ROM Hack - Seiken Densetsu 3 / Trials of Mana - Class Balance + No Skill Counter

Hack description

Seiken Densetsu 3 / Trials of Mana -- Class Balance + No Skill Counter

v3.5, by hmsong

For the most part, the original game's class system was rather poorly balanced. Usually, one class outclassed the other three (ex: Hawk's Nightblade), while for others, one class was completely underwhelming (ex: Lise's Dragon Master). Sometimes, both. The purpose of these patches are to balance things out, so that all classes are good in their own rights.

While plenty of bugs exist in the original game, there are some major bugs that made the game balancing different than it would have been:

- Accuracy and Evasion doesn't work. That means things like Speed Up/Down, Duran's shields, and probably numerous other things have no effect one way or another. However, Agility still affects the power of the throw items and numerous skills.
- Critical hits don't exist in the game, which makes Luck stat and Energy Ball completely useless. And according to praetarius5018, critical hits broke the game, since it usually ended up making the enemies far too powerful.

Praetarius5018 (the creator of Sin of Mana) released a bug-fix patch that fixes most of the bugs, including the ones I mentioned above. While that patch is compatible with my patch (whew~~), it is sadly not compatible with the official Trials of Mana.

There are three patches for balancing the classes -- Skills, Stats, and Equipments. They are intended to be used together, but they do not depend on each other (some people may prefer one without the other). However, for convenience, I included a bundle package that has all three patches. See the attached document for more detail.

The Skill patch also includes an optional patch, No Skill Counter. In the original game, if you attacked some enemies with a screen-freezing skill (ex: magic, Lv2/3 tech), they would counter with their own powerful skills. This made almost all enemy-targeting skills completely useless (Angela suffered the most), which made the original game very stale, as you'd be stuck doing the same boring melee damage over and over again. This patch disables that counter. However, some enemies will still use counter skills if their HP gets too low.

Obviously, some classes will still be better than the others, but hopefully, the gaps between those classes are significantly less than the original game.

Applying Notes:

- To combine Better Starting Stats patch, apply Better Starting Stats patch first, then apply this patch.
- This is specifically for No Header ROM. If you only have a Headered ROM, then you can use TUSH (https://retrohackers.net/utility-details.php?id=608/) to remove the header.
- Compatible with the English NCorlett-translation patch. But again, you need a Unheadered ROM. If you are using the translation patch from Romhacking.net, then you need to apply the translation to a Headered ROM first, then use TUSH to remove the header. And then you can apply these patches.
- Compatible with the new Trials of Mana ROM, released in 2019. But again, you need a Unheadered ROM.
- Compatible with praetarius5018's bugfix patch. However, depending on the patching order, there may be slight differences (ex: Equipment effects, Evade stats, and No Skill Counter if you use it).

There are other hacks for Seiken Densetsu 3 that you should check out:

Sin of Mana
- http://ngplus.net/index.php?/files/file/28-seiken-densetsu-3-sin-of-mana/
- This changes the contents of the game in many ways, such as equipment bonus, level-up change, class balance, difficulty, boss behaviors, running in battles, MP regeneration, dungeon format, and tons of bug fixes. It's a completely new game though, since so much has changed, and the game progress is slightly different.
- There is also a forum (google "Sin of Mana forum"), where you can ask the creator (praetarius5018) numerous questions. He is very helpful, and even helps you to create your own hack. He certainly did for me.
- Sin of Mana is NOT compatible with the new Trials of Mana.
- Sin of Mana is NOT compatible with hmsong's patches.

Please leave comments or reviews on the balance patches. This would give the creator ideas on what is good or not, and depending on the situation, even revise the patches.

If you have any questions or find errors, please PM hmsong on Romhacking.net (click the name, then click the name next to "Forum Account", then click "Send PM").

Also, check out the SD3 hack discussion forum at:
https://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=33648

Contributor	Type of contribution	Description
hmsong	Original Hacking

Reviews

A welcome spice of variety and balance!	Red Soul	2021-11-09	Version 2.6
If you are a Seiken Densetsu 3/Trials of Mana veteran, you likely tried most character/class combinations the game allows for as well as many sort of different compositions, but maybe the game started becoming stale? If the answer is yes, give this great patch a try. Things get mixed up in interesting (but thematically appropriate) ways, like giving Ninja Master Hawk a speed up spell and giving Kevin's final classes broader access to moon magic. There are separate patches that balance attributes, skills and equipment that can be used separately to better fit the player's preference (although the most noticeable effects show when they are used as intended - together). As an awesome bonus, "No Skill Counter" is another optional patch that tones down the annoying tendency of the game to knee-jerk react to Lv2 and 3 Techs (Class Strikes in the new jargon) or multi-targeting spells, making magic and tech use a lot more fun and viable; enemies still react from time to time, but nowhere as egregiously often. Bottom line: use these patches to have a fresh and fun experience.

Recommended	soul_knight	2021-10-10	Version 2.3
This is a little difficult to review, since there's so much content, and I couldn't test out all the aspects of all classes. So I'll base my review mostly on the document provided. The patch definitely did exactly what it wanted - balance out the classes of the characters, whether in skill pool, stats, and equipment. At least, better than the original game (most characters got stronger, but some characters, like Lise's LD and DD classes, got weaker). One problem. No Skill Counter being active means that the player could never see some of enemy skills, because some skills can only come out as a counter. I think that's the case for many bosses, like Black Rabite. Still, I suppose No Skill Counter has far more positives than negatives (esp for Angela).

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