Ironband Mana

[Mikko Lehtinen]

I'd like to make a fork of Halls of Mist with Ironband-style mana: you have lots of mana, but it recovers only when you begin a new dungeon level. I wouldn't steal any other spellcasting features, just the mana thing.

For now it would only be a quick and dirty plaything for buzzkill & other braves. If it proves to be more fun than the original, I might consider it for the official version.

Antoine and others: any tips?

What would be a good multiplier for mana?

[buzzkill]

It's not that I'm brave, I'm just bored by my current mage and there seems to be nothing I can do to spice it up.

I honestly don't know if that's a good solution for mages. I fear that having enough mana to clear a level would be absurd in some cases, and woefully inadequate in others.

Random ideas... Convert earned XP into mana, or give mana for killing stuff. Example: level 10 mage with 20/50 mana (when kill occurs) kills foo worth 100 XP. 60% (60) of XP is converted to mana which equates to 6 mana points. 40% (40) XP is awarded. Tweak the numbers to whatever seems reasonable.

Killing monsters with high mana levels gains lots of XP but little mana. Killing with low mana gains more mana, but little XP. I'm not sure how that would play.

Here's another random, possibly stupid idea. Mana regenerates much faster when in combat (causing damage or getting hurt triggers a short lived status/counter) and/or exploring unknown territory, much slower (maybe 10x slower) when revisiting areas you already know.

[Philip]

Apart from things like finding an immobile monster and abusing it for mana regen(probably wouldn't be common, also probably possible to prevent) it sounds interesting. Oh, by the way, the thing about having way too much or not nearly enough mana is sorta the whole point, I think.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Let's playtest one idea at a time, starting from Ironband mana. It's very easy to code these kind of alternative rules.

HoM 1.2.3 will be out soon. After the release it would be fun to try some new things. Lately I've been just polishing and bugfixing.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

We could drop "essences" near monster groups. Collecting an essence would give you an amount of mana depending on your class and spell stat. No maximum mana?

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Yet another mana system:

Spell stats don't affect mana; they still determine fail rates and the number of known spells. Note that Mem and Wis are very useful in Mist even for non-spellcasters.

The player has a minimum mana but no maximum mana. Min Mana depends on class and level.

When you enter a new dungeon level, if your mana is lower than the minimum, it gets refreshed to that amount.

Collect essences to gain a random amount of mana, ranging from 1 to Min Mana. Essences are found near monster groups.

[LostTemplar]

Btw adding exp to mana is what I did in my variant. So every time exp is gained, it is also added to mana value (with coefficient). Natural regen also exist but very slow and only up to very low value, not up to maximum.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

That's interesting, LostTemplar! I'd like to try your variant.

I tried to play a little bit with Ironband-style mana and liked it. Coding it took about 10 minutes. It's the simplest solution by far, so I want to playtest it first.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

I realized that Ironband mana has one potential problem in Halls of Mist. When you start a level on the stairs up, you would have the option to blast every nearby creature easily, and then return to town to when mana runs out.

It might be preferable to tweak the system a bit, so that you would only gain the full mana when you had mapped the whole level. There are lots of options on how to do that, including counting mapped squares, killed monsters, or collected essences.

[Scatha]

I realized that Ironband mana has one potential problem in Halls of Mist. When you start a level on the stairs up, you would have the option to blast every nearby creature easily, and then return to town to when mana runs out.

But then you're missing out on all the experience and items in the rest of the level. Won't those be enough of an incentive to try to preserve mana where you can?

[Mikko Lehtinen]

But then you're missing out on all the experience and items in the rest of the level. Won't those be enough of an incentive to try to preserve mana where you can?

I'm preparing a public playtest version soon, so we can find out.

I'm afraid that there's a potential for abuse. Plunging as fast as you can and always clearing just a small area might be more profitable than diving slower and clearing whole levels.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Halls of Mist 1.3.0 Alpha 1

I decided to call the playtest version Halls of Mist 1.3.0 Alpha.

I think it plays better than the original, so returning to that one is unlikely. However, we can try all kinds of tweaks on the mana system if this one isn't good enough.

Here's the source, Windows executable, and 64-bit linux executable for anyone who is interested in playtesting this.

Changes

• Version number to 1.3.0. New mana system is important enough to warrant a new minor version number. This is still alpha quality: probably not very buggy, but possibly unbalanced. The mana mechanic may yet change if this one doesn't work. This version probably shouldn't be announced as a news item until it is more stable.
• Mana now works much like in Ironband! You have lots of mana, but it only refreshes when you enter a new dungeon level.
• When you gain a new character level, you get mana points with it. If you lose levels, you also lose the mana points that came with them. Mana may go to negative.
• Mana now depends solely on your class and level, not on your spell stat. Spell stat still affects fail rate and the number of known spells.
• Modified the spell stat/number of spells table.
• Added 6 to the fail rates of all spells.
• Experience level reduces failure rate less. (Was 3*, now 2*.)
• Restore Mana restores 20% of total Mana.
• Rings of Mana and similar items changed. They sometimes let you cast spells for free. The percentage chance is the same as before.
• Short Sword damage upgraded to 1d8. Shortspear, Short Sword and Broad Sword are more expensive. Quarterstaff is cheaper.
• Wand of Polymorph is much cheaper.
• Chaos Cocroach's speed lowered to 115. (Thanks, Scatha.)
• Elnora now sometimes shoots arrows. (Thanks, ekolis.)
• Kyrrus have only 115% exp penalty, reduced from 120%.
• Lizardmen can be priests.

[ekolis]

I'm afraid that there's a potential for abuse. Plunging as fast as you can and always clearing just a small area might be more profitable than diving slower and clearing whole levels.

Why is diving considered abuse? Just because Mist encourages clearing levels shouldn't automatically make all other tactics "abuse"...

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Why is diving considered abuse? Just because Mist encourages clearing levels shouldn't automatically make all other tactics "abuse"...

By "abuse" I really meant "boring play".

In my limited playtesting so far this hasn't been a problem. Using lots of mana early to kill tough monsters and then running out of mana later on is actually fun. "Is this is a good time to leave this level or should I still try clearing a room or two?" is an interesting tactical question.