Balancing Rituals without Gold

[Blackeagle]

In a couple of recent threads we've been talking about running low gold campaigns. In 3e magic items made it difficult to run a campaign that didn't shower the player characters with riches as they rose in levels. 4e makes it much easier to pull the magic items and replace them with inherent bonuses. In turn, this makes playing a lower gold campaign a real possibility. You could even play a "hungry warrior" campaign, where even highly skilled fighters often find themselves with little more than the armor on their backs and a sword at their sides (think Conan or Seven Samurai).

If you take out magic items, the one thing that still seems to be balanced around cash are rituals. While there are other constraints, it's the GP cost that keeps you from just casting your favorite ritual all the time (at low levels, at least). So I'm looking for a good way to balance rituals without using gold. Any ideas?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

- Require special components that you give only out as you want the PCs to use the ritual (using the wealth guidelines as basis?)

- Perhaps allow such components to be searched.

- Hand out only rituals that won't "break" things.

I am not really sure if there is such a strong need to balance the rituals as strictly as magical items. The rituals don't affect combat effectiveness, right? So all your restrictions should probably come from story-telling aspects or "verisimilitude" preferences.

 

[Sojorn]

Residuum.

Make most "cash" rewards in components that can work in any ritual. This doesn't have to be residuum per se, but rather a flavorful variety of bits that they can use in rituals instead of buying specific components from markets.

Probably a good idea to remove the cost of the disenchanting ritual if you're doing it this way.

 

[Khuxan]

Time delay? As in, after using a ritual you cannot use any rituals for a number of days equal to the ritual level.

 

[the_redbeard]

Make components harvestable from magical creatures.

Being detailed in this would take a LOT of work. But you could abstract it, with a very simple formula, something like 1 "comp unit" per hit die of magical critter. A ritual would consume X "comp units" to cast. Tweak the rate to suit your game world.

You could likely purchase them from an alchemist if you need more than you've slain, or sell them if you don't use them yourself. So this still could impact your economy, but I think you can manage it. How common is the skill for rituals in your world? The more there are, the more of a demand for the material there will be. There are likely other mitigating factors to prevent this from becoming another source of wealth to compensate for.

See Hackmaster's monster manuals (hacklopedias) for inspiration if you want more detail.

 

[phil500]

So I'm looking for a good way to balance rituals without using gold. Any ideas?

I want to do something like: players can only "know" a certain amount of rituals.

the total of the min level of the number of rituals they know must be less than 2x(character level)+int+wis+cha.

 

[erf_beto]

Instead of gold, you could make rituals charge a number of healing surges relative to the gold cost of the ritual (in addition to the surges the ritual already require). Should be a lot though, 'cause money don't come back with an extended rest...

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Time and materials, require some exotic components that have to be harvested in particular places and times. Flowers that are harvested in the Feywild on nights of a new moon and that sort of stuff. Alchemical processes that require brewing and disilling and that take a few weeks preparation since some processing must be in conjunction with astrological events.

Could be a pain to track but would provide a very flavourfull campaign if you are willing to put in the work.

 

[malraux]

Instead of gold, you could make rituals charge a number of healing surges relative to the gold cost of the ritual (in addition to the surges the ritual already require). Should be a lot though, 'cause money don't come back with an extended rest...

Similarly, you could take a cue of d20 CoC and have rituals require something from the caster. Either ability damage, healing surges, conditions that persist for several days, etc.

 

[mmadsen]

As others have pointed out, you can very easy use prices in gold as a guideline, and replace the needed gold with specific components.

You can also -- and I'm surprised no one has mentioned this yet -- make rituals only available at specific times of the year -- equinox, solstice -- or only "when the stars are right".