Since I’ve opened a can of worms on the cleric thread, I’ll propose some changes to make mages a more playable and viable class:

Do away with trancing.  Mages are aware of, and suffused with the magical Winds of the Aethyr which pervade the realms.  As such, they are naturally rejuvenated by these flows over time, regardless what activities they are engaged in. 

Remove time limits on buffing spells and create a Channeling stat similar to Necromancer willpower.  While there is an initial mana and Channeling cost, reflecting mental fatigue, in channeling the energies for a specific spell effect, there is no sustainment cost in regards to mana.  Instead, this cost is subtracted from how much the Winds of the Aethyr rejuvenates a mage over time and detracts from a mages Channeling ability.  Channeling reflects, maximally, the amount of magic a mage may channel at a given time, similar to how many undead levels a necromancer can control at a given time.  However, the strain on a mage’s Channeling ability also dictates the chance of spell failure and whether or not a mage may cast additional spells while maintaining others:  An aristo mage maintaining no spells has 0% strain on his channeling ability.  With brains (a useless mana-sink spell, in my opinion) and a forceshield maintained, his strain raises to 35%.  This means he has 65% left of his Channeling ability left to sustain spells.  Also, he may only cast spells which require 65% of his channeling ability or less.  For instance, while he could conceivably cast 3 or 4 more buffing spells, taking his Channeling strain up to 80%.  This would, however limit the offensive spells he could cast.  A chain lightning may take 10% the first round of casting, 20% the second round, building each consecutive round until the lightning goes off, at a maximum strain of 50%.  This means with 80% strain on his channeling, he could only cast offensive spells which max out at 20% strain.

you could apply this for auras for paladins and call it concentration, only one aura running at a time and the paladin can dictate how much power to dedicate to it.  So a thorns aura at 50% would reduce their mana regen to half of normal.

Ok, in talking to a couple folks, it seems my mage ideas weren’t as clear as they seemed in my brain.  Let me elucidate:

Channeling is a mage-only statistic determined by intelligence, willpower, constitution, and strength.  This statistic represents the maximum amount of magical power that can safely flow through the mage’s body at one time.  All spells require a certain amount of a mage’s channeling bandwidth, whether they be blasting, buffing, or debuffing.  Spells requiring maintenance/upkeep (usually buffing spells such as shield and heroism, and extending to those such as web and slow) take up a certain amount of the channeling skill until dismissed by the mage.  Therefore, with a certain set of personal buffs, a mage may only have the bandwidth left for a fireball, vice the mage which uses less buffs and opts for chain lightning.

Additionally, spells continue to cost mana, both for the initial fee and also for maintenance.  However, mana is recovered naturally by a mage, through the magical winds which blow across the land. 

What I’d ultimately like to see is the removal of spells as they are now.  Instead, a mage would research a spell (reflected by a monetary cost) at one of the mage towers.  A mage could research a shield-type spell for low/med/high protection and name it whatever they want.  Or, perhaps, a rebound spell, which reflected fire damage, which would be flameshield.  Perhaps a high-level mage would like to do away with casting all these individual buffing spells and combine them.  Mages should be able to teach their spells to other mages.  Perhaps in doing research, you’ll find neat spell effects that you never knew existed, or NPC mages might have access to information a player typically doesn’t.  This sort of customization would ultimately lead to blasters/conjurer-enchanters/illusionists/invokers as we have now, but with greater variance and customization.  Allow the players to find their own ‘sweet-spots’

Reagents:  I am completely against anything in the game which requires a money sink or grinding.  I find druid forage to be silly and counter-productive.  Either you’re having fun or you’re not. Anything which takes away your ability to play and have fun, (such as forage and trance), or takes you out of the game is a big no-no.

Gogo, you seem to be leaning toward making MD a text based Blizzard game.  Seems like you want a MMO Diablo or another WoW.