Materia and sources effects on leveling up

[Zeo]

1) If I cap characters health (or some other stat) using materia, does the character still gain natural hp when leveling up?

2) If I boost characters stat past their natural growth cap using sources, does the stat still grow when leveling up?

In other words I'm wondering if there is any adverse effects in boosting stats before max level. Thanks for help in advance!

[Killbunny]

Regardless of the materia you use on a character it will not affect the growth of the character stats. So if you character had say 2000HP before adding hp plus then has 9999HP after, then you level them say 10 lvls, there base hp will be higher than 2000HP.

If you max a characters stats using sources before the character maxes naturally then when they lvl they will not gain any increase.

[Shiro]

Think of it this way, the game DOES calculate numbers above 9999. This can be evidenced by getting the "HP Half" modifier in Battle Square, but only losing around 1/3 or less of your actual health because technically your health is at 12k or more before the game cuts it off at 9999. This is also why a character can hit an enemy with Barrier/Shield for more than 5000 damage, despite the barrier applying a 50% reduction. Before applying the cap of 9999, your character's damage is calculated as being a lot higher than the cap of 9999.

*Ahem* Anyway, the point is, the game runs the full formula to figure out your character's health and damage, and THEN it says "But this number is higher than 9999, so it's just 9999."

*Edit: Oh, and yes, if you cap-out a character's stat through Sources, then he won't be able to get further stat gains in that stat since the cap is 255. However, that is less concern for two reasons. Firstly, you need to really work at it in order to cap-out any stat through Sources. If you aren't Morph-farming to get a ton of sources, then you won't even get near the stat cap with sources alone (the game doesn't give you much more than 10 of each Source outside of Morphing certain enemies; and no character has a stat that caps out above 200). Secondly, Sources are at least permanent. Granted, I get that the concern is "But if I cap-out someone's stat before Level 99, I could have given that source to someone else for higher over-all stats", but that just brings us back to the last point. You aren't going to cap anyone's stats with sources unless you're specifically trying.