Mana Upkeep - A System of Magic

[nightwolfz]

Originally posted by Entamis
Here are some of my ideas.

An enchantment should be casted like an normal spell, with a certain amount of mana to cast, and then lower maintaining cost. The mage should be limited from casting several enchantments at once. In other words - maintaining the enchantment should limit your spellcasting ability. ZakTorokko\'s idea (focus) and Deddarus\' one (lowering max mana) are interesting. There should be risk of breaking the enchantment (by being hit, by trying to maintain too many at once or by walking too far of the enchanted object).

I don\'t like the idea of spells staying in the game when the player logs out.

I think this system is quite realistic (as far as magic can be:rolleyes: ), because the mage needs to constantly channel his mana into the spell, and spell doesn\'t become self-maintaining separate entity.

Problem with potions could be solved by that they don\'t regenerate mana instantly, but instead speed up natural regeneration. Using them should also fatigue you a lot faster. Or just throw them out, they aren\'t that needed.
Wait.. will there be fatigue in PS?

EDIT: Of course which spells you can cast and which you can\'t doesn\'t depend only on your mana but mainly on your spellcasting skill.

this is perfect, i lik the idea

forget all others ^^

btw I think that magic shield should be able to take a precalculated ammount of damage depending on your level, and NOT like others say  \"take 30% damage\". Also it should take an average ammount of stamina (fatigue?).

 

[Cyberchu]

If you had a familiar to carry potions then it would be difficult to spell your familiar and yourself. Also If you were being attacked by several people it would be hard to use lots of potions at once. Also it would be hard to move or use spells as you would be using a lot of mana potions.

[NATIK]

I think there should be a start cost and then a cost each time the enchantment is used, like when something hits the shield or whatever it is, and on top of this there should be a upkeep where u loose mana/sec for some spells like shield, where a spell like the one with the ables should only cost when it is used.

[Ighase]

Here my idea:

Some spells which occur only on an instant would only cost an initial ammount of MP, but spells that have persistence over time would also have not only the casting cost, but also the upkeep mentioned on previous posts.

I don\'t think it will unbalance things because the more upkeep you have on yor MP the slower it regenerates or even it can start draining which would force you to break some spells or when you run out of MP spells would be rendered useless.

Mana potions would be a good options for some critical moments where you need to increase the MP on a short time adding a big increase to the regeneration rate, but on a counterpart it should also be lowering temporally the MP max. So you can gain 50 MP fast over 10 seconds, but your max MP would also decrease. Mana potions would be a way to force mana regeneration but you damage yourself in your mana capacity in exchange.

Max MP would also restore by time but slower than the normal regeneration speed. For example, if you get 2 points per second, your max recovers 1 point every 4 seconds. This would allow the usage of mana potions but prevent abusing it or your character would quickly be unable to cast nearly any spell.

For the effects when a user logs out, some spells like shields would vanish  while other like enchanting a weapon would be have temporally no effect until the mage logs in again. But I still don\'t think this is a good option to handle this problem of the caster logging out.

Sorry for the bad english and the big post.

edit: some typos

[Vandel]

** BUMP ** Weeee... man this is an enthralling thread.

All of you, or in my reading, missed that the upkeep systems, sound an awful lot like Magic:The Gathering.

Certain creatures required tapped mana sources, and the pots that are discussed sounds like, mana vaults, or sol rings, or the infamous dark ritual, that gives an extension to spell burst.  

As far as runes, they have been long used for magic properties before the unnamed game ever did, and many excellent RPG systems have used something similar.  Glyphs have been brought up, and they do exist in PS, as pointed a couple of times.

Instead of mana potions which seems to be in general concensus as a bad thing, really I think are.

Mana was brought up in terms of \"Chakras\"... which I was surprised to see listed here.

This more in terms of what the Chinese, and Japenese, term Chi, and Ki.  Or life force energy.  Tai-Chi is essentially a form oriental motions that stimulates this energy.  It\'s also used in a popular spiritual healing practice called Rei{ki}.  Other such things as meridian lines, meditation, and yoga have all been used in the past 1000\'s of years to focus this energy.

Crude implementations of it have been used to signify casting times, or needing advanced oratory skills which were basically nothing more than a way to aid in the pronunciation of Matras, which are commonly used in conjunction with meditation to help focus energies.

There are far more branches of skill trees and such that can be added or expanded on in a similar way, that would require research, leveling, and not just someone running around witha stock pile of mana potions.

Spell extenstions are an excellent idea, upkeep and such should be implemented in some way.  And the point of having to cast spells over and over is really a pain when the spell duration is short.

The ideas of casting a spell, and it costing an upkeep, or charging factor, which to a point has been implemented in PS as how much energy you want to put into the spell.  This is kinda getting OT into spell effects so I\'ll ignore it.

But branches of magic, in trees, instead of by level, I know this sounds very much like Diablo skill trees but, as has been brought it other threads, it\'s makes more sense to learn the basic spells and have them expand, and be able to progress in those spells to a certain point.

This totally deservers more discussion and I don\'t see why one of the best threads I\'ve read through on these forums has died.  Keep this one alive.

How could spiritual practice, and research aid in the definition of Magic System Development.

I am a certified Spiritual Healer, and teacher, and there\'s ideas abound.  Spit them out, hash out ideas, usually what happens is the threads get rolling and they die.  I know it\'s a lot reading, but suck it up.