Okay... suppose that your environment has a Mana Rating.
If you cast a spell whose difficulty is greater than the Mana Rating, you have to make up the difference with your own Mana Points. If it's at that level or less, you can just use ambient mana and not have to drain your own. The maximum amount of mana that can be recovered per day using the Mana Gathering skill is equal to the Mana Rating.
Thus, in a Zero Mana area, casting a trivial spell would cost 10 mana, a minor one 15, etc. All magic is difficult and expensive. Recovering mana is impossible... there's none to absorb.
In a 10 Mana area, trivial spells are free. It costs 5 mana to cast a minor one, 10 to cast a major, 15 to cast a dramatic, etc.. You can recover 10 points of mana per day, max. (Or maybe it's Mana Gathering + Mana Rating is your max, I dunno.) 10 would probably be a typical area, since it makes trivial spells free and others cost a bit.
In a 20 Mana area, even Major spells are free. A Legendary one (diff 30) would cost only 10 Mana.
The base mana rating of an area is generally equal to the strength of its mana source... or perhaps 1/2 of that? Hm. Maybe 5+MR/2? The mana rating in the vicinity of a mana source is stronger... 10+MR. If you touch it (and take MR in damage per turn) it's 10+MR*2. If you're a god, it's always 10+MR*2.
Of course, if I want "typical" mana to be 10, then maybe it should be 10 in a region with a mana source, 10+MR if you're near it and 10+MR*2 if you touch it. A deity with a MR of +5 could throw around Major spells with no cost and even Legendary ones would only cost 10 mana. Of course, he'd still have to make the skill roll, but there you go.
Your maximum mana storage rating could be equal to your environment plus your Mana Gathering skill. But if you go somewhere else, it stays put unless you stay there for weeks. Maybe just assume it always stays there.
So... with an MG skill of +5, you could typically store 15 mana. If you went to a temple with a rating of +5, you could store 20. If you then took your 20 to an area with a MR of 5, you'd keep it, but you couldn't restore your mana up above 10 (5 + your MG of 5).
Posted by Kiz at January 20, 2005 09:28 PMCommentsPost a comment