Magic Stone (Final Fantasy IX)

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Zidane's ability menu.

Magic Stones (魔石力, Masekiryoku?) in Final Fantasy IX permit the player characters to use their support abilities. A specific number must be equipped to a support ability for it to function in battles. Since the supply of Magic Stones for each character is limited, and each ability has a different cost of Magic Stones, the support abilities can never be equipped all at once. The maximum number of stones gradually rises along with the character's level, allowing the player to equip more abilities at once.

Beside the name of each support ability is a round slot; a Magic Stone in a slot indicates it is currently equipped to the character. If all the stones have been equipped 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. Normally, 55 Magic Stones are added by 99.

The formula for gaining Magic Stones per level up is:

$Magic Stone = Magic Stone Base + Level * \frac{4}{10} + \frac{MStBonus}{32}$

When a character levels up they get their stat bonuses instantly. Zidane, Vivi, Garnet and Steiner are the characters the player starts 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 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.

Although guest characters like Beatrix have Magic Stone counts, player cannot assign them support abilities.

Name	Level 1 Magic Stones	Level 99 Magic Stones
Zidane	17	72
Steiner	17	71
Vivi	14	68
Dagger	14	68
Freya	18	72
Quina	15	69
Eiko	12	67
Amarant	18	72
Beatrix	9	64
Blank	11	66
Cinna & Marcus	7	62