Target info

Bits decoded by getTargetMaskFromInfo / computeTargetMaskDeadUnknown1 when the engine auto-resolves a target mask (AI attacks, auto-summons, item randomization).

ID Description
0x0000 None
0x0001 Dead — targets KO’d units (adds the revive bit 0x4000 to the target mask)
0x0002 Multi-target spread — adds mask bit 0x2000 (TARGET_MASK32_TARGET_SEVERAL; IDA TARGET_INFO_SEVERAL_HIT_SPREAD)
0x0004 Unused — skipped by both target-mask decoders; no consumer found
0x0008 Single Side
0x0010 Single — auto-resolves to one random target of the chosen side
0x0020 Everyone on one side — auto-resolves to the whole side
0x0040 Enemy — selects the enemy side (otherwise the character side)
0x0080 Unused — skipped by both target-mask decoders; no consumer found

Attack Type

ID Hex Description
1 0x00 None
2 0x01 Physical Attack
3 0x02 Magic Attack
4 0x03 Curative Magic
5 0x04 Curative Item
6 0x05 Revive
7 0x06 Revive At Full HP
8 0x07 % Physical Damage
9 0x08 % Magic Damage
10 0x09 Renzokuken Finisher
11 0x0A Squall Gunblade Attack
12 0x0B GF
13 0x0C Scan
14 0x0D LV Down
15 0x0E Summon Item?
16 0x0F GF (Ignore Target SPR)
17 0x10 LV Up
18 0x11 Card
19 0x12 Kamikaze
20 0x13 Devour
21 0x14 % GF Damage
22 0x15 Unknown 1
23 0x16 Magic Attack (Ignore Target SPR)
24 0x17 Angelo Search
25 0x18 Moogle Dance
26 0x19 White Wind (Quistis)
27 0x1A LV? Attack
28 0x1B Fixed Damage
29 0x1C Target Current HP - 1
30 0x1D Fixed Magic Damage Based on GF Level
31 0x1E Unknown 2
32 0x1F Unknown 3
33 0x20 Give Percentage HP
34 0x21 Unknown 4
35 0x22 Everyone’s Grudge
36 0x23 1 HP Damage
37 0x24 Physical Attack (Ignore Target VIT)

Attack flag

ID Meaning
0x03 Damage-type pair (bits 0-1) — see below
0x04 Unused — no reader anywhere (also set on nothing in retail)
0x08 Break damage limit (dmg cap 9999 → 60000)
0x10 Reflectable — the spell can be bounced by Reflect status (handleSpellReflection)
0x20 Read only for battle items — updateBattleItemData (test byte, 20h) drives the item’s battle-menu selectability/greyed state. On magic / GF / Blue Magic / limits this bit is inert, even though it is set on virtually every player ability (an authoring convention: set on all player abilities, clear on all 384 enemy attacks)
0x40 Unused — no reader anywhere. It is deliberately set on the curative/beneficial magics (Cure family, Life, Esuna, Dispel, Float, and — oddly — Fire) and on every curative item, but nothing in the engine tests it. The actual “beneficial → default-target allies / revive” behaviour is driven by 0x80 (Revive) plus the separate TargetInfo byte, not this bit
0x80 Revive — classifies the action as revival; drives the field/battle menu revive handling and the ally-default targeting (ATTACK_FLAG_REVIVE)

Damage-type pair (bits 0-1)

The low two bits form a damage-type pair, stored per hit as the target’s last_attacker_attack_flag (ATTACK_FLAG & 3). It is not a free bitfield — it’s one of four mutually-exclusive values. The kernel attackFlags byte holds the “resting” value; the runtime overrides some (Gunblade/Renzokuken force 3; on a Gunblade hit the value becomes the source’s own type).

Pair Name Set by
0 Physical Attack, most physical commands
1 Magical Magic, GF, most offensive spells
2 Item/Medicine Battle items
3 (special) Forced by Renzokuken finishers / Gunblade

What pair = 0 (Physical) uniquely enables — pure-physical hits are the only ones that: trigger the target’s Counter ability, wake a Sleeping/Confused target, remove Back Attack status, and mark the kill result on a killing blow. Magical, Item and special hits do none of these. The monster-AI condition LAST ACTION DAMAGE TYPE also compares this pair against Physical/Magical, so an attack’s type decides which AI branches fire.

What pair = 1 (Magical) does — the target’s Shell status halves the damage or heal (ATTACK_FLAG_MAGICAL_SHELLED). This is unconditional in computeCurativeMagic, so curative magic is always Shell-halved — a penalty spells cannot avoid.

What pair = 2 (Item/Medicine) does — it is the gate for the Med Data doubling in Damage_ComputeCurativeItemSpecial:

if ((ATTACK_FLAG & 3) == 2 && attacker is a player character && attacker knows Med Data)
    heal *= 2;

Curative-item heals use 50 × power (Potion, power 4 → 200 HP; doubled to 400 with Med Data). But the implications of the pair value matter just as much as the doubling:

  • Fun fact — items dodge Shell. Because a curative item is pair 2 (not 1/Magical), a target’s Shell status does not halve its healing (Damage_ComputeCurativeItemSpecial has no Shell check). The Shell penalty that hits a Cure spell (pair 1, halved unconditionally in computeCurativeMagic) simply never applies to a Potion.
  • Fun fact — Med Data never provokes a counter. Med Data doubling only exists on the Item path (pair 2), which is non-Physical, so a doubled heal can never trigger the target’s Counter — you get the boost with none of the physical-hit side effects.
  • Fun fact — Phoenix Down ignores this flag entirely. Its Med Data boost (maxHP/8 → maxHP/4 revive) lives in GetReviveHP and checks command == Item directly, not ATTACK_FLAG & 3. So the flag governs curative-item HP restore, while revival amount is gated separately by the command type.

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