I don't know if this is what you are referring to, but here are my house rules on gold-less 4E. It includes rules for "free" rituals. I've refined them a bit from the original post.
Equipment and Magic Items
Tracking money and treasure is a bookkeeping pain and detracts from the heroic elements of D&D. These rules replace treasure with magic items "slots" that increase as characters gain levels.
- Level 2: Magic items level 3
- Level 3: Magic items level 3 and 4.
- Level 4: Magic items level 3, 4 and 5.
- Level 5: Magic items level 3, 4, 5 and 6.
- Level 6: Magic items level 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7.
- Level 7: Magic items level 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8.
- Level 8: Magic items level 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9.
- And so forth (+1 level to each slot as you advance).
As you adventure, the DM should award periodically reward you with a new magic item. In the simplest case, this can be when you advance to a new level. Alternately, the DM can give you the new item as a reward between levels, at some appropriate point in your adventures. Roughly midway through a level is a good place to award new magic items.
The new item's level should be up to 1 level better than the level you are going to gain. For example, sometime between levels 3 and 4, the DM should award a character with a new item of up to level 5. The DM should award items appropriate to the character, or simply let the player choose the new item. If there is no good item of that level for the character, it is OK to use items 1 or 2 levels lower.
Limits and upgrades: Above level 6, you are limited to 5 items slots. When you gain a new magic item, you must also give up one item, usually your weakest. The simplest way is to replace your weakest magic item with a similar item that has an extra +1 bonus, effectively upgrading it to the level of the new item slot. At level 7, you might upgrade your +1 Sylvan armor (level 3) to +2 Sylvan armor (level 8). Five levels later you might upgrade again to +3 Shadowflow armor (level 13).
Item swapping: When you gain a new item, you also can "retrain" a second item, swapping it for another item of equivalent level. For example, suppose you currently have +2 chain armor (level 6) and a +2 Frost sword (level 8). At 10th level you gain a new 11th level item, but decide you would rather upgrade your +2 chain armor to a +3 sword because you want to have a better attack bonus. You can then "retrain" your +2 Frost sword to become +2 Delver's chain armor (also level 8), so that you still have some magic armor.
In addition, you can use your Retraining option from PH 28 to "retrain" an extra magic item instead of retraining a skill, power or feat.
Consumables: A character can have a single consumable item (potion, ritual scroll etc.) up to his level + 3. Alternately, he can have two consumable items of level – 2, three consumable items of level – 7, four of level – 12 and so forth. These consumables can be replenished (and changed freely) between adventures.
Rationale
The goal of these rules is to eliminate the need to track treasure and to balance items between characters. These rules are roughly equivalent to the treasure parcels and the "Starting at a Higher Level" rules in the DMG. They assume that (a) treasure value is split evenly among the party, (b) is devoted mainly to magic items and (c) the character’s sell off older and weaker items to cover their expenses. Alternately, the characters are spending gold to upgrade their existing items’ magic.
An alternate rationale for these rules is that heroes naturally generate mystic energy that improves the items they possess. As they grow in power, they “unlock” new abilities in their items. These items are attuned to the hero and cannot be used by anyone else, because their source of power is the hero. This alternate rationale lets you have high-level, low-cash heroes that still have access to the magic items they need to be competitive.
Rituals
Other than magic items, the other major cost expenditure in the rules are for magic rituals. These rules make ritual acquisition feat based rather than money based.
The Ritual Caster feat includes knowledge of some rituals. The character knows two rituals at 1st level, plus an additional ritual per 5 levels: one extra at 5th, 10th, 15th, 20th, 25th and 30th. Wizards know 3 rituals at 1st and gain 2 extra every 5 levels. When you gain a new ritual, it must be your current level or lower. A character can also take an “Extra Rituals” feat to learn an additional 3 rituals. This feat can be taken any number of times.
When a character advances a level, he may retrain one ritual, replacing it with another ritual whose level does not exceed his new level. Wizards may retrain two rituals instead of one. Ritual retraining is in addition to the normal retraining for feats, skills and powers. New characters created at a higher level can be assume to have one ritual up to his current level, an second ritual up to his level – 1, a third up to his level – 2 and so forth, up to the total of rituals known by the character. Wizards instead know two rituals at their current level, 2 at level – 1 and so forth.
A ritual caster can perform one ritual per day at no cost. Additional ritual castings cost a healing surge. Rituals that already cost a healing surge do not cost an extra healing surge, however, even if they are not the first ritual of the day. They also do not use up the “free ritual” the caster can cast for that day. This “free ritual” is replenished with the caster takes an extended rest. At the paragon tier, the number of “free ritual” increases to 2, and at the epic tier, it increases to 3.
Raise Dead is a special case. A character raised from the dead must give up his weakest magic item. This is to either to pay the ritual cost (if your rationale for magic items is money-based) or temporarily losing the energy needed to power the item (if your rationale for magic is personal-energy-based). Since the character has fewer than 5 magic items, the next time the character gains a magic item, he does not need to lose a weaker item. This also effectively replenishes the lost item spent for being raised from the dead.
Mounts
For the purpose of these rules, mounts count as a “magic item”. At a level’s midpoint, the character can acquire a mount of an equal level instead of a magic item of the character’s level + 2. The cost of the mount is assumed to be the gold or energy devoted to acquire and bond with the mount. The character can “upgrade” mounts to more powerful creatures as they gain levels, or the DM can advance the mounts level along with the character.
You might do something similar for henchmen, but that is beyond what I am trying to do with these rules.
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