Fire Emblem Three Houses: Reach for my hand, I'll soar away.

[Zevox]

Spoiler: More DLC TALK

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Yeah, I did a wiki dive about Anna when she was the lady selling stuff but had no in-game model at first. I know she's got one in the late game but she's still just kinda...there. So it'll be interesting to recruit her.

Jeritza just seems like he should have been recruitable from the get go for the Crimson Flower route. Though the Famitsu article says "Routes depending" so...no idea what that means. Either a translation error or there might be more than one route you can get him. I don't really see how he'd be recruitable in any route with the Church. Manuela's "oh he apologized for nearly killing me" reasoning in the Crimson Flower route was already enough to make me roll my eyes. According to the Famitsu Article, both Anna and Jeritza have Supports if you bought the DLC. But not if you haven't and Anna will be recruitable if you don't have the DLC but Jeritza will not.


More classes would be nice if only to cover some stuff...and having a non-mounted Master Class for men that isn't War Master would be rather nice. It'd be nice to see a Magic/Melee hybrid that isn't a Master Class and isn't a sword user as well. At least one character has Axe and Reason, it'd be nice to see that actually work out. I'd be fine with them removing all the gender requirements as well. They seem arbitrary to me, though I'm fairly certain it's just legacy to the series. Which is still arbitrary.

As for the other four characters they discussed in Wave 4. The translation didn't really do a good job with the names and said nothing other than those names. So I didn't delve into it in my last post. They're mentioned along with Abyss Mode so I'm not sure if we're meant to take that as they're only usable in whatever Abyss Mode is or if they're going to be added to the existing Houses or what. I think it's pretty clear now that we're not getting a "Fourth" House like a lot of people are wanting. Though that'd be cool.

The Famitsu Article also seemed to imply to a lot of the people covering it that this DLC pack wouldn't be the only DLC for the game. Further "evidence" to this hypothesis is just how well the game has sold. I've never really known Nintendo to pump out more than one wave of DLC though Smash Ultimate is getting another DLC pack after their first and Breath of the Wild got two. So that signals to me that Nintendo has learned to actually invest in the games people like and have sold well. Time will tell, I'm certainly eager for more content as I'm nearing the end of the existing stuff.

Spoiler: DLC

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I'd assume the plural for Jeritza to be a mistake, yeah. It's hard to see how to work it otherwise. Unless...

Spoiler: Caspar/Mercedes paralogue

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they add the ability for Mercedes to convince him to join you via the paralogue where you learn he's her brother. But that's stretch, and then it begs why they'd say it was route dependent, since then there'd be a way to recruit him on all of the routes, I would think. So yeah, I'm assuming plural is a mistake, and it's just Crimson Flower.

As for classes, men do actually have a non-mounted class that isn't War Master: Mortal Savant. The master ranks could use more more non-mounted classes in general though, I'll agree with that. And if they're not going to open up gender-locked classes, a male mage class at the master rank would be nice, so Hubert and Lindhart have some options besides staying in advanced classes or learning to ride a horse and use lances.

As far as those gender locks go, it's really just Pegasus Knight that is a series staple thing - having three Pegasus Knight sisters was kind of a long-running thing in the series for a while, and even after they stopped doing that specifically they still didn't have any men for the class until Fates. The others though? Brawler, Grappler, War Master, and Gremory are all new to this game, and we've had female Dark Mages and Heroes before (Tharja and Severa from Awakening even being very popular examples of those). I guess you could argue that there was a tradition of the axe classes being all male for a long time, but that was mostly because the character models for the Warrior and Berserker classes were designed for extremely beefy men I think, and they didn't gender-lock Brigand or Warrior in Three Houses, so it doesn't make sense for War Master specifically to be the one locked under that tradition. For some reason they transferred that to the new brawling classes instead.

And it might be neat to have more DLC afterward, depending on what it is. Which is really very much where I'm at on all of this. I haven't bought the DLC pass as it stands, and won't until I'm sure I'm happy with what I'd be getting for it - so probably not until they reveal what the story DLC is so I can judge that.

[Razade]

Spoiler: DLC

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I'd assume the plural for Jeritza to be a mistake, yeah. It's hard to see how to work it otherwise. Unless...

Spoiler: Caspar/Mercedes paralogue

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they add the ability for Mercedes to convince him to join you via the paralogue where you learn he's her brother. But that's stretch, and then it begs why they'd say it was route dependent, since then there'd be a way to recruit him on all of the routes, I would think. So yeah, I'm assuming plural is a mistake, and it's just Crimson Flower.

As for classes, men do actually have a non-mounted class that isn't War Master: Mortal Savant. The master ranks could use more more non-mounted classes in general though, I'll agree with that. And if they're not going to open up gender-locked classes, a male mage class at the master rank would be nice, so Hubert and Lindhart have some options besides staying in advanced classes or learning to ride a horse and use lances.

As far as those gender locks go, it's really just Pegasus Knight that is a series staple thing - having three Pegasus Knight sisters was kind of a long-running thing in the series for a while, and even after they stopped doing that specifically they still didn't have any men for the class until Fates. The others though? Brawler, Grappler, War Master, and Gremory are all new to this game, and we've had female Dark Mages and Heroes before (Tharja and Severa from Awakening even being very popular examples of those). I guess you could argue that there was a tradition of the axe classes being all male for a long time, but that was mostly because the character models for the Warrior and Berserker classes were designed for extremely beefy men I think, and they didn't gender-lock Brigand or Warrior in Three Houses, so it doesn't make sense for War Master specifically to be the one locked under that tradition. For some reason they transferred that to the new brawling classes instead.

And it might be neat to have more DLC afterward, depending on what it is. Which is really very much where I'm at on all of this. I haven't bought the DLC pass as it stands, and won't until I'm sure I'm happy with what I'd be getting for it - so probably not until they reveal what the story DLC is so I can judge that.

Spoiler

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I'm aware of the Mortal Savant, but it's just...so niche. All the Master rank Classes kinda are, and I guess that's the point after you've built them to a specific goal for so long but the two non-mounted classes are just...kinda meh? Mortal Savant's just kinda boring. I've taken Byleth down that route in my first run and I've taken a few others down it in other runs and...eh? I finally did War Master with Caspar. Because they more or less force you to take him that route. I just feel like the class roster isn't as robust as I'd like, four runs in. It was fine the first two, and maybe this is a little burnout talking, but...yeah. Overall, the classes are just kinda boring. I am coming from a more Disgaea/FFT style of tactical RPGS so that might also be part of my problem. I just don't feel like the classes are all that distinct in general.

As for other DLC after this...I'm with you. I only got this one because there was a promise of more content. If it were just outfits and Battalions...I'd have skipped it. So far I don't feel like I've really got my money's worth so I'm eager for the last two waves to change my mind on that. Six new playable characters, new story content and more classes are all promising. If any further DLC is like that, I'll be on board. Otherwise I'll skip it. The casual wear is just plain ugly and glasses on Byleth seem so anachronistic and goofy with his non-teacher costume.

I'll happily get whatever FE comes next if I've got the system though. New DLC I skip or not.

[Seerow]

That you don't mind doesn't mean others won't, and using spoilers elsewhere doesn't help not using them in that post. And the point at this time is the same as the point earlier - courtesy to others. Especially for a game where not knowing the story in advance will affect your experience as much as it will on this one. However much exposure you think this game has, it's far from ubiquitous. It's not like it's Final Fantasy 7 where if you've ever spent any small amount of time on a gaming section of the internet you've heard "Aerith dies" - the game's only a couple of months old and you'd need to be deliberately looking for places where people were discussing it to see spoilers.

And Youtube can only spoil you that way if you already regularly watch videos about similar topics - and just video games in general is not nearly broad enough, because I do that a lot (with fighting game and Hearthstone videos), but have not had Youtube trying to show me Fire Emblem videos. I'd be willing to wager you might get those recommended to you if you regularly watch RPG videos, but otherwise, not so much. Can't speak to "vine collections," don't know what that even is.

The point is, using spoiler blocks is easy and a simple courtesy to fellow posters, and very much so important enough in this game that it simply having been out for a couple of months seems a very insufficient excuse to not do so, to apparently everyone in the thread except you. Please do so.

Spoiler: DLC, and some late-game spoilers

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Anna is technically in every FE game in some way, I think. Not the same person, but a version of her anyway. Can't say I'm interested in recruiting her personally though, she's always seemed rather dull to me.

Jeritza is more interesting by far - I'm assuming he'd have to be exclusive to the Crimson Flower route. I'd be quite curious to see his supports and finally learn what's up with him. ...assuming they don't pull something like making DLC characters playable for gameplay but not giving them supports that is, in that case I wouldn't care. I've got plenty of characters I like that I can use for combat already, don't need someone new who's had less character development than the main cast just for that.

More classes could be nice, though it feels like we're in pretty good shape there, outside of the lack of an Advanced class for Pegasus Knights, and possibly a Master class for sword-users who aren't interested in picking up magic. Outside of that though I think I'd honestly rather they remove the gender restrictions on classes instead - it's silly that Lysithea can't be a Dark Mage despite all of her Reason spells being dark magic, or that Hilda can't be a War Master and is arbitrarily stuck at Warrior as her top-end class for her default route, to name just two obvious examples. Maybe keep Pegasus Knights being female-only as a major series tradition (though Fates broke that and it was fine), but otherwise, open 'em up I say.

As for the other characters and story, all depends on who/what they are.

As others mentioned, one of the few remaining restrictions on the class system is that only certain classes get to use magic. Generally, if the class doesn't require skill in a magic type to qualify for, it doesn't get to use magic at all. The only exceptions are a couple of unique classes you'll get at specific story points.

I'm kind of split on whether I like that, personally. On the one hand if every class could use magic the way they can all use any weapon type now you might lose a lot of individuality, and could wind up with the ability to have your entire army be healers in a pinch, which could get silly. On the other hand it would be nice to be able to have some physical/magical hyrbid characters (besides the couple of unique classes) before reaching those top-end classes, especially for characters that you want to end up in one of those hybrid top-end classes. Also, it really feels like it locks the characters who are good at magic but not physical combat into very narrow class options compared to everyone else, which is a bit disappointing. It's hard to see how you ever get someone like Lysithea to branch out into anything besides the Mage or Priest class lines.

By the way, out of curiosity, which house are you leading?

I went with what as far as I can tell is the most commonly picked route, the Black Eagles. Just wrapped up Chapter 5, and got most characters into their Intermediate class right before the battle (a few did not make it just due to lack of funds). Playing on Hard with Classic Mode on, because I heard the game was easier than some of the older games, and didn't want a total cakewalk.

Spoiler: Party

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Mostly playing everyone according to their strengths, not wanting to get too fancy/weird on my first playthrough, not that I'm sure how much room there is for weirdness in the early game.

Byleth - Mercenary. Focused on Swords. Dumped a bit of training time into faith, but I guess I will just wait until endgame to see if that was worthwhile or not at this point.
Edelgard - Brigand. Big hits DPS, almost made her an Armor Knight, but I already planned for Caspar to go that route, so figured I'd let her do her thing. Also pushed her Reason skill, similar to Byleth we'll see if that plays out in the endgame.
Bernadetta - Archer. She's honestly a bit disappointing. I saw a lot of chatter about how OP of a sniper she is, but so far I am not feeling it. Her str and speed are both pretty midling, so I'm regularly seeing only 8-12 damage from her, which is just not cutting it. Really hoping this is just bad luck on my growths and it balances out in the long run.
Caspar - As mentioned above, he's my Armor Knight. Dude likes to get into the thick of things, this lets him do it without being so fragile. I also tend to really like heavy armor units in these games.
Dorothea - Monk. Pushing Reason/Faith fairly evenly, she's a good switch hitter to snag a killing blow or soften a tough enemy up, but is a great healer. After finding out Magic is class restricted I am a bit worried that pushing her into the White Mage intermediate class will cut off her access to black magic.
Lindhart - Very similar to Dorothea. Except he has access to Wind Magic rather than black magic, and I am not sure how/why. Not sure if there will be better ways to differentiate the mages at higher class levels, but hoping there is.
Hubert - Black Mage. My only intermediate classed caster, and excelling in it. I put some tutoring time towards lances for him because it was a skill where he had the potential, but honestly I have never had him touch a lance in combat. The spellcasting is just so strong.
Fernidant - Cavalier. The quintessential noble gets to go riding around riding people down.
Petra - Myrmidon. Only non-caster not classed up, debating whether to go Mercenary or Thief on her. My understanding is Mercenary just has better growths all around, so the benefit of Thief is getting to open locks... but maps with chests tend to have enemies with keys to open them, don't they?

Spoiler: Chapter 5 plot

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So at the end of Chapter 5, fought my first big demon/beast/thing. I got like 3 miraculous crits that stopped me from losing a character, but it was a close call. I assume there's some better strategy to it than what I was doing. Any general advice on these sorts of monsters when they come in the future?

Spoiler: Endgame Spoilers

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I did get spoiled on one thing pretty early on, that being that Edelgard is also some character known as the Flame Emperor (who I assume is the mysterious person running around in red armor I've seen in a few cutscenes), and that the game ultimately puts you in a position to choose between following Edelgard or the Church, for a total of 4 paths. I know basically nothing past Chapter 5 beyond exactly this, but for this run I am planning to follow along with Edelgard's story and see how it goes

All that out of the way, any suggestions on characters I should try to snipe from other houses? Currently I'd like to grab Raphael (dude just wants to have good food, I can empathize with that). I also would like to get Cyril, but my brother let me know with my current plans that will be unlikely to happen. Are there any fan favorite characters (or personal favorites, I won't judge) that I should definitely try to recruit? Any characters that easily fill a niche my army is currently lacking? Is it worth having Byleth go for really strange skill paths to recruit as many people as possible? At what point should recruiting really start being feasible? Should I be using the option to invite people from other houses into my battles, even knowing that they are basically exp soaks?

[Razade]

I went with what as far as I can tell is the most commonly picked route, the Black Eagles. Just wrapped up Chapter 5, and got most characters into their Intermediate class right before the battle (a few did not make it just due to lack of funds). Playing on Hard with Classic Mode on, because I heard the game was easier than some of the older games, and didn't want a total cakewalk.

Spoiler: Party

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Mostly playing everyone according to their strengths, not wanting to get too fancy/weird on my first playthrough, not that I'm sure how much room there is for weirdness in the early game.

Byleth - Mercenary. Focused on Swords. Dumped a bit of training time into faith, but I guess I will just wait until endgame to see if that was worthwhile or not at this point.
Edelgard - Brigand. Big hits DPS, almost made her an Armor Knight, but I already planned for Caspar to go that route, so figured I'd let her do her thing. Also pushed her Reason skill, similar to Byleth we'll see if that plays out in the endgame.
Bernadetta - Archer. She's honestly a bit disappointing. I saw a lot of chatter about how OP of a sniper she is, but so far I am not feeling it. Her str and speed are both pretty midling, so I'm regularly seeing only 8-12 damage from her, which is just not cutting it. Really hoping this is just bad luck on my growths and it balances out in the long run.
Caspar - As mentioned above, he's my Armor Knight. Dude likes to get into the thick of things, this lets him do it without being so fragile. I also tend to really like heavy armor units in these games.
Dorothea - Monk. Pushing Reason/Faith fairly evenly, she's a good switch hitter to snag a killing blow or soften a tough enemy up, but is a great healer. After finding out Magic is class restricted I am a bit worried that pushing her into the White Mage intermediate class will cut off her access to black magic.
Lindhart - Very similar to Dorothea. Except he has access to Wind Magic rather than black magic, and I am not sure how/why. Not sure if there will be better ways to differentiate the mages at higher class levels, but hoping there is.
Hubert - Black Mage. My only intermediate classed caster, and excelling in it. I put some tutoring time towards lances for him because it was a skill where he had the potential, but honestly I have never had him touch a lance in combat. The spellcasting is just so strong.
Fernidant - Cavalier. The quintessential noble gets to go riding around riding people down.
Petra - Myrmidon. Only non-caster not classed up, debating whether to go Mercenary or Thief on her. My understanding is Mercenary just has better growths all around, so the benefit of Thief is getting to open locks... but maps with chests tend to have enemies with keys to open them, don't they?

Going to bold my responses here.

Spoiler: Character list

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Edelgard - Brigand. Big hits DPS, almost made her an Armor Knight, but I already planned for Caspar to go that route, so figured I'd let her do her thing. Also pushed her Reason skill, similar to Byleth we'll see if that plays out in the endgame. - Edelgard gets her own Classes later on. Brigand with it's axe will be good for it. There's really no reason to worry about where she's going or what she's doing in the end unless you don't care about her story classes. Which are both really good. I ended up not really even using Edelgard, my other teammates were just that much better than her. Her story classes can't use magic, I did the same thing hoping she'd be unique as a non-mounted, axe wielding caster. Alas.

Bernadetta - Archer. She's honestly a bit disappointing. I saw a lot of chatter about how OP of a sniper she is, but so far I am not feeling it. Her str and speed are both pretty midling, so I'm regularly seeing only 8-12 damage from her, which is just not cutting it. Really hoping this is just bad luck on my growths and it balances out in the long run. - I didn't really start seeing good growth from Bernie until Chapter 8 or 9. Before then, she just wasn't cutting it. Give it some more time for the little shut in would be my advice.

Caspar - As mentioned above, he's my Armor Knight. Dude likes to get into the thick of things, this lets him do it without being so fragile. I also tend to really like heavy armor units in these games. - I don't have your love for heavy units in the game but I played on the normal difficulty so maybe I just didn't have a use for them since normal is fairly easy and I was 10ish levels higher than everything else consistently. Caspar is good in this role however. Consider leveling up his brawling skill as well. Warmaster is really the only Master Class he's going to get into without a lot of work, which you're probably too far in to worry about now.

Dorothea - Monk. Pushing Reason/Faith fairly evenly, she's a good switch hitter to snag a killing blow or soften a tough enemy up, but is a great healer. After finding out Magic is class restricted I am a bit worried that pushing her into the White Mage intermediate class will cut off her access to black magic. - It doesn't. As long as a class can cast, they can cast their whole list. So don't worry about that. She's not as good a healer as Linhardt however. Having two healers is better than not however. She is however a pretty strong Reason caster. Not as strong as Lysethia but...nothing is.

Lindhart - Very similar to Dorothea. Except he has access to Wind Magic rather than black magic, and I am not sure how/why. Not sure if there will be better ways to differentiate the mages at higher class levels, but hoping there is. - Linhardt is another sturdy mage all around though as mentioned above, better as a healer than anyone else in Black Eagle natively. He's not the best healer in the game, but he gets a pretty slick spell selection with Faith. Taking him through to Bishop is a good idea. There's no real payout for him in the Master ranks.

Hubert - Black Mage. My only intermediate classed caster, and excelling in it. I put some tutoring time towards lances for him because it was a skill where he had the potential, but honestly I have never had him touch a lance in combat. The spellcasting is just so strong. - Dark Knight Hubert is strong. With the added movement and Canto, he's going to be a good hit and run character over all so keep focusing on that Lance and Riding skill.

Fernidant - Cavalier. The quintessential noble gets to go riding around riding people down. - I found Ferdie lackluster over all, but mounted/flying is the best way to go for him.

Petra - Myrmidon. Only non-caster not classed up, debating whether to go Mercenary or Thief on her. My understanding is Mercenary just has better growths all around, so the benefit of Thief is getting to open locks... but maps with chests tend to have enemies with keys to open them, don't they? - IMHO, she excels at Wyvern Lord route. Thief is indeed not really needed, since keys are easy to get on the maps and you're not going to need to worry about space with most characters. Inventories are large and not a lot of items to fill those spaces. Petra is good all around however, so however you take her she's going to kick some butt.

Spoiler: Chapter 5 plot

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So at the end of Chapter 5, fought my first big demon/beast/thing. I got like 3 miraculous crits that stopped me from losing a character, but it was a close call. I assume there's some better strategy to it than what I was doing. Any general advice on these sorts of monsters when they come in the future?

Spoiler

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Battalions. They are the way to basically beat down Demon Monsters and anything like them. They get rid of those golden pieces that surround them. If you break those the thing is stunned which lets you wail on them with regular attacks without fear of reprisal.

Spoiler: Endgame Spoilers

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I did get spoiled on one thing pretty early on, that being that Edelgard is also some character known as the Flame Emperor (who I assume is the mysterious person running around in red armor I've seen in a few cutscenes), and that the game ultimately puts you in a position to choose between following Edelgard or the Church, for a total of 4 paths. I know basically nothing past Chapter 5 beyond exactly this, but for this run I am planning to follow along with Edelgard's story and see how it goes

Spoiler: Black Eagle Stuff

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So...you'll get a prompt if you do certain things in Chapter 11. You get a second after the end battle of Chapter 11 to make super double extra sure you want to do what you want to do. If you're talking to everyone during your Exploration time, you won't miss it. That's all I can say without just outright spoilering it for you, which I don't want to do.

All that out of the way, any suggestions on characters I should try to snipe from other houses? Currently I'd like to grab Raphael (dude just wants to have good food, I can empathize with that). I also would like to get Cyril, but my brother let me know with my current plans that will be unlikely to happen. Are there any fan favorite characters (or personal favorites, I won't judge) that I should definitely try to recruit? Any characters that easily fill a niche my army is currently lacking? Is it worth having Byleth go for really strange skill paths to recruit as many people as possible? At what point should recruiting really start being feasible? Should I be using the option to invite people from other houses into my battles, even knowing that they are basically exp soaks?

Yeah, you can only recruit Cyril in Blue Lion or Golden Deer storylines and you get him by default in another of the two. Raphael, I find, isn't great though if you want to get him go for it. Get a B rank with him, it'll help. I think he wants high Strength and Brawl as well, which might be a bit difficult if you're not expressly going for that with your Byleth.

I really like having Felix around. For a front line fighter, he's particularly useful and I've recruited him every run. He's also one of three dudes in the series I think are cute, the other being post-Time Skip Caspar and Byleth so...that probably helps a little. He's got interesting Supports outside Blue Lion as well. Mostly with the Golden Deer but it's fine over all.

If you're just looking for good characters over all, Leonie is really good with stat growths from what I've read. So is Ingrid. She isn't as good in the damage department but she makes it up with just the sheer inability to hit her. I once sent her into a swarm of enemies with a ring that upped avoidance and her avoidance stance and cleared out half the map. She's a monster. You already have Petra so no problems there either. Those three make up my Byleth's Angel's team. All around good stat growths, two of the three pretty much have an inroad to Flying classes and Leonie can easily be pushed that way. With those three, you're going to have a pretty epic hit and run squad.

[Rodin]

I'm kind of split on whether I like that, personally. On the one hand if every class could use magic the way they can all use any weapon type now you might lose a lot of individuality, and could wind up with the ability to have your entire army be healers in a pinch, which could get silly. On the other hand it would be nice to be able to have some physical/magical hyrbid characters (besides the couple of unique classes) before reaching those top-end classes, especially for characters that you want to end up in one of those hybrid top-end classes. Also, it really feels like it locks the characters who are good at magic but not physical combat into very narrow class options compared to everyone else, which is a bit disappointing. It's hard to see how you ever get someone like Lysithea to branch out into anything besides the Mage or Priest class lines.

I think the problem is that all of the hybrid classes are packed into the final tier. This makes no sense for characters like Lorenz and Sylvain who are actively encouraged to go into a hybrid role. Even just a couple of core hybrid classes with the "can use a little magic" ability would have been pretty cool to put into the Intermediate and Advanced tiers.

The other class line that's very obviously missing is the flying caster. Both Dark Fliers and old-school Falcon Knights are missing from the game. The Falcon Knight class we got is basically just a straight upgrade from Pegasus Knight, which largely isn't true of the rest of the Master Classes.

This is especially bizarre since there are some primary casters (like Annette) who are clearly designed with a hybrid role in mind. She likes big axes and she cannot lie...except that there is NO class in the game that supports being an Axe wielding caster.

I will say that I'm fine with certain characters like Lysithea and Linhardt getting pigeonholed into being a caster. It's in their character to have zero interest in physical weapons. Your broader point I absolutely agree with.

As for how much DLC there will be, keep in mind that there were 7-8 packs for both Awakening and Fates. With how popular Three Houses has been, I would be surprised if we don't get at least that much.

[tonberrian]

Spoiler: Chapter 5 plot

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So at the end of Chapter 5, fought my first big demon/beast/thing. I got like 3 miraculous crits that stopped me from losing a character, but it was a close call. I assume there's some better strategy to it than what I was doing. Any general advice on these sorts of monsters when they come in the future?

Spoiler: Monsters

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As said, battalions. Every unit, even Felix, should have a battalion. Normal attacks will only take out half a barrier - bring it down to cracked, or break a cracked one. Gambits will take down the barrier totally at the point of impact, and then every square that's in the gambit's AoE will also go down one level. Since every time you take out a whole barrier square the demonic beast will not counter attack the next attack, this is very useful. And you'll notice that gambits negate counter attacks as well. And when you take out all the barrier squares, you'll get some ore, the barrier will never renew, and the monster will lose its action AND not counter attack for the rest of the turn. You can also knock out a barrier in one hit with an attack that's effective against them.

Normally, monsters will repeat a pattern of turn 1 attack, turn 2 AoE attack, and they'll renew the barrier after the AoE for free. You can however force a beast to attack a particular character by having them use a gambit on the monster - it will ignore everyone else to focus on the last unit to use a gambit on them that turn. This won't stop them from using an AoE attack, but if you position the unit using the gambit right, you can prevent other units from being in the AoE. Canto helps a lot here.

[Maryring]

For characters to snatch from other houses, barring the obvious "EVERYONE!" answer.

Spoiler: Spell list spoilers

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Lysithea: She is a magical tactical nuke. Her spells will destroy the enemy utterly. She has awful defense, but you can teach her Nosferatu so she'll heal back up most damage she takes, or briefly push her into Armor Knight classes for an immense Def boost, or do both... or neither. She's great either way.

Mercedes: Her unique ability is one of the best in the game. And her Faith spell list is really excellent. She's the only student who learns Fortify, which is a really powerful spell.

Marianne: Marianne is probably the best red mage in the game as she gets access to Silence and Blizzard. Silence shuts down almost any mage on the field for one turn and Blizzard is a basic attack spell with a huge crit chance.

Annette: Yes, another mage. But Annette is not one I recommend cause she's a mage, but because she's probably the best rally character in the game. She's got Rally Strength, Speed, Resistance and Movement, which means she can turn anyone into a mage killer. Rally your sniper with close counter and they'll erase mages with ease.

Leonie/Ingrid/Petra: These girls all serve similar roles. That is being overall great riders who can fill most physical roles, but excel at being Pegasus Knights. You may want to use Leonie as a regular Knight, but even without a boost to flying, she still fills the role well. Especially if you give her a bow.

Dorothea: Well I guess I'll end up recommending all the mages. This one's mostly because Dory gets access to Meteor. The only other one who gets access to Meteor is Hanneman and he's... bad. There's an alternative in Bolting, but that's given to Hilda who is awful at being a mage and Manuela who's just awful in general.

[Zevox]

I went with what as far as I can tell is the most commonly picked route, the Black Eagles. Just wrapped up Chapter 5, and got most characters into their Intermediate class right before the battle (a few did not make it just due to lack of funds). Playing on Hard with Classic Mode on, because I heard the game was easier than some of the older games, and didn't want a total cakewalk.
[...]

Spoiler: Endgame Spoilers

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I did get spoiled on one thing pretty early on, that being that Edelgard is also some character known as the Flame Emperor (who I assume is the mysterious person running around in red armor I've seen in a few cutscenes), and that the game ultimately puts you in a position to choose between following Edelgard or the Church, for a total of 4 paths. I know basically nothing past Chapter 5 beyond exactly this, but for this run I am planning to follow along with Edelgard's story and see how it goes

Sounds good, will be curious to see your reactions to how that goes. And yeah, if you're familiar with Fire Emblem already, I'd definitely recommend Hard mode, as the game is not challenging by the series' standards.

Pity about you learning that spoiler in advance, it's kind of one of the biggest individual ones, but nothing for it. And there are a lot of secrets to learn, so still plenty to find out.

Spoiler: Party

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Mostly playing everyone according to their strengths, not wanting to get too fancy/weird on my first playthrough, not that I'm sure how much room there is for weirdness in the early game.

Byleth - Mercenary. Focused on Swords. Dumped a bit of training time into faith, but I guess I will just wait until endgame to see if that was worthwhile or not at this point.
Edelgard - Brigand. Big hits DPS, almost made her an Armor Knight, but I already planned for Caspar to go that route, so figured I'd let her do her thing. Also pushed her Reason skill, similar to Byleth we'll see if that plays out in the endgame.
Bernadetta - Archer. She's honestly a bit disappointing. I saw a lot of chatter about how OP of a sniper she is, but so far I am not feeling it. Her str and speed are both pretty midling, so I'm regularly seeing only 8-12 damage from her, which is just not cutting it. Really hoping this is just bad luck on my growths and it balances out in the long run.
Caspar - As mentioned above, he's my Armor Knight. Dude likes to get into the thick of things, this lets him do it without being so fragile. I also tend to really like heavy armor units in these games.
Dorothea - Monk. Pushing Reason/Faith fairly evenly, she's a good switch hitter to snag a killing blow or soften a tough enemy up, but is a great healer. After finding out Magic is class restricted I am a bit worried that pushing her into the White Mage intermediate class will cut off her access to black magic.
Lindhart - Very similar to Dorothea. Except he has access to Wind Magic rather than black magic, and I am not sure how/why. Not sure if there will be better ways to differentiate the mages at higher class levels, but hoping there is.
Hubert - Black Mage. My only intermediate classed caster, and excelling in it. I put some tutoring time towards lances for him because it was a skill where he had the potential, but honestly I have never had him touch a lance in combat. The spellcasting is just so strong.
Fernidant - Cavalier. The quintessential noble gets to go riding around riding people down.
Petra - Myrmidon. Only non-caster not classed up, debating whether to go Mercenary or Thief on her. My understanding is Mercenary just has better growths all around, so the benefit of Thief is getting to open locks... but maps with chests tend to have enemies with keys to open them, don't they?

Mostly very much everyone's default paths there, with the small exceptions of Edelgard and Caspar. Edelgard actually gets special unique classes later on that are variants of the Armored Knight route, but you can ignore those to keep her as a more offensive axe-user type if you prefer, she'll do great in either. Caspar is oriented a bit more towards the Brawler or axe-fighter routes than Armored Knight, but should do fine in that too. It's kind of hard to go wrong with Armored Knight as long as you're not sticking someone whose stats are magic-oriented in it I think, it'll always produce a reasonably strong, tanky character, who just won't double often. (Except Edelgard, because she's a Lord and therefore very good.)

As far as opening locks goes, later in the game you will have maps with chests but no enemies that have keys, but you can also always buy keys for a couple hundred gold each in the market, which you're even conveniently allowed to do during the deployment phase before a fight begins, so no, a Thief/Assassin type isn't strictly necessary.

Anyway, on Bernie, she seems to be the one member of the Black Eagles who often doesn't work out to be particularly good. Her strength growth is not good and even the stats she should be getting good growth in seem more prone to ending up mediocre than the numbers would make you think, based on anecdotal evidence at least. I wound up making use of one of those unique classes you can get to salvage her myself.

Spoiler: Very minor spoilers about that unique class' identity, if you're okay with that.

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That class is Dancer, which you will be able to teach exactly one student at a certain point in the story. As in past games, that lets them allow other characters to move a second time in a turn - so her stats cease to matter too much. I even had her learn some faith magic to make her a bit better of a support unit after that, since Dancers can use magic and having an extra healer can't hurt even if she isn't the best at it.

Spoiler: Chapter 5 plot

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So at the end of Chapter 5, fought my first big demon/beast/thing. I got like 3 miraculous crits that stopped me from losing a character, but it was a close call. I assume there's some better strategy to it than what I was doing. Any general advice on these sorts of monsters when they come in the future?

Spoiler

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As others have said, Battalions/Gambits are the most useful thing against monsters. Generally speaking, you will want to dedicate several characters at a time to taking down any individual monster - start by taking down their barrier, which can be most quickly accomplished using Gambits, and then wail on them while they're stunned. If they survive that, they'll still lose their next attack and should be weakened enough to take down easily the next turn.

All that out of the way, any suggestions on characters I should try to snipe from other houses? Currently I'd like to grab Raphael (dude just wants to have good food, I can empathize with that). I also would like to get Cyril, but my brother let me know with my current plans that will be unlikely to happen. Are there any fan favorite characters (or personal favorites, I won't judge) that I should definitely try to recruit? Any characters that easily fill a niche my army is currently lacking? Is it worth having Byleth go for really strange skill paths to recruit as many people as possible? At what point should recruiting really start being feasible? Should I be using the option to invite people from other houses into my battles, even knowing that they are basically exp soaks?

On that last, asking for help from other houses is useful to build support between that character and Byleth more quickly. Especially once you unlock adjutants (which I think is Professor level C), just assigned whoever it is as an adjutant to Byleth, they'll gain support as if they were adjacent to you each time you fight, but they're not stealing any xp. And building support makes it easier to recruit characters - at B rank support not only are the requirements to recruit them reduced, but they may just randomly ask to join your house regardless of whether you meet their requirements.

Also, worth noting, there are some characters you can't recruit, and more because of the specific route you're going. The other house leaders can never be recruited, and neither can Dedue, who is too loyal to Dimitri (same would go for Hubert if you were in one of the other houses). And because of your intended path, you won't be able to get Hilda, Catherine, Cyril, or Setheth.

As far as who to recruit goes, well, for personal preferences, I could recommend just about anyone from Golden Deer. I particularly like Leonie, though admittedly that's partly personal bias in liking tomboyish characters, but the entire house is pretty great, aside from Lorenz, and even he has his redeeming qualities the better you get to know him. From Blue Lions, eh, I'm not as familiar with them yet, but my favorite is Ingrid, and even her I don't like as much as most of the characters from the other houses.

If you're looking for who to recruit for pure power reasons, that'd be:
- Lysithea, best Reason mage in the game. Point her at something and watch it die. Yes, even other Mages or Pegasus Knights; she gets a spell that ignores resistance.
- Mercedes, best healer in the game.
- Leonie, all-around great physical unit, just has very strong growths and can do basically any physical class well.
- Felix, another all-around great physical unit, with a crest that has a shockingly high activation rate.
- Ingrid, the only default Pegasus Knight in the game. A little lacking in strength but gets a special weapon that makes up for that.
- Sylvain, just a well-balanced, all-around good unit for either physical or magical classes, good for the hybrid classes you can get at the top levels.

That said, you don't really need many - the maximum number of units you can deploy on any map is 12 (15 if you count adjutants, but those really aren't important), and you start with 9 between Byleth and your house members, and could in theory just fill out those remaining three spots with church faculty members you can recruit (I recommend Shamir, she's a great archer).

As far as taking Byleth on odd routes to recruit people, that's not really necessary actually, due to the previously-mentioned thing where students who have a B support with Byleth can randomly ask to join your house regardless of your stats. It's not a bad thing to take Byleth down a different class route if you feel like it though, your stats are good enough do any job, and you can use the Sword of the Creator in any class after all, so feel free to do as you please with him. I made my second Byleth a Pegasus Knight, and my third one is going the Brigand/Warrior axe-fighter route.

I think the problem is that all of the hybrid classes are packed into the final tier. This makes no sense for characters like Lorenz and Sylvain who are actively encouraged to go into a hybrid role. Even just a couple of core hybrid classes with the "can use a little magic" ability would have been pretty cool to put into the Intermediate and Advanced tiers.

The other class line that's very obviously missing is the flying caster. Both Dark Fliers and old-school Falcon Knights are missing from the game. The Falcon Knight class we got is basically just a straight upgrade from Pegasus Knight, which largely isn't true of the rest of the Master Classes.

This is especially bizarre since there are some primary casters (like Annette) who are clearly designed with a hybrid role in mind. She likes big axes and she cannot lie...except that there is NO class in the game that supports being an Axe wielding caster.

I will say that I'm fine with certain characters like Lysithea and Linhardt getting pigeonholed into being a caster. It's in their character to have zero interest in physical weapons. Your broader point I absolutely agree with.

As for how much DLC there will be, keep in mind that there were 7-8 packs for both Awakening and Fates. With how popular Three Houses has been, I would be surprised if we don't get at least that much.

I agree about most of that. I think the best solution for the Pegasus Knight situation in particular is probably to demote the Falcon Knight class to the advanced tier (dropping its prereqs appropriately of course) and add Dark Flier and possibly another faith-based alternative to the master tier. Though I will point out that the Falcon Knight we got is the old-school version of the class, right down to requiring swords as a secondary weapon. There wasn't a flying healer until Elincia in Radiant Dawn (and she was unique in that one), and then they made Falcon Knight have staves as a secondary weapon instead of swords in Awakening and Fates after that.

I should clarify that I don't mind someone like Lysithea not being good at any physical classes, I just find it disappointing that there are so few options for magical ones that they'll basically always be one of the same two classes. They could add something like a Troubador class for example to give casters a bit more potential variety.

[Seerow]

Thanks everyone for the useful advice. Played some more last night, and cleared Chapter 6. Updated some unit's training/goals based on a combination of what's been said and actually taking the time to look ahead at class prereqs (for example I actually was interested in Petra as a Pegasus Knight eventually... but I did not realize Lance was required for that).

Spoiler: Spoilers through end of chapter 6/very start of chapter 7

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During the month one of the random battles had a beast in it, which surprised me. I did not expect random giant demons to be a thing. But I went after it anyway, and got some more practice. The advice of the thread was very useful, particularly it not being able to counter after breaking a shield and getting bonus loot for breaking all 4 before it regenerates. That combined with better use of gambits got me a much cleaner kill than I had against my first beast, with all 4 shields going down at the same time as the first health bar, then Edelgard smacking it with Monster Smasher for like 50 damage on the following turn.

I also had a mountain of supports, I think I either forgot to check the month previously, or a bunch unlocked storyline wise with this chapter. Maybe both. Still haven't managed to recruit anyone, but made good progress with both Felix and Raphael, and probably going to pick one of the female knights to focus on recruiting, then just take anyone I happen to get lucky with along the way since those three will get me up to 12.

The mission itself was vaguely annoying because at first I thought I had to wait on a warp tile to warp, and when that didn't happen I figured it was a plot device and reinforcements would show up through it later. So I cleared basically all the way to the Deathknight without touching the other side of the map, then realized I'd probably hit turn limit if I tried to go back and clear that out after, and was unlikely to beat the Deathknight without casualties. So I reset the whole map and tried again.

Second go round went pretty smoothly, with a close call due to over extending Byleth (he seems a bit OP right now and I got overconfident, sent him in basically by himself while everyone else was reforming, and got down to 5 HP with three enemies surrounding him. Still don't know how I survived)

Spoiler: Update regarding the late game spoiler I mentioned in previous post

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Okay so seriously the first time I'm actually introduced to the flame emperor, he is talking about the same sort of idealistic "change the world" thing as Edelgard, Edelgard is nowhere to be seen, and Edelgard had just revealed to me her Flame Crest a few weeks earlier? I really feel like that's a lot of coincidence all in one place, and I want to say I'd have seen it even if not being spoiled.... but then maybe not. I can be oblivious sometimes. But it does definitely feel like if it is a surprise, it is a very well foreshadowed one, and I appreciate it.

[Rodin]

Spoiler: Update regarding the late game spoiler I mentioned in previous post

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Okay so seriously the first time I'm actually introduced to the flame emperor, he is talking about the same sort of idealistic "change the world" thing as Edelgard, Edelgard is nowhere to be seen, and Edelgard had just revealed to me her Flame Crest a few weeks earlier? I really feel like that's a lot of coincidence all in one place, and I want to say I'd have seen it even if not being spoiled.... but then maybe not. I can be oblivious sometimes. But it does definitely feel like if it is a surprise, it is a very well foreshadowed one, and I appreciate it.

Spoiler

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I was actually very glad to start as Golden Deer, because you don't talk to Edelgard all that much. As such, the reveal that she is the Flame Emperor was a MASSIVE shock. When I played Black Eagles, it felt like they hit you over the head with the foreshadowing. As you say though, once you know the foreshadowing is much more obvious.

[Razade]

Spoiler: Update regarding the late game spoiler I mentioned in previous post

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Okay so seriously the first time I'm actually introduced to the flame emperor, he is talking about the same sort of idealistic "change the world" thing as Edelgard, Edelgard is nowhere to be seen, and Edelgard had just revealed to me her Flame Crest a few weeks earlier? I really feel like that's a lot of coincidence all in one place, and I want to say I'd have seen it even if not being spoiled.... but then maybe not. I can be oblivious sometimes. But it does definitely feel like if it is a surprise, it is a very well foreshadowed one, and I appreciate it.

As Rodin said

Spoiler: Late Game Spoilers

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Edelgard being the Flame Lord isn't all that obvious unless you start with the Black Eagles. Which really kind of spoils the other arcs for you. I also started with Golden Deer and I thought that it was going to be either Dimitri or Edie just to set up a "if you choose x it'll be y" so it'd be different every Route. It doesn't go that way of course, but I didn't know when I was running through.

I played Black Eagles third, so it's even more obvious when you play Blue Lion which gives a lot more backstory on Edelgard. I honestly think Golden Deer -> Blue Lion -> Black Eagle is the best way to see the story unfold with what they reveal. Mostly because Golden Deer doesn't have much to do with the dynamic between Dimitri and Edelgard which is so damn central to their Routes.

[Resileaf]

As Rodin said

Spoiler: Late Game Spoilers

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Edelgard being the Flame Lord isn't all that obvious unless you start with the Black Eagles. Which really kind of spoils the other arcs for you. I also started with Golden Deer and I thought that it was going to be either Dimitri or Edie just to set up a "if you choose x it'll be y" so it'd be different every Route. It doesn't go that way of course, but I didn't know when I was running through.

I played Black Eagles third, so it's even more obvious when you play Blue Lion which gives a lot more backstory on Edelgard. I honestly think Golden Deer -> Blue Lion -> Black Eagle is the best way to see the story unfold with what they reveal. Mostly because Golden Deer doesn't have much to do with the dynamic between Dimitri and Edelgard which is so damn central to their Routes.

Spoiler: Route progression

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Where would you put the Church route in that series? Before or after Black Eagle?

[Zevox]

I also had a mountain of supports, I think I either forgot to check the month previously, or a bunch unlocked storyline wise with this chapter. Maybe both.

Entirely possible, there are some supports that get locked until certain points in the story are reached. A supports in particular don't become available until about halfway to two-thirds of the way through the game (depending on the route, some are longer than others), and some B and even a few C supports have locks until certain early chapters are passed.

Spoiler: Update regarding the late game spoiler I mentioned in previous post

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Okay so seriously the first time I'm actually introduced to the flame emperor, he is talking about the same sort of idealistic "change the world" thing as Edelgard, Edelgard is nowhere to be seen, and Edelgard had just revealed to me her Flame Crest a few weeks earlier? I really feel like that's a lot of coincidence all in one place, and I want to say I'd have seen it even if not being spoiled.... but then maybe not. I can be oblivious sometimes. But it does definitely feel like if it is a surprise, it is a very well foreshadowed one, and I appreciate it.

Spoiler

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Speaking as someone who did the Black Eagles for his first run without knowing any spoilers, I didn't see it coming at all. Having played Fire Emblem before the notion that one of the Lords, by definition the main protagonists of the franchise, could also be what at the time appears to be the main antagonist of the game was nowhere near one that would seem likely, and there's so many little mysteries and unknowns about things in Three Houses that Edelgard's occasional cryptic statements* didn't strike me as necessarily suspicious, so much as just as foreshadowing for her intentions upon becoming Emperror that I'd understand later. Which, well, they are, just in a manner I'd never have suspected at the time.

*Plus you do get similar cryptic statements out of Claude in Golden Deer during part 1 too - not quite far enough in Blue Lion to say if Dimitri does much of the same, but I won't be surprised if he does. Being secretive just kind of comes naturally to much of the main cast in this game it seems.

I do have to say that Edelgard being absent when you meet the Flame Emperor like that really isn't a hint at her identity though - the other house leaders do the exact same thing in that chapter, they're all absent due to taking Manuela to get help. And, without giving anything away, there is at least one other future instance where the Flame Emperor shows up at the end of a chapter where Edelgard isn't absent from the fight, she just happens not to be present with you in the scene where "he" shows up to talk, so they could have done that with his first appearance if they wanted too.

[Razade]

Spoiler: Route progression

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Where would you put the Church route in that series? Before or after Black Eagle?

I'd say last. After Black Eagle. Obviously this is just personal opinion.

[DeTess]

So, I've just finished the game for the first time, and after seeing the individual character epilogues there was something I was wondering about. How set in stone are the various romantic pairs? Does any character have only one true love, or could any A support with compatible orientation end up together?

[Razade]

So, I've just finished the game for the first time, and after seeing the individual character epilogues there was something I was wondering about. How set in stone are the various romantic pairs? Does any character have only one true love, or could any A support with compatible orientation end up together?

It depends on the character, but I think everyone has at least two. Some have more, I think a few have only one particular person.

[Zevox]

So, I've just finished the game for the first time, and after seeing the individual character epilogues there was something I was wondering about. How set in stone are the various romantic pairs? Does any character have only one true love, or could any A support with compatible orientation end up together?

The latter, basically. While I haven't seen them all by any means (finished the game twice so far), I've only ever seen one opposite-sex A support pairing (Raphael/Marianne) that wound up platonic, and the same-sex A support pairs I've seen are in the "technically ambiguous but probably romantic" category of old Fire Emblem same-sex paired endings like Lyn/Florina and Lucius/Raven. (Even the female Byleth/Edelgard S support ending is, in fact, oddly enough - if it weren't for the S support itself being more explicitly romantic that one would be open to interpretation.) It's probably a safe bet that most of the A supports can end up with romantic paired endings together.

[DeTess]

The latter, basically. While I haven't seen them all by any means (finished the game twice so far), I've only ever seen one opposite-sex A support pairing (Raphael/Marianne) that wound up platonic, and the same-sex A support pairs I've seen are in the "technically ambiguous but probably romantic" category of old Fire Emblem same-sex paired endings like Lyn/Florina and Lucius/Raven. (Even the female Byleth/Edelgard S support ending is, in fact, oddly enough - if it weren't for the S support itself being more explicitly romantic that one would be open to interpretation.) It's probably a safe bet that most of the A supports can end up with romantic paired endings together.

Alright thanks! Then there's still hope for pairing off Bernadette and Felix when I get around to doing the blue lions route :P

[Rodin]

Alright thanks! Then there's still hope for pairing off Bernadette and Felix when I get around to doing the blue lions route :P

Felix is indeed on her list, so it's a possibility.

You do have to be careful, because the game can surprise you. I thought I had Felix's paired ending locked in, and he decided to run off with Sylvain instead. The best way to guarantee it is to not do A supports (even same sex ones) for any character where you particularly care who they wind up with - only give them an A support with their beloved.

In other words, do this.

[huttj509]

Ariiiise, from the aaaashes!

So, finally beat my first run, Golden Deer. A question, and some thoughts. Requesting spoiler light on other paths since I'm planning to get to...some of them...

Spoiler: GD dropped plot thread?

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So, Rhea says she's the only surviving child of the progenetor god...what about the saints? Flayn had some wonderful supports (and conversations while attacking her uncle) and those folks just went completely unaddressed by the plot. Is this hit on more in one of the other storylines?

Oh, and Lysithea was the only reason I beat the last boss first try. Yay luna.

Currently started up the DLC house, trying Hard Classic this time (I usually do casual, find classic too stressful, and not in a fun way). After that planning to do Edelgard's. Not sure whether that run will be "oops, all mages" or "no duplicate classes" to avoid how "flyer emblem" my GD run wound up.

[LaZodiac]

Ariiiise, from the aaaashes!

So, finally beat my first run, Golden Deer. A question, and some thoughts. Requesting spoiler light on other paths since I'm planning to get to...some of them...

Spoiler: GD dropped plot thread?

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So, Rhea says she's the only surviving child of the progenetor god...what about the saints? Flayn had some wonderful supports (and conversations while attacking her uncle) and those folks just went completely unaddressed by the plot. Is this hit on more in one of the other storylines?

Oh, and Lysithea was the only reason I beat the last boss first try. Yay luna.

Currently started up the DLC house, trying Hard Classic this time (I usually do casual, find classic too stressful, and not in a fun way). After that planning to do Edelgard's. Not sure whether that run will be "oops, all mages" or "no duplicate classes" to avoid how "flyer emblem" my GD run wound up.

Spoiler: More of a general spoiler revealed in all paths

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Flayn (obviously as you've seen) and Seteth aren't related to Rhea, but are fellow manaketes. Only Rhea is directly related to Sothis.

[Razade]

Ariiiise, from the aaaashes!

So, finally beat my first run, Golden Deer. A question, and some thoughts. Requesting spoiler light on other paths since I'm planning to get to...some of them...

Spoiler: GD dropped plot thread?

Show

So, Rhea says she's the only surviving child of the progenetor god...what about the saints? Flayn had some wonderful supports (and conversations while attacking her uncle) and those folks just went completely unaddressed by the plot. Is this hit on more in one of the other storylines?

Oh, and Lysithea was the only reason I beat the last boss first try. Yay luna.

Currently started up the DLC house, trying Hard Classic this time (I usually do casual, find classic too stressful, and not in a fun way). After that planning to do Edelgard's. Not sure whether that run will be "oops, all mages" or "no duplicate classes" to avoid how "flyer emblem" my GD run wound up.

The DLC is a lot of fun and really adds some cool stuff into the main game that's worth it. Re: Your spoilers, and more below based off something LaZodiac said.

Spoiler: Flayn

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Sethes and Flayn were made by the Goddess or are dependents of the Children of the Goddess. So...they're related to Rhea in so far as they're the same kind of race. But Sethes isn't her brother or anything like that. At least not that we're told

Spoiler: More of a general spoiler revealed in all paths

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Flayn (obviously as you've seen) and Seteth aren't related to Rhea, but are fellow manaketes. Only Rhea is directly related to Sothis.

It should be noted

Spoiler: Re: Sothis et all

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It's never said they're not somehow related to Rhea in some way, shape or form. The Nabateans were all made by the Goddess so it's very possible that Sethes and Flayn aren't direct children of Sothis but grandchildren or great grandchildren or the like. They were present with Rhea from the get go or so it seems and it's clear that Nabateans can have kids. They also never refer to them as Manaketes. I know that's a type of dragon person from other Fire Emblems but if Sothis and her brood are supposed to be them, they never directly state in the games.

Also, and this is some varying levels of fan-theory based off what we learn from The Shadow Library once it's unlocked. The book is called The Romance of the World's Perdition.

Spoiler: Romance of the World's Perdition

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“In the land of Thinis, where the old gods are said to live, the False God has awakened. Its looming, heteromorphic vessel was resurrected to sink the world to the depths of the ocean. It will bring extinction to all children of men, and salvation to all beasts of the land, sky, and sea. For the children of men who spilled too much of the blood of life, it promises only cruel retribution.

”the False God must be defeated before the world sinks into a watery grave. To this end, the children of men have erected pillars of light upon the land. Thinis, Malum, Septen and Llium were utterly destroyed. Those lands have vanished from this world. Yet even still, the False God stands. And soon, a flood aptly named Despair will drown this world.

”The children of men fled to the depths of the earth, beyond the sight of the False God, beyond the embrace of the sacred sun, and beyond the reach of the waters of Despair. They swore a fervent oath of revenge against the surface world, ruled by beasts, and against their tormentor, the False God.”

Based off that.

Spoiler

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We get some information on the Slitherers.

1. They had Gods before Sothis came. A whole civilization too.
2. They were spread across a number of lands. We don't get any more information on Thinis, Malum, Septen or Lilum except they were sunk into the waters and they feared the rest of their lands would follow. Fodlan and a number of lands remain. The Pillars of Light...we see though they may not be the same ones. I would imagine they are since that's pretty exact language. They're the doomsday weapons used to destroy the Old General.
3. The beasts in question are the Nabateans without a doubt and the False God (who is heteromorphic meaning of two forms) is Sothis. We get some info from Rhea and from the general lore in the game about the religion of Seiros. The Slitherers also refer to Sothis as The Fell Star.

The conjecture is this. We know that Sothis has a great deal of lore regarding her being a star in the heavens. We're told by Rhea that she descended form the Heavens to the earth at some point and while we know it's a lie that she returned to the heavens, the rest of the information seems fairly transparent that she's not from this world. Sothis came to the world of FE3H as an asteroid or a comet. Her coming caused a massive tsunami that wiped the lands of the Agarthans away and the remaining ones were left to fend off her and her children until they couldn't any longer and were forced to flee underground.

[huttj509]

Whelp, DLC mission 2 on hard kicked me in the teeth, switching down to Normal/Classic for this one.

[Rodin]

Also, and this is some varying levels of fan-theory based off what we learn from The Shadow Library once it's unlocked. The book is called The Romance of the World's Perdition.

Spoiler: Romance of the World's Perdition

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“In the land of Thinis, where the old gods are said to live, the False God has awakened. Its looming, heteromorphic vessel was resurrected to sink the world to the depths of the ocean. It will bring extinction to all children of men, and salvation to all beasts of the land, sky, and sea. For the children of men who spilled too much of the blood of life, it promises only cruel retribution.

”the False God must be defeated before the world sinks into a watery grave. To this end, the children of men have erected pillars of light upon the land. Thinis, Malum, Septen and Llium were utterly destroyed. Those lands have vanished from this world. Yet even still, the False God stands. And soon, a flood aptly named Despair will drown this world.

”The children of men fled to the depths of the earth, beyond the sight of the False God, beyond the embrace of the sacred sun, and beyond the reach of the waters of Despair. They swore a fervent oath of revenge against the surface world, ruled by beasts, and against their tormentor, the False God.”

Based off that.

Spoiler

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We get some information on the Slitherers.

1. They had Gods before Sothis came. A whole civilization too.
2. They were spread across a number of lands. We don't get any more information on Thinis, Malum, Septen or Lilum except they were sunk into the waters and they feared the rest of their lands would follow. Fodlan and a number of lands remain. The Pillars of Light...we see though they may not be the same ones. I would imagine they are since that's pretty exact language. They're the doomsday weapons used to destroy the Old General.
3. The beasts in question are the Nabateans without a doubt and the False God (who is heteromorphic meaning of two forms) is Sothis. We get some info from Rhea and from the general lore in the game about the religion of Seiros. The Slitherers also refer to Sothis as The Fell Star.

The conjecture is this. We know that Sothis has a great deal of lore regarding her being a star in the heavens. We're told by Rhea that she descended form the Heavens to the earth at some point and while we know it's a lie that she returned to the heavens, the rest of the information seems fairly transparent that she's not from this world. Sothis came to the world of FE3H as an asteroid or a comet. Her coming caused a massive tsunami that wiped the lands of the Agarthans away and the remaining ones were left to fend off her and her children until they couldn't any longer and were forced to flee underground.

Spoiler: Hmmm

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That was my first reading too, but I'm no longer quite so sure. The Agarthans knew of Sothis from previous encounters, because why else would they call her a false god? If she's a meteor from outer space, why is she "resurrecting" in the land of the old gods? And why is Sothis destroying the Agarthans in the first place? The idea that she arrived and took the planet by force is completely at odds with everything we know about her. And I'm not talking about Church dogma, but our actual interactions with her - even when she doesn't know who she is she acts like a highly moral person who wants the best for the world.

From my reading of the text, the flood isn't what does for Thinis et al. Those lands are discussed immediately after describing the pillars of light, which implies that Sothis/the Nabateans controlled them and they were nuked into oblivion by the Agarthans. Thinis is probably Fodlan, if that's where Sothis truly originated. The way the author talks, he makes it sound like they are fleeing divine (or faux-divine) retribution from a very pissed off god(-like being).

I dunno. It's just all so ambiguous and vague. The one clear takeaway I have is this: Three Houses is set in a post-apocalypse world. Actually, more like post-post-post-post apocalypse. The Agarthans had a full technological civilization, and then Sothis arrived/resurrected. Something happens that involves the pillars of light and a war between Sothis and the Agarthans. The world is reshaped, the Agarthan civilization is wiped out, and the survivors go underground. The remaining Agarthans are getting by on the last of their technology/magitek after thousands of years in underground bunkers.

[Razade]

Spoiler: Hmmm

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That was my first reading too, but I'm no longer quite so sure. The Agarthans knew of Sothis from previous encounters, because why else would they call her a false god? If she's a meteor from outer space, why is she "resurrecting" in the land of the old gods? And why is Sothis destroying the Agarthans in the first place? The idea that she arrived and took the planet by force is completely at odds with everything we know about her. And I'm not talking about Church dogma, but our actual interactions with her - even when she doesn't know who she is she acts like a highly moral person who wants the best for the world.

From my reading of the text, the flood isn't what does for Thinis et al. Those lands are discussed immediately after describing the pillars of light, which implies that Sothis/the Nabateans controlled them and they were nuked into oblivion by the Agarthans. Thinis is probably Fodlan, if that's where Sothis truly originated. The way the author talks, he makes it sound like they are fleeing divine (or faux-divine) retribution from a very pissed off god(-like being).

I dunno. It's just all so ambiguous and vague. The one clear takeaway I have is this: Three Houses is set in a post-apocalypse world. Actually, more like post-post-post-post apocalypse. The Agarthans had a full technological civilization, and then Sothis arrived/resurrected. Something happens that involves the pillars of light and a war between Sothis and the Agarthans. The world is reshaped, the Agarthan civilization is wiped out, and the survivors go underground. The remaining Agarthans are getting by on the last of their technology/magitek after thousands of years in underground bunkers.

Spoiler

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Fodlan can't be Thinis. They say that Thinis has "vanished from this world" along with the other named places. If it were another name for Fodlan, which is where the survivors fled to obviously, I think they wouldn't have counted that number. The first line also says that Sothis awakened and its "looming form" was resurrected. Not necessarily Sothis herself, just her beast form. It also says that it was done to drown the world.

I can see where one might reach the conclusion that the lands that were lost were lost to the Pillars of Light but that ignores the context. They said the Pillars were erected so that the rest of the world wouldn't drown. They then mention the other lands, as if they were the ones already lost.

It is absolutely vague and there's unlikely to ever be any real clarification on it. Just a hypothesis. It's totally clear that there was some previous civilization, we see all sorts of insane tech in Shambala. We also know from the Shadow Library that Rhea has been engineering the course of humanity more than the rest of the game lets on with Sethes helping to do so. A bevvy of technologies are mentioned in the Shadow Library that are banned or destroyed by the church. The least of which is the telescope. Why would Rhea not want people to see the stars? The obvious answer would be that if they looked at the Blue Star and saw that it wasn't Sothis people would revolt or question but it just seems odd to specifically mention telescopes among the other items like autopsy

[Rodin]

Spoiler

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Fodlan can't be Thinis. They say that Thinis has "vanished from this world" along with the other named places. If it were another name for Fodlan, which is where the survivors fled to obviously, I think they wouldn't have counted that number. The first line also says that Sothis awakened and its "looming form" was resurrected. Not necessarily Sothis herself, just her beast form. It also says that it was done to drown the world.

I can see where one might reach the conclusion that the lands that were lost were lost to the Pillars of Light but that ignores the context. They said the Pillars were erected so that the rest of the world wouldn't drown. They then mention the other lands, as if they were the ones already lost.

It is absolutely vague and there's unlikely to ever be any real clarification on it. Just a hypothesis. It's totally clear that there was some previous civilization, we see all sorts of insane tech in Shambala. We also know from the Shadow Library that Rhea has been engineering the course of humanity more than the rest of the game lets on with Sethes helping to do so. A bevvy of technologies are mentioned in the Shadow Library that are banned or destroyed by the church. The least of which is the telescope. Why would Rhea not want people to see the stars? The obvious answer would be that if they looked at the Blue Star and saw that it wasn't Sothis people would revolt or question but it just seems odd to specifically mention telescopes among the other items like autopsy

Spoiler

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Except we know what the Pillars of Light do, and it's nothing to do with flood control. The Pillars of Light are a weapon. Under that context, the reading is pretty clear to me.

Sothis appears in Thilnis, and the world starts flooding (or the land starts sinking?). The Agarthans feel the end of the world is nigh and create the Pillars of Light to defeat Sothis before the world sinks. They use the Pillars, and all the lands listed are lost. I read it as "all life there extinguished", but I'm fine with accepting that those lands were vaporized. Even after the weapon is used though, "the False God stands". They fired their biggest shot, and it didn't work.

The only reason I think Fodlan is Thilnis is that we're told repeatedly that Sothis appeared in Fodlan. Some of that is Church dogma, but I'm pretty sure we hear about it directly from Rhea/Seiros as well. We never hear about a separate land where Sothis arrived in that was later destroyed. Basically, Sothis arriving in Fodlan is one of the bits of history/legend that never gets contradicted by anybody. Thus, I'm inclined to believe it to be true.

On telescopes: I like your theory, and would just add that banning astronomy is something that happened in real-world history. The Star of Sothis being important to the dogma just reinforces that.

Overall, I found the Shadow Library to be more frustrating than anything. It provides a couple tantalizing hints, but the information there is so limited that it raises more questions than it answers.

One thing I did like though was the information about the founding of the Kingdom of Faerghus. We hear tales about it from Ashe and Ingrid when they talk knights, and one of the people mentioned is the advisor to the king called Pan. Pan gets compared to Byleth - a perfect advisor with no ambition without whom the war would have been lost. In the Shadow Library we hear that Loog showed up with an inexplicable army that he should not have been able to raise, as well as faux Heroes' Relics to allow the army to stand against the Church. This means that Pan was a Slitherer, and it contradicts Edelgard's belief that Rhea broke the Empire into pieces to make it easier to control. Instead, the Slitherers did it to weaken the power of the Church. Another page in that report discuesses the assassination of a later king and a contested will. The wording makes it clear that the Church was not behind it, and believed the will to be a lie. This assassination later led to the breakaway of the Leicester Alliance, so it's likely that the Slitherers were again behind it.

Thinking about it some more, I would totally buy a history book of Three Houses if they were to release it. One with the actual events in it, not all the biased and mythological accounts we're presented with. It's so difficult picking through all the different stories and borderline contradictory information in order to find out what actually happened.

[Razade]

Spoiler

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Except we know what the Pillars of Light do, and it's nothing to do with flood control. The Pillars of Light are a weapon. Under that context, the reading is pretty clear to me.

Sothis appears in Thilnis, and the world starts flooding (or the land starts sinking?). The Agarthans feel the end of the world is nigh and create the Pillars of Light to defeat Sothis before the world sinks. They use the Pillars, and all the lands listed are lost. I read it as "all life there extinguished", but I'm fine with accepting that those lands were vaporized. Even after the weapon is used though, "the False God stands". They fired their biggest shot, and it didn't work.

The only reason I think Fodlan is Thilnis is that we're told repeatedly that Sothis appeared in Fodlan. Some of that is Church dogma, but I'm pretty sure we hear about it directly from Rhea/Seiros as well. We never hear about a separate land where Sothis arrived in that was later destroyed. Basically, Sothis arriving in Fodlan is one of the bits of history/legend that never gets contradicted by anybody. Thus, I'm inclined to believe it to be true.

On telescopes: I like your theory, and would just add that banning astronomy is something that happened in real-world history. The Star of Sothis being important to the dogma just reinforces that.

Overall, I found the Shadow Library to be more frustrating than anything. It provides a couple tantalizing hints, but the information there is so limited that it raises more questions than it answers.

One thing I did like though was the information about the founding of the Kingdom of Faerghus. We hear tales about it from Ashe and Ingrid when they talk knights, and one of the people mentioned is the advisor to the king called Pan. Pan gets compared to Byleth - a perfect advisor with no ambition without whom the war would have been lost. In the Shadow Library we hear that Loog showed up with an inexplicable army that he should not have been able to raise, as well as faux Heroes' Relics to allow the army to stand against the Church. This means that Pan was a Slitherer, and it contradicts Edelgard's belief that Rhea broke the Empire into pieces to make it easier to control. Instead, the Slitherers did it to weaken the power of the Church. Another page in that report discuesses the assassination of a later king and a contested will. The wording makes it clear that the Church was not behind it, and believed the will to be a lie. This assassination later led to the breakaway of the Leicester Alliance, so it's likely that the Slitherers were again behind it.

Thinking about it some more, I would totally buy a history book of Three Houses if they were to release it. One with the actual events in it, not all the biased and mythological accounts we're presented with. It's so difficult picking through all the different stories and borderline contradictory information in order to find out what actually happened.

Spoiler

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We sure do know what the Pillars do, or at least how they were used. No sense in formulating other uses of them that we don't see. Like I said, it's possible they destroyed the lands in hopes of destroying Sothis. It obviously failed and they had to hide.

However I have to put your feet to the fire here on Thinis being Fodlan. We are told that Sothis came to Fodlan but that's church dogma. None of the Agarthans say she came to Fodlan. Sethes and Flayn don't really

But the Romance says it outright. Thinis was utterly destroyed. It's not separate from the other three lands. It says that Thinis, Malum, Septen and Lilium have vanished from the world. It's really weird that you'd think that Thinis somehow was spared but not the others. Fodlan is Fodlan and the Church created a mythology around the continent. We know the Nabateans dwelt in Zanado and there was clearly some massive conflict on the continent. I suppose you could argue that Thinis, Malum, Septen and Lilium weren't continents or land masses but countries or political divisions or even cities though calling Thinis a "land" makes the last bit the least likely. It does say that they erected pillars of light on the land.

We don't know why Sothis was flooding the world either though, the world isn't flooded now and it doesn't seem to be something the remaining Nabateans are keen on. Sothis herself doesn't seem to have it in her agenda inside of you so who knows. We don't really know much about the world outside of Fodlan, it'd be cool to see a world map. We're intentionally kept from knowing too much.

As to the other stuff, I agree that it would have been nice with some more clear answers to fill in the gaps. Especially about the Slitherers. I get why they went with the direction they went, maybe they'll make the next Fire Emblem game in the same setting and we'll get some more pieces to the puzzle. The rest of the banned tech make sense too, in context. Oil is a dangerous substance and would remove dependency on crests. Autopsies would reveal the truth about Crests. Printing Press would make it impossible for Rhea to keep full firm control on Fodlan.

It'd be cool if Dagda or Morfis were perfectly sane, moderately advanced pre- or current Reinassance era countries and the only reason they don't mess with Fodlan is because Crests and the Church's magic are just that powerful.

[Squark]

So, just got the game for my birthday, and I heard about a time management element and that has me a tad worried. Unfortunately, my google fu has failed me, and so I turn to you, playgrounders.

...


Do I have a limited ammount of time each time I explore, or is that time only consumed by activities?

[Zevox]

So, just got the game for my birthday, and I heard about a time management element and that has me a tad worried. Unfortunately, my google fu has failed me, and so I turn to you, playgrounders.

...


Do I have a limited ammount of time each time I explore, or is that time only consumed by activities?

Only consumed by specific activities. If an option has an hourglass next to it, it uses one point from your activities (you'll gain more of those as you gain professor ranks, up to 10 max). Even once those are all used, though, you can wander the monastery and talk to people at your leisure until you're ready to move on, just not do any more activities with that hourglass icon.

[Squark]

Only consumed by specific activities. If an option has an hourglass next to it, it uses one point from your activities (you'll gain more of those as you gain professor ranks, up to 10 max). Even once those are all used, though, you can wander the monastery and talk to people at your leisure until you're ready to move on, just not do any more activities with that hourglass icon.

Okay, thanks. That was making me really anxious about exploring.