Rylan is your main character. If Rylan is KO'd at the start of the enemy phase* then it's Game Over for you! Obviously, you want Rylan to turtle as much as possible, right? Well, I decided to play with that instinct by giving Rylan an unusual sync role: he works around the idea of taking damage.
(*Unlike previous Persona titles and other games that end instantly upon the MC's death, you have until the end of your current Ally Phase to revive him. Which is really not very much, but should also ease outcries of "BUT MY SUPPORT CHARACTER WITH A FULL REPETOIRE OF HEALING AND RESURRECTION IS STILL ALIVE!!").


Name: Whatever you want, baby / Rylan (default)
Devphase Nickname: M.C. (Main Character)
Arcana: Fool
Native Sync: Gaia Link - All allies regain some HP whenever the target does. Lasts the entire battle, useable once per battle.
Initial Persona: Mnemos
Mnemos Sync Role: Martyr - You gain bonus sync when taking damage.
Mnemos Sync Skill: Briar Skin - When physically damaged, you attempt to Poison in response. 3 rounds
Also learns: -Dormina (60% chance of Sleep to one)
Mnemos Stat Approximations: ST 5, EN 5, MA 4, AG 5, LU 4

Let's talk about the risk/reward scenarios of your main character being encouraged to take damage, as well as strategies among even this limited skillset! I've dropped Rylan's learnable skills entirely to focus on cross-linking and codependency of mechanics as opposed to zooming focus in on just Rylan himself. There's no way to segregate one character from the rest when discussing their skills, because nobody can truly stand alone in every aspect; Rylan especially relies on triggering, and being triggered by, party members.



First, we can see that Rylan uses his sync in two ways: Gaia Link helps economize your healing efforts - it doesn't reduce the amount of healing the target receives, as though you are 'sharing' the healing; you independenty gain some HP whenever they gain some HP. Additionally, this will be available to you for the entire game, as it is Rylan's native sync. If he uses this on himself, healing him will then heal the entire party, greatly economizing what is your standard course of action anyway (healing your hurt party leader).
Briar Skin helps you turn taking damage into an offensive tactic - not only does Poison deal damage over time but it cuts Strength in half. Briar Skin is a very nice ability all around - it can deal damage and also reduce incoming damage. However, Rylan himself has no form of manipulating enemy targetting. There is no guarantee that USING Briar Skin will make you the target of attacks, which is key to its success; additionally, it is only triggered by physical damage.

How can we get Rylan to take damage? Our other two starting party members, Aisling and Lysander, can help!

Aisling also has some abilities that hinge on her being the target of attacks. Her initial Persona Vivian learns the spell Balzac. This attempts to inflict Rage status, but also incurs some Grudge, causing the victim to prefer attacking Aisling when targetting odds are calculated. How does this help Rylan? Well, it won't help him trigger Martyr if Aisling is the one casting it - she'll be the one getting attacked! However, she can draw attention away from him, and then Lysander can heal Aisling. If you've intelligently set up Gaia Link, this will also heal Rylan! Aisling herself can cast some healing spells, but this illustrates the point of the Sync mechanic - Aisling CAN cast healing spells, but it is a much more efficient use of time and resources to set up Syncs like Gaia Link and use them cleverly.

Lysander's initial Persona Callimachus has an interesting tactical spell, called Sukumai. This spell targets one ally, lowering their evasion, and making them a more likely enemy target. (Up to 3x stack) The tradeoff is twofold - you are being targetted more often, and ostensibly, you are being successfully damaged more often. However, Lysander also has healing spells. So there's that.

Additionally, Rylan's special ability lets him equip anyone else's unused initial Persona. This means that once Aisling has another Persona to use, Rylan can switch to Vivian, cast Balzac, and switch back to Mnemos. He could also switch to Callimachus, use Sukumai on himself, and switch back to Mnemos. Of course, you can only switch once per phase. If Rylan switched to Vivian and cast Balzac, he is stuck with Vivian equipped until the next full round.

When I said Rylan had no forms of manipulating enemy targeting, this wasn't entirely true. Dormina - a useful spell in itself - lends some complimentary applications here. Putting an enemy to sleep means they are not actively attacking the party; Dormina combined with Sukumai can be a good way of drawing attacks to Rylan while paring down the sheer number of incoming attacks.

So, as you can hopefully see, I've worked quite hard ensuring that otherwise vanilla skills like Dormina and Balzac interact with the system in interesting ways, and on what I consider to be a novel risk - encouraging your delicate flower to take damage. You shouldn't be terrified every time your precious MC takes damage; you should have prepared for it and have arranged your party and Syncs in such a way that you have myriad recovery and mitigation options. Failure to use these options will swiftly result in death.

I'll eventually post more about Aisling and Lysander. STAY TUNED!