REAGENT REQUIREMENTS
Spells and abilities consuming physical components — the diamond for resurrection, herbs for shapeshifting, ash and candles for rituals — making magic run on inventory rather than just mana.
- SOLO-DEV COST LOW
- TIMING REAL-TIME / TURN
- COMMON IN RPG · CRPG · MMO · SURVIVAL
Classic D&D material components are the source (and Baldur's Gate-era CRPGs carried them), World of Warcraft launched with reagent-hungry spells (Vanilla's resurrection candles and portal runes, mostly designed out of later eras), survival-crafting hybrids like Valheim gate magic behind farmed materials, and roguelikes price scroll and potion crafting in gathered ingredients. Designers attach reagents to spells for economic grounding: mana regenerates for free, but a consumed diamond connects the spell to the world's economy — powerful magic acquires a market price, casting becomes a spend decision with real opportunity cost, and gathering loops gain a magical customer. Reagents also throttle spammable power (the teleport that costs a rare feather is a considered teleport) and carry fiction beautifully — the ritual that demands grave dust from a named tomb is a quest generator, and the pouch of weird ingredients is characterization by inventory. The genre's history, though, is mostly of removal: reagent bookkeeping for trivial spells proved to be friction without decision, which is why modern designs reserve components for high-stakes casts. Key decisions: which spells pay (everything, or only resurrection-tier power — the WoW arc suggests the answer), reagent acquisition texture (vendor-bought reagents are a mana tax with extra steps; gathered or quested ones carry meaning), and stack management burden. Pitfall: the forgotten-candle failure — a critical spell unavailable at the crucial moment because a mundane component ran out is rarely a story players tell admiringly; reagent systems must fail loudly in advance (low-stock warnings) or they manufacture their worst moments from pure bookkeeping.