Mana Burn Feat. Your opinion?

[Herzog]

Hi,

I am planning to ask my DM to allow me to use a custom feat.
Before I do that however, I would like your opinion:

Mana Burn

Prerequisite:
Spontaneous casting. ( Ex: Sorcerer, Bard and Clerical spells that may be substituted.)

Mana burn lets you cast spells when your spells per day have all been used.
To cast a spell, you draw on your hp directly.
hp lost is spell lvl squared. (except for 0 level spells, which cost 1 hp)

Ex: casting a fourth level spell costs you 16 hp.

Herzog.

 

[The Lost Muse]

Well, it'd at least keep most casters from casting extra 9th level spells (81 hp? that's a lot - almost a Baleful Spell) but I might limit it to 0 - 3rd level spells.

 

[wuyanei]

Er... Cure Critical Wounds (Clr 4) at 7th level: 4d8+7 heals and average of 25 HP... and you want to spend 16 hp to cast a 4th level spell? It don't think that balances well, and this does not even 'begin' to touch on the effects of heal.

I might allow a feat to take ability damage (Con; or Cha for Sor & Brd, Wis for Clr, Int for Wiz) that must heal naturally (no greater restoration) in return for an extra spell or two (1 point ability damage for each spell level, minimum 1 pt dmg), but for extra spells for hp only... no.

 

[Herzog]

Good point.
I was already afraid that I might run into trouble with higher level spells and healing, that's why I added the 'squared' rule, but I am glad you pointed out just how unbalancing that gets at higher levels.

The ability damage sounds far more appropriate.
Keeping with the original thoughts I head, I would re-write the rule as follows:

Mana Burn

Prerequisite:
Spontaneous casting. ( Ex: Sorcerer, Bard and Clerical spells that may be substituted.)

Mana burn lets you cast spells when your spells per day have all been used.
To cast a spell, you draw on your Constitution directly.
1 point ability damage for each spell level, minimum 1 pt dmg.
This damage cannot be healed magically, but must heal naturally.

Note that with decreased Constitution, your current hp drops as well!

Note:
You may not use this ability to reduce your Constitution below 1.

Herzog.

 

[wuyanei]

That would be more balanced, but your party might not want to (or be able to) rest for 9+ days while you recuprate. This could drag the game down, and cause unneccessary OOC tension between players. That and that fact that 9 days out of it in return for an extra spell or two really isn't worth it.

A more useful suggestion would be to burn XP to sort of 'create scrolls on the fly'. A reasonable price would be SpLv x Caster Lv x 15 XP per spell -- that would be three times the market price (using the 1 XP = 5 GP conversion rate) of a scroll of that power, 1.5 times the price of a potion, but you get to create it on-the-fly -- it pays to be prepaired, usually .

The XP cost would then be (if you cast the spells at the lowest possible level, if you want to cast at higher caster level, the XP cost goes up):
0th -- 10 XP (7.5 XP round to 10)
1st -- 15 XP
2nd -- 90 XP
3rd -- 225 XP
4th -- 420 XP
5th -- 675 XP
6th -- 990 XP
7th -- 1365 XP
8th -- 1800 XP
9th -- 2295 XP

Still cheap, when you really need that extra gate spell, but not so cheap as to be easily abused -- especially compaired to the XP cost of just making a scroll yourself. Plus, it scales with the character level (153 times difference between 1st and 9th level spells), so you will not find 20 level characters throwing spells around madly because they have XP to burn.

 

[Herzog]

mmm. XP costs.

I have a real problem with the whole 'spending XP to get an item' idea of the basic rules already.

It goes against everything i feel is logical in the game system.

How would creating something (or, in this case, casting a spell) reduce the experience I have build up over the years? Logically, it would INCREASE the experience I have gained, although I understand that would really break the system....

So, introducing something that is yet another way of losing XP sounds like a bad idea.

I think I will stick with the Con damage when I introduce this to my DM.

And, on the subject of dragging down the game:
You'd have to be a really suicidal character to use this feat as standard repertoire.
It should be used only in those circumstances where NOT using that extra spell would mean certain death. And I think the other characters (and players) will appreciate the effort you took to save their butts enough to ignore the enforced resting days....

Herzog

 

[wuyanei]

Well, I've always viewed XP as your 'life force' or 'life energy', instead of mere memory. Ki, Chi, or M--- Levels (whatever that thing Anakin has a lot of is). The mystical energy that defines your soul or something like that... but each to their own.

However, when you need to 'do-or-die', you are probably down on hp already, so Con damage might not even be possible, at least if you want to survive yourself. 6 pts Con damage to a 11th level 14 Con Sorcerer is 33 hp out of a maximum of 49 (2.5 x11 +22). Which mean that if he had suffered more than 16 damage, which is less than one successfully saved fireball (fireball at 10d6 avgs 35 dmg, successful save halves: 17.5 dmg), he would be dying after he uses this feat. Its your character, so you decide, but I would think this might make the feat too unwieldy to use.

That is why I suggested damaging the primary casting attribute (Cha for Sor/Brd, Wis for Clr, etc.) instead. Call it overchannelling, if you will. This works well for Cha casters -- Cha representing force of will -- but it is a bit strange for Wis or Int types (burning IQ to cast spells??).

 

[Thia Halmades]

*leafs through the SRD, has an idea, discards it*

I was checking "overchannel" in the Psionic section, because that does have an HP cost/casting level function, which I think is where Herzog might've gotten the idea in the first place, but in a subsequent post, wuyanei pointed out that the costs don't balance, and that math was strong and accurate. So.

I think wuyanei actually hit this one on the head; I do hold with a combination of both of your ideas; XP is a combination of raw experience, part of which is your 'soul' and part of which is a pool you can draw from. I have an HR which specifically "pools" XP for players so that have a ready supply to build items, brew potions and go crazy with. Expending a bit of your soul - weakening yourself without killing yourself - seems like the best plan, and the most scaled.

So, for my two cents, I support the XP/InstaScroll concept.

LCpt. Thia Halmades

 

[wuyanei]

Just to clarify, the 'InstaScroll' doesn't really act much as a scroll -- it acts more like a pearl of power, recharging a spent spell slot, except there is a limit to the Caster Level you can apply when recasting the spell. Basically, you 'burn' your spiritual essence to 'recharge' a expended spell slot.

A spell-memorizing caster who uses the 'InstaScroll' would only be able to recast a spell she had already prepaired and then expended. A spontaneous caster would, of course, be able to use the recharged spellslot recast any spell he knows of that spell level or lower.

 

[wuyanei]

The idea behind the InstaScroll is that you will 'never be rendered helpless' (through lack of spells). However, you don't want to use the ability that often, or you will fall behind everybody else in the XP department.