ok.
im looking for a specific effect. where it only does the "main" effect once. then does the "hit" effects.
like... AoE holy for example. i dont want the holy animation to go off for every person hit in the 5 spaces it affects, just once, then the damage effects appear on them... how do i do this?
Hmm, no one answered...strange...maybe you should check the summon spells how they are set up, because they only do one animation and then you see a whole buncha units get hit and scream/die. But in general, I think most spells do one animation per unit as they hit. Look at Ultima, it does that weird blue energy drop down thing which becomes sorta like a wave or something, but then it still shows each unit getting hit one by one by blue circle things...
I don't think anyone answered this because such things are hardcoded into the effect files to my knowledge, and of the changes I've seen done to effect files they don't extend beyond recolors and graphical tweaks.
Edit: Oh yes, I believe there's a stickied topic under the Final Fantasy Tactics/General Hacking section that's discussing effect editing. Its called New Spells I believe.
If I'm not mistaken, I think maybe its because of Math skill. Like cure 1, 2 and 3, fire 1, 2 and 3 etc etc...they are all single targetted which can be use and multiply by math skill. However, those AoE skills like cure 4, fire 4, bolt 4, haste 2, protect 2 etc etc, they are AoE instead of single target, thus can't be use with Math skill. So, perhaps try untick the Math skill box and increase its effect area, see if it works.