As a warrior, I relied pretty much exclusively on intelligence and mana bonuses on equipment for my mana (didn't use charms, and only ever put 1 stat point into intelligence). As a mage, though, I would put points into intelligence (at least at the start of the game).
Several NPCs can sell silver charms, so when you change equipment it would not be too hard to replace the lost charms. The bigger problem is putting lower quality charms into something you end up keeping a long time. If you don't need a certain boost, it would be a good idea to keep a couple free charm slots, to use for gold charms late in the game.
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