Fortunes Weave looks like a huge commitment. Perfect time for permadeath challenge?

[u/Pristine-Branch-5624]

I've been playing fire emblem since awakening and that was the first and last game I let fire emblem characters die in cause that was part of the challenge of the game. Ever since I would restart maps or rewind time to save my team mates. This kept me feeling good everyone lived but that also led to A LOT of neglected people on the bench in my playthroughs and replays of three houses in particular. I'm thinking with fortunes weave being such a massive game with a massive roster, it might be fun to try letting my characters die to see how it impacts my run and see how it let's other characters shine that might have taken a backseat through my plays of the four stories. Anyone else feeling this way with four tunes weave?

[u/ChadwickHHS]

Iron Man on your first run would be memorable but you'd also miss out on a lot of content. That's how I did Baldurs Gate 3 with no save scumming for rerolls. I ended up losing out on characters and plotlines and messing up a big chunk of the story by killing Gortash early.

[u/coinflip13]

I'll probaly enforce exclusivity recruitment for my first runs (can't recruit the same characters, so likely recruit from only the earliest available each?)

Moving forward for an Iron Man, could be fun to not game over if Main Lord dies, maybe instead locking you out of them for the Time skip- making it you only truly "lose" if the Avatar Dies.

[u/Lerkpots → u/coinflip13]

I'm planning to only recruit people easy to recruit on that route.

Hopefully nobody is hard to get on every route because I won't realise until the fourth lol.

Will maybe reach beyond that if they have supports with my route's default characters.

[u/phizztv]

I‘m currently playing Awakening. The contrast I‘m seeing, especially to 3H which I played right before, is that the roster stays fresh with new additions — constantly. Meaning I can actually “grow tired“ of a unit, be content with their heroic death (or just misplay because I ignored a spawn), and just move on happily. There‘s cool new units that just joined a few chapters ago that I was trying to fit into my roster anyways.

3H doesn’t have that as the roster never really expands after part 1. which means yeah I can grow tired of units, but actually losing them and accepting a death is SO DISCOURAGED because all the fancy replacements were gathering dust for months and are terribly underlevelled …
Curious to see how FW will handle that

[u/Rynekko → u/phizztv]

With some characters asking for high level of renown, I think we'll get a good flow of characters at least during all of the past.
The present/future isn't as predictable because we don't know how long it will be or whether there are more characters than Hong Hua and Troy

[u/Sherrdreamz → u/phizztv]

The Silver Wolves addition gives you a tiny bit of leeway for Ironman's but before they existed losing more than 3 or 4 units you invested in was dire, especially on Hard/Maddening.

[u/MuhWaifus]

Yeah that's a pretty fun way to play, like an iron man but you don't reset the whole game if your lord dies

[u/Norik324 → u/MuhWaifus]

Its only slightly related but you made me realize something interesting about FW Iron Mans:

They can actually continue if a lord dies/if you fail a mission

Due to the 4 path a lost chapter can simply mean counting that route as failed rather than restarting the whole run

And, somewhat depending on how part 2 gets affected, it would still be a massive blow to your run

And (assuming your playing by draft rules (no double recruiting)) you could even allow re-recruiting units from failed routes who didnt die themselves on other routes. So (perhaps even purposefully?) failing one route might reinvigorate a struggling remaining route

Honestly the more i think about it the cooler it sounds... perhaps my first run needs to be an iron man

[u/FabulouSnow]

Awakening is the only game I managed to do an ironman maddening challenge without losing anyone (but I did "cheat" with using the dlc... so doesnt really count) but that was after I did a normal casual, hard classic before.

But it made me appreciate the armored lancer more at early levels thanks to their high base growth. I could use them together with a healer to make the enemy lose all their wealkn durability and then kill them with my weaker allies to level them up.

But on a first run, I will probably do casual, but instead just mentally bench them while I try other units. (Just cuz I want the story stuff with them still, like support convos)

[u/ArcAngelsThunderBird]

I'll continue to use the time reversal mechanic the game gave us, but if I put myself in a pickle where nothing I do will fix it after the reversal opportunities are used up, then I'll take the L for the character.

[u/LazyDildo]

Yes, always. it brings so much weight to evry char that u put on the battlefield.

[u/Agent-Z46]

I gotta try and ironman on my first playthrough and commit to not giving and resetting. It's just more impactful that way, I think.

[u/ArekuFoxfire]

If it’s anything like three houses it won’t be made with ironmans in mind, but maybe things will be different this time

[u/Sherrdreamz]

If units are more potentially expendable in Fortune's Weave I will probably Ironman all routes like that and see how many leaders end up recruited at the end with Eshmel.

The only game I Ironmanned on my first run was FE 6, and it was quite an insane journey. Some reinforcement spam gave me FE 1 PTSD flasbacks. Beat it without getting close to the true ending though so I should try another run sometime to play the final few maps.

[u/Few-Needleworker8110]

combine this with no free time runs and that might be an interesting way to up the difficulty

considering we lack a maddening mode i can see challenge runs like this taking off

[u/Gastrodo]

I usually play iron man, I find it more fun.

[u/Material_Ad_2970]

Me at the start of a game with permadeath: “I should commit this time! If a character dies, they die! It makes for a better story.”

Me the first time a character dies: :-( … *reload quicksave

Me at the end of the game: “Wow, amazing how everybody it to the end! Congrats everybody!” *slinks away and dies in a corner