Following my article on evasion badges and misconceptions about how they stack, here’s an in-depth article explaining the Paper Mario: TTYD damage calculation process and all its subtleties.  Normally I’d cover PM64’s equivalent mechanics at least in passing, but Floogal’s GameFAQs guide on Paper Mario stats and attacks is comprehensive and accurate on that matter already, so I’ll not waste words treading already-paved ground.

That said, here’s a list of stuff that will be (mostly) out of the scope of this investigation, unless I flesh out the post after the fact:

• Details about the base attack power for every move with variable damage (any player moves, stackable move badges, etc.)
• Details about various defensive and elemental-effect states of every enemy (e.g. Buzzies having different defenses when flipped than when upright).
• In general, interactions other than simple damage calculation; e.g. flipping shelled enemies, exploding bomb enemies, etc.

For the special point…