Simple House Rule for Ritual Casting - thoughts?

Dragonblade · Feb 6, 2010

Cool! If you do use it let me know if you run into any issues. So far I haven't seen any balance issues in my game, but my players tend not to use many rituals in combat so there could be some glaring balance flaw that I'm overlooking.

Also, I just glanced at some of my books and the most powerful rituals like Enchant Magic Item, or Raise Dead have a 1 hour casting time or more. Even with my rules those aren't likely to see much use in combat since it would still take way too long.

The types of rituals that I would expect to see getting used in combat would be stuff like Feat of Strength, Water Walking, Dark Light, Shadow Bridge and so on.

WotC has done such a good job of setting the time requirement of rituals relative to the power level of the ritual that I feel it dovetails nicely with my ritual casting rule.

Starfox · Feb 6, 2010

To be honest, i think a ritual performed out of combat is pretty trite. To be really interesting, a ritual should be part of an action scene. If this is an attempt to close the demon portal or to protect your friends doesn't really matter to me. The demon-portal is likely to be an adventure-specific skill challenge, the fire protection a player-initiated one, but both are much more interesting if done in combat.

The typical solution - to do the fire protection ahead of time or to kill everything then close the portal is safer but much less interesting and should be discouraged.

john112364 · Feb 6, 2010

Dragonblade said:
This is my house ruled Ritual Casting action:

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Ritual Casting: Standard action

Can only perform minor actions – While using the Ritual Casting action, the only other actions a character can perform are Minor actions.

Combat Advantage – Until the beginning of your next turn, you grant combat advantage.

Provoke Opportunity Attacks – Ritual casting provokes opportunity attacks from adjacent enemies.

Casting time – The default time required to perform a ritual is outlined in the description of the ritual. This time can be reduced by performing skill checks.

Skill check – Make a Moderate difficulty skill check using the key skill specified in the ritual description. If you succeed, the Standard action you spent casting the ritual counts toward the time required to perform the ritual as if you had spent 1 minute performing the ritual. Every 5 points by which you exceed the DC counts as another minute. Once you begin performing a ritual you must continue to use the Ritual Casting action every round until you fulfill the time requirement, at which time the ritual takes effect. Otherwise, the rules for interrupting a ritual apply normally.

Final effect – A completed ritual takes effect at the end of the turn you fulfilled all the time and other requirements. Follow the rules under the ritual description as normal. If a skill check is required to determine the effect, make that skill check separately from any skill checks made to reduce the time requirement.

Aid Another – Up to 4 others can assist you in performing the ritual per the Aid Another action. They do not need to know the ritual to assist you.

This is interesting. Consider this stolen dude! I'll run it by my players and see what they think. My players tend not to use rituals either, so any thing that encourages their use is good to me. I think rituals are one of the coolest, most underused aspects of 4e. If we use it, I'll post the results.

Stalker0 · Feb 7, 2010

Dragonblade said:
I

I'm really curious to hear any arguments about why or how a ritual could be broken by allowing its use in combat.

Magic Circle is the easiest example at low levels. Allowed during combat, you can easily imprison your foes.

LostSoul · Feb 7, 2010

Stalker0 said:
Magic Circle is the easiest example at low levels. Allowed during combat, you can easily imprison your foes.

Magic Circle (and Undead Ward) come with a built-in time limitation - 1 minute per warded square.

Nytmare · Feb 8, 2010

LostSoul said:
Magic Circle (and Undead Ward) come with a built-in time limitation - 1 minute per warded square.

Which, with the proposed houserule, could very easily be too powerful at low levels.

Dragonblade · Feb 8, 2010

Magic Circle has a one hour casting time. In my house rules, even if you managed to beat the DC by 10 on every roll it would still take you at least 20 rounds to pull it off. Long enough that its not really feasible in combat.

Undead Ward is 30 minutes to cast plus 1 minute per square enclosed by the circle or line you are drawing. Trying to draw the inscribed space in combat isn't likely to happen since the combatants would keep scuffing it up requiring the caster to start over.

Also, it would still take at least 10 rounds to pull off if even if you beat the DC by 10 every roll. Again not likely to see it happen in combat under my house rules. And besides any combat where the characters are desparate enough to pull off an undead ward and are willing to spend 10 plus rounds trying to pull it off is not something I have a problem with as a DM. I don't see it being an issue.

So far, the only possibly broken ritual I have seen by being able to perform it in combat is Solace Bole and possibly Rope Trick. Those two I might consider banning from being cast in combat.

Nytmare · Feb 8, 2010

LostSoul said:
Magic Circle (and Undead Ward) come with a built-in time limitation - 1 minute per warded square.

~~Which, with the proposed houserule, could very easily be too powerful at low levels.~~

Don't you mean a 1 hour limitation for Magic Circle?

eriktheguy · Feb 8, 2010

Memorizing rituals seems like a way to add fun to combat without upsetting balance. I would probably limit the players to a few of them per day (something like 2 at heroic, 3 paragon, 4 epic).
Certain rituals would be combat disallowed, or would take a long time to use in combat.
Although if my players wanted to do something like use a magic circle to imprison a villain during a fight (perhaps a couple of players draw the circle while the others distract the villain). I would allow them to build an encounter around it. Maybe they need to fetch some rare components and complete a skill challenge, but I would let it be done if it were interesting to the campaign.
Of course requiring players to cast a ritual for several turns is another way to make rituals that weren't meant for combat balanced. Even Magic Circle might be balanced it it took 10 actions to cast.
Things like this are a great way for a party to defeat powerful immortals and gods too.

LostSoul · Feb 8, 2010

Nytmare said:
Don't you mean a 1 hour limitation for Magic Circle?

I assumed that the house rule changes the casting time (the "Time" entry) but doesn't change the time it takes to draw the circle (or the undead ward). "The circle requires 1 minute to inscribe per square inside the circle (and it must be a circle)."

Simple House Rule for Ritual Casting - thoughts?

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