What's your favorite spellcasting system?

[Iota]

I've never been a big fan of D&D's Vancian spellcasting system, so I'm wondering what other RPGs out there have "better" or at least significantly different spellcasting systems than you can find with D&D. I'm sure a lot of things have been tried in the past, but what I guess I'm most interested in hear which systems you thought:

A. Were the most unique.
B. Were the easiest the play.
C. Made the most sense.

 

[onedtwelve]

Warrior Rogue & Mage has an interesting system that gives you mana based on your Mage skill level.

There are four levels of spells. Each level determines how hard a spell is to cast and how much mana each spell costs. You roll your Mage skill to meet a certain DL (difficulty level) to cast a spell and spend mana points depending on what level the spell is. I liked it well enough, though some of the spells could be easily broken.

My only issue with it is it just gives you more numbers to keep up with.

 

[Starman]

Ars Magica has a fantastic system. Mages have skills in 5 verbs (create, destroy, manipulate, understand, change) and 10 nouns (animal, air, fire, earth, water, body, magic, images, plants, and mind). Mages combine these to cast their spells. It's easier to cast learned spells than spontaneous spells (made up on the fly). The limits of magic are determined by an Aristotelean paradigm.

It's a very rich system that I've had a ton of fun with.

 

[Umbran]

My favorite magic system of all time sits in the oWoD, Mage: the Ascension game.

I have not kept up with Shadowrun, but the older (2e) rules had a fine spellcasting system.

Many people find the rules baroque, but classic Deadlands has another interesting system, where a dice roll controls how many cards one draws to make a poker hand that my players like a great deal.

 

[Fifth Element]

I prefer sacrificing virgins to dark forces to get my spellcasting power.

Of course, I only read the thread title, so maybe that's not what you mean.

 

[ProtoClone]

I always liked, please forgive me, Palladium's magic system.

 

[Votan]

The force mechanics (is the Force magic or psionics or neither) in Star Wars Saga seemed to be a very mechanically elegant way to handle spell casting.

That being said, Ars Magica or Mage probably have the most evocative spell casting systems.

 

[MortonStromgal]

My favorite magic system of all time sits in the oWoD, Mage: the Ascension game.

I have not kept up with Shadowrun, but the older (2e) rules had a fine spellcasting system.

Many people find the rules baroque, but classic Deadlands has another interesting system, where a dice roll controls how many cards one draws to make a poker hand that my players like a great deal.

what he said, though I would have said Dark Ages: Mage but close enough.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Overall I like Deadlands. It is no the most balanced, sane or even predictable system, but it is a lot of fun, and with the potential downside that many casters have, it makes them think first before using magic.

Which to me, is a great feature in any magic system, the possibility it is actually better to just do things the mundane way.

 

[jedavis]

Having not played a whole lot of non-D&D systems, I'd say that my favorite spellcasting system so far has been True Sorcery. While it utterly fails as being easy to learn or use (my friends joke that TruSorc is only balanced because you have to be able to wrap your head around it), it blows Vancian out of the water for uniqueness and sensibility. Trailblazer's modified casting system was also quite good as far as d20 variants go.