[3.X] Mana

[JonSetanta]

There have been many iterations over the years throughout many editions of D&D for implementing a mana system for spellcasters.
The main goal is evading Vancian magic, which I am all in favor of, but in exchange it tends to make spellcasters even more powerful.

This version http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/spellPoints.htm is needlessly complex, requires a bit of reading, and still isn't satisfying.

My goal was to recreate something more like Final Fantasy.



• Every character has a Mana Pool equal to their Wisdom stat + Level.
• Mana refreshes one hour after the most recent spell was cast.
• Spells cost an amount of Mana equal to their spell level.


So, this should not only reward conservation of Mana during combat (a lean towards lower level spells to make the pool last longer) but also with a faster refresh time than per day.

[Lago PARANOIA]

My goal was to recreate something more like Final Fantasy.

Why? Final Fantasy's system is absolutely terrible. And of course only exists within the narrow confines of combat; I can already see that your proposal, as a straight port to the D&D system:

[*] Buffs up casters even more, because The Frank Cheat now operates on a cycle of hours instead of days.
[*] Buffs up casters even more, because it doesn't force casters into a trichotomy of having contingency spells, plot-advancement spells, and combat-ender spells.
[*] Encourages turbo-nuking + turtling hardcore as soon as any spells are used for whatever reason. The effect may be lessened if the DM threatens to send in Metagame Ninjas to take advantage of PC vulnerability in the time between refreshes.

[JonSetanta]

The next step would be to go at the D&D spell list with an axe, but I'm not going to bother.
It's been done to death. We all know the broken spells.
Exploits and infinite wish loops are beyond what I intended for mana systems.

I suppose if one were to go about making a FF-style spell list you would be best off jacking the FF spell list directly from, say, Final Fantasy Tactics and porting it to d20.

Regardless, assuming a person can't break the setting over their knee like cardboard with a single spell, I would expect mana to be more player friendly for new players than Vancian could ever hope to be.


Another thought experiment: Does this work for E6?



EDIT: I did some reading about the Frank Cheat since it's new to me. This is all I could find.

http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=28140

It seems d20 already has a per-hour refresh rate.


And here's a reference to the Frank Cheat:
http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=12923

It's worse than that, I'm pretty sure that I get "The Frank Cheat" - a reference to the slopover effects possible when spells have a duration measured in hours and can be used every "day".

Not a problem. If it can be done with per day slots, per hour should be no change.
If anything it makes per round duration buffs more accessible.

[Dean]

I have used an unlimited spellcasting system for years with vastly improved games because of it. It is a simple spell roll system that I outline in this thread. If what you want specifically is a mana pool system then I'm not actually helping but if what you want is a solid system that gets you away from Vancian casting then there's one I've had great success with.

[Ancient History]

I think most of the good and bad issues with spell points are covered by looking at psionics, but even if you go the spell points route you're just switching out resource management systems on what is already a rather clunky, unbalanced system where certain spells are clearly superior to others at a given level - and that's not even looking at the whole quadratic wizard business. Really, D&D needs a ground-up rethink of its magic system, something simple enough to grasp quickly, granular enough to satisfy the mechanic wonks, but not so overpowered as to render fighters irrelevant.

[rampaging-poet]

My parents are playing a D&D game with a daily mana pool and spontaneous casting, but your highest level spells can only be cast a few times per day in addition to costing more mana. If I remember correctly, a 7th level caster could cast 1 4th level spell, three 3rd level spells, and as many lower level spells as they had mana for. An 8th level caster could cast two 4th level spells and unlimited 3rd-level spells. You can still put all your points into higher-level spells, but they have to be at least one spell level below the highest you can cast.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Really, D&D needs a ground-up rethink of its magic system, something simple enough to grasp quickly, granular enough to satisfy the mechanic wonks, but not so overpowered as to render fighters irrelevant.

D&D's resource management needs a hell of lot more than that, since 4E D&D both in letter and spirit fulfills all of your criteria but non-fans think that it's a load of hot ass.

[Ancient History]

D&D4 isn't an RPG.

[JonSetanta]

D&D4 isn't an RPG.

Yeah yeah, MMO.

I played the Neverwinter semi-4e MMO actually. It was decent but I got bored fast.

They got one thing right; the refresh schedule for the "ultimate" is every few at-will uses rather than expiring early and leaving a character to spam at-wills for the rest of the fight.

[tussock]

It's more that you can't fairly argue that something being in 4e makes it automatically crap. 4e is surprisingly poor on many levels, but there are still things in it which are also in good games, and therefore not "hot ass" in and of itself.

Having said that, D&D's magic system is awesome. People may not "like" it, but they do quite happily use it to play D&D with, and we all know that what people like and what makes them happy are often different things.

[erik]

Is the sorcerer method really so bad? Have a small deck of spells, play them as you will.

Now if you're creating a whole new spell system rather than a patch system to 3e, then I'm more interested in a problem other than how many/what spells. I sort of get why people fixate on different spell "prep" methods, but that's chasing the wrong tail.

The more interesting thing is what to do about durations. Durations are the shit sandwich of 3e casting. They aren't fun to track. They aren't consistent. They invite ambush tactics. They're clunky and don't give the results we want. Fix durations before giving two damns about finding a better spell point model.

I think you'd be best off just having a number of spells you can sustain that goes up as you level up. It could let Concentration be something relevant.

Cast Fireball. Mark off one of your level 3 castings for the day. Keep it sustained and you can rain down fire whenever you want so long as it is kept in play. Boom. If you are full up on your sustain slots then you need to drop one and cast a new spell to take its place.

You don't really care if someone is using timing shenanigans to refresh their spell count. Instead of adding power vertically, it just lets you have more options to repeatedly shift what spells you have on tap. Big whup.

Some spells may be problematic to sustain. Any that meet that criterion may have a rider that they cannot be sustained, or they should have component costs which prohibit you from going crazy summoning armies.

The big downside to this hack is that you need to rewrite the spells to reflect this new reality. Upside is that it gets rid of a lot of book keeping bullshit and other aforementioned duration downsides. It also gives a simple replicable formula for granting maneuvers to other classes to sneak them into the caster club so they aren't left with their dicks hanging out in the cold- Overlord's Wrath, Meteor Impact, Blazing Knuckle, whatever.

[OgreBattle]

Dang, I thought we were gonna talk about M:tG casting systems. So I'm gonna talk about M:tG mana tapping as a system of power points

You get 1 mana at level 1, you get additional mana at levels 3, 5, 7, 9 (only goes up to lvl 10)

Mana is used to cast spells, it is used in the following ways.
-Tap: Mana is used and is ready to use on your next turn
-Echo: You have to wait two turns for the mana to untap
-Discard: Mana is used up and only comes back after a long/short rest
-Upkeep: Mana has to remain tapped to sustain the effect

So spells are between 1 and 5 mana to cast and some burn out your mana for the fight because they are big effects. The spells you can cast are always ready, you just need to fulfill the mana requirements.

So a standard evocation spell would be "Fire breath", you spend 1mana for the basic attack, but can power it up with additional mana for higher damage

[TiaC]

Dang, I thought we were gonna talk about M:tG casting systems. So I'm gonna talk about M:tG mana tapping as a system of power points

You get 1 mana at level 1, you get additional mana at levels 3, 5, 7, 9 (only goes up to lvl 10)

Mana is used to cast spells, it is used in the following ways.
-Tap: Mana is used and is ready to use on your next turn
-Echo: You have to wait two turns for the mana to untap
-Discard: Mana is used up and only comes back after a long/short rest
-Upkeep: Mana has to remain tapped to sustain the effect

So spells are between 1 and 5 mana to cast and some burn out your mana for the fight because they are big effects. The spells you can cast are always ready, you just need to fulfill the mana requirements.

So a standard evocation spell would be "Fire breath", you spend 1mana for the basic attack, but can power it up with additional mana for higher damage

I like this idea, although I might want a bit more granularity. This could also allow for cooperative or ritual spellcasting. The discard effects allow for the trope where the big spell strains the caster and leave them tired for the rest of the day.

I've also liked the idea of it taking a few rounds to warm up. So on round 1 you can spend a maximum of x mana, on round 2 you can spend x+y, on round 3, x+2y... This would reduce nova capability.

[ishy]

What happens when you run out of mana? Do you have some kind of eldritch blast to fall back on?

[OgreBattle]

What happens when you run out of mana? Do you have some kind of eldritch blast to fall back on?

With the way I described it if you just have one mana left you can use your "Tap 1 mana and go pew pew" power. So if you discarded it to cast a stronger spell, you really were counting on that final spell to finish the encounter and now have nothing. If that's too severe, perhaps something like that Swordsage where you use a full round to recharge 1 mana.

The 'discard mana' effect could just be "you can discard the mana to get 2 mana out of it instead of 1" so that means less new spells to design, it's just a way to cast bigger spells at a lower level, and when you reach higher levels you can cast it without discarding.

I'd like to keep the mana pool on the small side. Getting a point of mana at levels 1, 3, 5, 7, means I just design spells that take 1 to 4 mana to cast. multicolor spells would open up a whole range of new possibilities and problems so I'd like to keep the mana count low. Being able to choose multiple types of mana means there'd have to be a difference between being a guy with 4 red mana and a guy with RRGG.

[gamerGoyf]

If we're doing MTG-like mechanics, we might want to look at the keywords that instants/sourceries can have in MTG

Flashback-you can cast this spell form your discard pile, this may cost more or less than casting the spell the first time, afterwords the spell is "removed from the game" and can't be flashed back again.
Buyback-you can pay an extra cost when you cast this spell to have it return to your hand after it resolves instead of going to the graveyard.
Suspend-you can "cast" this spell for a reduced cost but it's "suspended" for one or more turns before it resolves
Madness-when you would discard this spell you may cast it for an alternate cost.
Entwine-this spell has two alternate modes but you can chose both if you pay an extra cost.
Cycling-you can discard this spell and draw a new one for a cost
"cantrip"-this card let's you draw an additional card in addition to it's other effect.
Splice- when you cast another spell you can pay this spells "splice cost" if you do that spell has it's own effect and the effect of the spliced spell.
Replicate-when you cast this spell it makes extra copies of itself for each time you pay it's replicate cost.
Rebound-this spell has it's effect a second time the turn after you cast it.
Storm-this spell makes a copy of itself for each spell that's been cast this turn

[JonSetanta]

What happens when you run out of mana? Do you have some kind of eldritch blast to fall back on?

That could be left to class features, but more work is required.

Years ago I made a mana-based caster class that generated a small amount of "infinite mana" as it leveled up. This allowed it to use low level spells for free.

I would love to see class features that recharge after a certain amount of mana was spend, essentially powering up an ultimate during combat, but the problem with that would be players charging it just before combat so that the ultimate is ready in the first round.

So I guess when the mana runs out you do what every RPG and MMO game character does. You run away.
Or drink an "ether".

[Saxony]

What happens when you run out of mana? Do you have some kind of eldritch blast to fall back on?

Wands.

[radthemad4]

Someone on the GitP forums converted all core spells and classes to use the psionics system. I'm pretty new to 3.anything so I can't comment on the quality though.

[Scrivener]

D&D4 isn't an RPG.

This is such a dumb argument.

It says nothing, and frankly makes no sense. 4th Ed is bland and boring but no part of it is actively hostile to MTP. You still make a character, assign it a Role and Play that role in the Game.

4th ed had a decent "magic" system, with a few huge flaws
-nothing worked the same. Stabbing someone as a rogue was completely different for stabbing someone as a fighter. A wizard's fireball was in no way the same as a monsters fireball

-everything felt the same. Since everything had its own unique rules a list of 4 unique powers became damage + effect four times I a row.

-no one felt special.

-you couldn't make new effects. Since every fireball was completely different form one and another an advanced fireball could mean anything

-lack of internal logic. You couldn't easily know what defense a spell should target

I have gotten used to d&d's magic, and like it because so many systems suck. Shadowrun and similar build your spell systems feel bland and lack the unique wacky spells. White wolf systems were written by white wolf. And spell point systems tend to end in spamming the same ability over and over again.

[Kaelik]

You still make a character, assign it a Role and Play that role in the Game.

This fundamentally demonstrates that you have no idea what the role in RPG means.

I wonder if that is because you are 12 and have only ever played RPGs after they introduced the concept of roles or not.

[Scrivener]

You still make a character, assign it a Role and Play that role in the Game.

This fundamentally demonstrates that you have no idea what the role in RPG means.

I wonder if that is because you are 12 and have only ever played RPGs after they introduced the concept of roles or not.

Believe it or not the term role existed before WotC used it to define purpose in the party, in fact it was term used to best describe playing the part of a character in a game. This is why it is called a Role Playing Game.

I will admit the phrase "assign it a role" is less precise than "give them attributes and possibly a backstory then play it accordingly" but I assumed the readers weren't fucktards.

[Voss]

D&D4 isn't an RPG.

This is such a dumb argument.

Actually, it isn't. I tried to deal with 4e when it came out, as it trundled on through the PH3. It was actively hostile to role-playing, to the point that 4e groups actually told me not to, which was more than a little disconcerting.

It also isn't, as sigma asserted above, a MMO. It has less depth than that (and generally, fewer abilities per character); 4e is a board game. It is a streamlining of the 3e miniatures game, not D&D, and the game falls apart if you do more than push models and tokens across a grid map.

[Kaelik]

Believe it or not the term role existed before WotC used it to define purpose in the party,

Weird how I just said that the term role existed before it meant that, and then you, stupidly, decided to tell me something I already knew.

I will admit the phrase "assign it a role" is less precise than "give them attributes and possibly a backstory then play it accordingly" but I assumed the readers weren't fucktards.

It is not just less precise, it is less accurate. In no possible way would you describe those actions as "assigning" a role. Assigning means to pick one of the already extant roles and attach it to your character.

No one would say "make a character (that doesn't have a personality, stats, or a background, or really anything at all) and then assign it a role (which is the part where you come up with a personality and background)."

Fundamentally, your only defense to the allegation that you were using the word role to mean the wrong thing is that you are just so stupid you can't form coherent sentences in the first place. It isn't a very flattering defense, but you can try it if you want.

[Scrivener]

No one would say "make a character (that doesn't have a personality, stats, or a background, or really anything at all) and then assign it a role (which is the part where you come up with a personality and background).

Actually you can. Make a character can easily mean, make a build and stats. Sadly there lacks a great single word for "assign background and personality". But heck, it looks like by virtue of common usage the idea of playing a role has come come to mean something other than playing a personality-less collection of stats.

Maybe you are upset about the word "assign" as opposed to "give." It would be quite distressing if synonyms bothered you so, but I can almost see how you would feel that it inherently means from a list of options. I think it is more likely that you disagree with the general point and as opposed to actually brining up any points it's much easier to insult people and pick apart word choice than it is to actually counter the point.

It seems you have troubles seeing why I would use the words Role, Play and Game in order, when explaining that something is a Role Playing Game. The phrase was clunky, I'll admit that, but minutiae of syntax aren't quite the greatest argument.