Squire Development Thread

[kablizzy]

This thread is for all discussions related to the Squire.

The following is the most updated list we have for Squire thusfar. Original FFT build can be found here.

Basic Skill
80 - Dash
90 - Throw Stone
120 - Equip Change (Shared with Chemist)
150 - Heal
200 - Yell
200 - Cheer Up
250 - First Aid - Heals an adjacent wounded ally. (Currently Knight Skill)
300 - Accumulate
500 - Scream
 
Reaction
180 - Counter Tackle
200 - Weapon Guard
400 - Iron Bravery

Support
250 - Gained JP-Up (Shared with Chemist)
250 - Maintenance (Shared with Chemist)
300 - Equip Axes
460 - Expanded Arsenal - Can carry extra weaponry into battle.

Movement
200 - Move +1

(4130 JP)

Notes:

• Unfinished; Needs more of an identity. I'm thinking Support Role / Weapons Squire?
• I've alluded to wanting each class to have a bonus outside of combat. If we give First Aid to Squire, I'd like for that to be a bonus to healing injuries in a PT. If not, perhaps a bonus to item creation?

[Mordred]

Ladies. I have a fricking idea.

At work today I was thinking about class niches, and I came up with one for Squire: Support Generalist. This doesn't seem very specific, since general is even in the name, but let me explain; the trick is twofold:

1) Squires can equip just about anything: Armor, Robes, Clothes, Hats, Helms, Swords, Staves, Rods, Crossbows, Shields, Axes, pretty much every weapon that isn't explicitly class-specific.

2a) Squires have Equip Change as an innate Support ability.
2b) Changing one equip doesn't use your action for the turn. Changing 2+ equips takes your action.

Think about the possibilities here. Pair up this equipment flexibility with a balanced statline (and a well-selected secondary skill set) and what you have is a fighter class that can serve as a backup mage, backup archer, backup healer, backup ANYTHING.

The Squire's actual skill set would be some simple self-buffs like Accumulate, Scream, Yell, and a new ability that's basically Accumulate for MA. Taking a Squire secondary would be attractive mostly to fighters, since it would give them the ability to buff up their own PA as needed, but mages could also find it useful if they have an opportunity to hide in a quiet corner for a while and buff up their MA.

The Equip Change trick wouldn't be abusable on other classes with more focused statlines because other classes don't have the same diversity of possible equips as Squires.

The downside of this is that Squires would have to own a lot more stuff to take maximum advantage of their flexibility, which is something that I have roundly argued against for other classes. However, this could be mitigated if Squires could access the entire party's pool of stored items during battles, so the financial burden isn't put squarely on one player's shoulders. This even works in-flavor, since real Squires were assistants to Knights, and carried their spare shit around professionally.

[Schwerpunkt]

So what you're saying is that we should turn the Squire into the Onion Knight, just with a few (meh) abilities on top.

I'd still rather just cut the damned thing and put his skills somewhere else.

[Mordred]

Onion Knights couldn't swap equipment on-the-fly. That's the difference here. WotL Onion Knights had absolutely no utility because they basically sacrificed an ability set for the ability to do... nothing you couldn't do with good planning.

The difference here is the Squire can alter his configuration midstream to fill gaps. The distinction is subtle but important.

[Schwerpunkt]

How many times did you actually use Equip Change in FFT, Mord?

It sounds like a great idea. Tactical flexibility is hugely useful. The problem is that... it really isn't. In addition to just being clunky, this runs firmly afoul of the 'Gil Eater' problem. In order to be effective, the Squire has to juggle multiple types of weapons at a given time. No other class has to do that. Making the Squire the single most expensive class to play properly strikes me as just plain weird.

[Mordred]

Never, because in FFT Equip Change takes your action. Read my post again.

But yeah, the Gil Eater drawback is a major one to which I can't come up with a complete solution.

So... I guess I'm in the Cut camp. Accumulate can go to Geomancers or something.

[kablizzy]

That is weird, actually. I do like the general road that you're going down with that, though. That was the general idea for Squire, without the emphasis on gil-eating. I was also thinking something along the lines of being a support class with unique buffs based upon +PA / +MA, with the possible caveat that they can only be used on other players? I dunno, just kind of thinking aloud here.

I do like the weapons specialist concept, and the base idea of Squires was to be a supporting role, and I love the concept that they can equip just about anything. I like where you're going with Equip Change, so that they can adapt to changing battle circumstances, that would definitely make them more useful. But I do worry about the gil cost - You'd not only be buying one of most equips, but we'd also have to justify the concept of bringing them into battle.

Now, interesting concept on being able to access the entire party's inventory. But what would they do with that? Equip someone else's sword? Throw a wand at someone? Kinda weird, if you think about it.

I love the concept, but we'd need to expound a bit on what the specifics would be here. I'll see if I can come up with some ideas after I'm done responding elsewhere.

[Mordred]

Well, you wouldn't be able to equip phantom duplicates of gear your party members already have equipped, but if they had anything in their packs, you could pull it out for the battle (and then automatically return it; no thievery). Still, that means you'd be limited to what spare crap your compatriots had on hand, which would probably not be great.

Maybe if Squires could conjure phantom weapons and armor..? That would be a neat trick. Justify it by saying "a Squire is always prepared!" and then you could use Equip Change to literally transmogrify your equips to new items on the fly.

Yeah, I like this one. Equip Change allows a Squire to pull out any item under the following restrictions:

1) you already own an item that goes in that equip slot
2) the item you pull out has a Gil value less than or equal to the item you actually own
3) the item you pull out must be of a type you are capable of equipping.
4) the item you pull out must be purchasable in shops.

[kablizzy]

Ability name: "Glad that wasn't my 'Live Grenade' pocket!"

Interesting concept. I can just see him rummaging around in his pack and going, "Aha! A flail!" And hilariously enough, we could give him a random equip ability that has a chance to pull out a flail or bag, ahahaha.

I'd like to keep exploring this, this is good. I'ma see if I can come up with some skill lists that aren't too complex. Simplicity is key with Squire.

[Mordred]

Up-to-date thoughts on Squire... Cut Scream because it's super-OP, added Focus.

Basic Skill
Dash (physical damage, high knockback%)
Throw Stone (ranged damage, low knockback%)
Heal (heals self or adjacent target of minor status effects)
Wish (heals adjacent target of X damage, deals X/2 damage to user)
Yell (adds +1 Speed to user; in FFT, this can be used on party members; I think Squires should be all about the self-buffs)
Cheer Up (adds +5 Brave to user; ditto to Yell)
Accumulate (adds +1 PA to user)
Focus (adds +1 MA to user)

Reaction
Auto-Potion
Counter Tackle
Weapon Guard
Iron Bravery (what is this?)

Support
Throw Item (lets the Squire use items on allies within 3 tiles)
Equip Change (inherent, learnable. Allows the Equip Change action. Equip Change allows a character to swap any number of equipped items for inventory items in their possession at the cost of their action for that turn.)
Well Prepared (inherent, unlearnable class feature. Allows the Squire to swap an equipped item for an item from their inventory once per initiative as a free action. Allows Squires to transform unequipped items in their possession into other items of equal or lesser Gil value.)

Movement
Move +1

TBQH, this is looking pretty respectable. You have 2 DD skills mainly useful for knockback, 2 healing/support skills, and 4 pretty decent self-buffs. Combined with Equip Change and the "Well Prepared" class feature, you've got a class that offers strength as a Secondary and offers extreme flexibility as a Primary.

[Blizz_Toilet]

Is rather always edit than cut - is there something else we can do with scream rather than cutting it? I mean, its not the best of abilities anyway, but eh.

[Mordred]

Scream is +1 PA, +1 MA, +1 Speed, and +10 Brave to user. You tell me if there's a reason to keep that in the same ability set as Accumulate, Focus, Yell, and Cheer Up.

[Schwerpunkt]

I'm not a fan of any ability that can directly increase your stats being spammable. I mean, imagine if Squire/Wizard just spent ten turns spamming Focus and then dropped a flare on someone.

[Mordred]

That's a really unlikely scenario. If 20% of your team strength (we're still talking 5-man teams, right?) spends 10 initiative rounds doing nothing but self-buffs, the rest of your party will be dead by the time they're done MA spamming.

[kablizzy]

This is also w hat I mean when I say edit instead of cut - If there's something like that, we can limit its usage to 1, or change +PA to +Brave, or otherwise just make it work as best we can. Plus, we're in Pre-Alpha, so yeah. Plus, like Mord said, you're not spamming Yell against NPCs here, you're doing it against live Tacticians, so you can't exactly run away as successfully here as you could in FFT. Now, there still is the abusability factor, so if we have to limit it to +1 PA / MA, we shall.

I've got a Squire build upcoming and some weird suggestions around it which will be up today at some point. Gonna try and get Summoner / Wizard / Priest going too, and edit into the other POJ classes and get them relatively finalized.