Mana Upkeep - A System of Magic

[Wormtail_]

This idea has been rather thoroughly discussed in another post (mainly be Wolfmane and myself...), but under the \"Spell Wish List Thread.\" It was kind of off-topic under there, but anyway, here is the essence of the idea.

Basically, Mana Upkeep keeps your spells going at the cost of x mana per y seconds, mintutes, hours, etc. Then came the idea of \'emergency mana,\' which was mana used solely for upkeep purposes, and if it and the regular mana ran out, all enchantmnents failed. Also, if the regular mana was running out, then enchantments would look as if they\'re fading away. Enchantments would create a glowing aura around the enchanted item, the color of the Way. Ex., Dark enchantment on sword creates Dark Aura around sword.

Pros -

More unique magic system
Solves annoying routine of casting and recasting
Allows use of barriers that stay and drain mana power

Cons -

May be too complicated
Abuse (others casting spells on others and leaving spells there)

Feel free to add your ideas, pros, cons, etc. The entire discussion is here .

[Deddarus]

sounds cool... would also mean that if a mage died any spell they were upkeeping would fail

i would like to see something like the following happen as a result of this system

u r wandering over to yer mage friends house.. there is a tree outside that he enchanted to produce magical healing apples... u go to pick one.... suddenly the tree wilts... u know your mage friend has just been slain.. (or is weak)

lol.... a powerfull mage could have loadsa quasi-permanent spells all over the place (non-aggressive spells would not drain too much i assume).. so that if they are killed the whole town would notice... adds to the whole \'becoming a legend\' thing

[SnowWolf]

Hmmm - instead of a small continuous drain, how about you just have one lump sum that covers the cost of casting an enchantment.

Then if the spell does something, it costs a little more. For instance if it was a defensive shield then you would lose a little mana when the shield took hits - this would be nasty in the logistics area because you\'d end up having to keep tabs on tens of thousands of relationships.... So maybe skip this part.

The catch would be this - when mana cost goes to an enchantment it decreases your max so you can\'t gain it back - the only way to gain it back would be to break the enchantment.

(Sorry if this was discussed in the previous thread - I\'ll read it over later.)


*wonders what ever happened to Wolfie*

[Xanaroth]

i hate it when people start changing mana. Mana is purely for casting, not upholding! if you want to uphold something i would say that you had to select a time to your spell , and that the mana cost would depend on the time.
That way a mage cannot boost all his fellows before a battle, and then start drowning himself into mana potions to keep his mana high, and thus with for ex. a shield spell, make himself and all the others invulnerable.

[SnowWolf]

How much of the above posts did you actually read Xanadoth?

[Xanaroth]

all, i just made a comment on post nr 1. isn\'t that allowed?

[Wormtail_]

i hate it when people start changing mana. Mana is purely for casting, not upholding! if you want to uphold something i would say that you had to select a time to your spell , and that the mana cost would depend on the time.

Such unoriginal things are exactly the things that Planeshift plans to not have. Dragons and the Undead will not be present in Planeshift because of that plan. If you hate new ideas so much, Planeshift is not for you. Unless it\'s free-ness is the only thing that you like...

Hmmm - instead of a small continuous drain, how about you just have one lump sum that covers the cost of casting an enchantment.

Problem is, the entire cost may be too much for one mage to handle. Without detracting from mana reserves, there would be powerful enchantments all over the place, with nothing to stop their appearences.

Will add more later.

[SnowWolf]

I actually mentioned the part about detracting mana a little below that statement

[Xanaroth]

Originally posted by Wormtail_

i hate it when people start changing mana. Mana is purely for casting, not upholding! if you want to uphold something i would say that you had to select a time to your spell , and that the mana cost would depend on the time.

Such unoriginal things are exactly the things that Planeshift plans to not have. Dragons and the Undead will not be present in Planeshift because of that plan. If you hate new ideas so much, Planeshift is not for you. Unless it\'s free-ness is the only thing that you like...

Where do you suddenly get dragons and undead from? that hasn\'t been around anywhere in this topic.

Hmmm - instead of a small continuous drain, how about you just have one lump sum that covers the cost of casting an enchantment.

Problem is, the entire cost may be too much for one mage to handle. Without detracting from mana reserves, there would be powerful enchantments all over the place, with nothing to stop their appearences.

euhmm... the point is that not 1 mage can handle it. That way he cannot make a spell way to high for his lvl, and then keep drinkin potions to keep the spell up.

And because there is no constant detracting, you have to set the time, and mana cost depend on that time. So that after a while the enchantment is gone and has to be recasted, instead of that a mage does 20 or 30 strong enchantments, and then by drinking potions keep them up forever.
think about a magic shield to block all physical attacks (Dont get troubled just an example!!!) and then by drinkin potions you can keep this up forever. then no knight will stand any chance againt the fury of that mage cause he cannot attack the mage due to the shield, that is everlasting.

[Olig]

I like the idea of a constant drain of mana more than typing in the time I want it to last, then calculate a lump sum. Its looks and feels too much like playing a text game if you just see a bunch of numbers flying around.

A spell that would be like a lighting storm would constantly drain mana and dissolve after the mage ran out of mana (a bar I presume) or if he canceled it or another mage countered.

If a mage is powerful enough, he should be able to cast easy enchantments that no longer can drain his mana (like enchanting a sheild to make it stronger) in normal conditions. If the sheild were hit, THEN it will drain the mana so I can absorb the damage dealt.

Should a mage\'s enchantments fizzle when he logs out?

[sekhmet]

That sounds like an excellent idea, it only seems logcal that when you cast a spell for a long time you will need to use your mana to keep it up. Like flying would drain a lot of someones magic, this is why wizards in books mostly don\'t use their mana unless really really needed!

[Deddarus]

ok.. how about this slight amenedment

say a mage has a max mana of 100 and casts a static enchantment... this enchantment would lower his max mana (lets say by 10 for this particular 1).. now the mage has a max mana of 90.. limiting his spell casting ability... this would be in addition to the mana drain

result:

even if a mage keeps his enchantment going permanently by topping up his mana with potions (dont really see whats so wrong with this.. potions cost money u know).. the enchantment will limit his spellcasting ability

with lots of enchantments happening the mage will be unable to cast many powerfull spells... additionally the time taken for his mana to drain to 0 (at which point the enchantments fail and the max mana is set back to 100) will decrease as the number of enchantments increase

[elscouta]

Mana upkeep is definetely a good idea, especially if some kind of summoning is done later. If enchantement are permanent and without upkeep, you\'ll end up with enchantement everywhere, on each sword and summoned creatures surrounding each mage.

With upkeep, enchantement will become a lot more valuable and that\'s a good thing imho.

[zedd_owd]

this upkeep thing sounds like the upkeep in wc3 . i didn;t about u guys but i think this may decrease the fun factor in an rpg game
i think having a set time limit for summons and stuff should fine. !!  

[elscouta]

I really don\'t like timeout. If you need an enchantement for one hours, you\'ll cast it each minute? you call this fun?

On the other hand, if you have an upkeep, you cast it once at the beginning of your quest then you dispel it at the end. Easy, Quick, Realistic... What can you wish more? It\'s sure that you can\'t pump all a crowd like you could with a timeout and no upkeep, but is this a bad thing?

The problem with timeout is that you end up never using enchantement because you don\'t want to waste your time and mana to recast spells all the time. With upkeep you save your time and you must only care to not cast too many enchantements.

Maybe we can find way to make an enchantement permament to allow creation of magic swords. But this must be excessively rare to avoid a devaluation of these swords.