Workaround mania continues! Are you annoyed that RM2K3 doesn't show MP damage or MP recovery by default? This will allow you to show MP damage on multiple characters at once without having to make a battle animation for each specific MP value, subject to the limitations described herein.



How to Make it Work

1. Set your battle characters to be placed automatically under "Battle Layout". This workaround doesn't work with manual placement.

2. Set up each terrain grid identically. This is best done by copying and pasting one terrain to all the others, then setting their specific attributes individually.

3. Take screenshots of a party with four characters with the same battle charset in your party.

4. Use an image editing program to measure the distance between the same point on one battle charset to the next battle charset down.

5. Make a one-cell battle animation with just the word "MP" (or whatever your MP value is called) in it.

6. In the Animations section of the editor, create a Global-Scope battle animation with that one cell as the only component. Try to place the cell just to the left of where the topmost character in the party will be.

7. To test, deal damage to the first character in your party, then show the "MP" battle animation (with no wait in-between).

8. If the "MP" and the damage value don't line up, repeat steps 6 and 7 until they do. Don't worry about matching the bounce of the damage value just yet. You'll do this later.

9. Once the first "MP" animation is aligned with the damage value for the topmost character, place additional copies of this cell a distance from each other equal to the amount you measured in step 4. This will cover the other characters.

10. Verify that all of the animations are aligned with the damage values.

11. Adjust the animation so the "MP" animations match the bounce of the damage value.

12. To conceal the fact that you're actually using damage values, do the following when you're about to show MP damage in this way:

(X is the amount of MP damage to be dealt)

- Raise the target character's maximum HP by X. 

- Heal X of the character's HP. 

- Damage the character by X. 

- Lower the character's maximum HP by X. 

Important: You must heal the character before showing the damage! Showing the damage after the heal forces the healed HP value to disappear before it can show up. This is necessary in order to maintain the illusion (ignore the man behind the curtain...).


Local Scope MP damage

You can make a local scope version of this effect by following steps 1-8, 11, and 12 above, relative to the target displayed in the battle animation window.


Limitations and Caveats

- This technique relies on battle events. To make use of this technique, skills that cause MP damage must be switch skills.

- This technique can't be used to show MP damage dealt to all monsters at once, since they will have a different pattern depending on the monster party. The best you can do is show a local-scope animation on each monster, much like how Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy 2 for the NES dealt with damage.

- This technique can't be used with default items that recover MP.