Suskeyhose
Explorer
The Elements of Magic system presented in chapter 5 is my favorite magic system in any TTRPG, and I've been following it since the early days of the idea with the Elements of Magic supplement for D&D 3.5e.
With the 1.2 version of WOiN however it seems like some of the duration effects haven't been altered to keep pace with the updated duration costs.
The 1.2 update to Elements of Magic changed the costs of durations to Instantaneous being 0 MP, 1 round being 1 MP, concentration being 2 MP, and 1 minute being 3 MP.
However, the duration, spread enhancement doesn't seem to have been re-balanced with this in mind, as it still says that one minute has no duration cost and as such spreading effects over one minute is a pure savings of 3 MP (or half the cost of the effect, whichever is lower).
With the duration costs being updated to 3 MP for one minute, that makes spreading over 1 minute a break-even, and higher duration costs in general in the 1.2 version make spread duration practically irrelevant, as even with a 1 hour cost of 5 MP and its possible 200 MP max reduction of effects it only provides any kind of buff to a spell cast with an effect that costs more than 10 MP (5 MP for duration cost, -5 MP for spread savings), and the actual application this has is quite situational as the only spells it really affects are ones with the Grow Plant enhancement, as that's one of the only effects which persists after the spell's duration ends. For damage spells this reduction is entirely irrelevant because the MP cost reduction occurs at 1 MP per 3 rounds while the cost for additional damage increases by 2 MP per 1d6 damage, so spreading it out evenly results in <1d6 damage per round. For most other spells spreading the effect over time just does nothing as normally the entire effect persists for the full duration anyway (e.g. evocations could benefit by having damage occur multiple times, but SOAK increases with abjure apply instantly and for the full duration anyway).
What would be a recommended way to rebalance this effect?
An additional aspect here is the introduction of the Instantaneous effect duration in the first place. The cantrip spell chart wasn't updated to reflect its inclusion and has a 1 round duration (which normally costs 1 MP), and this seems to imply that some spells have effects that persist past the spell's end. This both makes sense to me as many cantrip spells would becomes useless without the 1 round duration (e.g. Soak not being applied for a round, or transform not allowing you to make use of the transformed state), but also doesn't as the costs are distinct, costing 1 MP in complex spells, but 0 MP in cantrips.
EDIT: Added reasoning for why duration, spread is useless for damage spells
With the 1.2 version of WOiN however it seems like some of the duration effects haven't been altered to keep pace with the updated duration costs.
The 1.2 update to Elements of Magic changed the costs of durations to Instantaneous being 0 MP, 1 round being 1 MP, concentration being 2 MP, and 1 minute being 3 MP.
However, the duration, spread enhancement doesn't seem to have been re-balanced with this in mind, as it still says that one minute has no duration cost and as such spreading effects over one minute is a pure savings of 3 MP (or half the cost of the effect, whichever is lower).
With the duration costs being updated to 3 MP for one minute, that makes spreading over 1 minute a break-even, and higher duration costs in general in the 1.2 version make spread duration practically irrelevant, as even with a 1 hour cost of 5 MP and its possible 200 MP max reduction of effects it only provides any kind of buff to a spell cast with an effect that costs more than 10 MP (5 MP for duration cost, -5 MP for spread savings), and the actual application this has is quite situational as the only spells it really affects are ones with the Grow Plant enhancement, as that's one of the only effects which persists after the spell's duration ends. For damage spells this reduction is entirely irrelevant because the MP cost reduction occurs at 1 MP per 3 rounds while the cost for additional damage increases by 2 MP per 1d6 damage, so spreading it out evenly results in <1d6 damage per round. For most other spells spreading the effect over time just does nothing as normally the entire effect persists for the full duration anyway (e.g. evocations could benefit by having damage occur multiple times, but SOAK increases with abjure apply instantly and for the full duration anyway).
What would be a recommended way to rebalance this effect?
An additional aspect here is the introduction of the Instantaneous effect duration in the first place. The cantrip spell chart wasn't updated to reflect its inclusion and has a 1 round duration (which normally costs 1 MP), and this seems to imply that some spells have effects that persist past the spell's end. This both makes sense to me as many cantrip spells would becomes useless without the 1 round duration (e.g. Soak not being applied for a round, or transform not allowing you to make use of the transformed state), but also doesn't as the costs are distinct, costing 1 MP in complex spells, but 0 MP in cantrips.
EDIT: Added reasoning for why duration, spread is useless for damage spells
