Maximum Party Stats « EarthBound Beginnings (2025)

So yeah, I’m curious as to how hard it would be to try to get the main party’s stats to be as high as possible at level 99. From what I’ve observed, it appears that the stats you get from a level-up (aside from HP and PP) are determined independently of past bonuses. If that’s the case, I guess it’d just be a matter of resetting every time you get sub-optimal stats; either way, I’m curious as to how tedious of a challenge this would be. Does anyone know when the values you get are determined; i.e. on the last attack you select, or does it depend on the frame you advance the text?

Just for reference to see what I’d be up against if all the stats were decided at once…

For Ninten, since his stats all have an equal chance of increasing by 2 or 3, then you only need to get a 3 on 57 out of 98 levels for each stat to cap at 255, which sounds perfectly doable. For Ana, Wisdom and Force will max without any effort, and the others are all 50-50 shots at being the highest, giving you a 1/8 chance of an optimal level; not absolutely terrible. Lloyd wouldn’t really even be worth trying if it weren’t frame-dependent per stat, though; his Force is a 50-50, and all of his other stats besides Wisdom only have a 25% chance of being optimal, making getting max stats per level-up an outrageously slim 1/128 chance, every level! It makes me wonder how much Loid’s endgame stats vary compared to the other characters on casual playthroughs…

Even if all the stats are generated at once, I might be interested in trying this out with Ninten and Ana, though…

Video game piano arrangements (MOTHER/EarthBound included!)

Well, for one thing don’t give Ninten the Fight/Quick capsules at all, because they’ll stunt his offense and defense later when his fight and speed reach 255. You can give those and the other capsules to Ana and Loid though. Ninten shouldn’t take one of each pill that isn’t Fight/Quick above the recommended dosage

And IIRC all the calculations are made right after you’re taken into battle, which also includes item drops, so I’d recommend save states

According to this page, here are the initial stats of all the main characters:

Note: I didn't include temporary characters because you'd have to be insane to get those to level 99.

And according to this page, here are the constants for their stat growth:

Note: Characters do not have stat growth constants for HP, PP, Offense or Defense. Those stats grow based on these five.

When a character levels up, how much a stat increases is calculated with (Constant + (random number 0-3)) / 2) and then rounded down. So for Ninten, any of his stats could raise by as much as 3 per level ((4+3)/2) or 2 per level ((4+0)/2).

Here are the stat ranges each character could have at level 99. The minimum values are if you always rolled a 0 and the maximum values are if you always rolled a 3. Some characters like Ninten will max out their stats before they reach level 99 so you don’t need to worry about always rolling a 3 for them. Other characters like Anna will only reach their maximum stats if you always roll a 3. Those will give you trouble.

Note: These numbers do not account for equips, capsules or special items like the Magic Candy. They do include a character's initial stats, however.

deviantART | Mother: 25th Anniversary Edition

Seems like a waste of time to me

I’d rather just play the game for the experience and enjoyment it gives you

Since you can roll anything from 0 to 3, your chance of getting the worst roll is (1/4).

The chance of getting 2 bad rolls in a row is (1/4 × 1/4), the chance of getting 3 bad rolls in a row is (1/4 × 1/4 × 1/4), etc. Thus, the chance for Ninten getting bad rolls on all 98 level-ups is (1/4)^98, or 1 in 100433627766186892221372630771322662657637687111424552206336.

But of course, you could just reset for each level-up until you got that (1/4) chance. Oh, and here’s a pronunciation of that number if anyone’s curious.

deviantART | Mother: 25th Anniversary Edition

Ana’s max level FIGHT should actually be 99. Assuming Ana gets the max random change of 3 each level up, it is then divided by 2 and then rounded down as an increase of 1. Her constant is nonexistent, being equal to 0, so it can be disregarded. So with each level up, Ana’s FIGHT can only increase by a value of either 0 to 1. If Ana starts at level 1 with 1 FIGHT, then 98 levels later with 98 FIGHTs should lead to the best possible outcome of 99. The range should then be 1 – 99 instead of 1 – 199.

Also, I may be wrong about this, but the HP and PP gain always has a possibility of being 0 regardless of strength or force respectively. So it should be 0 – # for each character for both stats (just 0 for Lloyd and Teddy’s PP).