You are in the midst of playing you favorite RPG, but your wizard seems dreadfully underpowered, and you are at the mercy of a hoard of vicious orcs. You are getting ready to cast a spell to help save your party's collective neck when you realize that you spelled yourself dry against the dragon you fought an hour earlier. So what happens? Do you escape? Are you rescued? No, more than likely you become dinner for this pack of hairy beasts. You blame the games magic system, because if there were justice, you would have a spell at hand ready to help out when they outnumber you twenty to one. So what's left? Try your hand at a warrior? Prephaps a rogue will do nicely.
Instead, why not revamp your game's magic system? You can play your wizard the way you think a wizard ought to be played. "But I have a life!", you cry... Don't worry, I don't. And so I've come up with a little magic system that works well. As always, make sure your GM doesn't mind this change. Also, he will have to help a little, but I'll get to that in a little bit.
First off, what's wrong with several magic systems? That's right, your wizard casts a spell, and even if it fails, it's no longer there. This is bad enough, but in his first few levels he only has a few spells to go on. While this is supposed to balance out the game, because wizards are potentially the strongest class in most games, that doesn't ease the pain when a stong gust of wind can knock you down. So what happens is this, you don't have a set number of spells that you can cast in a day, week, month, year, etc., instead, it works on a series of magic points (henceforth referred to as MP). Some of you may have heard of MP before, but this works out well for the old dinosaurs of RPGs. For those of you who have never heard of the idea of MP, it works like this. Please bear in mind that the GM can change these statistics as he may see fit, if he believes that it will imbalance game play. I haven't had any trouble with it, but who knows?
Your wizard is a character who can normally learn spells and such, but they don't need spell books or any other things like eye of newt or something (unless the GM or PC's want it that way.. you are the ones playing the game!). When you memorize a spell, it's there in your brain for all eternity (unless the GM wishes to inflict you with Alzhiemer's!) and you can cast a spell as often as you would like, provided that you have the MP to cast it. When you cast a spell, the casting cost of MP is subtracted from your current MP total. Every spell has an MP cost, and this is where the GM comes in. If he agrees to use this system, he has to come up with an MP cost for each spell in the game. While this will be troublesome, it's only done once, unless the GM gets some new spells or you use this in several different games.
That's all well and good, but you can't cast spells without MP. The way you can boost your MP total is by gaining a level. Level 1 characters start out with 2d10 MP, and for each additional level you get, you gain 1d10+1 MP more. You'll see that while this does give a beginning wizard a break, it doesn't affect too much how many spells he can cast as he gains levels.
You've still got a problem, because what happens when you run out of MP? Then you're orc fodder? Not if you have a chance to rest first. Resting (sleeping, taking a break, resting between adventures) will provide you with 2 MP for every hour you remain at rest. As well, your GM may want to devise potions that can help you by restoring some of your MP without the need of rest.
So now, a couple days later you are playing again, and your party is surrounded by orcs again (maybe it's that cursed Glove of Orcankind) and you decide to toast them with a fireball. Drawing on your last few MP, you crisp those orcs like marshmallows, and make a clean getaway. And as you ride off into the sunset, clutching your newfound wealth to you, save me a share of the booty!)
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