Magic points

Version 0.21: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Magic points or Mana points (usually abbreviated to MP) is the amount of magical energy which a given character has. It is used for spellcasting, for invoking divine powers (with the exception of Trog) and for evoking abilities granted by worn items, mutations, and intrinsic abilities.

Having your MP fall to zero is not directly lethal, but can be very hazardous for a spellcaster. MP will regenerate up to your maximum with time, and it is often recommended that spellcasters should rest up to full MP after every fight.

Some items like rings of magical power or staves of power can increase a given character's reserves of magical power.

Your maximum MP without benefit of items is a function of your experience level, your race, and whichever of your Spellcasting, Evocations, and Invocations skill is higher. Training Spellcasting provides twice as much MP as Invocations or Evocations. Depending on your character, though, this may not be a concern.

A typical character starts with 0-7 MP (e.g. 0 for a Minotaur Fighter, 6 for Deep Elf Conjurer, 7 for Deep Elf Wizard) and eventually grows to many times that (30-40 for a level 20 Mummy Necromancer, or 50-60 when using extra items).

Strategy

MP is a very important stat for spellcasters. Early or mid game rings of magical power are extremely useful, since MP costs are low and your base mana pool is small. However, as your MP hits around the 40+ mark, the efficiency of this stat gets drastically lower. Perhaps the only source of MP that you should use at this point is a staff of magical power, but even that could be replaced by an enhancer staff if you find one appropriate for you.

Methods of MP restoration:

• Resting.
• Consumables: The potion of magic recovers a decent amount of magic with no downsides. Potions of ambrosia offer significant HP and MP regen for a duration but confuses you for the entirety of it; if you cure the confusion, the ambrosia will end too.
• Casting sublimation of blood, which restores your MP at the cost of your own health. (Remember to save 2 MP for this!)
• Wearing an Amulet of magic regeneration.
• God abilities: Ru, Sif Muna, Gozag, and Nemelex offer ways to actively recover your mana, with varying degrees of reliability.
• God passives: Vehumet lets you recover MP when killing monsters. The Shining One offers a similar power that only works against unholy and demonic enemies. Worshipers of Jiyva can recover MP when slimes consume items.
• Evocable items. Staves of energy can be evoked for a chance to regenerate a little MP. Crystal balls of energy and the Staff of Wucad Mu can let you recover significant amounts of MP per turn, but with a chance of backfiring.
• Biting an enemy as a Vine Stalker.
• Being a demonspawn can grant you access to the spirit shield mutation series, which will grant you improved MP regeneration, especially when you are low on MP (at the cost of your health regeneration), or can grant you the powered by pain mutation which could restore some MP when you take damage. Or you could get both.

Formula

• Highest Skill = max(Spellcasting, Invocations/2, Evocations/2)
• MP = Scale*(min(XL, 23) + Highest Skill + min(8, Highest Skill, XL)/2) + Species Modifier
• Sources of MP scaling:
  • High MP mutation: +10% per level
  • Low MP mutation: -10% per level
  • Elyvilon's Divine vigour: +50%
• Sources of flat MP bonuses (applied after scaling):
  • Rings of magical power: +9 MP
  • Maxwell's etheric cage: +4 MP
  • Staves of power: +15 MP
• Wielding a weapon of antimagic divides MP by 3. This is applied after all other modifiers.

MP modifiers

From Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup in-game documentation:

At	Ba	DE	Dg	Ds	Dj	Dr	Fe	Fo	Gr	Gh	Gn	HO	Hu	Ko	Mf	Mi	Mu	Na	Op	On	Sp	Te	Tr	Vp	VS
0	0	2	2	0	N/A	0	1	0	0	-1	0	0	0	0	0	-1	0	0	0	0	1	1	-1	0	1

Demigods additionally start with the High MP mutation.

History

0.17 simplified MP calculations. The base formula was:

XL + Permanent MP + (XL*Species modifier + 1)/3 + (XL*Species modifier + 1)/3 + max(Spellcasting*XL*3/14 + Spellcasting, Invocations*XL/6.5 + Invocations/3, Evocations*XL/6)

Then a stepdown function was applied and MP was capped at 50. Species aptitudes used to be multiplicative, but are now additive.

Before 0.14, the formula was:

Unscaled MP = XL + Permanent MP + (XL*Species modifier + 1)/3 +
max(Spellcasting*XL/4, Invocations*XL/6, Evocations*XL/6)

where Permanent MP was a constant determined by the player's background and species.