Some of the enemies that the players face are more powerful than ordinary opponents, and can use Anima to break the normal rules of gameplay. In Last Odyssey, these enemies are referred to as Antagonists. There are two major types of Antagonists:
The power of Antagonists is reflected by their ability to accumulate and use Anima. Like player characters, an Antagonist can have a maximum of 10 Anima at a time. During battle, Antagonists are not defeated when they are downed. Instead, each time they are downed, they will change into their next Form during the Paradigm Phase until they have run out. Each Form of an Antagonist corresponds to each subsequent set of statistics and abilities they are able to employ during battle. Once an Antagonist has run out of Forms and cannot use the Revive action, they will undergo True Death. After an Antagonist is defeated, players will earn 100 cr multiplied by a Form’s tier per defeated Form as well as 1-4 pieces of equipment. Antagonists can have as many Forms as the GM wants, but players will struggle to defeat more than two in a row in a single battle. Defeating an Antagonist in combat is also worth 10 XP per Form defeated multiplied the tier of the Form. So, defeating an Antagonist that has one Phase at tier 2 and another at tier 4 would be worth 20 XP plus 40 XP for a total of 60 XP.
During combat, Antagonists are capable of taking extra actions at the beginning of the Paradigm Phase called paradigm actions. If an Antagonist takes a paradigm action, its effects will trigger before players have the chance to switch jobs. Antagonists can only use one paradigm action per round. There are four kinds of paradigm actions that all Antagonists can take:
| Name | Cost | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Retreat | N/A | If an Antagonist reaches the end of a combat round having been downed but with Forms still remaining, the GM may choose to end the battle and have the Antagonist escape the players’ grasp. At the conclusion of the battle, the players will earn XP for each Form that they managed to down in addition to XP from any other enemies besides the Antagonist they downed during the battle. |
| Advance Form | N/A | If an Antagonist has been downed, they may continue the fight by moving to their next Form if they still have any remaining. When this happens, the Antagonist will take its place in the Initiative Order according to its new Initiative score without the players having to call Initiative again. |
| Cause Death | Variable | Monsters and Villains have unique abilities that can cause a player character to undergo True Death while in combat. Monsters have the Devour paradigm action, which lets them drain Anima from downed characters before attempting to kill them, while Villains have the Coup de Grace paradigm action, which lets them spend 3 Anima to kill off a downed player character. |
| Dismiss Eidolon | 1 Anima | If a player character’s eidolon is on the battlefield, the Antagonist may cause it to disappear. If a player character’s eidolon is dismissed in this manner, they cannot summon it again until the end of the next Paradigm Phase. |
In addition to the paradigm actions listed above, each Form of an Antagonist is capable of using a number of job- or archetype-specific eidolon capstone abilities as paradigm actions equal to their tier divided by 3 rounded down. Using one of these abilities costs 1 Anima, but does not cost any action points. The abilities that count as valid paradigm actions are Dragonslayer, Apocalypse, Second Chance, Mirror Shield, Comeback, Vortex, Wild Hunt, Assassinate, Target Acquired, Ascension, Tango, Divine Intervention, Rout, Charge!, and Spin the Revolver. The GM can also invent their own if they wish, or use any of the unique paradigm actions from the Example Antagonists section.