More Final Fantasy

[Sofis]

Live off the Land, though we may need an adjustment to what constitutes "Land". FF5 has free stuff available in towns and other "civilized" places like the pirate cave. My first thought is to say "no spending money except for inns" and allow all freebies, though that might leave the game a bit on the easy side.

You could limit it to treasures found in areas with random battles. That would rule out most of the best late game weapons though, which may or may not be desireable.

Some revision of the Brawlers: only fight commands allowed. But I want to expand it to other weapon-based commands like Aim and Jump, and also the later bosses seem impossible without some access to healing items and spells. Though maybe it could be done with self-heal tricks like Flametongue + Flame Ring. This is the one I want to do most, but need to nail down solid rules for it.

How about only commands that cause the characters to wave their weapons or punch something?

Or maybe I'll completely lose my sanity and go for the solo White Mage that Sullla doesn't seem likely to get around to.

One thing I've considered is a solo dual class: white mage/berserker. The worst two solo classes together would, I think, be reasonably possible while still being harder than most of the solo single class challenges.

There's also always a low level challenge. This one is kind of interesting due to just how far you can go in avoiding exp: there are a grand total of five battles in the game that unavoidably give exp (three of which are the goblins at the start), leaving everyone in the party at level 4 if you make sure Faris is knocked out when you defeat the Sol Cannon. You'd probably have to allow some method of cheating to get ABP in order to make it not ridiculously annoying, though.

Solo thief is much worse than solo white mage. See Gamefaqs!

Feel free to expand on that one; I'm probably not the only one unwilling to go digging through random FAQs and message board postings on Gamefaqs to find out what you are talking about.
A white mage will surpass a thief once past the twin towers, but that's at the very end of the game, and the thief is also well past the worst parts by then.

[T-hawk]

One thing I've considered is a solo dual class: white mage/berserker. The worst two solo classes together would, I think, be reasonably possible while still being harder than most of the solo single class challenges.

Actually I see a way for that to be fairly easy. The trick is the Equip Axes ability, which also gives strength equal to a berserker. Then you have a WM with all her usual defensive powers plus physical offense better than most classes.

You'd probably have to allow some method of cheating to get ABP in order to make it not ridiculously annoying, though.

Skull Eater battles in Jacole Cave. 5 ABP and no experience if you wait for the Skull Eater to run away, and it's still available in world three. Not sure if that counts as ridiculously annoying but I think it would be tolerable. Same idea in world two against Shield Dragons, control it and have it damage itself until its flee threshold of 10k HP, which also gives 5 ABP and no exp. There's also the magic pots in Phoenix Tower to add one job per character late game.

Low level is already mostly a solved problem; there's already two faqs on Gamefaqs covering it. I doubt I could resist looking up the answers there. If you want to try, I'd be happy to read along.

[luddite]

What about the "other" final fantasies? 2 and 3? has anyone ever tried those?

[MJW (ya that one)]

I was talking about ff1 not 5 when I said that.

[pindicator]

What about the "other" final fantasies? 2 and 3? has anyone ever tried those?

I am in love with FF Tactics job system myself. Been doing variants off of that game off and on for the better part of a decade and it's still fun.

[Sofis]

Actually I see a way for that to be fairly easy. The trick is the Equip Axes ability, which also gives strength equal to a berserker. Then you have a WM with all her usual defensive powers plus physical offense better than most classes.

I was including that. I may have exaggerated when I said harder than most, but an axewielding white mage still has weaker offense than most classes. It would be harder than for a chemist or a samurai, at least.

Skull Eater battles in Jacole Cave. 5 ABP and no experience if you wait for the Skull Eater to run away, and it's still available in world three. Not sure if that counts as ridiculously annoying but I think it would be tolerable. Same idea in world two against Shield Dragons, control it and have it damage itself until its flee threshold of 10k HP, which also gives 5 ABP and no exp. There's also the magic pots in Phoenix Tower to add one job per character late game.

I have a fairly low tolerance of grinding. I think it would be reasonable to use cheating for ABP, but only when a repeateble source of expless ABP is available.

Low level is already mostly a solved problem; there's already two faqs on Gamefaqs covering it. I doubt I could resist looking up the answers there. If you want to try, I'd be happy to read along.

As far as I can tell, neither guide even knows what the actual minimum level is, so I'm not sure looking at them would be very elucidating. Of course it could be the case that I'm wrong about that, but they don't even agree with eachother, so at least one of them is wrong.
At any rate, I did try it some time ago, but I lost steam near the end (right before Twin Tania) and never finished it. Funnily enough, the hardest boss up to that point was the sandworm.


Some more random ideas:
* All jobs, abilities, and equipped items must be identical for each character; if you don't have enough for everyone, you can't use it. After all, It Wouldn't Be Fair.
* In honour of all obsessive hoarders, a ban on using all consumable items, since You Might Need It Later. That in itself wouldn't be enough of a restriction, but perhaps together with the standard FF1 restriction of all jobs being permanent?
* Something silly and thematic like only bards and dancers (that would be a very fragile group).

What about the "other" final fantasies? 2 and 3? has anyone ever tried those?

Personally, I've only played them once each. FF2 had, as I recall, fairly limited opportunities for customization: just what weapons and spells you want to level up on each character. And I expect focusing on some limited subset of these will make you more powerful than if you spread the experience around, so I'm not sure restrictions would add much challenge there (but it was some time since I played it, so I may be plenty wrong).
FF3 does have a job system, so that could be worth doing something with, but the FF5 system is superior, and as I recall FF3 has a thing of forcing you into specfic jobs at some points.

[Selrahc]

I like the Bard/Dancer suggestion if you can think of some suitable music based variant rules to add to it.

[Sofis]

I like the Bard/Dancer suggestion if you can think of some suitable music based variant rules to add to it.

Every time you game over you have to record yourself singing "I'm a Little Teapot" and post it on youtube?

I don't know, you can only dance if you have a bard currently singing? Bards and dancers are hardly powerful, I don't think you need too many more restrictions.

[luddite]

Here's an idea for an FF4 variant: solo Rydia or solo Rosa. You don't always have them, but you have them for most of the game, including all the hard parts. You can speed through the rest pretty easily. Or I guess you could play them together as a team, so you wouldn't have to level up as much.

[T-hawk]

Or maybe I'll completely lose my sanity

That.

http://www.dos486.com/ff/whitemage/