Rance Quest:Playable Characters/Guards

Guard (ガード) Rance8Guard.png
They, just like Foot Soldiers in Sengoku Rance, specializing at guarding other allies by taking damage in their place using the Ally Guard skill (and improvisations of it). They can use weapons to attack the enemy too but for the most part their specialty is tanking.

Guards are significantly improved over their Sengoku counterparts. They do not lose protection rate when attacking or doing nothing, and they only lose percent when their guard triggers, meaning that if an enemy attacks your Guard directly, it will not cause them to lose percentage (unless it's a particularly crippling blow taking away about 50% of the Guard's Max HP). They also automatically gain a defense buff upon using Ally Guard which persists throughout the battle.

As for offense, they can wield most weapons fighters can, but can only achieve mastery in swords and spears. And since usually they're not the powerhouse type, swords, which both reduce accuracy and are melee range only, are less preferable than spears which eventually grant them ranged attacks, allowing them to both defend and attack (often with high accuracy) from the back row, freeing up a forward slot in the process which you can use to field that harder hitting fighter or spartan.

As crucial as their role is for defense, you only get a maximum of 5 Guard characters by default, so each of them, whether good or lame, is invaluable to you - you'd do well to keep them alive at all costs. And if you feel the shortage is too much, you can always make custom Guard characters to bolster your defenses.

Caloria Cricket (カロリア・クリケット)
How to get: Clear Quest #20: Rance Castle, Complete and then repeat it. She pops up at the very end of the event the second time.

Caloria's notable skills are Needle Shower and Harden. The former, a utility skill, deals light damage to all enemies with a +50 chance to stun, so giving her accuracy/stun-rate boosting items is helpful; daggers might be a good choice. And the latter, Harden, makes it so she only takes one-fifth the damage. However, she won't be able to move for the remainder of the battle. It's a great skill, but Caloria won't be able to raise her protection rate any more; so use it wisely. Otherwise, she's like other guards. You may want to forgo the standard guard skills such as Initial Guard and Shield Deflection for increasing the count of Needle Shower though. (Harden is already maxed.)

Caloria also has a long-range, physical, fire attack. But then you may want to drop Needle Shower in this case, and switch to a high-damage weapon. Needle Shower seems more handy, but pick whichever you prefer. If you do decide to raise her offense, then focus only on Flamethrower (火炎放射); don't bother to learn any weapon knowledge or weapon attacks.

So basically upgrade her unique skills, and/or the standard Guard skills. Try to find the right balance for yourself.

Starting with more attacks than other guards, Caloria does well when added to your exploration team. Her Flamethrower (火炎放射) can be used on physically resistant enemies. Giving her some Spear Knowledge will allow her to damage back row enemies with normal attacks. Harden, meanwhile, can be of use in boss battles where there is a chance that your front line can be wiped out faster than your Healers can manage (such as Quest #198). Sticking her in the front with Harden will keep the enemy from reaching your back row, giving your Healers the chance to revive your front line.

Placing points in the white skill Boobs (おっぱい), will cause a different dialogue in her H quest (Quest #185) as well as her H event at Rance castle. Otherwise, it has no combat use.

Caloria has a variety of unique skills at her disposal. She has a Flamethrower attack that deals physical fire damage, Needle Shower that can stun the entire enemy party, and a Harden skill that makes her extremely resistant for the rest of the battle, but she becomes unusable for the battle as well. It's up to you whether you'll build her to be offense oriented, stun oriented or just a solid tank who can deal a bit of damage. That she can use all 6 slots from the beginning also helps reduce skill points expenditure and give her lots of skills.

Level, Stats growth/boost:

* Initial stats

Initial non-unique skills: Unique Skills:

Kouhime / Kou Oda (香姫/織田 香)
How to get: Complete Quest #41: Kouhime Joins.

Kou may be built in two ways, and the most common solution is to make her a defender. In this case, it's heavily advised to maintain her Oda Armor during the early levels, since Kou needs extra protection to make up for her low stats. You can replace the Oda Armor once you find something better. However, her speed will greatly suffer until then. So what's necessary is Initial Guard, and Head Start. Afterward, it's good to upgrade her Tactician Knowledge. If there are leftover points, Weapon Breaker (武器壊し) is decent too. Don't bother with Shield Deflection (盾反らし) since it costs 6 points on Kou. Also, do not teach her any manual buffs in this build; she's too slow for the task. And don't bother trying to poison bosses with this build's poor speed. (Bosses now since when? have a 50% chance to automatically cure abnormal statuses on their turn. Leave the poisoning task to Rangers, or Kou's next build.)

Another method is to remove the Oda Armor, and have Kou forgo any defending duties. Instead, use her regained speed to take advantage of her unique weapon, and her manual buff skills. With the combination of Spear Knowledge, Kou can now dedicate herself to poisoning bosses with her unique weapon, which has a 100% poisoning rate. Simultaneously, she can now freely cast Offense Buff All (攻撃付与全体(+ATK), and Defense Buff All (防御付与全体(+DEF). (Encourage is useful too when battling bosses who debuff your party.) This build essentially turns Kou into a tactician with the ability to poison enemies.

The Oda Armor is only great during the lower levels. Later in the game you can easily find better armor to maintain her DEF to an acceptable trade off for other bonuses and retain her movement speed.

Have her learn Head Start [抜け駆け] once to offset the speed penalty of Spear weapons. If you want more speed, rank it up accordingly to your preference.

Weapon Breaker (武器壊し) is a yellow skill that, at max rank give you 40% chance in debuffing the opponent's offense.

Shield Deflection (盾反らし) is a yellow skill that, at max rank give you 40% chance to negate physical damage. However, it cost 6 skill points to learn it, where as Sachiko only need 2. (Recent patch has increased Sachiko's requirement to 4)

Due to her Immature status, she receives a -20% penalty to her HP, Attack and Magic and thus is weaker than other guards. However, she also doubles as a tactician with buffing capability, and can use a unique Poison Dango weapon that inflicts guaranteed poisoning on targets, which is of paramount importance in many difficult boss battles.

Level, Stats growth/boost:

* Initial stats

1 Stats reduced by Immature trait

Initial non-unique skills: Unique Skills:

Teru Mouri (毛利 てる)
How to get: Once you've reached the leftmost square in Quest #71: Kaito, check the second to last green star, the one next to the rock, to meet with Teru. Then complete the Quest for her to join.

Teru is essentially a Guard, but due to her weak magic defense growth it's really not advised to use as her one unless you can compensate with items or are up against only physical enemies.

Or, to take advantage of her Counter, use her as if she's a Fighter who can guard allies from time to time. Sort of like Leila in Sengoku Rance who doubled as a Warrior and a Footsoldier. Take note that her Counter will not activate when guarding allies and her attack growth is low compared to Fighter class. Stick to characters like Sachiko if you desire a pure defender.

If you find a Crystal Armor with a Talent attribute, stick it on Teru. At 1000%, her RSN should be on par or even the highest among your guards, though her DEF will take a little hit. A good trade off that makes her a respectable guard.

Unfortunately, the fact that Counter will not trigger unless directly targeted (i.e. hits taken due to Ally Guard don't trigger Counter) makes her much less useful than she could have been.

Again, she's one of only 5 guards (excluding customs) that you'll ever get, so try to make the best of her. Giving her a ring or a Crystal Armor, preferably with Talent/Talent R, this will help negate her magic vulnerability.

Level, Stats growth/boost:

* Initial stats

Initial non-unique skills: Unique Skills:

Rocky Bank (ロッキー・パンク)
How to get: After beating Quest #17: Pollution Solution once, try it a second time. There will be a new green exclamation mark event to the left of the map. Trigger it, then complete the quest. Rocky will join you.

Rocky is a Guard without any quirks. He doesn't have Sachiko's attack penalty, Kou's speed issue, or Teru's paper-thin resistance. However, he doesn't have Caloria's unique skills either. He may be boring, but it's his good point.

For skills, give him the standard Guard skills such as Initial Guard, Shield Deflection, and Stamina Boost.

His level cap can be raised by +5 several times by triggering a green event near the southeast corner of the second area (rest area with no random encounters) on Rising Dragon Mountain. This area can be visited quickly in Quest #48. WARNING: This will cause the quest to fail immediately so when you want to raise Rocky's level cap, deliberately head towards this point only.

Still probably the most generic of Guards, but given how few of them you get (excluding custom characters), you'll want to make use of him.

Level, Stats growth/boost:

* Initial stats

Initial non-unique skills: Unique Skills: None

Sachiko Centers (サチコ・センターズ)
How to get: Initial character.

Recommend skill :Initial Guard (初期ガード)--16SP

Shield Deflection (盾反らし)--14SP

Persevere (踏ん張り) (Lv 25)--2SP which help keep her alive from a fatal hit

Compulsory Education (義務教育)--3SP to ★★ as it's need for quest #29 to boost her Holy Healing Marks skill to next rank. This recommended setup will use 35SP.

Build memo : She's the only Guard with 20% hp recovery every turn (5% until Quest #29; 10% until Quest #156). Her defense and recovery will be showing off if you put her in action with Initial Guard, since her speed is not quite fast enough to gain a turn before some monsters. And do not forget to max the yellow skill, damage decrease and activate it in her activate skill. Due to her stat design, Sachiko will always have half the attack strength of other Guards. So it's not recommended to give her offensive skills under such a penalty. Upgrading her HP is wise too, and especially so because of her regeneration ability.

Optional skills (if you have leftover points) are resistances to--in order of priority--lightning, fire, and darkness. Weapon Breaker (武器壊し) is handy too, but doesn't activate if Shield Deflection does first. Her weak point is the fact Mr. Hiroshi cannot be removed.

NOTE!!! H'ing her in Rance's Palace will give you the same HCG with a different background.

It is worth considering raising her resilience (as with all guards) via Special items, as being stunned allows enemy attacks to get past your guard's protection. More so with Sachiko, as she cannot buff the stat with an accessory due to Mr. Hiroshi.

If investing in weapon mastery for a Guard, spears may be more feasible than swords, due to penalty to accuracy of swords and the fact that not all swords are available to Guards. A couple of stars should be sufficient (without investing in spear attack red skills), giving your guard flexibility to strike from the backrow, and allow another frontline fighter or a mace-wielding Healer to join the fray. Later on, when attacks start to miss a lot upgrade to ★★★ or boost accuracy in some other way.

Fixed Equipment:

Mr. Hiroshi (+20 resilience, -30 evasion, +5 defense), can be upgraded to Hiroshi-kun Kai that gives +100 defense instead of 5 by completing Quest #156.

Level, Stats growth/boost:

* Initial stats

1 Actual stats due to Mr. Hiroshi item

Initial non-unique skills: Unique Skills: