Capturing (also called Catching) is a new mechanic introduced in Epic Battle Fantasy 5, where most foes in the game (including bosses) can be captured/caught to be later used as summons. It is done through the new Capture Foe tactic, which throws a box at the enemy chosen. Unlike the Pokémon franchise the mechanic is inspired by, very little randomness is involved (and boxes' visual appearance have no impact on it); instead, the focus is on debilitating the foe — the stronger is the foe considered, the more negative status effects and debuffs have to be inflicted onto it to capture it.
Once captured, you can choose a nickname for the summon (except when Chinese, Japanese or Korean language is chosen in the game's options, or if playing on the Mobile platform, to reduce the number of different characters needed), which can be renamed by dragging a summon to the "Rename Summon" box in the summons menu. The summon can be used indefinitely, unless given to an NPC for a quest or sacrificed to upgrade an equipment piece, which would require the enemy to be captured again in order to use it, even if it was captured more than once previously — i.e., captured monsters don't stack.
Battle rewards are unaffected, meaning the foe would still drop loot and everything else as if it died. Capturing also unlocks the Bestiary entry for the foe, if it wasn't scanned yet. Capturing the same foe several times doesn't improve the summon in any way, but can still be used as an alternative for killing, primarily to avoid on-death abilities like Fishes' missiles.
As a sidenote, the size of the box that is dropped when capturing a foe determines the foe's Holiday Item (Red Envelopes, Heart Chocolates, Halloween Candy, Candy Canes and Easter Eggs) drop rates, the bigger the box, the higher the chance for the foe to drop them (which essentially translates into stronger enemies having higher drop rates than weaker ones).
Related medals:
- Slave Trader — capture any foe.
- None Are Safe — capture 50 different foes.
- None Are Free — capture 100 different foes.
- Gotta Catch 'em All — capture 151 different foes (added in the v2 update).
- Beast Tamer — capture a foe with ≤20 base score.
- Boss's Boss — capture Jotun or a foe with ≤4 base score.
- Not Pok*mon — equip >6 summons.
- Unusual Torture — use a summon as a material to upgrade an equip.
The formula used to calculate the chance of capturing a foe (see below) is also used to determine whether a foe should ignore the 
Lovable status if all front players have it, requiring to score >55 points (without taking into account the equipment+luck multiplier) to respect the status. In other words, stronger foes must first be weakened for their Lovable-reserved patterns to take effect, and weaker ones can also fall under the mark if buffed up enough.
Calculation[]
Each type of multipliers is stored separately.
HP[]
0.98 + ((Missing HP % rounded up) / 100%) ^ 2 * 10)
Status effects[]
- How far one status is stacked does not matter, only whether it's inflicted at all.
- Starts from 1
| Icon | Status | Score |
|---|---|---|
|
Freeze | +2 |
|
Stun | +1 |
|
Syphon | +0.5 |
|
Doom | +0.4 |
|
Bad Luck | +0.3 |
|
Scorch | +0.3 |
|
Poison | +0.2 |
|
Virus | +0.2 |
|
Burn | +0.2 |
|
Chill | +0.2 |
|
Stagger | +0.2 |
|
Weaken | +0.2 |
|
Curse | +0.2 |
|
Tired | +0.2 |
|
Brave | -0.2 |
|
Morale | -0.2 |
|
Regen | -0.2 |
|
Good Luck | -0.3 |
|
Defend | -0.5 |
|
Auto-Revive | -0.5 |
(De)buffs[]
- Specified as displayed by in-battle icons, red color meaning positive value and gray meaning negative.
- Starts from 1
| Icon | Stat | Score |
|---|---|---|
|
Defence | - Condition / 100 |
|
Magic Defence | - Condition / 100 |
|
Evade | - Condition / 50 |
|
HP | - Condition / 50 |
Luck and equips[]
- This applies to Good Luck and Bad Luck on the player, not the foe. See the Status Effects tab for these statuses on the target.
- How far one status is stacked does not matter, only whether it's inflicted at all.
- Neither does the upgrade level of equipment.
- Starts from 1
| Icon | Status | Score |
|---|---|---|
|
|
Good Luck | +0.3 |
|
|
Bad Luck | -0.4 |
| Equipment pieces that boost catching |
+0.3 each | |
Monster Cards boost[]
- There are a total of 5 cards which boost capture rate, with each adding 0.02 to the multiplier (max +0.1)
- Starts from 1.
Cheats and Custom Game boosts[]
- The "Cowardly Foes" cheat adds a 1.3x multiplier to foe base catch score.
- A 2P custom game increases all foe base catch scores by 1, and then adds a 1.15x multiplier to them.
- A 1P custom game increases all foe base catch scores by 2, and then adds a 1.4x multiplier to them.
Mixing together[]
Base catch score * HP bonus * status bonus * debuff bonus * luck and equips bonus * monster card bonus, with the result randomized by ±10%.
Surrender: +120 (sic)
At least 100 points must be scored for the capture attempt to be successful. Considering randomization, guaranteed capturing requires 111.(1)2 points, though 112 is simpler to remember, and the minimum required for very small capture chance is 90.(90)1 or 91.
Box shaking provides a visual indicator on how close you were to scoring 100 points.
- ≥175 → 0 shakes
- <175 to ≥150 → 1
- <150 to ≥120 → 2
- <120 to ≥80 → 3
- <80 to ≥60 → 2
- <60 to ≥40 → 1
- <40 → 0
Additionally, escaping the box counts as "forced movement" and thus cures the Freeze status from the foe.
Capturing tips[]
- As seen from the formulas above, when the capture fails, it is a sign of bad preparation, not bad luck. Add in more things that have an effect, and keep in mind that low health alone won't do it for stronger foes.
- Avoid putting foes critically low on health. There usually isn't a huge difference between 1% and 10% HP (10.98 HP bonus VS 9.08), and the more health they have, the less likely they are to get killed by a random event like a weather attack, a critical hit, counterattack or a between-turn summon. (Ideally, equipment that features the latter two should be swapped for something else, and attacking weather should be changed to something neutral with a summon, such as Fabulous Gloop as one can get extra turns from Cherry Blossom.)
- While making the enemy Surrender (Bow Whack, Firecrackers, and Screamer are good at that) guarantees the capture unless they are buffed up, make sure to capture it in the same turn, or else it will run away.
- Some bosses will try to clear bad effects from themselves, ruining the setup for capture. Try to inflict as much as you can and then capture it the same turn. The Viking Monolith summon grants every player an extra turn, useful in case three actions before the enemy turn are not enough. This is particularly important for Laurelin, as the Breezy weather needs to be cleared for statuses to be put into play and will come back after a few turns.
- On free versions of the game, bosses can only be fought once, thus there is only one chance to capture them. Otherwise, they can be fought again in respawnable boss rushes as an endgame challenge in the Temple of Trials, or in New Game+.
- Most non-boss foes can be found in respawnable battles in the Grand Gallery. If playing through the game for the second time, stopping by the Grand Gallery and capturing everything may prove to be more convenient than actually hunting down the relevant foes and capturing them, especially ones like the Bubbler MX-01 or the Sky Dragon.
- It is a good idea to get the Putrid Worm summon, accessible within the first minutes of gameplay. Its 80% Evade debuff will work wonders (without resistances and other debuffs, that raises debuff bonus to 2.6, already enough to capture everything weaker than Sprites), and its low damage is unlikely to kill the target.
- Combining this with the Firecrackers skill mentioned below brings this to ≈4.4 (which is almost enough for a guaranteed capture on Wraiths).
- Later in the game, the NoLegs Doll summon inflicts Bad Luck and a 50% Evade debuff (for 1.3 status bonus and 2 debuff bonus, totalling to 2.6 again) on all foes without dealing any damage.
- The Firecrackers skill obtained from the Chinese New Year quest also inflicts Bad Luck on all foes and also gives all players Good Luck; it may also force enemies to surrender, guaranteeing their capture.
- Inflicting status ailments is always helpful for boosting Capture Score, but some are even more useful than others. In particular Tired and Curse not only directly boost Capture Score though the status effect portion of the calculation, but also indirectly boost the debuff portion by causing debuffs to Evade (Tired) and to both Defence and Magic Defence (Curse) over time.
- Bow Whack can be helpful late in the game to capture missed foes in earlier locations, if the party is over-leveled to the point where other damaging attacks kill the foes.
Equipment that boosts capturing[]
- "Improves chances of catching foes."
- ―Equips with this effect
One player can take up to 3 equips with this bonus; all contribute equally and stack. The strength of the boost is not increased with equip's level, but some must first be upgraded to a certain level in order to unlock this effect. All equipment give a +0.3 bonus to capturing.
| Icon | Name | Type | The boost is unlocked at |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Puppy Hat (Premium only) |
Male Hat | Level 1 |
|
Spelunking Hat | Level 3 | |
|
Bunny Ears (Premium only) |
Female Hat | Level 5 |
|
Curly Horns | Level 5 | |
|
Explorer's Jacket | Male Armor | Level 3 |
|
Viking Fur | Level 5 | |
|
Fur Dress | Female Armor | Level 5 |
|
Ranger Skirt | Level 5 | |
|
Mini Drone | Flair | Level 1 |