All right. So I was lying around last evening after finishing a novel (Gardens of the Moon from the Malazan Book of the Fallen series– it's pretty good– read it) thinking about how mages are handled in most games. I had a really good or really stupid mechanics-related idea, and for the life of me, I can't decide which.

What do all of you think about the following proposition:

When a mage takes damage, it deals a certain percentage of that damage to their mana as well as their hp (not in substitution of hp damage, obviously).

The benefit I see to the system is this: it would emphasize a mage's roll as a support character and make mages more concerned with not taking damage by incentivizing mages to employ strategy. It would also give meleers a leg up on mages, who usually win in the world of versatility.

As a side note, on my game, meleers have no magic (read: mana-intensive) abilities and mages have few melee abilities. We aren't operating off standard concepts of mage/meleer as per stock DIKU and other games. As another side note, our game is RP-enforced. But this system could be justified through IC explanation a number of ways.

As this would be a fairly drastic change to the system, I figured I'd consult the MUD community before just slapping it in. Has anyone tried something like this before? If so, how'd it work? If not, how do you think it would work?

I wouldn't make such a change as an involuntary mechanic. It would warp the balance of the (traditional) system drastically.

Many games have spells which mages can use to draw defense from their mana pools, but this is generally under the caster's control. If they know they are otherwise protected, or their opponants are immune to their spells, it sometimes pays off.

Likewise, it makes opposing spells and abilities which directly target mana far more effective, since now both damage AND spells can cripple the mage. A mage that can't cast spells is useless and soon to be dead.

Look at the real AD&D books. A mage there is one of the weakest creatures in the entire game at low levels, yet is one of the most powerful there is if they survive to high levels. That initial weakness is there for a reason. :)

While that's true, MUDs change the dynamics a lot. Late game is far, far more relevant; most MUDs feature a levelling period that can be completed in a week by a serious player. No one got to level 50 in D&D in a year.

Thanks for the input, though. I appreciate any input.

Yes, I don't think that D&D is an accurate comparison because MUDs are mostly about the end-game, at least most MUDs out there.

If damage goes to mana as well as HP, you have essentially stated that the health of a player is HP + MP. Therefore if a fighter has 100 HP, and a mage has 20 HP and 80 MP, they are numerically the same as far as health is concerned.

So really it's not hugely different from saying that mages also have 100 HP, but their spells drain HP.

Balance is then obtained by making it so that what mages can do with their MP (and therefore damage-taking points) compensates what fighters can do.

Nono. That's what I meant when I specified that it wouldn't do damage to mana in substitution to health.

Let's say I decide the rate of transfer is 50%.

A mage takes 100 damage. They have 500 hp, 1000 mana.

They would now have 400 hp, 950 mana.

Jive?

I suggest a simpler system. The microlite d20 system has mages cast spells using hitpoints. Does pretty much what you want in a simpler, easier, and more intelligible way.

I suppose if you have heal-spam, this is undesirable, but it's not hard to fix with affects that lower hitpoints.

I thought about that too. Has anyone tried a similar approach on a MUD and to what effect?

I am also compelled to mention: one reason I really don't like having mages use HP to cast spells is that it puts them at a disadvantage. If a mage casts a spell under that system, they become quite a bit more vulnerable than if they were just using mana.

In the system I proposed, casting doesn't make them physically weaker; the more they conserve their hp, the stronger (magic-wise) they are.

Edit: forgotten words. I am officially too tired for normal brain functioning.

When I ran my mud we had a system for customizing the mechanics of your class in creation.

We had options for both casting from health pool and a modest damage reduction less your mana pool for each point reduced. Both were popular configurations.

I believe the spell name you're looking for is Mana Shield :tongue:
I have this in my mud but it's a pretty high level spell.



So what you're saying is if a normal character would take 100 damage, they would take 150 (100 from hp, 50 from mana). Why? Why not displace some of the damage rather than just have them losing mana and still taking full damage? If you take this approach you are pretty much making them that much weaker (perhaps even too weak to be a support character).

You can create whatever mechanics you like for your classes, but I think what you have to worry about is, as other people have said, balance.

If getting hit causes a mage to have less access (or possibly no access, if that hit wipes out his mana) to his class abilities and damage output, what negative effect does getting hit have on a fighter?

If a mage can have less access or more easily lose their access to their class abilities, are those abilities substantially more powerful than those of a fighter?

If this is, as you said in your initial post, an incentive to employ strategy, precisely what strategies can I employ as a mage to prevent from getting hit and losing my spellcasting?

I think that the actual mechanics you choose don't matter overly much as they are your mechanics for your classes and having them be different or unique can be an advantage to you - but you need to consider the questions above as to whether anyone will want to play the game with your mechanics in it :wink:

I always liked the idea of having an "endurance" or "stamina" attribute that is depleted by both physical and magical activity. Health could then be an attribute modified only when stamina is depleted or if targeted by some sort of special ability. The only catch is that the health should be relatively static across class/race types. Stamina drain would represent exhaustion from spell casting or physical weariness from small amounts of blood loss and high physical activity. (Dodging, sword swining, etc..).

If the goal is the make magi less powerful without reducing their actual damage output, why not allow spell casting to be interruptable? You start casting fireball and thus spend the mana cost of it, the player (or smart NPC) notices you have started casting and shield-bashes you. You fail your roll vs. concentration and lose the spell.

This makes mages more difficult to solo or play up-front in tank roles (which seems like your goal in making them take mana AND health damage from hits), but still keeps them as powerful nukers IF other characters can help keep them alive.

If that isn't the goal, I'm curious what your purpose actually is.

That is my purpose, essentially. Not to make them less powerful in every situation, but to make them less powerful in some.

I considered an interruption method, but I think my idea is better for a couple reasons:
1) An interruptible spellcasting system would, I believe, reduce mage power more than a system where they lost mana from taking damage. The reason for this is that in my system, mages would still be allowed to take damage while continuing spellcasting. As they continue, their resources just grow smaller.
2) I think players feel more frustrated when code disallows them to do something. A mana-reducing system might appear to players easier to swallow (and it's all about perception!).

See, losing your concentration because a battle axe just severed your arm makes sense. Having your magical energy just fade away as you're getting injured – just when you NEED IT MOST – would be annoying enough to make me choose some other class to play.

I suppose if you made spells more potent as your lifeforce dropped… but the two issues with that are, it turns all mages into "blood mages", who will want to try and kite the fine line between death and power, and it also would see people doing stupid things to game the system. IE: hurt yourself before casting "create food", so you get more of it… or before casting "fly" so it lasts longer….

No, no "jive" – I guess I didn't think you were doing it this way because I think this way is somewhat silly. You make the mage less useful as they take damage; that strikes me as really quite unfair and more importantly very difficult to balance.

Basically, damage they take acts as a completely wasted spell, in addition to whatever spell(s) they're trying to cast.

What happens if you have zero mana and are supposed to have some drain?

The larger problem here to me seems to be how other classes are balanced with their mechanics.

Specifically there is often a problem with trying to make spellcasters volitle and easily defeated while making more mindless classes on equal grounds with them. It results in novelty classes at the expense to either balance or their ability to compete.

Another such problem is when mechanics require reagents. Mana is itself a type of reagent. All things equal a reagentless class is better. There are strategies used to mitigate this. Some times the weaker classes are given unique abilities that are near required in pve combat. Another way is other classes may ne given similar reagent costs. These include combo points, energy costs, and even time in the form of lag, cooldowns or diminishing returns on similar spells in short succession.

In other words I think discussing these mechanics with no context of the over all game for perspective. These things really should be thought of at the macro level.

Yes. It also results in a tendency for all classes to look the same, hence my first comment here. Mana just becomes another form of HP. One might suggest balancing this with fighters by giving them stamina, necessary for attacking, such that damage removes stamina. OK, but now everybody works basically the same way again. So what has really been accomplished?

This might be workable, however:


Yup. It's almost always senseless to think of a mechanic like this in isolation.

This is something I've spent a lot of time thinking about over the years. I really think the key to a successfully diverse class system is thinking in terms of what the class can do that is unique instead of numbers.

Not just in combat. It applies more to team play games but the bottom line is a class shouldn't just be a theme or a skin for balanced amounts of damage. The class should dramatically affect the amount of real time tactics available to your strategy. A well balanced system should have multiple viable tactics available to a class.

Just having a two players spam fireball and the one with the best gear or highest level winning is pretty lame.

I'm going off on a tangent but ideally level and gear should play very little into the formula. I would make the two desirable but vastly undervalued to being a smart player.