>The first step is adding edges to give you a clue about where
>to find a specific rod, you can pick the edge once and it will
>give a clue to the area in which you look or perhaps on or
>around what type of mage. Perhaps make them mutually
>exclusive so you can only get a clue to one location. In the
>grand scheme of things this might not be useful even for most
>players but it will go a long way towards assuaging those loud
>few who cry I tried forever.

So...back to hints.

>To balance this out I suggest putting a penalty on players for
>using a lot of non class dam redux. As the redux goes down
>the mages ability to fast escape via word/teleport go down,
>you can spin it as the magical barriers interfering with
>transportation magic. So now mages have to choose between the
>neccesity of more dam redux vs ease of getting away from a bad
>fight, perhaps have this hinderment exceed the duration of the
>dam redux in the case of barrier.

This is an interesting thought, I'm not sure it's the answer, but still interesting.