Star Power

Star Power, or Star Energy as it was originally called in Paper Mario, often shortened to SP and SE respectively, is a special form of energy featured in the first two installments of the Paper Mario series. In both games, Star Power is used to fuel Special Moves, a set of unique combat techniques that require Mario to use a special power taught by an entity like a Star Spirit or a Crystal Star.

Breaking from the tradition of the series, Star Power no longer appears in the third installment of the series, Super Paper Mario, nor the following games. The lack of Star Power in the subsequent games disables some of the features known from its predecessors, namely the possibility to perform Special Moves.

Paper Mario
In Paper Mario, Mario receives the ability to gather Star Energy and perform Special Moves after he rescues Eldstar from the Koopa Bros. After that, one unit of Star Power is added to Mario's disposal for every Star Spirit he rescues. Along with each Star Spirit, Mario also learns new Special Moves which consume 1 to 3 SP when used. Mario's amount of Star Energy is represented by colorful bars at the top of the screen. An eight of the bar gets refilled after every enemy turn in battle. Additionally, the Focus Command will refill half a bar upon use, or even more if Deep Focus(es) are equipped. Otherwise SE can also be restored by getting a Level-Up, finishing a Chapter or sleeping in a bed.

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, the stat is renamed as Star Power, and accessed by Mario after the prologue by holding aloft the Magical Map in front of the Thousand-Year Door. Like in the previous game, Mario's Star Power will increase with every Crystal Star he obtains, and he will also learn new Special Moves. Unlike before, the Star Power gauge is now composed of up to 8 dots, each representing one full unit of Star Power which can be further broken down to hundereths.

In this game, Star Power is not gained automatically at the beginning of a turn, but rather tied to performing Hammer, Jump, Partner Attacks, or Appeal.

When it comes to attacking moves, the formula used to calculate the amount of Star Power hundredths gained is as follows: floor(square root of(Audience Value) * (Action Command Value) * (Danger Value) * (BINGO Value)) The tiers refer to the text that appears upon executing a move. For example a well-executed Shell Shield will give off the "Great" text. However this can be modified with the Simplifier and Unsimplifier badges. For every Simplifier equipped the text will go down by one tier, and inversely go up by one tier for every Unsimplifier. As such a perfect Shell Shield will be reduced to "Nice" with two Simplifiers, and increased to "Excellent" with two Unsimplifiers. Moves that initially yield a "nice" will still give off a "nice" with a simplifier equipped, albeit in smaller text, and will still give off less SP. On the table they are referred as "Nice*" and "Nice**" respectively. Although certain moves have more than one stylish move to perform, only one is required to affect the Star Power multiplier. Doing successive stylishes will only affect audience gain.
 * The audience value is calculating for adding up the number of active audience members, although Toads are worth triple, and Dull Bones or sleeping audience members are worth none.
 * Action Command Value is calculated based on this table:
 * Danger Value is calculated based on this table:
 * the BINGO value is normally 1, but it is increased to 2 for four turns in the event of a Mushroom, Flower or Star Bingo!; or increased to 3 for six turns in the case of a Shine Sprite Bingo.

Star Power can also be regained by using the Appeal command, in which case the formula to calculate the Star Power hundredths is as follows: 25 * (number of Super Appeals + 1) + (number of active audience)/4

Other methods of recovering Star Power in battle include getting a successful Star or Shine Sprite Bingo!; and consuming Trial Stew. Otherwise SP can also be recovered by getting a Level-Up, finishing a Chapter or sleeping in a bed.

Special Moves
All Star Powers ignore evasion and invisibility checks. Furthermore, they pierce defense except for special defense such as the Iron Clefts'.