Wouldn't it make more sense in RPGs if magic depleted HP? Using a powerful spell should make the caster feel weaker. That MP is separate from HP makes no sense. It would be fun to have a game where you have to balance your magic against your health and weigh which is the better option rather than just going whole hog on MP and popping an ether.

Shouldn't running remove years from your life? Like say you ran 5KM marathon. That should be one year off your lifespan instead of just getting "tired" or whatever it is

Shouldn't eating lower your health? Processing food takes a lot of energy from the body, especially the sumptuous food games have. The character should be exhausted from eating instead of being able to fight longer.

>>11825454 (OP)
Makes sense, but how would healing work? If you can heal for more than cost, self healing is infinite. If you cant, then you're stuck in a death spiral.

>>11825454 (OP)
SMT and its spinoffs actually do this, there are super powerful spells that cast from HP, there's an entire page on tvtropes about this
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/CastFromHitPoints/VideoGames


>>11825478
that one shitty JRPG actually does this, where you lose HP from sprinting. It's as bad as it sounds

>>11826034
Barony does that, and I'm pretty sure they got it from some CRPG I'm not aware of. You can overeat and become sluggish and worse at combat

>>11825454 (OP)
>That MP is separate from HP makes no sense.
One is mental and the other is physical.
I don't see how that makes 'no sense' unless you think the headache you got from studying real hard meant you were one punch away from death.

>>11825454 (OP)
Star Ocean 3 had 0 MP cause a knockout just like 0 HP while also having moves that cost HP, so it basically turned both numbers into both bars simultaneously. It was actually pretty sick how it handled enemy weaknesses and gave a lot of attacks more viability. Most people hated it.

>>11825454 (OP)
the truth is there should be a stamina stat separate from hp and mp. Swinging a sword hard enough to hurt stuff is not easy

I think that SNES game Paladin’s Quest did this

In Unlimited Saga actions consumed HP. So you'd need to rotate characters in battle so they can recover.

>>11825454 (OP)
That would make no sense, because the strongest wizard (usually an old man) would have to have a lot of HP then so he can cast spells. Old wzards are no tank tho.

In Baldurs Gate there are spells which make you exhausted for a bit after you cast. That's how it should be done.

What I dislike about magic in games is just when they use a metre bar for magic instead of using a vancian magic system. Magic should feel powerful and the vancian system is perfect for that. If you can just refill your bar then the magic also can't be that good. You must refill spells by sleeping.

>>11826348
>That would make no sense, because the strongest wizard (usually an old man) would have to have a lot of HP then so he can cast spells. Old wzards are no tank tho.

There's no reason not to just write around that. Maybe the best wizards train their bodies well and are very sturdy and healthy, but they don't have time to study combat techniques so their attack/defense stats and usable weapon sets are bad, and they don't train for the specific muscular strength and endurance needed to wear heavy armor either... or maybe heavy armor interferes directly with spellcasting by being too heavy for the quick magical gestures needed or by being made of material that blocks the flow of aether or some crap. So normal, high-quality wizards are old enough to have trained and studied a lot but young enough to have excellent bodies, and they can take a lot of hits that inflict flat damage to HP (whatever those may be - maybe like stepping on a lava tile in FF1), but anything that goes through armor and stats will tear them up quickly despite their large HP counts.

And then there are the glass cannon masters like Tellah who know the best spells but can't use them very often. I mean FF4 literally shows him acting this way, albeit only in a cutscene, as OP's image suggests. That, too, could be used interactively. A party member who could permanently give up his/her life to, say, cast an ultimate defensive spell that'd make the rest of the party invincible for the span of one entire dungeon (of your choice!) might be kinda cool, if the rest of the game's design somehow supported it well enough.

>>11825454 (OP)
woah, a lot of good questions! ok lets break it down
>Wouldn't it make more sense in RPGs if magic depleted HP?
It would make less sense, as hp represents your physical health. getting your liver ruptured from casting a fireball, yeah now that makes no sense, haha.
>Using a powerful spell should make the caster feel weaker.
And it does, on a spiritual level, so to speak. if HP represents your physical health, a "fatigue" bar represents your physically tired you are, MP represents how "spiritually" tired you are, heh!
>That MP is separate from HP makes no sense.
I appreciate the opinion, but as we all know very well, without any real argument, it's just you know, a fart in the wind so to speak, lol
>It would be fun to have a game where you have to balance your magic against your health and weigh which is the better option rather than just going whole hog on MP and popping an ether.
sure.

so anyway, I hope it helps a bit!
Could "fatigue" replace mana? it could, if we go for more down to earth, low fantasy for example.
could hp actually replace mana? well sure, in certain circumstances, blood magic? dark magic? vampirism? plenty of options to make lore friendly hp draining spells, hehe.
anyway, have a good day!

>>11825454 (OP)
Deep Dungeon 1 and 2 do this and no, it doesn't work because in the grand majority of cases you'll be losing more HP by using the spell than if you didn't use it so using spells is a net loss. It also means there can be no recovery spells.

>>11825454 (OP)
Knight Gundam 3 does this.

btw in 2025, if you have any "Could an RPG do this?" idea, you can be sure it's already been done. Several times.

>>11826441
If you mean SD Gundam Gaiden - Knight Gundam Monogatari 3 - Densetsu no Kishi Dan, it does have MP, you just get incapacitated if you run out of them

>>11825454 (OP)
>>11826337

Came here to post this.

Paladin's Quest has zero paladins by the way, great stuff.

>>11825454 (OP)
Fire Emblem Gaiden does this with its magic.

>>11826293
Some early SSI games like Wizard's Crown kind of did that in the form of Morale Loss which represented both fatigue and nervous strain, which gradually reduced your skill abilities. I don't think it increased for each swing of the sword though, but for each battle fought and if you stayed up all night without sleeping. When it got too high you had to go get drunk in a tavern and sleep at an inn to restore it.

There is an age old debate between what is the most tiresome between being a carpenter and an accountant. Having done both physical and mental jobs I can say that physical work also makes the mind tired and mental jobs also make the body tired...

So is there any RPG where HP and MP (or equivalent) are intertwinned ?

>>11827197
I mean >>11826150 is that essentially. They're two separate values but they serve the exact same function, its just a matter of which ones attacks either target or use as juice, some abilities affecting both. If an enemy has a gorillion HP but a few hundred MP an otherwise half hour boss fight can be done in a few minutes with the right approach. If you mean them being the exact same value, it would just be any of the games that used HP for magic while not having an MP system, like >>11826438

As said already, Paladin's Quest does this but iirc, certain spells, techniques, specials, whatever they're called in SaGa games do that, too.
>>11826038
Items.
Once you get healing spells, healing items are moot in almost every jRPG in existence so I liked that about Paladin's Quest. I haven't played that game in 30 years but I think there are, in fact, healing spells but they can't be used on the caster.
Also, SaGa games have LP, which is different from HP. It's the number of times a character can be revived before actually dying (and "dead" characters can be attacked further, removing 1 LP each time they're hit while unconscious). I'm not sure if I recall correctly but I think there are healing spells that use LP. LP do not increase like other stats and can't be recovered except by resting at an inn. Also, in SaGa Frontier, there's a store run by a vampire who trades items for LP. Accepting a trade permanent reduces your LP. If you get every item in Asellus' scenario, she's left with one LP and of she's ever felled in battle, it's an automatic game over because if the MC goes down to 0 LP, they're dead permanently.
>>11825454 (OP)
Back to you: I've always wanted a game where you can control how powerful a spell is by increasing how much MP/HP/whatever you use to cast it.

>>11825454 (OP)
Magic makes you tired in a way sleep won't help.

Except usually it does. Probably more often than it helps hp too.

>>11826038
You eat food to heal, and it takes time, just like in real life.

How do you guys not know about Betrayal at Krondor? It uses stamina and health to power casting; stamina is your front-line HP, and when that's gone your health is affected, which rapidly drains your other attributes. It works really well, actually. Healing from magic can only affect other party members, and your main methods of healing are resting and potions. You can rest in combat, but only to a certain extent, so it stays fairly balanced.

>>11825454 (OP)
>That MP is separate from HP makes no sense
its magic retard its not real

>>11825454 (OP)
Magic depletes HP after you run out of MP.

>>11826427
Speaking of Tellah, I think its really cool how his non-magic stats actually go down as he levels up, showing how his age is catching up to him.

>>11826034
Kek

>>11828294
This, BaK did it over 30 years ago.

>>11825454 (OP)
>Use heal magic
>Costs 20 HP
>Gain 60 HP
>Infinite magic

>>11829230
I'll do you one better. The full heal spell in 7th saga regains both HP and MP, thus making the priest character invincible unless you can one-shot him, and a doomed encounter unless you can two-shot him.

The priest can be a mandatory fight for beating the game, btw. (But you can stop it by offing him early before he learns the spell)

>>11826042
>that one shitty JRPG actually does this, where you lose HP from sprinting. It's as bad as it sounds
Which one?

>>11829605
this one

>>11829602
You have to a major 'tist to get to a high enough level where you can fight a Valsu with the Elixir spell. He gets that shit at level 42. The last boss you right before heading to the western continent from Brush should be Doros in most runs and he's beatable in the low 30s it your a complete retard. By those levels, random encounters provide too little experience to really power through to level 42 without autistic dedication.
Order for the northern half of the continent, by the way: the apprentice with the rune, then Serpent then Doros. If he's got the rune, you'll be at, like, level 25. He won't have Elixir yet. If he doesn't, you won't ever have to fight him anywhere near the point where he'd have learned the spell.
It's a non-issue.

>>11829602
You have to be a major 'tist to get to a high enough level where you can fight a Valsu with the Elixir spell. He gets that shit at level 42. The last boss you fight before heading to the western continent from Brush should be Doros in most runs and he's beatable in the low 30s even if you're a complete retard.
By those levels, random encounters provide too little experience to really power through to level 42 without autistic dedication.
Order for the northern half of the continent, by the way: the apprentice with the rune, then Serpent then Doros. If he's got the rune, you'll be at, like, level 25. He won't have Elixir yet. If he doesn't have it, you won't ever have to fight him anywhere near the point where he'd have learned the spell.
It's a non-issue.

>>11829982
I don't think it's a case of dedication, just kids with too much time. Heard multiple complaints about this one lmao.

>>11826042
>SMT and its spinoffs actually do this
There are probably a lot of games (and anime and TTRPGs) that utilize the user's "life force" to cast magic.

>>11826034
That makes no sense though. You eat to gain energy, not lose it.

>>11827856
>I've always wanted a game where you can control how powerful a spell is by increasing how much MP/HP/whatever you use to cast it.
That would be awesome. Closest I can think of is Rudra no Hihou since iirc you can make your spells more powerful by tacking more syllables onto it.

>>11832286
Yeah, I liked that about Rudra but it's not quite the same. I got the idea from FF2. IIRC, all spells cost 1mp to cast until leveled up. Fire1 takes 1mp, Fire2 takes 2, Fire8 takes 8 and so on but there was no way of choosing to simply cast the weaker version if you wanted. Once you level Fire up to 16, it will always cost 16mp to cast.
I also enjoyed the alchemy system in Evermore and would have liked if more games implemented an ingredient-based magic system.
>>11830116
Believe me, I had the game in the 90s. The battles are un-fun and frustrating. Nobody is going to spend the 10 hours it would take to go up from beating Doros levels all the way to invincible Valsu levels without having a tinge of the 'tism.

>>11825454 (OP)
It's magic. It doesn't exist. It makes just as much sense any way you look at it.

>>11825454 (OP)
stamina and fatigue are separate things. stamina is how much energy you have and fatigue is your maximum stamina. mp is mental fatigue not mental stamina. mental and physical fatigue work differently and mp is actually fairly realistic. old rpgs used spell slots, like a mage could use 3 spells total and then needed to sleep before casting any more. mp is just a slightly more flexible system than spell slots although i prefer the simplicity of the old systems better.

>>11827856
ff7 had materia that boosted linked materia at the cost of more mp. skyrim had dual casting. a lot of games have charged spells.