Originally Posted by
Anthrowhale
No one enjoys having toys taken away, but nerfing a wizard to make fighter relevant can be effective. Consider this:
This would dramatically alter the game in favor of fighters because a high level fighter, with his magical equipment and feat repertoire, becomes a relatively good buffing platform. Spellcasters could no longer be effective as fighters, since self-buffing strategies waste most spells and have high uncertainty in effect. Furthermore, although spellcasters can be magically healed, it is a more difficult process. In partial compensation, spellcasters at least resist enemy spells well. A spellcaster summoning monsters remains a powerful strategy, but since only non-SLA monsters can be easily buffed, summoned monsters generally cannot fight better than an appropriately leveled and outfitted fighter. Spellcasters have less ability to affect monsters at higher levels, because all of the SLA using ones have a high spell resistance. Mailman-style strategies at least remain effective with SR:No spells.
The above pushes towards a much more cooperative form of play where every party needs both spell sources and spell sinks to be fully effective. Obviously, it makes challenges more difficult, but not so difficult that level appropriate parties cannot deal with it.