I plan to run a campaign much later this year. I will be combining certain aspects of pathfinder and Iron Heroes. It will be very low magic. I have added the big six to players inherently in the forms of bonuses to attacks/strength, and so on. I will handle DR on a case by base basis. To make a long story short the lack of magic items won't be an issue. I figured I had to get that out of the way to stop any derails.
Problem: Iron Heroes has one casting class, and it does not guarantee that the spell will go off. Should I allow the bard in it's place, or create my own class? Has anyone else dealt with this and how. People in this(the campaign) world are very suspicious of magic users. They normally either want to run away or kill them on sight. The idea is to make being a magic user difficult enough so that they will really have to think about it, but not so troublesome that it seems I am being passive-aggressive about the situation.
I'd just increase casting time by one category, action spells into 1 minute spells etc. A bit like 1E Conan adventures.