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Consider this a branch of my last inquiry regarding this subject here (https://www.therpgsite.com/pen-paper-roleplaying-games-rpgs-discussion/best-osr-game-with-non-vancian-magic/), but can anyone explain why Mana Points are an inherently bad idea, or offer other insight as to why they are seldom utilized?

They're not a bad idea; Tunnels and Trolls used stats to power spells, so essentially mana points in a way. I have heard APA-L introduced the idea less than year after D&D was released, then Gygax excoriated it in Dragon sometime later. Runequest had(has) POW, so similar to T&T. Palladium FRP has spells castable per day, but you can cat any spell of any level you want. All the subsequent Palladium games use PPE which is essentially mana.

Basically, the idea of non-Vancian magic has been around since RPGs were created, and D&D is firmly in the notion that it's Bad. Since D&D was, is, and probably will always be the market leader, that's really the only reason people don't like them, I think.

I will say that Vancian magic has a certain feel, and mana points have a certain feel. I think if you pick mana points it will be a much different style of play than Vancian. Mana points in D&D is sorta what the 3rd edition sorcerers could do, almost. So there's that.

Mana points are not a bad idea.  Mana points kludged onto D&D with no other changes are a bad idea.

That's because spells slots for different level spells put sources of magical power into silos, which limits the amount of mechanical stupid tricks that a player can pull.  You can have a simple set of mana points replace slots, and it will have power problems.  Or you can do a more complex form of mana points that more accurately represents the power scaling in D&D spells, in which case it will be not very friendly to use at the table.  Or you can try to split the baby with something in between, so that it only halfway works right.

Or you could just play some other game with mana points that was designed with them in mind, and thus works just fine the way it is.

What makes it even trickier is that in most versions, in most campaigns, D&D spells are not even consistent within a given spell level, let alone across spell levels.  What is the proper ratio of hold portal to fireball in power?  What about sleep versus fireball?  Let's consider invisibility. 

Now, if you wanted to collapse D&D slots into multiple mana point banks, but less than the number of spell levels, you could probably make it work.  Let's say 3 banks, minor, major, and greater.  In AD&D, you could do 3 levels per, and it wouldn't be far off.  Then key the amount of points based off the average power of a 2nd, 5th, and 8th level spell, tweak a little to account for edge cases in the spells a level lower or higher in each range, and you could make something OK.  Or in BECMI, do it in banks of spell levels 1-2, 3-4, and 5-7.  Sure, there's still the issue of formulas that allow too many casting of sleep or scraping an extra casting of fireball or hold person or whatever, but at least it's not a ratio where you cash in a 5th or 6th level slot for many more castings of those.  That would even kind of fit with the Vancian source material, where there was a distinction between lesser and greater spell and then some that were too powerful for most casters to handle.

Considering the vast majority of gamers play either D&D or some offshoot/remake of D&D, it isn't surprising that all magic system other than vancian are uncommon. (Except in video games where mana or other point-based systems reign supreme).

I grew up playing Runequest and my current game uses mana dice, so, for me, it is what I'm used to. There are two main issues I've found with any point based magic system:

1- It's another number to keep track of. Players hate counting.

2- Because spells cost points, it is much more difficult to balance spells against each other. In D&D there's a bit of an expansional growth in spell power. But in a point-based system, a spell that cost 10 mana but does 10 damage sets the bar for all damage spells at 1 damage per mana. A "higher level" spell that does 2 damage per mana will make all previous spells obsolete. With Vancian magic, there are still lower level slots and uses for lesser or more utility spells. This kinda goes away when you are using points.

The only way to have exponential magic-user power growth with a point based system is to have exponential growth in point which makes the first issue that much worse.

IMO mana points are vastly superior to vancian magic.  The one big issue to worry about is the nova effect, where a caster uses all his mana to win a battle with one spell, then the party rests a day before the next encounter, repeat, repeat.  I don't know that there's an objective problem, but subjectively it's a lame way to play.  The issue can be dealt with.  My preferred solution is to give casters enough of a reservoir to get through the whole adventure, then recovery is slow enough that it mostly happens during downtime. You can still nova, but then you're useless for the rest of the game.  Most players won't think it worth the cost

Quote from: Mishihari on January 20, 2025, 06:32:21 PMIMO mana points are vastly superior to vancian magic.  The one big issue to worry about is the nova effect, where a caster uses all his mana to win a battle with one spell, the the party rests a day before the next encounter, repeat, repeat.  I don't know that there's an objective problem, but subjectively it's a lame way to play.  The issue can be dealt with.  My preferred solution is to give casters enough of a reservoir to get through the whole adventure, then recovery is slow enough that it mostly happens during downtime. You can still nova, but then you're useless for the rest of the game.  Most players won't think it worth the cost

Another approach that I've elsewhere and used in my own system is that a caster has a small pool, but by performing certain actions specific to their magical path they can build up points to then cast their spells.

So it might take three mana to launch a fireball. A fire bolt (single target) is just one mana to cast. You start with a point of mana. Each turn you make an arcana check to gather 0-2 mana from the environment.

So you could, on average launch a fire bolt every round since you'll gather, on average, 1 mana per turn. Or you could start saving up for three points to unleash a fireball. Maybe you'll get lucky on turn one and build +2 mana, but do you risk having no mana at all next turn if you roll poorly (and it's not like fireball and bolt are your only spells, do you want to keep one in reserve for an emergency shield spell)?

Any gathered mana fades after a minute and gathering is a strenuous task so even a few minutes can be tiring. You also can't gather mana if you're unable to act and initiative is rerolled every turn, so sometimes you might get to gather twice before an enemy acts, other times it can go twice before you get another turn.

Its not Vancian and only semi "mana point" in the sense that it doesn't really have a stored up reliable battery to cast from, but it does use points for casting and, for me, its a unique version of limited and risky casting without the ability to plan an alpha strike and without leveled spell slots as the limiting factor.

Magic points are fine, but I can verify from experience the potential for magicians to "mag-dump" all their spell power if they don't expect any more conflict that day. Vancian systems do have the same issue to lesser a degree, though. It's more a function of magic replenishing on a per-day basis than exactly how it's portioned out. I quite like the per-adventure system that Tales of Argosa uses for some things. I also like Shadow of the Demon Lord's system where instead of slots-by-level, you get a set number of casts for each individual spell you know.

The problem of "alpha strike" is being able to put all of your mana into just a few spells.

In the point systems that I think of offhand, magical characters don't have the equivalent of high-level D&D spells. Instead, they cast a more steady output of the equivalent of lower-level spells. I think of Call of Cthulhu or GURPS Magic. There isn't an option (or not a good option) to alpha strike.

D&D is balanced on making higher-level spells more valuable - i.e. a third-level spell is worth more than 3 first-level spells. The higher-level spells are balanced by having more limited slots.

It might be helpful for people to cite which systems they're thinking of.

Nothing wrong with mana points. Like many things in D&D, the vancian system worked well enough, and tweaking it to a slots per day instead of memorizing X spells was a sufficient house rule if you didn't like strict vancian.

So there is no real problem with mana or spell points its a different way of doing things.
Part of the reason dnd does things it does is the borrowing from vance as well as the habit borrowed from war games to track ammunition only in the largest amount possible.

Now I will say bluntly I see legitimate reasons for both to exist but what needs to be understood from both the designers perspective and the game master prospective is that it does change the way magic is engaged with. There are several reasons for this but the simpleist to point out off the top is that there is an extra metric for spell cost and balancing that D&D lacks by default.
When spells have a point based mana cost several spells of the same spell level can have different mana costs and be tuned around the idea that they take up a much greater or lesser amount of a casters resources then a spell slot of a given level would. A mana point system will also tend to have a harder time with spells of exponential increases in power given the spell will tend to need a mana cost to match. If your average level 1 spell costs 3 or 4 mana with exponentially increasing power as you go up spell levels you can quickly end up with things like level 4 or 5 spells haveing costs of something in the relm or 50-80. Now these costs can be deceptive because its harder to see exactly how meany spells you get over the coarse of a day. You will see times where someone forgets that there acid arrow habit is eating in to there fireballs and lightning bolts and vice versa.

Now this also plays to an extent to the biggest advantage a mana system has which is versatility of options over the whole of a day. In most mana systems if you kind of start feeling for how much of your spell casting you are playing with and when to start saveing back if you want to try and squeeze in an extra fire ball vs your magic missles that day.

Also the idea that players will blow all there mana and rest is a bit of a falicy not because it can not happen but because that is a possibility with any refeshable resource in a situation where players expect to get that refresh. It doesnt need to be mana or spells per day it could be potions or paladin smites. If players have a refreshable resource they will choose to go ham every so offten when they expect to be able to refresh even if that resource is hp.

Palladium Books uses magic points in all of their 2nd edition stuff.  It works fine, other than maybe the name of Potential Psychic Energy (P.P.E.) while actual psychics also use points called Inner Strength Points, I.S.P.

Those two terms could be reversed.

Unearthed Arcana and various 3pp tried introducing "spell points" without making an impact. In one instance, I recall an AEG(?) book that introduced a mechanic to reduce the nova effect. I don't remember the exact rule, spell static or something, but it applied a cumulative penalty to repeatedly casting the same spell.

The 3.5 psionics handled the issue a lot better by introducing psi points and power augmentation, but I don't recall any 3pp that adapted that to spells.

I like mana points, but in practice they became overpowered. My fault; should have given fewer. In my defense, I find MUs and clerics too powerful to begin with.

Here is my recent experience:

https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2024/10/spell-points-revisited.html

Quote from: Eric Diaz on January 22, 2025, 02:16:46 PMI like mana points, but in practice they became overpowered. My fault; should have given fewer. In my defense, I find MUs and clerics too powerful to begin with.

Here is my recent experience:

https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2024/10/spell-points-revisited.html

Thanks, that's interesting. I mentioned earlier that usually (though not always) a third-level spell is worth more than 3 first-level spells, so I think the 1SP per spell level rule is suspect.

D&D isn't designed for this sort of trade-off, magic-users will get a big boost by doing more fireballs as you mention. On the other hand, clerics will get a minor boost by doing more Cure Light Wounds.

It might be better to review costs of individual spells, and adjust some higher or lower.

Quote from: jhkim on January 22, 2025, 03:16:36 PM

Quote from: Eric Diaz on January 22, 2025, 02:16:46 PMI like mana points, but in practice they became overpowered. My fault; should have given fewer. In my defense, I find MUs and clerics too powerful to begin with.

Here is my recent experience:

https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2024/10/spell-points-revisited.html

Thanks, that's interesting. I mentioned earlier that usually (though not always) a third-level spell is worth more than 3 first-level spells, so I think the 1SP per spell level rule is suspect.

D&D isn't designed for this sort of trade-off, magic-users will get a big boost by doing more fireballs as you mention. On the other hand, clerics will get a minor boost by doing more Cure Light Wounds.

It might be better to review costs of individual spells, and adjust some higher or lower.

Yes, good point.

Ideally, one would revise every spell rather than simply converting.

Spells like fireball that automatically get better with caster level add another layer of complexity. My initial guess was making fireball cost 1 SP for each 2d6 damage, so a 10d6 fireball is possible at level 10 but costs 5 SP. Still better than Cloudkill (lvl 5) for many circumstances.

Quote from: jhkim on January 22, 2025, 03:16:36 PMD&D isn't designed for this sort of trade-off

Fixing D&D is not my ulterior motive, I can assure you. I've become pretty committed to using Mana Points in my next product, which will be a complete roleplaying game, that I very much look forward to sharing with this community in the coming months.

Quote from: Eric Diaz on January 22, 2025, 02:16:46 PMI like mana points, but in practice they became overpowered. My fault; should have given fewer. In my defense, I find MUs and clerics too powerful to begin with.

Here is my recent experience:

https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2024/10/spell-points-revisited.html

You know, that's the first time I realized I should be reading that as "methods et madness", not "method set madness"...

Quote from: ForgottenF on January 22, 2025, 05:32:35 PM

Quote from: Eric Diaz on January 22, 2025, 02:16:46 PMI like mana points, but in practice they became overpowered. My fault; should have given fewer. In my defense, I find MUs and clerics too powerful to begin with.

Here is my recent experience:

https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2024/10/spell-points-revisited.html

You know, that's the first time I realized I should be reading that as "methods et madness", not "method set madness"...

Lol, I don't remember why I did take. Probably methodsandmadness was taken and methods&madness didn't work.

I find mana points, as typically implemented, kind of boring.

Sure, it strikes some folks as "unrealistic" to "forget" a "memorized" spell. They can't get over the language. And others want to use their Kewlest Power every round.

But for me, mana systems miss out on what makes Vancian casters so interesting, which is qualitative choice. The Vancian caster has to decide when to use that fireball, not just when to stop using that fireball.

It makes all the difference for me.

I've seen a couple of attempts to combine the two approaches -- i.e. you get to cast each spell N times, or you have a separate mana pool for each spell. But those systems were necessarily more complex, and in play didn't wind up differing from a total mana pool -- because any "number of times" that is enough to make it feel un-Vancian is also enough to allow spamming of spells.

Quote from: Zalman on January 23, 2025, 08:23:07 AMI find mana points, as typically implemented, kind of boring.

Sure, it strikes some folks as "unrealistic" to "forget" a "memorized" spell. They can't get over the language. And others want to use their Kewlest Power every round.

But for me, mana systems miss out on what makes Vancian casters so interesting, which is qualitative choice. The Vancian caster has to decide when to use that fireball, not just when to stop using that fireball.

It makes all the difference for me.

I've seen a couple of attempts to combine the two approaches -- i.e. you get to cast each spell N times, or you have a separate mana pool for each spell. But those systems were necessarily more complex, and in play didn't wind up differing from a total mana pool -- because any "number of times" that is enough to make it feel un-Vancian is also enough to allow spamming of spells.

But wait, don't you still have a meaningful choice of when to use the fireball when you only have a limited number of mana points?

Quote from: SmallMountaineer on January 23, 2025, 08:54:06 AMBut wait, don't you still have a meaningful choice of when to use the fireball when you only have a limited number of mana points?

"Meaningful" in what way? Sure, a mana caster has to decide when to use any spell in general, just like any caster does. The Vancian caster also has this factor to consider, since their total number of spells is limited just as the mana caster's is.

The Vancian caster also has to decide when to use which spell. That's an additional "meaningful" choice that the mana caster does not have.

Magic systems that preserve the qualitative choice in addition to the quantitative one are more interesting to me.

Quote from: Zalman on January 23, 2025, 09:04:09 AM

Quote from: SmallMountaineer on January 23, 2025, 08:54:06 AMBut wait, don't you still have a meaningful choice of when to use the fireball when you only have a limited number of mana points?

"Meaningful" in what way? Sure, a mana caster has to decide when to use any spell in general, just like any caster does. The Vancian caster also has this factor to consider, since their total number of spells is limited just as the mana caster's is.

The Vancian caster also has to decide when to use which spell. That's an additional "meaningful" choice that the mana caster does not have.

Magic systems that preserve the qualitative choice in addition to the quantitative one are more interesting to me.

I disagree entirely, I think the Mana Points caster has to be as mindful of his mana points as the Vancian caster has to ponder which spells to remember for the day, as it's not only a matter of what he can cast now, but when he will be able to cast anything again. The arbitrary management of the slots and limits on uses - I can't cast this little firecracker spell anymore, but I can bring this lightning down three more times because I thought about it real hard this morning - sounds silly and often plays out silly.

Quote from: SmallMountaineer on January 23, 2025, 11:49:57 AM

Quote from: Zalman on January 23, 2025, 09:04:09 AMSure, a mana caster has to decide when to use any spell in general, just like any caster does. The Vancian caster also has this factor to consider, since their total number of spells is limited just as the mana caster's is.

The Vancian caster also has to decide when to use which spell. That's an additional "meaningful" choice that the mana caster does not have.

Magic systems that preserve the qualitative choice in addition to the quantitative one are more interesting to me.

I disagree entirely, I think the Mana Points caster has to be as mindful of his mana points as the Vancian caster has to ponder which spells to remember for the day, as it's not only a matter of what he can cast now, but when he will be able to cast anything again. The arbitrary management of the slots and limits on uses - I can't cast this little firecracker spell anymore, but I can bring this lightning down three more times because I thought about it real hard this morning - sounds silly and often plays out silly.

The main difference is that the Vancian caster has to assign spell slots at the start of the day (at least in original D&D and AD&D). In a spell point system, there's no decision to be made at the start of the day.

However, the limited slots often makes less choice for the spellcaster at the time of casting. For example, a 5th level magic user (AD&D) has 1 third-level slot for fireball. So he has to choose when to cast that one fireball. After that, though, he has no more fireball decisions to make.

A spell-point caster has to decide multiple times whether to cast a third-level spell, or save the points for more first-level spells.

I've made this point before, but it's been a while. I have no problem with spell slots, but I have a huge issue with memorization/preparation, and it has nothing to do with verisimilitude. I'm prepared to buy the justification that spells are semi-sentient entities that a wizard has to literally trap in their mind.

My problem with it is that it encourages boring, conservative use of magic. You don't know what you're going to face when you prepare your spells, so the majority of players will bias their selection towards spells which are maximally useful in the maximum number of situations. This is why even though D&D has hundreds of spells, you see the same 10-20 of them cast over and over in every campaign. Spells like knock, sleep, lightning bolt and fly will get prepared 100 times more than more specific-use spells because they're so reliable. In theory, you're supposed to anticipate the challenges of each adventuring day and prepare accordingly, but that gets tiresome and wastes game-time, so most players just pick a standard loadout and then rarely, if ever, change it.

Quote from: ForgottenF on January 23, 2025, 01:36:20 PMI've made this point before, but it's been a while. I have no problem with spell slots, but I have a huge issue with memorization/preparation, and it has nothing to do with verisimilitude. I'm prepared to buy the justification that spells are semi-sentient entities that a wizard has to literally trap in their mind.

My problem with it is that it encourages boring, conservative use of magic. You don't know what you're going to face when you prepare your spells, so the majority of players will bias their selection towards spells which are maximally useful in the maximum number of situations. This is why even though D&D has hundreds of spells, you see the same 10-20 of them cast over and over in every campaign. Spells like knock, sleep, lightning bolt and fly will get prepared 100 times more than more specific-use spells because they're so reliable. In theory, you're supposed to anticipate the challenges of each adventuring day and prepare accordingly, but that gets tiresome and wastes game-time, so most players just pick a standard loadout and then rarely, if ever, change it.

It just occurred to me that a solution to this, assuming you want vancian magic, is to silo the spells.  Frex, you don't get 6 third level spells, you get 2 third level attack spells, 2 third level defense spells, and 2 third level utility spells.

Points are trash. D&D is the GOAT so you have to have the same kind of design or

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Quote from: ForgottenF on January 23, 2025, 01:36:20 PMThis is why even though D&D has hundreds of spells, you see the same 10-20 of them cast over and over in every campaign.

Agreed, and it's a shame because some of the utility spells and other oddball spells can be fun, interesting, and just plain useful.  Magic-users have no way to foresee the day's events.  The easiest compromise is to retain the Vancian slots per level and ditch the pre-selection of specific spells.  Has anyone encountered any serious downsides to that approach?

Quote from: ReginaHart on February 01, 2025, 08:51:31 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on January 23, 2025, 01:36:20 PMThis is why even though D&D has hundreds of spells, you see the same 10-20 of them cast over and over in every campaign.

Agreed, and it's a shame because some of the utility spells and other oddball spells can be fun, interesting, and just plain useful.  Magic-users have no way to foresee the day's events.  The easiest compromise is to retain the Vancian slots per level and ditch the pre-selection of specific spells.  Has anyone encountered any serious downsides to that approach?

That's what I do in my games. Haven't had any trouble with it in OSR-like games. The existing limitations on spells known and spells per day are enough. Might be a bigger problem if you tried instituting it in modern D&D.

Quote from: ForgottenF on February 01, 2025, 09:08:08 PM

Quote from: ReginaHart on February 01, 2025, 08:51:31 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on January 23, 2025, 01:36:20 PMThis is why even though D&D has hundreds of spells, you see the same 10-20 of them cast over and over in every campaign.

Agreed, and it's a shame because some of the utility spells and other oddball spells can be fun, interesting, and just plain useful.  Magic-users have no way to foresee the day's events.  The easiest compromise is to retain the Vancian slots per level and ditch the pre-selection of specific spells.  Has anyone encountered any serious downsides to that approach?

That's what I do in my games. Haven't had any trouble with it in OSR-like games. The existing limitations on spells known and spells per day are enough. Might be a bigger problem if you tried instituting it in modern D&D.

The fewer spells on the list for each level, the better that method works.  Utility spells seem more useful when you don't have elventy-zillion to pick from.  It's also easier to remember what you have and be able to use it.

I remember the first time I played AD&D 2E. It was at a convention.  The GM made exactly one mistake in an otherwise excellent convention game.  He had all us pick our spells for our mid-level characters from not only the expanded list in the 2E PHB but also from one of the supplements--Unearthed Arcana I think, though that was long ago.  It was just too much detail for a bunch of players that weren't used to that many spell options. Not only did it delay the start of the game, every delay we had while playing in an otherwise action-packed evening was brought about by someone not understanding the spells on their list.  I handle that kind of thing better than most, but even me playing a cleric was a bit overwhelmed.

Quote from: ReginaHart on February 01, 2025, 08:51:31 PMAgreed, and it's a shame because some of the utility spells and other oddball spells can be fun, interesting, and just plain useful.  Magic-users have no way to foresee the day's events.  The easiest compromise is to retain the Vancian slots per level and ditch the pre-selection of specific spells.  Has anyone encountered any serious downsides to that approach?

One downside was analysis paralysis.  People had such a wide range of situational spells to pick from that it slowed their turns down substantially.  Another was that the spellcasters could deal with almost any situation on their own using their large toolkit of situational spells.  It made everyone else kind of extraneous in a lot of situations. 

Palladium Books gets around the play balance issue in two ways.

The first is to make direct damage spells inferior to a bow and arrow.  The best use of magic is for crowd control, not damage.

The second element is to state that balance is actually impossible, so your GM and players need to work on their scenario design skills to mitigate the impact on their game.

Vancian Magic, where the player writes down what is memorized and then cross the spells of as they cast is best for game speed.  Spell slots sucks, because players take a minute after looking at a group of spells to cast.

Spell points has the same problem as Spell Slots (takes longer to cast) + now they have to do more math for points.

My two cents, use the DCC or Shadowdark approach where they have to succeed on a spell roll to cast a spell.  If they fail, they can't cast the spell for a long rest.

Quote from: weirdguy564 on February 03, 2025, 10:31:19 AMPalladium Books gets around the play balance issue in two ways.

The first is to make direct damage spells inferior to a bow and arrow.  The best use of magic is for crowd control, not damage.

The second element is to state that balance is actually impossible, so your GM and players need to work on their scenario design skills to mitigate the impact on their game.

I can echo this, there were a few damaging spells in Rifts that were worth the PPE in select situations (mostly ones that let you for one or more melee rounds make attacks... one that hurled rocks for 1D6+level MD for effectively 1 PPE a shot was a solid replacement for a laser pistol), but spells like Magic Net, Blinding Flash, Cloud of Smoke, and the low level "shield bubble" (that could be cast around enemies) whose specific name I forget were always my bread and butter for combat spellcasting.

Similarly, on the negotiation part, I've never seen a campaign where there wasn't a MAD pact surrounding the use of Carpet of Adhesion; easily one of the most broken spells available (to call it a "save or die" spell doesn't do it justice... it was just "die" with the save only mattering for if it was a slow or quick death).

* * * *

Generally, I prefer mana points to the leveled spell slots approach, but I think it needs to be tied to the Mage having much fewer casting options to really balance that.

I'm talking the entire suite being maybe half-a-dozen effects. Something I really liked about how the 4E wizard was handled was that their bread-and-butter basically amounted to two attack spells, mage hand, prestidigitation, light, and ghost sound (then a 1/encounter and 1/day attack spell). It's a useful, but still limited, kit for problem solving.

A similar type of limited kit for a mana-point based caster would largely solve the "swiss army wizard" problem that simply dropping mana points onto the D&D wizards' spell list tends to cause.

* * * *

Relatedly, I think there's also something to be said for a mana point system that doesn't front load the points like the character is a battery.

Sorcery in Exalted for example is based on gathering sufficient motes to cast the desired spell because the energy isn't internal to the caster but ambient in the environment.

This largely takes the concept of the Alpha Strike off the table as any sort of "I win" spell is going to take several rounds to gather the motes for and disruption is certainly possible. Instead unleashing big spells becomes something of a team effort to protect the caster until they get their big spell off (or the sorcerer is opting for weaker spells they can gather power for in a single turn).

Mana points thereby control the flow of spellcasting with more powerful sorcerers able to build up the needed motes more quickly, but still needing that build up rather than just opening with a barrage of spells that depletes their mana battery that you see as most viable in many mana point systems.

I think that most of this discussion misses one of the critical chains of logic involved.

The critical shortcoming is actually how short combat tends to be. Most RPGs have combat take about 5 or 6 rounds, often a fair bit less, with the turn focusing on the value of the spotlight. This naturally means that combat does not last long enough for there to be an effective delayed gratification mechanic (e.g. damage over time is better than direct damage) which in turn means that pure DPS is almost invariably the best strategy.

This means that whether or not there are mana points or spell slots feels like it matters more than it does. Alpha strike gameplay is ideal in most every RPG.

For what it's worth, I tend to prefer a cooldown mechanic, which is a variant of mana points which puts more emphasis on pacing your use of magic through the encounter. A cooldown mechanic sees you recharge a set number of mana points per round. This mechanic is crunchy to play, but means the GM can tune it at the table more effectively; if the GM thinks Alpha Strike is too powerful, they can dial back on the pool's maximum depth and increase the recharge. If they want players to have an Alpha Strike or Setup phase in the early encounter, you do the reverse. The benefit of the mechanic isn't exactly that it solves the Alpha Strike problem, but that it's easy to tune how much of a problem it is to taste.

My game doesn't have a resource system at all. You can use your fun abilities as often as you want.

I see no problem on MP, but Vancian tends to be faster. I just need to use some rule that allow Magic-Users to use unprepared spells at a cost.