Thanks to the Symbol of Mana, I have a running joke with friends in game about how one reason my not-very-clericy cleric rejects the Arkati as gods is that Koar is supposedly the master of mana, but even the warrior-like Guardians of Sunfist are apparently better at tapping into it than he is!

This seems like a tricky ability to balance; on the one hand 50 mana is a lot for a square or paladin, but on the other it's very little to other semis, even less to melee pures like me, and practically nothing to a casting pure. I've been talking about it with friends and I thought I could toss some ideas out there:

Idea from friend #1: Gives 50 mana until you're level 40, then 100 from 41-60, then 150 from 61-80, then 200. (And I think he'd cut out the option of burning deeds to balance that out, but I forgot to ask about it.)

Idea from friend #2: Gives a percentage of a character's mana or 50 mana, whichever is higher.

My idea: Typing "Symbol of Mana" does exactly what it does now, but add a "Symbol of Mana [mana amount]" command that has scaling cooldown, scaling favor use, and locks you out of burning deeds to use it again before the cooldown's up. Keep the 10 mana per 1 minute timer, so if you badly want 280 mana or 470 mana right at that very moment, you can get it at the cost of a 28 minute or 47 minute cooldown.



I like my idea most because it's mine ;), but I'm sure it's also the most challenging to code out of these.

Anyway, just wondering what anyone else thinks of this society ability. Do you think it needs an upgrade? Fine as-is?


AIM: sweetleafiara@gmail.com

The amusing thing to me about this (among other examples) is that Koar as "Master of Mana" has not been part of his documentation since 1995.

I think the only modern basis for it outside of the Order of Voln is The Rift, which was itself based on a lot of archaic lore.


- Xorus' player

(Which is to say 50 mana was probably a bigger deal back when the highest level characters were around today's equivalent of Level 40.)

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>'=explain Who would deny, after all, that a rhetorical question is merely a statement?
You may not explain with a sentence ending in a question mark.

We do also have the option of burning through deeds to get another boost, something I occasionally do during Duskruin arena fights, and that's as a pretty mana-thrifty class. At roughly 5k a gem/deed, it can mount up quickly.

I'd like to see it revisited too.