Intelligence being used for how much mana a Sov or Champ can channel per season, and no longer responsible for extra XP.

No to this. The current system puts you in sistuations where you can blow it all and screw yourself over. Current system also lets you gear/trait a hero to where mana usage is minimal, still allowing your 'non-mage' champions to be imbued for support spells without having to take them down the 'mage trait' path. I like MORE option in utilization of my mana, not less.

Since mana is a shared pool, you'd somehow have to combine everyone's intelligence you own (at least spellcasters). This change would also make intelligence pointless for non-magic units, whereas now it has a benefit.

I don't think it's a bad idea, but given the way the system works currently, I think it would have to change the shared mana pool concept, and I don't see that happening.

The way MoM used mana per turn was brilliant. Why didn't they use it ?

Here is how it worked :

You can spend 10 mana per turn. Each turn you allocate your "power points" to skills, mana or research. "Skills" raised the cap of mana per turn, "mana" gave you more mana per turn and research was to research (:P).

And there weren't any cap of cap in skill. So if you wanted to, you could be able to create a mage with a very very high skill that would be able to cast powerful spells in one turn. (but that mage would lack mana, because you can't have everything).

So a spells that cost 20 mana would need 2 turn to cast (10 mana per turn). That was a way to create casting time without a "real" casting time trait.

Hmm, I like this idea.

I like Steven's idea, it would make tactical combat less firebally...

Ahh, MoM... good times.

I really liked the way mana cap was handled, both on tactical and strategic level.

I'm not a MoM vet but it sounds similar to the Age of Wonders system (both the main wizard and each hero could channel up to 10xChanneling per day).  By the end of a map you might have 50 on your wizard and 20 or 30 per hero, plenty of points to cast around.  You could still run out of mana globally too, so there was tactical and strategic cap.  Anyway, that was a good system.  

I didn't immediately want to write off the E:FE system just for being different.  I get what some of you guys are saying about valuing the infinite options and not liking limits.  Personally I like having some limits, in the sense that it gives interesting challenges to work around.  Specifically an interesting thing that the Channeling system brought into play is that it added value to Summons and lasting Enchantment spells because you could cast them on an "off" day when there were no tactical battles.  Also those "+ Channeling" traits on heroes were ones that you could really get excited about on level up.

For what its worth so many battles are 1 fireball for the win, so tactical channeling cap wouldn't come into play anyway.

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Also, Yes to doing anything with INT and DEX that we can wrap our heads around.  I have no idea whether they're balanced with STR and CON now, it doesn't really seem like it. T ips that explain their effect on magic resistance, or dodge, or criticals quantitatively might help.  Fun weapons or skills or spell channeling depending on them directly might be even better.

I don't think caps are necessary if they balance the mana cost on spells and have spells mana costs increase as the number of shards being pumped "through" the spell increases.

Why not give us the choice to add "effects" to a spell : a "greasy" fireball that would slow down the enemy, or a fire dart that summons a creature near the target, or a slow spell that also add a "frightened" effect, and so on ? More power ? More mana and more time to cast.

Or *dreams* why not a spell designer ? (like the unit designer ?) You choose the target (area, self, one, chain), the effect, the duration, the power, the penetration (how high the magical defense need to be to cancel the spell)

Well. That would be too big.

*finished dreaming*

That would be flippin' sweet. Why not a spell designer? It would certainly make the game more magical!