Minor update on "Vancian Style" Magic?

[Nelzie]

In looking to expand the appeal of my campaign world, yet remain more or less faithful to the C&C model, I have been considering a little bit of an "upgrade" to the magic system.

One thing that I have been doing lately is playing some Dungeons & Dragons Online and in that game there is an interesting spellcasting system in place. I want to sort of duplicate that in C&C, without suddenly turning Wizards, Illusionists and Clerics into the most popular (and powerful) of classes at the getgo.

What I was thinking of doing is this:

A 1st level Wizard has (from memory since I don't have the book in front of me right now) 3 - Zero Level Spells and 2 - First Level spells to cast per day.

What that currently means is that the caster has to ready exactly the spells he/she wants the character to be able to cast that day and if they chose wrong, oh well. To bad.

What I am thinking is keeping the same number of spells per day, but making them more fluid and allowing for more spells to be "prepared" and then the caster can choose which spell to cast from the prepared list, up to the maximum number of spells at a given level per day.

Thus, the 1st level Wizard from the above example would be able to do the following:

Prepare up to 4 Zero-Level Spells and cast any combination of those 4 spells, but only be able to cast a total of 3 Zero level spells in one day.

Prepare up to 3 First-Level Spells and cast any combination of those 3 spells, but only be able to cast a total of 2 First level spells in one day.

How does this sound? I think it will give a spell caster a little more freedom without going over the top. It would "emulate" a spell point system without really giving a higher level wizard the ability to just chuck higher level spells like nobody's business, by not casting any lower level spells in a given day.