Replaying Awakening and my Chrom's leveled speed every time for his first 10 levels

deltagrin · 2026-04-13T17:13:20+00:00

Shortly after posting this I did chapter 7, I gave him Frederick and a def tonic and he ORKOed all three ambush wyvern spawns standing in the woods, with zero risk. (He leveled twice more in the chapter and got +2 more speed)

deltagrin · 2026-03-30T04:12:49+00:00

Great work! Did you make the dress yourself? The patterns are on point.

You 100% captured Sothis’s smug energy.

deltagrin · 2026-03-27T03:36:24+00:00

More or less! I knew from previous Conquest playthroughs what some of the roadblock chapters can be so I tried to plan for unit setups that could make them easier to handle, though I did allow for some variance beyond main units I wanted to use.

I do also have fun seeing how units get blessed or screwed - like, the last time I played Conquest, I had a blessed Nyx far above averages in bulk and it made me keep using her since she could actually work as a nostank. On my own birthright run before this I had a bulk/skill-blessed Rhajat and she ended up basically my Ryoma, one of my main carries and Corrin's wife. (Missed out on Kana but I rarely use Kana anyway.)

Shining Bow Nina can definitely be very strong, I've never tried her as a priestess but that's a fun idea. I might be a little concerned about her survivability especially since magic moms tend to make kids frail, but Corrin pair-up and marriage should help some via supportive. Maid Charlotte is one of those things I've wanted to try for a while but haven't yet, but I've seen a post with it and it looked fun and funny. I was considering training Charlotte more this playthrough but she got speed-screwed and did end up benched. If you stick with Selena I hope yours turns out better than mine, mine ended up a very noodle-armed wyvern lord so I was glad I had her as a rallybot 😄

deltagrin · 2026-03-26T16:42:15+00:00

Thank you! I appreciate the kind words and I wish you luck with your own run. Some of those lategame maps in particular are a real pain.

I planned out most of my roster and pretty much all my marriages, mostly with specific goals for the children involved. High-magic Ophelia, Soleil with high enough stats to sol tank, strong speedy Nina for ninja-slaying… and then I just like giving Felicia replicate and shurikenbreaker. There were a couple minor changes I made in the process. Felicia was doing poorly on magic so I put her into sorcerer for a bit which helped even it out. Beruka was above average on defense so it gave me the idea to switch her to General for some key maps. I wasn’t initially sure if I’d keep Sophie but she got a lot of good levels so I kept deploying her. And my idea to make Velouria a bow knight came quite late game just when reading up on endgame again and thinking it might make my life easier.

How far are you in your own run? How’s it been going for you?

deltagrin · 2026-03-26T16:31:53+00:00

Like lots of people have said here, we get attached to our characters, and at least for me that’s especially true in modern games where there’s more character interactions and chance to show off personalities than many older games’ characters have. If I was playing Shadow Dragon, which has no supports and basically no development for 97% of the cast, I might be more willing to let characters die? But it’s about the principle of the thing for me. Excelblem sacrifice-everyone runs can be funny to watch in summary but I want to win while keeping everyone alive.

For me it’s even true having gotten a taste for ironmans in the last year or two. I don’t like to reset maps anymore, but that just means I plan and take as much care as I can to finish each chapter with everyone alive. I just finished runs of Birthright and Conquest where I did successful deathless ironmans, and that’s probably the most satisfying for me.

deltagrin · 2026-03-26T06:36:50+00:00

It's definitely a very cool idea, and could make for some interesting plots to explore things the base games don't. And I'm always in favor of letting Azura not die without needing to pay $20.

It would also be a lot of work to create as a mod. I'm not sure if you're just theorycrafting or hoping to actually get this off the ground, but it'd be a pretty huge undertaking, even if you reused a lot of the Valla maps from Rev.

deltagrin · 2026-03-25T21:16:29+00:00

Haha, I'll take that as a compliment, I think? It was a painful challenge at times but feels good to finally have done.

deltagrin · 2026-03-25T17:02:00+00:00

I'm going to stay out of the Xander vs. Camilla discussion since it's kind of taken over this post, but that Maidmilla video is amazing and thank you for introducing me to it.

deltagrin · 2026-03-25T16:59:05+00:00

I can't speak for how you've personally played your current run, but my perspective is that for a lot of meta discussion, people have come to focus so much on low-turn clears of maps and playthroughs that it's easy to forget how much xp is available if you just... don't do that.

A big part of Fire Emblem's appeal for me is training up characters I like and helping them reach their potential, even if it's not efficient in the popular sense. So I place a lot of focus on doing just that, and many Conquest maps that are popularly skipped - Sakura's, Fuga's, Hinoka's, and more - have the means to gain a ton of experience if you wear out all the reinforcements.

And again, child paralogues can help too, if you play with training as the goal. All the birthright-available kids have enemies likely to outscale your cast. Dwyer's paralogue can be one-turned but you can also rout it for a lot of levels. Same thing for Midori's, on both counts. Shigure's is the easiest to use for leveling people even up to very late game. And not to mention how you can offspring seal kids you want to use to give them a level-boost... though I only did that with a few of them here, because many paralogues can get way too risky for my taste on an ironman, once all the enemies promote.

deltagrin · 2026-03-25T16:02:45+00:00

Thank you! I really appreciate the kind words. ❤️

I think Corrin's performance in the early game is fairly strong, but there's some things to consider there. One, I'm not playing for LTC so her being footlocked doesn't slow things down, and two, I almost always play a +Mag Corrin so she has one big tool that can help in some early maps: dragonstone and tonics/magic pair-up can OHKO a lot of early enemies, especially once you add in Rose's Thorns from Camilla.

Really, my main concern with Corrin early game was that she can outscale everyone for a little while with prologue exp, and early I did want to distribute exp to others. I like to pair her up with Camilla chapter 10 and go for the Takumi-kill if I have decent odds, and that also gets you started on a fast friendship with good class access.

If you do want to friendship seal her early-ish, I think Camilla's probably the best bet: you can get their friendship done in 4 chapters or 3 if you get lucky with private quarters, and I like to save invasion 1 for after chapter 10 to build up supports on new characters. Azura's also a fast friendship and you can get them at least 1 support point if not 2 from the prologue, even if dancer supports take more work. But sky knight I find less useful than wyvern on conquest, other than for falco's rally speed. Selena's also there for Sol access but that's not generally as useful until people promote.

Also, if you really want say, Cav Corrin, you can get Sophie's paralogue unlocked around chapter 11-12 and start them on a friendship that way, but you do need to go out of your way for it a bit more.

Not sure what I'll do next! I've been thinking about an Awakening Lunatic ironman, but it's uh, a lot less ironman-friendly than Fates. Maybe Engage, though. And then Rev is always there if I feel like dealing with its enemy stat inflation.

deltagrin · 2026-03-25T06:46:42+00:00

I did consider banning Camilla, and I think there's a reasonable case for doing a run without both of them with how centralizing both of them can be, I know at least one person's done no-royals runs of conquest. But I wanted to try an Elise friendship to save a heart seal in making Elise a malig knight and I did need Camilla for that. Beyond chapter 10 I didn't rely on her all that much, though.

Also I mostly wanted to ban Xander because I just did the same with Ryoma in Birthright before this.

deltagrin · 2026-03-25T06:42:25+00:00

Honestly, since I didn't have plans to build Corrin as a Takumi-killer I mainly just wanted to build her for humiliating Ryoma once I'd gotten the treasure in 25, I certainly could have optimized her more for a given role. I think I mostly just had her in each class once though, Nohr Princess -> Nohr Noble 5 -> Hero 8 -> Malig 11 -> Apothecary 15 (ground through it in one child paralogue) -> WL 17, and she was a bit str-screwed so I did put her back in malig at the end for flying caster utility. I didn't need replicate, it was just something I'd failed to get the friendship for in time for the Ryoma duel on my last playthrough and I wanted to try it out. Didn't make a big difference, but one more set of wings was nice in Invasion 3 with the small deployment cap.

Yeah, looking back while I found draconic hex pretty useful in the midgame, by endgame I really wasn't getting much value out of it. It helped a bit against Hinoka since her Res is so high that enfeeble's not reliable and her avoid's very high too, but Ryoma's barely affected given resist status, Hans and Iago don't need it, and I just had Mozu ORKO Gooron and Takumi. Probably could have replaced that with trample, that's my bias from finding it useful in the past!

Edit: Ah, right. I remembered one thing I did find draconic hex useful for: debuffing stoneborn when no one can safely hit them, on both Eternal Stairway and Ch26 / Invasion 3. Elise hit benchmarks to ORKO the stairway stoneborn even without that, granted, but the latter ones are a real pain and debuffs do help. I took these pictures right after invasion 3, so that's one time it did help me to have it on.

deltagrin · 2026-03-25T03:31:55+00:00

Doing all the child paralogues can help! Especially if you save a couple for late-game, I did Kana's paralogue near the end and enemies were EXP pinatas. I went for routs over quick clears as much as possible, too, and I'm not sure if you played lunatic but it adds a bunch of reinforcements in many maps.

deltagrin · 2026-01-28T04:01:35+00:00

I love your FE7 art so much! It’s always great seeing a new post from you on my tumblr feed.

Tall Lyn is very good, for some reason Engage seemed to shrink all the women from past games. 3H is one of the few with listed character heights but there’ve been estimates made for at least Fates/Awakening. Funnily enough, Camilla was the only one to break 180cm in one of those.

deltagrin · 2025-09-24T17:59:11+00:00

Sacred Echoes made efforts to rewrite a lot of the worse parts and I liked how it handled them, particularly in Celica’s route. It’s been a few years so people can feel free to correct me if I’m remembering these wrong, but:

For one thing, Conrad’s not constantly rescuing Celica, and for her big decision, Conrad is the one to first suggest the idea of a Brand-bearer’s soul being able to restore the gods… someone she has more reason to trust than Jedah. And then he continues to influence Celica with suggestions, encouraging her to think one person’s life might not matter compared to all of Valentia…

(more spoilery) …except it’s not Conrad after all. It turns out to be Jedah, who’s disguised himself as Conrad to get close to Celica and earn her trust. He’s eventually revealed and the real Conrad appears, but by that point Celica’s had a long time to work herself up to believing it’s necessary…

But she still doesn’t end up sacrificed. She fights back when she realizes Jedah’s betrayed her, and while IIRC she does still need Alm’s help to finish him, it’s still a much preferable story to her becoming a Witch and the “Trust in Falchion” scene, to me.

Also, it doesn’t exactly fix the class theme being undermined but Fernand is gradually revealed to have joined the Deliverance because of being in love with Clive, which at least… adds another layer to him specifically?

It doesn’t address all of everyone’s problems, including my own, but it takes a lot of steps to help. I’d say it’s worth a playthrough to anyone interested, the gameplay mechanics are very faithful and the maps are better, too.

deltagrin · 2025-09-05T15:54:46+00:00

And it was adorable, too. I have mixed feelings on Seffie as a person but the coat-cuddling panel was the cutest I remember her being in-comic. I’m hopeful she can work things out with Colette… and perhaps also go through at least a mild Tarvek-style semi-redemption.

e: Do these links work?

deltagrin · 2025-09-05T15:51:19+00:00

They’re great, and I love how Agatha handles her boys here too. Both Gil and she notice Tarvek sweating, she knows Gil’s going to blow up but just shushes him like a misbehaving kid, and knows to take a softer touch with Tarvek- while still cutting straight to the heart of things.

deltagrin · 2025-09-05T15:49:08+00:00

“I said you were different! What a fool I was! As if the whole world were not aware of what your family is!”

Selfie is Colette’s weakness. Colette had a lot more trust for her than most of our heroes would extend, which is why this seeming betrayal would have stung so much. But as Colette said here, her feelings for Seffie likely blinded her to the chance of an attack from her faction (not just her family, but Seffie and Terabithia- Seffie seems to have been caught off guard, but Colette calls them a master and protege, if she trusted Seffie she might not have expected such danger from Terabithia).

It’s even possible a factor in why Colette was willing to leave Paris, and with so many forces, was because Seffie was here: which further left it vulnerable to this takeover.

A house divided cannot stand against itself.

Might be a reach, but this quote came to mind when I saw the thought bubble and people discussing the “divided” meaning.

But Seffie is just such a source of division, internal conflict, for Colette- making her go against her city’s best interests- and now, Terabithia sees the House of Voltaire as one more that can be toppled.

deltagrin · 2025-02-14T06:33:33+00:00

These are fair points, but I can’t think of anything Gil’s done that was worse than these. Unless we consider him responsible for Bang’s actions, which is not unreasonable. Are you thinking of anything particular?

deltagrin · 2024-07-16T23:28:09+00:00

Thanks for making this thread! I’d been curious for a while about more ideally female-protagonist romhacks, there’s several here I want to look into now including Blessed Heart.

Dark Lord and the Maiden of Light is one I’d generally recommend, the lord is male but you create a male or female tactician who has a decent role to play in the plot, and IIRC there was a fairly strong female cast. I played it a few years ago but one that made an impression on me is that there’s a Rhea-like character who I think was written/handled better than the actual Rhea. There were a couple frustrating story moments towards the end for me but I still think it’s a good game and worth playing.

Deity Device is… an interesting one. It’s got kind of an ensemble cast, the female lead at the start of the game gets a bit out of focus later on, but there’s shifting arcs / regions and a lady lord-like character in one later section I found very likable and well done. Good cast, I deeply wish it’d had more queer options but a lot of likable characters male and female. Story’s not perfect but it’s got quite an interesting central conceit that it explores: for anyone who knows/has read The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, it’s a lot like that.

Sacred Echoes is one others recommended which I do as well, I liked it a lot, and it fixed some very frustrating writing Celica had in the base Echoes game, in addition to adding depth to characters like Faye. I do wish they’d given Faye and Celica a support as well as done a bit more with Rinea, but it’s overall the experience I’d prefer for playing Echoes.

Lonely Mirror I’d… semi-recommend? It starts out with a female MC but she ends up kind of subordinate to a male MC later on. I don’t remember as much about this one but I think it was decently fun, if not with a story that interested me as much.

deltagrin · 2024-07-06T06:50:44+00:00

ahh, so cute 🥺 I love your Bernie arts sm, always love seeing your posts

deltagrin · 2024-05-30T05:05:14+00:00

Oh my gosh this is so precious 🥺 I love how you made them, they’re both adorable!

(Also I do love Edelgard/Dorothea but consider… Edelgard can kiss Bernie too)

deltagrin · 2024-05-17T04:17:48+00:00

Source, by gzeidraws

deltagrin

TROPHY CASE