i was kinda bored with my party (basch, fran, and ashe, all around lvl 43) but mainly disappointed in fran and balthier's complete lack of magick power so i decided to bring up penelo (then lvl 18) and vaan (lvl 10) with balthier (lvl 33) acting as, i dunno, a guardian or something

long story short, i wrote some all-purpose gambits, gave penelo a gun (!), vaan a sword and shield, and threw embroidered tippets (you can steal them from the couerls in the cerobi steppes) on vaan and penelo. about 2 or 3 hours of chaining malboro overkings (~2000 xp each whilst rocking an embroidered tippet) in the tchita uplands later and everyone is above lvl 40 and, more importantly, i have another (actually superior) magic user in penelo to lighten ashe's load a bit. plus i'm like 60000 gil richer, what with all the malboro fruit drops

right now i've got ashe rocking a bow/mace (don't sleep) & shield + all magicks, basch with large 2-handed weapons, and penelo with a gun/staff + black and white magick and i am absolutely DESTROYING the necrohol with a low-40s level party. having 2 characters who can do 9999 damage to element-weak enemies is a godsend

i can't imagine having the patience to bring up a very low-level character (much less two) up to my main party's lvls in any other game and even if i did have the patience i know i couldn't do it as quickly as i did in this game. square enix has truly accomplished something here, lol