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I think APB and not enough encouragement for GMs to understand the roll of scrolls for casters can both play havoc on players who end up trying to save up all of their money to buy weapon and armor runes, especially low spell total casters like psychics, bards and druids. Bards end up doing so much with cantrips that casting a spell slot even once an encounter can be difficult to line up action economy-wise, and both the psychic and the druid are going to be focus spell casting early on, so you can definitely get away with not picking up the scrolls with those classes too, but definitely for wizards, scrolls are must buy items for levels 2 to 4. I also usually wait on looking for a staff until levels 9 or 10 usually, although that is also because it can be a struggle to find the right one.
Maybe not totally related, but one thing I’d fix is about spells non-cantrips upscales only based on spell slot level. That makes that at some point even the free cantrip is better than the spell, which should not be. Something free shouldn’t be better than anything using resources.
I.e. Chilling Darkness 5d6 single target, at level 9 Daze can be considered better, with 4d6 + stat. Then what is the meaning of using a 3rd level spell slot? At the end it happens like in D&D 5E, you have to change all your lower spells to utility ones, something easy for a Wizard, not for a Sorcerer (more if it is a Bloodline spell).
I miss in all these modern version the back of using the level for spell effects, even the typical +1 per level of the caster. So at the 9th level of the example, a +9 makes difference to want to use a 3rd level spell slot instead the cantrip.
Then adjust the damage die and fixed modifiers based on caster level so the spells to be worth always compared to cantrips.
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I find it funny that people would bring up "but what about all these high level spells" in a thread about low level casters. But then claim its moving the goal post when someone says "those are high level, they are uncommon or just flavor, and martials don't need them in the first place cause the GM will just given them a way anyways".
Specially when any martial can just grab a scroll or wand of glitterdust or see invisibility. That is if they didn't grab blind-fight and make the need for See Invisible obsolete for 80% of its uses. The last 20% is just speeding up search.
Because the game is meant to be played and balanced across all levels. "Casters never dominated the table in my games / what's the highest level you got to in your games? / Oh we got to level 10 once" is a frequent conversation around here.
About removing vancian casting, I'm open to it; but so far I have yet to see a replacement that achieves the same goals (a limited number of powerful abilities and a higher, but still limited, amount of utility) while also being more intuitive and/or narratively sound, and not being a bookkeeping nightmare.
If Prepared spellcasters are moved to Spontaneous, then current Spontaneous should be moved to a Power Points behavior?
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About removing vancian casting, I'm open to it; but so far I have yet to see a replacement that achieves the same goals (a limited number of powerful abilities and a higher, but still limited, amount of utility) while also being more intuitive and/or narratively sound, and not being a bookkeeping nightmare.
Yeah, I can be convinced to leave Vancian behind if I see a legitimately good alternative, but mostly what I see is variations on removing all ties to in-world pacing to serve a distorted game vision where all that matters is back to back combat ad nauseam.
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So, it's a "no, no, I'm going to...
Except that they moved nothing, they literally said, "Make the wizard interact more with the 3 action economy. Instead of 90% of spells taking two turns give me ones that are 1, 2 or 3 actions." Nothing you said refutes this as it was already acknowledged that there are a small number of variable action spells and it isn't moving the goalposts to point out that many of these spells are niche or may not be options at certain tables due to rarity.
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Vancian casting is pretty counterintuitive and moreover matches no fantasy series I've ever read other than Jack Vance's Dying Earth series.
Personally, I don't care one whit about whatever fantasy series Vancian does or does not cater to. All I care is that it facilitates continuing to experience the awesome Fantasy TTRPG stories I've been living through for the past several decades.
I am dubious about trying to replicate magic systems from other media without comprehending the differences in how those media are experienced. Frankly, I feel that demands to abandon Vancian spellcasting are usually naive calls to action without nearly enough forethought.
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True, but by that logic there's no need for a Pathfinder Remaster. Or Pathfinder at all, actually. Or 3.x. AD&D does a perfectly acceptable job facilitating fantasy TTRPG experiences.
Obviously, "replicating stuff from other fantasy series" is pointless if done for its own sake. But if you want to bring in new players and not have their heads spin, spell points are more streamlined as an approach and more intuitive for people used to the EXTREMELY commonplace "mana" or "magic strength" approach used in everything from MTG to modern fantasy novels (here's to you, Mistborn!) to random video games. Moreover, they require about ten times less bookkeeping than spell slots. These are all highly tangible advantages that improve play.
As I said, I am willing to upgrade to a better system, but you've perfectly demonstrated my point with your examples.
Fantasy Novels, Card Games, and Video Games are interacted with in a vastly different way than TTRPGs and it is naive in the extreme to point at their "systems" as obvious improvements for TTRPGs.
Written works can have an arbitrary rules for magic, because things that aren't narratively satisfying don't happen because the author decides they don't. Unlimited magic in these works is common, because no one would read six chapters of the Wizard teleporting back and forth across the continent all day every day to undercut the spice trade, but if casters had unlimited magic in PF2 they would have a huge incentive to accumulate wealth that way at zero risk.
Video Games throw up guard rails at every opportunity to apply a creative solution, so spells are given out like candy. Spells are usually limited and boring to the extreme compared to what you can do in TTRPGs as a result.
As for mana, do you think the idea of mana and point pools hasn't been explored extensively before? With mana, you are extremely encouraged to only throw out your most powerful spells, and run out of gas for you lower tier ones, so you end up losing tons of flavor in being able to perform useful magical effects that are narratively satisfying for a Wizard to be able to do.
Again, I'm not saying there isn't a better solution than Vancian, but I have yet to see it.
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EVERY Power Points and Mana systems that I've ever seen are janky, exploitable, half-broken right from the start and also just as much of a headache (if not moreso) than Spell Slots so, while I'm not a diehard of the kind of thing that is going on now with Spell Slots, when it comes to PP/Mana you can call me a hater.
I will always die on the hill the spellcasting should be a skill-based system where effects are made with combinations of base spell components like Fire, Earth, Life, etc. Making a spell do more takes a higher DC and increases the chances that the caster suffers some downside either immediately - becoming stupified - or long term - taking a penalty to all casting checks until the next rest of sufficient length. To combat the complexity there would be iconic spells printed with their base level DCs and what happens when you modify them as well as examples of what a GM can do to adjust for unexpectedly powerful combinations that may result from such a free-form system.
As for mana, do you think the idea of mana and point pools hasn't been explored extensively before? With mana, you are extremely encouraged to only throw out your most powerful spells, and run out of gas for you lower tier ones, so you end up losing tons of flavor in being able to perform useful magical effects that are narratively satisfying for a Wizard to be able to do.Again, I'm not saying there isn't a better solution than Vancian, but I have yet to see it.
laughter Better than that, actually - I KNOW that mana and point pools have been explored extensively before. I've played them - several times - as a 3.x psionic character (mostly psions) and as a PF 1e kineticist with burn. I've GM'd people playing them as well (in addition to GMing a 5e mystic, which was problematic for entirely unrelated reasons). It was all quite fun. So is using focus spells in PF 2e, and if that's not a pool I don't know what is.
The heightening mechanic (also a thing in 3.x psionics, by the by) means that you're entirely able to use lower-level abilities in a more effective way.
And finally, as to the "only throw out your most powerful spells" thing...I actually have never seen that happen. Or at least, no more so than I've seen it happen with Vancian casting. Players are absolute misers when it comes to resource expenditure. I've seen countless encounters that could have been resolved with a single high level spell that players instead tried to deal with by using a bunch of low level ones...only for things to go thoroughly south and for them to have to use that high level slot anyway. Or players hanging on to consumables because "one day" it'll be useful...and then ending the campaign with a huge pile of them unused.
Tl;dr players hoard resources worse than dragons do.
So yeah, I acknowledge your concerns, but I do think think they're a bit overblown.
I'll second this while adding in that the counter to spellcasters who always nova is to put them on a time crunch with multiple encounters that will leave them strained for resources if they are reckless with their mana reserves. A couple of dungeons where they're down to cantrips with two fights left and a big cost for leaving and coming back later should fix the idea that they can go all out without consequences.
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I'll second this while adding in that the counter to spellcasters who always nova is to put them on a time crunch with multiple encounters that will leave them strained for resources if they are reckless with their mana reserves. A couple of dungeons where they're down to cantrips with two fights left and a big cost for leaving and coming back later should fix the idea that they can go all out without consequences.
That doesn't solve the problem at all though. It just means they'll spend all their mana on combat (still) and outside of combat find they don't have room for Comprehend Languages or Cozy Cabin.
It's also emblematic of the misconception that *combat* is the be-all, end-all of magic systems and that everything must be sacrificed to facilitate magic working for those scenarios.
EVERY Power Points and Mana systems that I've ever seen are janky, exploitable, half-broken right from the start and also just as much of a headache (if not moreso) than Spell Slots so, while I'm not a diehard of the kind of thing that is going on now with Spell Slots, when it comes to PP/Mana you can call me a hater.
Not in my case. Experienced in Rolemaster, for me the best RPG game system, and used power points and spell lists. If the cloud fog was level 2 and it was useful in the situation, then just used 2 PP for it, so using only higher level is not true. Seems more about having the correct list of spells to make each one worth.
The only exploit was the PP multipliers, which were banned from the game, converting all them to spell adders in loot.
I'll second this while adding in that the counter to spellcasters who always nova is to put them on a time crunch with multiple encounters that will leave them strained for resources if they are reckless with their mana reserves. A couple of dungeons where they're down to cantrips with two fights left and a big cost for leaving and coming back later should fix the idea that they can go all out without consequences.That doesn't solve the problem at all though. It just means they'll spend all their mana on combat (still) and outside of combat find they don't have room for Comprehend Languages or Cozy Cabin.
It's also emblematic of the misconception that *combat* is the be-all, end-all of magic systems and that everything must be sacrificed to facilitate magic working for those scenarios.
In that case, the player has nobody to blame but themselves for removing all out-of-combat utility from their character via their own poor resource allocation. The GM, seeing such trends in resource management, should endeavor to throw in situations where that player will kick themselves for not leaving enough resources to use their utility spells.
So far your complaints seem to basically boil down to mana systems being more complex and not handholding players and GMs through resource management by forcing them to take discrete spells and making lower-rank slots generally more useful for utility than combat. This is a feature of mana-style systems, not a bug.
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Its a bug when the reason to implement mana system is how "spell slots are too complicated and unintuitive".
Its like saying "plastics straws are toxic lets use paper" and then ignore the data saying "paper straws are more toxic than plastic".
For me the flaw isn't that Vancian is too complicated it's that it's inflexible and doesn't capture the feeling of your character being a master of mystical energies able to bend reality to their will. Ars Magica but with Pathfinder's eye for balance and Golarion as a setting would be ideal for me.
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I am a Magic user in basicly every system and game and usualy i dont even go for damage because that is something that others can do aswell but from what i read on a lot of conversation is that Spellcasters are heavily shackled and restrained in all aspects but all of there weaknesses remain. It really scared me away from them to be honest. @-@
I dont need damage power but when most spell options run into nothing its depressing. If Spellcasters are ment to be designated support then there Controll and Debuffs should have a effect most of the time and not occasionaly.
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About PF1
I was a mythic caster in PF1 for a long multiple years ongoing mythic homebrew campaign and i did had a lot of narrative power and traveled around a lot and helped with logistic, crafting and summoning but in battle i got outshined by our martials everytime by far which i didnt mind. My DM didnt dreadet me, he dreadet our two martials who nuked the enemies into oblivion and balanced encounters around them...which left everyone else in the dust. I cant remember when my spells actualy had there full effect because even with meta magic they just succedet all there saves. So i have my with attemps of debuffing failing.
But i also took more flavorful and character fitting options with some rxceptions to penetrate spell resistence.
For me the flaw isn't that Vancian is too complicated it's that it's inflexible and doesn't capture the feeling of your character being a master of mystical energies able to bend reality to their will. Ars Magica but with Pathfinder's eye for balance and Golarion as a setting would be ideal for me.Its a bug when the reason to implement mana system is how "spell slots are too complicated and unintuitive".
Its like saying "plastics straws are toxic lets use paper" and then ignore the data saying "paper straws are more toxic than plastic".
Its not that because paizo nerfed all the good parts of magic and then gave nothing in return for it.
Its easy to say you don't feel magical when we have spent 4 years complaining about how casters need help and nothing gets done about it.
Emphasis mine.
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Personally, I think it would be interesting to explore a stamina pool or focus point system (which I think GURPS uses) that both martials and casters use. Martials being able to go "all day" irritates me. Fighting a life or death battle every 10 minutes shouldn't be something they can do indefinitely either.
I also think the concept of hit points could use another look, as I find their narrative implementation inconsistent unless you treat every mid level character like Dante from Devil May Cry, able to take being run through with swords multiple times to zero impairment.
But... These changes aren't something I can expect from PF2. They are probably too far removed for PF3, considering Starfinder is becoming PF2 compatible.
Stamina in the GMG by itself solves some of my problems, but not all of them. It doesn't impact casting in PF2. It also doubles down on the idea that you aren't actually taking major wounds until the final hits before you are knocked out, and are instead getting tired of taking glancing blows. But this idea falls apart when you consider things like falling damage or being submerged in lava. Which is why I generally prefer the meat points paradigm as the game currently operates.
Personally, I think it would be interesting to explore a stamina pool or focus point system (which I think GURPS uses) that both martials and casters use. Martials being able to go "all day" irritates me. Fighting a life or death battle every 10 minutes shouldn't be something they can do indefinitely either.
I also think the concept of hit points could use another look, as I find their narrative implementation inconsistent unless you treat every mid level character like Dante from Devil May Cry, able to take being run through with swords multiple times to zero impairment.
But... These changes aren't something I can expect from PF2. They are probably too far removed for PF3, considering Starfinder is becoming PF2 compatible.
Hm, that's an interesting point.
Myself, and this is purely from a game balance perspective, I'd trend towards the opposite - more stuff like kineticist and focus points - per encounter or nonexistent resource expenditures for casters. It would need careful consideration, but focus spells show it's an option.
Workday length being a balance point leads to a lot of unfortunate interactions. Like the casters running out of spells and being afraid to speak up because the martials can keep going. Or the casters BEING in a 15-minute workday and not realizing it, and thus not getting to capitalize on what should be their strength. Or GMs deciding to "punish" parties for taking too many rests. It's a big headache to balance when everyone isn't on the same page.
I agree with you on the problem, and would be fine going either direction to solve it and create more parity between casters and martials. But I also think the game and many players do a bad job of getting you into the PC's head and think about what they are experiencing. The constant trauma of life or death battles. The difficulty of sleeping in a hostile environment. How sick you'd get of eating field rations for two weeks straight. Having a more unified system for "dang guys I'm getting tired here" would help immersion if you can avoid it getting tedious, and would make intuitive sense than Vancian casting does.
PS go check out the rules forum for a Recall Knowledge update you'll be interested in.
I am a Magic user in basicly every system and game and usualy i dont even go for damage because that is something that others can do aswell but from what i read on a lot of conversation is that Spellcasters are heavily shackled and restrained in all aspects but all of there weaknesses remain. It really scared me away from them to be honest. @-@
I dont need damage power but when most spell options run into nothing its depressing. If Spellcasters are ment to be designated support then there Controll and Debuffs should have a effect most of the time and not occasionaly.
Well don't be. The PF2 system works fairly well for all types of casters. Even blasters eg Storm Druid, Elemental Sorcerer. There is always going to be a constant stream of people on these forums who want something different. Most of their requests are just incompatible with each other.
Their eye for balance is what makes magic not feel magical.
I disagree, though I do think there are issues with magic.
What my system would do is allow for a 6d6 damage AoE spell that uses any element at the same degree of difficulty as the signature spell fireball. It would let your caster make tradeoffs to make it do what they need in the moment - like instead of 500ft. range it could be easier to cast or do 8d6 damage in an emanation instead of just being a fireball.
It would make all those little things that just make magic in PF2 feel gamey feel a little bit more natural.
I will always die on the hill the spellcasting should be a skill-based system where effects are made with combinations of base spell components like Fire, Earth, Life, etc. Making a spell do more takes a higher DC and increases the chances that the caster suffers some downside either immediately - becoming stupified - or long term - taking a penalty to all casting checks until the next rest of sufficient length. To combat the complexity there would be iconic spells printed with their base level DCs and what happens when you modify them as well as examples of what a GM can do to adjust for unexpectedly powerful combinations that may result from such a free-form system.
You're going to die of social neglect or old age on that particular hill. Perhaps the clouds will offer their feedback; surely no one else will.
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1) Kill the vancian system its a relic that belonged in an era when my spells could turn the tide of battles and achieve amazing effects. Like it or hate it the spellcasters have been nerfed down to parity with martials but they are still limited by vancian spells. .Acutally I and happy for it to go just on complexity grounds. There are still some spells that can turn the tide of battle.
But Vancian magic was one of the many features that got PF1 started and many of the originals into the game. They still play and subscribe. It was a bit much to get that change in PF2. Maybe PF3.
Not true.
Vancian magic was an arbitrary choice by Gary Gygax a long time ago and it's stayed with the game with various modifications over the years. It's one of the worst storytelling forms of magic I've seen. And isn't even used in the books and stories I've seen told by WotC because of how terrible it is for storytelling.
I know of almost no one who cares whether the magic is Vancian or something else or some blend of something else as the primary driver of why they played or continue to play D&D. It certainly wasn't for me way back when I first picked up the red boxed set to now.
When I speak of Vancian magic, it is specifically prepared casting, not spontaneous which is not Vancian. The spell levels are considered Vancian by some, but not by me. When I think of Vancian, it's the set in stone magic once you prepare it. That's it.
Levels, ranks, lesser-moderate-greater, that is all expected for defining different magic levels.
But only Vancian has the locked in memorization of prepared casting that has been part of every edition prior to 3E introducing spontaneous casting as more common.
After decades of locked in Vancian prepared casting, I found I much preferred spontaneous casting. I never much looked back at Vancian prepared casting which feels archaic and behind the times, like I'm using a rotary phone.
You're going to die of social neglect or old age on that particular hill. Perhaps the clouds will offer their feedback; surely no one else will.I will always die on the hill the spellcasting should be a skill-based system where effects are made with combinations of base spell components like Fire, Earth, Life, etc. Making a spell do more takes a higher DC and increases the chances that the caster suffers some downside either immediately - becoming stupified - or long term - taking a penalty to all casting checks until the next rest of sufficient length. To combat the complexity there would be iconic spells printed with their base level DCs and what happens when you modify them as well as examples of what a GM can do to adjust for unexpectedly powerful combinations that may result from such a free-form system.
Good for me that games already use that system. I'd just like to see a mainstream game do it.
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I think the rank/level system of Vancian magic is fine.
You move to spontaneous with unlimited heightening and your fine.
I've done this in my games as some I've debated know. Works just fine. Makes wizards far more versatile for those that enjoy it. Doesn't break the game since PF2 is extremely well balanced. Makes incap spells more fun to use so you can use them when they are most effective. And makes the entire experience of being a spellcaster more enjoyable in PF2 without overshadowing martials.
I made two easy rule changes.
1. Everyone can spontaneous cast including prepared casters.
2. Every spell is a signature spell.
Applied it to call casters.
Tested it for months, if not over a year now. Zero problems with PF2 balance or making one class better than another. So far it has made the entire game system more fun for all my players. They loved the change.
It was a win-win-win change.
I applied it across the board to the enemies as well. Super easy to apply with the modular rules of PF2.
Easier for me as a DM to make enemies more dangerous because they use the spell that works to challenge the party and are not stuck with useless spells doing nothing in slots on their stat line.
It worked well for our group and we're old grognards that have been playing for four decades.
About removing vancian casting, I'm open to it; but so far I have yet to see a replacement that achieves the same goals (a limited number of powerful abilities and a higher, but still limited, amount of utility) while also being more intuitive and/or narratively sound, and not being a bookkeeping nightmare.
Well, I know of two systems that meet your criteria, with the probable exception of "not being a bookkeeping nightmare", which is rather subjective. I suspect for most it goes something like this: "Martials can swing their damn swords or fire off their arrows all day long, casters should be able to do the same thing with their spells." Not sure I agree with that, but also not sure I can provide a competent argument against it.
EVERY Power Points and Mana systems that I've ever seen are janky, exploitable, half-broken right from the start and also just as much of a headache (if not moreso) than Spell Slots so, while I'm not a diehard of the kind of thing that is going on now with Spell Slots, when it comes to PP/Mana you can call me a hater.
Hm. What's in a name? I mentioned two systems (without naming them) upthread. One uses "fatigue points" (casting a spell makes the caster a little bit more tired, how much depending on the strength ("level") of the spell. The other uses mana points (sorry). A common feature of both systems is this: you want a spell that does X? Invent one (using rules provided by the system) essentially during downtime. I like this, but I doubt it's of much interest to most players of D&D or Pathfinder, where downtime is the least important/interesting part of the system.
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I'm going to try and make my case for vancian magic but with the caveat that I really only care that wizards keep the system and I don't care if a class like sorcerer uses something else. Part of why I have this dichotomy has to do with one aspect of why I like the system. Wizards are an intelligence class that should be rewarded for playing it like one. Using foresight, experience and planning to be effective. The vancian system feels designed for the fantasy of being a wizard, but not much else I'll concede it doesn't fit a sorcerer very well. I see vancian casting like I'm some kind of gadget based super hero. A batman, blue beetle, iron man, whoever. I prepare my devices ahead of time for the challenge before me. I stead of grappling hooks, ice grenades and a gas mask, I'm preparing spells like fly, maze, and stone shape. My spell slots are my utility belt. I also like that this is a system not in other fantasy media. It's different, it's weird, and it doesn't make total sense that casting a spell makes you quite literally forget the spell, but that is precisely what magic is. Strange, not completely know able and not operating off conventional logic. I also like the limitations it brings and coming up with ways to overcome those limitations or overcome challenges from within those limitations
All that said I can also identify a few problems that are not easily solved. The "what to do with low level slots" question is less of a thing in this edition due to universal DCs, but it still comes up a little bit. When and how to use these weaker spells when you're higher level becomes a challenge on it's own and I don't know what the solution is. Shifting all slots upward to high level slots just brings us the problems of mana based systems
I personally very much dislike mana systems for spells for a few reasons, but the biggest one for me is they're everywhere and not even a little unique
One system I read a while ago I sort of liked was this which is an inverted mana system where instead of draining spell points you build up strain. I have my own pet rpg where I differentiate between innate spellcasting and wizardly spellcasting using something like this. My system is classless, so you would have a skill related to channeling magic through you that creates simple effects, albeit potent ones, and one dedicated to prepared casting. Channeling magic is sorcerer type casting but to double down on it the spell effects are often "blunt" they don't have intricacies but as a consequence are good for blasting. Prepared casting uses a skill called spellcraft which creates complex magical effects, but you have to prepare them. In my system you can kind of construct a class by combining different skills and selecting feats that enable this, and so something like an arcanist, or in my game just a very pure spellcaster, would be through getting both these abilities and being able to channel magic into your prepared spells. The preparation reduces strain and the channeling lets you reuse spells before forgetting them
The thing is I don't think this works in a class based system, and my own game is barely a game at all, mostly random ideas in a notebook. So it might not even work in mine!
However I lastly want to say I really really do not want actual casters to be like the kineticist. The kineticist is neat, but blurring the lines between martials and casters too much brings us to 4e territory where we end up with everything feeling the same. Everything either feels like martial abilities or everything feels like spells. I don't want that. Spellcasting should remain it's own thing that feels unique. What the kineticist does works for the kineticist, I don't think it works for a wizard
I don't want power points or fatigue or anything that complicates the system myself. That I would not love.
They already have the framework in place for easily shifting to all spontaneous casting using the Vancian level system. That is the simplest way to do it.
Coming up with some new power point or fatigue or other type of system would require too much reworking of all the subsystems built off rank or level.
Whereas moving to spontaneous requires pulling a couple of levers. All 5E casting is is spontaneous casting with heightening. That's the only major change.
Easy to understand for old and new players. Easy to implement in any game that used Vancian magic. Already works within the game parameters and balance. Anything else would require an immense amount of reworking.
I don't want power points or fatigue or anything that complicates the system myself. That I would not love.
They already have the framework in place for easily shifting to all spontaneous casting using the Vancian level system. That is the simplest way to do it.
Coming up with some new power point or fatigue or other type of system would require too much reworking of all the subsystems built off rank or level.
Whereas moving to spontaneous requires pulling a couple of levers. All 5E casting is is spontaneous casting with heightening. That's the only major change.
Easy to understand for old and new players. Easy to implement in any game that used Vancian magic. Already works within the game parameters and balance. Anything else would require an immense amount of reworking.
Assumably people want this in a 3rd edition which probably won't exist for many years to come. I hate magic point systems, the strain system I linked is better thematically, but still can have a fair number of issues. The biggest problem with magic point based systems, or something like the kineticist, it can lead to mmo-style rotations. Something to be avoided at all costs. I will say I might be in the minority who likes vancian magic as I've heard complaints about it for over a decade now myself! I will never understand this personally, I think it's cool
I don't want power points or fatigue or anything that complicates the system myself. That I would not love.
Fatigue doesn't complicate it (my opinion, of course). What happens when you cast a spell in that system is you roll a d100, and if the roll minus any accumulated fatigue is higher than your Mastery Level (ML) for that spell, it fails. ML ranges from about 30 to about 115, depending on your experience with the spell.
I will admit that for those for whom numbers are anathema, this system is probably not for them.
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I believe the black company RPG used a skill based system. So you would take the "fire" lore and then you could do any fire based spells you liked e.g. firebolt, flamethrower, fireball, flame wall with the modifiers you choose adding to the spell craft DC you rolled. There was also something about I think level where if you failed the roll bad things happened and if you succeeded you took some damage. So your spells were directly tied to your knowledge of arcane lore and limited by how much you could hurt yourself casting. I liked it but even go by memories 2 decades old of a system I read but never played I feel it would be too complicated.
One problem with vancian magic in 2nd ed is only casters have a per day limit on what they can do but the spells are now balanced around what the martials can do not the usage of a finite resource. On top of which the enemy defences are also balanced on the much easier to raise martial attack and martial skill attack making spells even more likely to fail to have an appreciable effect which when success of failure means you can do that ability less for an entire day will result in either casters not using their spells because they expected more encounters that didn't happen or burning everything on the first encounter then wanting to rest or checking out if they don't get to do so.