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Originally Posted by Devil_Dante
lighting wall costs 6
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Only if you insist on it doing 3d-3 damage, which is rather a lot.
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is there any way to make those spells more reliable?
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Reliable? I assume you mean cheaper to cast. The amount of energy used doesn't change the skill level, and so wouldn't affect reliability.
We played one game with a houserule that scaled Area spells using the Speed/Range table progression, so large areas could be covered at logarithmic cost rather than linear. It was also a Threshold magic game where a sufficiently motivated mage could burn 30 or so points on one spell by himself, without ceremonial casting, if he thought it really necessary.
Magic seems to me to be meant for small-scale use, as on arena maps or in dungeons, hearkening all the way back to its heritage from Wizard. It's on a personal, single-figure combat-time scale. That Wall of Lightning would be used to seal a door or protect the wizard's hex to keep the swarms or trash mooks out of his hair, not protect a city wall with one casting, or even an entire room, so a hex or two is usually all you'd need. (For all the complaints about the Magic system being overpowered, I've heard a number of complaints that mages can't be made powerful enough, at least in the city-threatening sense you often see in fantasy books.) Enlarge is notoriously OP for allowing geometric growth in the size of objects while most effects are linear. But if you want to cover large areas, that's exactly the sort of change in mechanics that you want.