To test in creative, unlock your runes using the /mo_mana commands!
Spells are built, not chosen
There is no spell list. A spell is assembled at cast time from three decisions:
TECHNIQUE → MANA COMMITTED → FORM
A fireball is what you get when you draw IGNITE, commit some mana, and give the result the PROJECTILE form. Seven techniques and four forms make twenty-eight combinations, each of which behaves differently at three tiers.
Techniques are drawn as glyphs, on the HUD rather than in a menu, so the world keeps moving while you compose. You can walk, sprint and swap hotbar slots mid-spell; what you can't do is aim, because the mouse is holding the pen.
Mana buys the spell tier
Committed mana selects a tier. Two casts at the same tier are identical however much was paid for them: a 200-mana Tier II spell and a 499-mana one do the same damage.
So the meter that sweeps across your mana is a skill check with a correct answer: stop it as close above a tier's floor as your timing allows. Everything above that floor is spent for nothing, and the meter marks the floors so you can see it happening.
You can commit more mana than you have
Going below zero is legal. Debt is simply negative mana: the same number, continuing past zero, regenerating back up.
What debt costs is stability. The chance a spell goes wrong is a function of how deep you went relative to your pool, and the tier multiplies that debt rather than the risk. A Tier III cast you could genuinely afford is exactly as safe as a Tier I one; the danger is specific to the combination of an aggressive technique and borrowed mana.
Severity also decides which backlash you can get. A shallow overdraw can only produce the minor outcomes: the worst ones aren't in the pool at all until the debt approaches your whole pool.
Composing and casting are separate
Building a spell doesn't cast it. The finished spell is held, persists through logout, and costs nothing until released — but it's charged against whatever mana you have at that moment, not when you built it. A spell prepared while full can drop you deep into debt if you carry it through a fight.
Holding one also stops your mana regenerating, so carrying a loaded spell is a real trade rather than a free option.
Progression is knowledge and skin
Techniques are learned by advancement: lava for IGNITE, powder snow for EXTRACT, etc.
Eleven permanent upgrades compete for a small number of places on your skin: four that shape the mana pool, seven that raise one school's spell power. You start with room for four tattoos. Each technique you learn adds more.
You can also bind a technique: give up the ability to cast it entirely, in exchange for more room.
Other stuff
Conjured minions take orders : hold position, focus a target, return, drawn the same way spells are. Frost and flood leave conditions on the ground rather than blocks, and wet ground makes lightning hit harder. Every balance number is in the config.
If RPGMana is installed it takes over the mana pool. If a spell power mod is installed, its per-school power multiplies this mod's own.
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The Mo' Mana (Mo' Problems) Team
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