In need of your opinion: A 0 mana = Death system

Title says it all.

I was trying to think of a way to make gameplay for my rpg project more interesting and came up with the idea of putting in a "0 mana = death" system. Given the context of the game, I thought it made sense. The mana stat in units is no longer the inherent pool of spiritual energy but a measure of mental endurance, in the same way that the health stat is a measure of physical endurance, giving 0 mana the same consequences of 0 health.

I was wonder what the pros and cons and perhaps difficulties that one might encounter in implementing such a system for an rpg. Also, your opinions concerning the system would be appreciated as well, whether it's worth pursuing or utter shit.

Thanks

This reminds me of the classic RPG game Betrayal at Krondor.

There was no mana, only health. Casting spells cost you your health.
Perhaps the game mechanics could be simplified by removing mana altogether in this fashion, although it might bring a bit more difficulty to making that...

I don't see any cons unless you will have any unit(s) with Mana Burn, that ability would be far too powerful.. As to implementation; a unit's mana becomes less than 0.5 - kill unit o.O?

If it makes it harder than you might want, the 0 mana could cause at least some serious headaches (ie, some long stun, stats loss, whatever), leaving you at the opponent's mercy.

Do note that all units will have a mana stat


You've actually hit on one of my problems with the system. I was thinking of making it so that all physical attacks made on a unit will drain a bit of mana, about 5-10% of the total physical damage. Even spells without a mana drain effect will burn mana according to 10-15% of their total damage. On the upside, however, healing abilities will recover mana as well as health. I was thinking of doing something along the lines of "if unit takes damage < 0, then set mana (current mana + 10% of damage taken)" or something to that effect.


I was actually considering that. I was thinking of spawing a dummy caster at the position of units that trigger the 0 mana system and casting Storm Bolt with an unlimited duration on it and just removing the buff when the triggering unit recovers at least 10% of it mana. That or setting the animation speed of the unit to 10% and restoring it to normal upon recovery.

What do you think? Should I merely stun the unit indefinitely or kill. Honestly, I don't know if killing the unit outright would make gameplay too difficult.

PROBLEM: Incase a unit is killed by way of 0 mana, how do I give the appropriate bounty for the kill since I can't use the damage action

Cons: Players won't be able to cast as many spells because it is more beneficial to have mana than use it. Also, what is the point to the system? I understand the concept, but there seems to be little point to it.

It's the same concept as in Star Ocean 3's battle system. Any character, monster, or boss is killed when either their HP or MP falls to 0. It offers a more indepth strategy in that physically strong characters have really high HP but low MP (they don't have abilities that use MP, they use HP) and vice versa with spell casters so it gives them that weakness.

You could use the "Unit Takes Damage" event for each hero to get their damage and use "Unit Is Attacked" with hard-coded values in the trigger for regular units to figure out the damage dealt and reduce mana accordingly.

I just thought this added constraint would make gameplay more interesting and challenging if for the player. As for players not being able to cast as many spells, note that some mana is recovered as the unit recovers hp and that there will be a good deal of spells that naturally recover both mana and hp.


The problem still remains. How am I going to assign bounty for a kill where the unit died because it reached 0 mp since the "Damage Unit" action only affects hp?

Umm, just deal a lot of damage to the unit?

I think the system is nice, it allows a lot of combinations with spells that transfer life to mana and vice versa. Making all damage also decrease mana kind of deters from that, since you loose the difference between mana and hp, it becomes the same.

Just that: use "Damage Unit" when the unit reaches 0 MP. Use "Damage Source" when using the "Takes Damage" event and use "Attacking Unit" when using the "Is Attacked" event for the unit that would take credit for the kill, then set the damage to 1000000 or something high enough that would kill them (put it in a loop if necessary but I doubt it).

Hmmm... I see your point. However, I feel that physical attacks should affect mana since, obviously, any physical injury you endure elicits some kind of mental shock or trauma. But, then again, the mana drained by physical attacks is only a minor 5-10% of actual damage dealt, and 10-15% for spells. Should I decrease it to 1-5% of physical damage and 5-10% of spell damage?


*Smacks self* Hahaha, yeah, it is that simple. Can't believe I didn't think of that. Thanks, Sentry. You're brilliant!