Mana Pool build question.

[Spence]

Ok, I admit it.  It’s been a while since I have been doing serious prep with HERO. 

 

Most stuff hasn’t been a problem, but there is one thing I want to design that is being shifty so here I am hat in hand looking for a few good suggestions.

 

I am in the middle of writing up a Fantasy Hero short adventure with pre-generated PC’s.  Most of them haven’t been any issue at all and I wrote them up fairly quickly.   But I am having a problem with the Mage.

 

Most of the concept build is pretty straight forward, but there is just one aspect I can’t get the feel right for.

 

Here is the concept.

 

A Mage powers his magic via a Mana Pool.

If the Mana Pool is exhausted, the Mage can draw upon his own personal Endurance.

But this is dangerous, spending personal endurance is penalized similar to burning stun with except he takes 1d6 normal damage per 1 point of personal END used.  And he takes body and stun damage.  

 

The idea of taking body and stun is central to the concept that pushing past your limits is a very very bad idea, but still there at desperate need. 

 

I can’t seem to settle on a way to build in the damage that feels right.

Any thoughts?

[Hyper-Man]

This looks like a job for the LTE rules and possibly a custom limitation.  I've seen similar setups where the personal end use is treated as Long Term End.  If you decide to go with LTE then any STUN used to fuel magic could count BODY and STUN.  It's a tiered approach (MANA, LTE, Stun & Body once out of LTE).

 

I'll admit that the LTE rules are not something I'm very familiar with but I've seen others refer to their use for this type of effect.

[Spence]

I'll have to look into that.  I never really paid much attention to LTE.  I tend to go for a more cinematic "here and now" approach and always skimmed right by it. 

 

Maybe I should actually read it and see what LTE has to offer....

[Tasha]

Yeah the "Mana pool" could even be a pool of endurance (characteristic bought as a power) limited (only for Spells). I would just not use End Reserve esp with how you are seeing the spells being powered.

[Nolgroth]

Yeah the "Mana pool" could even be a pool of endurance (characteristic bought as a power) limited (only for Spells). I would just not use End Reserve esp with how you are seeing the spells being powered.

This is exactly how I am currently building a magic system for a project similar to Spence's.

 

Essence Pool: +x END, Only for Casting Spells (-1/2), Uses Personal Recovery with Personal END recovering before Essence (+0).

 

For my own purposes, I added Requires a Skill roll to access the additional END. The pool itself comes out dirt cheap, so the controlling factor is whether somebody has the appropriate skills (and pays for the spells of course). I've also decided that any spell can be powered by personal END, but spells automatically cost LTE to use that way. There are a few more details (mostly about implements) but that is the core of it.

[JasonPacker]

How are you building the spells themselves? Because for a single power, I'd be tempted to make a cheesy multipower, with one slot for the spell as normal, feeding off the mana pool, and the other the same effect with no mana pool and an always-happens Side Effect for the damage caused by using personal END.

[Lucius]

Keep It simple.

 

Solution underlined

 

(Total: 45 Active Cost, 20 Real Cost) Some spell or other, Whatever Advantages (+1/2) (45 Active Points); Buncha Limitations (whatever you put on your spells; -1), Side Effects (Side Effect always occurs whenever the character does some specific act (Namely, spending personal END instead of Mana); Xd6 Damage; -1/4) (Real Cost: 20)

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Side Effect: Palindromedaries

[Spence]

Thanks all,

 

Sorry I didn't reply earlier, but things got a little busy in the real world. 

 

I think I was once again over-thinking things. 

 

When I get the Sorcerer finished I'll tell you what I did.