Are you able to make a character start a battle 'dead', but be revivable?

[Jennifer Darknight]

I'm just curious...

For the patch I'm working on, for instance, Teta starts out dead, but in that battle she can get revived (or she gets revived via a battle event--I'm unsure yet).

I'm wondering if there's a particular way you can do it this way, or if I'm going to have to rely on in-battle events instead.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Give the character's class Initial: Dead.  If the character Joins After Event or appears in other battles without being dead, you'll need to essentially make a duplicate of the class that lacks Initial: Dead for the player to be able to use or otherwise have start battles not-dead.

[Nyzer]

I changed a knife into a "Butter Knife"; it now causes Innate Dead. Find a weapon or two that you're not using (bags, maces, or axes perhaps?) and change it into that sort of thing. If you do event editing you can have the character appear in a cutscene after the battle, no matter the battle, with a different weapon equipped... bam. Joined the team, with no issues from Innate Anything on their job.

(In your case, have a weapon inflict Starting Dead)

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Except using two job slots to fulfill the same goal is more efficient.  Non-generic Job slots are a drop in the bucket, whereas item slots aren't, and you can use the exact same trick of faux-Job in battle and real Job in cutscene.

[Nyzer]

Good point.