So, I'm a big fan of the FF games. Upon playing FF1, I was naturally displeased with its multitude of bugs, imbalances, and general illogic (i.e., if you get the Silver sword before the Long sword, the latter is useless). And don't even get me started on Origins.

I downloaded the ROM and FFHackster as well as FFH plus. I have been able to create a version of FF with most bugs fixed, much more balance, and tougher boss fights. However, some issues elude me, as follows:

I have not found a fix for the INT bug. So far, I have been making up for this by making spells more likely to hit and giving classes more spells per day based on thier INT values. So, this problem isn't as bad as the next one:

I have not found a way to change the amount of magic defense gained per level. Which means that Black Belt is still better than Master. The only way to circumvent this [barring the omission of Black Belt or a solo BB to level 50] is to get the party to level 50 before upgrading the classes. My revamped version of Chaos, I might add, is quite difficult to beat even at level 50.
When getting to level 50 before upgrading, problems arise with holding items that aren't useful but will be upon upgrade. BB can hold four magic armors, but that leaves two that still can't be equipped. Memorizing the location of all the magic armors would be possible, but impractical. Also, it can be a bit of a pain not having WARP or EXIT. And of course RM doesn't get RUSE. And how useful are Knight/Ninja's spells going to be if you don't get them until the very end? It is possible, of course, to simply get to L50 fast by fighting EYEs (especially since I put a group of 4 in front of the FLOATER), but then the rest of the game is too easy. I suppose I could just give better spells and equips to the starting classes, but that would somewhat defeat the purpose of the class upgrade.

So the bottom line is, I really, really need to find a program that can change magic defense increase per level. And I wouldn't mind finding an INT bugfix. Does anybody know of any such program or patch? Thanks in advance.

Now what compels such an upstanding organization to be so covetous of a patch? Well, I'm more interested in magic defense anyway; I can't stand that whole deal with BB/Master. Any good hex editors for something like this? Any "hex guides" indicating which bit goes where and whatnot?

If I remember, it wasn't finished or they had more changes they wanted to make to it (as I understand it's a very complicated fix).

I hear romhacking.net is a good place to get rom hacking utilities and documents 

Hex editors (I recommend Windhex):
http://www.romhacking.net/?category=13&page=utilities

FF1 Documents (including partial ROM maps):
http://www.romhacking.net/?game=561&page=documents

The only thing I want improved about FF1 is the ability to use LIFE spells during battle.  Maybe all spells have a flag that dictates when they can be used. 

Well, the custom ASM has to be written for that, and I doubt it would even be a simple hack in the first place.

Edit: Same thing would go for Soft as well.