Like in the traditional Shining Force games, a forum game can also employ the use of Land Effect. This is where different kinds of terrain can affect a character's movement range and the amount of damage they take from enemy attack. Damage alteration, called Land Effect, is presented as a percentage, indicating how much somebody's defence increases by when standing on that particular terrain tile.
If a Game Master decides to use this, both he and the players should refer to it often, so as to not make incorrect actions in battle, resulting the tedious task of retaking actions and/or slowing overall progress. Sometimes, it's actually just easier to leave this particular facet out.
| Terrain types and the defence boost they give |
| | Grass/Plains | Paths/Bridges | Overgrowth |
| Boost |  15% |  0% |  30% |
| | Forest | Mountains | Sand | Snow |
| Boost |  30% |  30% |  0% |  30% |
As can be seen above, Paths and Bridges offer no land effect bonus, and likewise, they also offer no movement penalty. Because this is the case, they do not present in the table below.
| Terrain Penalties on Class Movement Rates |
| Class | Move | Overgrowth | Forest | Hill | Mountain | Sand | Snow |
| SDMN | 6 | −1 | −1 | −1 | −1 | −1 | −1 |
| KNT | 7 | −1 | −2 | −2 | −2 | −2 | −2 |
| MAGI | 5 | −1 | −1 | −1 | −1 | −1 | −1 |
| PRST | 5 | −1 | −1 | −1 | −1 | −1 | −1 |
| ARCH | 5 | 0 | 0 | −1 | −1 | −1 | −1 |
| MTGN | 5 | 0 | −1 | −1 | −1 | −1 | 0 |
| WARR | 5 | −1 | −1 | −1 | −1 | −1 | −1 |
| AKNT | 6 | −1 | −2 | −2 | −2 | −2 | −2 |
| BSLD | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| DSLD | 6 | −1 | −1 | −1 | −1 | −1 | −1 |
| MGCR | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| MKNT | 7 | −1 | −2 | −2 | −2 | −2 | −2 |
| MONK | 5 | −1 | −1 | 0 | 0 | −1 | 0 |
| NINJ | 7 | 0 | 0 | −1 | −1 | −1 | −1 |
| RNGR | 6 | 0 | 0 | −1 | −1 | −1 | −1 |
| RBT | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| THIF | 7 | 0 | 0 | −1 | −1 | −1 | −1 |
| WFMN | 7 | 0 | 0 | −1 | −1 | −1 | −1 |
It should be noted that if upon character generation, a player chose to make a dragon soldier a flying unit, then he/she would not benefit from a defence bonus or movement penalties. A magic creature's Hover ability allows them to negate movement penalties, but still benefit from a defence bonus.
Calculating the Movement Penalty
In essence, the penalties listed above apply to every step taken on the battlefield. So if a Knight takes a step on sand, it uses up 3 points of its maximum 7 movement: 7 max movement −1 step taken −2 Knight sand penalty, resulting in 4 available squares of movement remaining.
Therefore, if he were to take a second step onto sand, another 3 points of of movement would be taken away. With a single point left, a Knight then could only take a step onto a terrain tile that offers no penalties at all, as it doesn't have enough points left to move onto a tile that would require 2 or 3 points
