Weapon Upgrade

RPG Maker MV · v1.0.0 · Next Level Gaming (An MZ version is also available.)

Most weapon upgrade plugins pick one model and commit to it. This one ships six, and lets every weapon in your database opt into whichever ones it wants.

A rusty starter sword can be a plain +1 → +10 reinforcement track and nothing more. A character's signature weapon can carry a full Final Fantasy VII Remake upgrade grid, level up from being used, teach abilities through repeated casting, take an elemental infusion, and eventually transform into something else entirely. The upgrade menu only shows the tabs a weapon actually has, so the rusty sword never displays an empty grid.

The six layers

Each one is switched on per weapon with a notetag. Use one, use all six, use none.

Reinforcement (+N)

The classic. Gold and material costs per level, an optional success rate, and a failure penalty you choose: keep the level, drop one, or fall all the way back to +0. A pity counter can guarantee success after a run of failures, and any single level can override the entire cost and rate formula — so you can build a deliberate wall at +5. Upgraded weapons show their +N everywhere, including shops and the equip screen.

Most JRPGs, MMOs, Souls games.

Upgrade Grid

A board of nodes laid out on coordinates you define and wired together with links. Spend upgrade points to light up nodes for stats, materia slots, skills, weapon abilities, attack elements and attack states. Nodes can be gated behind a weapon level, marked as cores — drawn larger, the natural branch points of a board — or set as free starting nodes. Resetting a board refunds every point, for free by default, so players can experiment without fear.

Final Fantasy VII Remake.

Weapon Level

The weapon itself gains EXP from being used: per action taken, per enemy defeated, and per battle won. You set the EXP curve and decide what each level pays out — stats, upgrade points, materia slots, skills, abilities, or grid nodes unlocked for free.

FF7 Rebirth, Tales, Monster Hunter sharpness.

Weapon Abilities

Skills the wielder can use while the weapon is equipped. Each use builds proficiency, and at 100% the character learns the skill permanently and keeps it after switching weapons. Turn that off for games where a weapon skill should only ever work while that weapon is held.

Final Fantasy VII Remake.

Infusion

One exclusive affinity at a time, swappable forever. Fire, lightning, blessed — whatever you define. Each carries its own stats, elements, states, skills and icon, and shows up in the weapon's name. The old infusion is simply replaced; charge for every swap, or only the first time each one is applied.

Dark Souls and Elden Ring infusions, Diablo enchants.

Evolution

Consume the weapon and turn it into a different weapon. Requirements can include a reinforce level, a weapon level, a number of grid nodes unlocked, a game switch, gold and materials. You choose what carries over — reinforcement, grid progress, weapon level, points, infusion, ability proficiency — or nothing at all, the usual Monster Hunter fresh start. Repeat the tag for branching trees and the menu lists every path.

Monster Hunter trees, Final Fantasy weapon chains.

The upgrade menu

An Upgrade command is added to the main menu — optional, switch-gated, and greyed out when nobody in the party is carrying anything upgradeable. You can also open it straight to a chosen character from an event.

Inside: the party member's points and the party's gold along the top left, their upgradeable weapons listed underneath, and a tab strip on the right for whichever layers the selected weapon offers.

The grid tab draws the actual board — nodes, connecting lines, unlocked in green, available in amber, locked in grey, cores ringed in blue. You navigate it by board position rather than list order, so the D-pad moves the way the board looks rather than the way the list is sorted. Shift resets it.

An info panel along the bottom shows exactly what the highlighted thing costs and exactly what it gives you, so nothing is a surprise after the fact.

Tab names, node colours, sound effects, EXP rates, proficiency gain and every other term are plugin parameters.

Setup looks like this

A reinforcement track:

<Reinforce Max: 10> <Reinforce Stat: atk, 3> <Reinforce Gold: price * level / 2> <Reinforce Item: 12, 2> <Reinforce Rate: 110 - level * 8> <Reinforce Fail: down> <Reinforce Pity: 5> 

A grid:

<Upgrade Grid> node 1: pos 0,0; name Attack Up; sp 1; stat atk,5; link 2,4; start node 2: pos 1,0; name Materia Slot; sp 2; slot 1; link 3 node 3: pos 2,0; name Focused Thrust; sp 3; ability 45; core node 4: pos 0,1; name Magic Up; sp 1; stat mat,4; wlv 3 </Upgrade Grid> 

An evolution path:

<Evolve: 5; name Enhanced Blade; gold 5000; item 30,3;          reinforce 5; wlv 10; grid all; carry level,abilities> 

Costs and success rates are formulas, not just numbers. They can reference the level being bought, the weapon's price, the maximum level, the number of consecutive failures so far, and your own game variables and switches.

Stat bonuses accept all eight core parameters plus every hit, evasion, critical and rate stat, as flat values or percentages.

Upgrade points

Two economies, your choice.

In actor mode every character has one pool that all of their weapons draw from, topped up as they level up. Spending on one weapon leaves less for another, and resetting a board gives it all back. This is the FF7 Remake model.

In weapon mode each weapon carries its own points, earned from its own level rewards. Use this when weapons should improve by being used rather than by the character growing.

Event control

Eight plugin commands cover the lot — open the menu on a given actor, grant points, grant weapon EXP, set a reinforce level, unlock a grid node, apply an infusion, force an evolution, and wipe a weapon's progress:

WeaponUpgrade gainExp 7 250 WeaponUpgrade setInfusion 7 fire WeaponUpgrade evolve 7 1 

Script calls expose the same state for conditional branches, so you can check a weapon's reinforce level, weapon level or unlocked nodes from an event page.

Compatibility

Stat bonuses go through paramPlus / paramRate / xparam / sparam, so they stack with other plugins rather than overwriting them. Granted skills are added in Game_Actor.skills and respect the usual usability rules. Name decoration wraps drawItemName, so upgraded and infused weapons read correctly in shops and the equip screen as well as in the upgrade menu.

If Materia.js is installed, materia slots granted by grid nodes and weapon levels are added on top of the weapon's own <Materia Slots> notetag.

One thing to know before you start

Upgrades are stored per weapon database ID, not per copy. RPG Maker keeps the inventory as a count per database entry, so every "Long Sword" the party owns is the same object — upgrading one upgrades all of them.

That is exactly right for the FF7 Remake and Rebirth style this is built for, where each weapon is a unique named item a character owns one of. If you want upgradeable generic gear, give each upgradeable weapon its own database entry and hand out only one of each.

Terms of use

Free for commercial and non-commercial projects. Credit appreciated.