ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

http://paste.ubuntu.com/901255/

I always thought this would make more sense, to be honest. Should work, though I haven't tested.

Idea was to deal the "opposite" element, after some prodding from people pointing out that many things will resist the relevant damage. Perhaps the description for mana clash could be rewritten to suggest purification or something. Or countering it and overloading, maybe, would be better.

Another idea is that it deals damage of the corresponding element, while also dealing damage of the opposing element.

So mana would cause arcane and mind damage.
Vim would cause blight and nature damage
positive/negetive energy would cause light/darkness damage.

Also, I think the utility of manaburn would be improved if it reduced these energies by a constant amount or an exponentially decreasing percentage, whichever is higher. It would make it much more significant against creatures with crazy amounts of these resources.

I prefer just Arcane. It might not be the most sensible damage type, but there also aren't really any enemies with Arcane resistance.

I'm with Bricks here. Arcane is 'pure' magical energy. You're not really damaging them directly with mana burn, you're burning off their resource and that's what's causing the damage.

I liked it purely for thematic effect.