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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DogBackward" data-source="post: 5874377" data-attributes="member: 50642">Honestly, I'd prefer to see a small set of spell slots, and an even closer connection between prepared dailies and at-will spells.Remove 0-level spells, and simply give mages class features that allow them to detect magic, and use minor magic effects (similar to prestidigitation) at-will. For the record, detecting magic should be, at least in part, reactive. You should be able to be walking down a hallway, pause, and in a very sage tone say "Hold, my friends. There is magic here!" And have your buddies laugh at you for being all dramatic and silly.Other than that, you can prepare a total number of spell levels equal to your caster level.Then, and here's the big part... then, you have each and every spell have an at-will use. Except that, for the sake of immersion, we'll call them "Echoes" or something. As long as you have a spell prepared, you can use its Echo any time you want. A Magic Missile Echo would let you use a free action to add +1 attack and +1 force damage to any ranged weapon attack you make. A Sleep Echo would cause a single target within 30ft. to make a Wisdom save or be unable to make attacks of opportunity for one round. A Burning Hands Echo would let you make a single touch attack for 1d6 fire damage.You would increase the power of Echoes only slightly with higher level spells. Scorching Ray's Echo might let you make a ranged touch attack for 1d6 damage, instead of a melee touch like Burning Hands's Echo. A Fireball Echo might let you make a 5ft. burst within 30ft. for 1d6 fire damage. And so on and so forth.This still requires you to keep track of resources. You can use Fireball's Echo all day... until you actually cast Fireball. Once the spell is no longer prepared, you lose access to its Echo version. So you'd have nova mages who prepare big-damage spells and use them willy-nilly... completely dominating one encounter in a day. But you'd also have more cautious mages who prepare spells with Echoes in mind. They'd rarely cast a full spell, relying on clever use of Echoes and only using full castings when they really need a full spell effect. I think this covers the best of both worlds, and fairly well.(For the record, D&D does not use Vancian magic, it uses a magic system inspired by Vancian magic. In a truly Vancian system, wizards would have a very small number of spells prepared at one time, not per day. So if your 10th level wizard blows his three prepared spells in the first encounter, he can sit down for a few minutes and prepare new spells in those slots, instead of waiting until tomorrow to have spells again. I would also accept this option instead of my idea above.)</blockquote>

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