On Sat, 28 Aug 1999
jhenders@... wrote:
> On Sat, Aug 28/99, "Daniel P. Sniderman" <slide@...> wrote:
> >
> > Level 44 Cassindra's Elegy - Even though this song is great that it gives
> > some extra INT and WIS to our caster friends, yet it is short lasting and
> > the extra mana given by the increase in INT/WIS doesn't help at all, so a
> > better usage of this song is perhaps make the effect last longer?
> >
> > This was intended to be a hard song to use well. The extra Int AND Wis from
> > the same spell are so nice that we needed a drawback.
>
> Heh. Does anyone actually use this song at all? I think they made the
> drawback a bit too much, as I found the only way to use it was to play
> it just before a fight, then the wizard can med up the extra int it
> gets him and maybe get off one more bolt. All the casters I worked with
> quickly decided it wasn't worth the extra hassle for what it gave you.
Seems I'm arguing about this everywhere I go.
People have this mistaken assumption that more mana = more
spells. That is not the case. The amount of mana a caster
has determines the number of spells he can cast without
resting/meditating. The mana regeneration rate determines how
many spells he can cast over a given period of time. You can
have 100 mana or 1000 mana, if your mana regeneration rate is
unchanged you will still cast the same number of spells/hour.
Thus, more mana is advantageous in a single fight; it is not
advantageous over the long term (if you use that advantage in
a single fight, you pay for it with longer downtime).
e.g. Your party tries to take and hold a room. The cleric
has 500 mana. You attack and are only able to clear the first
half of the room before the cleric is out of mana and must
meditate. The cleric meditates. By the time he is at full
mana, the portion of the room you've cleared has respawned.
The typical reaction to this type of scenario is "damn, we
could've done it if we'd only had more mana." This is not so.
Say the cleric had 1000 mana. You attack and are able to
clear the entire room, with the cleric finishing OOM. The
cleric meditates. By the time he is at 500 mana, the entire
room has respawned, and now the scenario is identical to the
previous. More mana lets you take the room once where you
could not before (single fight), but it does not enable you to
hold the room (long term).
So I would say the use for the song is if you can forsee a
situation where you need additional mana for a single fight.
Start singing it before, let the casters top off, then start
the fight. That should let them get one or two extra spells
in for just this one fight (after they've cast the first few
spells, you don't need to keep the int/wis boost up). Having
the effect last longer would be more convenient, but not
advantageous.
--
John H. Kim
kim@...