MM4 Status conditions reduce your statistics and the reduction increases in severity over time if they are not healed. The reduction is temporary but if statistics reach 0, the character may become Dead when resting. Death in this way will clear the status condition and so your statistic will be restored once the character is Raised. Plan your party!
Status Condition Impacts per severity level
Poisoned MGT/SPD/ACY-1
Diseased INT/PER/END-1
Cursed LCK-1
Insane MGT/SPD+1 & INT/PER/ACY-1
Drunk PER/LCK+1 & All Others -1
Weak All Statistics -1
Heartbroken All Statistics -1
In Love All Statistics +1
Take INT as an example. While some classes do not need INT at all, having a score too low will reduce the amount of time that you can be Weak or Insane before it impacts your parties ability to Rest. Understand this before you accept a 4 statistic score on your characters.
Clearing Status Conditions
Some status conditions can be cured in the field by a Spell but some can only be cured at the Temple. You may be tempted to play on with some status conditions because you do not want to interrupt your mission and use up game time to go back to town. Further, a day will pass each time you enter the Temple and so it is smart to batch up your temple healing so you can go in once and clear everyone. Spells that suppress will reduce the severity value. Some status conditions do not have a severity, they are all or nothing, such as Stoned, Paralyzed, and Sleep. I have included how to clear these as well. It should be noted that ALL conditions except HEARTBROKEN and IN LOVE will be cured in the Temple.
Clear Status Conditions in the field
POISONED Suppress, Cure Poison
DISEASED Suppress, Cure Disease
CURSED Temple Only
INSANE Temple Only
DRUNK Fades over time, Resting
WEAK Revitalize, Resting
HEARTBROKEN Fades over time
IN LOVE Turns to HEARTBROKEN
STONED Stone to Flesh removes it
PARALYZED Cure Paralysis removes it
SLEEP Awaken removes it
DEAD Raise Dead removes it
ERADICATED Resurrect removes it
Game Time and Character Age
Game time effects your character Age and also your final Score after completing the game. As characters get older it will have impacts to your statistics.
Age effects on Statistics
As age increases, MGT, END, SPD, ACY go DOWN while INT, PER go UP
~30's +/-2
~50's +/-5
~70's +/-10
~100 +/-20
~200 +/-50
You can test this in game by Resting a bunch of times to elevate your age while you watch your statistics. Be sure to restore your save game to undo the forced passage of time. You won’t need food for the test.
Ways to reduce character Age
There is no way to reduce natural aging but understanding what ages you can help limit running it up too quickly.
- A day passes any time you enter a vendor shop, such as Inn, Temple, Training, Store, Bank, Guild and so being intentional about batching up your shop tasks makes a difference.
- The jobs where you trade game time for gold is never worth it, you are an adventurer.
- Resting to heal after every encounter will add up. Use your spells to heal, use the Rivercity Well to restore SP. Revitalize to remove the WEAK condition. Rest when you are deep in a dungeon and have no access to the towns.
- Taking 1 step is 1 minute.
- Pressing Space Bar is 1 minute.
Magical aging is induced by the following, and these magical age effects can be retroacted by completing the Druid Seasons quest, which is repeatable.
- Enemies such as Mummies and Polter-Fools can increase your Age with a touch effect when they hit you. Mitigate with higher AC, Power Shield, or higher SPD to kill them first. Check the Foes list to see other enemies that can do this.
- Diabolical Traps can also increase Age such as the Scroll of Aging in Castle Basenji
Attribution
How to obtain a copy of this game:
eBay link – PC version (1992)
GOG link – Digital PC version (includes games 1-6)