal cartridge is simple: Fire Emblem responds to the start of a battle by automatically saving the game. Because of this, there's no way to see that you're going to have a bad level up and thus no way of knowing you should dick around with your movement. However, save states provide a handy reset button that can be used for just that purpose.

This isn't perfect though; I provided a list of the next twelve numbers, but in reality you have no way of finding out what the exact values of the next random numbers are. As such, you won't be able to get nonstop perfect level ups unless you're actually lucky or just spend a ton of time reloading. However, you can keep on resetting until you get a boost to the stat you want. So far, I've been working under the principle that a level up that boosts at least three stats (at least one of which must be Strength, Skill, or Speed) is something worth keeping.

As another con, this method has one major flaw: it's almost entirely useless for level ups gained on enemy phases (unless there's only like one enemy left that is).

That explanation was missing from the FE8 TAS's notes; it said it was manipulating the RNG that way but not how.

What other "monsters" are there in this game? And is class-changing to 'breakable wall' actually possible?

After I went to bed it occurred to me Hero was probably a promoted class, 'cause what would "hero" promote into? I wish I could find a good graphical promotion guide like Sacred Stones has. Anyway, if I ever vote for a promoted class for a non-promoted character, assume I meant for them to build up to it.

On my hack save I was trying to get the Afa's Drops effect on everybody. The guide says the 'hidden status' field set to 10 does the trick but I don't think that's accurate. (It makes their final item shiny and dropable instead.) Instead I've been putting it in everybody's inventory and making them use it first opportunity. Kind of a pain but meh.

Request: Once we hit the halfway point, at least, a cast/class rundown would be nice. Point out any classes we've overlooked and any major gaps in defenses/offenses.

This game is so much less frustrating than Final Fantasy V.



That village holds an extremely useful Secret Book. Other then that, there’s nothing really special about this map.



Dorcas proved completely unable to dodge things, so I had to have Marcus heal him. I have to say, Valkyrie Marcus doesn’t actually look that bad.



Rebecca, though… it kind of looks like she’s wearing lingerie.



Much more surprisingly, Bartre fits the Brigand palette perfectly.



Oswin wasn’t so lucky.






Hector rescues Eliwood, and the two friends are reunited. The paladin Marcus reveals news: someone has called for Eliwood’s death. Pherae’s problems must be connected to the attempt on Eliwood’s life. Searching for more clues, Hector and friends depart for the castle of Marquess Santaruz.



(HP: 75%, Str: 30%, Skl: 50%, Spd: 70%, Lck: 45%, Def: 15%, Res: 25%)

Guy is our first unit with Hard Mode bonuses. This time, he’s gotten +2 to Strength, Skill, and Speed, and +1 to Resistance. This is awesome, but it’s going to make recruiting him extra dangerous.

Would you guys mind if I stopped trying to bold/italicize the dialogue?

I think we should turn him into an archer but nobody likes archers (except Rebecca, everyone likes Rebecca, right?).

EDIT: Oh, right. No foot soldiers class changing into mounted units.

If we made him a girl archer he'd probably look like Rebecca in a different dress. It's the first class I thought of too. He might be pretty as a Monk though.

Guy the (skillful, quick, and lightweight) axefighter, lol

Constitution (and Move) are tied to the character's class, so if I make Guy a Fighter he won't be a lightweight.

That would be cool but I'm not sure there are any bishounen axefighter types. It'd feel too weird to make Guy burly.

Oh and Blitz: Feel free to drop the formatting. It's pretty but hardly necessary.

Damn it, Guy's got a custom sprite too. Because the sprite artists felt they had to show off his headband, he'll always be a Myrmidon/Swordmaster in battle. Damn it, this was so much easier in FE6, where there were only... were there any units with custom sprites in that game?

...so... no female archers named Guy? This is terrible. TERRIBLE.

Hmm... Blitz, have you tried changing classes with the Nightmare Editor or hex editing instead? I think you can override the custom sprites and fix some faulty pallet changes if you fiddle around with the code directly, though I'm not sure how much harder it would make updating or whether it'd be feasible in the long run.

By the way: totally requesting that we make Guy a Soldier. As mentioned, it's one of my top three favourite classes and the idea of him promoting into a fleet-footed General makes me chuckle.

I'm trying to update this LP daily to fit the one month deadline, so I'd like to avoid complicated things like actually editing the game. Also, I have never understood how the Nightmare Editor works, and I get the feeling that even if I did I'd end up screwing something up.

Another three-way tie, so I decided to go for the class we haven’t tried yet.



In my opinion, this is the chapter where the game stops messing around. There are two paths you have to take, and both are pretty dangerous. The northern route has fewer enemies and a village you have to visit to trigger a sidequest, but trying to use it is basically inviting the Cavaliers and Pegasus Knights to bum rush you. Meanwhile, the southern route has a village that is in serious danger of being pillaged, a shit ton of Archers to ruin your day, and a narrow corridor at the beginning. Also, Guy will charge at you if you get to close, and if he gets into a battle with anyone except a completely helpless Marcus, someone’s going to die. As if that wasn’t bad enough, there’s an Archer, Solder, and Pegasus Knight spawn point.



Also, I’m on Hard, so using characters with low Strength leads to annoying situations like this.



Times like this call for AI abuse. Fire Emblem enemies are coded to prioritize “helpless” characters like healers.



Or at least that’s how it works in FE9 and 10. Maybe it’s because Marcus is promoted? I could try removing all of his items, but that would leave me without a healer.



I… I didn’t even have to manipulate the RNG.



why are you so useless lowen do you even train



Whew, looks like the AI does target healers after all. This Brigand could have pillaged that village, but instead he chose to attack Marcus.



Shit, things aren’t looking good up her-



Huh. Never mind then.





Marcus proves to be extremely effective enemy bait. I should probably hurry up and save that village though (it gives a free Mine).



Whew, made it.

Matthew’s running into a problem: he’s too powerful. See, despite being a mage unit, he can pretty much dodge and counter double attack every enemy on the map, and this results in lots of dead enemies (meaning less experience for everyone else) and a really low life expectancy for his Flux tome (I don’t think I’ll be getting a new one for a while).



A mediocre level up, but if it means letting Dorcas live (he got attacked by two Cavaliers but managed to dodge one attack) I guess I’ll have to live with it.





In the end, I had to park Eliwood over here to draw enemy fire from Dorcas and Bartre, who were busy running to Marcus.



Way, way too close.



Oh, that reminds me. You know how Eliwood’s Tale started you off with 10,000 Gold? You don’t get that in Hector’s Tale. Why is this the case, considering Eliwood should have that Gold anyways? Because fuck you, that’s why.





The boss for this level is crazy. Look at that Defense; the only one who do significant damage to him are Hector equipped with the Wolf Beil and maybe Matthew. On the plus side, he has no long range weapons so I could probably farm experience off of him. But that would be lame, so I’ll just get this over with.




The dying words of Lord Helman, the marquess of Santaruz only serve to strengthen Hector’s convictions. “ Darin, the marquess of Laus, knows all…” To ascertain the truth of what he’s heard, Hector departs for Laus.

To reach Laus from Santaruz, Hector’s group must pass through a village in Caelin. They decide to rest there for the night.



This map is kind of a pain. It has the same goal as Chapter 4, but this time just bunkering down and protecting Merlinus won’t work; not only is there a village to rescue, there are just so many enemies, with the major threat being the waves of Nomads and Brigands. My strategy was to try and push back the enemy wave as far from Merlinus as possible. This is kind of hard when you can’t see most of said enemy wave.



So, first thing to do is to get some visibility. Serra’s at the bottom of the field blocking the Brigands, but Eliwood still has that Torch Merlinus dropped in the last chapter.

This asshole right here is extremely dangerous. If he gets a clear path to Merlinus, you may as well just reset the game. Indeed, what you see here is pretty much an unwinnable situation; Oswin can’t kill that Myrmidon without a critical, and even if he did a Nomad and an Archer are in position to kill Merlinus. I ended up having to reload to an earlier save state to continue.

FAKE EDIT: Oh god damn it, I just realized I could have had Marcus rescue Merlinus at the beginning to make this mission two times easier.



WHERE THE HELL DID YOU COME FROM god I hate fog of war so much.





The two Bandits on their way to destroying this village chose to commit suicide and face Marcus instead. The reward for saving this village is 5000 Gold.





In the end I never killed the boss. But I think I got enough level ups to make up for that.


A droll merchant named Merlinus now joins Hector’s group. With Merlinus in tow, Hector sets out for Laus the following day.

Laus is located in the heart of Lycia, a territory ruled by the power-hungry marquess of Laus, Lord Darin. According to information gathered by Ostia’s network of spies, Darin was definitely involved in Marquess Pherae’s disappearance. Despite strong opposition, Hector is determined to uncover the truth.

Alright, time to check out my rank!



Huh, not too shabby. Anyways, time for something that might surprise a few of you!



In the Extras section of the main menu, there’s this mysterious option called Transfer Data. If you happen to have the Mario Kart Double Dash bonus disc, you can link your Fire Emblem cartridge to it to get some super rare items.

No, seriously.

See? Check it out!

The Silver Card and stat boosting items should be self explanatory, but everything else might seem a bit weird. The Dragon Axe is basically a Wyrmslayer in Axe form, the Wind Sword is a long range sword that would later pop up in FE8, the Emblem Seal is an item that increases the evasion of the unit holding it, the Emblem weapons are E rank Iron weapons with a tremendous amount of uses, and Thor’s Ire is a ring for Nils/Ninian to use that boosts the critical rate of whoever you target.



You can choose to send the items to either your main character or Merlinus. The reason I waited so long to do this is because Hector just doesn’t have enough room for all of these.



The nice thing about this is that I essentially get some breathing space on my Funds ranking; if I choose to not use the stat boosters I get a free 48,000 Gold, but using them won’t cost me a thing. Not only that, but the Silver Card effectively doubles my money, as I’ll explain later.

All in all, Rebecca used the Energy Ring, Bartre used the Secret Book, Guy used the Dragon Shield, Hector used the Goddess Icon, and Eliwood used the Angelic Robe and the Body Ring.



(HP: 45%, Str: 40%, Skl: 50%, Spd: 40%, Lck: 65%, Def: 15%, Res: 55%)

Anyways, new unit! Priscilla is pretty much your typical Troubadour; weaker than a Cleric, but much more mobile.

With stats like those, Priscilla is obviously a Fighter.

Ah, but she's mounted. Well, we'll need a pegasus knight.

It seems especially appropriate considering that feather she's wearing.

It'd be fine. You could do a find-replace on "Hector:"->"Hector:" for each name, though, if time editing's your objection. Ideally all at once rather than per chapter.

I will forever be perplexed by people named "Guy".

I vote for more monsters if they exist in the code. (I can't find a good source of a list for these..)

Yeah, Priscilla the Pegasus Knight seems like the perfect fit to me. This group has been sorely lacking aerial fighters anyhow.