That's kind of what I was trying to say, too, 'wulf. I'm just not as articulate.
At the request of several of my players, I've been giving thoughts toward re-tooling magic; and have come up with a few differences for our games.
Basically, there are three different kinds of magic: arcane, divine, and ritual.
Arcane Magic is based in arcane knowledge and archaic formulae gleaned from an assortment of tomes and grimoires and passed down from master to apprentice.
Spellbooks are making a comeback (as in, "you can't cast a spell if it's not in your..."); and this form will use the 'hp cost' system from the basic m20 rules.
Divine Magic is channelled energy given by the gods to their servants (clerics).
This will be based on satori's mini-magic system, and clerics will be able to focus said energy 2 + MIND bonus + cleric level times per day.
Ritual Magic is found both in arcane and divine natures, and deals with higher magical subjects...creating items of magical power and summoning extraplanar entities (arcane) or communing with deities and raising the dead (divine), things like that.
Ritual magic is based in locating and assembling all the items and focuses necessary for a rite (which can lead to adventures in and of itself) and making necessary checks for the successful completion of the rite.
I'll write it up in more detail when I finalize a bit more about what we're doing.
What do you guys think so far?
Regards,
Darrell
PS-- The reason I'm doing new work on m20 is that my group, having discussed it at some length, has decided that we are going to tweak Microlite20 a bit more, and adopt it as our permanent FRPG system, rather than buying in to D&D 4e.