Mage Balance
Posted: Thu Jan 14, 2021 3:22 am
Mages are cool and fun but also terribly out of balance and horribly overpowered at higher levels. Personally I have always felt somewhat uncomfortable with how easy it is to just delete someone. I know it is very easy at high fighter levels too but that is another discussion. I will list some issues and expand on them later on. Feel free to start some civil discussion if you wish.
- Instant casts should go and remain in a very limited thematic form only.
- Free casting should be more limited.
- Many individual spells need a lookover.
- Non-mages need viable counters against magic.
- Protecting against magic damage is too rare.
- Many spells need a way to be resisted.
- More dependency on researched mantras
One of the original keywords was a prepared mage in which the system currently fails. Even if that list seems a bit daunting, I know, this should be a give and take and not just a straight nerf. I will also attend to that side of the matter a bit later.
INSTANT CASTS
Instant casts are completely against the prepared mage paradigm and offer a highly skilled mage to handwave anyone and set the terms of the fight. Instant darkness, instant paralyse, instant teleportation, instant whatever you could think of. It literally just takes the time it takes to touch your keyboard. On paper it sounds fun and cool but in a computer game environment it just starts chafing against the rest of the game. There is an option to cast fast and there are options for quick magic in mage staves and wands. Instant casts ruin that balance too. Why would you research to use a wand for quick magic if you can just instant cast? In a good game environment you have different tools for different jobs.
The ability to "say" magic words could be preserved but a hardcoded speedlimit should be imposed. If you hit that, then wham-bam-fizzle! A magic circle could be used to make a room into a "sanctum" as in some rpgs with mages in them. In this sanctum room, while inside the circle, the mage could access some instant cast capability depending on the circle quality. This way the fun idea could be preserved and the ability of mages to be unstoppable combat monsters would be limited.
FREE MAGIC & MANTRAS
When a mage reaches high skills the dependency for mantras(researched spells)diminishes greatly to the point it starts to feel like a debug feature and it is wonderful for that purpose! It is just that it starts to detach a mage from the meat of the system which are researched mantras and does very little to distinguish one mage from the other. The ability to free cast should remain very low at all times unless you have a similar mantra researched, you use magic that falls within your specialization or are standing within a magic circle which would give you a bonus according to the circle. One another idea would be to make free casting very slow which could be tied to the other stuff mentioned here.
Given the amount of free magic would be reduced, the amount of mantras available for the mage should be increased accordingly. However, I feel that there should be some changes mantras in general. Lower level mantras should be faster to research, specialization should be a learning bonus and the general speed should also scale with your skills(I am not sure if this is the case). Public mantras should be removed and every mage, big and small, would learn first spells from a master, be it a PC or an NPC. NPC masters would have a teachable mantra list according to who they are(Guild, alchemist, scribe). When a mage specializes you would get specialization mantras. This would replace the currently free fire spells with spells of appropriate element. Finally a mage master would have access to a "guild list" which would contain administrative guild functionality spells for free. There is a good IC reasoning for this too. Big unwieldy spells like obelisks and such could be placed there.
One thing that makes me think with mantras is that a lv1 spell has the same cost as a lv7 spell. It might be a good idea to tweak the system so that bigger, more powerful spells cost more to learn. This naturally only would work if amount of mantra slots are increased appropriately but in my eyes this idea would have merit. Are you a bit of a do it all mage with a smaller spell for virtually every occasion(current free magic)? Or do you focus on flaunting your great powers but sacrifice versatility for it?
SCALING
Generally I feel that mana costs should be lower. A low level spell should have a cost that feels less than a high level spell. This effect should increase with high skill. One of the mage grievances is the downtime spent meditation for mana. Constant need for recovery also disrupts teaming sessions. If a mage could use lower power spells much more often in combat it would work with the usual fantasy people have.
High power spells should cost a bit less with high skill, but I think high power runes should always be a tad slower to cast. Not too much though. Enough that you feel the weight of it.
MAGIC PROTECTION
As only light armoured folks without metal can use magic, metal wearing armour folks should enjoy additional resistance and damage reduction against magic depending on how much they wear and what material they are wearing. This would distribute some protection against magic and it would only be fair as not being to use gifted magic is a huge disadvantage. Getting the numbers just right is another issue though.
Other guilds could use new tools too, like a lesser power but generally encompassing magic resistance miracle. Best protection of course would be the correct resist element as it is now but it is rather hard to get for non-priests which leads me to symbols of faith. The trinkets which are nice and thematic but very few use? They could be used to store a one use low tier utility miracle with a fast casting time. You could store a resist fire there if you fear you will be on fire anytime soon, for example. After the miracle is spent you would have to go a priest or temple for a ritual or somesuch to have it charged again. Again more resistances would be added to the game world and also much needed presence of the gods.
It would also be fun if some magical and divine effects would work as counterspells, like light counters dark. What the effects would be and what would counter what are too numerous to begin to list here but the idea could have merit and would give priests some room to work with.
KAWU
The beloved kawu...Being able to hold multiple kawu attack spells prepared is somewhat of suspect given that you can have prepaid kawus from scrolls and wands. Kawu is what wrecks and does big damage. Imagine if your general mage testie prepared two different kawus from scrolls, two from wands and for the heck of it, one with actual mana from own current mana pool. Then you enter room and unleash five attack spells in the span of few seconds. Should kawu be restricted to just one active kawu at a time? Should active kawus be more costly and harder to upkeep? Most likely something needs to happen here.
One small nerf that I would personally feel pleasing would be to add a slight delay as your release the kawu attack spell so that it does not happen instantly, thus creating an illusion of weight behind the unrestrained power you unleash on your opponent. The delay should also not be long enough for everyone being always able to flee the mage and the deadly spell.
EDIT: Touching kawu is pretty tricky. It is too easy to eliminate all combat power from a mage by nerfing kawu too much as it is the primary way to deal damage and while adding delays would feel fine, experienced players would just move out from the room and avoid the spell altogether as moving away is rather simple.
I might have forgotten something but this is quite a lot already. I am also happy to offer any meager assistance I might be able to give if some of these ideas are seen as suitable to be incorporated into the game.
- Instant casts should go and remain in a very limited thematic form only.
- Free casting should be more limited.
- Many individual spells need a lookover.
- Non-mages need viable counters against magic.
- Protecting against magic damage is too rare.
- Many spells need a way to be resisted.
- More dependency on researched mantras
One of the original keywords was a prepared mage in which the system currently fails. Even if that list seems a bit daunting, I know, this should be a give and take and not just a straight nerf. I will also attend to that side of the matter a bit later.
INSTANT CASTS
Instant casts are completely against the prepared mage paradigm and offer a highly skilled mage to handwave anyone and set the terms of the fight. Instant darkness, instant paralyse, instant teleportation, instant whatever you could think of. It literally just takes the time it takes to touch your keyboard. On paper it sounds fun and cool but in a computer game environment it just starts chafing against the rest of the game. There is an option to cast fast and there are options for quick magic in mage staves and wands. Instant casts ruin that balance too. Why would you research to use a wand for quick magic if you can just instant cast? In a good game environment you have different tools for different jobs.
The ability to "say" magic words could be preserved but a hardcoded speedlimit should be imposed. If you hit that, then wham-bam-fizzle! A magic circle could be used to make a room into a "sanctum" as in some rpgs with mages in them. In this sanctum room, while inside the circle, the mage could access some instant cast capability depending on the circle quality. This way the fun idea could be preserved and the ability of mages to be unstoppable combat monsters would be limited.
FREE MAGIC & MANTRAS
When a mage reaches high skills the dependency for mantras(researched spells)diminishes greatly to the point it starts to feel like a debug feature and it is wonderful for that purpose! It is just that it starts to detach a mage from the meat of the system which are researched mantras and does very little to distinguish one mage from the other. The ability to free cast should remain very low at all times unless you have a similar mantra researched, you use magic that falls within your specialization or are standing within a magic circle which would give you a bonus according to the circle. One another idea would be to make free casting very slow which could be tied to the other stuff mentioned here.
Given the amount of free magic would be reduced, the amount of mantras available for the mage should be increased accordingly. However, I feel that there should be some changes mantras in general. Lower level mantras should be faster to research, specialization should be a learning bonus and the general speed should also scale with your skills(I am not sure if this is the case). Public mantras should be removed and every mage, big and small, would learn first spells from a master, be it a PC or an NPC. NPC masters would have a teachable mantra list according to who they are(Guild, alchemist, scribe). When a mage specializes you would get specialization mantras. This would replace the currently free fire spells with spells of appropriate element. Finally a mage master would have access to a "guild list" which would contain administrative guild functionality spells for free. There is a good IC reasoning for this too. Big unwieldy spells like obelisks and such could be placed there.
One thing that makes me think with mantras is that a lv1 spell has the same cost as a lv7 spell. It might be a good idea to tweak the system so that bigger, more powerful spells cost more to learn. This naturally only would work if amount of mantra slots are increased appropriately but in my eyes this idea would have merit. Are you a bit of a do it all mage with a smaller spell for virtually every occasion(current free magic)? Or do you focus on flaunting your great powers but sacrifice versatility for it?
SCALING
Generally I feel that mana costs should be lower. A low level spell should have a cost that feels less than a high level spell. This effect should increase with high skill. One of the mage grievances is the downtime spent meditation for mana. Constant need for recovery also disrupts teaming sessions. If a mage could use lower power spells much more often in combat it would work with the usual fantasy people have.
High power spells should cost a bit less with high skill, but I think high power runes should always be a tad slower to cast. Not too much though. Enough that you feel the weight of it.
MAGIC PROTECTION
As only light armoured folks without metal can use magic, metal wearing armour folks should enjoy additional resistance and damage reduction against magic depending on how much they wear and what material they are wearing. This would distribute some protection against magic and it would only be fair as not being to use gifted magic is a huge disadvantage. Getting the numbers just right is another issue though.
Other guilds could use new tools too, like a lesser power but generally encompassing magic resistance miracle. Best protection of course would be the correct resist element as it is now but it is rather hard to get for non-priests which leads me to symbols of faith. The trinkets which are nice and thematic but very few use? They could be used to store a one use low tier utility miracle with a fast casting time. You could store a resist fire there if you fear you will be on fire anytime soon, for example. After the miracle is spent you would have to go a priest or temple for a ritual or somesuch to have it charged again. Again more resistances would be added to the game world and also much needed presence of the gods.
It would also be fun if some magical and divine effects would work as counterspells, like light counters dark. What the effects would be and what would counter what are too numerous to begin to list here but the idea could have merit and would give priests some room to work with.
KAWU
The beloved kawu...Being able to hold multiple kawu attack spells prepared is somewhat of suspect given that you can have prepaid kawus from scrolls and wands. Kawu is what wrecks and does big damage. Imagine if your general mage testie prepared two different kawus from scrolls, two from wands and for the heck of it, one with actual mana from own current mana pool. Then you enter room and unleash five attack spells in the span of few seconds. Should kawu be restricted to just one active kawu at a time? Should active kawus be more costly and harder to upkeep? Most likely something needs to happen here.
One small nerf that I would personally feel pleasing would be to add a slight delay as your release the kawu attack spell so that it does not happen instantly, thus creating an illusion of weight behind the unrestrained power you unleash on your opponent. The delay should also not be long enough for everyone being always able to flee the mage and the deadly spell.
EDIT: Touching kawu is pretty tricky. It is too easy to eliminate all combat power from a mage by nerfing kawu too much as it is the primary way to deal damage and while adding delays would feel fine, experienced players would just move out from the room and avoid the spell altogether as moving away is rather simple.
I might have forgotten something but this is quite a lot already. I am also happy to offer any meager assistance I might be able to give if some of these ideas are seen as suitable to be incorporated into the game.