The point of tension in Dragon Quest IX/other DQ games

dragon-quest-9

I'm a few hours into DQIX and have gained the Egg On ability to raise a party member's tension. I scoured the manual trying to figure out exactly how tension works and what it does, but I couldn't find any explanation. I think I saw that tension gives a damage bonus, but that's about all I can tell.

Assuming I didn't miss something in the manual, can someone explain it to me?

Best Answer

The higher your tension, the more damage you'll do. Tension can be at 0, 5, 20, 50 or 100. The higher it is the more damage you'll do, the more likely you are to hit, and critical* hit. At 100 you do MUCH more damage (about 2x I think)

*not positive about the critical.