Okay guys, I'm sort of back... been a while.

Anybody have any idea if there's a way to manipulate a character's HP settings in RPGM3?

For instance, my concern is that I want to set up events where, if the character completes a task, they can receive a bonus to their stats. I seem to be able to manipulate the character abilities in party control mode, but when I look around, I see nothing that mentions increasing the character's HP or MP by any number of increments.

Can anybody help me solve this issue? It's part of my my recent project, changed the name on it though before my dev. studio was sent to the recycle bin... Picked the project back up and trying to overcome this ONE small detail.

You can't. The only way to do it is to increase the characters level.

Thought as much... grrr... I'll find a way around it... I think I'll have to manipulate it via leveling up then. Thanks Lausen.

One way of doing it would be to make it so your characters don't level up. Instead making it so the player can select the stats themselves. Then making HP and MP like a bundle thing. Once they buy that then you will increase a level, but it won't affect any of the other stats. Just one way around it. Good luck, and welcome back.

I have no idea what you just said.

But yes, this RPG has no leveling up system. I was hoping to have it set up like a Legend of Zelda style system, where you find items, defeat bosses in order to gain health increments...

Let me explain. Say your enemies have random drops called "ability points." When you earn one you can go to an event and trade in one "ability point" for a stat increase. Like 1 point to your overall defense.

If you wanted to increase your HP/MP you'd have to do them together because the only way to increase them is through level ups. So you would make that cost more "ability points" since two stats would be increasing.

So in a sense the player would have complete control of how they spend the "ability points" and how the character progresses. I did something like this in Evil Fantasy, and it can really add a layer of stratagy. It's a pain to playtest though since there's no one way to grow.

Hope that makes more sense.

Ah yes, it makes sense now. Thank you for the feedback.

For now I think I'm just going to write specific events where the player will level up, and then reduce the rest of their stats back down, the only thing I'm concerned about is HP/MP increase, the rest of the stats will remain the same, just because of the way I'm designing the enemies, this is the best balance I have for the game.

That's a pretty cool way to get around it. I hadn't thought of that.

I did that same thing! I handed out an Hp/Mp bundle for completing each segment of the game (after each boss fight). Stats like Strength and stuff only increase by equipping better weapons and armor (and a few accessories). It was indeed much easier to balance the game. The increase of stats along with the Hp/Mp complicated matters greatly and made the numbers higher than I wanted them to be; so that idea met the axe.

I ran up against the same wall that you did, Zane (and settled upon a similar solution). It's a shame that Hp and Mp have to be increased together. It would've been nifty to have separate potions that increase them when used, thus affording the player some freedom to make choices and an opportunity for variety in playing style.

Alrighty, so test results are back in with the HP manip. and things couldn't be better.

The REAL test was figuring out a sound way to get this to work for up to 9 character classes while using as little amount of memory as possible(coz I gotta do this 9 times total)

Finished a beta version of my first boss battle, and after some tweaking, I now have it set up for whichever character class(play through as 1 of 9 classes) the player chooses, each will gain the health bonus after defeating the boss. Huzzah! I still have tons of memory left on my mem card too for lots more programming fun times! ^_^

That kind of blows to hear about the MP/HP thing. I always like to have a few items that the player finds to get instant boosts in those areas, and now I'm hearing that they have to level up to see any effects.

I was making some items that Increase a stat, like magical def, say and could only be used once, I also set them up so that they had an additional effect, and I supposed that that would only work in battle. It would give the player a choice: Do I use the item now, and gain a permanent increase now, or do I save it and use it to help with a particularly tough boss?

This is off the top of my head so I could be wrong. I'm a little rusty. But in RPGM3, I thought the only way you could improve a stat is by a weapon/armor/shield/accessory depending on which stat you wanted to improve (i.e. mDef would be via armor or shield, maybe accessory) or you could improve a stat by leveling up or by having an event change your stat (but not HP or MP). In other words, by having a one time use change it sounds like you are talking about making it an 'item' but I don't think items can be used to change those stats unlike say RPGM1 where 'food' can do this.

The only way I see around this is if you are using treasures to trigger an event to change the stat, the event removing the treasure upon granting the stat change but the player would always have to be at or in the proximity of the event to do this. Again, I am a little rusty so I could be wrong.

Stats like MDef can indeed be improved with accessories, but only for as long as the accessory is equipped. Take it off and you lose whatever benefit it was bestowing.

Just think of the possibilities! Items that can increase MaxHp, MaxMp, or a permanent upgrade to stats when used. It would've allowed for creative playing styles.

what I'm doing is setting up an item to "Enhance" and then selecting an effect. Effects are things like "Magic Defense Up," or "Encounters Down,"
I'm setting the item to have somewhere between 1-5 points of effect, making the item only effect one person, and setting it such that it can only be used once.
Forgive me, but that sounds like what "food" does in RM1.

So when you say "gain a permanent increase now" you really mean a temporary one now (that occurs only for the present battle), right?

If that is what you mean then I understand what you are saying.

No. I thought you could use items any time you wanted; In or out of battle. So what I meant was "do I use the Item right now (after it is found) or do I save it and pull it out to give a temporary(but generally larger/better) increase in a tough battle later on.

In RPGM3, if you want to "use" an "item" that increases magic defense I'm pretty sure it can only be done during battle. Non-battle "item" use I think is limited to healing, curing poison, increasing mp or special things like escaping a dungeon or having encounters down.

Otherwise if you want to prepare before battle in a way that temporarily increases your magic defense, you either have to incorporate the use of equipped armor (maybe accessories) or use event code to modify the mDEF stat paramater.

Well I can see how that would work, but my intent was to have some items that were laying about, or were given as a reward for a sub quest, that would grant a permanent increase to a stat, OR you could use it later as a temporary boost during a battle later. I wasn't trying to set up anything definite, just a choice on the part of the player.