Name: Balthier (Ffamran Mied Bunansa)
Door:
Door Pass

Canon: Final Fantasy XII
Canon Point: Post game, pre epilogue, shortly after steering the Bahamut clear of Rabanastre

Age: 22
Appearance:
Even he can't make crocs look good


History:
Balthier's (Very Long) story

Personality:

Balthier isn't exactly the paragon of virtue, but his vices aren't the most repugnant either. He acts the role of a gentlemanly scoundrel, and then proceeds to throw his life in danger to save others. And that is Balthier in a nutshell - the facade of charm and bravado belies his wit, savvy, and genuine idealism and compassion.

Balthier's complicated relationship with his father, Dr. Cid, has largely shaped the person he is today. The past six years of his life were spent running from the grief of losing his father to a strange bout of madness. At the same time, Balthier takes after Cid in a number of ways – he's a man of both curiosity and reason; he's arrogant, charming, witty and cunning, with a penchant for theatrics – the very embodiment of Archadian nobility. But most like his father, he believes people should be free to choose their own destiny- he's just not willing to destroy lives or entire countries to obtain that sort of freedom. This is not to say Balthier is a pacifist. True, he is a gentleman and violence isn't his first resort, but it isn't necessarily his last either.

While he does his best to come across as an aloof and unrepentant scalawag, Balthier's cynicism hasn't entirely consumed him. He still feels strongly about the injustices his homeland committed, and he's often the first to point them out ("The self-proclaimed guardians of law and order in Archadia. […] If you ask me, they're more executioners than judges."), or express outrage on behalf of others, albeit with restrain ("Empires parade down streets while refugees walk barefoot through the snow.").

He also isn't devoid of compassion. There are many points, even early in the story, where he could have simply washed his hands of all the trouble he was getting embroiled in (letting Vaan escape Nalbina with him and Fran, helping Basch, rescuing Penelo in Bhujerba). Basch even rightfully asks why Balthier is sticking by the party, though his answer is a cavalier "I just want to see what happens".

Even after the mess that was King Raminas's tomb and the subsequent capture by imperial forces, he could have simply been done with Ashe's quest. Instead, all he asked for his services was Ashe's wedding ring - something that, from a strictly financial standpoint, would hardly be compensation for everything, though of profound sentimental value to the princess. But his motives were not, at this point, monetary. He was becoming aware that Ashe had a growing obsession with revenge for her fallen kingdom and lost love, and her thoughts were turned to the Nethecite (exceptionally powerful magic stones with the destructive power of your average nuke) as a means of enacting her vengeance. Ashe is also the first person Balthier explains his real reasons for staying with the party, along with relating the cautionary tale of his father ("Don't give your heart to a stone, princess.")/

Balthier is not without his flaws however. As stated above, he has quite an ego - to the point of arrogance - and a bad habit of running from his problems. He's is also a bit of a hedonist. He lives the high life, indulging only in the finest things and has a bit of a reputation for getting around. Though don't be fooled by the expensive clothes and immaculate hygiene; Balthier is as at home tromping through tombs, deserts, sewers and undead-infested caves as he is sitting on top the stack of treasure he's pilfered from such places.

And... oh yes, he's an unapologetic professional criminal.


Powers and Abilities:

Powers are a bit weird in FFXII because characters roles are selected from an array of twelve different job classes and characters can have up to two. Balthier is initially presented in game with weapons and gear suited for a Machinist, though his base stats make him optimized for more combo-heavy classes like Bushi, Shikari, and Uhlan.

Classes

I picked Machinist and Uhlan, because those made the most sense for his character. Balthier is an engineer, after all, and he would favour weapons like pistols and hand bombs (and the reason his base stats aren't optimized for such a class is because there's concept art of young Ffamran with spectacles, but as an adult Balthier is clearly too vain to wear his fucking nerd glasses so it takes him a bit longer to aim). Uhlan is a heavy armour class that wields spears, similar to Dragoon in other Final Fantasy games. This one also makes sense since Balthier was a judge once and would have received formal training for this kind of combat.

Magicks
Magic is fairly common in Ivalice (most of the technology is run off the stuff) and Balthier's classes give him access to a few spells. However, he is not a mage class and his in-game stats aren't really conducive to big damage or big heals like Penelo or Ashe's are. So his spell choices being much more utilitarian make sense from both a character and gameplay standpoint. Spells that are bolded are ones I'd like to keep. The ones with a strike through them are just listed for posterity sake but are either OP and/or make no sense outside of video game mechanics. The same with the abilities known as Technicks - most are entirely dependent on video game mechanics and number crunching and those that aren't (like Steal) can generally be assumed to be part of a Sky Pirate's basic skillset.

Machinist gives him access to:

Vanishga - Render all allies in range invisible.
Warp - Banish all foes in range.
Reflectga - Create a temporary barrier around all allies where magick will bounce off and reflect back to the caster, regardless if that magick is helpful or harmful.
Slowga - Slow down all actions of enemies in range.
Hastega - Speed up all actions of allies in range.
Graviga - Reduce HP of one foe by 1/2 of target's max HP.
Decoy - Cause one ally to be the target of all foes.
Oil - Increase fire damage to all foes in range.

Uhlan gives him access to:

Fira - Deal moderate fire damage to all foes in range.
Poison - Poisons an enemy, gradually draining their health.
Thundara - Deal moderate thunder damage to all foes in range.
Blizzara - Deal moderate ice dame to all foes in range.
Blindga - Temporarily blinds all targets in range.
Aeroga - Deal moderate wind damage to all foes in range.
Silencega - Temporarily stops all targets in range from casting spells.
Bio - Moderate non-elemental damage to all targets in range


Quickenings / Mist Abilities

Just noting these here for the sake of posterity as I'd rather they not transfer over to the games setting as they come off as OP in an roleplay scenario, and don't really seem to exist within the games lore either. You see them mentioned in-world once in the tutorial stage but they otherwise don't seem to play any role in-universe. They're even visually segregated from the world as the animations all take place in a void and not the actual surroundings. Functionally similar to limit breaks in other Final Fantasy games, Quickenings are sparkly, flashy and do big damage. Their unique mechanic is that they can be chained together to make the numbers go even bigger.

Balthier's are Fires of War, Tides of Fate, and Element of Treachery

Inventory:

His pistol, Arcturus, one sky stone, one pair of glasses (never worn)

Samples:
TDM

It's time to bother a Judge Magister on Bakerstreet