Hello everyone! Yesterday I woke up and decided I wanted to try to make a rebalance/reskin hack for Fe8.
I’m mostly doing this as something to help me along the way of making my own full fledged hack and refining my skills and experience. I have one in the works that hasn’t been updated in a while but is still very much on my list for completion, its called: “Abyss and Ash”. (You should go check that out…)
This current rebalance/reskin has all of my custom item icons that I’ll be using in Abyss and Ash, so definitely let me know what you think of the icons! (I didn’t edit any of the magic tomes icons because I’m happy with how they already look)
I know people are probably tired of Fe8 reskins/rebalances, but I’m going to try and get better through this experience.
I’m working on rebalancing the game to also be able to safely call it a “difficulty hack” as well, not anything crazy, but I definitely want it to be a good challenge. I want it to require some real, actual planning and strategy.
Features:
Skill System:
I installed the skill system, but its very limited right now to avoid skill bloat, so basically everyone just gets one unique character only skill that usually is in line with their strengths or personal design, including every boss. All of the monster classes have 1 skill, to make them more challenging. Also the classes that do get a skill already like the general, bishop, and assassin etc will have more than 1 skill for the characters as those classes. I originally wasn’t going to use the skill system because it does get crazy really fast so I’m aiming to be very limited on what I give them. Exceptions being the thief class that gets Steal+ at level 20, and Eirika and Ephraim’s base lord classes both receive 1 additional skill at level 20 and their promoted lord class will also receive 1 more skill at level 10. If this proves too be strong I’ll change it, although at that point in the game I doubt it will be much of an issue. I’m also considering the idea of giving each promoted class a skill at level 15 or 20 to help the endgame content be a little less tedious, like Lagdou Ruins clears.
Increased Difficulty:
Heavily adjusted enemy density as well as their inventory over the first 9 chapters. Bosses specifically all received a personal skill as well as extensively upgraded inventories, but don’t worry, most of those powerful items will be yours, if you can defeat them.
New Playable Units:
I am strongly considering a recruitable monster unit, possibly a Mogall or Mauthe Doog. I want it to be something that would be “realistically” possible, I don’t see anyone taming a Gargoyle or Cyclops but I could be wrong. Anyway, I would want them to have specific requirements for their recruitment. Not exactly like, but kind of like how completions of the Tower of Valni and Lagdou Ruins reward extra playable units. As of now, I don’t know how to do that without replacing an existing unit, and I don’t want to do that. So that’s on hold until I can figure out how to do it.
Class changes:
General Changes:
Fixed stats on classes that don’t use magic getting base magic stats on promotion and gaining magic growth rates. (pretty sure I got them all…)
Class Specific Changes:
Summoners: The summons have a max HP of 20 and a max Def and Res of 5. So they’re actually useable past just being bait. I also raised their con and gave them Axefaith.
(This buff to the summons might be altered if they prove too powerful)
Troubadour: You can now sacrifice the use of a mount to become a bishop. The options are now valkyrie or bishop. (Mageknight removed as an option from Troubador)
Changed the trainee classes to allow 3 base promotion choices without prerequisites.
Recruit: knight, cavalier, and wyvern rider.
Journeyman: fighter, pirate, and brigand.
Pupil: mage, shaman, and monk.
“Lords”: Prince and Princess now have 3 class promotion options each. When prompted to use the Lunar and Solar brace, decline this option, then use them afterwards in the inventory menu to access the 2 new additional classes. I won’t list what they are here, you’ll just have to see for yourself, but I will say that they do retain their default “Great Lord” promotion as an option for those that don’t like the 2 new options. “Great Lord” is the default promotion if you choose to use the Lunar and Solar brace when first prompted to after completing chapter 16.
-Added 1 secret skill to the lord class and their promoted lord class- Hint: Aim high.
Soldier: Can now promote to general, paladin, and great knight.
Added the steal ability to Assassins as a base skill, I might remove this though. I feel like it detracts from the bonus of promoting from a thief versus promoting from a Myrmidon. Let me know what you all think, keep or remove?
Added a custom animation to a few classes, fighter, pirate, mage, sage, Erika’s base class and default promoted class.
Increased the base con on some classes, like soldier, brigand and druid.
Added the Discipline skill to the Great Knight class to facilitate easier multi-weapon training.
Changed the Brigand class to “Mountaineer” and added a new class animation as well a new class card for them.
Character Changes:
General Changes:
All characters have had their growths adjusted to be more in line with their class/previous bases. I made sure everyone has 300% total for their character growths with exceptions to Tethys and Myrrh. Buffed most boss characters that didn’t have luck to have at least a little, like a minimum of 5 or so. Raised the base con of a few boss characters.
Added quite a few portrait replacers that I felt were a good upgrade without changing too much of the vanilla feel, like for example making a couple units appear a bit more mature. Also the "female Joshua replacer, isn’t replacing Joshua, it’s replacing Ismaire. The portrait was so good I had to use it, but I didn’t want to alter the story. I feel like it fits, because it’s his mother, so the similarities are canonical to me lol
Character Specific Changes:
Franz: His default class set to soldier instead of cavalier. I also fixed Franz’s character description to no long say “An earnest and compassionate cavalier of Renais”, it now says “A skilled and dedicated soldier from Renais. Looking to discover himself.”
Lute: She begins with an E rank in dark magic, as well as creating a prf tome for her.
Garcia: He now starts with a prf axe.
Monster Changes
Major adjustments to all monsters to be more deadly, more in line with the terror and carnage I imagine they’d inflict. Make sure you carefully inspect the monsters before you engage them, some are far more deadly than they appear at first glance.
Renamed Mauthe Doog and Gwyllgi to “Hellhound” and “Garmr”
Renamed Bael and Elder Bael to “Stone Spider” and “Mountain Spider”
Renamed Bonewalker and Wight to “Skeleton” and “Skeleton Lord”
Renamed Tarvos and Maelduin to “Centaur” and “Centaur Lord”
Renamed Deathgoyle to “Gargoyle Lord”
Renamed Revenant and Entombed to “Zombie” and “Undead”
Item & Weapon Changes
I have rebalanced basically every single item in the game, as well as added descriptions to items without them and added more informative descriptions to existing ones.
I buffed a lot of the staves a decent amount, in particular their range. For example the barrier, restore, hammerne, and unlock staff now have a 1-3 range, and the warp staff now has max map range like Fe3. I did not buff the range on the heal, mend, or recover staff. I increased the staves with 3 durability up to 5 durability now, like silence, berserk, hammerne etc.
Adjusted the value and durability of magic tomes to be more in line with non-magic weapons.
Some items have been nerfed to make it a little more challenging, for example elixirs are now 1 time use, and quite pricey, to encourage using healers a little more. Also, weapons like hand axes, javelins, spears, and tomahawks were nerfed. Item durability on MANY weapons was altered heavily, the weapons with random durability like the niche weapons like horse slayer, heavy spear, zanbato, etc all of those got large reworks. I also removed the 5 crit off of all the reaver weapons.
Also if you get an item with a name you do not recognize and you’re thinking “Wtf did I just get?” that’s normal. Chances are it was a healing item, promotion item or even one the sacred twin weapons. The sacred twin weapons are named after valkyries. The healing items are just different names for the thing they are. And the promotion items, I tried to give them fancy sounding names. Oh and the monster slaying weapons, the shadow killer, bright lance, beacon bow and fiend cleaver got fancy new names and stat reworks as well as being added to a few chests too!
Poison weapons got a big buff, particularly their damage and accuracy, I never liked how they did substantially less damage and had way less accuracy than an iron weapon, because in my head i always viewed it as they should do at LEAST as much damage as iron weapons. It’s not like they’re even a common weapon type, unfortunately.
Most weapons that aren’t steel or iron will have generally around 20 durability, for some that was a buff, like for the Runesword (one of my personal favorite weapons) it got 5 extra durability from that buff, but consequently the Light Brand lost durability, but they both were buffed overall, including the Wind sword, and are all now B rank swords with unique effects aside from being magical of course.
Hit rates adjusted a lot, as well as weight and some little things that have always bugged me, like iron swords having 46 uses instead of 45, steel axes being E rank and are now D rank, flux being D rank but is now E. Even though those are small and literally almost unnoticeable changes, I felt they were necessary.
Adjusted some special weapons like the rapier and Reginlief and made them feel a bit more “unique”, specifically giving them ranged capabilities but also increasing their weight slightly to keep them in check, (they do not do magic damage, despite the rapier using the fire ranged animation, Reginlief just uses the basic javelin ranged attack animation).
Added elemental attacks to a few of the sacred twin weapons. Audhulma now does magic damage with the Fimbulvetr ranged animation. The nidhogg does magic damage with the thunder ranged animation. Sieglinde and Siegmund now do magic damage and use the bolting and elfire ranged animations. The bright bow monster killer weapon now does magic damage and uses the Shine ranged animation.
Buffed the Battle Axe to give +1 to strength, speed, and luck, to offset its tremendous weight and lack of use generally while not being too op, can also attack at range like a handaxe. Also increased price and rarity. Basically you only get the one Dozla has until the creature campaign secret shops are unlocked.
Made all stat boosting items into various “rings” of different colors, also added a ring to increase magic. I realized there was nothing to increase magic specifically after the strength and magic split from the skill system, also made them all have 2 uses, but only increasing a stat by 1 point per use. No more wasted stat points from boosters now! We’ve all be there, Ross sitting at a 29/30 strength, asking ourselves where we went wrong, and should we bite the bullet and give him that booster and waste the point, eventually swallowing our pride and doing it lol oh and the “Angelic Robe” as it was formerly named, also has 2 uses but it increases HP by 4 each time, so technically it boosts 8 total HP instead of the previous 7 HP, so I decided I’d rather have a slight buff to it than a slight de-buff. I doubt it’ll actually be a noticeable change.
Gleipnir now does effective damage to monsters, I don’t care if it’s dark type magic from Grado and the developers didn’t want it to, it’s still a sacred twin weapon, so if we’re following that logic then Garm shouldn’t do effective damage, because it’s unholy too. And nobody wants that, especially not Ross.
Created a new bow class weapon, the crossbow. A unique, one of a kind prototype available in chapter 8.
Created a prf dark tome for Lute called “Abyss”
Created a prf axe for Garcia called “Breaker” replacing the Swordslayer.
Adjusted monster weapons once again, this time to have more consistent hit rates, particularly the claw and fang weapons. Adjusted the weight of monster magic like Crimson Eye and Demon Surge and adjusted accuracy of Shadowshot and Stone. (Monsters in this hack are supposed to be especially deadly)
Shop & Armory Changes
Heavily modified the creature campaign secret shops to not all be so repetitive with what they sell, they all have unique weapons from one another now. One will now sell all the promotion items, one will sell all the stat boosters. Rausten will be primarily magic and Grado will be primarily non magic and Jehanna will be a mix of both.
Edited a few starter shops and armories, specifically Ide by removing Hand Axes and Javelins and adding torches. Cuz, you know, all those fog of war maps on the monster skirmishes. Added a couple utility staves to Serafew shop to incentivize staff usage.
Updates:
Version 1.2 added a TON of things. First starting with the biggest addition. A new companion joins you at turn 2 of chapter 4. His portrait was done by me, I’m no artist, so go easy on me. He’s a Hellhound named Orthos. The only tamed one in recorded history! His former master was killed by the very monsters you’re fighting in Za’Ha woods. He comes with 3 custom claw and bite attacks. He has a standard claw attack (Slash, 7 might, 80 hit rate, 5 critical rate), having it equipped grants him the loyalty skill (When within 2 spaces of a Lord, -3 damage taken, +15% hit.) His second weapon is a bite attack (Dire Fang), Orthos attacks with a bite that has low damage and accuracy, but can strike 2-4 times. (4 might, 50 hit rate). His final weapon is another claw attack (Garrote) which means to strangle, basically. Orthos attacks the enemy while trying to prevent them from casting spells. But this attack is very difficult to hit with and deals low damage. (5 might, 60 hit rate. silences on hit.) He has 3 supports planned, but not yet implemented. They will be with Lute, Knoll, and Garcia. Also he can promote at level 20 with an earth seal.
The next biggest change is to chapter 3 map Bandits of Borgo. The map has been expanded in the southern (bottom part) of the map. A few broken walls have been replaced by locked doors, and don’t worry, I added an extra droppable door key so you won’t get soft locked if Colm dies. I mean, unless you discard it I guess. So please don’t do that lol Oh and also added plenty of stealable loot to the enemies returning from their “raid”. Bazba’s dialogue was also slightly extended to mention the returning raiding party at the entrance. I added this as kind of a heads up for the player.
A few reworks to standard weaponry, +1 might to iron sword, slim sword, and slim lance.
Added 3 new passive boost held items. A Lucky Coin that grants +5 Luck, I’ll let you guess who has that… And an Iron Shield that grants +3 defense and -2 Speed that’s carried by Amelia in chapter 9 of either route. And finally a Sage Stone that grants +3 magic and +3 skill, and that’s carried by Saleh in chapter 12 of Eirika’s route or chapter 15 on Ephraim’s route.
A few character stat growth fixes, like Eirika having much lower strength growth than I intended, as well as a few characters con getting accidentally boosted because I forgot to factor in their class cons, particularly Vanessa. Also reduced Ross’s con by 1, and Franz’s con by 1.
Also changed Eirika’s battle animation to the “no cape” version.
I think that’s everything. I had a lot of fun with this update, I hope you do too!
My ramblings/thoughts and updates!
Chapter 3 so far sees the largest ramp in difficulty, it will definitely require strategic positioning and careful inspection of enemy placement and inventory check ups. So be careful. Also if this turns out to be too hard, which honestly there’s a decent chance it will, I will gladly reduce the difficulty on it. That’s why communication is the best! Chapter 4 shouldn’t be dramatically harder, although enemy placements have been heavily altered, as well as the addition of around 5 or so new enemies. Again, always be aware of your surroundings, and always check what kind of stick the other guy is swinging!
The civilian class received massive buffs. Let’s see that spider take them out in chapter 6 now! This is a joke, they still absolutely require saving, although I did move the spider 1 tile back, for a bit of breathing room. For those intent on expressing their hatred for the arachnids, you’ll be rewarded with a quite nifty item for defeating it instead of just speed running the chapter. Also…hmm, what’s that you have there Novala? Looks dangerous…
I probably need to rebalance the character growths again. I was doing some playtesting and I was arena abusing in Serafew just to see how they’d roughly turn out, and yeah… they’re all getting some overly consistent good levels. So I will have to look back and look at their original unedited growths and adjust a little, if at all for some. There are some that need it, like Dozla and Knoll. Especially Knoll, oh my little Knoll, your 0 starting luck has plagued me since I was a child.
As always I’ve deleted the old patch and uploaded a new one. I will try to keep it as up to date as possible, even if it’s just little fixes like fixing typos. I promise to keep this up to date for all the probably 0 people playing it! You have my word as a random entity on the internet! <3
Fixed an issue that prevented Franz from promoting and some inventory issues with the thief in chapter 3 as well as the enemies at the bottom of the map not pursuing your units properly.
Credits:
7743 for FEBuilder!
[Fighter-Reskin] Tellius-Style Clothing [M] by Leo_Link.
[Mage-Reskin] [M] Hatless by GabrielKnight.
[Sage-Reskin] [F] Lute FE8 Variant by Levin64
[FE8 Eirika-Reskin] [F] T1 Leotard and no cape by Kimeru el perro.
[FE8 Eirika-Reskin] [F] T2 Eirika by Redbean
[Pirate-Reskin] Variant [M] by Nuramon
Colm (Older) portrait by {MegaCowsamMan}
Franz (Older) portrait by {MegaCowsamMan}
Myrrh (Older) portrait by {L95, Wasdye}
Natasha portrait by {Plant_Academy}
Amelia portrait by {PlantAcademy}
L’Arachel (Alt armor 1) portrait by {DarkJaden}
Ross (Alt armor 2) portrait by {DarkJaden}
Joshua (Female) portrait by {Plant_Academy}
Ephraim (Great Knight) portrait by {Garytop}
Garcia (Alt armor) portrait by {DarkJaden}
Selena (Alt armor) portrait by {DarkJaden}
Tana portrait by {RedBean}
Marisa (alt 3) portrait by {Redbean}
Eirika portrait by {Redbean}
Aimee shopkeeper portrait by {Cygnus}
Arena portrait by {Epicer}
Lute (Alt armor) portrait by {DarkJaden}
Knight (Version 1, 2, 3, & 4) portraits by {SamirPlayz}
Soldier (Version 3) portrait by {Eden}
Gladiator (M) class portrait by L95
[Hector-Reskin] T1 Gladiator Repal v2 +Sword by {waleed}
Gladiator (M) standing & walking map sprites by {Pikmin, L95}
New White Gem item icon by {2WB}
Lucky Coin item icon by {XVI}
Iron Shield item icon by {Cardcafe}
Silver Tiara, Steel Glove, Silver Armor, Silver boots, Full helmet by {Maxim}
All item icons were created by me unless specified otherwise in the credits.
Spoilers:
“Libera te tutemet ex Inferis” roughly translates to: “May he protect you from Hell”
Eirika can promote to swordmaster from her time in Jehanna and spending time with Joshua. She can promote to a paladin from her time around Seth. (This is purely from a gameplay perspective, you do NOT need to have supports with either of them for these changes to occur)
Ephraim can promote to general or great Knight.
The link below is for anyone that would like to use my custom icons, there’s currently 177. They are free to use and edit if you wish, just give me credit if you wanna use them, not a hard requirement, but just so I can check them out in your game or whatever you’re using them for 