[Iron Heroes]Nixing the last x/day ability, Mana

[Macbeth]

I'm loving Iron Heroes so far. Got it yesterday, and I've read a good bit so far. I'm happy to be rid of x/day abilities, replacing them with tokens.

Problem is, there's still one ability that relys on a daily alotment: the Arcanist's Mana. I'm not happy with this, all the other classes do such a good job of shifting abilities to a token pool that I really want the arcanist to be able to do the same.

So, I'm asking for any ideas of making the arcanist's Mana Pool into a token pool. How could the arcanist get mana like other classes get tokens?

My first thought is some kind of Concentration check, with increasing DCs. Problem is, this doesn't really fix the original complaint, since you still have to have the DC reset at some time.

I'm kind of lost, but then again I haven't been working on it for very long. Any thoughts?

[Particle_Man]

There are some "Combat" spells and some "out of combat" spells. So leave the original mana pool there for all spells in the day, combat and non.

In combat, allow a character to build up "temporary mana" as if he were an archer and these wer aim tokens. Just as the archer has to aim at a target, the "temporary mana" has to be keyed to a particular spell (with all variables picked out) or they are lost. On the up side, "temporary mana" are used first in spell casting (so do not drain your mana pool) and do NOT add to your channeling roll DC. However, any natural 1 on a spell that uses "temporary mana" will always be a major disaster, not a moderate one.

However, this can only be done in combat, as the "Dark forces" like the stress of combat and will allow the arcanist to have more power. I threw in that last sentence in the previous paragraph to reflect the fickleness of magic gathered "on the fly".

Just a thought.

[Staffan]

The main problem with having mana as a per-encounter resource (like tokens) is that you can do some long-term things with it. Healing is the first thing that comes to mind, but Alter Mind, and most of the Abjurations, can have some long-term effects as well. One way of dealing with this would be to have some sort of penalty for having spells up - perhaps -1 to the casting check per spell you already have active? That wouldn't stop the healing thing, though, but it's a start.

[Erekose13]

There is a large discussion on this topic over on Monte's boards which touched on this subject - Link There have been several more regarding the magic system and suggested fixes some more dramatic changes than others.

[Macbeth]

I've been thinking about this some more, and I've started to have a basic idea work out:

Mana tokens are gained at a certain rate, based on the action taken by the Arcanist, much like an Archer's Aim Tokens. However, this tokens also disappear at a given rate (parhaps tied to the Arcanist's level, Int mod, or both). This rate would be in mana tokens/round, which would make keeping a long term supply of mana nearly impossible, but combat casting possible. Available mana would be capped at some number, lower then the current per day cap. Negative mana is impossible. There would be no free action to gather mana, the shortest action would be a move action, which would produce only marginally more then is lost in a given round. Gatherinf mana while in situations that would require a Concentration check to cast a spell would also require a concentration check (so no easy gather mana while riding a horse or being tortured...)

The implications of this:

Combat casting may take a long time for a big spell.

Casting out of combat would not be too hard, but would require considerable concentration.

Since mana leaks away at a given rate, this would creat a kind of ebb and flow of power: the Arcanist can build up power for one big spell, but he can't hold it for long unless he focuses on replenishing it.


I'm sure this stil has a copious amount of flaws, but it's a thought.

[swrushing]

Ok so what are the perhaps many problems with something as simple as:

take mana-pe-day
divide by 24
caster regains spent mana at that rate per hour, regardless of activity

think of the mage as a mana sponge, always collecting mana up to his limit from the surrounds, only soaking it up slowly.

Now this means a large engagement might leave him wiped out and he wont be back in fighting trim in 8 hours sleep.

problem?

[Macbeth]

Originally Posted by swrushing

take mana-pe-day
divide by 24
caster regains spent mana at that rate per hour, regardless of activity

You know, that may be the single most simple answer I've seen, and that makes it great. No need for added rolls or extra book keeping, for the most part.

I assume that the Arcanist would not be able to exceed his 'Mana Pool'? So after a certain amount of time, he just can't absorb any more?

You know, given an hour by hour regeneration with a cap, it might be interesting to add some rules for over 'soaking.' Something like, if an Arcanist reaches his max mana and doesn't start spending some of it, random magic effects may manifest around him... Magical runoff, so to speak.

Anyway, I like this. Wonderfully simple.

[JohnSnow]

Originally Posted by MacBeth

You know, that may be the single most simple answer I've seen, and that makes it great. No need for added rolls or extra book keeping, for the most part.

I assume that the Arcanist would not be able to exceed his 'Mana Pool'? So after a certain amount of time, he just can't absorb any more?

You know, given an hour by hour regeneration with a cap, it might be interesting to add some rules for over 'soaking.' Something like, if an Arcanist reaches his max mana and doesn't start spending some of it, random magic effects may manifest around him... Magical runoff, so to speak.

I like this too. Wonderfully simple. It eliminates the biggest spellcaster "problem." However, I'd add ONE caveat.

When the arcanist is severely wounded (negative hit points) he can't absorb mana. His body just can't take the strain. Of course, you could also let the arcanist exceed his mana pool using the "Strain" mechanic. Personally, I think strain is cool, but I would make it temporary damage to Con only (that goes away with a night's sleep). So in theory, you can exceed your mana limit, but you start killing yourself. After a time, your mana recovers, but any con damage you inflicted is still there, and subtracts from your available mana pool. That sounds complicated, so let me give an example (for which I'll use a 5th-level arcanist, because his Mana limit is a nice even 24).

Brigit Flamedottir, a 5th-level arcanist invoker, has a Mana limit of 24. His spell masteries are invocation(4), abjuration (3), conjuration(2), and all others (1). In an encounter with a group of orcs, Brigit throws the following spells. In the first round, he casts an absorbing shield (DR 4) for 8 mana. This gives him DR 4 for the next 30 minutes (and lowers his mana total to 16). The following round, Morkoth casts a 3d6 ray of fire that affects two of the orcs. Total mana cost for this is 4+1+3 = 8 mana (The DC is 16). The fire obliterates both orcs. In the 3rd round, Brigit conjures a 5 HD animal (a bear?) to tackle another orc. Total cost for this is 3+2 = 5 mana, leaving Brigit with 3 mana after 3 rounds of combat. Finally, she throws a 4d6 fireball at the last orc - Total mana cost (1+1+4 = 6 mana). The DC is 15 (6 + 4 + 5). Brigit is now at -3 mana, and assuming she fails the saving throw (DC 18), she takes 3 points of temporary Con damage. Since she recovers 1 mana per hour, she won't be at positive mana until 4 hours pass. At that point, she'll be able to use her aspect of power abilities, but casting any spell will send her negative again. And the temporary Con damage will make the saving throw even harder to pass this time. And until she rests, she can't recover to more than 21 mana (which is a problem only if she doesn't get a good night's rest in the next 24 hours).

If Brigit hadn't needed to cast that final spell, she would have finished the battle with 3 mana. After an hour, she'd have been back to 4 mana. Not amazing, but enough for some minor spells.

Make sense? Actually, I think this is pretty balanced. The arcanist who overcasts is worthless for a few hours, and not up to full fighting trim unless he takes time off.

The only downside is the arcanist doesn't start every day utterly fresh. But I think that's okay (maybe even good). I'm gonna put this idea up on the Iron Heroes boards (giving you due credit of course).

[swrushing]

glad you liked it. It is more or less identical to a mage theory i built for a fantasy game a while back, where you purchased your soaking rate and your max capacity for mana separately, so you could be more tactical (big battery but slow recovery) or more strategic (better rec but lower max or rather balanced.)

yeah total limit equal to mana pool.

although, you could easily have feats for "increased recovery" and "increased max" similar to "extra known spell" and "extra spell slots" in DND.

Linking it to physical health can be done but beware that you encourage buff mages with high con for hit points and the like even more. if you are cool with that, its fine.

and yes, in the plan i had for the system, the amount of mana you were storing was influencing your magical brightness, so a potent loaded mage was easier to spot with magical senses and drew magical interest.

obviously, some areas would be magic poor and reduce recovery rate while others would be magic rich and increase your recovery while you stay there.

etc...

[Ruvion]

nice!
and simple too.
although i like the premise of Macbeth's token idea as well...making a caster unprepared for battle a stinker but one that soaked up for battle a taker! heheh.

[Kaos]

Just a quick nitpick:
A few of the traits (Child of Faith, Inspiring Presence) have x/day features as well...

[Bagpuss]

I think some flaws with the recovery idea for mana have been pointed out on Monte Cook's forum. IE: That it slows down the game as it encourages the party to rest a wait while the arcanist charges up ready for the next battle. I'ld be more inclined to go with a token mechanic myself (although I've not worked one out yet)

The advantage of this is a arcanist would be able to pull of low level spells early in a battle, but later they would be able to carry out more powerful spells. The melee characters would need to protect the arcanist while he builds up tokens (proably via some concentration use).

[Will]

I've been contemplating how I'd do arcanists in Iron Heroes. I'm really not happy with the magic system, though I like the other elements of arcanists (like Pact and aspects).

Right now, my thinking is that I'd like a series of abilities the character can select (healing, invisibility, influence people, whatnot), have 'out of combat' general ability, then use tokens for more immediate effects. Magical healing could be fixed by using 'per day' limits, like regular healing.

I'm also thinking of making this magic essentially expansions of skill use, though still debating how to pull it off; that is, magical healing would allow heal checks to do more, magical Bluff would allow, say, 'you do a Bluff silently,' and so forth.

Lastly, I'd allow arcanists to use incantations from Unearthed Arcana, for the big/slow/dramatic spells that Conan or Grey Mouser swings in to interrupt...

[swrushing]

[/quote]

Originally Posted by Bagpuss

I think some flaws with the recovery idea for mana have been pointed out on Monte Cook's forum. IE: That it slows down the game as it encourages the party to rest a wait while the arcanist charges up ready for the next battle.

Hmm... not an issue for me.

if the circumstances are that they can rest, if time or situation isn't an issue, they don't have a need to press on, then it makes perfect sense for them to do so.

it wont slow down play since, if they are right and there is no risk involved, the "you rest" takes seconds to resolve.

In my games, there is a mix. often there are reasons to push on, whether it be specific time contraints of the plot or simply "they will figure out we are here so we better get done before they find us" etc. On the occasions when time is the party's ally, I expect them to make use of it.

If they press on and go in tired (low mana or low HP) when there is no reason for them to do so, they will likely suffer for it.

So i don't see this as a problem, but it certainly could be for some.

Originally Posted by Bagpuss

I'ld be more inclined to go with a token mechanic myself (although I've not worked one out yet)

I haven't seen one yet that i like.


But, as you said, we haven't had one worked out yet so, until we do have one, there is really not much to say about it.

Originally Posted by Bagpuss

The advantage of this is a arcanist would be able to pull of low level spells early in a battle, but later they would be able to carry out more powerful spells. The melee characters would need to protect the arcanist while he builds up tokens (proably via some concentration use).

Its tough to listen to a description of a system thats not in existence yet and comment effectively on it.

Obviously the system shouldn't in essence shackle in this one "script for how fights go" ("defend the mage until his big whammy spells is up".) But for me the bigger question is for out of combat magic, where there aren't enemies to require tasking everyone else to "defend the mage" duties and the mage can gather mana tokens pretty much at will.

Obviously, in theory all these problems can be solved, but in practice we wont know until it happens.

[Macbeth]

Originally Posted by Kaos

Just a quick nitpick:
A few of the traits (Child of Faith, Inspiring Presence) have x/day features as well...

Yeah, I've been finding more and more, but most of those are relatively easy to exclude/edit. The Arcanist relies on theirs, while the others can be reasonably excluded (or converted).

[Kaos]

Originally Posted by Macbeth

Yeah, I've been finding more and more, but most of those are relatively easy to exclude/edit. The Arcanist relies on theirs, while the others can be reasonably excluded (or converted).

The flavour text portrays it as more of a last-resort than as a primary tool, so I wouldn't say the arcanist is intended to rely on it (though without word from the designer it's hard to argue intention, and even with such word one can always question whether result met intention.)

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Originally Posted by Staffan

The main problem with having mana as a per-encounter resource (like tokens) is that you can do some long-term things with it. Healing is the first thing that comes to mind, but Alter Mind, and most of the Abjurations, can have some long-term effects as well. One way of dealing with this would be to have some sort of penalty for having spells up - perhaps -1 to the casting check per spell you already have active? That wouldn't stop the healing thing, though, but it's a start.

There are two things you can do to fix this:
1) Healing spells don´t heal damage, only reserve points, or they simply make a faster transfer of reserve points possible. This limits the healing to the already available amounts. Healing spells to deal ability damage/drain or similar effects could allow a certain "conversion" rate from reserve to hp.

2) You can´t maintain a unlimited amount of spells. Maybe the highest spell mastery rank determines the maximum amount of spells you can support. Any additional spell requires Concentration, and if you try to go beyond that limit, other spells end (beginning at the highest level spell, until you are below the limit again). Even a 20th level Arcanist couldn´t maintain more than 10 spells this way ...

----
I designed a house rule using mana tokens, but I am still not certain it is balanced.

You have starting tokens at each encounter equal to half your level (round down, similar to Hunter starting tokens). You can gain further ones by making a Concentration check (maybe a Spellcraft check might be a good alternative, since spellcraft is currently a bit underused), depending on your result you gain one, two or four tokens. If you fail or don´t make such a check, you lose one token (but go never below your starting pool, unless you are already below that value due to spending them for spells and so on).

I also added that you can´t channel mana longer than 1 round per point of Intelligence score - if you do not stop channeling after that for one minute, you take intelligence strain.
The token losing mechanics combined with the strain rule is there to avoid a arcanist to run around fully "charged" all the time.
It still opens up the possiblity that everytime a arcanist plans on entering a room he suspects enemies in, he will channel all mana he can get.

All other rules stay as before, just replace mana points with mana tokens and remove the daily mana limit.