Death to the Mana Bar!

[Griff Morivan]

Having a limitation on magic is exactly the same as a limitation in physical feats. It's why a lot of HURR HURR hulking sword rapists have Mana Bars as well, except that it's called Stamina. It's really that simple. Magic, in almost every setting, is something that runs through your veins and you tap into it. But like thinking or working too hard, eventually, the body tires, and you're left exhausted.

Having so many spells a day is also a matter of the same sort of stamina balance. Using Gandalf as an example is pretty poor, since his spells in the Lord of the Rings trilogy are pretty crap. His best use of magic is bringing the sun out early in The Hobbit. But that was one big spell. Most of the other stuff is talking to animals, which any retarded ranger can do, and use magical devices, specifically swords. ORCHRIST. THE FOE HAMMER. NOOOOOOooooooo-dead-

It comes down to, from a gameplay perspective, balance. A lack of balance makes a spell chugging kill crazy gaggle of fuckheaded douchebaggery. See : Kratos. And from a logical perspective, eventually, one tuckers out, and just can't keep RENDING DAH URFF after so many spells. Even simple things require unreal concentration to successfully pull off.

 

[Epic Fail 1977]

I, as a dedicated RPG fan have often been dumbfounded by magic systems in games. Why in a world that calls itself High Fantasy do I have the magical capabilities of a real life magician? When SO much of modern fantasy is based on the work of Tolkien why do I "run out of spells"? Gandalf didnt have this problem! Even HARRY POTTER didnt have this GLARING HORRID limitation! I speak of course of the mana bar that seemingly age old mechanic that has you unable to summon up so much as a puff of smoke at just the wrong instant to lead to your demise at the hands of that smelly warrior! While recent games have gone the route of using cooldowns instead I have to ask 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! I dont want to retreat helplessly while waiting for my magical talents to recharge! So.... who feels they have the wit to finally defeat this horrid blemish on modern gaming? Who among you can help put this flawed concept to final rest? WHO AMONG YOU CAN...oh screw it! Anybody got any ideas?

I'm sure it's been said already, but if you read the books you'll find that Gandalf did actually have exactly that problem.

 

[plugav]

well, I have to say games would be rather boring if you could do all that off the bat.

Exactly.

Do you think Magic: The Gathering would be any fun if it didn't have mana, that is you could cast anything on your hand and there would be no stategy involved?

And it's not just games that would be boring - books too. Note that good fantasy books put all sorts of limitations on their mages. Casting powerfull spells may have massive consequences or require extremely rare components, or be achievable only through lengthy rituals, etc. The whole plot of A Wizard of Earthsea, for example, revolves around one spell that the protagonist has foolishly cast.

You don't want mages to be omnipotent, otherwise... what would the story be?

 

[Josh Horton]

In all honest they should keep mana bars, the only other option, and this is my opinion on what COULD be done is:

1. Intuition/Intelligence Points are used to equip spells, more powerful spells cost more points to have equipped. Say for instance you have 65 points and you want to use a spell that cost 50 points, you may do so but that limits you to only one 15 point spell or lesser spells that combine up to the 15 points. There will also be different levels of the same spells that have less or more effect with the point cost changing with the spell.

2. Willpower defines the cooldown time for the spells above. With this you can distribute the points among the spells to reduce the cooldown by a certain percentage of the set cooldown time. Every spell has a set, unchangeable, cooldown time that can only be adjusted by putting willpower points into them. For instance, Spell X has a set cooldown time 40 seconds, and you have 60 willpower, you can distribute it all into Spell X or you can divide it between Spell X,Y, and Z. If you put it all in Spell X, for example this is based on a 100 point stat system giving 100 points a 100% cooldown distribution, Spell X would be reduced by 60% and all the other spells will have their preset base cooldown.

3. Magic that people want to take health points or stamina could probably be considered Blood Magic. The idea we could put behind this is that they are more powerful spells but take a toll on the users health. Put these spells based on your constitution maybe? The spells cooldowns can be adjusted with willpower as well but may not be recommended seeing as it just makes you kill yourself faster lol. We could probably say Spell B has a huge effect but cost a good amount of constitution every time you use it and has a long cooldown. We could say you have a constitution of 50 and to cast this spell it lowers your constitution by a preset amount based on the level of the spell. The constitution is temporarily damaged effecting your health points in the process of casting the spell. Your constitution slowly regains points up the the maximum the stat currently is.


*Whew* and that is my input on the situation lol

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

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.

You too?
OP: WE could go to old school rules. You memorize a set of spells in the morning and can only cast those once during the day.

 

[JMeganSnow]

Well, okay. So what now? All you're saying is "Don't read it, you won't like it".

Once again, not even remotely what I said. I said, don't read it--unless you're the type of person who'd be likely to enjoy it, i.e. you like all that "behind the scenes" crap. I make no assumptions. It is neither interesting nor engaging on any fundamental level, and likely to be difficult to track down.

 

[JMeganSnow]

Having so many spells a day is also a matter of the same sort of stamina balance. Using Gandalf as an example is pretty poor, since his spells in the Lord of the Rings trilogy are pretty crap. His best use of magic is bringing the sun out early in The Hobbit.

He doesn't bring the sun out early in the Hobbit. He keeps the trolls arguing until the sun comes out naturally. In fact, the only magic he uses AT ALL in the Hobbit is basically, fireworks, like he carries a bunch of sparklers around in his pocket.

 

[chunkeymonke]

One thing.
Almost EVERY wizard in any game/movie/show has had a moment where they did a big thing and got extremely tired/fatigued that is mana, its ment to be a measure of how much energy to cast spell you have left

 

[TornadoFive]

"I don't know how to play a mage right and I suck at it, so I want them buffed to unfair levels."

Anyone else read that? Sorry, OP, but it honestly just sounds like you're not that good at being a mage.

You want unlimited god powers, go cheat in Oblivion or something. We like challenge in our games, and playing a mage presents a damn fun one if you know what you're doing.

I've always thought the mana bar should be replaced by a fatigue system. Like, the more spells you cast in a row, the tireder you'll get, and the weaker you'll spells will be. That would make more sense to me.

And yeah, I clicked here cause I thought you were talking about Yahtzee's bar. Good to see I wasn't the only one!

That's actually a pretty awesome idea... also, your avatar is fuckin' sick, if a little contradictory

What's contradictory about it? It clearly represents a multi-national company dedicated to preserving humanities existance, but instead of killing their enemies, they capture them for testing! All in the name of science! Pretty straight-forward!

That's not the Abstergo symbol... that's the Assassin symbol. The group that would be against the multi-national company...

The multi-national part was refering to Aperture. I can't remember if it specifically tells you they're multi-national, but judging by the size of the place in Portal 2, they probably are!

Hm, good point. Guess it's just that, the way I see it, Aperture and Cerberus seem to be a bit against what the Assassin's order stands for. Aperture would be helping Abstergo if anything.

Doesn't take away from the fact that the combination of logos looks awesome beyond all measure. Just my AC fanboy talking

Heh, thanks. I can see where you're coming from, but I think they're all kinda working for the same goal. The Assassin's want to save humanity by fighting the Templars. Cerberus, obviously, fighting for humanity against practically everything else! And Aperture is the crazy one who comes up with mad inventions to "help" us!

But hey! Like you said, we're reading too much into it. They're three awesome games. That's what's important!

 

[Ryan Lietzenmayer]

I you've played Magicka, you can see magic done correctly in a game. In most other Fantasy games, magic plays just like normal attacks, except everything just has a different skin.

The mana bar and cooldowns are usually for game balance, but it always feels awkward. Magicka did it right by having no mana bar, no casting limit, and no cooldowns, because if you cast the wrong spell, you can easy kill yourself and your friends.

EDIT: It's worth noting that Magicka is the only game I've played where magic spells have actually felt powerful. You actually felt like you were bending the elements to your will, and manipulating them in ways to destroy your enemies. In games like Warcraft, Diablo and even Bioshock with its eve meter, all of the spells are just special attacks. They don't seem like magic, they just seem like a special attack you need a full meter for (not unlike what you can see in street fighter).

 

[Griff Morivan]

He doesn't bring the sun out early in the Hobbit. He keeps the trolls arguing until the sun comes out naturally. In fact, the only magic he uses AT ALL in the Hobbit is basically, fireworks, like he carries a bunch of sparklers around in his pocket.

AH. See, I couldn't remember. I'd seen the 70s animated movie more recently than I've read the book, and I couldn't remember for the life of me.

 

[JMeganSnow]

Personally I miss the old Baldur's Gate and NWN approach to spell balance with Casting Times. I always liked the original D&D approach to spellcasting, where more advanced spells would be hindered by taking a long time to cast and being highly interuptable. Seems much more realistic and interesting to me, and also increases your need to think tactically as a mage.

In pen and paper, at least, this approach is generally non-functional because it eventually winds up being a GM fiat as to whether you get your Uber Spell off or not--your players will figure some way to make it so they can't be interrupted. And then they will get pissed off when you nevertheless find some excuse to interrupt them sometimes. Which will lead to an escalating spiral of quarreling over whether that sleeping guard behind the plexiglass shield could conceivably have heard someone making a chalk drawing . . .

In short, this is usually not an optimal mechanical approach. In a video game, it will have the same effect: the mage annihilates things at extreme range and is fantastically overpowered because the game designer thought that allowing them to (in theory) be interrupted was a "balancing" factor of some kind. The spells themselves need to be balanced, not just the hoops you have to jump through to get them to work. Because when the caster figures out how to minimize the hoops (and they WILL), all you're left with is a pile of horribly OP spells.

Addendum: however, you can get around this problem by having a flat, unalterable, percentage chance that the spell simply Does Not Work. If you start handing out gear/abilities/checks that can alter the percentage, it becomes a major tuning issue, but it can be done.

Additional addendum: btw the absolutely worst implementation of this I have ever seen, ever, is in Exalted, where people using sorcery to cast spells "drop out of the initiative order" while they're casting the spell. We could NOT figure out what this was supposed to mean, it was HORRIBLE. Does that mean that while they're casting, they can't defend themselves? Does their dodge DV drop to zero? Or just their parry DV? Does that mean that the spell is automatically interrupted if ANYONE makes ANY attack on them that gets at least one success? How do you determine when the spell goes off and they drop back INTO the initiative order? It was the dumbest mechanic I'd ever seen. Instead of this folderol about dropping out of initiative, why not just DESCRIBE WHAT THE MECHANICAL EFFECT IS, i.e. they're "flat footed" and it takes X actions to cast? STUPIDITY.

Cooldown meters work well from a gameplay balance perspective, but it makes little sense that it takes my character the same (usually instant) amount of time to cast "flare" and "super killer fireball of armageddon". Though I suppose this mostly relates to the deeper problem of RPGs getting more and more fast paced and action oriented, which I won't get into here.

It takes the same amount of time to pull the trigger on a bb gun and a rocket launcher. Why does it "make sense" that it requires a lot more waving and shouting to cast a bigger spell? In some magic systems, the task you are doing is exactly the same: grabbing some power, shaping it, and hucking it.

And why is this a "problem?" If people really genuinely liked turn-based, then the games would still be turn-based. As it is, some are, some aren't. Options for everyone.

 

[Sandytimeman]

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, I also agree with these.

 

[sketch_zeppelin]

Hey i don't want to hear it, i rember back when you could only cast a spell after memorizing it and then the spell was wipped from your mind and you had to re-learn it to use it again. I don't mind mana bars, if your having problems with it then it means that folks are making spells too expensive for them to be effective. its a balance issue but the idea of a mana bar or mana points is fine.

Oh and you may wish to re-name your topic before Yahtzee freaks out.

 

[Laser Priest]

Gandalf cast like three spells and Harry potter rules are fucking retarded.

This.

Also, games like balance. If you were running around as fucking Gandalf casting endless spells, the enemy wouldn't have a chance. It simply makes any magic-user far, far too powerful.

 

[Nieroshai]

Balance, and something David Eddings calls "the Will and the Word." In his book about writing the Belgariad, he says magic should be limited by the mental fortitude of the wielder or else every mage will be a god, and the constant use off magic would realistically be very mentally straining. In other words, you can say the incantations as much as you want, but unless you have enough mental fortitude or focus (the mana bar) you can't cast.

 

[Bugerion]

I prefer the mana bar to the D&D system of "You can use X number of spells per day, you run out, oh well, good thing wizards have such high STR and CON right? Oh... you don't? Sorry"

Well you have to admit that in those games like BG2 spells are owerpowered and I find it better that way because you need to chose carefully how to and where to cast spells not just spam like a moron

 

[Zeekar]

OP

Can't really agree with this. There is no point in having a party if you are all powerful. RPGs are generally based around the party system so magic users would just be broken in that context.

 

[ZeroMachine]

"I don't know how to play a mage right and I suck at it, so I want them buffed to unfair levels."

Anyone else read that? Sorry, OP, but it honestly just sounds like you're not that good at being a mage.

You want unlimited god powers, go cheat in Oblivion or something. We like challenge in our games, and playing a mage presents a damn fun one if you know what you're doing.

I've always thought the mana bar should be replaced by a fatigue system. Like, the more spells you cast in a row, the tireder you'll get, and the weaker you'll spells will be. That would make more sense to me.

And yeah, I clicked here cause I thought you were talking about Yahtzee's bar. Good to see I wasn't the only one!

That's actually a pretty awesome idea... also, your avatar is fuckin' sick, if a little contradictory

What's contradictory about it? It clearly represents a multi-national company dedicated to preserving humanities existance, but instead of killing their enemies, they capture them for testing! All in the name of science! Pretty straight-forward!

That's not the Abstergo symbol... that's the Assassin symbol. The group that would be against the multi-national company...

The multi-national part was refering to Aperture. I can't remember if it specifically tells you they're multi-national, but judging by the size of the place in Portal 2, they probably are!

Hm, good point. Guess it's just that, the way I see it, Aperture and Cerberus seem to be a bit against what the Assassin's order stands for. Aperture would be helping Abstergo if anything.

Doesn't take away from the fact that the combination of logos looks awesome beyond all measure. Just my AC fanboy talking

Heh, thanks. I can see where you're coming from, but I think they're all kinda working for the same goal. The Assassin's want to save humanity by fighting the Templars. Cerberus, obviously, fighting for humanity against practically everything else! And Aperture is the crazy one who comes up with mad inventions to "help" us!

But hey! Like you said, we're reading too much into it. They're three awesome games. That's what's important!

Hell yeah. *high five*

 

[JMeganSnow]

OP

Can't really agree with this. There is no point in having a party if you are all powerful. RPGs are generally based around the party system so magic users would just be broken in that context.

RPG's like Morrowind, Oblivion, Gothic, Diablo, Titan Quest? There are just as many RPG's (or shoot and loot games at least) where you're all by your lonesome as ones where you have a party. Most PEN AND PAPER games are based around a party dynamic because, well, they're supposed to be a social activity. But I've seen gaming groups that were only 2 people, a GM and a single player. It feels a bit weird, though, because the GM spends half the time talking to himself like some sort of crazy person.