Magic Stones (魔石力, ^?) are stones in Final Fantasy IX that permit the player characters to use their support abilities. They are specifically used as part of the game mechanics, and can never be used in any other way.

A specific number of stones must be equipped to a support ability in order for it to be functional in battles. Since the supply of magic stones for each character is always limited, and each ability has a different cost of magic stones, the support abilities can never be equipped all at once. The stones can never be collected as usable items in the game outside of the menu, and serve no other purpose than to limit the amount of support abilities equipped. Nevertheless, the maximum number of the stones gradually rise accordingly with the character's level, allowing the player to eventually use more than before.

Beside the name of each support ability is a round slot; a magic stone being inside the slot indicates it is currently equipped to the character; likewise, an empty slot shows the reverse. If all the magic stones have been equipped, then all the unequipped support abilities become grayed out and cannot be selected until enough magic stones have been unequipped. The main menu keeps track of the remaining and maximum number of magic stones for each character.

Each character has a magic stone bonus that goes up with level, but unlike the other stats there is no way to increase it with equipment, meaning there is no way to increase the number of available stones; every character will always have the same number of magic stones upon reaching level 99.

The formula for gaining Magic Stones per level up is:

^[1]

When a character levels up they get their stat bonuses instantly. Zidane, Vivi, Garnet and Steiner are the characters the player starts the game with, but when another party member joins and the player party is at a higher level than LV1 the joining party members level up to match the rest of the party, but they will not gain any bonuses for that; for that reason if the player levels up a lot early, party members who join later will miss out on magic stones. If the player wants maximum magic stones for all party members, they must stay on level 1 till Amarant joins.

Marcus is an exception: any stats he has when he leaves the party are transferred to Eiko; therefore, the more the player levels Marcus up, the more magic stones Eiko will have when she joins, regardless of what level she is at.

ReferencesEdit