Are you sure you patched a clean ROM? JCE and I both have copiers and I know he played through this on his, I'm fairly sure I did on mine as well. If you want I can give it a try on bsnes real quick, I'm too lazy to hook up my SNES.
Edit: Verify your clean ROM with NSRT: http://www.romhacking.net/utils/400/
what's bsnes? a (new) emulator?
and, thanks for the help, but things seem to be running along beautifully on this emu. maybe it was a problem with snesgt? if it happens again, i'll verify it. i know that i've patched different copies of this rom before and never, ever had a problem. i can pull the ff3 rom out of my goodrom (goodsnes?) snes rom set that i have and is verified, if there's another problem.
that's a neat utility, btw. i'm gonna hang on to it.
edit2: is there a legitimate back row in ff3? if not, did you put one in? i only ask, because terra/krysta is having a hell of a time hitting as mouse that looks like it would be in the "back" enemy row.
edit3: i did remember to make plenty of save games and states, so if this rom doesnt work either, i can patch a verified good one, and start up form where i left off.
edit4: won me a nice wooden shield!! guy can use the extra def!