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« on: March 09, 2013, 06:56:44 PM »
Hello and welcome to Romancing SaGa 3’s unofficial stat topic! This work tries to give some baselines for interpreting the game’s cast in a DL environment. As usual with SaGa, the game carries things like growth randomness and entirely arbitrary lines of what could be considered endgame or not, alongside a few more pressing issues (like the obtuseness of actual growth rates and far more limited documentation on these specific mechanics). However, besides that, the game mechanics have more or less been cracked open, and I pretty much couldn’t even begin working on this if Djinn hadn’t scoured a bunch of Japanese RS3 mechanics sources and compiled them into documents in a gift wrap. Cheers for him on that account. So, here are the guidelines:
- Stats were taken against an 800 HP threshold to calculate base party levels. This figure was chosen because it’s a reasonable range for endgame parties. The effective party levels, which affect the cast’s base weapon/magic levels, WP, JP and even HP upon joining the party, were calculated from that inferred PLevel. These calculations also don’t factor in growth priorities, but doing so is essentially impossible without knowing how they work. The Party Level approximations give a good enough baseline, at least, since, unlike SaGa Frontier, RS3 PCs scale in power with your party even if they’re not participating in battles.
- For weapon levels, the formula was roughly (Joining Weapon Level at Character’s PLevel + Growth Bonus), and (Joining Weapon Level At Character’s PLevel + [Growth Bonus x2]) for characters who use only one weapon type, in order to emphasize their specialization. This is fairly arbitrary, but considering how Growth Bonuses take the current weapon level as if it was a certain number of levels lower than the enemy rank’s, it ended up working neatly enough. There are some discrepancies (take a look at Undine, Bai Mei Niang and Zhi Lin at some point), which even led me to impose a 42 hard cap for DL levels, but even for those PCs the level lead makes sense. It also rewards characters with high base levels, but this is also often a legitimate in-game boon.
- For weapon/magic specializations, the basic idea is: if a PC starts with skills and levels on a weapon type, s/he gets all the skills from that type on his/her/its talent list. In most cases, the overlap means that the PC ends up getting pretty much all skills from a certain type, or at least the really relevant ones. If the PC only has one weapon type and his/her/its learning list doesn’t cover all relevant skills to that weaponry, he gets exactly one relevant skill outside that talent list as long as the character’s own talent list covers the skills needed to learn it. This benefits pretty much only Poet, Tatyana and Elephant, as the other single-weapon PCs get all the techs they possibly want from their lists. This, once again, emphasizes their specialization.
- Still on weapon specializations: past weapon levels and weapon skills, things can get a little sketchy. Some PCs start with no weapon skills, but have clear weaponry levels and starting weapons to point out their bent. This affects primarily Leonid, Elephant and Fairy, who get Epees and Bows and Spears, respectively (all of them start with significant levels on both types, equipped weapons for those -and-, in Fairy’s case, high growth bonuses and learning trees heavily emphasizing both weapons. In Elephant’s case, Martial Arts (MA) is his highest level and presents the highest growths as well. His learning tree is Axe, but he doesn’t even start with Blunt levels, so no dice). There’s one further exception made for Ellen, who starts with an Axe and the Tomahawk skill. However, she starts with higher levels on Martial Arts than Axes, giving her a headstart on MA - and her learning type as a recruit is Martial Arts as well. Given that, even as a main, she has a very comprehensive MA learning list -and- still has higher levels on MA (having equally high growths on MA and Axe), I decided to allow her both weapon types, but taking her learning type as a main character.
- For magic, the guidelines are simple: if a character starts with magic of a certain school, the PC gets access to the entire school. There are no naturally learned spells in Romancing SaGa 3, which is a strike against this interp. However, storebought spells are very accessible (the highest-end spells for non-Moon/Sun schools are even free and infinitely distributable!). The fact that most spell schools are mutually exclusive also works in this interp’s favor in my mind (you can have two schools at most: one of Earth/Wind/Fire/Water and one of Sun/Moon). Also, the character builds in general seem to take into account how the stat spreads interact with the entire class skillsets as a rule of thumb (see all the Wind Magic users having 12 LP, making them good Dragon God Descent candidates, or the Sun Magic users all having high Will, which plays a lot into many relevant Sun Magic spells, the only Moon Magic user having high Charisma for better usage of Glare Light, etc.). As such, I don’t really feel bad for giving them all of their school spells instead of overemphasizing starting skills only, which would only de-emphasize magic as a viable DL strategy.
- As for Muse, as you will see, she has absolutely no claim for any weapon or magic, starting with no levels on anything, having the worst talent list in the game (pretty much no talent on ANYTHING), no starting equipment outside of a consumable scroll and no growth bonuses outside a +4 in Moon Magic. As such, I took her as having no skills and relying on a Greatsword physical at a scaled weapon level, which is the best she could have given her characteristics. You’ll see how it goes for her when we get to her entry.
- For equipment, all storebought weapons and armor – including via blacksmith, as long as they don’t require materials or the materials they require are reasonably storebought – are DL-legal from my standpoint. This slightly hurts Sword, Epee and Mace users for damage, but weapon power is quite a minor part in the damage formula – check out the offensive difference between Harid (who gets a unique, high-powered sword for himself) and Julian (who’s stuck with a weapon that gets obsoleted in the midgame). Mace users also benefit from this – and hugely so, since the weapon that grants them their DL-money skill comes from forgery. This also applies to most of the game’s Bow users, but they get by pretty well without their forgery Bow skill. >_> Unlike Elfboy, I didn’t set a hard money cap, although I –could–, but the storebought endgame equipment is pretty straightforward and money also comes by significantly easier in RS3 than SF, both with and without exploits. There’s also no storebought Wonder Bangle here! Also, all characters can equip the suits worn by Wood, Snowman and Elephant – however, look at the weight on them. The 15 speed penalty is something nobody ever wants, and only those three are low enough at base speed to make the penalty academic. Considering the fastest of them (Wood) basically rams the turn-based floor for standard deviations under the 25% per SD convention at his –base–, the tradeoff is actually worth it, which can’t be said of pretty much anyone else.
- For plot/uniqueness claims: Katarina gets the Masquerade Epee (for all the good it does her), Harid gets the Kamsheen. Katarina starts with the Masquerade, and retrieving that sword is basically her plot. The Kamsheen is a unique weapon for Harid, which he can only get in his own quest and is locked to his first weapon slot. Sharl gets the Silver Hand, an accessory that everyone else wants for allowing someone to simultaneously equip two weapons, but on Sharl it changes his base stats (Strength and Dexterity go from 5 and 3 to 21 and 19 respectively). This effect is unique effect to him, and is backed up by RS3 backstory - for whatever good it does. Other equips: Tatyana is forced to equip her Teddy Bear, Leonid has the Dusk Robe locked to his armor slots, Poet has his locked instrument, Boston is stuck with the Lobster Armor, Snowman must equip the Eternal Ice accessory to be usable outside Snow Village, Fairy has a forced Fairy Scarf (shirt equip) and Elephant must wear his Cotton Shirt. The effects of those equips will be listed in the character entries. Also, for relevant starting equips: Mikhail and Tiberius start with a Life Staff in their equipment (the weapon is quite rare in the game and not obtainable outside of a few chests and characters starting with it). I allow it to both Mikhail and Tiberius - however, only Mikhail gets weapon levels and skills to use the Life Staff in a relevant manner. Tiberius gets damned better free healing from Life Water as is.
That should cover just about everything for topic guidelines. Onwards to the more important stuff!
Stats And What They Do
HP: Your [insert faux-witty joke here]. If they’re depleted, [insert faux-witty whimsical possibility here]. You can only be so clever when trying to shake things up with a stat as ubiquitous as this. HP are restored after every battle.
WP: Your friendly resource for weapon-based skills. Also factors into the powers of very few specific skills, but those aren’t likely to be relevant here.
JP: Your neighborhood resource for magic-based skills. Also factors into the powers of very few specific skills, but those aren’t likely to be relevant here either.
LP: Basically your life points. Whenever your HP gets knocked down to zero, you lose one LP. If you’re hit when dead, you lose a point of LP as well. A character who loses all LP gets taken out of your party and will only reappear for recruitment after certain circumstances are fulfilled. If your main runs out of LP, it’s game over. This stat is also relevant for skills like Dragon God Descent and Reviver due to unique quirks relating to them.
Strength: This stat influences damage for Swords, Greatswords, Axes, Maces, Spears and Martial Arts. Also factors minorly into accuracy for these weapon types (majorly in Martial Arts and Axes’ case).
Dexterity: This stat influences mainly accuracy, also influencing Bow and Epee damage in lieu of Strength.
Speed: This stat governs turn order and base evasion, also factoring in for accuracy and being another major factor in the damage dealt by Martial Arts skills. It bears mentioning that all magic damage spells bypass base evade - however, they still mostly ram into shield evade or magic shield evade (so, ITE hype for them is a wash).
Constitution: This stat factors into the physical and magical defense formulas, mainly. It’s less than half as potent as Defense and Magic Defense, though, and runs off a significantly more restrictive numeric spread as well.
Intelligence: This stat influences magical damage, all forms of healing and also factors into accuracy for some spells.
Willpower: This stat influences status resistance. One point of Will raises/lowers status accuracy by around less than 0.5% in practice.
Charisma: This stat governs the accuracy of charm-inflicting attacks and a character’s resistance to it. The resistance effect is roughly the same as Will’s, while the effect on accuracy is more or less irrelevant – I already laid down accuracy for all charm attacks available DL-legally, although it’s worth noting the stat has a very small effect (roughly 1% boost to accuracy per point above enemy Charisma. Bases and weapon levels are the big factors for the accuracy on those moves).
Defense: This stat affects all the physical element resistances: slash, blunt, pierce and shot. The number given is pretty much the same for all the resists across the board, unless otherwise noted. For physical attacks, this is pretty much the ur stat for defining a character’s durability, being quite potent. A single point of Defense raises or lowers your effective durability by about 2.7%, to give you an idea, with some variance accounted for Con differences as well.
Magic Defense: As it happens with Defense, this stat affects all magical element resistances: heat, cold, electricity and status. Status is a bit of a funny case in that it doesn’t encompass simply status accuracy: it’s pretty much the generic magic element whose scope doesn’t fall within any of the big three, much like SaGa Frontier force element. The number given is pretty much the same for all the resists across the board, unless otherwise noted. Also, as it happens with Defense, this is the big stat for defining magical durability. Each point of Magic Defense raises/lowers your mdur by about 2.1%, with some variance being allowed by Con differences, and each point of mdef also raises or lowers your status resistance by roughly 0.5%.
Weapon/Magic Levels: These rank among the big factors on the effectiveness of skillsets in general. They factor into damage (considerably more heavily than core stats, even!), accuracy, status accuracy, healing and even stat boosts and penalties given to buffs and debuffs. The general guideline is: the higher it is, the better your general proficiency with your weapon/magic skillset is.
Boundary Values (BV)
Because Romancing SaGa 3 doesn’t believe in simplicity, instead of running a straight accuracy formula, it actually runs a formula and then –runs its results through a table– in order to accrue attack accuracy. Basically, a table that runs numbers from 0 to 100, each number relating to a hit rate value, defines the final accuracy of any given attack. These numbers are called Boundary Values. Since the majority of attacks against average enemy evasion reach a boundary value over 100, I listed them as “>100% hit rate (X BV)” for the sake of simplicity. It’s likely possible to infer a kind of accuracy post 100% hit rate anyway, but the percentage for boundary values is erratic – the difference in accuracy between 90 and 100 BV is 7.3%, but the difference in accuracy between 0 and 10 BV is 11.3%, for instance. You could use the 90-100 BV as the base for above 100% hit rate due to the lower end accruing higher differences than the higher end (in which case, for values above 100 BV, you could say that 1 BV = 0.73% hit), which would be a fair extrapolation. For any value below 100 BV, I’m listing the straight percentages instead.
Counters
These get a section all for themselves because a lot of PCs get counter skills and they run off fairly unique mechanics. Essentially, when a character enters a counter stance, they commit their action to this – if they’re hit by an attack that -can- trigger the counter, they have a chance of deflecting the attack and using the counter attack, which cannot be evaded or negated in any way (all counters ignore target defense). The counter interrupts multi-hit attacks, but triggering a counter does not end the counter stance, nor does hitting without triggering it. So, someone with a multi-hit attack will have multiple chances to trigger a counter and doubleturns can incur multiple counters as well. Due to the odds of failing, counters can be rather chancy, but these characteristics also help their duelling worth out. Counter odds factor in character -and- enemy speed, so faster enemies can lower the odds a bit, but the effects are sorta subtle (1 BV per point of speed, in a spread that runs off low double-digits from highest to lowest. This is -not- a check of PC speed against enemy speed, either). A counter stance lasts for one turn. Also, it’s worth noting that the WP needed for a counter stance is only spent when the stance is triggered. However, the character must have the WP needed to use it before activating it.
Status Effects
Most status effects last anywhere from one to five turns - the exceptions being poison and silence, which last until the battle ends or until healed. On average, they last two-three turns, some statuses being skewed towards the lower end (paralysis, sleep) and others to the higher end (mental status).
- Poison: deals max HP-based damage at the end of the turn. The amount of damage dealt is proportional to target Constitution (higher = less damage), but, at endgame, clocks in at roughly 20% or so mHP/turn. More exact amounts will be given when skills that inflict poison show up in the character skillsets.
- Dark: Lowers accuracy on all physical attacks. I don’t have exact numbers for the reduction, but it’s very powerful (likely affecting base hit instead of things like Dex). Kneejerk is that it lowers effective accuracy to 25% of its usual value.
- Sleep: A sleeping target cannot act and has his/her/its evade reduced to 0. Being hit by any damage while asleep wakes the character up, and he/she/it loses his/her/its turn if awoken after its turn was up in the queue.
- Mixed: Lowest tier of mental status that can be inflicted. For reference, mental statuses all ram into the same immunity (mental status in-game). A mixed character has a low chance of targeting his allies or himself instead of the target he intended, but still has full choice of skills to use and targeting. Bears noting that all mental statuses that involve hitting your own allies –do– allow the character to hit him/her/itself, and hitting them with magic or physicals does -not- cure them out of the condition.
- Mess: Similar to Mixed status, difference being that the character cannot choose a target, only skills.
- Confusion: A confused character is entirely out of control, choosing both skills and targets at random.
- Berserk: A berserked character can only use basic physicals, targeting only enemies.
- Charm: This is the highest tier of mental status, and the nastiest as well. A charmed character will act choosing skills and targets at random, but always with the intent of either helping its opponent (via buffs and healing) or harming its allies (by damage, status, debuffs). Lasts the longest of all statuses, usually not lasting less than three turns.
- Silence: A silenced character cannot use weapon skills nor magic, being limited to basic physicals.
- Paralysis: A paralyzed character cannot act and has evade reduced to 0. Damage does not break the status, and status skills that inflict paralysis will always hit if reapplied while it’s in effect (i.e. this applies to status-only stuff like Blunt Strike and Shadow Sew, but not skills like Meteor Thrust which cause damage and have paralysis as an added effect).
- Stun: A stunned character loses his/her turn and has evade reduced to 0. Stunning someone faster than you just causes the evade loss effect.
- Stone: Petrifies target. Against enemies, this is instant death. Rams against stone immunity.
- Instant Death: Exactly what it says on the tin. Rams against death immunity (so, stone and death have the same practical effect, but ram against distinct immunity flags).
Added Effects
Added effects on attacks run off an accuracy formula that uses all target stats -except Charisma-, ignoring character stats entirely. Sometimes, they also use status defense. All the attacks with added effects have their accuracy percentage listed against average enemy stats in their own entries. For reference, here are the relevant average enemy stats used for the calculations. They happen to run off pretty much the same spread as the PCs, outside of status defense. It's worth noting that each point up or down in any stat raises or lowers the accuracy on those added effects (both debuffs and status) by half a Boundary Value (so, ranging from 0.3% to 0.5% per stat point. Landing, say, a Beast God Stab would lower the enemy's stat total by 20, raising the accuracy of the next debuff check on it by 10 BVs or so - thus, a 7% to 11% increase depending on the current BV threshold). So, landing one stat debuff will gradually raise the accuracy of the next effect. This does not apply, however, to debuffs that affect defense directly (it would for magic defense in a few specific cases, but there are no mdef/status defense debuffs available in-game).
Strength: 18
Dexterity: 19
Speed: 19
Constitution: 18
Intelligence: 16
Willpower: 18
Charisma: 18 (Not really all that relevant, but why not)
Status Defense: 24
Buffs And Debuffs
Buffing spells in Romancing SaGa 3 also have a few peculiarities. Buffs to stats run off a degenerative formula and can be - theoretically - stacked ad infinitum. Basically, from the turn it’s cast, a buff loses its effectiveness slowly, at a rate of (Current Stat – Base Stat)/4 per turn, rounded up. So, if Ellen casts War Cry, she raises her Strength from 21 to 34 in that turn. On the very next turn, her Strength value will be lowered by (34-21)/4 = 3.25, rounded up = 4, thus making her Str at that turn 30. The next turn, if she doesn’t use War Cry again, the value it goes down by will be 2.25, rounded up to 3 – so, her Str will be 27, and progressively so until her Strength goes back to its base value. If she uses War Cry twice in a row, her Strength at the turn when she casts it for the second time will be 43 (30+13), but at the end of the turn, it’ll be lowered by (43-21)/4 = 5.5, rounded up to 6. So, the higher you buff a stat, the higher its deterioration will be, which makes using stat buffs a messy matter indeed.
Debuffs, on the other hand, do not degenerate and are permanent – they can be dispelled, but will not disappear on their own. Like stat buffs, they also stack indefinitely. Buff spells that grant special effects, like Water Pole, Dancing Leaves, Dragon God Descent, Reviver and Feather Seal, are also permanent unless dispelled.
Shields
Romancing SaGa 3 has two types of shields: bangles and proper shields. Any person can equip them, but they’re only functional if the character uses an attack or skill with a one-handed weapon – those being Swords, Maces, Axes and Epees. Magic, Greatswords, Martial Arts and Bows count as two-handed for shield usage purposes. Shields have two stats: defense and defense rating. The defense rating equals the odds of blocking an attack (different shields block different types of attacks). An attack blocked by a shield is taken against the character’s defense plus either the full defense stat of the shield or a lower amount (usually half). Bangles lack this stat, however, simply blocking the attack entirely (there are select few attacks that trigger bangle blocking, yet aren’t dodged, however, hitting the bangle user for full damage). For the purposes of this topic, all characters who can make actual use of shields equip bangles, due to the overall more potent effect. All listed attacks will note whether they can trigger shield blocking or evade.
Within this topic, there are also magical shield effects, which certain equips can give and various spells also can accrue. None of the equips with a magic shield effect are DL-legal, so this explanation will mainly focus on the spells. Magic shields basically give you a dodging chance that depends on the spell. The attacks that can be dodged also depend on the spell, and all attacks listed in the topic will note whether they can trigger magic shield evade as well. Water Pole and Dancing Leaves affect all physicals (i.e. slash, blunt, pierce and shot) that trigger magic shield evade, while Illusion Sun affects all elemental attacks, be they physical or magical, that can be magic shielded (so, slash, blunt, pierce, shot, heat, cold, electric and status).
Field Elements
Most spells in RS3 (and a select few physical skills) are capable of switching the elemental field in a given battle. The field always starts neutral, and using a spell that applies an element to the field immediately applies the effect. The changes are quite subtle – it basically allows a few buffs (particularly, Dancing Leaves and Water Pole) to function and grants 10% mHP regen per turn to a character whose armor possesses the elemental affinity (these cases will be noted in character entries). Spells can change the field back, but don’t always do so, and, once a field has been changed, the dynamics to swap it from the current element are kinda convoluted (involving multiple castings sometimes). For simplicity, I simply allow elemental spells to swap the field to whatever, also allowing spells from other games to make that change, as long as there is a precedent in-RS3 to allow them to do so. Worth noting that the spell Squall has unbeatable priority in changing the field element: cast it and the field will always become Water.
Things To Do
These are mostly for my reference, but feel free to bug me about these:
- More alternate equip options. There isn’t much of a wealth in equipment options in RS3 and tweaking them will mostly tweak averages a few ways, but alternate defense-twinking or magic defense/damage-twinking for a few specific characters besides Ellen and Yan Fan do exist. In fact, for instance, Elephant and Snowman can use the same setup as Yan Fan and Ellen, but those turn them into wonderlands who get 2HKOed and 3-2’d by average while not even 2HKOing themselves after factoring in accuracy, so I didn’t bother with a setup like that - even in Light, they end up getting 3-2’d and 3HKOed awfully often under those flags. But sake of completeness, etc.
And I believe that’s it for now. Now, for the meat of the topic – playable characters and numbers!