LogFAQs > #936375446

Sorry for the brief hiatus, been engrossed in some other things, and it hasn't helped that this is probably the hardest write up to do because I struggle to put into words why this guy actually amuses me so...

6. Paulus (Thracia 776 Chapter 14)

Paulus first appears in chapter 13, talking briefly to the boss of that map and telling him to not idiotically charge in before their reinforcements show up and get himself killed. Said boss proceeds to idiotically charge in before their reinforcements show up and gets himself killed. Oddly enough, if Paulus himself stopped being so hesitant and just idiotically charged in himself, things would probably be a hell of a lot tougher, given he would be quite the powerful foe to have moving around the map instead of just sitting in a corner doing nothing.

Thracia chapter 14 is a weird one, often held in high regard for being the first true defense map in the series and for feeling like a big, epic battle if you try to run out and fight the swarms of enemies on every front. Unfortunately, it suffers from a slight problem, namely that when designing the map someone forgot to think about what would happen if you actually took the objective of defending to heart and simply defended the central area. By parking an unarmed mounted unit (or 20 constitution foot unit, it just needs to be someone immune to being captured) in each of three choke points just outside ballista range, it's impossible to even lose because the enemies have no way of threatening anyone except the person at the bottom choke point, who can be backed up by charm from Nanna and the Kingmaker sword, plus support bonuses if you know about those, to face negligible hit rates. And you have multiple units that can fulfill these roles even at their base stats, or base stats plus promotion bonus in the case of Finn. And it takes long enough for enemies to get into the city that you can complete every side objective before they do if you want.

Well, except for one, which is getting the Dragon Lance for Dean. It's more trouble than it's worth in general (base level Dean already handles basically every combat task you might ever need him for) but if you do want it (and it *is* a pretty strong weapon and would be great in a game that wasn't this one) you have to get through an iron ballista (rather lethal to Dean, the guy who has to visit the house in the first place), a bolting tome, several killer lance knights and, of course, end up right next to the main boss of the chapter (not to be confused with the mini-boss, Baldack, who moves, sometimes, and is generally capable of being a nuisance depending on how his AI and movement star play out) Paulus. You could just use a warp and a rescue to not care but that's a lot of work for one weapon, plus Dean probably wants to leave the city (and thus the reach of your warpers) to collect the Nosferatu tome in the south east anyway. So it ends up being a fun little challenge, if you want to engage in it.

All this writing and barely anything has even been said about Paulus himself. That's because, well, the most interesting thing about his role in the map is how superfluous he is. He's quite strong, with capped defense and nearly capped strength, a respectable 12 speed and comes well equipped with a Master Axe (basically an inaccurate 1-2 range brave axe) and a Tornado tome (which is just a strong 1-2 range tome that also weighs him down to nothing). His "mere" 18 constitution means you can even capture him if you really want to, although the odds of success won't be very good given how tough he is, not to mention he has Pavise to randomly fuck you over. And he has 4 leadership stars, granting all enemies on the map +12 hit/avoid, which would seem like a good incentive to get rid of him.

But in practice, you almost never bother. For newer players, they get too overwhelmed fighting in the city streets to ever get close to him. People who learn how broken the chapter is can just sit back and be in zero danger, having no reason to even get close to him. This guy shows up a chapter in advance to seemingly be established as important and his dialogue prior to the map itself seems to try to make him seem somewhat sympathetic, but you don't even have any real incentive to engage with him. It's a very weird choice. Oh the fact that you can just turtle to break the map effortlessly was probably not intended, but the infinite reinforcements mean the whole "get bogged down fighting and never reach him" part clearly was. And there's a dick move of ambush spawn Ridersbane wyvern riders (who infamously appear as green units who nonetheless attack you, despite the game having previously used green units to indicate friendly NPCs) late in the map just on the off chance you did send people down there, although they don't always move because this game is full of strange AI that only randomly does things.

On a list full of bosses who are interesting and/or challenging obstacles due to their own strength or their circumstances, Paulus sticks out like a sore thumb as a complete afterthought who has no impact whatsoever on the map. It's so strange that I can't help but find it interesting. And it is kind of fun to try to figure out a way to kill him regardless of how pointless it is. In fact, the potential to have fun by going after him and his crew is why this chapter escaped serious consideration for my bottom ten chapters list. No, I don't know why a guy I don't even care to fight half the time makes that much of a difference, but somehow he does.

Up next: Hopefully a more consistent update schedule! And a very different kind of interesting boss (who is also, technically, optional now that I think about it) who just might have gotten some coverage earlier...

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Meow!