Magic as a D&D Edition Setting

[...You Lost Me]

Four boxed sets a year at $40 per set seems like a lot, both to generate and to expect people to buy. Also just because M:tG uses decks doesn't mean this should--the idea of a deckbuilding RPG really doesn't seem tenable.

[beejazz]

Four boxed sets a year at $40 per set seems like a lot, both to generate and to expect people to buy. Also just because M:tG uses decks doesn't mean this should--the idea of a deckbuilding RPG really doesn't seem tenable.

How many 30$ supplements did WotC put out per year during 3.5? The big shift here isn't the price point. It's that you only *need* one product and it doesn't matter at all which one you start with. We're not going to get the same price point as M:tG without a radically different game, but we can at least take an example from their format in reducing barriers to entry.

[Username17]

Just as there are lots of things that Mana could mean, there are lots of things that Color, Race, and Class could mean. Each is clearly a template that has some meaning in itself for your abilities, defenses, resources, or numbers. But for or any one of them, you could have access to abilities because you had the template, or you could have access to the template because of your abilities.

So just as you could be Blue because you have Blue mana or you could have Blue mana because you are Blue; you could have Stealth abilities because you are an Assassin or you could be an Assassin because you have Stealth abilities. Those choices could come in either order.

-Username17

[Red_Rob]

Ok, we don't have to guess, or claim people are being fooled by grandiose titles. The guy who first conceptualized the game wrote a short story which spells out what planeswalkers are doing pretty well, it's up on the Wizards site here.

Yeah, Roreca's story really shows how Planeswalkers don't really do anything more impressive than a level 5 Wizard in D&D. Their main trick is their ability to escape death almost without fail in their Wizard duels. other than that they throw around kill spells and summon monsters. Big Whoop.

I'd be totally pumped to see mana operate as a chargen resource and a preparation resource. So characters are all worth a certain number of mana, but you allocate that mana to activate your class abilities.

So as a BBW cleric with two swamp and one plains I could be a minionmancer with both blacks in different drudge skeletons and 1 white in a healing spell, or I could go support and pick up Zealous Persecution and imbue my holy symbol as an Amulet of Vigor.

It would have the most resonance with the card game if you started off as a 1 mana character and then your actual mana was used to power your abilities, true. The problem is that if people start as a 1 mana character that is really restrictive in terms of allocating your powers. Having only 1 point to allocate makes things a little awkward from a design standpoint. Whereas if you start with 3 or 4 mana to give people some more options you lose that resonance.

Now, obviously you are going to want to call at least one of your character resources "mana" and have it come in colors. But you have a lot of options for how to do that. Here are a few:

[*]Mana is a character generation resource. You go up a level and you gain a mana that is some color or another and now you are a three mana creature instead of a two mana creature.

[*]Mana is a mission preparation resource. You have some mana, you assign it to abilities at the start of the adventure (or day, or whatever), and then you have access to those abilities (possibly at different strengths if you had the option to put more or less mana into a particular ability).

[*]Mana is a battle resource. You start the battle with a pile of mana, and every super move or major spell has a mana cost to activate it.

[*]Mana is a turn resource. Every turn you get a pile of mana, and you can invest it into actions, passive defenses, reactions, moves, and whatever else.

What if different classes used Mana differently? So one class was assigning its mana to power abilities, whilst another class was using mana each turn to power attack spells, and a third was using mana as a threshold to tell it what powers it had access to. That might make Multiclassing a problem, but really with the addition of Colour I don't know that multiclassing is all that necessary. You already have additional knobs to fiddle with to customise your character.

[Prak]

Ok, we don't have to guess, or claim people are being fooled by grandiose titles. The guy who first conceptualized the game wrote a short story which spells out what planeswalkers are doing pretty well, it's up on the Wizards site here.

Yeah, Roreca's story really shows how Planeswalkers don't really do anything more impressive than a level 5 Wizard in D&D. Their main trick is their ability to escape death almost without fail in their Wizard duels. other than that they throw around kill spells and summon monsters. Big Whoop.

Well, except for the whole planeswalking and summoning colossal demon lord things...

[Username17]

What if different classes used Mana differently? So one class was assigning its mana to power abilities, whilst another class was using mana each turn to power attack spells, and a third was using mana as a threshold to tell it what powers it had access to. That might make Multiclassing a problem, but really with the addition of Colour I don't know that multiclassing is all that necessary. You already have additional knobs to fiddle with to customise your character.

That's totally doable. The main difficulty is that doing that sort of thing severely restricts your ability to have universal ability lists. You really won't be able to use the same "Fireball" if one character gets a big pile of mana at the beginning of combat and another character gets a small pile of mana every combat round and another character has daily mana assignments and so on and so forth.

That's usually something that I handwave away as inevitable and acceptable (as I do here). But in the case of the Magic setting it is at least slightly regrettable; because mana flows and color based universal lists would be expected to solve the Fighter problem on the back end. A White Soldier would literally be expected to turn into Angel Summoner by picking up enough mana flow without you having to necessarily put anything on the Soldier class list. If the Soldier class has a different resource system than the Cleric, then the fact that a high level Black Soldier can turn people into vampires is something you're going to have to write into the class rather than something that you can sit back and allow to happen emergently from the color lists. And that is going to get you more pushback from Mundane Fighter Fans.

You might be able to do something about this by having resource management groups of classes, where Soldiers and Shamans were both allowed to take actions to draw in mana (called a "Rally" or "Channel" action depending on which you were), and then those two classes had a shared list for each color of abilities that happened to work off of mana that worked like that.

-Username17

[...You Lost Me]

I don't think this would be much more restrictive than a level 1-2 character that casts color spray or daze every round. 1 mana can cover that nicely.

[Username17]

I don't think this would be much more restrictive than a level 1-2 character that casts color spray or daze every round. 1 mana can cover that nicely.

You would not want characters to have literally one mana. They would actually have some amount of personal mana, that was dependent on their level and class. The idea is that a first level character is a hero who costs about one mana in the card game. So maybe he's a Kjeldoran Hero, or an Auriok Glaivemaster or whatever. It would be tempting to have levels correspond to total mana cost, but that would be wrong because 4R is five mana but less on the Jedi curve than 3RR (which is also five mana).

-Username17

[Red_Rob]

Let's look at that, shall we? The Lord of the Pit, titanic demon lord... is a 7/7 creature. For reference, that means it can be killed by 4 Grizzly (Dire?) bears or 3 Hill Giants. However you slice it, that's no more than CR10. Planeswalking is something that every core Cleric does from level 9, so really that isn't anything to write home about.

If you look at the actual effect rather than the flavour, most spells don't do anything that is outside the power level of mid-level D&D magic. Something like Wrath of God is pretty flashy and impressive, but even then it only kills summoned monsters and not the actual opposing Planeswalker, so it's more equivalent to Cloudkill than something like Wail of the Banshee. The most powerful thing about Planeswalker magic is the 'death-no-save regardless of power level' thing a lot of the spells have going on, which doesn't really feature in D&D. I guess that's balanced by the fact most Planeswalkers can't cast more than 1 spell per 'turn', which we already established was pretty lengthy from the character's perspective. That suggests a setup where Planeswalkers slowly gather the Mana to cast powerful magics whilst protected by their group of summoned minions, only occasionally releasing a powerful spell that shakes up the conflict.

[Red_Rob]

You would not want characters to have literally one mana. They would actually have some amount of personal mana, that was dependent on their level and class. The idea is that a first level character is a hero who costs about one mana in the card game. So maybe he's a Kjeldoran Hero, or an Auriok Glaivemaster or whatever. It would be tempting to have levels correspond to total mana cost, but that would be wrong because 4R is five mana but less on the Jedi curve than 3RR (which is also five mana).

I keep wavering on this.

Having a first 'level' character be a 1 Mana character and increasing from there is very appealing from an aesthetic standpoint. It fits with the expectations people have from the card game AND it matches the level system of D&D. It is clear and straightforward, plus it makes things really easy when you inevitably want to make your M:tG:RPG character into a card you can use. The problem then is that if you have Mana which is your level, and then a different set of Personal Mana that activates your abilities, you end up with the D&D Everything Is Called Level problem. It is more intuitive if you are a 1 mana Red character that you have that 1 mana to allocate to abilities than also having 3 Red and 1 Green Personal Mana that you allocate on a round-by-round basis.

But is all that worth the hassle you get trying to design multiple classes and abilities that work with only having 1 resource point at level 1?

Regarding the Multiclass issue, how about if there were 3 ways to use mana and different classes had different abilities to a greater or lesser degree? So you would have "instant" abilities that depleted your mana for that round only and had single shot effects, "enchantment" abilities that kept your mana depleted but had long term effects, and "threshold" effects that didn't deplete your mana, but required you have a certain amount before they could be used. Some classes would have more Instant effects and some would have more Enchantments, but any class could pick any abilities from these 3 types from the General list.

[...You Lost Me]

Mmm, I see that.

If we implement the Your Mana = (1/50)*Planeswalker Mana idea, then you can have starting characters who don't need only one mana but can "cost" 1 mana to summon.

Speaking of which, how would summoning work?

[Dean]

The breakdown here is that we both want 1st level characters to BE one mana characters like 1/1 Knight Errants and on a round by round basis DO things equivalent to one mana actions like Black Ward. So there are mana measurements for what you DO and mana measurements for what you ARE. This seeming dichotomy can make sense though if you recall that Planeswalkers like Jace both use mana in the storyline and also cost mana to play. So there is a precedent for a creature that both uses mana and is measured in mana.

You Lost Me's solution of creating a simple naming distinction is a reasonable idea. Have their be "True Mana" or "Planeswalker Mana" for the total true measurement of permanent beings and then regular "Mana" for the transient cost of taking temporary magical action.

You could say that all players have the Planeswalker spark. You start off as just people with great potential and destiny. Then you graduate to "Neowalkers" with considerable power and planar travel. Then you become legit Planeswalkers with full blown immortality and shit. All of these characters do and take actions measured in mana but their permanent being value is also measured in "True Mana" or whatever, which would tell you their cost if they were made into a card. And in some nebulous way tells you the sort of connections they have to the magical forces of their home plane's islands or mountains or whatever.

[fectin]

Is there any MtG term other than "mana" which refers to magical energy or puissance?

[Username17]

Is there any MtG term other than "mana" which refers to magical energy or puissance?

It has "Level" and "Charge" counters.

The breakdown here is that we both want 1st level characters to BE one mana characters like 1/1 Knight Errants and on a round by round basis DO things equivalent to one mana actions like Black Ward.

Yes and no. Ideally, people would actually not be doing the 1 mana actions at all, because those are really weird in a role playing game (in that they target people who are presently out of line of sight and often explicitly on different planes of existence from you). You'd be doing things that are reminiscent of those one mana actions, but still limited to questions of cause and effect - targeting only those things which are "here".

So when you shoot a fire out of your hands, you aren't "casting a fireball" in the Magic the Gathering sense. You aren't even "tapping a Tim". You're doing combat damage. Like this guy:



-Username17

[Red_Rob]

The breakdown here is that we both want 1st level characters to BE one mana characters like 1/1 Knight Errants and on a round by round basis DO things equivalent to one mana actions like Black Ward.

No we don't. One mana spells kill one mana creatures dead, no save, they give creatures long term flight, and they even render creatures totally indestructible. One mana spells are effectively channeling the entire power of a 1 mana creature into a one shot effect, so they are going to be way above the curve of what a 1 mana creature should be able to do repeatedly.

Frank is right that we should consider pretty much everything a 1 mana PC can do as part of their power and leave it at that. If it affects people you can physically see, it's part of your attack. Tapping for 1 damage means reaching out and blasting people several miles away. Tim is seriously pulling a Scry-and-Die when he reaches out and plinks someone.

If we implement the Your Mana = (1/50)*Planeswalker Mana idea, then you can have starting characters who don't need only one mana but can "cost" 1 mana to summon.

I'd go for more like 1/3 or 1/4 than 1/50. But that brings up another problem. Whilst starting with only 1 mana to assign is horribly restrictive, if you make each Mana worth say 3 Personal Mana, then by level 5 you have 15 to assign - and that is starting to get annoying.

Speaking of which, how would summoning work?

Well, if you mean Planeswalkers summoning the PC's, as far as I can tell you have to voluntarily give a 'walker your mana-line before he can summon you. So PC's can just not do that if they don't want to get pulled across the multiverse. The other option would be to have the party give their mana lines as a group - there's definitely precedent for summoning groups as a single spell. Then the party would occasionally be summoned to help out Planeswalkers they have previously worked with for an adventure or two.

[...You Lost Me]

I'd go for more like 1/3 or 1/4 than 1/50. But that brings up another problem. Whilst starting with only 1 mana to assign is horribly restrictive, if you make each Mana worth say 3 Personal Mana, then by level 5 you have 15 to assign - and that is starting to get annoying.

Not really. If it's a character resource, then higher-level resources cost more mana to buy, which means that level-appropriate characters will spend mana in bigger chunks.

precedent for summoning groups as a single spell

Holy crap that's like 14 years old. If that booster pack were a kid, he's be in junior high.

[RadiantPhoenix]

precedent for summoning groups as a single spell

Holy crap that's like 14 years old. If that booster pack were a kid, he's be in junior high.

Is this better?

[Red_Rob]

I'd go for more like 1/3 or 1/4 than 1/50. But that brings up another problem. Whilst starting with only 1 mana to assign is horribly restrictive, if you make each Mana worth say 3 Personal Mana, then by level 5 you have 15 to assign - and that is starting to get annoying.

Not really. If it's a character resource, then higher-level resources cost more mana to buy, which means that level-appropriate characters will spend mana in bigger chunks.

I'm assuming a setup where you spend your mana on a round-by-round basis for that real Magic feel. Sure, you could just have Mana = Exp, and the different colours go towards differently themed abilities, but as per the thread title I'm assuming this is using D&D as a base so classes and levels are in and piecemeal ability purchasing is out. Plus it's totally easier to use the serviceable fantasy combat game we have as a base than to design a system from scratch using the colours as stats or something.

So basically I'm looking at a setup where you have a certain amount of mana of various colours that increases as you level up and you 'tap' that mana to power your abilities. Some classes are based around using their mana round-by-round to power one off effects, whilst some are more into tying up their mana to provide long term bonuses that take a while to turn on or off. There will also be a list of powers for each colour that characters can choose when levelling up. Basically I'm looking at this thread and trying to work out what schemes play nicely enough together that you can have different classes feel different whilst still having a master list that doesn't break anything.

Also, the problem of feats and skills. Should being agile be a blue thing and using two weapons be a white thing, or should the more mundane abilities be seperated from the flashy abilities? As this concept will involve writing all new classes and lists of powers anyway this is a nice time to fix some of the stupid when it comes to D&D, and the skill system is pretty high on that list, so any suggestions there would be welcome.

[Username17]

I'm assuming a setup where you spend your mana on a round-by-round basis for that real Magic feel. Sure, you could just have Mana = Exp, and the different colours go towards differently themed abilities, but as per the thread title I'm assuming this is using D&D as a base so classes and levels are in and piecemeal ability purchasing is out.

I don't think that's a warranted assumption at all. As previously noted, if a character gets mana pumped into them to power their Fire Breath (or whatever) in the actual game, that lasts for the entire adventure. They get tunneled into Mordor by Dwarves, evade the guards, storm the castle, burn it down, and go home without any mana refreshing.

While it is possible to make one or more classes that have Mana to throw around every round, there's no reason at all that has to be the standard. The implied setting of Magic really doesn't seem to work that way, with individual turns lasting long enough that you can wait for stellar conjunctions before launching attacks or declaring blockers.

So basically I'm looking at a setup where you have a certain amount of mana of various colours that increases as you level up and you 'tap' that mana to power your abilities. Some classes are based around using their mana round-by-round to power one off effects, whilst some are more into tying up their mana to provide long term bonuses that take a while to turn on or off. There will also be a list of powers for each colour that characters can choose when levelling up. Basically I'm looking at this thread and trying to work out what schemes play nicely enough together that you can have different classes feel different whilst still having a master list that doesn't break anything.

That doesn't make a lot of sense. You pretty much have two options: you can either put everyone on the same resource schedule and reap the benefits of having a unified power list, xor you can make separate power lists for each class and reap the benefits of having distinct resource management systems. The unified power list gives you more real choices for the same amount of writing, while the distinct resource management systems make characters more distinct and make it easier to achieve the multiple equilibria tactical and strategic situations you want.

But you can't have both. Warlocks would break the game in half if they could take any spell off the Cleric list.

A character who has a big pile of mana that recovers slowly has options like "should I nova a large expenditure into a single attack, or spread my mana out among several attacks over the fight?" A character who has a smaller pile of mana that recovers every round cannot ask that question. They however have a different question of "Should I use my bigger attack this round, or use a smaller attack to save mana for defense this round". That question is meaningful to Turn Recharge Boy, but it's essentially meaningless to Battle Recharge Lad.

The only thing that's really definitely shared on all the different classes in a Magic-based D&D game is that they all use quantized resources. But you still have an Enchanter who has their points assigned at the beginning of the day into various buffs, while you have an Evoker who has a mana pool that they spend in order to blast things. Obviously they can't share a power list and have that make any sense.

-Username17

[Red_Rob]

As previously noted, if a character gets mana pumped into them to power their Fire Breath (or whatever) in the actual game, that lasts for the entire adventure. They get tunneled into Mordor by Dwarves, evade the guards, storm the castle, burn it down, and go home without any mana refreshing.

While it is possible to make one or more classes that have Mana to throw around every round, there's no reason at all that has to be the standard. The implied setting of Magic really doesn't seem to work that way, with individual turns lasting long enough that you can wait for stellar conjunctions before launching attacks or declaring blockers.

But is it fun in an RPG to only get to play with your character loadout essentially at level up? People bitch with Vancian casting that they have to wait an entire day to use a spell they didn't memorise, I think having to wait a whole adventure to use a power that is sat on your sheet will only piss people off more.

You pretty much have two options: you can either put everyone on the same resource schedule and reap the benefits of having a unified power list, xor you can make separate power lists for each class and reap the benefits of having distinct resource management systems. The unified power list gives you more real choices for the same amount of writing, while the distinct resource management systems make characters more distinct and make it easier to achieve the multiple equilibria tactical and strategic situations you want.

The fact that Magic obviously supports multiclassing of some flavour and the addition of colour really leads me towards unified lists. A white Cleric and a white Archer need to have some commonality that you can point to as "feeling White" and having powers they both have access to seems like the simplest way to do that. That's why I was looking at how much variation you can have between resource systems whilst using a master list. 3e managed to get the Cleric, Beguiler and Spherelock out of one master list, so I'm looking for how far you can differentiate a class when they all have some abilities in common.

Warlocks would break the game in half if they could take any spell off the Cleric list.

Sure, if you let a class take any power and slot it into any resource system things will be insane. But you could have different classes make function calls to a central list in a more restricted manner and hopefully have things be more sane. It does make the classes feel less unique, but hopefully the addition of colour will be enough to take up the slack.

Talking of colour, after looking at it again I still think that to feel like Magic, class and race should heavily factor into the colours you have available. For example, there are 125 Druids currently in Magic, and only 7 of these aren't green in some way. Of these, 3 are Black due to being a Black race (Elves were black and green in Lorwyn), one is Red due to also being a Shaman, and three are White due to being Humans (a typically White race). Similarly there are 34 Assassins, of which 3 don't contain any Black. Those are 2 red Goblins and a Blue Merfolk, each the colour of their race. It's the same story with Berserkers that aren't Red.

The long and short of it is that your Class and your Race are the key identifiers of your colour in Magic. I don't even know what a Mono-Blue Druid or Berserker would do, let alone how to write them up as a class option. Sure, there are some classes like Wizard that span the colours, and I should probably replace Wizard with Artificer in my chart from earlier. But basically saying you are a Goblin Druid means you are into Red and/or Green magic in some fashion, and I think that makes the most sense thematically and mechanically.

[...You Lost Me]

Is this better?

Sorry, I didn't mean to say "that's old and outdated, so I'm ignoring it". I was just surprised at how magic cards are.

EDIT: Considering I should add something productive to the thread (as says Kaelik), why not have lists from which characters buy off their abilities? If everyone in a certain category uses the same resource mechanic, they can just go to the master list for their power source and buy abilities based on the mana they had. Then you look at your abilities and make up a class name for yourself.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Races should probably be more or less specialized depending on the type.

Each creature would get at least 1 mana from its race, which would be restricted (depending on the race) to anything from 5 to 0 colors, with colorless always being an option. More powerful races would start with more mana.
[*]Humans, for example, might get 1 mana which could be used as any kind.
[*]A goblin would probably 1 black, red, or colorless mana.
[*]Trolls would get 2 mana which could be green or colorless.

This actually works with the written mana costs.
[*]A purely blue mana troll (i.e. a sea troll) has its two troll mana treated as colorless, and 1 blue mana from some other source.
[*]A green/red troll (i.e. a jungle troll) has 1 colorless troll mana, one green troll mana, and 1 red mana from another source.
[*]An albino troll has one of its troll mana green and one colorless.

This is, of course, conflating casting cost in MtG with creature abilitites in MtRPG--which is not necessary, but it's aesthetically pleasing to make it look possible. Just like you want everyone to have 20 "life", and give all attacks a "power" and all defenses a "toughness".


As far as power schedules, I think a Crusader-type deal (just for combat-time powers) might be most satisfying, with each point of mana snagging a small number of abilities off of a couple of set larger lists (e.g. 'Select x Necromancer combat powers and y Necromancer utility powers').


I make no apologies for my egregious theft of ideas from previous MtRPG threads.

[Username17]

I don't even know what a Mono-Blue Druid or Berserker would do, let alone how to write them up as a class option.

In the card game, that would be easy. Druids generally fuck with lands or mana, while blue cards fuck with twiddling, countering, flying, deck/hand management, or similar fuckery. So a Druid who tapped to tap or untap a land, or a druid who could sacrifice a land to counter a spell unless the caster paid an extra (1), or a druid who tapped to look at the top card of either deck and could choose to exile the card if it wasn't a land could all be a Blue Druid. A Blue Berserker is even easier, because Berserkers mostly just get some sort of bonus while attacking or have a trick where they get inspired by something and get bigger. So a creature that let you draw and discard a card when it attacked, or was hexproof while attacking, or was invisible while attacking, or which allowed you to untap one of your other creatures when it attacked, or which allowed you to tap one of the enemy creatures when it attacked, or got +1/+1 every time a spell got countered would all be Blue Berserkers.

Now in a role playing game, this would all have to be different. Obviously you're not going to be able to define Druid-ness by how they fuck with the mana curve and land attachments of the player, because there is no player and there is no mana curve. That's some zen shit right there. Similarly, Blue can't be all about deck management, because you're playing a single dude in the deck and don't get to interact with the hand you are played out of.

So you take you the color list, and you give them new associations that are relevant in the role playing game. And you take the class list, and you give them new associations as well. "Archer" normally means that the creature either has First Strike, has Reach, has the ability to do Tim damage to attacking or blocking creatures, or has the ability to do Tim damage to flying creatures. With the exception of First Strike, none of those would even be an ability in an RPG. But when things are on an actual tactical map, it is of course trivial to make an attack "feel" like it comes from a bow rather than a sword. Because things have "range".

-Username17

[Red_Rob]

why not have lists from which characters buy off their abilities? If everyone in a certain category uses the same resource mechanic, they can just go to the master list for their power source and buy abilities based on the mana they had. Then you look at your abilities and make up a class name for yourself.

You could go down that route. If you are picking freely from a large list I worry that characters would end up feeling generic. That, or there would end up being a 'best' build that everyone would follow.

This is, of course, conflating casting cost in MtG with creature abilitites in MtRPG--which is not necessary, but it's aesthetically pleasing to make it look possible. Just like you want everyone to have 20 "life", and give all attacks a "power" and all defenses a "toughness".

I think you could go too far with that. Having Mana and colour seems like enough flavour from the cards, without having exact numbers transferring over. Besides, Im planning this as a D&D hack, so 20 'life' is probably too much of a change.

So you take you the color list, and you give them new associations that are relevant in the role playing game.

Yeah, I started drawing up a list of mechanical things each colour would specialise in - Save or Die's for Black, Direct Damage for Red etc. I've already begun sorting the PHB spells into the colours to provide some basis for the powers.

So anyway, here's my current thinking on the resource schedule:

You get a 'pool' of mana at chargen, probably 3 (1 from your race, 1 from your class and 1 of any colour as a personal choice). Each time you level up you gain 1 mana, to a maximum of around 10 or so, and some new abilities based on your class and colours. Each ability that you gain has a Mana cost associated with it. Mana costs come in 4 flavours; Free, Tap, Deplete or Invest.

Free abilities don't cost you any mana. They are just either a permanent bonus or an always available action. These are usually the least powerful.

Tap abilities 'tap' some of your mana when used. Mana untaps at the start of your round, so you can use these abilities during any round you have the mana available without restricting your future choices. These are usually more powerful than Free abilities, but less powerful than Deplete abilities.

Deplete abilities 'deplete' some of your mana when used. Depleted mana only comes back when you have a 5 minute rest, so these are effectively like Encounter powers with a side effect of limiting your future options for using abilities that cost mana. These are usually for powerful one off short term effects.

Invest powers require you to 'invest' your mana in the ability. The mana is tied up until the power is ended and can't be used for other things. Sometimes (like with summoned creatures), the effect can be ended for you, whereas other times (like with buffs) you get to choose when the power ends. Once the power ends you get your mana back after a given period, which might be immediately or might be 5 minutes or an hour depending on the ability.

Now, I think I can dole out the powers in this setup in such a way as to have each class feel different in play, but if there opportunities to grab abilities of any kind from a master list, would they all end up feeling too samey do you think?

[Username17]

Yeah, I started drawing up a list of mechanical things each colour would specialise in - Save or Die's for Black, Direct Damage for Red etc. I've already begun sorting the PHB spells into the colours to provide some basis for the powers.

Remember that the characters in question are going to be colored even if they are warriors or monsters. So "save or die" could just as easily be a White thing, and actually is very iconically Green. Similarly, "Direct Damage" is actually available to all colors because at the scale we're operating in, swinging a sword or shooting an arrow is "Direct Damage". The iconic direct damage effects from the card game are actually indirect damage in the RPG. Anyone can break something they can see or reach, Red in the card game specializes in being able to break something that is far away.

The dynamic is really quite different, because the ability to "just attack something" is not actually special in an RPG. Everyone gets to do that every turn if that is what they want to do. The ability to summon a creature, that is crazy and special (rather than being the default assumption that every color gets like it is in the card game). Similarly, Save or Die style effects are actually available in every color, there might be role protection in specific conditions, but even then it's usually confined to pairs of colors. Petrification is Black and also Green. Confusion is Blue, but also Red. And so on.

-Username17