How do you build your characters?

[druinmaster]

How do bows kill your magic?

bows have a scary large 70 int/soul penalty a decent idea though is equiping it to attack and unequiping it to use magic to avoid the evil penalty the bonus penalty thing is hard to understand or see for that matter
and if your wearing the right armors you have no in battle int or soul anyway the best way to explain the magic difference is use a spell on a monster wearing all your gear then remove all your gear and recast the spell

[rubah]

And you know this how? x.x;

[Sefie1999AD]

I don't think FFII DoS has much int/soul penalties, if any, but yes, it's actually correct that the bows will considerably hurt your magic. According to DJZen's studies, bows and shields have the biggest penalties on Intelligence and Soul stats. That's why, knives/daggers, most staffs/canes and even bare fists are probably the most suitable weapons for mage characters.

[Peter_20]

*refreshes FFII forum*

Firion- I make him a Paladin, with white magic and swords
Maria- I make her a Black Mage, with black magic and bows
Guy- Guy hits things. With axes.
Leon- He also hits things. With...lots of things.

Yeah, I'm not very creative. But anyway. How do you build your characters? I've always wanted to try out bare fists, I hear that's like the best at the highest levels or something.

That's exactly the way I build my characters.
I often found Leon to be a left-over, though, because his physical attacks were always inferior to Gus. XD

The first times I played this game, I was madly in love with the Fighter/Black Mage/White Mage formation, so I actually used to play like this:

FIRION: Fighter
MARIA: White Mage
GUS: Black Mage
LEON: Fighter

Worst party ever. XD

[rubah]

I studied the charts on your site, and I really don't see how a INT/Soul penalty works into this? (I'm playing a NES rom) Frioniel was casting Holy5 and doing in the low 200s dmg with it the other night with genji equipment and all sorts of fun stuff, and now, I've got him equipped with the masamune, ribbon, and black robe, which are all supposed to be with no penalty at all, and it's still doing damage in the low 200s.

Just to make sure, I requipped him with all the equipment supposedly penalizing magic-- sun sword, genji helmet, a shield, genji armor, diamond glove, and he's still doing in the low 200s with holy5.

I equipped Guy similarly, except bare fisted instead of with masamune, and he had been doing about 30-40 dmg with holy1 and he's still doing about 30-40 dmg like this.