[3.5] Changing Magic for my players

[Thunder Hammer]

Hey Guys,

I was leafing through my 3.5 Unearthed Arcana book, and read about caster recharge time (i.e. highest level spell has a 1d6+3 rounds recharge time, 2nd highest 1d6+2 or something like that and so on) and have decided that I really like it in principle, as I'm a former Ars Magica player and I like the idea of spellcasters being able to cast spells all day. However, I have vague ideas of how it works in play and am curious, has anyone actually tried it, and if so, what were your experiences?

To all other arm chair theoreticians who have not tried it, would having a fixed number of rounds between casting spells of a certain level work better in combat?

The other thing I like about it, is that higher level game breaking spells and buffs have huge recharge times (30 minutes to 6 hours), so yes, the Wizard can scry, buff and then teleport... But may not be able to use their 3rd, 4th and 7th (or whatever) level spells for the entire combat.

Why am I thinking about using it? I'm running a new 3.5 D&D game for my wife and her friend, neither of whom are familiar with all the book keeping of playing a wizard... And they came up with a neat concept for both of them to be wizards, which made me happy and cringe horribly at the same time. I'm basically looking at something for "ease of play" rather than balance, but am still naturally curious how this interacts with bigger parties of multiple different classes. (previous games have seen them play sorcerors, rogues, barbarians and fighters.)

Any other thoughts are welcome.

[Cyclocone]

*Beeep*... "you have reached the Recharge Wizard, I'm unable to come to the phone right now, as I'm busy beating up the Arcane Sword Sage. Please call back after I'm done... which is never."

Seriously though, recharge magic is veeery powerful, and i would definately recomend not using it if there are non-casters in the party.
But if you only have two players, who are both playing wizards, it's not that crazy, since all it really accomplishes is to get rid of the "15 minute adventuring day".
The advise the book gives (i'm asuming it's identical to this) is suprisingly spot on for a WotC product -although i'll add, that you can expect your players to prepare somthing like enervation, silent enervation, empowered enervation etc. to circumvent the recharge limits.

[Pharaoh's Fist]

Nothing good can come of this.

[Kylarra]

Eh, if they're both wizards it should be fine for them. I think you'd have fun.
I'd just be sure to tell them that you're using a [higher powered] variant of magic in order to expedite things, and thus caution them against getting completely used to that style of play.

[Thunder Hammer]

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I'll make a post eventually on how it turns out in play.