Ritual Spells - do they need to be a separate category?

[UngeheuerLich]

I tend to agree. From a design perspective, it seems random why some spells can be cast as rituals and some not.
I think +10 minutes usually will take care of noncasters being irrelevant.
I could however see that non ritual spells might have a special material requirement or 1h extra casting time or both, because they were not designed with a ritual function in mind.
So maybe mage Armor cast as a ritual might actually consume the blessed leather. It also take 1hour so a complete short rest to cast.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

A Warlock ability allows them to learn all Ritual spells. If all spells were Ritual spells they could cast everything.

 

[Mort]

A Warlock ability allows them to learn all Ritual spells. If all spells were Ritual spells they could cast everything.

Are you talking about pact of the tome, or something else?

Pact of the tome gives you a few rituals and the ability to scribe any rituals you find (at a cost). You still need to find the rituals.

 

[aco175]

I first thought you wanted all spells to be cast like rituals, in a way to lessen magic in the world. A lightning bolt or fireball taking 10 minutes where combat normally takes less than one minute. Even the old casting times for spells would slow things down.

I do see you idea being cool in a wizards-only game where magic is designed to solve most things.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Do you see anything particularly game-breaking here?

Depends on the type of campaign game you wanted to run.

My question is what is the problem this new rule is trying to solve? What's the reason for not wanting to use spell slots to cast things like Fly or Invisibility? Is it because the PCs are casting so many combat spells that they do not have slots left over out of combat to use them for utility function? Or is it purely a narrative problem wherein you think that magical people should just be able to use magic wherever/whenever without anything to restrict them (or more to the point to change the restriction from "spell slots" or "mana" into "time" instead?)

If the situation is such that you would just like to see in your campaign powerful utility magic take a while to cast... then sure, making all utility spells into rituals would do that-- especially if you were to cut down on the number of spell slots caster got. Like for instance if you switched all of your casters over to the Warlock mechanics where they might only get 2 spells per battle (which would be used most likely on combat magic)... they could then cast any other spells they know as rituals out of combat. That probably wouldn't be that big of an issue and it would certainly change how magic is run for this particular campaign.

But of course, if you didn't want to cut down the number of spell slots a caster got from their normal chart *and* gave them unlimited use of utility via turning all spells into rituals... that would certainly also change the game style. You would see more high-level spells used strictly for combat since they wouldn't need to "save" any potential slots for utility later on. That would most likely require the DM to up the power level of enemies as more spell damage would get cast than in a normal campaign. But again, if that's the style of game you wished to play, the DM could certainly work around that.

So really... to ask whether anything would be "game-breaking" is completely contingent on the problem you are trying to solve and the style of game you wished to play. This ritual rule would be a wonderful fix for certain ones, and a massive issue for others. Figure out what style you want and the answer becomes rather clear rather quickly.

 

[the Jester]

I suppose it's a matter of playstyle preference, but I think spellcasters are already good enough as it is, and don't see the need to increase their powers even more, especially when 5e is the first version of traditional D&D with casters who are largely balanced against non-casters. (4e did this too, but was very nontraditional.)

 

[Rya.Reisender]

Are you talking about pact of the tome, or something else?

Pact of the tome gives you a few rituals and the ability to scribe any rituals you find (at a cost). You still need to find the rituals.

Yes of course, but it's still a huge difference between maybe able to use 2 of 20 magic scrolls you find in an adventure or learn 20 extra spells.

 

[Dausuul]

Do you see anything particularly game-breaking here?

Just off the top of my head, the School of Necromancy would become insanely broken. Investing a mere 2 hours per day*, a 6th-level necromancer could sustain control over 44 skeletons or zombies. An 11th-level necromancer could maintain a force of 33 ghouls. And that is with a quite minimal time commitment, the sort of thing you could sustain indefinitely. If you had access to a sufficient supply of corpses and were preparing for a heavy-duty dungeon crawl, you could raise and command literally hundreds of undead.

Conjuration spells, typical duration ~1 hour, would also become far more powerful. And those just happen to be in the areas I've been thinking about recently (I've been playing with a bunch of "minion summoning" ideas). I'm sure I could come up with a yard-long list of "problem spells" with a little time.

There are a lot of long-duration and non-combat utility spells in the game. The non-ritual ones are non-rituals so that there is a significant cost to using them. Removing that cost would have sweeping implications.

[SIZE=-2]*Okay, technically 2 hours and 1 minute.[/SIZE]

 

[Autumn Bask]

How broken is this? Let me count the ways:

Armor of Agathys
Disguise Self
Mage Armor

Alter Self
Invisibility
Levitate
Mirror Image
Pass Without Trace

Animate Dead
Blink
Fly

Dimension Door
Polymorph

Oh, and every Conjure _______ spell and every healing spell in the game. You have to remember that this would also give Wizards access to their entire Spellbook out of combat.

Now, if the new rituals took like, 8 hours to cast or something, that would be far more reasonable. But hey, don't take our word for it. Just playtest it.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Magic in D&D needs to be LESS powerful, and never the ideal option. IMO, it should always be worse than skills, because you don't get to repick your skills each day. Casters already get to dominate non-combat by doing things that mundane skills simply cannot accomplish.

As is, I don't see any reason to ever be a non-caster. This just further pushes those classes to obsolescence.