The Official Final Fantasy II FAQ!

[kriminal99]

Spells in this game work like melee attacks. A lvl 12 spell (offensive or defensive) is applied 12 separate times with 12 separate "to - hit" rolls. Even support spells have this calculation. If it's a damage spell, you get just as many free hits on top of the ones with a chance to hit. If it is a status effect spell, there are no free layers but the effect occurs if even a single layer hits. If it's a temporary status effect, then the number of layers that hit determine how long it lasts. If it's permanent or instant death, all that matters is if a single layer hits.

So each spell has a base damage and a base accuracy. Most damage spells it is 10 base damage, holy 15, flare 20, cure 20, life 0. Status effect spells it is 5, except fear which is 20. These count in case the monster absorbs that spell family.

Accuracies, most beneficial spells have 50% base accuracy. Teleport used to have 0 base accuracy, but they upped it seemingly to a ridiculous 50% to match the other white spells in the new versions. That makes it one of the most powerful spells in the game, as very few monsters resist matter attacks and fewer still (like one or 2 bosses) absorbs it so it can't be dispelled.

Warp, Death 10%, Mini, Break 20% Toad 30%. Note that all of these are pretty much inferior to Teleport in battle (death element is resisted more than matter in every case, the rest are matter element) but warp doesn't eat hp out of battle like teleport does, and toad unlocks awesome minigame.

Status effects:
Fog 20%, Stop, Confuse, Silence, Slow, Swap 30%, Sap, Dispel, Curse, Stun 40%
Sleep, Blind 50% (Some inferior spells in here as well)

So you add your INT/SPI minus equipment penalties to the base accuracy. Weapons/Shields have no penalties in the new version, but they were pretty substantial (up to -70)before (save daggers/staffs). Armor penalties are large except for curiasses which only have -1. Protect ring, ribbon, gold hairpin, some other non armourish sounding armor have minimal penalty as well.

So if you have a bunch of heavy armor, you just use the base accuracy of the spell, otherwise you a much better chance to hit. White magic still works ok with armor on, but black insta kill and serious status effects aren't likely to hit and damage spells do less damage do to missing all the non free hits.

Damage, you add INT or SPI divided by 2 (4 in old versions) to the damage. This isn't effected by armor. Also damage is slightly randomized with a 1.5 mean. Since each single attack has so many separately randomized components, overall damage doesn't go to far from the mean (low Standard deviation)

Everyone knows ultima gets stronger with other Spell/Weapon levels.

Rank up formula: Each enemy has a rank, they only go to rank 7. Players are rank 2. It's stupid the way it works really, if you play naturally you will probably never get above lvl 8 spell/skills. XP all depends on number of uses of that spell skill during the battle, the rank of the first target (highest rank for multitarget) and the number of additional times the spell/skill was used. You get a starting bonus in each case that is added to the enemy rank.

Weapons have a higher starting bonus, but spells get 2 xp for every additional use instead of one. If the Rank + Additional uses doesn't exceed the current weapon level you don't get any xp, and if it does, you get weapon level less xp. For spells the spell level is still subtracted from the ending xp, but there is no initial barrier to overcome.

HP and MP, stamina and magic go up based on the percent net loss of hp/mp througout the battle. Anyways you can lose the majority of either before the battle ends will trigger growth. Sap, Swap, instadeath then revive, omsose (the target), etc etc.

Arcane Labrynth, Once you have enough terms to get through it, you should be able to get any weapon at least by the time you get the character it is for. Some of the guides say otherwise, but they are wrong. The timing of when you use each word matters, use the best ones first and make sure you don't use words that are good for someone else unless you have no choice.