Hi there,

I'm a first-time player building a Magician. It really sucks not having any options (without going through initiation) that increase your drain pool above 12, in part because stun damage seems incredibly difficult to heal without being able to wait it out.

My mage has the Heal spell, though, and I was wondering if there was maybe a strategy in casting higher-force spells in order to trigger physical damage, then using Heal (which has a low drain) to counter the effects.

Example: I cast a Force 6 Ball Lightning. (My magic is 6, so this will be stun drain.) Attempt to resist 5 stun drain. Odds are slightly in my favor to resist 4/5 but let's say I only resist 3/5, I'm now stuck with 2 stun damage for the rest of combat until I can walk it off. (These would quickly stack if battle is going to be drawn out.)

Alternatively: I cast a Force 7 Ball Lightning. (Now we're into physical drain.) Attempt to resist 6 physical drain, let's say I get 3 physical damage. On my next turn I cast Force 3 heal. I have a -1 modifier but say I still have an 86% chance to get all 3 hits, so let's say I do. I'm instantly healed so I get all 12 dice to resist 2 drain, no problem. I then need to sustain the heal spell for 3 more combat turns (-2 modifier, but at least that goes away pretty quickly). (I have Focused Concentration but in this scenario I'm probably using to to sustain Increased Reflexes.) After sustaining for those three turns (hide out or whatever, maybe cast some lower-level spells), I'm in position launch another strong attack without a blemish on me.

I guess it's not the greatest tradeoff because of sustaining in combat, but especially outside of combat if I want to cast a higher-force illusion or manipulation spell it seems to make even more sense. If I'm interrogating a prisoner with Influence or attempting to investigate a location with Improved Invisibility then instead of using, say, force 5 and risking carrying stun damage with me into combat I should use force 7, and while the extra force isn't likely to affect the number of hits I can very quickly repair the drain damage it causes me, to be more ready for combat. Does that make sense?

Are there any other kinds of spells this kind of strategy maybe plays well into?

Thanks!