Magic equipment now take up a spell slot/lower maximum mana while equipped...

It would require

A) enforcing spell component rules on casters, otherwise you run into the situation where you need to take off/leave behind some gear, and the imbalance comes right back, and

B) remove any spells that turn mundane objects into superpowered versions, as per

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So now martial classes have a limit on how many of their nearly mandatory magic items they can equip while spellcasters are relatively untouched.

I have a feeling you didn't think this out too well.

Not just that, but a caster making the choices they were going to make anyway actually breaks even if you leave other rules intact.

You are a wizard. You want to make your spells stronger so you put on a +4 Int headband. You have to use up lets say 2 spell slots to do this.

Putting on the headband increases your Intelligence, and thus gives you more spells slots.

So the item pays for itself spell slot wise, and makes all of your spells better.

Martials have no equivalent 'win more' powerup.

Assuming we're restricting ourselves to "DnD-like" systems, the only solution to the "caster supremacy" problem is

1. You do not attempt to model high-fantasy and low-fantasy in the same system.
2. In the heroic high-fantasy system, Martial character concepts are explicitly superhuman --or superelven, as the case may be-- with similar rule-ignoring It Just Works talents. Even with this change, Magical character concepts must still stick to a theme that specializes them much further than they are in DnD.
3. In the survivalist low-fantasy system, martial classes are realistic, and magic is almost completely beyond human grasp. Magic-user character concepts must not only specialize their type of magic, but huge percentages of the existing spell list are deleted entirely. To be a magic-user who can cast a fireball without fainting from exertion should be a shining accomplishment. Combat in this system is to be avoided whenever possible and being outnumbered in a fight leads to quick and brutal death.
4. The players of each of these systems are isolated into separate parallel universes so that they can refer to their chosen system as "DnD" without starting fights.
5. Caster players who fit into neither universe because they wanted to stay the main character forever are sent to a third universe, in which they keep all their character abilities but can only find gaming groups where the martial characters are played by the DM's girlfriend or 10-year-old child and treated with disgusting favoritism.

Paizo, go back to fucking up your game on your own. Don't try to pitch ideas and then blame us here

Unless martials are given an arbitrarily large amount of spell slots for no reason, things would mostly just stay the same, because wizards would have access to more magic items and still be able to cast spells, so whatever.
Besides that, it would probably cause horrible multiclass shenanigans, like a 19th level fighter dipping into wizard, and already having 9th level spell slots as a first level wizard.

How many spell slots would the martials actually get?

The third game is more like GURPS, especially since the DM determines what skills are relavent to the campaign and by extension spells since they're all skills in GURPS rather than abilities.

I actually don't play D&D myself very much so I don't know what makes mages more powerful other than the assumption that their variety makes them more easy to break. This was just a random concept I had, hence the question.

casters are mostly broken through spells and class features. Magic items are just gravy.
Martials on the other hand, basically need magic items to function at all.

How does taking away the limitless use of magical items help martial classes? They rely on these items a hell of a lot more than casters.

If anything, you could just make it so casters can't use magical items for some reason and that would do a better job of it, but as others have pointed out, the problem = the spell list.

Dumbasses assume that magic items = magic user has to create it. They are wrong. Everyone makes magic and supernatural items; Fighters forge magic weapons and armor out of special mateirals or have them imbued over long campaigns/when enough legends accumulate to give the item mythical status. Wizards can only create their own magical gear which isn't the same type. This is a method of conceptual balance, less then gameplay balance.

Make sure to include ego items in your game. Something similar to the Elder Wand in Harry Potter, but for weapons and armor instead. They don't serve people without a strong fighting spirit, instead twisting their mind or even failing to work. Fighters can dominate these weapons and use them, but casters cannot.

Additionally; as for OP's idea just reverse the formula. Make it so having magic slots/spells reduces the amount of magic items you can use. But people without magic slots/spells can use any number. It's the reason why Wizards wear regular robes instead of magical armor; the interference with their own magical energies would be too great.

Depends on the class. For the concept I had, things like monks would have more 'spell slots' than something like a fighter.

The core concept would be that now you can just flood your players with magic items but still have them need to make choices of what to equip based on what they feel would be best for them. I don't know much about D&D in particular, just in general the more parts of a system you have to tweak the more you can fine tune balance.

The concept I had was that the GM is now free to just dump magic items on the players. By adding a resource that martials didn't have while at the same time making the new resource eat into a what casters already have it would buff martials while debuff casters.

The reason for that is because in D&D, which is what everyone's talking about with martial/caster disparity, casters really are the only ones who can make magic items by the rules. Martials can maybe finagle a way to do it badly and at a huge personal cost, maybe, depending on version, but it's casters that are able to actually make everything.
This is, of course, fucktarded, but that's due to the creators rather than the players/GMs. Just like the disparity itself.

Only saving throws.

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