Let's Play Monster Quest Part 2

When we last left off, our heroes butchered some foolish humans chasing down the Dark Princess of Renais. Now it's time to...


Wait, I thought that's what we were doing last time? Oh, whatever.


I was so caught off guard I missed the opportunity to screencap the initial arrival, but we have a Grado jerkface attacking one of our Frelian allies as per the unmodded game, only the Frelian is now a Cyclops wielding a Hammer for some reason. Interestingly, Breguet not only gets the crit he normally gets in this sequence, but it even does damage -though not remotely enough to kill our Cyclops friend. The Cyclops retaliates and kill him in one hit, exactly as one would expect with those numbers. Breguet even plays his death line!

Then we return to the map screen and I miss my screencaps again -Brequet and the Frelian Cyclops both fade away as if killed, and then Breguet re-appears and continues on as if nothing happened.


... yep, still alive with 0 HP. I guess Grado is practicing necromancy after all.

I'm curious what would happen if I had someone attack Breguet and do no damage while he's alive at 0 HP. There's a lot of interesting possibilities, but I'm not going to get to test any of them because Breguet is going to heal 2 HP every turn thanks to the Gate he's standing on, and I cannot possibly get anyone to him in time. Alas.

I can't help but suspect this is deliberate humor on the part of the hack's creator. I can't imagine how Monster Quest could accidentally place a Cyclops here.

This time I make sure to check every enemy before I do anything. Nobody has anything interesting.


I check the numbers and conclude the Soldier and Fighter can't kill Eirika if they both hit her, and move her up aggressively to get experience.

In short order it becomes clear this was a riskier move than I'd been thinking, but it works out.


To my annoyance, the Fighter lands their hit. I botch catching the screenshot of the Soldier attacking, but he misses Eirika and she doubles him for most of his HP -but not enough to finish him in a single hit next fight.

The Fighters to the left move up and I don't think to screenshot it. Whoops, I thought they were the non-aggressive kind of AI, otherwise I would've been less aggressive with Eirika.


Then Franz and Gilliam show up and -dangit past me, you said you screenshotted their arrival and starting stats!

Lousy gawldang idgit why are you doing this to me???

Anyway, Franz is a Bonewalker, as I alluded to in the Prologue. For the moment that means he can wield Swords and Lances (Same weapons as in the unmodded game, I note), and I imagine he'll be able to promote to a Wight of the level of flexibility as Seth down the line. I like him already. He's also wielding a Shadowkiller, which is the Sword equivalent of a Fiendcleaver -effective against monsters, in other words. Like Fiendcleaver, this hack has made it unlimited use, too, which is useful. I'm pleasantly surprised that the game is just gifting me one! I also note that the Iron Lance has extra uses compared to the base game. This seems to be a trend with the hack.

Gilliam is a Bael, confirming my prior guess! That's a substantial shift in role for him, and I note that his base HP is higher than in the regular game. I'd been wondering if the hack was going to just leave the character's stats alone or bring them in line with the trends of whatever monster they are. Doesn't answer whether character growths are changed, but changing the bases is a big deal. Gilliam comes with both a Rotten Claw and a Fetid Claw -the Rotten Claw is the weakest of the Claw weapons, with the Fetid Claw being the middle rank. Gilliam's use of Claws means he'll completely ignore the weapon triangle, which has its advantages and its disadvantages.


The game won't give me their stats directly, unfortunately, but I do a quick comparison -the Rotten Claw is 6 Might weaker, but it's at least 9 points more Accurate. We can also see Gilliam's Defense and Speed here, and a check against Serenes Forest shows that they're actually both higher than for Knight-Gilliam, who only has 9 Defense and 3 Speed to start the game with.

Out of curiosity, I check Serenes Forest's page on class base stats in Sacred Stones. Then I check their page on class growths, since Gilliam is level 4. His stats are too high to be explained that way, and indeed a Bael's Defense growth is only 18%. I have no idea why the hack has made Gilliam stronger than his unmodded bases, particularly since only his HP advantage is in line with Bael trends. I'm particularly puzzled as the hack claims to be intended to be difficult.

Anyway, checking Serenes Forest's page on monster weapons, the weapon numbers are different from the numbers it lists, which place the Rotten Claw's Might as only 5 points weaker, but also its Accuracy as only 5 points higher. Apparently the hack has rebalanced monster weapons, which is interesting. I also note that the Fetid Claw has a higher Weight according to the page, but Gilliam's Constitution is high enough to handle them both equally well, assuming the hack hasn't changed their Weight.

In the end, I have Gilliam kill the Soldier with his Rotten Claw, since either way it will take two hits to kill them, but the Rotten Claw won't risk missing, ensuring the kill happens. Irritatingly, I seem to have lost the screenshot of the fight -I'm quite certain I took one, so we'd get a look at Gilliam's appearance.


Then I have Eirika back off so only one Fighter can reach her. (I also moved Franz to the Fort next to Gilliam) She uses a Vulnerary in the process, ensuring that even if the Fighter hits her, she'll live. (Poorly timed screenshot: this is the beginning of the heal, before any HP has been restored)


To my surprise and no small amount of annoyance, the Fighters decide to go after Gilliam and Franz. They are hopelessly outclassed, however. At least Gilliam's Fighter lands a hit on him.

Oh, and here's our first look at Gilliam and Franz's designs. They're both still primarily green, as in the unmodded game, with a dark green for Gilliam and a lighter green for Franz. I quite like the effect on Gilliam -he looks like some kind of jungle tarantula. This coloration also makes it obvious that Bael's are fuzzy -something I'd never realized, as their regular color scheme and the Elder Bael's regular color scheme doesn't mark the fur in a noticeably different color.

Franz manages to look like a sickly skeleton. He makes me think of Seth, if Seth was in desperate need of more sunlight. A bit unfortunate -I've always liked Franz's color scheme in the base game. Still, his graphic has no actual errors that I can see. I like his blue loincloth -not sure why.


There's stuff I thought I'd screenshotted, but either I didn't or I lost the screenshots. Nothing especially interesting happened, I'm confident of that much, and here I'm trying to bait the Fighter into giving Eirika more experience -also note that I moved Seth to a corner at some point in an attempt to avoid enemies killing themselves on him.


Thankfully, the Fighter does target Eirika, even though Gilliam and Franz are both in reach. He misses her and she kills him for his troubles, netting another really good level. Still no Strength, but I'm not concerned yet.


The Fighter to the west targets Gilliam, I guess because he'd be at the weapon triangle disadvantage if he targeted Franz. Gilliam isn't fast enough to double him, so he lives still, but not for long.


I pass Seth's Steel Sword off to Franz, since I don't intend to use Seth for a while and Franz might appreciate the option in some fights.


Then I utterly fail to chronicle the slaughter of one of the Soldiers, only taking a screenshot of the second Soldier being baited into attacking Franz. Little of interest happened.


These reinforcements show up, as usual. I check their gear, but they're carrying nothing special.


I move Eirika here because it puts her in reach of both of the Fighters, but not the Soldier in the reinforcement group. The Fighters can't kill her even with extreme luck, and I still want experience on her.


Then I have Franz murder the Soldier on the left, as he's currently my lowest-level character. I stick with the Shadow Killer to conserve weapon uses -using a Lance would only have slightly reduced the odds of Franz being hit and the damage he'd take on a hit, and I'm not worried about his HP this mission. Franz gets an okay level out of it.

Incidentally, I can use this level-up to determine Franz's base stats, and to compare him to Cavalier Franz. The short version is: his Constitution is unchanged, and he has small boosts in most, but not all, of his stats, compared to Cavalier Franz. +2 Defense is pretty significant though.

(Specifics are: +1 HP, +1 Strength, +1 Speed, +2 Defense)



Then I take a bunch of screenshots of the Fighters piling onto Eirika. Note Eirika's pose and position in the fourth one -she got a critical hit against the second Fighter and one-shotted him, netting her another really good level that still lacks Strength. Theoretically, she could still cap Strength before promotion, but it's unlikely.

I have Eirika clean up the other Fighter, positioned so the Soldier will attack her on the enemy's turn, and move everybody else over to prepare to clean up Breguet.


I take this screenshot of her fight with the Soldier ready to start, because I'm sure that was informative and exciting. She doesn't get a crit, and instead kills him on my turn.


Meanwhile, I have Gilliam take a crack at Bregeut with the Fetid Claw. He'll one-shot Breguet right now if he hits, so that's neat.

He misses.


Oh, but wait, he's fast enough to double Breguet, and while I missed the distinctive part of the animation, he even decided to be ironic or something and get a critical hit. Breguet plays his death line for the second time.


Gilliam gets a non-terrible level out of killing zombie Breguet (Base stats-wise, he has more than twice as much Speed as Knight Gilliam, adds 3 Defense and 3 Constitution, and other smaller stat bonuses: +1 Strength, +1 Skill, +1 Resist), and then a bunch of dialogue ensues as soon as I get Eirika to the throne.

Grado's gone crazy, calling us "abominations against everything good and just in the world" or some such nonsense. They've killed my father I'm pretty sure, and definitely taken Castle Renais. Can I crash at your place for a bit?
Oooh, slumber party!
I was thinking more a chance to rest before I go murder them all, maybe sacrifice a few to Fomortiis.
Oh, well in that case my father has some vassals and gold for you. What about Ephraim? Wasn't he out striking down bandits for fun or something? Shouldn't you look for him, make sure he's okay? (I don't have a crush on him, why would you think that?!)
I'm sure he's fine. (You do have a crush on him, and he's the only one that doesn't know)

-----------


And with that we have access to the world map, not that there's much of interest to do here for the moment.

See you next mission.

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