I've thought up maybe a half-dozen ways to do EOM-style magic in 4e, some more reasonable than others. All of them a wild departure from 4e as written. I have to admit my bias, though, since I pretty much loathe the at-will/encounter/daily mechanics of 4e.
I like healing surges, the balanced math, the skills, and the monster designs (generally), but I'm definitely not a fan of how PC powers work, nor how magic items work. The main problems, in my opinion, are that:
1. You don't feel like you trained in a particular fighting style, or type of magic. You know a random assortment of moves that don't feel thematically related. You can at least reskin or change energy keywords for spellcasters, but martial characters don't really feel like a canny fencer, or a judo master, or even someone who has trained to fight. It's all bash and hit, not parry-riposte-feint.
I guess since everything's "balanced," one attack is much like any other. Roll d20, deal some damage.
2. Balance says you can't do things multiple times, even if logic suggests you should be able to. The game designers elected to go for limited bursts of high power, removing the option for regular increments of modest power.
3. Mixing styles is very difficult. I'm a fighter, and I want to learn some magic, so I spend a feat. I now know one attack spell I can use once per encounter. Due to the way implements work, though, it's mathematically foolish for me to use this power. I definitely would be silly to swap one of my good fighter powers for a weak wizard power. Sure, there are a
few ways for this not to suck, but only if you use a very limited variety of builds WotC has provided.
4. Magic is not freeform. This is a biggie.
Some of the ways I've tried to fix these include:
The Exertion Approach: The number of powers you can use represent how much oomph you have. You can trade one oomph resource for another. Spend a healing surge to regain an encounter power. Spend a death saving throw to regain a daily power.
Fixes #2, sorta.
Open Multiclassing: Take any powers you want from any class. Any magic weapon or implement can count as any implement.
Fixes #3, sorta.
Fighting Game Remix: Over in
http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...my-sci-fi-homebrew-d-d-4th-edition-rules.html I worked up a variant combat system where you have fighting styles instead of powers.
Each fighting style gives you some benefit to your basic attacks, plus the ability to have a 'battle surge' (which costs an action to enter; doing it multiple times per fight takes a bigger action) that grants you some special options; as well as 'combat focus,' which takes a standard action to enter, and either grants a static benefit, or an ability you can use as an interrupt or reaction by expending your focus.
I also introduced a new system for adding conditions with any attack. All in all, I like this system, but I need to balance it out. And I don't have any magic in it yet.
It basically fixes my complaint #1, but it requires me to toss out pretty much the entire existing class system and rewrite it. Of course, if I'm homebrewing, I can just give my players whatever they want for their own characters.
The Mythic Earth Approach: I've got a vague idea how to handle freeform magic, which is, basically, not to have rules for it. Yeah, I know, underwhelming. And hard to base a product around it.
You'd have magical traditions, which grant cantrips (sorta like wizards have now). They also give you control of some sorts of magical elements or ideas. I need to come up with some sort of power tracking mechanic, where you gain mana (by hurting yourself, or drawing it from the land or magic items), and spend mana to cast spells. Mana would basically be like the GP for ritual components, and most spells would be rituals.
Each attack variety would be its own feat. What you can pull off with attack powers would be roughly calculated based on page 42.
More to come if I think of it, when it's not midnight.
Sorry for not adding to your ideas, but it's just not the way I'd want to go with my own game.
