Rance Quest:Playable Characters

This page is in the middle of being merged with https://alicesoft.fandom.com/wiki/Rance_Quest:Characters_join_condition, this page will contain informations from both of those pages (as it already have join conditions, and the second page already have info like skills, tips)

Each skill has limited usage count, which is restored after each quest. For example, Rance Attack is initially restricted to one-time use per quest. Furthermore, there are four skill types:  offensive skills , that target the enemies for inflicting damage and/or various hindrances such as status problems and debuffs,  supportive skills , that are used on allies for recovery and buffs etc., and  passive skills  that are always active when equipped (or give 50% of the effect if learned but not equipped), and finally, there are "always active" skills that, once learned, are always in full effect without the need to equip it into a skill slot. Skills mentioned in bold are very important/rare skills, sometimes unique to that character.

Also, each character, like in previous Rance games, has level cap (except Rance himself), which may later be raised (very likely by H-ing in case of girls and specific events in case of men, just like in Rance 6).

Rance Quest divides various playable characters in 8 distinct classes. In this article, characters are sorted according to these classes.

NOTE: Each character's level stats are mentioned in the following format: Starting Level/Initial Level Cap. It may be noted that the maximum possible level of a character is 999 (for all characters).

NOTE: The Damage Multiplier/Bonus column represents two values: the multiplier applied to the character's attack stat for damage calculation and the absolute damage added to the calculated magnitude. So if multiplier is A and bonus is B, total damage output of the skill is ((ATK*A) + B) HP.

NOTE: Each character has his/her own no. of skill slots, i.e. the no. of total red/blue/yellow skills she can equip at any given time for any given quest, governed by the skill "実装スキル数". If just learned without any upgrades, it allows a character to equip 3 skills. For each star upgrade, the no. of available skill slots increase by 1, giving a max of 6 slots at 3-star 実装スキル数. Rance already begins with this skill upgraded to 3-star, thus having 6 slots from start.

Fighter (ファイター) [[File:Rance8Fighter.png]]
The backbone of your offensive force, fighters use melee weapons to assault the enemy and have weapon-based skills. A small no. of fighters might have limited magical skills but for the most part melee attack with weaponry is their forte. Furthermore, fighters in Rance Quest are quite versatile and with the right weapons can gain ranged attacks so that they can then be placed in both front and rear positions as needed.

Of course, the Almighty Serial Rapist of a protagonist in this game, Rance, is of the fighter class. Other examples include Uesugi Kenshin and Noir.

Rance (ランス)
Level: 5/∞

How to get: Initial character.

Recommend skill : Rance attack, Damage limit increase, Sword mastery

Build memo : Your starting fighter with an incredibly strong Rance attack and infinity level cap! Just increase his attack like madness, and do not forget to up the damage limit increase for him, that will make the most wonderful physical damage dealer that you can use through the last world. Sword is suitable for him, since you need dexterity, you will not want your Rance attack to be missed, right?

Instead of Strengthen Attack, you may optionally want couple uses of Train Slash if you plan to attain maximum speed bonus for Quest #51. And cumulatively, you'll be doing 300% damage--so it's not a waste afterward.

The Best Fighter of The Game, more or less. No level cap, extra bunch of normal attacks, a pain bringer ranged AoE special attack, excellent accuracy and attack growth, also good HP growth. What you'd expect from a main character of an eroge... Oh wait, most eroge heroes tend to be the weakest of the lot these days. Thankfully Rance ain't one of them, and raising him well with top class equipment and consumables will be rewarding indeed. He also gains the highest ATK weapon in the game towards the end, making his attack strength a class apart from others.

His only con is that he can't get skill point/stat percentage boosts from Morurun like every other character can.

Initial skill slots: 6 (3-star)

Initial skills:

Other notable skills:

Cessna Benville (セスナ・ベンビール)
Fighter Lv 1/18

How to get: Quest #16:

Up to 1.15: Clear any 2 quests with map after getting Megadeath.

In 1.6/Magnum: Complete quest number 16　「酒場でスカウト」 after clearing #26 「原稿回収と人捜し」.

Her optional unique yellow skill, Dozing（居眠り, just makes her an unreliable, run-of-the-mill fighter.

Although out of character, daggers are good choices if you can't stand her accuracy. You probably won't use her for long as you will eventually have more than a dozen (mostly better) fighters to choose from.

She is needed for one of the quests in the Magnum expansion though, together with Megadeath and Prima, requiring all three to be at level 35 or higher.

Generic fighter #1, literally. She'll be the first new fighter you'll acquire. Use her however you want, and decide if you want to use her special skill. Probably not worth much, but she's part of a 4P H-scene, for which she needs to be grinded up to level 35.

Initial skill slots: 3 (Not upgraded)

Initial skills:

Bernard Seramite (バーナード・セラミテ)
Fighter Lv 1/25

How to get: Quest number 96「イカマンの求婚」. Do not do any of the non-exclamation mark green stars and immediately go straight for the exclamation mark star. He will join at the end of the quest.

His natural resistance (to status effects) is much higher than other characters. He's a steady character with no weaknesses, but it's also his downfall. There's no particular reason to use him, and especially so because male characters generally don't fare well in the Rance series. Use him if you must, but he's as generic as you can get.

Not very useful at all, but has exceptionally high stun resistance (base is 80%).

Initial skill slots: 4 (1-star)

Alkanese Rize (アルカネーゼ・ライズ)
Fighter Lv 1/60

How to get: Beat quest #60 (Lion Mind)「ライオンマインド」.

For Alkanese, simply continue raising any hammer related skills--mainly Hammer Knowledge and Impulse. Her natural accuracy is much higher than others, so don't worry about the fact she doesn't have 戦士の才能. Also, don't forget to learn Damage Limit, and to boost her accuracy in some way. You'll also want a fast stunner in your party setup, where they take action up first to stun the intended target for her to kill. Hammer is powerful, but useless if your miss ratio is high.

She pairs up well with Crane and/or Kaloria. As Crane got a unique weapon that can stun monster very often and Kaloria got Needle Shower that can stun multiple targets at once.

Berserker - a double-edged skill - may hinder her when training though, so put her in a party with a Guard.

Has better HP growth, and for a hammer specialist, good accuracy. However her undeletable Berserk skill may sometimes be a hindrance for leveling her up. She also can't learn Efficient Action that most fighters can. Overall, significantly tougher than other run-of-the-mill fighters, yet not as good as the top tier ones like Rance, Kenshin and Arms.

Initial skill slots: 4 (1-star)

Initial skills:

Tomato Purée (トマト・ピューレ)
Fighter Lv 1/37

How to get: Upon encountering a certain treasure chest in quest #61.「チーターマインド」.

Tomato is best used as a dedicated monster girl capturer. Therefore pick a high accuracy weapon for her (so you don't miss any capture attempts), and teach her skills appropriate to making captures easier. And, of course, give any treasure related skills to take advantage of her unique skill. Note: Recent patch has limited her with only Spear mastery or Hammer mastery.

Great farmer to use in lower level maps with characters who have: overwhelm, hidden movement, escape mastery etc.

Has a wonderful passive, Treasure Chest Affinity (宝箱に好かれる), that give you more crates on maps, exact amount unknown but a substantial amount. Also able to acquire yellow skills that limit the items obtained from crates to a single type: M items, equipment or accessory. So putting her together with characters with open luck and verify abilities would make your farming life easy. Recommend M item skill as M items does not vary with the level of the map, as they exist in all levels from S-C from any crate, unlike equipment which changes with quest difficulty. Accessory item skill does not work as higher difficulty quests give high stats to accessories(need confirmation). Or better yet get all 3. would require an expanded skill slot as she starts with only 3, attack, standby, capture. One can decide to forgo adding a slot by alternating between items skill and capture but it is such a hassle.

Her 実装スキル数 (equippable skill) costs 7 points instead of the usual 6 and her red skills too require an extra skill point.

Her skills make her a specialist in item hunting, and her fully upgraded rope mastery makes her the best choice for capturing monster girls.

Not as proficient in combat as other fighters, she can only achieve mastery in hammers and spears, and after the initial learning, each upgrade of the masteries costs 4 SP (as opposed to the usual 3 SP).

Initial skill slots: 3 (Not upgraded)

Initial skills:

Other notable skills:

Uesugi Kenshin (上杉 謙信)
Fighter Lv 1/70

How to get: Complete quest number 40　「八甲田山」.

Recommend skill : Bishamonten, sword mastery, pattern1 - cartwheel sword + damage limit increase + attack1-3, pattern2 - Row slash (train slash) + Fullpower slash + attack3

Build memo : Kenshin is definitely the best sword user in this game. You can use her in two patterns. The first one is to make best use of cartwheel sword by upgrade the cartwheel sword damage limit which is only 800 per hit, this will make her one of the best boss killer. On the other hand, if you want to use her with Katsuko and Torako to run along the dungeon fighting various monsters, I recommend the Row slash, to kill all the front row monsters, and use Katsuko with spear to get rid of the df line. And Torako will take care of the little hp remaining monster in one shot with her blizzard (or shikigami, post-Magnum release patch)). These three will make a supreme combo! Do not forget to plug in Bishamonten when you fight an important battle, this skill will recover all of Kenshin hp and buff atk and def for her.

Her requirement for being H is lower then other characters (level 30 instead of 35), so you can do it more often to make her even stronger. (No longer viable post-Magnum)

Arguably the best fighter after Rance himself, and perhaps the first choice to give your new powerful sword to. Awesome attack growth, speed that's second to only Tillday Shape (among fighters), pre-upgraded 2-star sword mastery, an unique skill that will fully heal her HP and give her attack/defense buffs, and a sword skill that can hit enemies (or guards that try to protect the target) upto 7 times, making her a phenomenal boss killer.

When put together with her, her two subordinates Torako and Katsuko can wreak havoc with an attack buff and full HP heal in every battle, making the Uesugi combination one of the deadliest in the game.

Initial skill slots: 5 (2-star)

Initial skills:

Other notable skills:

Uesugi Katsuko (上杉 勝子)
Fighter Lv 15/35

How to get: Complete quest number 42　「勝虎街道マラソン」.

Recommend skill : With Torako, With Kenshin, Spear Mastery

Build memo : The easiest level up fighter in this game, with With Torako skill, the exp gain will be doubled (Until level 50). And With Kenshin skill, Katsuko will have buff since the battle start and will always regenerate hp to full in the beginning of the battle. Therefore this three will party up together often, since Kenshin already learned sword mastery and Katsuko have no Genius Swordman skill, so hammer and sword are not recommended, Spear will be the most suitable, and it will make her able to stand in both atk or def line.

Or make her learn train slash to farm dungeons, her art features a sword, and her event gives you a free sword(lousy one though) so why not?

She would have been rather generic... If only she didn't have two special skills that make her a force to reckon with: one that gives her 2x experience if put together with Torako (upto level 50), and one that gives her full HP recovery and an attack buff at the start of the battle if together with Kenshin, making her a part of one of the most devastating combinations in the game.

Initial skill slots: 5 (2-star)

Initial skills:

Tillday Sharp (チルディ・シャープ)
Fighter Lv 1/44

How to obtain: Complete quest number 50　「若き親衛隊戦士」.

Tillday has several points to note--her March【抜け駆け】 skill costs only 1 point; she's the third fastest to level-up in the game thanks to her 【経験才能】 skill that can boost +25%~50% exp after battle.; she gains extra speed through Quest #51; her initial speed is higher than other Fighters; and Pepsi Sword allows her to randomly attack once more. So she's literally a speed god. Anyway, as long as you take advantage of these strengths, Tillday will perform wonderfully with any weapon.

Her resistance mastery skills are also worth noting that, they only require 1 SP each to learn and rank up. This make her very close to becoming immune to magic threats.

As a hammer fighter, she'll be able to deal a fearsome two-hit combo using hammers, which normally can't combo like swords, daggers, and spears. Her attack and accuracy growth is higher than normal fighters, so she should perform fine with hammers. Or with a spear, she'll benefit from the cheap cost of learning March, and the extra attack from Pepsi.

The drawback from the 【ペプシ剣術】 Skill, aka Pepsi Fencing is that it reduces your attack by 20% for a 30% chance to attack 1 additional time.

But her true potential comes through using swords or daggers in higher difficulties, in which stunning is important to survive the onslaught of monsters. The idea is to, depending on your weapon, deliver a 3-or-4 hit combo to increase the chances of stunning powerful enemies. And so, it's more important to enhance accuracy and stun rate in this build.

On another note, Quest #56 is excellent for leveling her early in the game.

More or less the fastest among fighters. If that's not enough, she can gain a further +11 agility (!) in one of her quests which will make her speed second only to Yuzuhara Yuzumi in the entire game if not the fastest, and has a skill that gives her a chance to land an extra hit for every normal attack at the cost of 20% attack power. Pretty much the goddess of speed. Also, she takes 1 SP instead of the usual 2 for elemental resistances, and 1 instead of 4 for the initial speed raising skill (with her already overwhelming speed, taking this may really result in agility overkill).

On the flip side though, faster turns means running out of skills faster in general, and defense-wise she's a wee bit fragile. Still, one of the best fighters to have around, especially if you want to end fights quickly.

Skill Slots: 5 (2-star)

Initial skills:

Noir (ノワール)
Fighter Lv 25/50

How to get: By getting to a certain green (!) event in quest #63. See Quests Walkthrough, quest #63.

Tips : Yuzuhara usually don't miss - you can take half of his hp with shot2. Then we have Kenshin with multiple strike skill (costs 8 skills to learn ) and finally archer classes usually have 100% accuracy skill (4 skills to learn ). Another method would be to use Magic, as magic always hits. However, most magic will not do much damage, so you are racing against time if you rely on Magic. Physical damage does more, but easy to miss. There will still be more Yudain monsters from time to time, so its best to find your best way against it. Or just assassinate the monster. Use Assassinate with Stealth Hide for the added 50% rate if you must. For some reason, Cricket's flame hardly miss and hit hard against it, so you may want to give it a shot.

Noir is a typical Fighter. She may be able to reach Level 50, but she almost goes unnoticed due to the influx of Fighters in the game. Her saving grace is the unique skill 蜘蛛の糸, which debuffs all enemies, so make good use of it--it's the only merit for using her.

Noir's other unique skills:

Capture thread (捕獲糸): A red skill that acts similar to the rope that captures monster girls, though this skill misses less (the monster girl still needs to be near death to be effective). The skill however costs 7 SP to learn...

Sticky effect (ネバネバ効果): A white skill that sets an enemy's evasion to 0 after Noir's attack hits.

Magic weak point (魔法弱点): Magic damage received is increased (x1.5x). Perhaps something to do with her being a youkai?

Not bad, but by the time you get her your party should already be saturated with capable fighters. Her highlights are a Spider Web skill that debuffs the entire enemy party, and her attacks set enemy dodge rate to 0. She also has a skill that has a constant 75% chance of catching galmons regardless of HP.

She's physically sturdy but has terrible magic resistance.

Skill Slots: 4 (1-star)

Initial skills:

Other notable skills:

Yulang Mirage (ユラン・ミラージュ)
Fighter Lv 1/27

How to get: When you engage in a red crystal battle, sometimes there will be a choice to fight human opponents. Winning this once after Quest #63 will cause her to join.

Yuran has Illusion Sword, which deals 250% damage to bosses, but can only be used once per battle. So it's like an upgraded Full-Power Slash with bonus accuracy. According to your preference, give her a sword and a hammer. And then raise her like any other warrior--such as removing her damage cap, or raising her attack. However, her level cap is tremendously low. So you can't teach her very much skills to begin with, but she's much more fun to use than plain characters like Bernard or Katsuko.

After her CITY event, she gains Lemon Attack(レモンアタック), giving her a 40% attack-all skill.

Semi-generic with a couple of unique skills that are better-than-ordinary-but-not-really-game-breaking. One hits a boss battle enemy for 2.5x but only works once per battle, the other, a weak mimicry of Rance Attack, hits the entire enemy party for 0.4x damage.

Initial skill slots: 3 (Not upgraded)

Initial skills: Other notable skills:

Wichita Skate (ウィチタ・スケート)
Fighter Lv 10/35

How to get: After getting her scroll. This scroll might be found in fixed locations like in above scrolls OR randomly dropped, because I'm pretty sure I found it in either a red mine fight or a chest in the 1st yankee quest. Defeat 10 Girl Monsters.

Found in quest number 40 red chest. Close to the end. Not sure if different people will find scrolls in different quests. The best thing to do is to level up the skill that a Ranger has that allows you to open red chests indefinitely without it exploding. Then explore everywhere in every quest possible for red chests and open all of them.

In terms of skill building, she's in the same boat as Elenoa Ran--Wichita is a mage swordsman; she'll never be as good as pure Fighters or pure Sorcerers. If you want to take advantage of her Flame Slash, consider raising her level to equip her with スカートメクリ. But she'll do far more damage as a pure Fighter, so you really shouldn't do the former.

Skirt remover makes her "burning slash skill" very strong as it adds both magic and attack together in a 1-1 ratio.

She has a unique white skill (スケさん) giving attack buff to the front row center character.

After her turn in the CITY event, she gains a skill called a "man's weak spot", giving her 50% critical strike chance against males.

Nothing much to say... She's a melee fighter who can also use basic magic and has a Flame Cutter attack that uses the power of her physical and magical attacks combined. One of the better candidates to give the Scartmegury to, a dagger which boosts both physical and magical attack.

Initial skill slots: 4 (1-star)

Initial skills:

Other notable skills:

Okita Nozomi (沖田 のぞみ)
Fighter Lv 25/59

How to get: After getting her scroll that drops randomly from red chests in any dungeon. Defeat 10 Girl Monsters.

Has a personal skill that causes her to start battle with poisoned status. Deploy her with someone like Prima to eliminate the poison on a regular basis. Poison Masks won't nullify her penalty, so don't bother trying. Alternatively, forget about treating her poison on every battle. Instead, rely on auto-regenerative skills or items (like a Hanny Zippo) to counter the effects of poison. Or simply use with a good Guard since poison doesn't reduce HP below 1.

A decent fighter, crippled only by the fact that she'll start every battle in a poisoned state. Her unique Iai Slash is a weaker but highly accurate version of Row Slash. If you want to use her, giving her a Hanny Zippo might improve her longevity.

Initial skill slots: 4 (1-star)

Initial skills:

Other notable skills:

Elenoa Ran (エレノア・ラン)
Fighter Lv 15/30

How to get: After getting her scroll from a random dungeon chest, or from the green chest in Fl.2 of マルグリット迷宮 (The chest is already set place and not random). After getting the scroll, equip it on a character, then go defeat 6 Girl Monsters. After that activate quest number 16　「酒場でスカウト」, and she'll join.

Due to her unique skill--Hypnosis--she's nice to have alongside a hammer fighter. But individually, she's not worth much since mage-swordsmen all fall into the jack-of-all-trades category. If want her to be effective in both spectrums--physical and magical--then at least raise her as a dagger user since スカートメクリ adds 320 attack, and 300 magic attack. But it's strongly not recommended. Just raise her a pure Fighter who can stun with Hypnosis.

Fighter that can also use basic magic, and a hypnosis spell that has a high chance to stun enemies. Another candidate for the Scartmegury, but having a dagger will prevent access to harder hitting melee skills.

Initial skill slots: 3 (Not upgraded)

Initial skills:

Rizna Lanfebit (リズナ・ランフビット)
Fighter Lv 1/42

How to get: Must do her event in quest #135.「ハニー秘密基地」 with the only green star event triggered. See Quests Walkthrough.

Rizna can use magic, but the real highlight is her physical skill--Dance (乱舞, Ranbu), which hits multiple times (. Therefore, it's recommended to raise her as you do Kenshin; raise her damage cap to increase the effectiveness of Dance. Also, as per storyline, don't forget enemy magic is ineffective on her. Don't bother teaching her any magic though; she's much better as a pure Fighter. You might want couple points of her debuff skill though.

However, she does have downfalls for rivaling Kenshin's damage output in boss battles. Rizna, unfortunately, will always have only one-third of the defense other Fighters have. Also, she doesn't have 戦士の才能. So it's almost necessarily to give her a sword, and enhance her accuracy through whichever means. Spears are fine if you wish, but not recommended due to the speed drop.

Note: Her multi-hit attack (乱舞), requires a weapon similar to her initial weapon the Naginata (spear category) to use. The downfall to this is, that unless you can upgrade the naginata, you are stuck with the naginata's attack power. Also, the skill can only be used from the front line. If you can find upgraded armor/accessory which boosts attack or has the 身体ブースト５％ or 身体ブースト１０％ attribute, give it to Rizna to help boost 乱舞 damage.

She also has a couple of white skills to take note of. The first is Pheromone, which raises the attack/magic attack of all males she fights with. There may be only a handful of male party members, but who wouldn't want a buffed up Rance. The other skill is ハニワ寄せ, which causes Hanny to appear more often in monster mobs, due to being drawn to Rizna (may restrict your Sorcerer's effectiveness in battle). Okita Nozomi also has this skill.

Her speciality is that like haniwa, she is completely immune to magic but physically vulnerable (base P.DEF is halved compared to other fighters). Also comes with some unique combat skills.

Initial skill slots: 5 (2-star)

Initial skills:

Other notable skills:

Arms Arc (アームズ・アーク)
Fighter Lv 1/47

How to get: Complete quest number #93　「ドラゴンスレイヤー」. Then do quest 16.

Although Arms comes with Spear Knowledge, she performs well with any weapon due having white skills to triple damage against certain monsters. So pick your preference, and raise her like any other fighter. If you wish to keep her as a spear user, just make sure to boost her speed in any way possible. And invest in Multi-Thrust to make the few turns she gets count. If you want to raise her as a hammer fighter, then note the bonus damage from Hammer Knowledge won't stack with her white skill against Hannies.

One of the last fighters you'll obtain, she has passive skills that lets her deal 3x damage to specific, powerful enemies. It may be noted that she can't learn Efficient Action (効率行動) like most other fighters can, so if possible make her attacks count (always try to hit a type she'd deal 3x damage against, like hannies). Using her in the right situations can make tough boss battles a walk in the park.

Initial skill slots: 4 (1-star)

Initial skills:

Other notable skills:

Guard (ガード) [[File:Rance8Guard.png]]
They, just like Foot Soldiers in Sengoku Rance, specialize 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 speciality is tanking.

Guards are significantly improved over their Sengoku counterparts. They do not lose Guard percentage 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 him to lose percentage (unless it's a particularly crippling blow taking away about 50% of the guard's Max HP). They also automatically gain 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 back row, freeing up a forward slot in the process which you can use to field that harder hitting fighter or sparter.

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.

Sachiko Centers (サチコ・センターズ)
Guard Lv 1/49

How to get: Initial character.

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

Damage decrease(盾反らし)--14SP

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

義務教育--3SP to ★★ as it's need for quest #29 to boost her Recovery skill to next rank. This recommended setup will use 35SP.

Build memo : only guard with 20% hp recover when gain turn (5% before quest 29;10% before 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 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 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. 武器壊し is handy too, but doesn't activate if Shield Block does first. Her weak point is the fact Hiroshi-kun 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 Stun Resistance (as with all guards) via M items, as Stun status allows enemy attacks to get past your guard's defense. More so with Sachiko, as she cannot buff the stat with an accessory due to Hiroshi-kun

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 3 stars or boost accuracy in some other way.

Your first and possibly best guard in the game. Her accessory slot is locked due to the cursed shield, but she still regenerates HP per turn (initially 5%, eventually becomes 15%), and with enough defense boosts, may become practically invincible in normal difficulty (World 1).

Initial skill slots: 4 (1-star)

Initial skills:

Other notable skills:

Rocky Bank (ロッキー・パンク)
Guard Lv 8/19

How to get: After beating quest #17 「土壌汚染をなんとか」 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 Kaloria's unique skills either. He may be boring, but it's his good point.

However, to get extensive use out of him, his level cap must by raised at the shop in Quest #64. Visiting the place after leveling him fully will increase his level cap by 5 each time, and will stop after he reaches Level 59. If you want a Guard for Quest #135, then simply increase his level cap only once; he'll be perfectly at Level 24 then.

For skills, give him the standard Guard skills such as Initial Guard, Shield Block, or Strengthen HP.

His level cap can be raised by +5 several times by triggering a green event near the southeast corner of second area (shop with no random encounters) of #64 and any other quest which gives you access to this area (such as #93) while he's at max level. '''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.

Initial skill slots: 3 (not upgraded)

Initial skills:

Kouhime / Oda Kou (香姫/織田 香)
Guard Lv 25/40

How to get: Complete quest number #41　「香姫参加」.

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 March/Priority Seating. Afterward, it's good to upgrade her Tactician Mastery. If there are leftover points, 武器壊し is decent too. Don't bother with 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 have a 50% chance to automatically cure abnormal statuses on their turn. Leave the poisoning task to Rangers, or Kou's next build.)

But another method is to remove the Oda Armor (as there are better armor than it, but it's a really high DEF armor for her lower levels), and have Kou forsake 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 Mastery, Kou can now dedicate herself to poisoning bosses with her unique weapon, which has a 100% poisoning rate. Simultaneously, she can now freely cast 攻撃付与全体(+ATK), and 防御付与全体(+DEF). (Pep Talk is useful too when battling bosses who debuff your party.) This build essentially turns Kou into a tactician with the ability to poison enemies. < this one is better

The Oda Armor is only great during the lower levels. You can easily find a much better armor later on to maintain her DEF to an acceptable trade off for other bonuses and retain her movement speed.

Have her learn [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.

武器壊し is a yellow skill that, at max rank give you 40% chance in weakening opponent's attack.

盾反らし is a yellow skill that, at max rank give you 40% chance to negate 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 "underage" status, she receives a -20% penalty to all her stats 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.

It's worth noting that the armor she comes with is extremely strong but also reduces speed by a whopping 15 points, so combined with her Poison Dango weapon (which is considered a spear and also decreases speed by 5) other characters will be taking 2-3 turns for every one of hers, so it should probably be removed unless you want to use her passives only.

Initial skill slots: 4 (1-star)

Skills:

Other notable skills:

Kaloria Cricket (カロリア・クリケット)
Guard Lv 10/42

How to get: Clear quest number #20　「ランス城完成」 and then repeat it. She pops up at the very end of the event the second time.

Kaloria's notable skills are Needle Shower and Hardening. The former, a utility skill, has a 60% chance to stun all enemies, so giving her accuracy/stun-rate boosting items is helpful; daggers might be a good choice. And the latter, Hardening, 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 Kaloria won't be able to raise her guard meter 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 Block for increasing the count of Needle Shower though. (Hardening is already maxed.)

Kaloria also does have 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 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, Kaloria does well when added to your exploration team. Her 火炎放射 can be used on physically resistant enemies. Giving her some spear mastery will allow her to damage back row enemies that fighters can't reach right away. Hardening, meanwhile, can be of use in boss battles where there is a chance that your frontline can be wiped out faster than your Healers can manage (such as Quest 198). Stick her in the front with Hardening will keep the enemy from reaching your backrow, giving your Healer the chance to revive your frontline.

Placing points in the white skill 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.

Kaloria 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 upto 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 SP expenditure and give her lots of skills.

Initial skill slots: 6 (3-star)

Initial skills: Other notable skills:

Mouri Teru (毛利 てる)
Guard Lv 25/47

How to get: Check all green star events in leftmost square in the quest "Majin Kaito"(quest number #71　「魔人カイト」), the last will be Teru, an event will happen. Complete the quest for her to join.

^Only one green star is necessary - the one before the leftmost, which blocks the road, it is near some stone.

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 Growth attribute, stick it to Teru. At 1000%, her Magic defense should be on par or even the highest among your guards, though her Physical defense will take a little hit. A good trade off that makes her a respectable guard. The scary elder Mouri sister carries all her traits from Sengoku Rance - she has a counter skill which is otherwise exclusive to sparters, and while her physical defense is respectable, her magic defense is abysmal. 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 growth/growth R, will help negate her magic vulnerability.

Initial skill slots: 3 (not upgraded)

Skills:

Other notable skills:

Gunner (ガンナー) [[File:Rance8Gunner.png]]
Despite the name of this class, this doesn't just refer to those who use firearms but includes most characters specializing in ranged physical attacks such as archers (and, well, actual gunners). They can hit the back row of the enemy (but their single attacks often can't bypass ally guard).

One thing to note about gunners: when using matchlocks, the character's attack will skyrocket, but each normal attack can only be fired once per battle. This can be quite a big handicap, because even after using 1 of each equipped attacks, their turns will come up, only to be skipped over and over, wasting valuable turns. Bow skills don't work when equipping firearms, and vice versa. When using matchlocks, make sure to increase damage limit to maximum so the gunshots deal maximum possible damage.

Tulip (Maria's cannon) is the only firearm that can be fired repeatedly.

Aegis Kalar, Maria, Urza and Yuzuhara Yuzumi are prominent examples of this class.

Megadeath Moromi (メガデス・モロミ)
Gunner Lv 1/18

How to get:

Up to 1.15: Clear any 2 quests with map after getting Mahoko.

In 1.6/Magnum: Complete quest number 16　「酒場でスカウト」 after clearing #86 「街道のヤンキー」.

She will learn Volley (一斉射撃) during her CITY event.

In Rance Quest Magnum, she has gained a white skill, プリマと一緒, that gives her an attack/magic attack buff at the start of a battle when she's with Prima (but it also poisons Prima at the start of the battle).

Initial skill slots: 3 (Not upgraded)

Skills:

Aegis Kalar (イージス・カラー)
Gunner Lv 1/50

How to get: Complete quest #70

Key Skills to learn and rank up to ★★★: 弓の攻撃(Bow Mastery), ダメージ上限(Damage Limit+)

Attack skills to get: 一斉射撃(Volley), other attack skills and amount are to your preference.

One of the potentially most powerful Gunner in the game, dealing very high range damage, out damaging Maria's tulip even.

Aegis is a mixed bag. On first glance, she has a wonderful skill making her similar to Spartas with Elemental Punch. If an enemy (once identified with Weakness Search) has weakness to fire/ice/lightning, Aegis's physical attack (whether she's using a bow or a firearm) be imbued with that element. However, カラー種 is an unpredictable and negative skill. Depending on the map, Aegis will receive buffs or debuffs--even then, this happens randomly. For example, even if she's battling in a forest (a favorable ground to her), Aegis won't always receive buffs. So put a tactician by her side to use her comfortably.

There are some key points on what to not do. First, do not invest points into Reinforcement of Multi-Shot--this skill costs too much points. Even if you do, Multi-Shot's number of shots will be random; you won't always make seven shots. And don't invest in her magic skills because it's hard to raise both physical attack and magical attack. There aren't any clean bows with bonuses to magical attack either.

So the best path is to raise her like a normal Gunner. Increase any of her Shooting Attacks to your liking, teach her Volley, Damage Limit, and give her Bow Knowledge. These, along with her elemental arrows, will be sufficient to make her formidable. Note Aegis can exceed any damage limit if she can target an enemy's elemental weakness--if it wasn't obvious. Her damage further increases with Damage Limit mastery as well.

Very useful, she comes with several passives that allow her to automatically deal Fire, Ice, or Lightning damage on regular attack if striking an enemy whose weakness you've deteremined with Weakness Search and another that removes buffs. She does come with several magic spells but it's best not to invest in them since her magic will never be very good. Also worth noting that she has a Kalar racial passive that gives her boosts in outdoor areas and debuffs when indoors.

Skill Slots: 5

Skills:

Athena 2.0 (あてな2号)
Gunner Lv 1/1

How to get: Complete quest number 81 奇跡の人工生命体

Build memo: Athena 2.0 is unique character, she is limited to level one and her max level limit can't be raised because her item and accessory slots are locked with Rance's gifts that she refuses to part with. But she has a number of yellow skills that allow her to raise some of her stats - HP, Hit Rate, Critical Rate, Attack, Speed. If a skill is equipped and battle ends with a character before her (to her left) who has higher stat, her own stat will be raised. This way she can gather max stats from all characters and become much stronger while still being only first level. She attracts attacks of enemies that target lowest level characters (this will help in a quest with guarding Nobel, but is often making her killed when she is opposing Zashikiwarashi).

She only have three attacks, but her HP and attack uses are restored after each battle, so she is good for short skirmishes but not so good for prolonged fights. Her skill "Becoming human", can be learned in World 3.

Her defenses don't grow, so you have three tactics: bear the attacks with her HP, kill monsters before getting hit, or use Guards.

Tips:

For her armor the best may be the Leather Armor XA with growth? (and with more RES or other stats too if possible) Got a (9) one from Malgreed 2 with growth and 50 Res though needed 10 min temp save try.

For her weapon... You don't have to care about damage and Crit since you can improve them, so I think the most important stats are stun and an element so that she will be more effective against that kind, so maybe save more kinds of Short Bows with different elements.

Skill Slots: 3

Skills:

Urza Planeis (ウルザ・プラナアイス)
Gunner Lv 30/75

How To Get: Bring any three of Magic, Kaloria, Karou, Rocky, Bernard, Prima, Cessna, and Megadeth to a マルグリット Labyrinth quest.

Note: A patch has restricted Urza's recruitment event until after Magic has been recruited first.

Max out her Tactician Knowledge to begin battles with +25% buffs, and then raise her as a standard bow or firearm user; either is suitable. Pep Talk may be handy for end-game bosses, but isn't necessary.

先制攻撃 has a chance to let Gunners act two times before anyone else. So combining this skill with Urza's manual buffs may be a good option too. You probably don't want Tactician Knowledge in this case though.

15/05/2014 NOTE: Playing a Modified 2.050; she showed up SUPER Early, during 087 "Yankee" Quest.

Skill Slots: 5

Skills:

Jima Bakasko (ジーマ・バカスコ)
Gunner Lv 1/48

How to get: Complete quest number 92　「呪われたプリンセス」.

Zima's a great offensive character due to 攻撃特化型, which raises her offense by 20%. However, said skill has some penalties--defense/evasion drops by 50%, and accuracy (which his vital to Gunners) drops by 20%. Therefore, Zima greatly appreciates any boost to accuracy.

In terms of skills, besides your choice of shooting attack, Zima should be using Volley and Strong Bow (怪力弓), which deals 250% damage. However, the latter is locked on the first turn. So giving her Priority Seating and any speed boost is welcome to fire Strong Bow right away on bosses. If you have spare points, consider Bow Knowledge to complement Strong Bow too.

Her unremovable passive (攻撃特化型) which forces some hefty penalties on her in exchange for a small attack boost is awkward, but her other unique ability 怪力弓 lets her deal potentially insane damage that other characters will have difficulty matching. Unfortunately it costs 8-9 skill points to get any additional uses out of it.

Skill Slots: 5 (2-star)

Skills:

Yuzuhara Yuzumi (柚原 柚美)
Gunner Lv 1/38

How to get: Has a random chance of joining when you change areas and Kuma (see quest 121) is in your party.

In my case her joining event involved KUMA and Sachiko (also redoing #86). So maybe those two have to be in the team at the same time when you switch map.

For her skills, take Shooting Attack 3 (or 4 if you have Magnum expansion), Decreased Monsters (魔物減らし), and Strengthen Critical. She can only fire each shooting skills once per battle (which mean 4 if you have all 4 shooting attacks), so make it count. Raise her critical in other ways possible, and increase her accuracy--you don't want the shots to miss.

Joins at lv 1 with no special skills except Firearm Mastery 2-star (which would normally cost 24 points!) but between the above skill and her starting weapon she'll have a massive attack score of around 1000 to start with and she's extremely fast as well.

On the downside, using a musket means she can only use each basic attack skill (1, 2, 3, and 4) once per battle. She needs to get to lv 15 ASAP so she can learn Weapon Attack 2 and be able to act at least twice per battle as otherwise all her turns after the first will go to waste. Muskets don't have any special attacks either and she'll probably want the passive to increase the damage limit of attacks as otherwise she'll have her potential damage output hampered heavily by the limits of the lower attacks. Very useful character early and mid-game, but there are only two muskets she can ever equip so other characters will eventually overtake her in attack power.

Skill Slots: 3

Skills:

Maria Custard (マリア・カスタード)
Gunner Lv 20/40 In quest number 124 「マルグリッド迷宮4層」bring Masou Shizuka in party and activate a green star event in A3.

Raising Maria isn't special. She comes with Damage Limit mastered, so simply focus on increasing the damage of her shooting attacks. One caution though: don't accidentally teach her bow skills as they're not compatible with her Tulip (doesn't have the Matchlocks's one-use-per-battle restriction). However, her Ranged Attacks (射撃攻撃) requires more skill points than other gunners.

In a recent patch, she gains a 0.5x fire elemental area attack, Explosive shot (炸裂弾).

Sorcerer (ソーサラー) [[File:Rance8Sorcerer.png]]
Mages specializing in high-damage offensive magic are of this class. They have strong magical attack but often low HP and defenses, so they need to be put in the rear and must be guarded properly, and compared to your other attackers they have relatively few offensive actions that must be rationed carefully. Furthermore, as fans of AliceSoft games will know, their magical attacks will not work on the haniwa at all, no matter how strong the attack is and how weak the hanny is.

Seemingly all Sorcerers have the Weakness Search skill, which can replace Standby. Aside from being useful for determining an enemy's weakness so Sorcerers can exploit it with their elemental magic, it's also necessary for the Sparta's Element Punch and Aegis's Elemental passives.

Mahoko P. Masai / マホコ・P・マサイ
Level: 1/25

How to get: Becomes available at quest #16 at the bar after clearing a few dungeon quests, 2nd in the "queue" after Prima.

Initial skill slots: 3 (Not upgraded)

Initial skills:

Kapalla Łódź / カパーラ・ウーチ
Level: 8/24(??)

How to get: Clear quest #89. Then you can recruit her at the bar via #16.

Note: Her initial skillset is thunder-specific in the initial versions of the game, but is changed to ice-specific in later versions. '''She can no longer learn thunder spells in Magnum. '''Not that it matters much, she's the crappiest sorcerer in the game anyway.

Initial skill slots: 3 (Not upgraded)

Initial skills:

Masou Shizuka / 魔想志津香
Level: 20/61(??)

How to get: In Malgreed Dungeon Floor 1 (quest #121), when entering the room 2nd from top and 2nd from right, make sure not to have Rance in your party. In the first open space, there'll be an event to the left. Trigger it while still NOT having Rance in your party. There will be an event with Shizuka, and after clearing the quest on that occassion, she'll join you.

Probably the first Sorcerer you'll want to use long-term. High level cap, ability to use the best late-game spells, and she starts with several spells already learned and 5 slots, giving her extra casts and helping her reach the higher-tier spells faster.

Initial skill slots: 5 (2-star)

Initial skills:

Other notable skills:

Magic The Gandhi / マジック・ザ・ガンジー
Level: 1/69

Initial skill slots: 4 (1-star)

Starts with Magic Barrier maxed, which always blocks any one attack directed at her if you feel it's worth a slot (if not it still has a half chance of activating at the start of battle). Otherwise comparable to Shizuka, though worse off in both initial spells and spell slots.

Skills:

Uesugi Torako / 上杉 虎子
Level: 15/35

How to get: Beat quest #42.

Torako's skillset is completely different from other Sorcerers, consisting of just a few all-targeting Shikigami spells (sadly, no Guard Shikigami). Unimpressive under normal circumstances, but like Katsuko she gains an attack buff if deployed with Kenshin and double EXP with Katsuko, making her extremely useful when used with her Uesugi brethren.

Skill Slots: ?

Skills:

Pastel Kalar / パステル・カラー
Level: 45/50(?

Skill Slots: ?

Skills:

Aten Gnu / (アテン・ヌー)
Level: 1/48

How to get: Clear quest #90 引きこもり魔女(Hikikomori witch).

A strong Darkness mage that you get very early, gimped by her 引きこもり skill which makes her randomly leave the party. One way to use her is a steroid at the start of quests - if you deploy with a team of weak characters and the intent to replace them as you make progress and run out of attacks, Aten will make that team much more reliable and if she leaves it will be at a time when you are making frequent swaps anyway.

Skill Slots: 5

Skills:

Healer (ヒーラー) [[File:Rance8Healer.png]]
Those who specialize in healing magic and are the staple healers of the party. Aside from healing magic, they also have weaker attacks but are not good against most monsters in combat. However, healers tend to be good at combatting evil spirits (undead).

It may be noted that while Prima can heal allies (as seen in the Rance Quest test version), she doesn't use magic but uses medical treatment, and is not good at fighting undead either. Hence she does not belong to the healer class.

Crook Mofus and Sel Catchgolf belong to the healer class.

Frostvine / フロストバイン
Level: 15/20

How to get: See Tama's recruitment. After doing quest #82, buy "Mercenary Old Hag" at the shop, it's in the item/misc section (bottom). It costs 1000 as well, and upon buying it Frostvine will join you.

Fairly useless overall as her unremovable passive skill makes her incredibly frail, if anything you may want to swap her in on areas that have lots of ghosts or if you desperately need some healing and there's nobody better.

Initial skill slots: 4 (1-star)

Skills:

Crook Mofus / クルックー・モフス
Level: 20/50

Crook is an unusual character, though undoubtedly a useful one. In addition to the standard healer abilities she also has a couple skills from other classes, including limited treasure-opening and trap-nullifying as well as the Sparta's Shoulder Throw attack. With the latter in mind (some of the Healer-exclusive hammers are pretty powerful too) she works quite well as a frontliner, though you might want to also use a Guard since her HP isn't the best.

Skill Slots: 5

Skills:

Sel Catchgolf / セル・カーチゴルフ
Level: 1/44(??)

How to get: Scroll character. Get her scroll (from Malgreed B3F), equip it on a character and kill 5 girl monsters with that character in party. She can then be recruited via quest #16.

Not very good as she doesn't come with any additional skills or extra slots, but there aren't many decent Healers available early in the game so you may find a use for her anyways.

Initial skill slots: 3 (Not upgraded)

Skills:

Noa Hakobune / ノア・ハコブネ
Level: 1/33(??)

How to get: Has a chance of joining when changing maps if you have 5 or more defeated party members.

In addition to having several extra slots, she comes with an equippable ability that heals 10% of your party's HP every time she takes a turn (as long as she has the ability equipped and doesn't take a hit), allowing her to keep your party healthy without even having to cast a spell.

Initial skill slots: 5

Skills:

Maris Amaryllis (マリス・アマリリス)
Level: 40/67

How to get: Complete quest 202.

Possibly the best Healer in the game. She comes at a high level with a high cap, pre-Morurun'd, has high stats for her class, has a powerful unique spell that damages all enemies for half of their current HP, and has 6 initial slots to top it all off, which is great for a Healer.

Initial skill slots: 6

Skills:

Hikari Mi Blanc (ヒカリ・ミ・ブラン)
Level: 1/38

How to get: Complete quest 167 (unlocked by exchanging 10+ total Soul Shackles in quest 166).

Starts with a 5-use Weakness Search and 6 slots, but is otherwise rather unimpressive and you'll probably have better healers by the time you recruit her.

Initial skill slots: 6

Skills:

Ranger (レンジャー) [[File:Rance8Ranger.png]]
Guess they were named like that due to their scouting abilities... ? Anyway, rangers are extremely useful for disarming traps and safely opening treasure chests. They're not very tough or powerful and are limited to weak Daggers, but can be useful combat-wise in other ways (Shurikens for ranged attacks and stunning, Assassinate for killing instantly, and they can learn a passive ability to poison on attack in addition to learning the stun-boosting yellow skill cheaper than other classes) and they usually have superfast agility and dodge rate. In fact this class will mostly consist of ninja/thief characters. Characters like Suzume and Kentou Kanami belong to this class. It's also worth noting that having a Ranger in your party prevents surprise attacks, which can otherwise be devastating.

Special Pointer: Though Assassination does not work on bosses, it would work on some mid-bosses. From time to time, Bard will bring a fighter girl along to fight you. I have succeeded in "assassinating" her several times, making the fight VERY easy. This works even when she is at lv 35~38~x. Not sure if it works on other mid-bosses, try at your own risk!

Suzume / 鈴女
Level: 12/49(??)

How to get: Initial character, but doesn't participate in the 1st dungeon when you start the game for the first time (as you don't have any charisma at that time). After that she's available in the party organization screen and can be played even before being introduced in CITY.

Suzume is a great Ranger, starting with a lot of extra skills (2 uses of Assassinate, three extra Shurikens, two extra Weapon Attack 1's, and one level in Stealth Movement, Treasure Opening, and Trap Evasion) and five skill slots. Assassination in particular is probably the thing she's the best at, but she'll be useful any way you build her.

Initial skill slots: 5 (2-star)

Skills:

Kentou Kanami / 見当 かなみ
Level: ??/??(??)

Skill Slots: ?

Skills:

Karma Atranger / カーマ・アトランジャー
Level: ??/??(??)

Skill Slots: 4

How to get: Scroll character. Her scroll is found randomly in treasure chests.

Skills:

Crane / クレイン
Level: 15/38

How to get: Clear quest 54.

Crane is unsurprisingly designed for avoiding combat, with lots of points in passives for reducing encounter rate and increasing escape chance. Great for if you need want to get to the end of a quest as quickly as possible. In combat she's not quite as good, though her unique Puncher weapon does have very high stun rate and accuracy.

Initial skill Slots: 4 (1-star)

Calory Mate (キャロリ・メイト)
Level: 1/36

Skill Slots: 5

How to get: Lose to the boss in quest 192.

Low attack even by Ranger standards and can't learn Assassinate, but she comes with 20 (!) uses of Simple Treatment 2, and has a passive that doubles the amount it heals (lvl * 40 after the skill is factored in), allowing her to provide solid healing support in addition to the usual abilities of the Ranger class.

Skills:

Sparta (スパルタ) [[File:Rance8FistFighter.png]]
This class is for unarmed combatants or grapplers. They're melee-range and have a grab bag of abilties available, including debuffing, counterattacks, heavy damage to humanoids, and elemental damage. Their main issue is their equipment choices; their only weapon type is Gloves, which are much weaker than most other weapons, and they're limited to special light armor that doesn't provide much defense, though they do tend to have good HP.

Alexander / アレキサンダー
Level: 1/77

How to get: Keep doing quests (repeating is fine), eventually he'll be recruitable with quest #16 at the bar (the same way you recruit Prima, Mahoko etc.). Has monumental level cap, even exceeding that of the likes of Kenshin and Uruza!

Initial skill Slots: 3 (Not upgraded)

Skills:

Tama / タマ
Level: 15/22(??)

How to get: Buy Tama's Undergarment. Then go back to shop, there will be a conversation. Then buy Tama's Dress as well and trigger quest #82. After that, buy "Mercenary Tama". As soon as it's in your inventory, you should find Tama in your party screen. Each of the 3 items above cost 1000 gold.

Initial skill Slots: 4 (1-star)

Skills:

Kibako / キバ子
Level: 1/45(??)

Kibako's unique selling point is that she comes with all 5 of the Elemental Grappling passives and 4 uses of Elemental Punch pre-learned, so she can hit enemies with weaknesses hard if you've used Weakness Search on them at least once (and if not, Element Punch is no weaker than a normal attack). Otherwise she's a solid melee fighter, though hampered somewhat by the low attack power of Gloves.

Skill Slots: 4

Skills:

Kaoru Quincy Kagura (カオル・クインシー)
Level: 20/38

How to get: Has a chance of joining when changing areas in a quest that you've completed at least 4 times, and if Magic is in the party.

Starts with 6 uses of Shoulder Throw and two unique abilities; a white one that provides a defense buff to whoever is front and center at the start of battle, and a yellow one that gives her a 50% chance of surviving an otherwise-fatal blow.

Skill Slots: 5

Skills:

Civilian (シビリアン) [[File:Rance8Civilian.png]]
Basically, all characters that don't particularly fit into any one of the 7 classes mentioned above are in this class. The base Civilian skillset is rather useless and extremely limited in terms of equipment (though Civilians are the only class that can equip captured Gal Monsters), but they usually have unique equipment and/or skills of their own to make up for it, so a Civilian's actual role will vary greatly from one to the next.

Prima Hononoman / プリマ・ホノノマン
Level: 1/22(??)

How to get: First character to get recruited using quest #16. Comes equipped with Seirogan Box.

Your first character that can heal. Important very early in the game when you have no better options, but mostly useless past that point as actual Healers are both stronger and more versatile in terms of healing abilities available.

Initial skill slots: 3 (Not upgraded)

Initial skills:

Other notable skills:

Arlcoate Marius / アールコート・マリウス
Level: 1/43(??)

How to get: Buy Reddish Wing (赤っぽい羽) at the shop for 1500 gold. Usually doing 1 quest (ADV quests are fine too) after this enables you to recruit her at the bar (#16).


 * WARNING! In v1.000 there exists a bug in the game: Reddish Wing isn't repurchase-able but is required to be in your inventory in order to trigger her availability after you finish a quest. So if you buy it and then immediately sell it back/donate before Alcot joins, you lose the chance to recruit her for good. This is however fixed in v.1.100 update of the game, so the player is encouraged to apply the same. Otherwise, don't donate/sell the item until she joins.

Useful as a strategist that also gives you a high chance for a preemtive strike, but guard her well and keep her in back row, or else she might be toasted pretty quickly. Nice level cap for a civilian, though.

Initial skill slots: 3 (not upgraded)

MerimTser / メリム・ツェーレ
Level: 1/23

How to get: When in a dungeon, have 3 rigged (red) chests explode on you. Immediately there will be an event where Rance will find Merim. After you beat the quest on that occassion, Merim will autojoin.

While low on level cap, she's an excellent explorer that has most passive skills that a ninja would typically have AND lets you identify items for free! The catch: she also comes with a passive skill that'll cause enemies to almost always target her specifically whenever possible, and civilians ain't exactly good at being physically sturdy. So avoid putting her in the front, and guard her well against ranged targets.

Also comes equipped with Angel's Mirror (天使の鏡) that lets her use a heal-all 300 HP skill, 5 uses per quest and cannot be removed. The latest update for Magnum enhances it further.

Initial skill slots: 3 (Not upgraded)

Initial skills: Other notable skills:

Atago McCart / アタゴ・マカット
Level: 1/10(??)

How to get: Clear quest# 85. Need to find Lotion 1-3 first.

Initial skill slots: 3 (Not upgraded)

Initial skills:

Lia Parapara Leazas / リア・パラパラ・リーザス
Level: 20/20(??)

Her Thunder Dragon attack is quite powerful and as an additional bonus she has a passive that doubles Charisma earned from quests (albeit combat quests only) if you finish with her in the party. She starts out at her level cap though, so you'll need three of the weak Forbidden Talent items to get her up to Morurun range. As an additional downside her pet dragon Harumaki takes up her bottom equipment slot so she's not capable of using Gal Monsters.

Skill Slots: 5

Skills:

Copandon Dott / コパンドン・ドット
Level: ??/37

Copandon's Written Fortune is a unique physical attack that targets all enemies, always hits, and will randomly either do decent damage, massive damage, or zero damage. Not particularly useful as she has difficulty raising her attack power, though she also comes with a passive that doubles money after combat.

Skill Slots: 3

Skills: