Prepared Spontaneous Casting (3.5e Variant Rule)

Prepared Spontaneous Casting
I don't know about you, but I've always hated prepared casting. The choosing, the inability to cast spells at one's whim, and so on. The downside, however, is that sometimes for whatever reason you want to play a spellcaster with the prepared chassis--just without the actual way they prepare spells. To fix that, the following variant was created.

How it Works
Prepared casters gain a "spells known" list equal to one less than the number of spells they can prepare per day from class levels (not including spells granted by high ability scores, with a minimum one first-level spell at first level), which can be changed per day when they would normally prepare spells (and follow the normal limits of spellcasting, such as wizards being only able to prepare spells listed in their spellbook). Casters then may freely cast spells that they have prepared, these prepared spells effectively becoming their "spells known" for the day. Their number of spells per day is the number they would normally be able to prepare for that level.

In order to cast a metamagic version of a spell, they must prepare (and thus add to their known list for the day) the metamagic version of the spell beforehand at its metamagic-affected level using metamagic feats rather than being able to apply it spontaneously.

Clerics and specialist wizards are a bit of an exception to the rule as they can prepare an additional spell from one of their domains or specialty school per day. They would get this normally but would only be able to cast it once per day (just like a normal cleric or specialist wizard), even if they were able to cast more spells for that day.

For example a level 5 specialist (Evocation) wizard with 20 Intelligence would be able to prepare and cast the following:
 * Level 0: Four spells known, four cast throughout the day.
 * Level 1: Three spells known, five cast throughout the day.
 * Level 2: Two spell known, three cast throughout the day.
 * Level 3: One spell known, two cast throughout the day.

This could be an example of their spell list:
 * Level 0: Detect Magic, Detect Poison, Read Magic, Light (Once per day)
 * Level 1: Disguise Self, Enlarge Person, Magic Missile (One per day)
 * Level 2: Extended Mage Armor, Scorching Ray (Once per day)
 * Level 3: Fireball (Once per day)

If the above character were not a specialist, they would have one less spell per level, and would be unable to cast any 3rd level spells.