Alternative Magic system(mana based); need help

[Radial]

I'm looking for an alternative magic system that brings the D&D universe closer to what the M:tG(Magic: the Gathering) universe would be if it were a d20 system. The key thing I'm looking for is a way to convert the existing magic system in 3.5 to a Mana based system. I will manage breaking down the spells to their respective colors or multicolors in the future.

My initial thought was just having players be able to draw 1 Mana per round as a free action. Each spell costs 1 Mana per spell level. I need help understanding what balance issues I would encounter here, and any other things that I missing.

The second concept i'm working on, semi-related, is having 2 standard actions per turn. One can be used for spell and only spells, and the other being used for all other types of actions; excluding specifically spells. Basically adding a spell action every round, while also making it impossible to cast more than one spell per round.

Thanks in advanced.

Disclaimers: I did utilize the search feature in order to find something like this. No hits on Mana, Magic the Gathering, "magic" "gathering", and various other searches. I also manually browsed as far back as I could muster.

[myancey]

The only, sort of Mana based system I could think of was this:

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/spellPoints.htm

Yay Spell Points. Then for recharge, offer potions that replenish spell points. Side note--that could severely break casters.

[Lateral]

The only, sort of Mana based system I could think of was this:

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/spellPoints.htm

Yay Spell Points. Then for recharge, offer potions that replenish spell points. Side note--that could severely break casters.

Ahrum. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/psionicPowersOverview.htm)

[Radial]

The spell point seems like a good place to start. However, it doesn't quite represent the style I'm looking for. In that system, they innately have a pool of points. In the system I want, they would need to slowly draw in the power at a rate of x/round.

[Kuulvheysoon]

The spell point seems like a good place to start. However, it doesn't quite represent the style I'm looking for. In that system, they innately have a pool of points. In the system I want, they would need to slowly draw in the power at a rate of x/round.

Maybe give them unlimited PP, but at a rate of max power level every other round, or something?


:smallbiggrin: Well he said 3.5 and no one mentioned the horse. I think 3.5 makes any animal competitive by levelling it up as the druid levels up. I chose a horse so i can Lightening Charge with Shillelagh. I'm not interested anymore with lookin through supplements for hours. There are some good core options if only you have a DM that allows you to hang with other game maxers. Just role play. a horse can be battle trained, easy barding, go anywhere, growthed, and Spell Link in the druid progression makes every mount share your spells. I'm going to have an easier time training my mount over such a long period of time, IF she's got character enough to charm the DM. If i am not impressed, i'll get a rhino for effect. If you have a grapple animal companion like these smart players are suggesting with bears and such, then you can't use benefits from 'Link' (shared spells), maybe i'm forgetting the name exactly. I just wanted to join the front line this time and am guessing that i can hang with fighters on front line. Many ride tricks are easy for Druid and only a true class skill in 3.5. (not cross as in 3.0). Erego... Was time for a change from the spellcaster to the surprise front liner. If only i had the Constitution to keep this up. Mounted Combat Feat substitutes a ride check with the mounts AC for one attack every round for free to help protect your mount! Can you imagine? My mount has only been hit once while this was active (while mounted) so far (a hit to AC 26 pfffft, this at level 4, my DM will hit you if he wants to but my horse will stay beefy anyway). Eventually i theorize a wild shape into Dire Ape is a huge strength boost, with spells perhaps, plus natural quarter staff, plus Brambles, plus Spikes, plus a rhino between my legs, plus Lightening Charge, Shillelagh. i'm sure a bunch of yous so called experts are shaking heads. But you might have a DM that might let an attack of gore + 6d6+"bunch" slide by every turn by ninth level (it requires a skill check for letting animal attack in same round as rider(not a charge maybe but still good), plus ride check to guide with knees and use a two handed weapon, plus shillelagh and a large quarterstaff in dire ape hands (though a druid mind and vice like grip), plus Two-Weapon Fighting Feat (3d6/3d6 and only minus 2 to each attack) -OR- plus ride-by-attack, lightening charge..= lg staff (because dire ape lg. creature) -w- shillelagh=3d6, + lightening charge=6d6. (crit 12d6??)... hardly any spells used so far. I think it's worth trying for a druid of this kind. Magic items to keep strength up would cause medium loads to become light ones, increasing speed of mount under barding. I like the post about the eagle though. That's a really good idea. But then i like the Hippogriff on a whim. Levelled up it could be as good or "more useful". I just think it shouldn't be the type of game where a few strength points decide the color of an optomized druid (or pick bears). Having an animal companion level up in D&D 3.5, to save time switching companions and perhaps developing companion personality, is a powerful option or should be. I've never seen a dinosaur, to be honest, I don't care much, it's weird. I summon enlarged dire wolves as my sacred pleasure. The funny part is i would carry around a ten foot pole for the times i need to wild shape into a dire ape and use it as a staff. Make your choices fun! Or worth dying for.

Dude, there's a remote possibility that you may have posted in the wrong thread by mistake.

[Fable Wright]

Hm... the best option I can think of is creating an Arcane Crusader (similar to an Arcane Swordsage) class, and possibly throw in a few 4e-style rituals. It's not exactly the answer you were looking for, but it fits the fluff fairly well. They have a certain pool of spells that they know (their deck) and a hand of cards (powers known). Each round, they get a new maneuver/spell refreshed. The mana system seems to be at odds with this, but here's how I see it: Each game of Magic is supposed to be a huge battle, spanning for years. Lands produce mana, which are giant wellsprings- in the books, mana doesn't run out, and is more of an abstract thing in the background. Lands are more of an indicator of the level of the character rather than a limitation of what they can do at a given moment. Their lands are their spells known- for example, each blue spell they know counts as a blue land for prerequisites. Learning a blue spell from a given list requires knowing a certain number of other blue spells, for example. If you want to replicate being able to cast a bunch of low level spells, you could do things like Summon Monster spells, or being able to use a number of Strikes (normal spells known) equal to the highest level maneuver you know, to allow for aggro-type strategies and fit the X Mana/round limitation you're looking for. This (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=187632) might help for converting normal D&D spells to M:tG spells.

Oh, and if you sort this out, please post the results in the Homebrew section of the forum and put a link in this thread. You can get a lot of help balancing things there, and I'd like to see how this turns out.

Alternatively, use (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=189767) one (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=242577) of (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=230304) these (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=249227).

EDIT: Appendation to my idea, after reading Hyde's post: Rather than using multiple strikes in the same action (Which, on hindsight, is a bad idea) to replicate casting multiple spells, you could use the Mana pool idea- but instead of allowing buildup, you could use it as a limit on spells cast. For example, you have your Boosts and Counters that you can use excess mana on- leaving mana up for counters and other small spells, but if you don't use it, it's wasted, just like when you waste mana in the game. However, you're also limited on mana colors, as well- each maneuver costs mana, and you only generate a certain amount of each color each turn. You can't keep casting a ton of very Blue spells each turn unless you're highly Blue focused. Likewise, if you're highly Blue focused, you can't cast many Red spells in a turn, similar to the kind of specialization that happens in many Magic games. And if you have tons of spells from different and cross-schools, you might be unable to use all of the maneuvers you want due to a lack of much multicolored mana, and the spells that you do use only have one or at most two colors required in their casting costs. It's an interesting way to take the system, at least.

[Mnemnosyne]

The 2nd Edition system that was presented for Defilers and Preservers using spell points functioned by having them gather energy immediately before casting. Specifically:

There were 'fixed magicks' and 'free magicks'; a fixed magick was an investment of potential spell points that would only work to cast a specific spell. You memorize, for instance, haste as a fixed magick, and you can thereafter cast haste by paying 10 spell points, since it's a 3rd level spell. Alternately, you memorize one 3rd-level free magick. This allows you to cast any 3rd level spell in your book - at a cost of 20 spell points, rather than 10.

A preserver can accumulate 4 spell points + 1/level each round of gathering energy.
A defiler can accumulate 4 spell points + 2/level each round of gathering energy.

A 5th-level preserver, therefore, would require 2 rounds in order to cast haste if it was memorized as a fixed magick. The spell would go off in the second round. A 5th-level defiler, on the other hand, can gather 14 points per round, and thus would be able to cast it in one round. (Of course, this had the whole defiler disadvantage of destroying the land around you, etc).

The upside to this was they could accumulate more energy than needed to cast a particular spell. By paying 50% more spell points, the spell would function at 1 level higher.

Something along those lines may be a good basis to start from.

[Hyde]

I had a system like this for a bit. It was rather complex.

mages would generate a static number of mana a round, which increased with character level. (I think every level they got a new Spell Level, they also got a new mana, which could be one of the five colors).

So wizard Bill is level five, he generates two red mana and one blue mana per round, and spells cost a number of mana equal to their spell level of the appropriate color(s). you might want to tweak these numbers a bit (A new mana at one, four, seven, ten and so on might not be a bad idea- they would have to hold on to mana to cast more powerful spells, which would somewhat help your quadratic wizards bit).

introduce feats that allow you to convert colors, and you've got a pretty good framework.

Next, you introduce the concept of natural mana which can be used in one of two ways- either locations can provide additional mana if you already produce mana of that color (or they provide one mana of that color and another if you can already use it, but that gets a little nuts). Alternately, spells of a certain color can be easier to cast (cheaper) in certain locations. Or even specific spells to specific places, like graveyards for animate dead kind of a thing. Likewise, locations could inhibit mana growth or make certain colors more difficult to cast.

I don't really see the point of a "spell" action and a "not spell" action, unless maybe literally everyone was playing a kind of mage, but even then there might be a better way to do it.

[only1doug]

I'd also look at using the spellpoint system but apply some limits:

at the beginning of each of his turns a spellcasting character can gather 1 mana + 1 per 5 spellcaster levels (of appropriate colour to his location) (all or nothing, either you are gathering mana or you aren't).

A spellcasting character can store a maximum mana equal to his spellcaster Level, exceeding this amount results in mana burn (HP damage to the spellcaster) that cannot be mitigated in any way (if a spellcaster with temporary hitpoints takes mana burn the damage is dealt to his real hitpoint total not from his temporary hitpoints).

Feats or equipment should be available to convert mana to specific colours of mana.

Equipment should be available to store small amounts of colourless mana or (more expense) specific coloured mana.

Multiclass spellcasters with more than one spellcasting class should add all of their spellcasting classes together to determine a total spellcasting level which will determine their mana generation speed and mana storage limit.


Note that this system means that a 1st level wizard could cast a 1st level spell each round for ever. is this too powerful? (not really, comparable with a 1st level warlock, able to eldritch blast every round).
A 10th level wizard could cast a 2nd level spell (3sp to cast at CL2) each round for ever (still not a huge concern IMO)
A 20th level wizard could cast a 3rd level spell (5sp to cast at CL3) each round for ever (are you yawning? hardly the limit to a 20th level spellcaster).

at the opposite end of the scale, a 9th level spell costs 17 spell points, a 20th level caster can cast 1, then have a long wait (either 4 or 5 rounds) before they can cast another 9th level spell.

Monsters with SLA's would have to be scaled back to avoid overpowering the casters.


This system would make blasting less useful and buffing more useful, perhaps all spell durations need to be examined to ensure that the spellcasters cannot keep the entire party uber buffed at all times.

[Andorax]

How "MTG"ish do you want this to be? It can be cranked up to significant levels if that's how you want to approach it.


I'm thinking some combination of the spellpoint system/gradual draw of power, combined with something similar to the Crusader's mechanic.

You can come into a fight pre-powered up to your highest available SL in mana of any desired color...basically, whatever mechanics exist for drawing and transfering it can be employed during the "5 minutes between fights" downtime that's familiar to Bo9S types and 4E players.

At the start of the fight, you get your limited, random selection of granted spells out of your overall list of readied spells, and can start spending your mana on them (1 per SL).

You can, as a swift action, draw mana appropriate to the terrain and setting you are in (at a rate of 1 + 1 per 4 CL).

You can, as a swift action, convert any amount of mana of a particular color to mana of another color.

You start each turn gaining another previously un-granted spell.

DMs are encouraged to be generous with "dual land" sorts of terrains to provide some measure of choice.

Out of the box, this is going to be very limiting, but there are options that help open it up:

1) Terrain Specialist feat ups the rate in a specific type of terrain to 1 + 1/3 CL for basic power drawing.

2) Multicolor Specialist feat lets you draw any color at a 1 per 5 CL rate directly.

3) Reduced Color Dependance feat allows you to substitute 1 "colorless" mana for a colored mana each time you take it. A Fireball normally costs 3R, but a mage that has the RCD feat needs spend 2R and 1 of any color...and a mage with the RCD feat twice would need to spend only 1R and 2 of any color. All colored spells require a minimum of 1 mana of each color of the spell.


4) Some "granted spells" would be "Mana Infusion" spells. There's a Mana Infusion "spell" of every color of every level that, instead of costing its spell level in mana, grants it.


Mechanics might look something like this (PFA, polish needed).

3rd level caster has access to 2nd level spells. He is a Mountain Specialist ("red caster"). His spells known (for now we're using the straight-up Crusader progression of maneuvers known/readied/granted) are:

(R1) Burning Hands
(R1) Shocking Grasp
(R1) Mana Infusion: Red (1st)
(W1) Shield
(G1) Summon Nature's Ally 1
(R2) Scorching Ray

Let's say, for example, he's currently in a forest. He choose not to ready Shocking Grasp.

Prior to combat, he has 2R and 1W mana in his pool. Combat starts, and he is granted:

Summon Nature's Ally and Scorching Ray.

Round 1, he uses 2R from his pool to cast Scorching Ray, and as a swift action, draws 1G from the surrounding woods. He has 1G1W.

Round 2, he draws Shield. He casts Shield, and draws 1G from the surrounding woods again. He has 2G.

Round 3, he draws Mana Infusion: Red. He casts Summon Nature's Ally I and, as a swift action, uses Mana Infusion: Red. He has 1G1R.

Round 4, he draws his last readied spell, Burning Hands. He casts it, and draws 1G. He has 2G.

Round 5, his hand and discards are all shuffled, and he redraws 2 granted spells. He could spend his swift action this round to draw another 1G, or convert the 2G he already has to 2R.


If this fight took place in a Mountainous region instead, he could be using his swift actions to draw 2R each round (due to his Mountain Specialist feat), in which case he would probably leave his Mana Infusion spell out of his Spells Readied.

[eggs]

Since this thread keeps getting new suggestions, it might be worth pointing out that the OP probably settled on something or other over a year ago.

[Yorae]

Since this thread keeps getting new suggestions, it might be worth pointing out that the OP probably settled on something or other over a year ago.

Oddly, the thread become more interesting post-necromancy. =p

The difficulty to me seems to be indetermining "mana costs" for spells. Like Prismatic Spray for WUBRG?

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff: Thread necromancy.