Rituals are one of those things that 4e fans generally feel could have been done better, but that my group hasn't had much problem with. As a result I'd like to clean them up a bit, but will probably miss many wrinkly details without the aid of my fellow fans. So I've got two questions:
1. Which rituals do you consider...essential to the game, for lack of a better term? I.E., which answer needs that frequently pop up in the game world? (Raise Dead, frex.)
2. Which of these rituals stand out as problematic, and why?
Here's how I'm treating rituals: Instead of levels, each ritual falls into one of the three tiers. If you're a character of that tier, you can cast rituals of that tier and lower tiers. I think 4e's application of levels to rituals is a legacy thing, and I don't see any real advantage to sticking with levels.
Market prices and casting times are standardized; I set prices at the price of one consumable item of 1st/11th/21st level. Casting times are 1/4/16 hours, respectively. Component costs are semi-standardized; they're generally equivalent to market prices, unless the ritual effect calls for some price multiple. For example, I set Raise Dead at double the usual component cost. Do all these changes make rituals too cheap? Maybe, and I may tweak them later.
I've also stripped out the variable-by-skill-check effects of several rituals I've already converted, as many of them kinda seem to be shallow excuses to roll skill checks. For example, the skill check in Cure Disease creates a lot of tension so I left it as-is. But the skill checks involved with the various Portal spells make a trivial difference in the rituals' durations, so I simply set their durations at 1 minute.
I should also mention that PoL is much more consumable-focused than 4e. Instead of PCs getting a permanent item more-or-less every level and a bit of change on the side, PoL guidelines suggest many consumables and more pocket change, and a single [much more awesome] permanent item every five levels or so for each PC.
1. Which rituals do you consider...essential to the game, for lack of a better term? I.E., which answer needs that frequently pop up in the game world? (Raise Dead, frex.)
2. Which of these rituals stand out as problematic, and why?
Here's how I'm treating rituals: Instead of levels, each ritual falls into one of the three tiers. If you're a character of that tier, you can cast rituals of that tier and lower tiers. I think 4e's application of levels to rituals is a legacy thing, and I don't see any real advantage to sticking with levels.
Market prices and casting times are standardized; I set prices at the price of one consumable item of 1st/11th/21st level. Casting times are 1/4/16 hours, respectively. Component costs are semi-standardized; they're generally equivalent to market prices, unless the ritual effect calls for some price multiple. For example, I set Raise Dead at double the usual component cost. Do all these changes make rituals too cheap? Maybe, and I may tweak them later.
I've also stripped out the variable-by-skill-check effects of several rituals I've already converted, as many of them kinda seem to be shallow excuses to roll skill checks. For example, the skill check in Cure Disease creates a lot of tension so I left it as-is. But the skill checks involved with the various Portal spells make a trivial difference in the rituals' durations, so I simply set their durations at 1 minute.
I should also mention that PoL is much more consumable-focused than 4e. Instead of PCs getting a permanent item more-or-less every level and a bit of change on the side, PoL guidelines suggest many consumables and more pocket change, and a single [much more awesome] permanent item every five levels or so for each PC.
Often it's levels between visits to a city where I could buy components.
