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Spellcasting using a mana system is a bitch
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# Spell points
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## Cost
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The cost of spells in LE1e is loosely based on the fibonacci sequence, when basing a spell on another in dnd or pathfinder the fibonacci number of the spell level (starting at 2 for level one spells) is used, then adjusted for more fine-tuned balance
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|Spell level|SP cost|
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|:---------:|:-----:|
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|1|2|
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|2|3|
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|3|5|
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|4|8|
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|5|13|
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|6|21|
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|7|34|
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|8|55|
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|9|89|
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Using this sequence lets us use a non-linear scaling pattern, "bigger" spells can feel big pretty quickly, small spells feel small pretty quickly.
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Where this model falls apart is in trying to get casters to not use only super big spells every time they cast one. Give them too many points and there is no reason not to cast nuke every turn, too little and they can't do more than one encounter while being useful. ~~only enough to cast a level 9 equivalent spell at the level you want them to start thinking about casting them and your small spells have to do quite a bit for DPS casters to be able to deal damage. Give them enough to cast that same spell a couple levels early? now they can cast level 7 spell equivalents every turn in combat every combat they are a part of.~~
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There are a few ideas to fix this, but it is quite difficult to balance between them. The goal is to keep big spells feeling big, and small spells feeling small, while still giving a reason to cast the small ones
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### Spell scaling
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A major thing with scaling spells is that when you do, either new more-costly spells are better (which is a good thing, I think) or the player gets an ol' reliable at level one, that outscales anything that costs more than it does before it ever reaches the same cost. You have to be careful about all of the spells to make one spell that scales not just objectively better than another. ~~Non-scaling spells should have more cost-efficiency than scaling spells, but the damage potential of the scaling spells is only limited by the amount fo SP the player has readily available.~~
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### Resource efficiency
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A player with 150 SP might be able to cast a big scaled spell that deals 40d6 damage at once for all 150 SP, or they can cast 15 spells for 10 SP that deal 3d8 each. That big spell will ***feel*** big, but at the same time the small spells are efficient enough that the player can know without having to do math that they may deal more damage, just not all at once
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~~Give the players an ol' reliable spell. The idea is to get spells that deal damage more efficiently than bigger spells, but never quite hit the same level. This is, of course, easier said that done. If I make a level one spell that deals 1d6 damage, and make the cost scale by +2 every time, it needs to scale 44 times to hit the same cost as a level nine equivalent spell. If we just increase the number of damage die, our 9th level spell has to deal more than 45d6 damage to be more worth it than our level one.~~
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### Regaining SP on a short rest
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The idea behind this one is pretty simple, it means you can limit the maximum number of spell points below what what they might need to nuke the monster every turn every combat, giving back a lower number of points when the party takes a rest and them completely resetting them on a long rest.
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Doing something like this discourages the indiscriminate use of their big spells, they know they can cast the small ones all the time, they will probably get the points back before their next long rest. However if they dip into more than they get back on their short rest, they have to start thinking about the spells they cast. Is it really worth it? will they need those points later? We want them to ask these questions when they cast a spell, that way, hopefully, they cast smaller spells more often
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### How many "encounters" do we expect players to have in a day (long rest)
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Now the word encounter here is very loosely defined, this could be anything that requires resources to be used. Some form of puzzle, trap, environmental hazard, or combat encounter. All the will assume players are short resting after each combat encounter which are interspersed with minor encounters like traps, puzzles, and social encounters.
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That said, for this we can just pull some numbers straight from the deepest reaches of our asses and say 2 to 3 'minor' combat encounters with a boss or mini-boss fight, or 5-6 combats without a boss fight, and about 2-3 non-combat encounters between each one
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## Now for the math
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With all of this in mind, its time to pull some formulas from the deepest pits of hell.
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### Step one: How much SP do we expect a player to expend
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#### expected 'spell tier' per level
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each character isn't expected to cast spells higher than a certain tier based on their level, with a different tier we want their average spell to be (about 2 tiers lower than their higherst level)
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> note: levels 1-5 don't follow this because we cannot subtract 2 without hitting a negative number (or 0), which don't exist as tiers
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|level|high tier|regular cast|
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|:---:|:-------:|:----------:|
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1-2|1|1
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3-5|2|1
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6-7|3|1
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8-9|4|2
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10-12|5|3
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13-14|6|4
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15-17|7|5
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18-19|8|6
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20|9|7
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#### How many spells will a player cast
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lasting on average 4 rounds, a player will have time to cast at most 12 spells per combat encounter, 4 can be cast as advanced actions, 4 as basic actions, and 4 as reactions. No spell should be made that does not cost one of these actions.
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12 spells per encounter is a bit extreme, but lets budget for one spell per round per combat encounter, meaning on the extreme end of 6 combats that is $6*4=24$ spells between each long rest just on combat encounters, adding two spells across the 12-18 minor encounters (remember, these could be as simple as talking to an NPC or solving a puzzle) brings us to 26 spells between each long rest (complete SP reset)
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#### How many SP will those spells take
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The exact amount will vary, but our goal should be for their 'small' spells average 3 'tiers' lower than their 'high tier' spells. Say of those 26 spells, 2 are their 'high tier' spells, this leaves a level 10 character casting 24 tier 2 and 2 tier 5 spells between rests, which means we need to do math depending on our level ranges from before
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Our function looks a little like this, where H is the SP cost of a high-tier spell for the level and L is the cost of a low-tier spell, and $f(x)$ is the characters level
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$f(x) = (2*H) + (24 * L)$
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This is the simple version, where H and L are precalculated, it can probably be expanded as a function which only needs a characters level, but we have no need for that equation right now. At least for now, if I decide I need it later I suppose I will be stuck doing some more math
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|Level|$2*H$|$24*L$|$f(x)$|
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|:-:|:-:|:-:|:-:|
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1-2|4|48|52
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3-5|6|48|54
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6-7|10|48|58
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8-9|16|72|88
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10-12|26|120|146
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13-14|42|192|234
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15-17|68|312|360
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18-19|110|504|614
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20|178|816|994
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#### How many SP will the player regain from short rests
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Now we have figured out our ideal per long rest SP quotas, we can get a better estimate for the amount of SP to regenerate per short rest. Again, numbers from the our ass, trying to get close to the low tier spell budget at the higher end of the range so high tier spells cut into the players reserves, and low tier spells can be cast without feeling like your dipping into those reserves.
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~~If we use $1*level$ then we get $8*6=48$ SP from rests at level 1, and $80*6=480$ SP from rests at level 20. These numbers give us some pretty decent starting points, the ideal max SP goes from 52 at level 1 to 16. ~~
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> Tried so hard to scale by a multiple of character level but it just does not math, either your are over budget by 300 SP until level 15 or underbudget by 700 at higher levels
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To do this we can make some more of those tables that we love so much! at lower levels we shoot a little low on the SP regeneration, saying players get 8 SP on a short rest means that our ideal max SP is 4, which allows 2 level one spells which means just about nothing. You will notice that as level goes up the ideal max will fluxuate up and down, this is intentional, we will get into exactly why after this, but just keep that in mind
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Our new ideal SP by level looks a little like this
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|level|SP/short rest|SP/6 short rests|ideal Max SP|
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|:---:|:-----------:|:--------------:|:-----------:|
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|1|4|24|28|
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|2|5|30|22|
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|3|5|30|24|
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|4|6|36|18|
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|5|7|42|12|
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|6|7|42|16|
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|7|8|48|10|
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|8|10|60|28|
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|9|12|72|16|
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|10|15|90|56|
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|11|18|108|38|
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|12|20|120|26|
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|13|26|156|78|
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|14|32|192|42|
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|15|42|252|108|
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|16|52|312|68|
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|17|62|372|242|
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|18|73|438|176|
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|19|84|504|110|
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|20|100|600|394|
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