THE OPTIMAL RM2K/3 NUMBER GUIDE

The point of this guide is to explain how 2k/3 works by default, and then how to optimize it so that you can better balance your game. If you're starting or even in the middle of a 2k/3 project and wish to renovate it, follow this topic!

I'd suggest googling/looking in this forum for Aten's David and Goliath patches.

You can read the help manual by following instructions given here. The manual isn't perfect, however! Especially for numbers, the best place to consult is this topic.


Whenever the word "default" is used, it means calculations without the optimal attribute fiddling I'm going to present. The word "optimal" means calculations with the to-be-described attribute fiddling.

Health/Hit Points (HP)
Don't die
Your HP determines how long you have to live. Damage goes directly to your HP, and you're dead when it hits zero.
-Every point of HP is one point of damage you can take before you die

Mana/Magic Points (MP)
Cast those spells
MP is consumed when using skills. That's it.
-Every point of MP you have is a point of MP you can spend

Attack (ATK)
Boom boom pow
ATK determines how much damage you do with weapons and physical skills.
-Every two points of ATK you have raises your default weapon damage by one
-Every two points of ATK you have raises your default physical skill damage by one, when Attack Influence is ten
Optimized:
-Every point of ATK you have raises your optimal weapon damage by one
-Every point of ATK you have raises your optimal physical skill damage by one, when Attack Influence is five

Defense (DEF)
Metal slimes go
DEF protects you from physical attacks.
-Every four points of DEF you have lowers the default physical damage you take by one
-Every four points of DEF you have lowers the default physical skill damage you take by one, when Attack Influence is ten
Optimized:
-Every two points of DEF you have lowers the optimal physical damage you take by one
-Every two points of DEF you have lowers the optimal physical skill damage you take by one, when Attack Influence is five

Intelligence (INT)
Mysticality
Your INT increases the amount of magical damage you do, and lowers the amount of magical damage you take. It is the most complex stat, acting as both an offensive and defense element.
-Every four points of INT you have raises your default magical skill damage by one, when Intelligence Influence is ten
-Every eight points of INT you have lowers the default magical skill damage you take by one, when Intelligence Influence is ten
Optimized:
-Every point of INT you have raises your optimal magical skill damage by one, when Intelligence Influence is five
-Every two points of INT you have lowers the optimal magical skill damage you take by one, when Intelligence Influence is five

Agility (AGI)
Riiiiidge Racer!
The AGI statistic is used to determine your speed in battle, and your accuracy with normal attacks. How it actually works is a mystery to probably even Enterbrain.
-Every point of AGI might raise your speed. Maybe. If you're lucky. It also has a tiny impact on your weapon accuracy. Heh?
Optimized:
-Every point of AGI does something, maybe? It's much more standardized, at least.

INCREDIBLE 2023 UPDATE: AGI does affect normal and physical attack accuracy, but specifically the amount of missing accuracy a weapon has. What this means is that AGI is going to more dramatically affect a 85%-to-hit weapon than a 95%-to-hit weapon, and will not affect a 100%-to-hit weapon. I would need to do actual testing to see if Blind-type ailments are mitigated by AGI.

In general, you can take the difference between two battlers' AGI, subtract 100, divide by 100, and that's the amount that "missing" accuracy will be affected by.

Accuracy (ACC/HIT)
Did I really just miss again
ACC is an invisible stat, and is different for normal attacks and skills. Your ACC is the percent chance that your action will connect with its target.
-For weapons, ACC is determined by the equipped weapon's Hit Probability (from now on called "HIT%"), and is somewhat affected by wielder's and target's AGI. AGI is ignored if the "ignore enemy evasion" box is ticked for the weapon
-For skills, ACC is the HIT% (Success Rate box) of the skill
-For enemies, HIT% is 90, then affected by AGI, like a weapon. An enemy's HIT% can be lowered to 70% by ticking a monster's "Attacks Often Miss" box

INCREDIBLE 2023 UPDATE: See above. But ALSO, for skills, it uses the normal attack formula if it's set to the physical dodge miss message.

Critical Hit Rate (CRI)
Lucky day
CRI is an invisible stat, based on the hero and his weapon, or the monster. Your CRI is the percent chance that your attack will deal 300% damage. This only affects normal attacks.
-For heroes, the CRI is equal to 1/x, where x is the number in the Critical Hit Probability box. Thus, with an x of 10, there is a 10% (1/10) chance; with an x of 25, there is a 4% (1/25) chance
-On top of a hero's base CRI, a weapon's flat Critical Bonus is added - so with a Critical Bonus of 15, the weapon has an additional 15% chance to get a critical hit
-Monsters cannot achieve a critical hit (they have a CRI of 0) unless the Critical Hit Probability box is ticked. If so, it works exactly like a hero
-CRI can be ignored if the target has a piece of equipment with "Prevent Critical Hits" ticked

Evasion (EVA)
I just dodged that kraken
EVA is an invisible stat for heroes. It is directly subtracted from ACC (I am almost positive), and can only be gained by ticking the "Increased Evasion" box on a piece of equipment.
I believe it works in either one of two ways, the latter being the more likely. I'd test more, but I really dislike 2k3 and nobody should use it anyway. If anybody could confirm either way, I'd be glad to hear it. In any case, it's a fairly sizable amount of EVA!
-Increased Evasion triples the miss rate of normal attacks OR
-Increased Evasion sets your EVA to 25% - so normal attacks miss you 25% of the time

Targeting Chance (ODDS?)
I'mma just gonna hide here
Targeting Chance is an invisible stat on heroes, based on the row they are in. I am not entirely sure that it actually exists, but I'm pretty sure. More testing by others would be appreciated.
According to a test with one character in the front row and a second in the back row...
IF SOMEBODY WANTS TO TEST THIS MORE FOR ME, FEEL FREE.
-The front row is hit ~60% of the time
-The back row is hit ~40% of the time





Weapon Accuracy: 100 - (100 - Attacker's Weapon Hit%) * (1 + (Target's AGI / Attacker's AGI - 1) / 2)
Examples:
When a 125 AGI Attacker with a 90% Hit weapon attacks a target with 100 AGI, the resulting hit rate is 91%.
When a 140 AGI Attacker with a 70% Hit weapon attacks a target with 85 AGI, the resulting hit rate is 76%.
When a 400 AGI Attacker with a 95% Hit weapon attacks a target with 600 AGI, the resulting hit rate is 93%.
As you can see, AGI doesn't have a tremendous effect on accuracy, but it's present. The lower the weapon's accuracy, the more profound the difference AGI makes is. For the sake of balance, you can likely ignore AGI's effect on accuracy - but not on speed.

Note that if a weapon "ignores monster evasion," the hit rate is just the weapon's HIT%. If the Target is stunned/asleep/cannot move, the Attacker's hit rate is automatically 100%.


Weapon Damage: (Attacker's ATK / 2) - (Target's DEF / 4)
Examples:
These examples assume that attributes (elements) are at 100%. They probably shouldn't be; more on this later. The relation of ATK to DEF doesn't change, however, so the following examples still provide a basis for understanding how this all works.
When a 40 ATK Attacker attacks a target with 40 DEF, the resulting damage is ~10.
When an 80 ATK Attacker attacks a target with 40 DEF, the resulting damage is ~30.
When a 40 ATK Attacker attacks a target with 80 DEF, the resulting damage is ~0.

When a 250 ATK Attacker attacks a target with 250 DEF, the resulting damage is ~62.
When an 500 ATK Attacker attacks a target with 300 DEF, the resulting damage is ~175.
When a 325 ATK Attacker attacks a target with 520 DEF, the resulting damage is ~32.
If you balance ATK to be always roughly the same as DEF on both characters and enemies (the way it's supposed to be; more on this in the Character Stats section), you can assume that damage is going to be the attacker's ATK / 4.

Note that damage has a set variance of +-20%; in the 40 ATK vs. 40 DEF example, the damage will be 8-12. If the Target is defending, damage taken is halved (so damage would be, using the same example, 4-6). If the Target is defending and has the "super guard" trait ticked in the Heroes tab, that damage is quartered, resulting in 2-3 damage.


Weapon Skill Damage: Base Damage + (Attacker's ATK / 20 * ATK Influence) - (Target's DEF / 40 * ATK Influence)
Examples:
Attack Influence is the 0-10 bar for skills that determines how much ATK/DEF is used to determine damage. At default levels, ATK Inf 10 means that the game does normal physical attack damage, plus whatever flat damage the skill does. At optimized levels, we're going to make normal damage be at ATK Inf 5, so that you can make skills that are, say, 120% of normal damage.
When a 40 ATK Attacker uses a 10 damage/10 ATK Inf skill on a target with 40 DEF, the resulting damage is ~20.
When a 80 ATK Attacker uses a 10 damage/10 ATK Inf skill on a target with 40 DEF, the resulting damage is ~40.
When a 40 ATK Attacker uses a 10 damage/10 ATK Inf skill on a target with 80 DEF, the resulting damage is ~10.

When a 150 ATK Attacker uses a 10 damage/10 ATK Inf skill on a target with 150 DEF, the resulting damage is ~47.
When a 150 ATK Attacker uses a 10 damage/7 ATK Inf skill on a target with 150 DEF, the resulting damage is ~36.
When a 150 ATK Attacker uses a 10 damage/5 ATK Inf skill on a target with 150 DEF, the resulting damage is ~28.
When a 150 ATK Attacker uses a 10 damage/2 ATK Inf skill on a target with 150 DEF, the resulting damage is ~17.

When a 400 ATK Attacker uses a 50 damage/5 ATK Inf skill on a target with 400 DEF, the resulting damage is ~100.
When a 400 ATK Attacker uses a 250 damage/5 ATK Inf skill on a target with 400 DEF, the resulting damage is ~300.
When a 400 ATK Attacker uses a 50 damage/5 ATK Inf skill on a target with 300 DEF, the resulting damage is ~112.
When a 400 ATK Attacker uses a 250 damage/5 ATK Inf skill on a target with 300 DEF, the resulting damage is ~312.


Magic Skill Damage: Base Damage + (Attacker's INT / 40 * INT Influence) - (Target's INT / 80 * INT Influence)
Examples:
Intelligence Influence is the 0-10 bar for skills that determines how much INT is used to determine damage. At default levels, INT Inf 10 means that the game does "normal" magical attack damage, plus whatever flat damage the skill does. At optimized levels, we're going to make normal damage be the same as physical attack damage at INT Inf 5, so that you can more easily make skills that are competitive with physical attacks based on a character's ATK:INT ratio.
When a 40 INT Attacker uses a 10 damage/10 INT Inf skill on a target with 40 INT, the resulting damage is ~15.
When a 80 INT Attacker uses a 10 damage/10 INT Inf skill on a target with 40 INT, the resulting damage is ~25.
When a 40 INT Attacker uses a 10 damage/10 INT Inf skill on a target with 80 INT, the resulting damage is ~10.

Notice how much weaker the INT stat is compared to ATK, with the default settings!
When a 150 INT Attacker uses a 10 damage/10 INT Inf skill on a target with 150 INT, the resulting damage is ~28.
When a 150 INT Attacker uses a 10 damage/7 INT Inf skill on a target with 150 INT, the resulting damage is ~23.
When a 150 INT Attacker uses a 10 damage/5 INT Inf skill on a target with 150 INT, the resulting damage is ~19.
When a 150 INT Attacker uses a 10 damage/2 INT Inf skill on a target with 150 INT, the resulting damage is ~13.

When a 400 INT Attacker uses a 50 damage/5 INT Inf skill on a target with 400 INT, the resulting damage is ~75.
When a 400 INT Attacker uses a 250 damage/5 INT Inf skill on a target with 400 INT, the resulting damage is ~275.
When a 400 INT Attacker uses a 50 damage/5 INT Inf skill on a target with 300 INT, the resulting damage is ~81.
When a 400 INT Attacker uses a 250 damage/5 INT Inf skill on a target with 300 INT, the resulting damage is ~281.





The following settings will create the optimized outputs for stats, described above in the Character Stats section. They work due to multiplying how powerful each stat is - but it also multiplies the base (flat) damage of skills, too; more on that later.

B-level damage is considered "normal." This is different from 2k3's defaults!

Weapons: A 400 | B 200 | C 100 | D 0 | E -200
Use these numbers for normal weapon attacks, applied to equipped swords and clubs and whatnot. This includes elemental properties of weapons - Swrd-Fire and Staf-Ice could potentially be some of your attributes. If you're just lumping all weapons into a general physical damage attribute, you'd just need Phys/Phys-Fire/Phys-Ice/Phys-Mud/whatever.

Physical Skills: A 800 | B 400 | C 200 | D 0 | E -400
Use these numbers for physical skill attacks. This might very well include the exact same elements as the previous category, but you'll noticed the numbers are doubled - because of this, at Attack Influence 5, a skill will do the same damage as a normal attack.

Magical Skills: A 1600 | B 800 | C 400 | D 0 | E -800
Use these numbers for magical skill attacks. Anything governed primarily by Intelligence should use this category of attributes. These are your basic Fire/Poison/Blood/Psychic/etc. elements. At Intelligence Influence 5, a character with a 1:1 ATK:INT ratio will deal the same amount of damage as a normal physical attack.

A final, quick note: the base damage of skills is also going to be multiplied by 4 or 8, if it's physical or magical. So, "base damage 10" for a physical attack will really mean "base damage 40!" Make sure you don't accidentally over-power your skills.