At will rage would make barbarians even more diptastic.
I'm not sure. In PF (which I play) it has already more then enough of use time. :/
I didn't know we were talking about PF. In 3.5, if Rage were at will, the only downside to using it would be being fatigued at the end. With a Con of 14, your rage should still last something like 7 rounds, so the fight is likely over.
So, at the end of the day, one level of barbarian would give you Pounce and a +4 untyped bonus to Str and Con at the cost of -2 AC. People already dip barbarian for pounce a
lot. At will Rage gives little reason to take this class past level 2.
Almost any direct damage spell (pre metamagic) could be at will without hurting the game much (you use the slot, but you cast at will off of it).
And give spellcasters even more power? No thank you. Casters are good as they are. There's no need of improvement.
I don't know that it's really a power-up. You see, direct damage spells suck right now, so unless you're metamagicing the shit out of them, there's no reason to take them until you have
a lot of spell slots, and even then, you only take them with your low level spell slots. So, no one takes them, and they just take good spells instead, and that's our baseline comparison for power.
So now, you give them at will direct damage so long as there's no metamagic attached, and the end result is, you suck up a spell slot to prepare the direct damage spell, netting you one less actual
good spell for the day, and you get at will blasting in return. So, at 5th level, you don't get Stinking Cloud, and in return, you can Fireball all day long. At 1st level, you only get one Color Spray, and in return, you can Magic Missile all day long. I'm not seeing the problem here. Blasting still takes a standard action, and you're paying a noticeable opportunity cost in terms of spell slots.
At will healing means everyone is at full HP every fight. There are already lots of ways to do this, but people often avoid them or don't know about them and are deeply offended by them.
Hm. But are you talking about healing spells or some abilities? Because I'm seeing that free healing wouldn't be that game breaking (it would definitely help beatsticks), but OTOH it would mess with fluff (why are people even dying from wounds or diseases when the Clerics/ whatever can heal everyone in a matter of hours if not minutes?).
I didn't say it'd break the game. It's just that this type of thing offends a lot of people, and if they see at will healing on it, they might reject the concept out of hand. D&D has always been a game about managing your spell slots and HP. At will healing changes that.