i built up all my charactors before i got very many special so my specials were with an ed added to them even cid (that is orlandu)

the normals rock, i use the spec chars for back ups, and just send in a calc, a summoner and a few mimes to kill everything :p
the other people, whom ever i get bored enough to use, just ends up running around dropping eithers and such no people when/if needed :p

I found the regulars useless once the secret characters could take the field as well. I mean, you could build these characters up the same as everyone else (minus the squire job), and they had new toys that they could use. I mean the sword skills and the like, it made the others obselete.

well i guess i am the only person who over leveled before getting any special charactors

I leveled up alot before I even got Luso. I tend to stay away from secret characters outside of Mustadio (I just like him, I dont know why). Orlandu is quite possibly the most broken character in any RPG made to date. If they ever think about making another game and include Orlandu, I will cry.

yep and the fact that orlandu is good is a lie orlandu can get the crap beat out of him cause he has no free jp or exp as the base forms do.

I beyond overleveled my characters before I got the others, but I brought them up to speed once I got them. Then again, I used a lot of other methods to train my characters...four had steal skills...surrounded the enemy...stole gil and attacked my own characters. I would usually gain about four or five levels a round depending.

This rule applies for me on both FFT and FFTA.

I overabuse my regular characters to the point that when it comes for the secret characters, I never have to use em. They just just there and look pretty, or ugly.

So, I don't use secret characters, unless I really screwed up on leveling one person.