If You're Looking for some alternatives...

[JoeGKushner]

Not entirelly sure what you mean by "up the ante" but I do regularly buy books simply for their magic system. To me thats one of the most important parts of any fantasy RPG, whether it is "low" or "high" or whatever else. Having said that, I regularly prefer the variant systems, frequently made for a specific setting, to books that simply expand the default d20 magic systems. Thus I prefer Black Company to Magic of Incarnum, just to pick two.

Well, by up the ante, I mean change the default. The Wheel of Time was a good example. One GM I know had a Scarred Lands campaign where the sorcerers were using that spell system, including the madness factor, and had it that it was Mesos, the Sire of Sorcery, whispering in their ear, driving them mad. Worked well but he was a good GM.

Good example on the Black Company/Magic of Incarnum. I'm dying to see how that system works out when it's given it's own book so that it's more all purpose. Be good to see a lot more examples and detailed lists of precrafted spells.

 

[diaglo]

i start from scratch. use my imagination and come up with the concepts i want to play. fiddle with them until i have a good understanding of how to add them.

and then present them to the DM.

and haggle over how to incorporate them into the campaign.

as a last resort i buy some premade thing and give it to the DM to look over.

 

[Psion]

You decide you want to up the ante in the magic field.

Do you...

Buy a new magic system book that's all about the new magic system? Something like the Expanded Psionic's Handbook or Magic of Incarnum?

Or...

You've heard about some alternative d20 settings that have variant magic systems in them that may or may not work well with the d20 system like Thieves World, Black Company, and Slayer's d20. Magic systems designed to capture the setting, as they should and spend a lot of time summarizing/explaining the different tweaks to the other parts of the d20 system.

That really depends on what I am trying to accomplish in shifting to a new magic system. I'd pick whichever system does what I feel like changing best.

Side note: Does anyone have d20 advenced magic yet?

 

[SWBaxter]

For a standard D&D-like game, I'd grab Arcana Unearthed, and use that magic system. I don't know which of your options that's closest to. I would be coming at this from the angle of having read various magic systems, and finding that AU's system is the best system I know that's close to standard D&D in terms of the number and type of spells sent flying around, yet which also expands caster flexibility in a lot of fun ways.

Otherwise, if I'm looking for something with a different feel from D&D, I'd look at other systems. For example, for an Iron Heroes-style setting where I want dangerous (and mostly NPC-centered) magic, I'd probably go with Conan's system. Again, that decision would be based on familiarity - I've used it before, and it works for me. If I had in mind a setting where I'd like magic to work differently from the way it does in products I currently own, I'd have to research some of the other products on the market and figure out which are closest to the approach I have in mind. But in all honesty, if I'm contemplating large changes in magic, I'm also often contemplating sufficient changes that I may as well move beyond D&D entirely and contemplate other rulesets.