Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance

• Use an FAQ if you're anal-retentive about getting every character, some of them are totally non-intuitive.

• Skills will disappear if you take them off a character, so make sure you want them on there before you slap them on.

• Hold onto coins if you want to play the Wii Fire Emblem after this.

• Always read all the conversations at camp, you can get items and neat bits of character backstory

• Pretty minor character spoilers:
  Rolf is worth levelling up for sure, he's the best archer in the game. Misty is kind of eh, but there's a fight where you need to use her later on

• Even if you don't want to power-game, you need to know how level-ups work. Basically, every level you have a chance of a stat going up. That chance is totally character-dependant: Ike might have an 80% chance of strength going up each level, while for your mages it might be in the 30s. Every time a character gains a level, the RNG rolls once for every stat. If it succeeds, you get a point, if it fails you don't. You're guaranteed at least one stat point per level up if you're just hideously unlucky (and you will be at least once or twice). If you're lucky or the character's really good, you can potentially gain six or seven points.

• Also, save most of your bonus experience for characters who come in late and are under-leveled (the two guys I mentioned a few lines ago). Only use it to level up a character when the character's only a few points away from 100

• Save an Occult Scroll for Ike

• Titania is a "Jeigan" archetype - a character that starts out way higher leveled than everyone else. She CAN solo entire missions early on, but she won't get any meaningful experience, while your other characters need those kills to grow.

• IF YOU ARE GOING TO IMPORT A PATH OF RADIANCE FILE INTO RADIANT DAWN, IT HAS TO BE NORMAL OR HARD MODE. Easy Mode games cannot be imported, and actually freeze Radiant Dawn if you try.

• If you play the game on Easy mode first and then move on to Normal Mode, be advised that your EXP gains cut in half between the two modes, which is the key source of difficulty. So if you breezed through Easy with power-leveled dudes, Normal is a bit more challenging.

• On Easy and Normal Mode, basically every character in the game is usable to some extent, though some are definitely better than others based on having Stat growths that line up more evenly with their Classes. So if you like a character, go ahead and use them and you'll have a pretty good time.

• Although Titania is a Jeigan-type character, her Stat growths are perfectly fine, so you can bench her at the start of the game and pick her back up when everyone else is around her level and be good to go.

• Forging is really useful, and once you have access to it you should try to use before each Chapter (you can only forge 1 item per chapter). At the start of the game, when you're strapped for cash, you can do pretty well for yourself just forging Iron weapons with maxed out Might, which are pretty affordable and give you a nice edge when your Strength is low. Forged Hand Axes and Javelins are especially helpful since you have a very limited supply of their high-might variants, and maxed-stat Hand Axes and Javelins are relatively cheap and durable.

• Speaking of money, your cash flow is extremely sporadic. In addition to your starting cash you get a big infusion of funds twice (once at the start of the game, once towards the end), and towards the middle of the game you're basically put on salary for about four missions, which is a big help. Aside from that, your only source of funding is from selling valuables like Gems and Statue Frags, which are technically Stat up items, but the Stat they raise is relatively useless and they sell for 4000G. Most Gems are dropped by enemies after you defeat them, but some are contained in chests, and one in particular is a hidden in the game's desert level.

• Regarding the desert level, its in your best interest to find a map of the mission, because there are at least two extremely valuable treasures buried in the sand (one is a Gem, the other a stat-up item). Any map you find will have minor spoilers, of course, but they don't affect the game's story in any way.

• Staves are never technically equipped by the Priests and Bishops that use them, which means that any staff can be stolen by your Thief characters. In the second half of the game you can secure a pretty nice horde of Physic rods this way. Just remember that a Thief has to have more Speed than their target, and enough Strength to carry the item's weight. This obviously isn't a problem for robbing the clergy, but be mindful if you're going to try and steal other items from proper fighters.

• Regarding Supports, note that a character can only have 5 total ranks of Support, which is a fact the game kind of glosses over if you aren't paying attention. So that generally means 1 A-Supports and 1 B-Support.

• If you care about character development overly much, it's a good idea to get Ike and Soren to A-Support as well as Mist and Boyd, since that can have an effect on interactions in Radiant Dawn. Ike/Soren especially, since there is actually important story and character stuff gated behind that, both in PoR and Radiant Dawn. It's kind of necessary if you want to 100% Radiant Dawn.

• Finally, the way that Support works is that each Support relationship has a variable number of Chapters that two characters must particulate in to increase the Rank. Certain Supports take 1 or 2 chapters per Rank, others take 10-14 missions. If you find that a relationship just isn't ranking up, you may want to check a guide to see how many chapters it takes and plan accordingly. Boyd/Mist, Boyd/Titania and Ike/Titania are among the most drawn out, with Boyd/Mist taking most of the game to complete.