Final Fantasy 1 and 2: Dawn of Souls

Ludmeister's Mod of Balance v3.5- 12 classes

http://jeffludwig.com/
*********************************************************

This patch kit will convert a stock version of Final Fantasy 1 and 2: Dawn of Souls

to Ludmeister's Mod of Balance v3.5. Here's exactly what this will

accomplish:

This mod aims to improve the gameplay of both Final Fantasy 1 and Final Fantasy 2.

The Final Fantasy 1 mod was originally intended to restore the difficulty of this
GBA version of the game to the difficulty of the original NES version, so it can
be enjoyed with all of the modern trappings of the GBA version. Version 2.0 was
a step beyond the previous one, and was intended to provide enhancements to the
gameplay and address user critcisms of version 1.2.

Version 3.0 represented a major change in the gameplay of Final Fantasy 1, in that
you
can choose any of 12 classes at the start of your campaign. No class change
happens.
This allows for a much wider variety of gameplay experiences, and removes the
impetus
to sprint through Earth Cave, get the Canoe, punish yourself in Ice Cave, get the
Airship, then canoe/fly to Castle Ordeals at a severely low level to class change
as
soon as possible. After class change, the rest of the game seems somewhat
anti-climactic from a difficulty standpoint. This version attempts to address this
pet peeve of mine and smooth the rather forced difficulty curve.

This patch also is a small rebalance for Final Fantasy 2 GBA: Mod of Balance.
The ambition behind this mod is simple: "unbreak" the character development
mechanics. The GBA version already fixed the select-action-cancel-action-and-gain-
skill-
ad-nauseam bug, but still required players to grind in all the wrong ways.
Unlimited
actions should increase slower than actions that are limited by mana or resources.
I hope I have succeeded in making Final Fantasy 2 play much more smoothly.
Secondarily,
weapons were much too underpowered in the endgame as enemy defense rendered them
mostly
useless versus spells. Warrior-heavy and magic-heavy party builds should have the
potential to be equally successful.

Credits
*********************************************************

Huge kudos to Rabite. He's had a ton of great ideas and given me great feedback.

Credits and thanks are due to LeviathanMist and Robert August de Meijer for their
critical criticism. You helped to raise the bar for this mod.

John Dane, MegaFlux, and DesmondRai in particular from GameFAQs have also weighed
in,
and offered inspiration and good ideas for the version 2.0 update.

Thanks to Vertigo 1 for finding the Protera bug.

Thank you to Teddy for quickly reporting the Magic Resistance display bug.

A hacker named Billy tipped me off as to where the Final Fantasy 1 Treasure rewards
were found in the ROM. Thank you.

Another hacker called Sting Chameleon found the character palette, which provided
the impetus for the v3.0, rev 1 release. Awesome work, Sting Chameleon.

Also, ZekuMusashi and AramilOfTusmit from GameFAQs provided helpful contructive

criticism that made this version be what it is. With_Knives has also weighed in
with some good insight on how the the classes have performed. Thank you all!

Thanks to all the fans of the previous version of the Mod of Balance who let me
know
you enjoyed it.

If you'd like to weigh in as well, here's a forum for discussing the FF1 portion of

the mod:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/920240-final-fantasy-i-and-ii-dawn-of-
souls/60914390

And this is the companion thread for FF2:

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/920240-final-fantasy-i-and-ii-dawn-of-
souls/62688920

Of course, you can always contact me directly via jeffludwig.com.

Notice, effective March 1st, 2012

******************************************************************************

For this release and all new releases, I am discontinuing the use of
IPS2EXE to create patches that can be applied without an IPS patching
program. These executable patches set off certain virus and malware
scanners.

Version 3.5 Changelog

*********************************************************

Final Fantasy 1

* There was a bug in version 3.3 with the Remedy item. While it cure
the Petrify
condition when used in battle, you could not use it in the status
screen. This
has been fixed.

* I rebalanced the way multiple strikes are awarded to characters.

Up until v3.3,
every character gained an attack (or fistic martial artists) every
32 in Hit Rate.
This had the annoying side effect that the most accurate warriors
were also the
fastest. Now, the number of attacks is determined by Agility and
character Level,
and the individual class:

Calculate x = Agility + Level/2, and then, based off of the

character class, x
is augmented. Then every 16 points yields an extra attack (or
every 8, if the
character is a barehanded Monk or Master).

* Based on the above change, Hit Rate is now independent of number of

strikes. This
allows for accurate bruisers who are slow, and fast but wildly
swinging glass
cannons. Therefore, Hit Rate was rebalanced for all classes.
The Ranger, which
had no distinguishing characteristic before, are now the most
accurate class.

* The attack-bonus-for-characters-which-wield-weapons bonus has been

realigned.
Now, every class is given a strength ratio, which is applied to
their strength
whenever a weapon is equipped:

Attack = Weapon Power + (Strength * Class Strength Ratio)

This strength ratio obviously does not apply to any character who
is barehanded,
including Monks and Masters.

* All character classes begin with a fair bit more HP, making the
early game learning
curve a bit less daunting. However, all characters gain less HP
and MP at level up.

* With all of the above edits to the game mechanics, it seemed good
to rebalance the
stats for many of the monsters. As such, monster HP bloat has been
moderately
reduced, especially for random encounters.

* All offensive magic has been toned down a bit, to account for the
lower HP stats
throughout this version of the mod. Most notably, the Destroy
spell only does 1000
damage (down from 1500).

* Stamina has been made more important, as a stat: it gives all

characters a persistent
bonus to Defense! The Master's persistent Defense bonus is still
the same, but for
all other classes, they gain 1 point of Defense for every 4
points of Stamina above
16. In other words, they gain their first point of Defense at 20
Stamina, and then
gain a second at 24 Stamina, a third at 28 Stamina, etc. This is
a minor buff, but
will be felt by mid-to-late game heavy fighters, and especially
Paladins and Battlemages.
 * Weapons and Armor have been subtly tweaked yet again. Only weapons
that affect the
Agility stat have the possibility of increasing the number of
strikes, again, because
Hit Rate is now independent of this.

* Made the equipment shops a bit more interesting, especially in

Crescent Lake, Gaia,
Onlac, and the Caravan, but Elfheim and Melmond have been subtly
tweaked. Late game
equipment shops in Whisperwind Cove also now should sell many of
the most rare items.

* The starting stats for all character classes have been modified, as
follows:

HP MP Str
Agi Int Sta Luck Hit Rate
Knight 60 0 15
5 1 12 7 36
Rogue 56 0 7 14
1 6 12 40
Master 63 0 10
7 8 11 4 44
Paladin 72 8 13
7 7 15 2 32
Ninja 48 5 8 15
5 2 15 35
Ranger 65 10 10
9 8 10 8 50
Enchanter 45 15 6 12
10 5 9 20
Battlemage 55 12 12 3
10 13 6 30
Monk 75 16 7 10
9 6 10 28
Priest 50 20 9
2 14 11 4 25
Archmage 42 25 3 9
15 3 10 15
Sage 40 22 2 6
12 6 14 12

* Other class-based attributes are now as follows:

Hit Rate per 4 levels Strength

Ratio # of Hits Ratio
Knight 12
Str 9/8
Rogue 10
Str * 5/8 5/4
Master 14
Str * 1/2 7/8
Paladin 11
Str * 3/4 1
Ninja 8
Str * 1/2 9/8
Ranger 16
 Str * 5/8 1
Enchanter 7
Str * 1/2 1
Battlemage 13
Str * 3/4 9/8
Monk 9
Str 1
Priest 9
Str * 5/8 7/8
Archmage 6
Str * 1/2 7/8
Sage 4
Str * 1/2 3/4

Version 3.3, Revision 2 Changelog

*********************************************************

Final Fantasy 1

* Fixed a rather nasty display bug in the status screen, which could
cause panic
when your first character gets more than 255 Magic Resistance.
The bug was
cosmetic; that character would still utilize their full MR for
resisting melee
status effects and magic damage.

Version 3.3, Revision 1 Changelog

*********************************************************

Final Fantasy 1

* The incessant "menu song" has been removed! When you go into your
status screen,
the music will not change. A slight annoyance in this changes is
that if you go
into the Bestiary, the battle music for that monster will play
over the current
music, but (IMHO) opinion that's a small price to pay for having
the menu song
removed.

* Soul of Chaos dungeons have been exhaustively looked through to

make the rate of
encounters less cumbersome in some tedious floors, and more
frequent in some
floors (like floors that are full of lava, because you can't be
attacked while
on lava).

* A character's Magic Resistance stat has been overhauled a bit

again. First of all,
the 255 MR cap has been removed.

* Second, when a character increases in Luck (whether via level up or

by using a
Luck Plus item), that character's MR is also increased by 1.

* Third, a character's Magic Resistance (as well as Hit Rate!) goes

up rhythmically,
on a 4 level cadence. Before, each character increased HR and MR
by a flat rate
every level. This table shows the modified increases, every 4
levels:

Starting MR MR increase Hit

Rate Increase
Knight 8 7
10
Rogue 20 13
16
Master 18 5
12
Paladin 30 12
8
Ninja 25 6
14
Ranger 16 8
12
Enchanter 18 9
11
Battlemage 15 10
6
Monk 12 15
9
Priest 20 16
4
Archmage 24 14
5
Sage 22 18
3

* Fixed a bug with the Elven Balm item, which was introduced when I
changed the
formula for calculating magic healing power. It was using bogus
data for the
Intellect value... now it uses the leader's Intellect for
determining healing
strength.

* The Magic Resistance of a few Soul of Chaos bosses (most notably

the ones in
Earthgift Shrine) was too low. This has been tweaked slightly.

* The Basilisk now drops a Remedy (was dropping Holy Water; didn't
make sense after I
repurposed the Gold Needle).

* The Paladin can now equip an Angel's Ring (as can the Master).

* Clarity has been bound to the Protect Ring.

* Elfheim and Crescent Lake's item shops now sell the correct number
of items.
 * The Destroy Spell now costs 33 MP, and X-Zone costs 35 MP.

* Qi Strike has been toned down a little bit. Base chance to hit was
210 before,
now is 180. It's MP cost is now increased to 25.

Version 3.3 Changelog

*********************************************************

Final Fantasy 1

* Weapons that strike at an opponent's weakness now increase their

wielder's
effective Hit Rate by 15 (previous bonus was 40). They also
increase their
wielder's effective Attack rating by 3x/2 (previous bonus was
+25).

* Magical healing now stairsteps like attack magic; it increases in

power every
2 Int points. As such, all healing magic has been rebalanced.

* Modified the algorithm for debuff spell effects. It is interesting

to note that
Slow, Focus, and Dispel still will not follow this rule. Of
course, all debuff
spells and all debuffing monster attacks have been rebalanced.

o The old algorithm was x = (Spell Power + 148 - Monster's

Resistance).
x is increased by 40 if target is vulnerable to spell; and
decreased by 148
if it is protected versus it. Then, a number is rolled
between 0 and 200,
and if the random number is less than x, the spell
succeeded.

o The new algorithm is x = (Spell Power + (2 * Int) - Monster's

Resistance).
x is increased by 50 if target is vulnerable to spell, and
decreased by 100
if it is protected versus it. The same roll of 0 to 200
applies, with the
same rule of success. Note, that it is possible to still
be affected by a
spell that you are protected against!

* Exhaustively rebalanced the Monster's Magic Resistance stat; it

seemed that many
enemies had much too much Magic resistance. However, not every
monster got a
nerf to MR... ! Generally, the earlier monsters received nerfs,
but several
later monsters were strengthened.
 * Characters should now correctly resist the monster's condition-
inflict attacks.

* Fixed a bug with my implementation of Esuna when using it in the

status screen. It
used to only affect the first three characters.

* Fixed a lingering bug with the Mute spell, whereby it also

paralyzed its target.
As such, it has been added back into the mix for certain monsters
to cast...

* Some monsters now inflict conditions, where they didn't before.

* The Blind, Silence (Mute), and Paralysis conditions are now

persistent after
battle... you will be forced to deal with them!

* Sleeping at an inn will now cure all maladies except Stone and KO.

* Blind is a more serious malady than before; it used to levy a -40

penalty to
the sufferer's Hit Rate. Now, it halves their Hit Rate. If that
weren't
enough, it also causes the character to take 50% more damage from
enemy
melee attacks (just like if they were asleep or paralyzed)!

* The Rally spell has been renamed to Clarify. This is a single-

target only
version of the spell that it was before (cures Blind, Paralysis,
Sleep and
Silence). It can be used in the status screen. The Mind Balm
item, which
is bound to Clarify's effect, can now be used in the status
screen as well.

* The Remedy item didn't cure Stone before. Now, it acts like an
Esuna spell.

* In v3.2, the Gold Needle acted just as the Esuna spell did, and
this was a
bug (oversight on my part). The Gold Needle has been removed from
the game;
in its place is the Holy Water, which yields a Diara effect.

* Because there are only two known remedies to the Stone condition
(Esuna, and
the item Remedy), Remedies have been made more common; they are
sold in Elfheim
and Crescent Lake. The Vivify spell may also counteract Stone.

* Powered up the Nuldeath spell, and renamed it to Nulmagic. It

protects the
party against all magic excepting Fire, Ice, and Lightning.

* Changed the Nulall spell to a single target HP Max spell, named

Vivify. Curaja,
by contrast, is now simply a more powerful version of Curaga which
can now also
be cast by Monks. It also is much less costly to buy.

* The Hold and Invis spells have been removed. Invis has been
replaced with
Meditate, which is a caster-specific buff to Attack and Accuracy,
available to
Monk, Master, and Priest. Blind is now a 3rd level Black spell,
and in the 4th
spell level, Qi Strike has been included. It is usable by Ninja,
Monk, and
Master, and is a death strike that has no resistances that
protect against it.
In other words, only the target's Magic Resistance can help them!

* The level 8 Black spell Kill spell has been replaced with the
Destroy spell.
Instead of being a high-powered death spell, it does an automatic
1500 damage
to any enemy, bypassing resistances (even to your allies!)

* Flay can now be cast by Battlemages.

* The Saber spell has been renamed to Enchant, and may now be cast on
any member
of the party. Invisara has been renamed to Vanish.

* The MP Cost of many spells (especially Cures and Debuffs) have been
tweaked.

* A few minor tweaks to where spells are sold have been introduced,
since the
Monk-based spells have been tweaked.

* The Master has been given a new Spell Level progression, due to
being able to use
a level 3 and a level 4 spell. That progression is now 5/ 10/ 15/
20.

* Fixed the Priest's bonus attack power, as in v3.2 the Priest got
the Knight's
attack bonus!

* The Devil Wizard has been given a significant nerf to its Agility,
and now casts
Quake first, then Flare. You now have a small hope of victory when
three or more
show up.

* Unicorns now have 40 Intellect; that's down from 50.

* The Holy Dragon now has 37 Intellect, that's down from 50.

* A few (very minor) changes to monster AI, to allow for the new
spell roster.

* The moderately rare Neochu has been powered up significantly.

* The Giant's Glove now casts Meditate, and not Pummel as before.
The Lightbringer
now casts Nulmagic (not Blind), and the White Robe casts Protera
(not Nulmagic).
Finally, the Murasame casts Qi Strike!

* The Ragnarok, and especially the Excalibur, now are effective

against fewer
creatures (don't worry, it's still a lot!).

* The Master can now equip the Ribbon.

* Garland now drops a Scimitar (he used to drop a Broadsword).

Paladins can equip
the Scimitar.

Version 3.2 Changelog

*********************************************************

Final Fantasy 1

* Converted 6th level White Magic spell "Stona" to "Esuna". This

spell is a
super-powerful Rally spell, which can cure all maladies (excluding
KO) currently
affecting all party members. It can still be used anywhere, for
20 MP.

* Paladins can now cast 6th level spells. Their new spell
progression is
4/ 8/ 14/ 19/ 26/ 34.

* All normal Final Fantasy 1 Fiends have been given an HP boost to

make them more
challenging.

* Several classes have been awarded an attack power bonus when

wielding a weapon.
The old attack bonus was +5 for Knights, Monks, Paladins, and
Battlemages. Now,

o Knights and Monks gain + (lvl / 4) + 8. Bonus ranges from 8

to 32.
o Paladins and Battlemages gain + (lvl / 8) + 6. Bonus ranges
from 6 to 18.
o Rogues, Rangers, and Priests gain + (lvl / 8). Bonus ranges
from 0 to 12.
o Masters, Ninjas, Enchanters, Archmages, and Sages still get
no bonus.

* The Ninja has been granted the Monk's unarmored bonus. It will
operate differently
for the Ninja than the Monk though, since the Ninja's stats are
much more
disparate than the Monks.

* Gave the Enchanter and Battlemage a couple of strong MP gains early

on to give
them a magical boost over against the secondary fighter classes.

Version 3.0, Revision 2 Changelog

*********************************************************

Final Fantasy 1

* Significantly increased Gold rewards for defeated creatures. There

will be enough
gold to make some additional weaponry purchases and the like,
especially if you take
a Master along ;-)

* Changed the algorithm that drives strong HP and MP increases. A

strong HP gain yields
(STA / 4) + 5 to 15 HP (changed from STA / 4 + 8 to 13. A strong
MP gain yields
(INT / 4) + 0 to 6 MP (changed from INT / 4 + 7 to 9), and a weak
MP gain yields
(INT / 8) (down from INT / 4)! Therefore, strong HP gains show
more variance,
and MP gains are about half as much as they used to be! Lower
level characters,
and especially those with low INT scores, will feel the MP pinch.
Don't expect your
Master to gain many MP, ever.

* Sages spell level progression was unduely harsh in revision 1. It

is now
1/ 4/ 8/ 12/ 18/ 25/ 33/ 42.

* A couple of spells were tweaked: Dia now costs 7 MP. Pain now
costs 6 MP. Aero now
does a bit more damage.

* One minor (albeit helpful) treasure chest swap.

Version 3.0, Revision 1 Changelog

*********************************************************

Final Fantasy 1

* Almost all character sprites have been modified, and now look much
more like members
of their professions.

* Rebalanced classes due to feedback. Here are the changes:

Knight: Begin with 35 HP, 24 Str, 5 Agi, 1 Int, 16 Sta, 5
Luck.
Rogue: Begin with 32 HP, 13 Str, 16 Agi, 1 Int, 6 Sta, 15
Luck.
Monk: Begin with 45 HP, 12 MP, 8 Str, 12 Agi, 11 Int, 7
Sta, 12 Luck.
Sage: Begin with 20 HP, 25 MP, 2 Str, 6 Agi, 15 Int, 4 Sta,
18 Luck.
Level up: -2 Int and +1 Luck every 8 levels. Spell
progression
Enchanter: Begin with 25 HP, 10 MP, 8 Str, 13 Agi, 13 Int,
5 Sta, 11 Luck.
Level Up: -1 Str every 8 levels.
Archmage: Begin with 30 HP, 22 MP, 4 Str, 10 Agi, 16 Int, 6
Sta, 12 Luck
Paladin: Begin with 40 HP, 5 MP, 18 Str, 7 Agi, 8 Int, 20
Sta, 1 Luck.
Level Up: +1 Agi every 8 levels.
Ninja: Begin with 27 HP, 5 MP, 9 Str, 18 Agi, 5 Int, 2 Sta,
20 Luck.
Level Up: +1.5 Int every 8 levels.
Master: Begin with 33 HP, 12 Str, 10 Agi, 6 Int, 15 Sta, 9
Luck
Ranger: Begin with 36 HP, 8 MP, 14 Str, 10 Agi, 8 Int, 11
Sta, 9 Luck
Level Up: +1 Sta every 8 levels.
Priest: Begin with 28 HP, 20 MP, 10 Str, 3 Agi, 18 Int, 12
Vit, 5 Luck
Battlemage: Begin with 24 HP, 10 MP, 12 Str, 4 Agi, 12 Int,
10 Vit, 12 Luck
Level Up: +1 Sta every 8 levels.

* The Sage also receives a new spell level progression: 1/ 4/

9/15/21/28/38/50. The
Sage was admittedly wildly overpowered in v3.0, and now will not
steamroll the
opposition so easily.

Version 3.0 Changelog

*********************************************************

Final Fantasy 1

* Your four party members may choose from among 12 classes now. They
will not
change classes throughout your adventure. A short description of
those 12 classes
are as follows:

o Primary warriors: (They focus almost entirely on

physically dominating opponents)
Knight: Excellent equipment. Strong attack
and defense, moderate speed.
No magic.
Rogue: Supremely fast. Decent defense,
excellent luck-based magic
resistance. No magic.
Master: Tremendously powerful while
unarmed. Constant defense bonus. Very
low magic resistance. A few Monk-based
abilities.

Secondary warriors: (Above-average fighters with

supplemental magical capabilities)
Paladin: Holy Knight. Highest defense. Slower
than Knight, but casts
healing magic.
Ninja: Very fast. Decent with attack
magic. Low defense, but evasion
is high. Low magic defense.
Ranger: Good at all tasks, but excels at
nothing. Slightly better fighter
than caster.

Secondary spellcasters: (Above-average casters with at

least one glaring physical weakness)
Enchanter: Offensive physically (speedy and lightly
armored), but specializes
in healing and buffing allies.
Battlemage: Defensive physically (heavily armored and
slow), but casts offensive
attack magic and warding magics.
Monk: Best unarmored (but a cloak always
helps). Decent with weapons or
unarmed, and is quite effective with many
types of magic (excluding
most direct attacks).

Primary spellcasters: (Their magic is extremely powerful,

but have serious physical limitations)
Priest: These casters keep their allies
alive. They are defensive specialists.
Archmage: They can cause serious pain to their
enemies. They specialize in
area-effect attacks.
Sage: They can cast almost all known spells,
but are exceptionally frail
due to their single-minded magical focus.

* Some items have been moved. A few have been tweaked. In

particular, all Armlets
have been replaced.

* Bahamut's reward, replacing the Class change, is instead a +50 HP

bonus for all
party members.

* The Quake spell now does damage instead of dealing instant death.
The enemy's
Earthquake ability is still instant death, however.

Version 2.2 Changelog

*********************************************************

Final Fantasy 2

* The times that spells become available should be more balanced.

In particular,
Berserk, Toad, and Blink are available later, and Slow, Sleep, and
Haste are
available more soon.
 * The extremely rare spells Break, Stop, and Confuse are not as rare
anymore.

* A few spell shops have been tweaked. Most notably, Blink and Fog
are no longer
for sale. Sleep and Slow are now purchasable, Haste is available
in shops, and
very late in the game you may purchase Osmose. Sleep and Slow
sell for much
less than they used to be, to compensate for this.

* Sap is now more powerful than Osmose. As it should be...

Final Fantasy 1:

* The Mute spell was confirmed to not silence characters, but

paralyzed them
instead when enemies succeeded in affecting them. Thus, the Mute
spell has been
removed from all enemies' AI.

* The Load game screen only showed 3 HP/MP digits. It now shows 4
HP/MP digits as
it should.

* A group of monsters consisting of 2 Death Machines and at least 2

Prototypes would
overflow the 16-bit Experience reward, and would therefore yield a
paltry amount of
experience. The Experience rewards for these two enemies has
been adjusted to
sidestep this bug.

* Speaking of the Death Machine, it has been renamed for all you
nostalgic types...
to WarMECH.

* WarMECH is now encounterable on the fifth floor of Tiamat's

Floating Castle. Again.

* Soul of Chaos enemies now award slightly more experience. Big Eyes
give more EXP
and gold.

* The Sahagin Queen is less likely to use Acid Rain (that's deadly to
a 35th level
party). The Devil Wizard has less Intellect. Their Flare was just
too wicked
before... Also, the Skuldier is less cowardly than before (it's
undead after all).

* Stat items now only increase their respective stats by 1. No more

reloading to get
+2 or +3 bonuses... sorry power gamers ;-(

* A bug with Intellect was determined in which equipment was able to

increase Int over
 255, overflowing its byte. This has been fixed; Intellect is
properly capped at 255.

* Evasion is now gained at a rate of +1 per level for all characters.

Before, Evasion
would increase at level up ONLY if they had also gained Agility
that level.

* The Inn now properly heals party members by +9999 HP/MP. The
Cottage has the same
effect as sleeping at an Inn. Tents now heal +400 HP and restore
+150 MP, and
Sleeping Bags recover +150 HP.

Version 2.1 Changelog

*********************************************************

Final Fantasy 1:

* Sidestepped the Protera bug as found by Vertigo 1. When a monster

casts Protera and
there are more than 6 monsters present, it caused the game to
freeze. Dark Fighters
now may only appear in groups of six or less.

* Many weapons and armors are re-valued. In almost every case, this
resulted in lowered
purchase prices (and selling prices).

* Fixed a couple of textual display issues. When a character is

paralyzed during
battle, their name renders as "Stunned" rather than "Paralyzed" so
you can see
the character's HP. Also fixed is the battle Equipment listing
displays the
item quantities clearly.

* After casting the Comet spell, the caster now returns to the party
lineup properly.

Version 2.0 Changelog

*********************************************************

Final Fantasy 2:

* Weapons and magic levelling are hopefully balanced now. Magic is

easier
to level, weapons take a fair bit longer.

* Practicing a weapon or spell always increases a character's

skill, even
 if the monster attacked is significantly weaker than the character.

* Fixed a display bug concerning the number of hits connected when a

character
is using a shield.

If a character used a weapon in their primary hand, and a

shield in their
secondary hand, they struck with the shield, and if they hit
did no damage.
This has been corrected.

This bug still is in effect if the character uses a weapon in

their secondary
hand, and a shield in their primary hand.

* Monsters take double damage if vulnerable to a spell's element.

This is
reduced from x4 damage. Don't worry, this is still *plenty* of
damage.

* If an elemental weapon strikes a vulnerable monster, its Attack

rating is
increased by 25 (increased from 20).

* If a weapon which has an affinity for damaging a specific family of

monster
hits that kind of monster, its Attack rating is increased by 25
(increased
from 20).

* Strength increases more often. The chance was (number of "fight"

selections / 45), and it is now (number of "fight" selections /
32).

* Agility increases are more regulated- more likely early in the game
and less
likely later on. Before, a random number was rolled between 0 and
255, and if
that was lower than a fourth of the character's Evasion, Agility
increased.
Now, the random number rolled is now between 0 and 250, and the
Evasion is a
little less important in determining increase. Base chance to
increase Agility
is 2.0%, and maximum chance is 6.8%.

* Intellect increases more often. The chance was (number of black

magic
castings / 25), and it is now (number of black magic castings /
16).

* Spirit increases LESS often. The chance was (number of white magic
castings / 15),
and it is now (number of white magic castings / 20).

* MP increases more often. The chance should be about 25% more likely
than it was
before.
 * When a character gains HP, the increase is halved. The increase is
(STA / 2).

* Magic evasion gains take a bit longer. The threshold to gain Magic
evasion
was 99, and it is now 159.

* Characters start with different stats.

* NPCs also begin with different stats, and should be more balanced
with the
party when you meet them. Leon and Gordon also join the party
already equipped
with spells.

* Weapons, armor, and spells have been rebalanced. Enemy direct

damage spells will
be a bit more dangerous and require more planning to thwart.

* Monster stats have been modified slightly to moderately. Expect

that the final
bosses will not go down with a couple of well-placed elemental
spells.

Final Fantasy 1:

Version 2.0: New Features

* Samurai is recast as a Rogue. Their arsenal has changed slightly,

but still cast
the same spells (except Slow has been swapped in for Blizzard). Of
course Ninjas
are still the same old Ninjas :-)

* There have been several slight tweaks to the starting stats and
early level ups
for each class. In particular, I felt that Red Mages received no
love in early
level ups, and so I fixed this.

* Accuracy equation has been changed slightly. It is now

o Attackers Accuracy - Defender's Evasion + 120 = chance to hit
out of 161.
o The chance to hit is 10% minimum, and 90% maximum.
o The base chance to hit is 75%, ie when Attacker's Accuracy
and Defender's
Evasion are equal. This is increased from 67%.

* Spells that grant bonuses to Attack and Defense are now limited in
their
stackability. The cap on the bonuses was 255 before, now the cap
is 50. No more
one-shotting Soul of Chaos bosses.

* Damage spells inflict much more randomized damage. Damage is

between 1/2 to 3/2 of
spell's base power, before applying resistances. Luck and
Intellect play an even
larger part in the equation. Of course, this goes for enemies and
allies.

* The status screen now shows a character's number of strikes per

round and their
magic defense.

* The chance to be attacked in several dungeons has been tweaked

slightly.

* Chaos Temple level 5 now has very interesting, dangerous, and

rewarding encounters.

* Astos' Northwest Castle now has numerous Undead-themed random

encounters. No walking
around this haunted castle with impunity!

* The Sages' Staff has been realigned, and is now a White Wizard only
staff named the
"Holy Staff". It is pretty awesome, and it *is* rare.

* The more powerful restorative items have had their prices increased
dramatically.

* Staves in general are more useful. Defensive type weapons give

bonuses to Evasion.

* Elixirs and Megalixirs drop less often.

* The Paladin can now cast Curaga.

* The Hermes' Shoes now cast Haste as advertised. This was an issue
in v1.2, as they
used to cast Temper.

Version 1.2 and prior Changelog

*********************************************************

Final Fantasy 1

* Fighter/Knight has been renamed to Knight/Paladin, and Thief/Ninja

has been renamed
to Rogue/Ninja.

* Knight/Paladin is more defensive than offensive. Rogue/Ninja is a

lightning fast
assault trooper. Monk/Master is ever the unconventional,
survivalist type. The
White Mage/Wizard is the healer and defensive specialist, and can
take quite a
beating too. The Black Mage/Wizard is the undisputed master of
the magical nuke,
and the Red Mage/Wizard can do a bit of everything, but only to a
point.

* Changes to starting stats for the character classes, and their

developmental curves.
 * Item proficiencies have changed:
o Knights and Paladins cannot use most dark weapons, or weapons
of cruelty.
o Rogues can use heavier swords as did the Thief, including
some katanas.
Ninjas cannot use axes. Both classes only wear light armor
and cannot use most
conventional shields.
o Masters can use some katanas, if that is to your liking.
Nunchukas are useful
for a bit longer in this game.
o Black Mages cannot use the best daggers.
o White Mages and Wizards are proficient with almost all armor,
and their
hammers have been upgraded quite a bit.
o Red Mages now are more limited in the weapon choices, but can
use a bit more
armor.

* All of the classes possess at least some magical ability:

o Knights gain certain level 1-4 White Magic spells, and
Paladins can learn
up to level 5 White Magic spells.
o Rogues can learn certain level 1-4 Black Magic spells, and
Ninjas extend
that up to level 6.
o Monks learn special level 1-3 spells (might be classified
either as Black or
White), and Masters can learn level 4 spells.
o The spell ability of Red, White, and Black magicians have not
been altered.

* Characters gain less HP and MP per level, but have a slightly

better chance of
increasing stats at level up.

* Hit Rate increases at a different rate as stock FF1, and the rate
changes after
class change:
o Knight: +2/level, Paladin +3/level
o Rogue: +3/level, Ninja +4/level
o Monk: +2/level, Master +2/level
o Red Mage: +2/level, Red Wizard +2/level
o White Mage: +1/level, White Wizard: +2/level
o Black Mage: +1/level, Black Wizard: +1/level

* Likewise, Magic Defense increases at these rates:

o Knight: +2/level, Paladin +4/level
o Rogue: +1/level, Ninja +2/level
o Monk: +2/level, Master +3/level
o Red Mage: +3/level, Red Wizard +4/level
o White Mage: +4/level, White Wizard: +5/level
o Black Mage: +4/level, Black Wizard: +5/level

* Revamped the Monk's defense algorithm. Monks now receive a defense

bonus if
no armor is equipped, based on their Stamina, Intellect, and
Agility. Masters will
 receive a constant defense bonus (regardless of armor), based on
those same
statistics. Specifically:
o Monk/Master old algorithm: Armor (STA/2) + Helm (STA/8) +
Gloves (STA/8)
o Monk new armor rating: (STA/2) + (STA/8), or Armor equipped
o Monk new helm rating: INT/4, or Helm equipped
o Monk new gloves rating: AGI/4, or Gloves equipped
o Master new armor rating: STA/2 + Armor equipped
o Master new helm rating: INT/8 + Helm equipped
o Master new gloves rating: AGI/4 + Gloves equipped

* White Mages and Monks gain a +5 Attack bonus when using weapons.

* Comprehensive changes to weapons, armor, magic, monsters,

experience curve, etc.

* Comprehensively reworked all monster's Hit Rate and Evasion stats,

and realigned
the Evasion statistic for all character classes. Obviously, Rogues
and Monks are
the best at Evasion!

* Shops are completely realigned, and many shops sell more than five
items!

* Direct damage magic increases in power much more smoothly. The

nitty gritty:
The damage used to increase in a stair-step manner, adding 1 to the
multiplier
to damage every 10 Intellect points. Now, the multiplier
increases every 2
Intellect points, but each "stair" is less steep to make up for
the added number
of "stairs".

* Some magic has been swapped out for other more interesting spells.

* Did I mention that many changes have been made to the monster's
stats? They are
significantly tougher. The farther you go in the game, the more
you will realize
that they will not go down with a couple of well-placed sword
blows.

* Soul of Chaos bosses have been actually demoted in power a bit to

make them
possible to defeat, given that you will reach them at a lower level
than you might
have otherwise in stock Dawn of Souls.

* Every monster that you beat may drop an item. As you beat new
monsters, make sure
you visit the bestiary to see what you might earn with repeated
victories. You
can even earn the previously unattainable Angel's Ring!

* The gold earned from defeating most foes is significantly lowered.

You will
 earn a much greater percentage of your gold, especially in the
early to mid
game, by finding treasure chests in the main storyline. Gold
management will be
key to early advancement.

* Minor adjustments to the AI of various monsters. For instance,

Goblin Guards now
cast some magic and Yellow Ogres don't run as often.

* Minor adjustments to where monsters may appear in the game.

* When striking a monster prone to the elemental or racial properties

of a
weapon, the bonus to attack power has increased from 4 to 25. Use
weapons that
exploit the weaknesses of your enemy, especially in the early to
mid game!

* All critical hits gain an additional 50% bonus to attack power

(previous bonus
was 25%).

* Direct damage magic has been realigned slightly. The most powerful
spells
(Firaga, Thundaga, Blizzaga, Diaga, Holy and Flare) grow in power
faster.
The lower powered spells (Fire, Thunder, Blizzard, Pain, and Dia)
have a lower
base damage, making them initially less powerful.

* Dia family spells effect evil and demonic creatures as well as the
undead.
Yes, it will even work against Garland and Astos! It also works
against the
FF4 elemental fiends.

* Temper increases Attack by 25. Zeal increases Attack by 16 for all

allies.
Saber increases Attack by 25 and Hit Rate by 30.

* The White Magic Rally spell now cures the Mute condition.

* Ninjas may cast the Level 6 Black Magic spell Death.

* Removed the 255 cap for damage-per-hit. The code actually limited
each hit
to 255 damage.

* Soul of Chaos bosses now correctly award experience; they didn't in

previous
versions due to a hard-coded conditional check.

* Golden and Silver Apples, as well as Soma Drops now increase HP and
MP beyond
999.

* Characters kneel in battle when they have less than 1/5 HP.
Previous threshold
was 1/10 HP.

* Removed the 2,000,000 experience cap, allowing for the full

development of
your characters with my experience curve.

* Removed the 999 cap for HP and MP. The cap is now 9999, if you can
ever get
that many Golden and Silver Apples.

* Raised the cap for Strength, Agility, Stamina, Intellect, and Luck
to 255.
Previous cap was 99.

* Removed the 255 cap for a character's base Hit Rate.

Extraordinarily high
level Ninjas will appreciate this.

Known issues
*********************************************************

Final Fantasy 1:
* The Character Class select screen does not display well, but is
clear of
all show-stopping bugs. The last 6 classes do not display
correctly,
either as avatars or in the list. When selecting them, pay
attention to
the description at the bottom of the screen.

* In the Bestiary, the traveling music and battle music play

simultaneously.

To convert your Final Fantasy 1 and 2: Dawn of Souls ROM

*********************************************************

The following applies this and all future releases of the Ludmeister's Mod of
Balance.

0. First of all, you will need to obtain a clean GBA ROM of Final Fantasy 1 and 2:
Dawn of Souls. You are on your own for this step, as it is illegal to provide
ROMs
of copyrighted material. There are sites that do provide this ROM though, and
you
should be able to obtain it.

1. When you get it, make a backup of it if you would want to play the stock
version,
play another mod, or, in case I post an updated version of the mod here... I am
not
going to make version 1.0 to "version whatever" patches for my mods, for
instance.
2. Download the newest version of Ludmeister's Mod of Balance.

3. Use the IPS patching program of your choice to apply the .ips patch to the
correct ROM. As I use IPS XP (http://home.arcor.de/minako.aino/ipsXP/) to
create my patches, I recommend using this program to patch your ROM.

4. I hope you enjoy it!

*NOTE*

So here I am violating my own rule. Since this patch represents a major difference

from the gameplay of Final Fantasy 1, having removed the class change which was one
of the most innovative things about the game, I elected to make a version 2.2 to
3.3
patch. You may elect to apply the v2.2 patch to a stock ROM, and then apply the
v2.2 to v3.3 patch at a later time if you so choose.