Death to the Mana Bar!

[Sicram]

In the DA universe there's even a background codex where it says that "mana is the magic potential of how much a mage can draw from the fade before exhaustion", there was even writting something about that trying to cast a spell with too little "mana" would make the mage faint... or something.

Yeah, and it might actually have been interesting if they'd implemented mages fainting or going into shock in the game. As it was, you just had a mana bar like any other game, and it didn't matter in the least because you could drink mana potions endlessly with no repercussions.

Having mages collapse and die when they abuse their spells would be a lovely mechanic in a multiplayer game for the humor factor ALONE. Or if Bioware had implemented it that the whole demonic possession thing actually had some kind of mechanical effect in the game. It really felt like the mage protagonist and party mages lived in an entirely different mechanical universe from the other mages you encouter, who are constantly getting possessed by demons or summoning demons or pulling off impossible feats. I would have really enjoyed it if I overcast my mana pool (through inattention) and my mage promptly turned into a demon and annihilated everything in sight, followed shortly thereafter by a "game over" screen, particularly if nowhere in the manual does it warn you that this can happen.

You could very easily implement this sort of thing, too, by having your health bar and mana bar be the same thing. They do that a little with Blood Magic in Dragon Age, but it's poorly implemented because you can just switch back to using your mana bar. Worse, if you build your character in a specific way, you will never run out because healing yourself is low-cost, and both your health and mana regenerate. So all you do is turn on blood magic mode, cast until you're low on health, switch, heal, switch back. Jade Empire did the same silly thing where you could heal yourself by dumping your mana, and then they gave you a power that let you recharge your mana by punching things.

Indeed, it would've been nice with a toxity meter a la witcher or the like for regaining mana and maybe stamina. Hell, ditch mana and only use stamina!

Although having you go on an uncontrolled rampage due to exhaustion would be a wee bit much. Having you temporarily collapse would've sufficed, or starting to eat away at HP or anything. The lore explanation was decent but you only know this if you read about it, otherwise it's like any other game.

And not only did blood magic do little difference gameplay wise, it did absolutely NOTHING lore wise. All this talk about how magic users are opressed and how dangerous blood magic is and yadda yadda and still it's ALL OVER THE PLACE! Interesting premise, nice lore but horrible execution.

 

[Mordwyl]

Frankly I'd prefer a system where instead of an actual mana bar casting spells would tire you out. MP always felt arbitrary and restrictive, especially when you consider in most RPGs the power of a spell isn't as variable as physical damage.

 

[JMeganSnow]

I thought this was going to be about Yahtzees bar in Australia, I am actually kind of disappointed as it would have made an interesting topic.

That's funny me too xD

I don't agree by the way, as a long time RPG fan who thinks of mages as an already unbalanced "necessary evil" (Prefer Rogues or Warriors any day) I think mages should have more limitations, not less. Otherwise, that'd be the only class ever played. Besides, if the point of magic is to be unbalanced, it makes more sense to remove completely by the topic-posters logic...

I think one of the biggest problems with magic vs. non-magic in fantasy games is that they have opposing arcs. Mages are fun as heck to play at high levels when you can simply wave your hand and make enemies vanish, and you have all kinds of cool spell effects to throw around essentially at will. GETTING to those high levels from the initial "I have a magic missile. Pew. And I'm spent." stage is a horrific grind.

Whereas for the warriors and rogues, it's generally the other way around. You're effective and fun from the get go. Later on, when you're getting spammed with instant-death effects and need a healer glued to your ass at all times even to stay upright due to the stupid amounts of damage monsters output, it gets boring and annoying.

 

[JMeganSnow]

Although having you go on an uncontrolled rampage due to exhaustion would be a wee bit much. Having you temporarily collapse would've sufficed, or starting to eat away at HP or anything. The lore explanation was decent but you only know this if you read about it, otherwise it's like any other game.

It wouldn't have to happen all the time, just once or twice overall in order to make you a bit careful about running your mage completely out of juice. And come on, the shock factor would be terrific. Maybe only have it trigger when you die while you're out of juice (and have it so that running out of juice does damage to you or lowers your max hp and defenses so there's a reasonably good chance of them happening simultaneously).

But, yeah, the lore and mechanics of Dragon Age are in completely different rooms that only barely communicate. It's a shame, too, because if they were integrated they could both be excellent.

 

[Drakmorg]

If magic was unlimited and overpowered, no one would ever use anything else.

Maybe it might be interesting if say, your character uses health instead of mana. That way the game can still be challenging because if you misfire a great big spell or don't use your spells effectively enough to kill all the enemies, then you leave yourself vulnerable to getting one-shot by the next mook who can get within striking distance.
Plus if you try to do something out of your league, like casting a lvl 20 spell when your lvl 1, then instead of just not being able to do so, you get the more hilarious outcome of killing yourself.

Or maybe instead of health your character always has a normally nigh-impenetrable magic shield that gets weaker as you cast spells, so you are forced to make yourself vulnerable in order to proceed.

 

[Zaverexus]

why limit it at all? For game balance? The ENTIRE point of magic is to be unbalanced. I want to summon skeleton armies from my fallen foes and conjure firestorms to destroy cities in an instant!

Well therein lies your problem: that you are wrong.
In a game you need balance, like it or not. And a game in which you could raze whole cities and all your enemies to the ground instantly would be a freaking horrible game.

Does anyone remember the old Baldur's gate (and thus old aDnD rules) mechanic for magic? You had a spellbook full of spells you "knew" based on level and what you had found, but depending on your intelligence you could only "memorize" so many incantations. This meant that before you slept each day you had to choose which spells you wanted to memorize for the next day. And once you used that prepared spell, you had to sleep to memorize it again.
Personally I liked this mechanic, it made being a magic user difficult. Spells were a big deal that you held in reserve for when you absolutely needed it, and then you could strike down huge enemies. You had to have other ways to fight, namely a powerful party to protect you wizard, who had next to no health. It made casters human.

 

[WanderingFool]

I thought this was going to be about Yahtzees bar in Australia, I am actually kind of disappointed as it would have made an interesting topic.

Only reason I clicked this thread.

Anyways, Im sure there is a limit to magic in almost single piece of fiction that has it. If magic was all powerful and there was no rules, than God help any poor sod in that world.

 

[teebeeohh]

what bothers me more is that in most RPGs there are 2 or 3 spells that superior to everything else and you either only use those or you only use those and run around while the CD wears off.
why not have a system where magic is super powerful but you have to combine spells or elements to make the most out of it(thing magicka). so while when you need to defend yourself you can quickly push the enemies a few feet away you need a lot more time to summon a tornado that pretty much wreaks havoc. Also why is there never a system that rewards you for mixing up your spells. Like make a fireball stronger for every non-fire spell you cast.

 

[nukethetuna]

Casting magic has to have some drawback, especially in games where you've got the "warrior" types as available options, because magic is generally shown to be far more destructive and powerful. Whether it be a mana bar, time, difficulty to perform, or only usable in specific situations, there needs to be some resource or restriction that limits its use.

Magicka kinda avoids a mana bar by just making everyone wizards with access to the overwhelmingly powerful spells, though. The element system does take a little more time, and there is kind of a stamina meter in that your fingers might fall off putting in spell combinations.

 

[theriddlen]

Meh, i hoped for something about Yahtzee's Mana Bar. Even though i don't desire it's death.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Without limits you are invincible -> no challenge -> very limited fun

As for Gandalf he cast like 3 spells in his entire lifetime, and Harry cast 5, the average game mage can do heck of alot better with the mana bar.

But Magicka did an interesting new system, essentially you can cast as fast as your skill allows

 

[trooper6]

Well, being uber-awesome-godlike in games is simply not fun.
(On a side note: I too thought this was going to be about Yahtzee's bar)

And second, Tolkien's universe what exceptionally high-magic. Gandalf does not bust out massive spells. Here's an article noting that he's probably only 5th level:

http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=7338

Gandalf wasn't allowed to use his magic as he could have. The Valar (gods) forbid it because the races of middle earth should do it on their own, without the Maiar (Gandalf and so on) marching in and rescuing everyone. Gandalf is as powerful has Sauron. Also, Maiar in general are as powerful as the Valar, but have a lesser rank. I receommend reading the Silmarillion.

If a player came to me in a game I was GM'ing as said that he wanted to play someone who was crazy powerful (let's say a 20th level wizard), but that was only in theory, in actuality he functioned exactly as a 2nd level wizard...then he'd just be a 2nd level wizard with some interesting backstory.

How about stamina? As in the force of life, not necessarily health directly, but your ability to run, jump, fight and cast magic all draw from your "stamina" bar? This would approach the classic film perception of magic users, collapsing when their power has been exerted to that extent.

There are table top games that work this way. GURPS has multiple possible magic systems. In the standard one, magic is powered by fatigue points...the same points that people use to hike long distances or exert themselves in some way or what you lose if you don't sleep. If a person runs out of fatigue, they slow down, can pass out, etc. If you keep trying to burn fatigue when you don't have any, you start losing hit points.

Now, the thing is, this isn't going to give the OP the godly unlimited magic user that he wants. Because you are still limited...this time by "stamina" rather than "mana" it is functionally the same thing in the end.

But there are many different models. Another GURPS model is the "energy accumulating" model. This is also available in GURPS, and also in Castle Falkenstein. In this, you can draw unlimited power from the universe around you...it just takes a long time to do it. Really big powerful spells might take days--or hours if you have lots of followers also drawing power. But that isn't going to work in a video game...though Fable 2 sort of did something like that, were you wait longer to charge up more powerful spells.

Not all film mages get tired from spell casting. It really depends on how magic is modeled in the universe and where they draw their power.

I believe there in an "unlimited mana" option in GURPS, where rather than drawing from your fatigue, you can immediately pull from ambient mana around you to power spells...though there are checks and balances on that system. Basically, you take too much from the universe, the universe takes back. "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction" and all that.

 

[blankedboy]

Unbalanced games aren't any fun. Go troll some other forum.

 

[Comrade_Beric]

Take away the mana and make magic casting cost you life instead. Magic casting can now KILL you if you do it too often or cast something too big. "Whew, that almost killed me, but we made it" = good feeling.

 

[itsausernamewhatofit]

I thought this was going to be about Yahtzees bar in Australia, I am actually kind of disappointed as it would have made an interesting topic.

I was kind of hoping for that, too. I'd kill to have one of those here in the States.

yeah same here. I hope eventually we get something like it

 

[pyramid head grape]

I thought this was going to be about Yahtzees bar in Australia, I am actually kind of disappointed as it would have made an interesting topic.

Me too... kind of a let down.
To cheer you up

I want to go to the mana bar so badly.

OT: I quite like mana bars in games.

 

[Thirsk]

Play some Magicka - there's eldritch goodness all over the place and no mana bars.

This have probably been mentioned before, but hey.

 

[Bloodstain]

I receommend reading the Silmarillion.

Don't read the Silmarillion. Unless you're one of those people who likes to watch "The Making of . . ." segments and so forth.

It's not a "Making of", it's description of everything happening in Tolkien's universe, starting with the creation of the world and ending with the end of the War of the Ring.
It's difficult to read, but fascinating. Amazing what Tolkien invented.

I know what it is. I read it. But it won't appeal to people who are looking for a great story. It is like reading the encyclopedia or the bible or watching a movie clip ABOUT a movie. Hence why it probably won't appeal to people who don't like that sort of thing.

Reading comprehension tip: just because someone says that something falls into a the same category as something else, does not mean they're claiming that something is IDENTICAL to that something else.

Well, okay. So what now? All you're saying is "Don't read it, you won't like it". He (the one I recommended it to) should be able to decide on his own whether he is interested enough in the Tolkien universe. Of course the Silmarillion is nothing you read for superficial entertainment, but out of interest and fascination.
By the way, comparing reading the encyclopaedia to reading the bible is...let us just say it doesn't mae you sound credible.

And since you're so quick to give tips, here is one for you: Stop deciding on behalf of other people. They know best what they like.

Good day.