| In-game description | "You are a living mana battery." |
| Message when acquired | "You start to absorb mana at an enormous rate." |
| Message when removed | "You no longer absorb mana." |
| Attribute changes | None. |
| Other effects | Wands are drained of all charges. Fully charged magic staves are drained to 0%. Spell costs are reduced to 80%. |
Mana battery is one of the 35 possible corruptions that can be inflicted on the PC. Being a living mana battery can be useful for classes focused on magic, and is almost entirely detrimental to all others. It prevents the PC from using wands and magic staves by draining their charges, and reduces the cost of casting spells to 80% of their normal cost.
General[]
The reduction of spell costs to 80% is entirely beneficial, especially for PCs that rely heavily on spells. It may also play a vital role in creating an archmage. Because multiple cost reduction effects cannot bring costs lower than 50%, this aspect may have little or no effect when combined with certain Starsigns and class powers. Mana regeneration is also believed to improve, though this has not been quantified.
All wands that a living mana battery picks up, drops, or zaps are drained of their charges. This prevents wands from being used, except by wrenching the final charge. In exchange, the PC's maximum PP increases by 2 per blessed wand and 1 per uncursed wand. The exact number of charges on the wand does not matter, as long as there is at least 1.
Magic staves also behave in a similar fashion, but only if fully charged. This allows for a renewable source of max PP, especially since staves still recharge when left on the ground. Partially charged or unidentified magic staves are not affected by mana battery and will retain their charge. Artifact staves are not affected, either, and will function normally when zapped.
For most PCs, the best course of action is to absorb all useless wands, then remove the corruption. It is very bad for melee classes as they lose backup offense in the form of rechargeable wands, along with important utilities such as digging. Wizards do not get much of a reduction due to their class powers and the 50% cap. Given the way mana regeneration works, a Concentration ranking of 100 suppresses the influence from other sources. Additionally, some wands like paralyzation do not have similar spells, and spells like Mystic Shovel are rather expensive. It also interferes with useful magic staves like staff of purification, which also prevents the corruption from being removed that way.
Wand and staff absorption is one of the ways to make an Archmage. Wands that the PC sells while this corruption is active are priced per their existing charges, but are drained of charges after they are sold. Picking up a wand in a shop with this corruption will lower the value of the wand, and the shopkeeper will blame the PC for damages; the character will have to pay the difference, or else attempt to either rob the shop or kill the shopkeeper before (s)he can leave again.