Yeesh, first you complain that Diablo 3 is a bad example and then you haven't even played it.
I wasn't saying that Diablo had a great amount of spells. I cited Diablo 3 because it had a magic system that allowed each person to personalize a spell compare to baldurs gate where every spells is fix.
For example: Magic Missile in Diablo 3
Normal version: Single missle with one target
Charged Version: Can charge and deal more damage
Frost version: Does frost damage
Split version: 3 missiles
Seeker version: homing missile
etc etc.
Magic missile in baldurs gate?
you can cast it faster/with longer range etc with meta magic feats
you can get one missile more if you have a specific item
That's it.
So my magic missile in Diablo 3 will likely look different than the one of other players, while in baldurs gate it will always look the same.
The spells in baldurs gate and dungeons and dragon are always the same unless you find a rare magic item or have a subclass abilty (or back in the day a prestige class with unique metamagic feats).
I know that dnd has a lot of spells but especially for damage spells a more flexible approach would make it more unique and personalized. This would probably be a pain in the ass for pen and paper games but for video games this shouldn't be too hard to implement.
