Bay 12 Games Forum

Ah, warhammer ones? Try this one. It was fun, iirc.

E: Okay, finally, good gods. I have gone through the pokemon 100k+ to see what hit the memory register. Pedestal has already been linked! First person or not, it is bloody excellent.

The Sun Soul and Clouded Sky I recommend without hesitation, regret, or caveat. They are both excellent, and I actually remember them to a certain degree as just that. Read! If nothing else that comes after, those two are good.

Now for the stuff I'm going to list out strictly and entirely because they pinged my memory. The caveats here is I have no idea why they pinged my memory, and therefor are being recommended only if treated with noted suspicion. I don't remember what's in them. I don't remember their quality, or their contents, or whether they devolve into a pokemon orgy by chapter two (actually, I'm pretty sure I remember the ones I've read that ended up like that, so unless they're false positives none of these do that.). All I know is they looked familiar for reasons unknown. So approach with caution! Notable caution, as occasionally pokemon fics, get, uh. Yeah. And as such, list:

Red Tide. First person!
Spirited.
The Language of Life.
Regret. First person!
The Longest Journey.
Pokemon 0.
Tales of Flame.
Venatus.
Symbiosis.

You're also getting this as a recommendation, despite being a crossover. It is entirely too well written for a Touhoumon fanfic.

============AND HERE, HAVE SOME FAMILIAR OF ZERO RECOMMENDATIONS============

Anything Flying Dice has already mentioned is excellent and probably should be read.

Emperor of Zero. Louise summons goddamn Napoleon.

An American Geek in Halkeginia. Another one of those "Why is this so well done!?" things. Leans towards sorta-maybe-squick considering there's attraction from the familiar towards Louise, despite a notable age difference and the familiar not wanting it to happen, but, it's, like. Just. It's better than it has any right to be. Hasn't been updated in a while, though.

Those are the two I immediately noticed from the non-cross stuff. NOW FOR CROSSOVERS. Some of these will have been mentioned in the book list thing. Now with links!

The Hill of Swords. Fate/stay night. It is the freaking Hill of Swords. It is excellent. It should be read. You should read it. I don't care who "you" is directed to. Read.

Shadow of Zero. D&D. Zero summons a DnD Self-Insert character! It's better than the premise would suggest.

Scion of Zero. Scion. I don't know what scion is. I DON'T REMEMBER ANYTHING IN TERMS OF DETAILS. I think this was good, though.

The Third Magic. Fate/stay again. Louise nets Illya. Whee!

Zero Interface. Ranma. L nets Ranma. Decent. Don't remember why.

Points of Familiarity. Evangelion. L nets post third-impact Shinji. This is written by the shinji and wh40k dude! It's good. There's a sequel/rewrite/thing also by the same author, with the same premise, but arguably better.

Dragon Summoning. Original Series type... thing. I think. Something like that. Louise summons something with pretty serious consequences and, well. Stuff happens. It was good.

Team Zero. Pokemon. L nets Jessie, James, and co. It's, uh. Better than it probably should be.

Void Bladeworks. Fate/stay again. L nets a female Archer. It's... probably better than it should be. Again. Was readable, anyway.

The Prince of Swords. F/S, again, again. This is basically a spin off of Hill of Swords, written by someone else. Incomplete, but excellent.

The Darkest Void. Negima. Memory failure, but I've read it once and had it slated to read again. It was good for some reason I've forgotten.

Echoes of the Void. Kara no Kyokai, which I have no idea what is. It's incomplete but good. Don't ask why, don't remember specifics.

Halkegenia Online. Sword Arts Online. This was on the list. It has a sequel. It is entirely too bloody good for it's premise, and I would heartily recommend.

An Acolyte of Zero. Warcraft. Wanky, but kinda' fun, iirc.

Summoning the Sun. Okami. It was on the list. Feels. It's pretty great.

Zero's Bullet. Hellsing. I haven't actually finished this one, only got a few chapters in, but it was pretty well done up to that point. L nets Rip Van Winkle. The werewolf (i.e. souped up vampire) sniper.

Fae is Foul. SAO again. A different take than Halkegenia Online. Pretty good!

Unforeseen Consequences. Not sure if FD got this one. Puella Magi Madoka Magica Xover. I didn't get too far into it, but what I did get through was pretty delightful.

And that's pretty much all of the ZnT stuff >60k that I recall reading and hasn't been already mentioned. Probably some that have, too.

... well damn. Actually, the first one I found that I solidly remembered was this one, which is notable both for being first person and, if my memory's actually working and it's the one I'm thinking it is, mentioning the main character's gender something like twice in the first three hundred thousand words of the work. I'm pretty sure it's the one that I thought the MC was the wrong gender until something like 150-200k words into the fic.

Also it was pretty good! I think. It's been a few years since I've read much non-cross pokemon stuff, which is why the memory's so fuzzy and nothing's on the top of my head.

If it's anything like the bow of war, then no.

Trolls don't have trample, no, sea or otherwise*. They're just really rather good at killing most human-level opponents. Fairly tough (some protection), fairly sizable HP, regen and high strength. A solid group of them can wreck face on normal troops pretty easily. They're nice critters, just fairly expensive to get via normal means (i.e. summon). A recruitment site for 'em is... nice.

*Actually, the only native-underwater critter I can remember with trample is Asp Turtles (which are gloriously brutal monstrosities that can take most indie water provinces either solo or in groups of two or three and do horrible things to armies in general.) and... probably Leviathans, which are those but undead (and amphibious). Both really high up in terms of research, though. Conj or Ench 7.

Armored trolls riding moose. They're actually pretty deadly, ha.

Van... I can't recall much about them. I think the only one(s?) I've played much are the ones with the skinshifters (LA, at least. Think that's van, anyway...), and their initial strategy of "bury everything in skinshifters" is pretty simple

Yeah, they go by pretty fast, those style ones do. Now, graphic novel style ones... those are a bit meatier. Still nothing compared to an actual book, but definitely something with a bit more heft to it.

Sieging! Iirc they're also fairly decent against some things (especially stuff susceptible to mobbing) with a few buffs thrown on 'em. I mean, they're chaff -- nearly as quintessential a Dominions chaff as Ermor freespawn -- but chaff has its uses, and Maenads 'zerk so most of the normal moral issues involved with them dying in droves are negated. Arrow catchers and meat walls can be pretty great.

You can also use 'em for patrolling if you're intending to branch into blood, throw a handful on mages as bodyguards if you're up against assassin-enabled enemies (or just to serve as spell catchers in combat)... all the normal sort of stuff you'd use plentiful freespawn on.

Iirc, it's 21 strength (and multiple attacks) in jaguar form (or was in D3, if my memory's not failing me. I really should go and check for D4...), which is pretty brutal for something as that's as cheap as those guys and rolling recruit-everywhere. They're a size larger in that form (which is somewhat of a disadvantage, in general), but still. Throw on quickness (The W9 bless) and something more explicitly damaging and you've got a furry shredder on crack. Gold for gold, the jags really are one of the best sacreds in the game just in raw stats, and the recruit-anywhere letting you mass ridiculous amounts of them is just icing.

And then the blood economy starts rolling in and oh gods, the everything.

As for afflictions, iirc form shifting like they do actually does have some sort of beneficial effect to it, if my memory's not failing me (though for the life of me I can't remember what, and could be mixing things up with some other piece of errata.). Plus... doesn't the jag form have regen? Which helps keep 'em from racking up, anyway. Could be mixing it up with the skinshifters (Which are very similar! Just non-sacred.) with the regen, though..

E: Woah, critical memory fail. They're base 13 str in jag form. Still have multiple attacks (good ol' bite/claw/claw). Base 18 HP, 5 prot. Fast, hit hard. Good defense, insofar as chaff clearing goes.