Alternative Magicks: Mana (Introduction)

If anybody was actually reading this thing, you might be wondering where I've been for the last week. There were all these posts and then: nothing. Sometimes life intervenes. I'm actually a somewhat busy person, and hobbies such as this one will always get bumped down the priority list when other obligations intervene.

However, since nobody seems to be reading, I'll just keeping going as I find the time.

Anyway, here we are: my thoughts on creating a mana-based overlay for the Oe/1e D&D rules. This is not a replacement for the core rules, but an extension and modification of them. As mentioned previously, we're going to keep most of how the core magic system already works. Casters can still only know those spells which they can hold in their memory at any one time, and those are limited by class and spell levels according to the current spell progression charts. No changes there.

Here's a change, though: once a spell is learned, the caster doesn't forget it by using it. In fact, forgetting it in order to learn another spell will require some substantial time and effort, becoming a lot more difficult (more about that later).

Instead of forgetting and re-learning, casting any spell under these rules requires the expenditure of a magical energy resource, which we're going to call "mana" in honor of Larry Niven's The Magic Goes Away series of books.

There have been many rule sets created along these lines, and it's a popular way of running magic use in computer games (where the computer can keep track of it all for you). Most of them are designed from the ground up as "point-based" spell casting systems. Even the later editions of the D&D rules introduce entire point-based spell-like casting systems, the most well-known of which are the psionics rules (later retconned into a form of magic all to itself).

I don't want that. If I did, I'd just junk the core magic rules and replace them with psionics (a popular option for 2e, 3e and 3.5e rule-hackers). Or, I'd just chuck the D&D-like rules entirely and go back to something like GURPS or another full point-based system.

No, this is going to be an attempt to hybridize the two systems into something that retains the full flavor of Oe/1e Vancian magic (even enhances it in some ways) and yet introduces a new dimension of magic use diversity and flexibility.

Here are some of the working principles I'm adopting for this exploration: 

• All the core Oe/1e rules for magic use are retained, except that casting a spell does not cause it to be forgotten.
• The casting of any spell or use of any magical effect requires the expenditure of a magical energy resource called Mana.
• Every living thing generates its own mana as a function of its life processes. We're going to call this Basal Mana (sort of like basal metabolism, but for magic). Some creatures generate more than others or at faster rates.
• When used, basal mana will regenerate at a set rate that will vary depending on the creature's activity level (faster when resting, slower when active).
• The amount of basal mana a player character has available will be scaled to experience level so that the net effect of the number of spell levels available to cast will be roughly the same as under the core rules, though the player will be able to cast any known spell as many times as available mana allows. Memorizing multiple copies of the same spell will no longer be necessary for this reason (and inadvisable anyway, because of some of the Ultra-Vancian house rules we'll be throwing in here later).
• Magic use must typically draw in a mana source that is internal to the source of the magic (i.e. a caster, monster, or magic item/artifact). In other words, a spell-caster can only cast spells if he or she has enough basal mana available to power the spell. If the internal mana source is not renewable (as for a magic item), expenditure of mana can exhaust it permanently.
• Special spells, conditions, or knowledge may allow the source of a magical effect to draw on external mana sources, or transfer mana from one place or creature to another, but these will be rare and very risky.
• Cast spells and magic use will sometimes fail. When they do, bad things can happen. A caster can reduce the risk of spell failure by spending more mana on making it turn out right.
• Spell and magical effects can be magnified by spending more mana on them, but not in any other way. This will replace class-level-dependent spell effects entirely.
• Inanimate objects and areas have a Background Mana Level (sort of like background radiation, except not). In other words, some places are highly magical (boosting spell effects and making unusual things possible), most have a normal level of background mana, and some are like magical deserts (magic doesn't work very well there, if at all, and magical creatures find it difficult to survive). 
• High-mana environments will be sought after by highly magical creatures and others who use large amounts of magic (such as high-level casters). They will therefore tend to be hotly-contested territories.
• Arcane/Divine Beings are physical instantiations in our reality of extra-dimensional magical forces themselves, and thus draw all their power from background mana in the form of a direct connection to the plane of their origin through some means in our reality. This means that they have few limits on their magical powers and can be extremely dangerous. Without access to their mana source, however, they cease to exist or become severely weakened (at least here).
• Magical creatures have to expend some amount of mana simply to stay alive (part of their metabolism involves a magic-dependent process) in addition to fueling their magical powers, and will usually have higher basal mana levels and regeneration rates.
• Mundane creatures don't, but still generate some amount of mana anyway by virtue of being alive.
• Magic-using character classes gain increased basal mana levels and regeneration rates through training for each experience level, linking their life force with the arcane or divine mana reservoirs of the universe.
• Because they can't make their own, Magic Items must be recharged from external mana sources, sort of like batteries. This will be difficult, time-consuming, and involve some amount of risk.
• Magic Artifacts will be treated as quasi-living things, and thus do regenerate their own mana. Of course, they're rare, powerful, have wills of their own, and are extremely dangerous to handle.

There are a lot of juicy opportunities for diversity and flexibility in the way magic works entailed by all this, but it looks like it will be pretty complicated to implement. Next up, I'll explore some house rules to implement these principles in ways that don't add too much complexity and should be easy for both GM and players to work with.