Spell Cost and Magic System

[Tywyll]

I was wondering if anyone has used the "divide by 5" rule for spells and if so, did they find it balanced or overpowering? I want to run a High Fantasy genre FH game, and that seems to feel about right, but I worried about the long term ramifications. Will casters be too gross?

Another concept I was considering was using the 4th Ed Magic rule suggestion of a Mana Stat based on Int and Ego to replace END for casting. Along with this idea, I was going to seperate casters into two main categories: Sorcerer and Wizard (yes, its a DnD division, but the names work so bare with me). The Sorcerer characters don't use Mana since their magic is internal, and so it draws off END. However, to compensate for the fact that they don't have to buy up an entirely new set of stats (and because I want them to have less innate potential versus "book learning casters") their spells cost Real Cost/3. Meanwhile, those who are Wizards do have to learn to manipulate Mana, a powersource that is outside themselves, and therefore have to spend points on Mana and Mana Recovery, but their spells will be divided by 5.

Does this sound like a good idea? Any thoughts? Thanks!

[Hyper-Man]

Sounds interresting at least. I think it will make both low-end Sorcerers and high-end Wizards more powerful than their counterparts (built on same points). If this is what you want, cool.

I was wondering if anyone has used the "divide by 5" rule for spells and if so, did they find it balanced or overpowering? I want to run a High Fantasy genre FH game, and that seems to feel about right, but I worried about the long term ramifications. Will casters be too gross?

Another concept I was considering was using the 4th Ed Magic rule suggestion of a Mana Stat based on Int and Ego to replace END for casting. Along with this idea, I was going to seperate casters into two main categories: Sorcerer and Wizard (yes, its a DnD division, but the names work so bare with me). The Sorcerer characters don't use Mana since their magic is internal, and so it draws off END. However, to compensate for the fact that they don't have to buy up an entirely new set of stats (and because I want them to have less innate potential versus "book learning casters") their spells cost Real Cost/3. Meanwhile, those who are Wizards do have to learn to manipulate Mana, a powersource that is outside themselves, and therefore have to spend points on Mana and Mana Recovery, but their spells will be divided by 5.

Does this sound like a good idea? Any thoughts? Thanks!

[Frenchman]

Our high fantasy setting uses the Mana and cost/3 for everyone, but it was slightly out of hand (just barely, with the uber-lightning bolt every phase). We tweaked it a little, so that you only get your Mana recovery every hour (that reduced the lightning bolts to once or twice a battle) but then the mage's player started complaining and made a warrior.

The cost/3 works well to give mages a powerful repetoire, allowing them to buy many different spells. It also allows powergaming players to buy 4-5 REALLY powerful spells, especially since a straight active point limit is often inappropriate for fantasy spells.

Our current solution is cost/3 and we enforce that all spellcasters MUST have RSR: Magic Roll (-1/2) on all their spells (we use a modified penalty system instead of active points/10, though, to make it a bit more fair). Mana recovers normally if the spell has an expendable focus, or it returns at the characters mana recovery every hour otherwise.

This is how we are doing things, and it's still a work in progress. Hope it helps.