License Board



The License Board is the ability system used in Final Fantasy XII. It was created by Hiroyuki Ito, the game's director. The system consists of a tiled board with hundreds of squares, each square representing an ability, spell, equipment piece or augment. By defeating enemies in battle, characters earn License Points, abbreviated LP. Characters must spend their LP to activate squares on the License Board, granting them access to new abilities and allowing them to equip stronger weapons and armor.

Mechanics
The License Board is a checkered board, with numerous squares each relating to a license. All squares on the board are initially blank, only stating a generic alignment (weapon, technick, augment, etc). Licenses the player already has appear solid, while squares adjacent to already activated squares appear glowing with a number on them indicating the amount of LP needed to activate them, and display what equipment pieces or abilities are connected to that square. When a player takes a new license, it turns solid and the licenses above, below and to the sides of the new license light up. Only licenses lit up in this fashion may be activated, as opposed to being able to activate any square any time.

The License Board is not a standard square, and appears different depending on the version of the game. In the original version of the game the License Board is identical for all six characters, while in the International Zodiac Job System version there are multiple boards relating to specific jobs.

While most licenses are available to all players, an exception is made for Summons and Quickenings. These squares appear for all characters until activated, at which point the square vanishes from the boards of the other characters. This means only one character may acquire a summon, and each Quickening license may only be taken once. Summon licenses also have to be unlocked, in all cases by beating the respective Esper in battle.

In the original version there are eighteen Quickening licenses meaning all players can learn all three of their Quickenings, while in the International Zodiac Job System version each board only has four, but learning a Quickening license with any character doesn't affect other characters License Boards, instead, when a character learn the third Quickening license, the last one disappears, making things a little tricky, because the Quickening licenses often makes a bridge to some other licenses.

License Points are earned towards activating squares by defeating enemies in battle. With the exception of rarer and stronger enemies including bosses, most enemies give a single LP. Enemies killed by Poach or Zalera's Kill do not give LP. Unlike Experience Points, all characters gain LP regardless of if they are in the active party or not. Some licenses cost a different number of license points in the International Zodiac Job System version.

Unlocking all licenses, including three Quickenings, requires 13,330 LP. This does not include the Esper licenses, which together cost 805 LP. Upon completing every character's License Board, including the Espers and Quickenings, the player earns Rasler's icon in the Sky Pirate's Den.

Board
The License Board is divided into two sections. The top section contains augments in the lower-left, magick in the upper-left, accessories in the upper-right, and Technicks in the lower-right. The bottom section contains armor in the upper-right and weapon licenses around the rest of the board. In the International Zodiac Job System version, some licenses grant different effects.

The two sections are connected only by three optional Esper licenses - Chaos, Zeromus and Exodus. All characters start out in roughly the center of both boards and from there are free to move about the board as they wish.

Zodiac Job System
In versions of the game with the Zodiac job system, the License Board has been revamped. When a character joins the party, the player can assign him/her one of twelve jobs. Unlike the original game where all characters had identical License Boards, each of the twelve jobs in the Zodiac System has a different board. Once a character chooses a job, they cannot change it.

Characters also start with a number of licenses which remain even after a job has been chosen.

Players may opt to play without assigning their characters jobs, but the characters will not learn new abilities. Multiple characters can share the same job but this is not recommended since some Esper licenses are required to connect with the licenses which are separated from the main area of the board. This means only one character who shares the same job with another can access the license(s) on each separated section. This rule does not apply to Quickening licenses.

Also, any unit licenses can be viewed without activating their adjacent license.

The twelve jobs and their Zodiac sign are:
 * Aries - White Mage - Focused on Rods and White Magick.
 * Taurus - Uhlan - Focused on Spears.
 * Gemini - Machinist - Focused on Guns and Measures.
 * Cancer - Red Mage - Focused on Maces, and various Magick types, with exclusive access to Arcane Magicks.
 * Leo - Knight - Focused on Swords and Greatswords.
 * Virgo - Monk - Focused on Poles and capable of barehanded combat.
 * Libra - Time Mage - Focused on Crossbows and Time Magicks.
 * Scorpio - Breaker - Focused on Axes, Hammers and Hand-bombs.
 * Sagittarius - Archer - Focused on Bows and Technicks.
 * Capricorn - Black Mage - Focused on Staves and Black Magicks.
 * Aquarius - Samurai (Mononofu) - Focused on Katana.
 * Pisces - Hunter (Shikari) - Focused on Daggers and Ninja Swords.

Development
Final Fantasy XII was initially envisioned as having a job system, but the idea was scrapped when the developers thought it too confusing to players and the ideas were condensed into the License Board seen in the final game. The battle director, Hiroyuki Ito, wanted a system that gave the player a lot of freedom to develop characters how they wanted to, but simultaneously keep it from becoming overly complicated. By putting it into a board layout and giving the player a visual cue to see which direction they were developing a character in, he felt he was able to strike a good balance between the freedom.

Hiroyuki Ito, who was appointed as the game's director along with Hiroshi Minagawa after Yasumi Matsuno left the project, has commented that the plan was for players to customize their characters freely using the board, however, what players did instead was to just acquire every license, not differentiating the characters as the developers had intended.

Seeing this, the developers went back to their original idea of using a job system for the Final Fantasy XII International Zodiac Job System version. With the system where the player can't change their mind after having chosen a job, Itō wanted to call back to the games of the past where players couldn't redo things even by resetting the game, to recreate this kind of feeling of tension and finality.

The idea to use twelve jobs came about because the game is the twelfth main installment to the series, and because there are also twelve zodiac signs, a recurring theme in Ivalice. The game already had fifteen different types of weapons in place, and the jobs were planned around the idea that what kind of weapon would belong to what kind of job.

Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy
Vaan's EX Mode is called Obtained all Licenses!, in which he changes his Brave attack low-level weapons from Final Fantasy XII to the best of their kinds. This EX Mode allows Vaan to put away his current weapon without having to use another one.

Etymology
The License Board is part of the Zodiac Job System in the International version.