I am re-thinking a few things here. One is that I believe there was a bad decision made very early and that was to bring up too much strict game mechanics.
The game should be more free-form. Here is what I think right now in game-mechanics:
- Keep the "bases" and rework them to act as "energy" - basically, you have a limited amount of each base available per time period (it replenishes).
- Keep the "intents" and rework them as skills - basically, your ability to use your available energy for various purposes.
- Drop all the range, target, etc. specifications and replace them by a subjective, variable and highly flexible "power" number.
Game mechanics: To make a successful effect, you specify what you want to accomplish, and how much energy you invest. The GM secretly decides a required power for that effect, taking the effect but also circumstances into consideration. The game calculates Intent times Energy as the power that you create. If the result is near the required power, then what you wanted to happen, happens. If it falls short then your spell fails (energy is still expended). If it is much stronger then unintended side-effects can also happen.
Behind-the-scenes we would have some guidelines for GMs to determine power levels. Players would find workable effects by experimentation, they could invest time and energy into "confirming" effects in their labs, at which point the GM would hand them a signed formula, which they can then use to reliably cast that spell (i.e. circumstances other than counter-magic by others would no longer play a role, the familiarity with the effect allowing the spellcaster to adapt to minor changes like that).
Example - Fireball
Obviously a spell based on Fire, and cast with an intent to kill/hurt. As an area-effect spell with side-effects (burning), and massive damage an example GM arbitrarily assigns it a power rating of 50.
Our spellcaster has a killing-skill of 6 and since he specializes in fire magic has a pool of 9. He really wants to make sure his enemy is dead, so he throws all he has into the spell - 6*9 = 54 power. This is close enough to the required power, so the fireball explodes just like he assumed.
One of his enemies (who has not yet been burnt to a crisp) wants to reply in kind. He has a killing-skill of 8, but his fire magic isn't as strong and he only has a pool of 7. Moreover, he has already used up 2 of those points and misjudges the required power, investing only 4 points for a total of 8*4 = 32 power. That's not enough and the spell fizzles out. He now has only 1 point of fire magic remaining, maybe enough to light a candle.
