Revisiting Mana for FE

I like it better than essence, for sure. It's great to have another global resource to play with, it gives a lot of strategic weight to the game. I expect the magic system in FE will be a lot better balanced, and a lot more accessible (I think the spell research has been completely removed?). There should be plenty of room for individuality amongst spellcasters with traits and specific schools for them.

A better way to look at it is to not think of it as you being a caster who happens to have other, lesser casters in his service.  Rather, look at yourself as something far more unique and powerful.  You are a channeler, one of the few beings who can still properly channel magic.  Your underlings are not channelers.  The mana pool isn't global, it's your mana.  Your underlings are just convenient vessels through which you can project your power to parts of the world where you aren't personally present.  That's why you need to embue them - you're making that connection through which you can later project your power.

So for instance, if you died, your underlings would no longer be able to cast spells.  You were the source of their power.

Or the spells being directed globally from the capital, inside some strategic magical headquarters. They are able to view the world through the eyes of any unit serving the kingdom, and use that to aim the spells. You could call it a spell relay center.

Those things work, but I just want to add another perspective which is that of magic as a world resource. Many fantasy worlds feature magic as a background radiation thing, which is constantly drawn from surroundings. In some worlds, it can be drained from an area rendering it magic-less, and in other worlds wizards and witches themselves become "spent" on casting magic spells. They must then spend some time to regain that power, and it can be sped up or slowed down by different circumstances.

In Elemental, from what I understand (again, everyone is free to make their own interpretation, this is mine) the magic in the world is sort of like background radiation, ie omnipresent. But when the titans got into the world, they trapped all the magic in the shards. Channelers in Elemental are those that are able to tap into the power of those shards. So, in my opinion, from a lore point of view, the shards should be a crucial and fundamental part of being able to cast spells. Magic is not owned as much as it is wielded and directed.

While Age of Wonders & Master of Magic made spellcasters have their own manapools, we shouldn't do it like those games did something just because.

I completely disregard realism as well.

The system that should be used is the one that is best for gameplay. I trust Derek to make the right decision.

My idea:

The channeler is the one who can cost globally- the only one who can cast strategic mana, which is what your mana points are spent on  (INT can affect strategic spellcasting power)  It takes a channeler to draw mana from shards, and channelers can grant attunement to magic.

INT should determine tactical spellcasting ability, from local essence not tied to shards.  Other mages can be influenced by shards, but cannot cast globally or draw from shards, which is needed for strategic spells.

AoW2/SM had a global mana pool and global mana generation. All spell costs came out of it, as did all upkeep costs for summons and enchantments.

But it also had "casting points", which was how much mana a caster could draw from that pool in one turn. That also differentiated between a weak caster (10 points, or really just one spell), a strong caster (30 points), and the empire leader sitting in his tower with a caster's throne and caster point increasing magic item (up to 90 points). The system also supported multi-turn spells because casting something with a cost of 300 mana required 300 casting points, which took however many turns based on the caster points available.

That system worked well. I don't like "local mana" at all because it's not intuitive. If I build a shrine that generates mana, who gets it? If everyone gets it, then I'm effectively multiplying mana generation by having more casters. If it's split up, I'll wind up getting 0.1 mana per turn and it turns into population growth in WoM 1.3 all over again where you annoy the player into submission with penalties. With global mana it's easy: 2 mana is 2 mana.

As Alstein mentioned in his idea, you can limit tactical casting using casting points, or a stat like INT to duplicate the same effect (if say 10 INT = ability to draw 10 mana per turn).

Who said any of that in this thread?

That actually does make sense from a lore standpoint. I just don't like it as much. Personal taste I suppose.

I like this idea.

Tridus,

I know how AoW works. Did I give the impression that I do not?

Goonraider,

Don't know what you're on about....

I mean that I'm not sure of how the best magicsystem would be done and unlike many others I'm not pretending to know.

Thats actually what I just asked you...you said that we shouldn't compare systems to older games and do things like them 'just because.' I asked where that was coming from since no one had made that reference in this thread.

I'm also not sure where the 'pretending to know' thing comes in. This is a discussion forum. People are discussing ideas. I don't see anyone claiming to know what the perfect system would be, just plenty of good discussion...

But back to the topic, I think a big part of this will be how Champions are presented in FE. Derek has mentioned that Champions will be better crafted individuals. We also will hopefully see the lore of the game presented more effectively and integrated into the actual gameplay. So, if the gameplay system for things like magic matches up well with the way Champions and Lore are presented, I'll probably be fine with it.

Yeah, since you said they have their own mana pool and it's actually a global mana pool.