Ritual houserules

Hi,

I'm returning to DMing after a long hiatus, intending to play 4E. I've spent the last week or so going through house rules and tweaks to get a feel for what works and what doesn't in 4E, and have a quick couple questions for the board.

One of the things I like about 4E is class-balance. Conversely, one of the things I disliked about it was how class spell content was largely in-combat based. 4E gets around this with rituals, which as written (pre-essentials - I own no essentials content, so not sure if this changes) have a few issues which have been discussed extensively. When I was thinking about these, and upon reviewing Martial Power 2, I figured: given class balance - why doesn't everyone have access to rituals? They add some additional flavour other than maximising dps - but why limit them to just casters, especially if you're aiming for class balance?

So in addition to often touted options - rituals being much quicker to cast (10 minute casts being reduced to standard actions); no or minimal costs being associated with them - I'm thinking of using the following options. I'd love to hear opinions of the more experienced 4E players, to let me know if I'm likely to run into anything that's going to break.

Firstly, I won't be using psionic classes. I just plain don't like psionics in my fantasy, never have done even from the AD&D days - that's just a personal thing. That leaves 4 power sources - each of those will be linked to a single skill and it's associated rituals:

Arcane: Arcana based rituals
Divine: Religion based rituals
Martial: Martial practices
Primal: Nature based rituals

This leaves out healing based rituals, which I'm leaving purely to NPCs. There may be some tweaking in here (for example, rangers taking nature instead of martial), but that's case by case.

Each class is then limited to the rituals associated with it's skill, as listed above. Casting takes a fairly obvious number based point system - each player has a number of ritual points equal to their level, with rituals costing a number of points equal to their level, with point recharge based on extended rest. Each player starts with two first level rituals; all others have to be learned.

How does this sound? Anything obviously going to break or be imbalanced?

Apologies in advance if I just sound like I'm raining on your parade, but I really wouldn't do what you're proposing.

First of all, rituals are NOT limited to just casters. Anyone can take Ritual Caster as a feat as long as they are trained in, I believe, Arcana. In fact, a rogue pc in my campaign has had Ritual Casting since about 5th level (he is now 24th).

I think your idea of limiting each power source to a specific type of ritual is, frankly, a real bummer. Part of the beauty of rituals is that anyone can do it. It helps alleviate the "need" for certain classes (e.g. cleric vis-a-vis raise dead). If I could only use certain types of rituals, I would be far less inclined to invest in ritual use.0

I also think it's a mistake to decrease the casting time of a ritual. First off, a six-second "ritual" isn't very ritualistic, at least to me; and second, rituals should (generally) not be in-combat types of things anyway, those are class attack and utility powers. I really think the distinction is both important and useful in the game: important for a basic test on what should be a ritual and what shouldn't when doing design work (barkskin? no; secret chest? yes), and useful for flavor and worldbuilding purposes, as well as for high-level treasure distribution. What I mean by this is that the game assumes that a high-paragon or epic level party is receiving a tremendous amount of liquid wealth in treasure; to me, that much gold is hard to justify in most cases, while it's pretty easy to imagine a big temple having hundreds of thousands of gp worth of ritual components and residuum.

I also like having the costs associated with rituals, but I also like to have a variety of special components out there that can mitigate the cost (e.g. maybe the blood of an angel, freely given, can reduce the cost of a healing ritual by 50%).

I say this, by the way, from the perspective of an enthusiastic 4e dm who recognizes the edition has its warts. I'm not mindlessly promoting the by the book system because it's the one in the book; I'm promoting it because I have found that, given access to rituals at about the pace I'd given access to spell scrolls in earlier editions, a creative party will end up employing them a fair amount and getting a great deal of use out of them. I've also homebrewed a list of somewhere around 30 rituals, and custom made new ones in several instances for specific adventures' plots. I've got some that can only be cast on certain days or every 250 years "when the stars are right". I've got quite a few rituals that are far more about world building than about being, strictly speaking, useful. I love the ritual system and think that it stands pretty darn well without modification- albeit with expansion.

Whether you take my advice or not, however you end up using rituals, I've attached a pdf of my custom rituals (some of which are conversions from earlier edition spells or custom material). I hope you find it useful and enjoyable!

Hah, I really don't think you're raining on my parade - exactly the opposite - as a novice 4E DM the (extensive!) information you've given from your experience is really useful. If I may address a couple of comments (not being antagonistic, just interested in your viewpoint):

First of all, rituals are NOT limited to just casters. Anyone can take Ritual Caster as a feat as long as they are trained in, I believe, Arcana.

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True. My thinking around this was based on the following:

For some classes, Ritual Casting comes free. Now I have no great problem with that - utility is essentially what casters have done since forever, assuming you aren't playing an evoker who's maxed out their slots with magic missiles and fireballs. My thought process was more along the lines of: everyone can get rituals (and I think they add a large component to the game, but then again I played a lot of illusionists when I was younger, and like that kind of flexibility); if you're a non-caster you have a 1 or 2 feat entry criteria (possibly skill training, plus ritual caster); but it's probably good for the game if everyone has those options (otherwise is there the potential that Bobby the Fighter is just sitting on his hands while everyone else is living in their Tiny Huts?) - so why have the prerequisite feats. But in that case (or as RAW) everyone pretty much gets access to the same rituals (modulo skill choice) - so there's the potential for there not to feel like there's differences between characters, as they can all do the same thing. Maybe I'm overthinking this however.

rituals should (generally) not be in-combat types of things anyway, those are class attack and utility powers.

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I'm not sure I completely agree here. Now again, it could just be my lack of familiarity, but most utility powers seem very directly combat orientated (shifting / movement; defence or offence modifiers);. Looking at the PHB wizard level 2 utilities, I see:

a movement based skill
a classic DnD utility spell, OK, I'll grant this one is interesting
another movement based skill
An AC modifier

Opening my pathfinder rulebook I see level 1 spells such as Grease, disguise self, silent image, animate rope or ventriloquism. OK, so one of those is hiding in the higher level 4E wizard utilities - but all of those I could see uses for in a combat situation. Lowering the cast time makes those viable.

Hmm, so taking your points on board maybe a better decision is to expand available utility skills instead of rituals? Have you ever played with that idea?

I'm promoting it because I have found that, given access to rituals at about the pace I'd given access to spell scrolls in earlier editions, a creative party will end up employing them a fair amount and getting a great deal of use out of them.

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This is interesting. I'd mostly read the opposite viewpoint - because of the time and costs, they are rarely used. Maybe this depends heavily on the individuals playing.

And thanks for the ritual list. I definitely believe rituals should be expanded, and tailored to a degree on player desires.

I took the time and put all the 4th Edition Rituals provided into a single document (145 pages). This has made it much more easier for me to use the material as well as get a grasp for it. There are some great ritual material in some of the Dragon Magazines if you have not seen them. They have also some solutions as to handle "in combat rituals".

In my Reign of Winter conversion I have translated some Pathfinder spells into 4th Edition rituals as well, which you can copy if you want.
I have also added rituals to some of the Pathfinder monsters I have converted. This I think WotC should have done as well, as it add some depth when it comes to what you could expect to see happening around the creature and its lair.

It would be great if WotC would have provided a single "Rituals Book", where they also provided guidelines for DMs in adventure design and how to incorporate rituals (something WotC was not good at in their own adventures I must say.)

/Myrhdraak

Regarding rituals and their lack of use, I have found that by converting their cost to burn healing surges (like most of the martial practices do), has made them much more popular with my players. They get used fairly often. I have a system that I use for them, which I can share if this is of interest to you.

the Jester's suggestions are no less valid; this is really just a matter of what you want in your campaign.

I agree with his assessment that you should not necessarily give out the ability to use rituals for free to all classes. It should be up to the player, though I might suggest sweetening the deal on taking the feat; have it provide some other bonus perhaps. I say that with one caveat; I think that giving martial practices to martial power-sourced characters for free is a decent idea. I have never seen them used, and the feat cost, in my opinion, is prohibitive.

I am somewhat ok with shortening the cast times on some rituals, but certainly not all. There are already some rituals that have been added with shorter cast times. I have also considered allowing rituals to be cast and "held" for later release with a Standard Action. Only one at a time, of course, and it would chew up a Utility slot of equal or lower level. This is an approach I've considered but never tested. It could be abusable.

Jimplaysdnd said:

...For some classes, Ritual Casting comes free. Now I have no great problem with that - utility is essentially what casters have done since forever, assuming you aren't playing an evoker who's maxed out their slots with magic missiles and fireballs. My thought process was more along the lines of: everyone can get rituals (and I think they add a large component to the game, but then again I played a lot of illusionists when I was younger, and like that kind of flexibility); if you're a non-caster you have a 1 or 2 feat entry criteria (possibly skill training, plus ritual caster); but it's probably good for the game if everyone has those options (otherwise is there the potential that Bobby the Fighter is just sitting on his hands while everyone else is living in their Tiny Huts?) - so why have the prerequisite feats. But in that case (or as RAW) everyone pretty much gets access to the same rituals (modulo skill choice) - so there's the potential for there not to feel like there's differences between characters, as they can all do the same thing. Maybe I'm overthinking this however.

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Bear in mind that training in a skill is pretty easy. There's the Skill Training feat, of course, but there are also multiclass feats that give you skill training + something else. Also, there's always retraining a skill- I don't think it is against the RAW to retrain to a skill that isn't a class skill, but I could be wrong about this.

Jimplaysdnd said:

I'm not sure I completely agree here. Now again, it could just be my lack of familiarity, but most utility powers seem very directly combat orientated (shifting / movement; defence or offence modifiers)...

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I don't think I expressed myself clearly. What I meant was, if it can be used in combat but isn't an attack, it should probably be a utility power, not a ritual.

I have played with expanding the power lists a bit, but only a bit; I'd be more inclined to do it more if pcs had specific requests along those lines (e.g. "I wish there was a 4e version of X"). My feeling is that it's fine, as long as you pay attention to balance and class roles, so that you neither make a 6th level utility for fighters that is strictly better than a 10th level one already available to them nor make a utility for fighters that steps on the warlord's toes.

Jimplaysdnd said:

This is interesting. I'd mostly read the opposite viewpoint - because of the time and costs, they are rarely used. Maybe this depends heavily on the individuals playing.

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Possibly. Some of it probably has to do with how hard it is to get access to rituals in different campaigns; part of it is probably a matter of playstyle (I think rituals are more likely to come into play in a game that encourages the pcs to take the reins and direct the game more, since a lot of them are things that let you circumvent obstacles such as ignorance or distance). Some of it is probably a matter of players not always wanting to spend the resources to acquire, master and cast rituals. I think some of this is probably a matter of some players underestimating how good rituals are and how much use they can get out of them. But primarily, it's likely a playstyle thing.

[MENTION=98255]Nemesis Destiny[/MENTION]
I'd be interested in hearing about your system for replacing ritual component costs with healing surges. Is there some magic ratio? And does it change between heroic/paragon/epic tiers?

Quickleaf said:

@Nemesis Destiny
I'd be interested in hearing about your system for replacing ritual component costs with healing surges. Is there some magic ratio? And does it change between heroic/paragon/epic tiers?

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I'm glad to share, Quickleaf!

I detailed my houserules for rituals in this thread: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?334409-Nemesis-Destiny-s-Houserules-Thread

Conveniently enough, the parts relevant to your interests are in the first two headings. You may find other items of interest in there as well.