Errenor wrote:
I'm also very sceptical about any mana magic systems. Either you spend it only on most powerful spells, or you need restrictions... and you get spell slots back. Or Dnd4. Oops. Maybe you can invent something, but I haven't seen good implementations for TTRPGs.
I think that the Shadowrun system can work well, though bringing it into D20-likes would take some work. If you're not familiar, there are three key things to understand:
1) There are separate Physical and Mental damage tracks/HP. Mental damage overflows into Physical once it's full, and you drop unconscious.
2) Mental damage cannot be healed by anything other than natural rest.
3) Basically all spells can be the equivalent of heightened or lowered. This means that a lot of similar but different spells in D20 systems can be combined into a single spell. e.g. a Fire spell that can be anything from a low damage touch attack to a high damage AoE depending on what "rank" (Force in SR-speak) it's cast at.
With that said, heres the kicker: Spellcasting does mental damage to the caster, proportional to the Force of the spell. The damage can be somewhat mitigated by choosing lower level versions of the spells, but sometimes you just get unlucky. So there is often a big, meaningful choice as to what Force you want to cast your spell at. Go big and hope you don't knock yourself out or even kill yourself? Or go small and hope it's enough to be effective?
