Final Fantasy Hacktics

First off, you need to actually extract the ISO from the disk. There are numerous programs that can acomplish this, but I personally never had much luck getting them to work with my copy of Tactics, so I just downloaded a copy of the ISO off of some shady ROM site (a perfectly legal move since I actually own the game). Site regulations preclude me from actually naming any such sites, so you're on your own there, if that's what you want to do.

next step would be finding an emulator that works. I'm not aware of any Mac-specific playstation emulators, so you might have to get a Windows emulator and run one through it.

Once you have an ISO and a working emulator, just download the patch from the forums, and the PPF-Patch-o-Matic program to apply aformentioned patch, and presto! there you go!

Also of note is the FFTPatcher utility. This program will allow you to open up the FFT ISO and muck around with item stats, abilitys, spells, jobs, and even battle formations. This program is entirely seperate from version 1.3, it creates seperate patches in its own FFTPatcher format, and does not requre the use of PPF-Patch-O-Matic to apply them.

The katana is the weapon of the samurai, as a class that relies on both PA and MA, it makes the most sense (at least, to me) that thier iconic weapon share that same trait (it also means that the same equipment that buffs draw out damage will buff katana attack damage as well).

I personally lean towards guns also using the SP * WP formula, but then, I tend to replace most of the crossbows with guns in my personal patches. I also have a soft split between handguns and rifles (meaning that they remain the same weapon class, so a character with equip gun can equip both, but thier general stats are different), handguns having a range of 5, but are 1-handed, rifles having a range of 8, but require 2 hands (just like bows).

books and instuments should both be MA * WP intstead of being partially reliant on PA
staves, rods, and sticks should go with (PA +MA)/2 * WP
Crossbows should be SP * WP (no more, "I do more damage because i can pull the trigger REALLY  HARD")
Katana should also use the (PA + MA)/2 * WP formula, since samurai are essentially a type of warrior mage class
the NEW random damage formula zodiac already did is awesome, so no further changes there

I too would like to see global innate Equip Change and Defend, as they're both useful abilities, but not worth spending an ability slot on, since in the early game you don't have good enough equipment to really benifit and mid to late game you have much better ability options like Attack Up and Short Charge. Of course, as things stand, there's nothing stopping us from just adding them as class innates via FFTPatcher, so there's really no rush.

Rad is hiding in an allyway as a knight on a chocobo rides past, he looks around then then tries to open a door, only to find that its locked, he looks around worridly and starts pounding on it

RAD: Ramza! Ramza! Open up, its me, Rad, I got the stuff from the Fur Shop, come on open up the knights are gonna catch me any minute!

RAMZA (from other side of door): ...Rad?

RAD: Yeah! It's me, Rad, open up!

RAMZA: ...Rad's not here man...

RAD: No! I'M Rad! Open the door man!

RAMZA: ...Rad?

RAD: Yes! Its me, Rad, now for the love of Ajora open the god-damn door!

RAMZA: ...I'm sorry dude, but Rad's not here, you're going to have to come back later...

KNIGHT (from offscreen): There he is! Catch him!

RAD: Shit! *runs off, as he is persued by a knight on chocobo*

LAVIAN (from inside): Hey Ramza, who was that?

RAMZA: I donno, some dude looking for Rad

LAVIAN: Huh... Hey, we got any more Elixers?

RAMZA: No way man, that was the last of 'em, I hope Rad gets back soon, he was supposed to get more...

I have the same message pop up about cd-tool.lau, but I have zero problems getting fftpatcher to work, so I donno whats up

yeah, the animation that the character does is hardcoded, so even if you set the effect to say, Fire, he'd still tackle. one of the excell forms on the forums, I think the one for tracking ability name changes, lists what animation each skill slot calls on.

I totally understand any liberties you might take with any and all hats, given his crazy anime hair.

I'd like to see Cloud dressed in the Dancer's outfit, but then crossdressing cloud always has amused me (especially since, cannoicaly, he's pretty enough to actually look good in drag). In fact, a pic of cloud in all of the various female job outfits could be fun.

thanks, I wasn't nearly as inspired with the ghosts as I was with the skelletons, so I was kind of grasping at straws, creatively. I do like the inclusion of Polka Polka as the ghoul monster skill (dancing zombies are the scariest kind, didn't you know? ).

some other undead monster abilities i've played with
Skelleton as Lich

If you want to make your skeletons into undead magic-slinging abominations, then try something like this

Knife Hand has a chance of causing Don't Act (inspired by the Lich's fabled paralyzing touch)

Replacing the various Soul abilities with Tier 1 black magic spells (Bolt, Ice and Fire for the skelleton, bone snatch, and living bone, respectively), making them even more Lich-like.

combining the above with the 1.3 change of giving skelly's demi, demi 2 and death

skelleton monster skill is Dark Holy

Skelleton innates are Move Underwater, Damage Split, Defense Up, and Short Charge, they are also innately immune to the crystal and treasure statuses.

New Ghosts

Ghoul
ghoul abilities are as follows
Attack- unlike gusts and revenants, ghouls are corporal creatures, and must attack physically

Zombie Touch- inflicts Don't Act

Moan- reduces the PA of all adjacent enemies by 2

monster skill is Polka Polka
Ghoul Innates are Defense Up, Move Underwater, Meatbone Slash and Any Ground.

Gust (probablly meant to be poltergeist, so that's what i'm going with here)
Gust abilities
Throw Spirit- uses the dash/throw stone formula, randomly deals between 1 and 5 times PA damage with a 50% chance of knockback
Wind Soul
Don't Move
Monster Skill is Hurricane (changed to deal damage as a wind-element spell with power equvilent to Ultima)
Innate abilities are Teleport, Blade Grasp, Short Charge, and Float
They have the following elemental properties: weak holy and lightning, immune wind and ice, absorb dark. (you might also have to put in half fire in order to fully negate the fire weakness added as a result of  innate undead status)

Revenant
abilities
Corrupting Gaze- deals magical dark damage with a range of 3, pick a yin-yang magic spell for the effect
Malnevolence- acts as self-destruct, but adds Charm and Death Sencence instead of Oil
Drain Touch- completely drains a target's MP
Monster Skill is Lich (now uses the death formula, and randomly inflicts negative status, deals 20% max hp damage)
innates are Teleport, Float, Blade Grasp, and Short Charge
elemental properties: weak holy and lightning, immune wind and ice, absorb dark. (you might also have to put in half fire in order to fully negate the fire weakness added as a result of  innate undead status)

I really liked the Word of Pain ability from the SoR patch, its a spell that deals damage to every enemy on the field. I thought about doing something similar in my own personal patch, but changing it to damage everything on the field, friend and foe. However since it deals dark damage, making it like that could actually make it MORE powerful since it'd damage foes and heal allied undead in one fell swoop.

also, I thought up an unrelated ability that'd be great for the ghost monsters, you could call it Manevolence or Possession or whatever, basicly, it'd use the Self-Destruct formula but add Charm instead of Oil. Uses the Muramasa animation (the one with the ghosts, its either that or murasame, and I always get those mixed up)

Speaking of new monster abilities, since you're making a necromancer class, do you plan on making any changes to the undead?

whips would be awesome! The fact that whips have a precedence as weapons in FF makes them an even better idea. I'd like to make them wind-element weapons with a chance to add Don't Move. Except for the highest-level whip, that one i'd name Vampire Killer and make it wind and holy element with a chance to cast Seal Evil.

as far as assigning special skill effects, im limited to what it already does (the normal item graphics), however, it IS possible to make items deal damage as well as inflict/cancel status, you just have to use a fomula like 5F or the geomancy formula or something (something that references only PA and/or MA and/or SP in the fomula). its not perfect, but its better then nothing.

about converting shuriken and bombs to work in the item menu, it is possible to set the item skill to use a shuriken or bomb, but if you try to use a weapon formula on that item, it won't use the WP of the item when you throw it, but rather the WP of whatever you have equiped (if anything, and just deals barehand damage if not). it'd definatly take more then what FFTPatcher is currently capable of doing in order to make it work.
as far as alternate items go, I went ahead and overwrote the antidote, eye drops, echo grass, maiden's kiss, and soft items (who uses them anyway? I never have, at least) to inflict rather then cure status (the maiden's kiss item now inflicts sleep, as its a somewhat less debilitating status then frog, and the soft item now inflicts zombie). I'd love to be able to make a damaging grenade-type item using formula 03, but status infliction seems to be as far as we can go with FFTPatcher (although, you could probably make one that referenced the thrower's MA stat, based off of my observations, though i've yet to sit down and test that theory...hmm...dashes off to test).
:EDIT: nope, it still references your equiped weapon and WP even if you set the item formula to only use MA.
:EDITEDIT: BWAHAHA!!! I got it work! I tested using the antidote ability, and at first, I set it reference the fire ball item, and seting the fire ball item to use formula 5F {([MA + Y]/2) * MA}, which was a failure, then, I went back and set it to reference the antidote item and set THAT to formula 5F and it WORKED!  

a pity about the specs, because glasses are sexy awesome. regarding the hair, I like the way he looks, but it does make him look rather old for a generic unit. the proposed green/brown pallet though, if only for including green, invokes mental images of Dr. Citan Uzuki, and that association makes it awesome.

good luck with that, all i've manged to get custom throw items to display are the thunder soul and shell effects, and i'm not even sure how that happened (all I wanted was for it to throw like normal). for the thunder soul effect, it would throw the item like normal, then it would do the thunder soul animation. then, I changed some things around, and it stopped using the throw animation all togethter, instead it cast the shell effect first on the thrower, then on the target.

that would be wicked awesome, I can just imagine her with some sort of Uber-chemist special job, all throwing grenades and poison bombs and whatnot.

Awesome, she looks very nice, though what happend to her sleeves/bracers? (I'm assuming her puple collar/scarf was cut because of color limits) Also, is that a belt or exposed midrift?

I'm currently trying to figure out if there is a way to successfully add new items to the item command so I can make some offensive items without overwriting any existing ones. Currently, its not going any better then the attempt to add throwing skills to normal skillsets, since even when I overwrite the original item commands to make them offensive, I can't get the skillset to actually use the item peramiters to determine effect for anything other then just adding a status. Specifically, I want to make some bomb/grenade type items using the Gun WP^2 formula to determine effect (i've already switched actual guns to use SP * WP), but when I set it up so that the command actually works, it ends up taking the WP of whatever i have equiped instead of that of the item. I've had a little more success with making new offensive thowing items, but they all tend to start referencing the Thunder Soul effect for some reason