i just had this idea and want to see what other people think of it balance wise. It's a play on mana style casting to allow for an adventuring day to be more strength of encounter based then encounters in a day based.
First give all casters a pool of points, either like arcane pool 3+ 1/2 caster level or maybe panache 3+ ability modifier. Have spells cost an amount of mana equal to either spell level or 1+ spell level.
Have it regen one per round, or even one per minute giving the mana bar sort of a "this is my mana per encounter" feel.
Second give spells a cool down time. Either 1+ spell level rounds or maybe a tier system, like cantrips and first are 1+ spell level rounds, second to fourth level 1+ spell level minutes, 5 and 6 be 1+ spell level time ten minutes and 7-9 be 1+ spell level hours (or bump it all up one, rounds become minutes, minutes become ten minutes, ten minutes becomes hours and really high level spells would be days. That could even make using them more of a hard choice, thus lowering the power level distance between materials and casters a little bit)
I think I'd either do a cooldown period or a point cost, but not both.
Personally I think it would require a full rework of spell casting classes to use a mana based system due to various balance issues.
I think I'd either do a cooldown period or a point cost, but not both.
What do you think of the cooldown Idea, that's the one I perfer
Personally I think it would require a full rework of spell casting classes to use a mana based system due to various balance issues.
yeah I was worried about that, as I'm thinking about it I think my cooldown Idea is the better one
Actually, most classes would be fine. The problem is that, in order to incorporate a mana system, you need to do a full rewrite of every spell in the game to balance it around a mana system. Many blasting spells and buffing spells are probably fine, probably most summoning (not calling or gating) spell too. But there are lots of spells that would need to be re-written to work in a mana system.
I mean, in a system where one could have a Wish for every battle, or Timestop, or Heal always prepared... You can make many encounters pretty lackluster if the Wizard has the ability to fully Nova during a fight, knowing he'd get his mana back and his abilities can cool down as well.
Just use Psionics. Power Points = Mana.
I wish Spheres of Power were up on d20pfsrd.com so I could recommend people check it out. It's not the exact idea you're looking for, but it's very close.
The general idea is that casting classes gain magic talents instead of spells that give them at-will abilities. They also have Spell Points to make their at-will abilities stronger, but only so many points in a day. Your blaster could throw out fireballs all day long if he wanted to.
Your blaster could throw out fireballs all day long if he wanted to.Or rather, Your blaster could throw out firebolts all day long, and a few fireball each day.
But I agree that Spheres of Power is very good and should often be your go-to when you need a break from Vancian magic.
Thirding that opinion. And if you really want to do a Dragon Age type of thing you could use Spheres of Power for the martial casters as well just limit what abilities they can get to the logical ones (Probably Enhancement(Self Only) and War or somesuch) and then rebrand their power points as stamina.