Another thing that has not been mention yet, I think, but will help tremendously about balance is the fact that in the current build, only regular ranged/melee attacks have a chance to miss. Spells and special abilities always hit, which will change in the final release, I suppose.
If the most powerful spells cost a greater number of action points and have a greater chance to fail, it would make sense to use less powerful but more reliable minor spells.
To manage this casting chance without it becoming too frustating for the players, you could have different sucess and failure states, for example :
- you exceed the casting chance by x points, spell is cast.
- you fall short by a small number : spell is cast, but you exhaust yourself casting it, losing some HP.
- you miss the casting chance : spell flickers.
- you fail critically : something horrible happens : you set yourself on fire, you teleport, you invoke a powerful, hostile elemental, etc.
For those who like ressource management for magic, you could have some kind of totems or other magical trinkets that would help with your casting chance. They wouldn't be necessary, but could help with the higher level spells with a very low base casting chance.
Something like, lesser fire totem, give you +5% casting chance for fire spells,etc. Those could be craftable and/or expensive items that you can buy.
