Per rest magic system

I like fluctating mana.

I also like per encounter better.

>>50449253
How does fluctuating mana works?

>>50449218
I can't even begin to tell you how much better Shadowrun's rank+drain system is for casting magic. It feels so, so, so much better to manage as a player.

>>50449297
It also feels so much more visceral. There's actual risk to casting the really powerful spells.

>>50449272
Imagine you have a mana pool with a max of, say, 10 mana,

Every round, you can draw some amount of mana into yourself (usually a % of your pool) to cast spells, up to your max. (Drawing mana is usually very obvious, so it's hard to catch enemies by surprise, and it's hard to hold onto mana for longer time, since it's sorta like taking a deep breath and then not exhaling, so you can't save it up).

Essentially, it gives you the option to save up for a bigger spell next turn, if you cast a weak spell now.

This makes magical combat dynamic and tactical, in my opinion. It also eliminates the resource management minigame that is the /day spell economy.

Spells per rest usually end up with the player picking only the big damage or necessary spells and completely ignore the utility fun ones.

>>50449360
This

And it's a shame

>>50449360
That's why shadowrun's drain system is so great.

>>50449374
how exactly does this drain system in shadowrun woks?

To be fair, magic being inherently tied to a character is not the best mechanic. If I can destroy your entire party's gear down to the last 10 foot pole, and one member of the party is hindered only by confusion that someone thought it would slow him down....

I've always wanted to tie together a system where you have magic items that you focus magic though, and much like losing a sword, a mage is helpless without them

>>50449322
So... Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2.

>>50449424
Yes.

I don't expect people to be familiar with it.

(also, I came up with it for an Savage Worlds homebrew before FFTA2 was a thing).

>>50449218
A few better ones, from the top of my head
>necessary condition (to generate charges)
>necessary condition (to be able to cast)
>fatiguing/damaging (such as SR drain)
>skill based
>high risk high reward (Perils of the Warp)

>>50449253
fpbp

Drain, higher risk like Lamentations, condition-based etc. are all cool and interesting, but if a game uses per day slots, they also have way too different feel and theming to change to it. Per encounter is an easy change to make and has mostly the same flavor.

>>50449412
So basically, the way it works, is each spell can be cast at a Force. That limits how effective the spell can be, and in the case of some combat spells, directly makes them more powerful.

Now, each spell has a drain code, Force plus or minus a static number, with a minimum of two. When you cast a spell, you now resist that much damage.

Using health as a resource is amazing.

>>50449218
>is there a better one?
Too subjective. Different people have radically different preferences.

>>50449453
It really is a fantastic MP system. It basically makes sure that a mage doesn't blow his load round 1

>>50449637
It's also fairly intuitive, if you explain it right, and I quite like the gameplay it facilitates. It's got a bit of bookkeeping tax, but using some sort of mana tokens, it should be fine.

>>50449504
>high risk high reward (Perils of the Warp)
I prefer that my magic doesn't come with a high chance of fucking with the party.

Fucking with me, that's fine. But when there's a chance of TPK, it's just not worth it.

>>50449322
That sounds very balanced, and easier than tracking cooldown/warmup times for each spell. I'm going to steal it!

>>50449218

Depends. Unassigned spell slots are pretty good for bestowing options while still imposing limitations and plays well with tokens. AEDU is good for encouraging a variety of spellcasting at various levels and reducing bookkeeping dramatically. MP is good for keying everything into a single, easily tracked resource that can have both flexible inputs, outputs, and spending limits but can encourage over-reliance on favorite spells and exaggerates the effect of mis-priced spells.

Pick your poison. I like all of them and they're all dramatically better than pure Vancian.

>>50449218
It's not even on the top five list.
Even in D&D, psionic power points system is much more balanced, much more intuitive, and you just need to change it's name to mana points and it both becomes much more flavorful and it becomes the magic system used in every videogame ever.
Even sticking with Vancian, the Arcanist from PF mixes preparing spells with spontaneous casting, giving it a flavor much closer to what people expect from magic compared to the wizard and sorcerer, and it ups the flexibility a bit too.

Then there's fluctuating mana, which I think could work really well on D&D, draining and using health to pay for spells, which doesn't work in D&D because of how easy and widespread healing is, and skill based casting, which also not works in D&D because of how swingy it is in early levels and how easy to always succeed it becomes at later levels.

>>50451618
5e casting works pretty much exactly like pf Arcanist though.