Alternatives to Dependancy: Mana

[Darekun]

Well, it may be useful to look at what's going on here. Why are they dependent on mana? What are they dependent on mana for? If you set aside the rules and thought-experiment a unicorn and a pixie in a no-mana area, what should happen?

For a unicorn, it would be straightforward for all the abilities that differentiate them from a horse, except for having a horn, to fade. (Which is why I picked unicorn.) In low-mana areas, they may be reduced proportionally. So as one moves deeper into an "anti-magic basin", it gets dumber, it loses Basic Move boosts, until eventually it's just a slightly-spiky horse.

For a pixie, it's a little harder. IQ eventually reducing to a level appropriate to their size? Ouch. And how fast does Flight drop off? At what mana level do the thermodynamic square/cube problems become lethal? Of course, that means that a pixie's disadvantage may be sufficiently exercised in low-mana areas.

Finally, it's possible that handling it "well" will necessarily be unplayable for some races. Many RPGs ban pixie PCs on the grounds that their low strength alone is such an unplayable weakness. In that case, lesser reductions would be a playable abstraction.