1. You may only create one essence per turn, because the alternative is pretty ridiculous. To keep the risk/reward aspect, you could impose a CMP penalty on yourself in exchange for a POT/essence power bonus.
2. You may only use a number of essences on a spell equal to the number of turns you spend casting it. This would allow for "ritual"-style spells to gain large bonuses through essence use—if there was no way to gain large bonuses, "great" spells would be impossible—but prevent +10/+10 instakill lightning bolts of doom, unless they were somehow prepared beforehand.
3. (optional) Since both the creation and use of essences would be so much more restricted, I think it'd be fun if you could use others' essences; I am incredibly biased, however, since I have plans involving essence trading.
Pre-edit: People voting "no, they are fine": do you really want player-versus-player combat to be a battle of essences? With unlimited essence use, established players have a huge advantage; this is on top of the advantage they get from higher stats/extra affinities/+CMP/whatever.
To answer your question: No, I just want to be able to cast interesting spells without wasting twenty turns on failures/essences/rituals. Sorry if that's a little harsh to your proposal; I tend to be hostile to essence nerfs because of how they would impact my ideal playstyle.
That said, you raise some good points. Rituals and doom spells are both things that should be addressed.
With that in mind, here are some of my own thoughts.
Instead of a universal nerf, why not restrict the use of essences in combat, where they’re most problematic? Under normal circumstances, duels are very fast-paced, and logic states that a well-though-out doom spell shouldn’t be cast at the drop of a hat. Using a large number of essences on a time-sensitive spell could prompt a LUCK roll to see whether the spell takes up the entire turn (leaving nor room/concentration for dodging and such), leaks power, breaks down, or even backfires because there simply isn’t time to include all the information your +CMP essences want to stuff in.
It may be possible to encourage the use of chaotic essences by making them exempt from these restrictions- if they decide to help, of course.
Then, there is the matter of ritual spellcasting. I feel that this has the potential to be a very nice system if done correctly, but it could also be very boring. After all, who wants to waste two weeks’ worth of turns on “keep casting the spell?”
Ritual spellcasting should take a while (hence the name), but it should also be an interesting, interactive process. Think, for a moment, of the picture which appears in your head when you think of the word “ritual.” Chances are, you will think of a long, elaborate series of actions, performed with circles of arcane symbols, sinister candles, and possibly even bloodstains. If an RTD has included that kind of ritual, I can only imagine it was more interesting than a mage standing around and doing nothing.
While that particular image may not be the best fit for Roll to Magic, I think it would certainly be possible to combine the best of both worlds.
Just for the sake of brainstorming, here are a few ideas:
-For each turn you continue to perform the ritual, you may make one action or sacrifice one object (magical or otherwise) to the spell. This may boost its power, alter its structure, or have some other, more mysterious effect. To help keep things interesting, this process should produce some visible result or feedback even before the final spell is cast.
-Perhaps casting through a ritual would allow you to invite more powerful entities (such as gods, volcano spirits, and the like) to influence your spell? They could provide power, or enhance the ritual with their own spheres, but in return, they could take something from you, sway your spell towards their own ends, or, if they would rather not help you out, simply make your ritual collapse in a disastrous manner.
-Players could discover or research pre-made rituals, which, with the proper magic, could be used to cast particularly interesting spells. This probably would be a “secondary” system, but it could be an interesting, LUCK-based source of sidequests.
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To answer more recent discussion:
I agree that essences tend to be a bit grindy and boring, but I do want a way to create an item or cast a spell without spending large periods of time doing something in which I have no real involvement, or with the possibility of wasting a lot of time and effort for nothing.
Should someone offer a good alternative, I'm all ears. But, until that happens, I consider essences to be the lesser of two evils.