Rune Factory 4 Special – Stats Guide

Basic Stats guide by clepe

Stats: What are they?

Stats are numerical values that represent to some extent a character's battle prowess.
All characters in rune factory (The player, your children and other townsfolk, hostile monsters and tamed monsters) have these 9 basic stats:

• HP: Your maximum health points. Increases amount of hits you can take before dying. Can be permanently increased through various means or temporarily buffed by eating high-quality food.
• RP: Your maximum rune points. Increases amount of farm chores done or attacks and spells used before becoming exhausted. Also allows you to craft more items at a time, or items above your current skill level. Can be permanently increased through various means or temporarily buffed by eating high-quality food.
• ATK: Your attack. Increases damage dealt with non-magical weapon attacks, weapon skills and bird-throwing. Can only be found or upgraded into weapons and equipment.
• DEF: Your defense. Reduces damage taken from non-magical monster attacks and traps. Can only be found or upgraded into weapons and equipment.
• M.ATK: Your magic attack. Increases damage dealt with magic spells and staff attacks. Can only be found or upgraded into weapons and equipment.
• M.DEF: Your magic defense. Reduces damage taken from magic attacks and elemental traps. Can only be found or upgraded into weapons and equipment.
• STR: Your strength. Each point of STR increases ATK by 1. Can be permanently increased through various means, upgraded into weapons and equipment, or temporarily buffed by eating high-quality food.
• VIT: Your vitality. Each point of VIT raises DEF and M.DEF by 0.5 each. Can be permanently increased through various means, upgraded into weapons and equipment, or temporarily buffed by eating high-quality food.
• INT: Your intelligence. Each point of INT raises M.ATK by 1. Can be permanently increased through various means, upgraded into weapons and equipment, or temporarily buffed by eating high-quality food.

Aside from these, there are other, more obscure, stats your player can have through its weapon and equipment, such as status resistances, elemental resistances, critical strike chance, tripping chance, item drop chance, running speed, life drain, etc. In this guide, we will only cover the basic ones, and how to increase them.

What should i upgrade my items with? STR vs ATK, VIT vs DEF and M.DEF, INT vs M.ATK.

Usually, 1 STR on upgrades is equal to 1 ATK, 1 VIT is equal to 0.5 DEF + 0.5 M.DEF, and 1 INT is equal to 1 M.ATK. However, if you eat food that gives a percentage increase to STR, VIT, or INT then they become better by that percentage.
For example, eating a lv10 turnip heaven makes your STR go up by 28%, VIT by 32%, and INT by 22%. That means that while its effects last:

• 1 STR on upgrades is equal to 1.28 ATK
• 1 VIT on upgrades is equal to 0.66 DEF + 0.66 M.DEF
• 1 INT on upgrades is equal to 1.22 M.ATK.

Consider what food do you usually take with you on dungeons and if you can reliably mantain its buffs before upgrading your items.

How does one raise STR, VIT and INT?

Your character's HP, RP, STR, INT and VIT stats can be permanently increased by levelling up, eating special medicines, absorbing runeys found when harvesting, and raising skill levels.

Stat-increasing medicine

There are 4 types of stat-increasing medicine. These can be crafted with high pharmacy skills, earned in town events, or found in treasure chests and as random hidden items. They are:

• Heart drink: Permanently raises HP by 10.
• The Protein: Permanently raises STR by 1.
• Vital Gummi: Permanently raises VIT by 1.
• Intelligencer: Permanently raises INT by 1.

Runey types and bonuses.

Runeys are cute little spirits that can be found whenever you harvest a vegetable or flower that raise one of your stats by touching them. There are 4 types of runeys, and they each raise a different stat:

• Grass Runeys: These are green-colored. Absorbing one of these grants you a permanent bonus of +1 STR.
• Tree Runeys: These are lightbrown-colored. Absorbing one of these grants you a permanent bonus of +3 HP.
• Rock Runeys: These are grey-colored. Absorbing one of these grants you a permanent bonus of +1 VIT.
• Water Runeys: These are lightblue-colored. Absorbing one of these grants you a permanent bonus of +1 INT.

Skill level bonuses.

While the game does provide some insight on stat increases per skill, it's not very specific.
The following table represents the stat increases per skill level at least up to level 50 (see below for more info.)

• Every skill's stat bonus yields are rounded down before being added to the character. That means a character with, for example, Short Sword lv.4 will get +1 RP and STR, however another character having instead Short Sword lv.3 and Long sword lv.3 will get no stat bonuses (As their RP and STR bonuses of 0.75 are rounded down to 0 for both skills).
• Some of these values aren't technically correct: The game uses the closest floating point numbers below or equal to the values on the table. That means whenever a stat yield is stated as 0.05, 0.1, 0.2 or 0.3 (because they aren't integers or negative powers of 2), it's actually slightly lower. This will affect its yields whenever a bonus would stack up to an integer. For example: Resist Poison lv.20 would only yield +1 VIT, since 20 * 0.1 would be slightly below 2, rounding down to 1, and 20 * 0.05 would be slightly below 1, rounding down to 0.
• Every 50 levels, HP yields will increase an extra 100% of its original bonus per level, resulting in some drastic 'jumps' in stats. For example: Say we compare level 1 characters with no skills other than mining. One with mining lv.0 has 25 HP. Another one with mining lv.50 would have 75 (25 + 1 *50) HP. A third one with mining lv.51 would have 127 (25 + 2 * 51) HP. A fourth one with lv.100 mining would have 225 (25 + (1+1)*100) HP, and a fifth one with lv.101 mining would have 328 (25 + (1+1+1) * 50) HP.
• RP yields per level cap at level 100. That means levelling a skill over 100 will have no impact on your RP.
• Similar to HP increasing its yields every 50 levels, STR, VIT and INT yields increase an extra 100% of their original bonus per level every 300 levels. For example, a lv.1 character with no skills has 5 STR. Another one with Axe/Hammer lv.600 would have 605 (5 + (0.5 + 0.5) * 600) STR, and another one with Axe/Hammer lv.601 would have 1206 (5 + (0.5+0.5+0.5) * 601) STR.