Refine Forbidden Medicine from an item
Description
Forbid Med-RF (forbidden medicine refiner) is a menu ability in Final Fantasy VIII that allows the player to create Elixirs, Megalixirs, Hero-trials, and stat-boosting items from other items. The offerings are typically very rare.
Obtained[]
The Guardian Force Doomtrain learns Forbid Med-RF for 200 AP, the most expensive refiner ability, the majority of others being learned for 30 AP. Doomtrain is recruited from Solomon Ring found at Tears' Point by using it in the inventory when the player is in possession of the following items: six each of Malboro Tentacles (from Malboro and their cards), Steel Pipes (from Wendigo and Elastoid cards), and Remedy+ (refine from Remedies with Alexander's Med LV Up). If the player removes Forbid Med-RF with Amnesia Greens, there is no way to get it back.
In earlier game versions, Doomtrain needs to be on Level 100 to be able to use Forbid Med-RF to make Hero-trials, but this is no longer a requirement in PC and Remastered versions.
Mechanics[]
Using Forbid Med-RF in the Ability menu enables the player to make rare booster items and medicine to the cap of 100 of a single item type.
| Item | Refine Into |
|---|---|
| Adamantine | 5 = 1 Vit Up |
| Aegis Amulet | 2 = 1 Spd Up |
| Doc's Code | 1 = 1 Megalixir |
| Elem Atk | 1 = 4 Elixir |
| Elem Guard | 1 = 4 Elixir |
| Gaea's Ring | 1 = 1 HP Up |
| Hundred Needles | 1 = 1 Spd Up |
| Hyper Wrist | 10 = 1 Str Up |
| Jet Engine | 50 = 1 Spd Up |
| Knight's Code | 1 = 1 Vit Up |
| Luck-J Scroll | 1 = 1 Luck Up |
| Magic Armlet | 10 = 1 Spr Up |
| Med Kit | 1 = 1 Megalixir |
| Mega-Potion | 20 = 1 Elixir |
| Monk's Code | 1 = 1 Str Up |
| Rocket Engine | 5 = 1 Spd Up |
| Royal Crown | 10 = 1 Mag Up |
| Shaman Stone | 10 = 1 Hero-trial *NOTE: Doomtrain must be Level 100 in PS version* |
| Status Atk | 1 = 4 Elixir |
| Status Guard | 1 = 4 Elixir |
Use[]
Forbid Med-RF only makes Hero-trials; to get Heros and Holy Wars, the player would need to upgrade the trials with Med LV Up, learned by Alexander after mastering Med Data. However, as the player would need 10 Shaman Stones to make one Hero-trial, Shaman Stones themselves being exceedingly rare, this is a refining chain the player is unlikely to want to do; the player can get Heros and Holy Wars from Laguna's and Gilgamesh's cards instead. Though Hero-trial's description suggests it could fail to provide invincibility, its effect is actually identical to that of a normal Hero, and so using ten Hero-trials to make one Hero would be a very bad conversion.
Forbid Med-RF can be used to make Elixirs and Megalixirs, though to make either the player would need GF ability items, which sometimes drop from bosses and are made from some rare Triple Triad cards, but are otherwise hard to come by. The easier way is to buy Elixirs from Esthar City with Familiar in effect, and to use Card Mod to Angelo's and Bahamut's cards.
Stat-boosting items[]
Forbid Med-RF's best offering is its ability to make stat booster items, allowing the player to potentially farm them, though this will take time and gil. Stat boosting is unnecessary as the player can get max stats with simply using the junction system with good spells and Stat+% support abilities, and the faster stat-boosting way is to grind while using Bonus abilities.
Items that give permanent boosts are rare but can be manufactured with certain GF abilities. The following method requires Doomtrain, Eden and Tonberry. The abilities needed are Doomtrain's Forbid Med-RF, Eden's GFAbl Med-RF, and Tonberry's Familiar and Call Shop. One must have visited all of Esthar's shops for them to be accessible through Call Shop.
One must buy either Giant's Rings, Power Wrists, Force Armlets, or Hypno Crowns from Esthar's pet shop and refine them with GFAbl Med-RF into their next form:
- Giant's Ring x10 to Gaea's Ring x1
- Power Wrist x10 to Hyper Wrist x1
- Force Armlet x10 to Magic Armlet x1
- Hypno Crown x10 to Royal Crown x1
And use the Forbid Med-RF to turn them into status-ups:
- Gaea's Ring x1 to HP Up x1
- Hyper Wrist x10 to Str Up x1
- Magic Armlet x10 to Spr Up x1
- Royal Crown x10 to Mag Up x1
It takes 150,000,000 gil to get 100 of the status ups, each. The player can grind gil in a following manner: purchase 100 Tents and refine them into 25 Mega-Potions (Recov Med-RF), which will sell for more than the Tents cost, giving a net profit of 125,000 gil per iteration. This method becomes more effective once the player has Tonberry's Haggle and Sell-High, increasing the profit to 180,000 gil per iteration. Doing this with Cottages (purchased from Johnny's Shop in Esthar) can yield an even greater total of 240,000 gil.
To get Vitality, one can refine Vit Ups by buying Vit-J Scrolls and using the GFAbl Med-RF to refine 10 into 1 Orihalcon and refine 10 of those into an Adamantine, then use Forbid Med-RF to turn 5 of those into 1 Vit Up.
To get Speed one can refine Spd Ups by fighting Cactuars on Cactuar Island, and collecting 100 Cactus Thorns to refine them with GFAbl Med-RF to 1 Hundred Needles and refine that using Forbid Med-RF, into 1 Spd Up.
Ingredients for Str Up, Vit Up, and HP Up can be farmed much more efficiently near the end of the game by repeatedly modding rare cards and winning them back from members of the Card Club on the Ragnarok. This requires completing the CC quest before the point of no return.