The Blue Mage

[Nyzer]

I'd be concerned about the exploit @yamish pointed out, "Osmose"-ing a monster to 0 to cause it to avoid using a skill.

Why would anyone ever do this in the first place, though?

Under those circumstances, it would take multiple turns of draining a monster's MP to prevent it from being able to use a skill. Those same turns could be spent inflicting Disable. Or Sleep. Or Stop. Or Frog. Or Chicken.

Or just stabbing it to death.

And assuming the skills are set up the way Jot5 does them - one physical attack shared across the whole species, one blue magic attack shared across the whole species, and one monster-specific attack - draining their MP is going to prevent them from using one of their skills.

I can't imagine someone doing this even for the novelty of it, because it doesn't change enough about the fight to really matter.

[nitwit]

Removing MP from a monster to prevent skill use could be the best option if the monster has a healing or revival skill, status immunities, permanent buffs, or useful innate skills.

If you don't like being able to drain monster MP to prevent them from using their skills, the fix is to increase their MP multipliers and growth so it's less feasible.

[Nyzer]

That's still a very specific kind of monster setup that doesn't even exist in vanilla. No generic monsters are immune to the status effects that would lock them down far more effectively. Someone would have to be designing generic monsters with the clear intent of preventing them from being CC'd in any way before it would come down to trying to "exploit" the fight by draining their MP, and then, well, yeah, just give them sky high MP and maybe Move-MP Up and that solves that.

[old school]

@Nyzer @nitwit Good points.  I just wanted to clarify for the sake of the integrity of the original post (which I've updated).

As far as why, Duskblade on Orlandeau can crush MP with the fury, but I suppose if you're doing that, you'd be killing it with a different ability instead.  I don't know.  I'm feeling inclined to try now, just to say I've done it.

Anyway, thanks for the answers.

[nitwit]

That's still a very specific kind of monster setup that doesn't even exist in vanilla. No generic monsters are immune to the status effects that would lock them down far more effectively. Someone would have to be designing generic monsters with the clear intent of preventing them from being CC'd in any way before it would come down to trying to "exploit" the fight by draining their MP, and then, well, yeah, just give them sky high MP and maybe Move-MP Up and that solves that.

Agreed, but any modder worth their salt would give every monster at least a few immunities to debuffs, and reactions which make dealing damage more difficult or risky.

[old school]

It seems like the most correct answer is to rebalance MA/PA and leave MP out of the equation.  It sounds like this achieves the highest degree of vanilla authenticity and customization potential.  This also makes other skills like Aqua Breath, Aero 1/2/3, and Flamethrower, Blue Magic staples, feasible again.