Something I wrote in email to Hong a while ago:
Vancian magic (by which I mean spell preparation) doesn't thrill me mechanically on its own merits, but it doesn't bother me (anymore; it was one of the most counter-intuitive elements when I first started D&D). And I like Vance enough that the connection is worth a lot in my eyes. I don't require D&D to model any genre or world wholly, but I do like it when I can see the references. I also like the bookish, ritualist aspect of the spellbook-using spell-preparing wizard.
If I were messing with magic for 4E, I'd dump the sorcerer, at least as it is now, and look more towards the beguiler, dread necromancer and themed classes like that. In the end, offering sufficient choices might result in something more like sorcerer + domains; separate classes for everything might be quite unwieldy. But IMO the sorcerer's role should be the themed arcanist, as opposed to the wizard as a generalist use-what-works arcanist.
For 4E wizards, I'd like to see class features similar to reserve feats: a master arcanist who cools his drinks with ray of frost, since he doesn't have to worry he might need detect magic or message later on.
As far as aesthetics go, I wouldn't mind dropping spell preparation from the divine casters (my inner Vance fanboy would be perfectly content with just wizards), but they seem to be the ones who need it the most from a playability perspective: you can't expect a sorc-like caster to take raise dead or greater restoration, and you will be needing them, unless a lot more is changed.
Mallus said:
I'd prefer a system that makes spell casters more like artists and less like accountants. That incentivize creative spell usage, not just a miserly deployment of spell uses.
Resource management isn't the end-all and be-all when it comes to challenging players.
I'm not sure if this is what you're talking about, but when you say "more like artists", I think about systems like Elements of Magic and White Wolf's new Mage (I think?), where you build spells out of building blocks: a system where you could not only cast fireball as it is in D&D, but also have it deal more damage at the cost of affecting less of an area, or affect a larger area at the cost of increased casting time, or something similar.
Now, I have never played a game like this, so I might be wrong, but it seems to me that this doesn't really encourage creative spell usage. To an extent, in encourages creative spell design, but that's just another form of resource management. If you're trying to burn down an empty village, casting time is a resource you have, and area is what you want, so you trade. If you're trying to kill the one single guy right now, area is the resource you have, and damage is what you want.
What encourages creative spell
usage, IMO, are the weird, multi-purpose spells which are a part of Vance's magic (but not necessarily "Vancian spellcasting" in the context of D&D, "Vancian" having become a shorthand for "spell memorization/preparation").
I would like to see more spells like Otiluke's freezing sphere (in concept, since the execution kind of meh for 6th-level spell): it's both an attack spell and a battlefield control spell, because it makes sense from the description of the effect. Glitterdust is both an attack spell (blindness) and an anti-miss-chance effect. Defenstrating sphere from Spell Compendium isn't so versatile, but it's like something straight out of Vance: a sphere of whirling air which attacks with a touch attack for 3d6 damage, and if you're Medium or smaller and fail a save, it flings you 1d8 x 10 ft. up and you take falling damage.
What I'd like to see is spell design going from concept rather than effect, and adding effects that fit, preferably multiple ones. Instead of going "I want a spell that deals 3d6 force damage with a touch attack, let's make it 2nd level, and say it's ghostly ram which charges the target" I'd like "I want a ghostly ram that charges the traget, let's say it can deal 3d6 force damage, or bull rush at +4 +1/4 caster levels, but it must follow normal charging rules, so let's make it 2nd level". Effects which (unlike in my example) aren't obviously linked, like glitterdusts "causes blindness" and "negates concealment" get bonus points!
That's not the direction D&D has been going, though. Compare 3.0 command to 3.5 command, and 3.0 emotion to 3.5 rage, crushing despair, good hope, fear (I think those were under emotion in 3.0?). So far, the move has been towards simpler, discrete effects.
