Here is an idea I had to present an alternate spellcasting system with two considerations, one is balance against martial characters, and two is caster flexibility.
First thing to comment on is damage balance against martials. The idea here is that a mage will generally put out less damage per spell, but has the advantage of flexibility and reach, being able to do area attacks and to use differing damage types, while leaving martials with consistant high damage but generally limited to the weapon's damage type and reach. A caster can put out more damage but only at great risk, the mitigation of this risk at higher levels keeps them comparable to martials as the martial get iterative attacks.
The second thing to comment on is flexibility. The idea here is to give casters something similar to spellwords, where the specifucs of area and range are selectable at casting time and are seperate from a specific effect.
#As I'm on a phone, I'll be posting this in parts.
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First off, everytime a caster casts a spell, they make a Spellcraft roll. The spell will have two costs, complexity and drain. The single spellcraft roll gets compared to both costs.
Against complexity, determines the success or failure of getting the desired effect. Failing by 5 will add 5 drain. Failing by 10, or a crit failure, will cause a magical misfire dealing Complexity of the spell minus (10 plus the casting stat) d4s worth of damage. (I.E. Complexity of 14 with a casting stat of 16 for a +3, would deal 1d4 damage on a misfire. 14 -10 -3 = 1. Likewise, a cast stat of 8 for a -1 would deal 5d4. 14 -10 -(-1) = 14 -10 +1 = 5.)
Drain, subtract the spellcraft roll from the drain. If more than 5 drain remains, the caster is fatigued, more than 10 and the caster is exhausted, more than 15 and the caster falls unconcious. If less than 5 but more than 0 add 1 drain to further spells until the caster can rest (sleep, trance, spend an hour relaxing, etc. Five minute rest is not enough.). If there is no drain remaining, then the spell was free to cast.
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Each spell has multiple pieces, the base effect, cast time, range (distance from caster), reach (size of area from spell origin), area (shape or type of targets), duration.
Most spells can be used as is with excepton of modifying the above mentioned pieces. To determine the complexity of existing spells, find the complexity of the range, reach, duration, area/target, and cast time, and subtract from the complexity of the spell level. The complexity of a spell level is 13+double the spell level, or just 13 for cantrips/orisons. (example will be presented at end), the remaining value is the complexity of the base effect. For drain, the base drain of an effect is 15+double the spell level, or just 15 or zero level spells.
A caster can attempt to cast any spell level, however, if the spell level is higher than his casting stat bonus, the spellcraft check takes a penalty of -2 per level of bonus the caster is missing (so a wizard with a +2 from int, trying to cast a fourth level spell takes -4 penalty as fourth level spells are two higher then her int bonus.)
Energy spells are highly modified under this system. They deal 1d4 damage plus a second effect, except for fire spells which deal 1d6 but have no other effect.
The bonus effects of various damage types,
Cold, Fort save vs 1 point of dex damage.
Fire, extra damage uses d6 instead of d4.
Electricity, ignores nonmagical protection except rubber.
Acid, fort save or take 1 con damage.
Force, will save or take 1 damage to str.
Positive, heals the living, undead with a mind must fort save or be sickened till they make their save. Mindless undead are stunned instead.
Negative, just like positive except heals undead and harms living.
Spell resistance,
If a creature has spell resistance, subtract 6 from the value for the new SR. The SR of a creature raises the DC of the spellcraft check to affect that creature and that creature only. This adjustment is not considered for the threshold of spell misfire or drain, only for success or failure.
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A caster needs only learn base effects. All range, reach, area, cast time, and duration options are freely usable by any caster, unless stated otherwise.
#c is cost in complexity, #d is cost in drain.
So 3c adds 3 to the spell's complexity, and 2d adds 2 drain.
Range,
Touch/personal/melee, 0c 0d
Close, 1c per 50' and 1d per 25' stacking as far as desired
Medium, 2c 4d per 100'
Long, 8c 16d per 400'
Other, Some listed spells have a set range. use the closest.
Being accurate with a spell is not a sure thing. Beyond 100' roll to hit the apropriate location, DC 5 use the range penalties of perception. Tbis check is a d20 plus bab, dex, and any bonuses such as Weapon Focus (spell origin), or bonuses to attack rolls.
Area and Reach
Ray, thin line, roll to hit as per a ranged weapon against touch ac (though apply shield bonus or magic bonus as normal). Reach doesn't matter here, the range determines the reach of the spell.
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Area and reach cont'd
Spread, only spells that create or alter a substance can be a spread (such as fog cloud or stone to mud). 2c, 3d per 10' of reach.
Spheres, discs, and cones, 2c for sphere, 3c for a partial sphere +1c for each division of the sphere in half ( 2c 360 degree sphere, 3c 180 degree hemisphere, 4c 90 degree quartersphere, etc), each such division, aka split, adds 25% to the reach of the spell without increasing the drain (for the math inclined, multiply the radius by 1.26 at each split). A sphere can be split into a cone or a disc (an infinity symbol is a close idea of a crosssection of a disc, thin at point of origin spreading out and thickening towards the edge). Once a cone is split twice (90 degree cone), then the cone has a minimum reach of one space (five feet) plus one additional space for each additional split. Hitting targets within the minimum reach requires an attack roll. Once a cone is split six times or more (around 11 degrees or less) the caster needs to roll to hit. For every 5 points by which the caster misses, move the end of the cone 5' in a random direction, if aiming at a square. At this point, it isn't much different from a ray except that it doesn't stop at the first target it hits and it can still be fairly wide at the end. Once a cone has been split ten times (less than one degree wide), it can make precision attacks at less than 30' when aimed at an object, it still goes beyond the target (for ten times the distance at this point) so watch out. For discs, each split makes the disc thinner. A disc is easier to avoid, within the minimum reach, rather than making an attack roll, targets get a bonus to their reflex save equal to the number of times you split the sphere. Also, these targets take no damage if they pass their saves by more than 5. Prone targets within minimum reach, automatically succeed as appropriate (as in against a horizontal disc 5' above the ground, vertical discs obviously don't grant such a bonus to prone figures). These area shapes take 3d per 5' of reach.
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Area and reach cont'd
Cylinders and lines.
Cylinders are just spheres cast up high that produce an effect that rains down. Cast the spell as a sphere at the desired height, the effect rains down at 60' per round and continues until the duration ends.
A line is a pair of spheres of equal size that produce an effect between them. Usually only one sphere is distant, the other being at the caster. It is possible to create the two spheres away from the caster, however, doing so incurs the cost of casting each sphere at a distance, so the caster adds the complexity and drain cost for each sphere (so casting a line between a sphere at 50' away and a sphere 100' feet away would have the 1c 2d of the first sphere's range cost plus the 2c 4d range cost of the second sphere.). A line has 1d per 5' of radius of the spheres. The minimum distance for the spheres is twice their radius (basically when the spheres are touching each other without overlapping), the area between the spheres, and as wide as the spheres, is filled with the magical effect. Add 1d for every 10' between the spheres beyond the minimum.
A wall is just a number of lines put together. Each sphere of the wall adds the range cost of the sphere and the distance cost to whatever other spheres it connects to. Each sphere can connect to however many other spheres of the spell as desired.
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Creatures or objects,
basically cast the spell as a ray for each ranged touch or as a touch for each melee touch. Each additional target adds 50% to the base effect cost.
Shapable, see the Walls section above.
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Duration
Intstant, 1c 1d
Concentration, -2c (roll spellcraft against the full spell's drain cost each round the spell is maintained)
Delayed Discharge, 3c, 1d per 3 rounds of delay. Will trigger at end of delay. +5c if the effect waits to be triggered and if untriggered it doesn't discharge at the end of the spell, and +3c if the spell waits to be triggered but discharges at the end of the wait time regardless. For a delay in minutes, +3c and 3d per 10 minutes of wait.
Held, touch spells stay held until discharged or the caster loses concentration. This costs nothing. Further, a caster can cast any spell and hold it, waiting to release it till later. Doing this requires all choices of the spell to be made at casting not when discharged, this includes the shape, duration, what animal a polymorph will be, etc. While holding a spell, the caster must maintain concentration on it. If the caster loses concentration, the spell launches randomly in the general direction the caster was facing.
All spells can be prematurely ended by the caster with a mere thought, except permanent duration spells which require the same casting time as originally casting the spell (as the caster has to carefully unweave the spell to prevent the spell from exploding.)
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Duration cont'd
Rounds, minutes, hours,
The drain cost totaled from the this spell is the cost per period of time. When the spell is cast, the desired drain is pumped into it, and the spell will last until it no longer has drain left. Making a spell last longer can be either through pumping more drain or through complicated techniques that draw surrounding energy into the spell. The latter is difficult and unstable.
Take the current cost of drain from all other considerations of the spell, that is the cost per period,
Rounds, 3c
Minutes, 6c
Hours, 10c
Permanent,
There are three kinds of permanent, constant effect, triggered effect, and periodic effect. Making a spell permanent doesn't actually make it permanent, just practically so. The spell can wear down over time. The durability of the spell determines how long the spell will last, weak durability will last 3d6 days, medium is in months, strong is in years, and exceptional is in decades. A permanent spell requires an object as a focus and spell origin. If this object is well maintained with proper materials and magical tending each day/month/year/decade, the spell within will not decay.
Making a spell permanant is difficult rather than draining, pay the drain cost for the full spell for however long it takes to cast the spell, minimum one round. The complexity cost is based on the durability and whether the effect is constant, periodic, or triggered, and for the latter two, how long it takes to recharge.
Once you figure out how much the spell would cost with a duration of one round, that cost will be the full spell cost.
A constant spell needs to build enough energy to pay the drain cost every round. A periodic spell charges up and then activates once enough energy has been saved. A triggered spell charges up enough energy to cast the spell a number of times. As long as the spell has enough charge it will activate every time it triggers.
Constant and periodic spells,
Weak, 12c +1c pdcer (per drain charged each round)
Medium, 14c +2c pdcer
Strong, 17c +4c pdcer
Exceptional, 21c +7c pdcer
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Cast time,
Shorter cast times raise the complexity, and eventually the drain. Longer cast times are easier and the drain can be but up over time (except in making permanent spells) but requires concentration, and endurance and concentration checks need made every minute past the first, each minute accumulating a -1 penalty.
For casting times over 1 round, but less than 10 rounds, roll spellcraft against a portion of the drain each round. Once the full amount of drain has been collected, then the spellcraft check against the Complexity is rolled and the result of the spell (or it's collapse) is handled.
For cast times over a minute, called ritual casting, roll for drain and against [complexity, minus two for each minute of the planned casting time] (so a 30c spell could roll against complexity 10 ever minute for ten minutes, or complexity 20 every minute for five minutes, etc)
For a full round action, roll against complexity and drain as they are.
For a standard action, +2c
For a move action, +4c and +2d
For a swift action, +6c and +6d
For a free action, (can still only cast one free or swift action spell per round, not including down graded actions), +8c +10d
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Sample spell effect, Energy Burst, deals damage of a type of energy. Pick cold, fire, acid, electricity, or force. Deal 1d4 damage of that energy type, plus that energy type's special effect (as listed in first post. Lack of c&p sucks.) Costs 6c 6d. Can add an additional die of damage for each +2c +4d added to the spell cost.
Okay folks, this here is a really rough draft, and I'm not a very good writer so it probably sounds more complex than it is, but take a look and tell me what you think of the basic concepts.