Battle Records table

This is the table that actually drives the monster configurations that your party will be confronted with over the course of the adventure.

Primary Table location: 0×2288b4 — 0xx22a587.

Data structure size: 0×14, or 20 bytes per record.

Number of records: 0×171, or 369 battle records.

I should note that there is a separate version of the table in 0×22d3e4 — 0×22f0b7. You will need to modify both to be sure of getting the changes you desire.

Another interesting tidbit is that the first 256 Battle Records (IDs 0×000 — 0×0ff) are battles that may show up in the standard overworld map, or standard dungeons (defined as dungeons that were in the NES version of Final Fantasy). Battle records with IDs of 0×100 or greater may only be assigned to Dawn of Souls dungeons.

Battle Record Examples

Note that the Battle ID is not present in the Battle Record table, and is provided here merely for reference.

Battle Record info, decoded

Battle Configuration byte

If you’ve played Final Fantasy at all, you may have noticed that certain monsters are larger than others. Others are really big. This forces the game engine to position monsters differently, based on the kinds of monsters that are present. This byte alerts the engine to the kinds of monsters present. Editing Battle Regions requires a knowledge of the sizes of the various critters in the game; the game knows which monsters are small, which are large, and which are boss-sized, and based on the Configuration byte will load valid monsters. If a battle record provides no valid monsters for its Battle Configuration, Very Bad Things will happen (game execution will probably freeze). Be careful!

• 00 — Up to 9 small monsters displayed in a 3 by 3 configuration

• 01 — Up to 2 large monsters at left, followed by up to 6 small monsters in a 2 by 3 configuration to their right

• 02 — Up to 4 large monsters displayed in a 2 by 2 configuration

• 03 — Displays one fiend-sized monster

• 04 — Displays one small-sized monster in middle of screen, designating it as a mini-boss

• 05 — Intelligently displays small monsters. Flying monsters are displayed after land-bound enemies, to ascertain that graphical anomalies don’t surface. I don’t believe that large monsters can be placed in this configuration, but I’m not 100% certain on this.

• 06 — Displays one Dawn of Souls boss. This is not used for original Final Fantasy NES monsters.

“Run?” byte

It can’t get much simpler than this… this is 00 if you can run, and 01 if you can’t.

Preempt byte

This is the chance that your party won’t be able to react in the first round of battle against these monsters; higher values increase the chance of monsters striking first. I am not sure if this chance is out of 100, or some other hexidecimal friendly number.

Monsters #1 through #4

Each battle can feature up to four types of monsters. The final four groups of four bytes determine which monster is encountered, along with how many may appear. All four groups follow these same conventions, but again, it is unwise to have all of these monsters set to null (meaning ff 00 00 00, or any time that the final three bytes are 00 00 00).

The first byte is the Monster ID referenced. See the Bestiary article to look up individual Monster IDs.

The second byte is the minimum number of that monster that can be encountered. The third byte is the maximum number that can be encountered. The fourth byte is always 00. Again, make sure at least one monster has a “minimum encountered” value of at least 1; an encounter yielding no monsters is untested and could lead to Very Bad Things.

Advanced possibilities

It is safe to reference more monsters of a specific size than can be displayed; the excess monsters simply are ignored when setting up the battle.

Note Battle ID #4a above, this is a very interesting case! There is a potential of 29 monsters being placed (8 Cockatrices, 8 Pyrolisks, 5 King Mummies, and 8 Mummies). The monsters are placed in a first come, first served format. It loads Cockatrices first, then Pyrolisks, then King Mummies, and finally Mummies. Thus, it is possible that you will not face King Mummies (even though there is a minimum of one, as defined by the record), because it is very possible to encounter 9 or more Cockatrices and Pyrolisks combined.

First, you need a little bit of background. Final Fantasy assigns a “Battle Region” to your position, based on your location on the overworld map, or which dungeon labyrinth your party is exploring. Each region has eight battle configurations defined. Final Fantasy rolls a number between 0×01 and 0×40 (1 — 64), and based on this random number decides which monsters jump your hapless characters (this is defined in a Battle Record).

Random Battle Chances table

This is the table that defines what our random number between 1 — 64 means.

Table location: 0×2170a0 — 0×2170df.

Data structure size: 64 bytes.

In stock FF1, this is what the table looks like:

0×2170a0 — 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 01 01 01
0×2170b0 — 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 02 02 02 02 02 02 02 02
0×2170c0 — 02 02 02 02 03 03 03 03 03 03 03 03 03 03 03 03
0×2170d0 — 04 04 04 04 04 04 05 05 05 05 05 05 06 06 06 07

What do these values mean? Each byte has a value between 00 and 07. If you count the instances of each value, we arrive at this:

• 00 — 12 instances

• 01 — 12 instances

• 02 — 12 instances

• 03 — 12 instances

• 04 — 6 instances

• 05 — 6 instances

• 06 — 3 instances

• 07 — 1 instance

So, battle #1 through #4 show up 12/64 of the time on average. Battles #5 and #6 show up 6/64 of the time on average. Battle #7 shows up show up 3/64 of the time, and battle #8 is quite rare… it has only a 1/64 chance of showing up.

Every enemy has, in its bestiary definition, a defined AI ID. Changing this does not actually have any discernable effect; I’m not sure why that byte is in the monster definition. I’m not arguing, because it provided me a clue as to how to find the following table: the AI IDs are found at 0×22f0b8 to 0×22f17a. This is a span of 195 bytes, so each monster gets exactly one byte. The bytes are listed in monster ID order, so you’ll need to refer back to the bestiary entry to get the listing for the various IDs.

It will be noted that the value 2c is plentiful. That’s because this value is set to “fight 100% of the time”.

AI Indices table, by Monster

To save you the trouble of figuring out what each ID refers to, I’ve got a handy-dandy chart showing the first monster to use each AI ID.

0×00	Winter Wolf	Fire Lizard	Basilisk	Big Eyes
0×04	Deep Eyes	Hellhound	Ogre Mage	Sand Worm
0×08	Evil Eye	Death Eye	Rakshasa	Vampire
0×0c	Vampire Lord	Horned Devil	White Dragon	Red Dragon
0×10	Pyrolisk	Fire Hydra	Water Naga	Spirit Naga
0×14	Chimera	Rhyos	Mindflayer	Green Dragon
0×18	Blue Dragon	Clay Golem	Stone Golem	Iron Golem
0×1c	Death Knight	Dark Wizard	Dark Fighter	Nightmare
0×20	Death Machine	Manticore	Lich	Lich (Chaos)
0×24	Marilith	Marilith (Chaos)	Kraken	Kraken (Chaos)
0×28	Tiamat	Tiamat (Chaos)	CHAOS	Astos
0×2c	——	Echidna	Cerberus	Ahriman
0×30	Scarmiglione (cloaked)	Scarmiglione (undead)	Cagnazzo	Barbariccia
0×34	Rubicante	Gilgamesh	Omega	Shin Ryuu
0×38	Atomos	Typhon	Orthros	Phantom Train
0×3c	Death Gaze	Devil Wizard	Holy Dragon	Bloody Eye
0×40	Black Dragon	Earth Plant	Yamatano Orochi	Dark Elemental
0×44	Prototype

AI definitions

Table location: 0×22f17c — 0×22f5cb.

Data structure size: 16 bytes per AI entry.

Examples

Decoding AI information

Spell % and Ability %

These values I’ve misnamed a bit, as they are not technically “percent” values. IIRC, the game first checks to see whether the monster casts a spell. A random number is rolled between 1 and 0×80, or 128, and if this number is less than the value stated in Spell %, then the next spell in the individual monster’s queue is cast.

If the monster didn’t cast a spell, then the game checks whether it used an ability. This is done in the same manner, using another number rolled between 1 and 128.

Of course, if the monster didn’t cast a spell and didn’t use an ability, then it will attack. And a 00 in these values guarantees that the monster will fail its check to use a spell or use an ability (depending on where the 0×80 is placed).

Spell Queue and Ability Queue

Each AI is allotted a queue of up to eight spells, and up to four monster abilities. A monster may be able to cast spells, use abilities, and some intrepid critters can even do both of these things.

The first time a monster uses a spell, the game picks the first spell in the queue, and that’s the monster’s action. The second time a monster casts a spell, the second spell is used. When it reaches the end of the list (denoted by ff), the list gets reused. Setting the Spell (or Ability) % to a non-zero number, and setting the Spell (or Ability) Queue to all ff‘s will very likely lead to Very Bad Things. Don’t do this, it isn’t nice.

For help in figuring out what values correspond to which Spells or Monster attacks, you’ll need to refer back to the Spells and Monster Attacks article. The IDs listed there for the Spells is accurate. The IDs for Monster Abilities listed in that page do not correspond to the values in the AI table. To calculate what the IDs should be in the Ability Queue, take the ID from the Spells and Monster Attacks article and subtract 0×41.

As with other lists, before I get into defining monster characteristics, I will list out the monsters in Final Fantasy 1, in ID order. This is the order that they are listed in the Bestiary. The Bestiary # and the monster IDs below are not related.

0×00	Goblin	Goblin Guard	Wolf	Warg Wolf
0×04	Werewolf	Winterwolf	Lizard	Fire Lizard
0×08	Basilisk	Hill Gigas	Ice Gigas	Fire Gigas
0×0c	Sahagin	Sahagin Chief	Sahagin Prince	Pirate
0×10	Buccaneer	Shark	White Shark	Bigeyes
0×14	Deepeyes	Skeleton	Bloodblones	Gigas Worm
0×18	Crawler	Hyenadon	Hellhound	Ogre
0×1c	Ogre Chief	Ogre Mage	Cobra	Anaconda
0×20	Sea Snake	Scorpion	Sea Scorpion	Minotaur
0×24	Minotaur Zombie	Troll	Sea Troll	Shadow
0×28	Wraith	Specter	Ghost	Zombie
0×2c	Ghoul	Ghast	Wight	Purple Worm
0×30	Sand Worm	Lava Worm	Evil Eye	Death Eye
0×34	Medusa	Earth Medusa	Weretiger	Rakshasa
0×38	Ankheg	Remorazz	Lesser Tiger	Sabertooth
0×3c	Vampire	Vampire Lord	Gargoyle	Horned Devil
0×40	Earth Elemental	Fire Elemental	White Dragon	Red Dragon
0×44	Dragon Zombie	Green Slime	Grey Ooze	Ochre Jelly
0×48	Black Flan	Black Widow	Tarantula	Manticore
0×4c	Sphinx	Baretta	Desert Baretta	Mummy
0×50	King Mummy	Cockatrice	Pyrolisk	Wyvern
0×54	Wyrm	Allosaurus	Tyrannosaur	Pirahna
0×58	Red Pirahna	Crocodile	White Croc	Ochu
0×5c	Neochu	Hydra	Fire Hydra	Guardian
0×60	Soldier	Water Elemental	Air Elemental	Water Naga
0×64	Spirit Naga	Chimera	Rhyos	Piscodemon
0×68	Mindflayer	Garland	Green Dragon	Blue Dragon
0×6c	Clay Golem	Stone Golem	Iron Golem	Black Knight
0×70	Death Knight	Astos	Dark Wizard	Dark Fighter
0×74	Crazy Horse	Nightmare	Death Machine	Lich
0×78	Lich (Chaos)	Marilith	Marilith (Chaos)	Kraken
0×7c	Kraken (Chaos)	Tiamat	Tiamat (Chaos)	CHAOS
0×80	Echidna	Cerberus	Ahriman	2-Headed Dragon
0×84	Scarmiglione (cloaked)	Scarmiglione (undead)	Cagnazzo	Barbariccia
0×88	Rubicante	Gilgamesh	Omega	Shin Ryuu
0×8c	Atomos	Typhon	Orthros	Phantom Train
0×90	Death Gaze	Devil Wizard	Abyss Worm	Elm Gigas
0×94	Flare Gigas	Unicorn	Yellow Ogre	Mad Ogre
0×98	Mage Chimera	Yellow Dragon	Holy Dragon	Mythril Golem
0×9c	Killer Shark	Death Manticore	Blood Tiger	Dark Eye
0xa0	Bloody Eye	Flood Gigas	Poison Eagle	Black Goblin
0xa4	Knocker	Desert Pede	Gloom Widow	Duel Knight
0xa8	Squidkraken	Pharoah	Bonesnatch	Silver Dragon
0xac	Black Dragon	Blue Troll	Earth Troll	Poison Naga
0xb0	Earth Plant	Yamatano Orochi	Dark Elemental	Devil Hound
0xb4	Sekhret	Catoblepas	Hundlegs	Undergrounder
0xb8	Death Elemental	Wild Nakk	Dark Wolf	Rock Gargoyle
0xbc	Sahagin Queen	Reaper	Python	Skuldier
0xc0	Red Flan	Prototype	Revenant

Bestiary data

Table location: There are four separate instances of the FF1 bestiary stored in the ROM. You’ll need to edit all four to make intelligible changes to the monsters.

• 0×1de044 — 0×1df8a3.

• 0×223f4c — 0×2257ab.

• 0×227054 — 0×2288b3.

• 0×22a880 — 0×22c0df.

Data structure size: 32 bytes per monster.

This means that each table is 0×1860 bytes in size. With a good hex editor, you can change one table, copy it, and paste that table over the others.

Examples, showing bytes 1 to 16

Examples, showing bytes 17 to 32

Decoding various bytes of information

The Cowardice byte

I’m not exactly sure exactly how this byte works, but it has a definite effect on the threshold when a monster runs from the party. The higher the value, the more powerful the party needs to be for it to run, and the less likely it is to run.

The AI byte

This byte is the ID of the AI entry from which the monster will pick its special attacks. See an explanation of the AI table here.

Cond?

I do not know what effect these values have, but they seem to be non-zero when a monster has a condition inflict bound to their physical attack.

Inflict

This byte controls which condition or conditions might be inflicted in the event of a successful physical attack. The Werewolf is illustrative here:

Family

The 8 bits that make up this byte specify which families this monster is a member of. Let’s look at the Werewolf.

The Werewolf regenerates, and is a Lycanthrope, as well as Evil. It’s important to note that “Regenerating” is both a property as well as a Family designation… if this bit is set, the monster will regain about 5% of its maximum HP every turn.

Weakness and Resist bytes

The Weakness and Resist bytes follow the same bit pattern. This also is the same bit pattern as found in the Weapons structure and the Armor structure. To illustrate these bytes, let’s take a look at the Death Machine’s Resist bytes:

So we see that the only attack that a Death Machine does not resist outright are Time-based attacks (Stop spell, for instance).

Item Drop and Drop %

The first Item Drop byte specifies the item type that will be dropped. A 0×01 denotes a consumable item, a 0×02 signifies a weapon, and a 0×03 references an armor.

The second Item Drop byte specifies the ID of the item from the correct table. Therefore an Item Drop combo of 02 03 would drop a Staff (ID 0×03 from the Weapon table.

The Drop % byte, predictably, is the percentage chance for the specified item to drop. Each individual monster has a chance to drop an item, and you can receive more than one item in a single battle.

0×1e09b0 — 0×1e0a95. This is the important table, the one that the game seems to use exclusively.

0×1dfc9c — 0×1dfd81. It is unclear to me why this bit-for-bit equivalent table is found in the ROM, but it does not seem to serve any purpose.

The data structure size is variable, and is driven by the shop pointer table. Again, this will be discussed later.

Shop Data

To illustrate the merchandise available in all the shops in Final Fantasy 1 DOS, I’ve decided to list the data in a table format that shows exactly where to find the data, and the data you’ll find there. I have not ascertained exactly where some of the shops are, as some of them are in Dawn of Souls dungeons. There are 51 shops in the game.

Hex	Location	Merchandise	Hex Data
0×1e09b0	Coneria	Weapons	FD 01 02 03 04 05
0×1e09b6	Coneria	Armor	FC 01 02 03
0×1e09ba	Coneria	Items	FE 01 0b 09 10
0×1e09bf	Coneria	White Magic	01 02 03 04
0×1e09c3	Coneria	Black Magic	21 22 23 24
0×1e09c7	Pravoka	Weapons	FD 05 06 07 08
0×1e09cc	Pravoka	Armor	FC 02 03 04 1c 3a
0×1e09d2	Pravoka	Items	FE 01 04 0b 0d 09
0×1e09d8	Pravoka	White Magic	05 06 07 08
0×1e09dc	Pravoka	Black Magic	25 26 27 28
0×1e09e0	Elfheim	Weapons	FD090a0b0c
0×1e09e5	Elfheim	Armor	FC040b1d2a2b
0×1e09eb	Elfheim	Items	FE010b0c0e11
0×1e09f1	Elfheim	White Magic, Lv. 3	090a0b0c
0×1e09f5	Elfheim	White Magic, Lv. 4	0d0e0f10
0×1e09f9	Elfheim	Black Magic, Lv. 3	29 2a 2b 2c
0×1e09fd	Elfheim	Black Magic, Lv. 4	2d 2e 2f 30
0×1e0a01	Melmond	Weapons	FD 0b 0c 0d 0f
0×1e0a06	Melmond	Armor	FC 05 0c 2c 3b 3c
0×1e0a0c	Melmond	White Magic	11 12 13 14
0×1e0a10	Melmond	Black Magic	31 32 33 34
0×1e0a14	Crescent Lake	Weapons	FD 10 11 12 13
0×1e0a19	Crescent Lake	Armor	FC 06 1e 23 2d 3d
0×1e0a1f	Crescent Lake	Items	FE 01 02 04 09 11
0×1e0a25	Crescent Lake	White Magic	15 16 17 18
0×1e0a29	Crescent Lake	Black Magic	35 36 37 38
0×1e0a2d	Onlac	Items	FE 02 04 0a 0c 12
0×1e0a33	Onlac	White Magic	1b 1c
0×1e0a35	Onlac	Black Magic	3b 3c
0×1e0a37	Gaia	Weapons	FD 23
0×1e0a39	Gaia	Armor	FC 0d 41
0×1e0a3c	Gaia	Items	FE 02 04 09 11 12
0×1e0a42	Gaia	White Magic, Lv. 7	19 1a
0×1e0a44	Gaia	White Magic, Lv. 8	1e 1f 20
0×1e0a47	Gaia	Black Magic, Lv. 7	39 3a
0×1e0a49	Gaia	Black Magic, Lv. 8	3e 3f 40
0×1e0a4c	Lefein	White Magic	1d
0×1e0a4d	Lefein	Black Magic	3d
0×1e0a4e	Caravan	Bottle	0f
0×1e0a4f	Caravan	Items	1f 20 21 22 23
0×1e0a54	Dawn of Souls	Items	FD 30 3f FC 1a FE 02 22
0×1e0a5c	Dawn of Souls	Items	FD 35 3e FC 17 FE 05 09
0×1e0a64	Dawn of Souls	Items	FD 3a FC 14 28 38 FE 0a
0×1e0a6c	Dawn of Souls	Items	FD 3b 37 FC 39 29 FE 1c
0×1e0a74	Dawn of Souls	White Magic	19 1a 1b 1c
0×1e0a78	Dawn of Souls	White Magic	1d 1e 1f 20
0×1e0a7c	Dawn of Souls	Black Magic	39 3a 3b 3c
0×1e0a80	Dawn of Souls	Black Magic	3d 3e 3f 40
0×1e0a84	Dawn of Souls	Weapons	FD 21 24 1e 1f 1d
0×1e0a8a	Dawn of Souls	Armor	FC 0f 10 24 41 3e
0×1e0a90	Dawn of Souls	Items	FE 17 18 19 1a 1b

Merchandise specification conventions

Merchandise can be preceded by one of three special characters, as can be deduced from the above table. FD denotes that the IDs to follow will denote weapons. FC denotes that the IDs to follow will specify armor, shields, helmets, or gauntlets. FE denotes that the IDs to follow will denote a non-equipable item. If the merchandise is not preceded by one of these special IDs, they pertain to magic spells.

It is possible to have different merchandise types in a store. It is also possible to have more than five items in a store, as the developers allowed for scrolling merchandise windows without any extra hacking!

Shop Pointer Table

0×1e070c — 0×1e08a3. This is the real pointer table, that the game uses.

0×1dfb04 — 0×1dfc8b. As above, this bit-for-bit equivalent of the table above is found in the ROM and I do not know why it is there. In my mod, I actually made this table point to the same table as the first pointer table above, without ill effects.

Data structure size: 8 bytes

Let’s take a look at the first record, at 0×1e070c:

The “Contents” byte

This byte is broken up into two 4-bit sections. The first four bits in the above example, rendered as 1, specifies the graphic to be displayed when navigating shop menus. The last four bits, rendered as 5, specify how many bytes to read for this shop. This is not necessarily the number of items sold! This count does not account for any FC’s, FD’s, and FE’s present in the data string. Therefore, a 5 could signify an shop string like this: FD 01 02 03 04 05.

Here’s a list of the Graphic IDs:

• 1— Weapon Shop

• 2— Armor Shop

• 3— Item Shop

• 4— Caravan

• 5— White Magic

• 6— Black Magic

The pointer

Remember, all pointers are stored in Little Endian style, so the above pointer would read data from 0×081e09b0.