With Great Power Comes A Need For Control

I recently showed my static mana plan to my mother, the woman who raised me in modified AD&D. She liked the concept and implementation, up to a point - she raised concerns over it being too much power for a low-level character. My original thought was that, yeah, a 1st level mage might end up being able to cast 18 magic missiles, but magic is to a wizard what a sword is to a fighter, and the latter aren't restricted to how many swings in a day.

But then I thought about some of the other system changes I'd made from 1st and 3rd, and how weaponry and armor, as well as multiple attacks, have less to do with your class and more with your inherent stats. A mage might have stats optimized for casting, but if they'd taken fighter as a class instead they'd be no better off in physical combat. Any class can wear any armor, and my spell failure for arcane magic is based off of how much metal is in the armor rather than how much it inhibits arm movements for somatic components (something which seemed far too easily remedied with careful manufacture anyway).

So maybe I'm being too nice to casters.

Rather than come up with a system that limits how much mana is available until the maximum is reached, however, I thought about the possibility that spells might, at first, take more mana than would be indicated by their level. Say, for example, that at first level, a 1st level spell costs 5 mana instead of 1. You're just starting out in the world of magic, you haven't had a lot of practical experience, and you're still learning how to properly, and efficiently, wield the power you have. At second level, the cost goes down by 1 point. At third level, it now takes 3 mana for a 1st level spell, and so on until you reach the minimum of 1 point for a 1st level spell at 5th level.

Every time you gain access to a new level of spells, the cost of them is X higher than normal, let's say 4. That would mean that 4 levels after you start getting spells of that level, they would cost the normal minimum of 1 mana per spell level.

This could be a bit confusing for cantrips, since they normally take 1/4th of a mana. I could start them at 4, or I could be nice and start them at 1, dropping by 1/4 each level until the minimum.

Thoughts?

Keep Those Dice a'Rollin'

So my friend Jonathan came out this past week (Huzzah!) and we got to game a little bit. I am still fairly enamored with my new experience system, especially how clean it looks/feels to me at the moment. One potential concern that I noticed is that my system for saving throws and skill checks may be inherently flawed. The concept is that you roll 3d10, and you are aiming for a number lower than the relevant stat with a bonus gained from a secondary stat. With an expected average stat of 15, and a range of 3 to 30, I figured 3d10 would be appropriate. However, it seems that the majority of rolls are landing above 16 even after adjustments. I should have expected this, but I'm not yet sure how to deal with it. I was trying to approximate a d30, but I don't actually have any of those and they're not terribly common anyway. I suppose I could do a d6 and a d10, like how d20 rolls used to be done before d20s became popular. 1-2 on the d6 means the d10 is 1-10, 3-4 means it's 11-20, and 5-6 means 21-30. I'll have to do some blank rolling to find out if that brings the average down.

In pondering further upon the topic of skills, I thought about the idea of a slow method of improving skills based directly on Intelligence, rather than class as 3rd Edition had it. I'm thinking about putting a limiter, though, on how much of a bonus you can give any individual skill, based on the primary stat governing that skill. Maybe half of the stat? One of the things that really bugged me about 3rd Edition skills was that within a few levels the bonus to the skill far outstripped the ability of most challenges to keep up. Difficulty ratings kept getting arbitrarily bumped up just to have any chance of failure. I'm also, personally, a believer in inherent ability being a greater contributor than training.