Spellcasting Thematics (3.5) also allows you to pick a "thematic spell" in each spell level you know, whose caster level increases by one. So it's far from worthless. Better than Mobility, or Athletic, or Run. In a low level game, where you start at level 1 and you know you'll never reach past 7th or so, it's decent.
Yes, but as every game should be: all rules are optional. Remember the days of OD&D? That's when I started. That's how I grew up. There was not a rule for everything and the game was still a mystery. We had to invent ways to handle situations and GM's have to wing-it creating just as much fun as actually playing ("This is how WE do it in our game. How do you do it in yours?").
Today, D&D is almost no different than Magic the Gathering: how can we bend every rule we can find to increase the critical threat range to 2-20? The rules have become a cage to view the D&D realm rather than a freeform means in interact with it.
Somewhere in between is the place where magic is made. It starts with a common understanding in your group: "All rules are optional. We are not here to tweak our character to become powerhouses. This is not a competition. We are creating personas to experience a world. Who do YOU want to be tonight?"
My greatest advice in this situation, when the rules have become the only means of resolution, is to play OD&D; if just for one long session (preferably until level 4). -- For the DM, use the following guidelines:
- Avoid an epic campaign. Keep it within the same region with little travel. "The Cave" or "The Dungeon" should be the climax and not the core.
- Focus on story rather than action to give the players an opportunity to love their character and not their abilities.
- Creatures and magic should be rare and sometimes feared as myth or witchcraft. This will keep the horror and fear of the creatures when encountered, the convenience of magic to a minimum, and the mystery of the D&D realm full of wonder to PC's and NPC's alike.
- Above all, focus more on the game and less on the rules. Wing-it when necessary, but for the most part just make a judgement call on success, failure, and allowance rather than breaking the momentum of the story to create a convoluted, unrealistic, or unnecessary rule to handle a mundane or meager task.
You, and your players will learn much from the experience.