Houserule Balance Question [3.5]

[Starscream]

It's generally established that you should not use the Spell Points and Recharge Magic variants, because you are taking the already most powerful classes in the game (spellcasters), and making them even more powerful.

But I was wondering, could you safely use them for the less powerful casting classes? Ranger and Paladin are far from overpowered classes (Tier 4 and 5 respectively), so what effect would these rules have on them? They only ever get spells up to 4th level, have half the caster level of other classes, and usually rely more on spells like combat buffs and utility spells.

I'm sure there are ways to break this, but as a general rule would one or the other variant provide an acceptable power boost to these classes, so the wizard doesn't simply laugh and give them a telekinetic wedgie when he's bored?

[dsmiles]

IMHO, what's good for one class is good for another.
Explanation: Don't change the magic system for some classes if you're not changing it for everybody. I used to use the magic system from BESM: The Slayers d20. I had to use the non-spellcasting variants on the ranger and paladin classes (from CW) in order to "fix" the campaign world, as rangers and paladins do more melee than a wizard, and all of that non-lethal damage would suck for them.

[UglyPanda]

It would probably bring those classes up a tier or two. It's not overpowering, but it's only because those classes aren't too strong to begin with.

Recharge-magic would probably encourage them to go nova on their Spell Compendium swift-action buffs, but other than that, I'm not too sure.

IMHO, what's good for one class is good for another.

Not necessarily true. Counter-example: If every class got a bonus feat every level, fighters would be worse. The reason would be that there would be much less reason to take them and it would exacerbate the problem of not having enough useful feats to actually take.