Thinking of a new way to do rituals

[Arctic Wolf]

Hello all. For awhile I have been thinking of a way to make rituals not rely on money and how to balance this system. What I have come up with is a point system that will increase by one every two levels and is split up into 3 different categories: Martial (for Martial classes and basically the martial practices), Alchemy (for Primal powered classes), and Channeled (for Divine and Arcane classes). So, depending on what class you start as and your power source, you will have one of the three higher than the other two.

For an example, say you are a rogue. That class falls under martial so you would start with 6 Martial points and 3 Alchemy and Channeled points. This way you don't need to spend a feat and gold. It would possibly be the same time, but you could spend more pts to reduce the time. And once you hit epic, paragon rituals would cost 2 pts and heroic would cost 1. So when you hit lvl 30 you could do 7 epic tier rituals that falls under your power source and 6 for the other two.

Think I need any improvements? I was thinking of some other things like making it cost less if you were trained in that skill but it sounds too complex atm. Any feedback would be awesome

 

[Rune]

Personally, I've been thinking that it would be good to allow ritual casters to link up in order to lessen both the material and temporal costs of casting them. All linked casters would have to be able to cast the ritual, of course (that is, both be trained in the relevant skill, and both have the ritual caster feat).

Each ritual could have a maximum of 1 caster per level of the ritual, and the time and material cost of casting that ritual would be reduced by an even division of the maximum casters + 1 (in other words, a 4th level ritual would have its costs divided by 5). Each caster linked would reduce the costs of that 4th level ritual by 1/5, so 2 casters would make the ritual take 3/5 as long and cost 3/5 as much, while 4 linked casters (the maximum) would make it take 1/5 as long and cost 1/5 as much.

Note that this also reduces the costs for a single caster, as well. I don't have a problem with this, at all.

Except that there are some notable rituals which should not have their material costs reduced--enchant items, for instance.

 

[Nytmare]

Here are the ritual houserules I use.

The Astral Sea: So, Rituals (Part Two)

Not sure if there's anything in there that you can swipe.

 

[Randomthoughts]

Think I need any improvements? I was thinking of some other things like making it cost less if you were trained in that skill but it sounds too complex atm. Any feedback would be awesome

My first thought was, why not use a single "token" in the ritual economy (versus three different ones)? If you wanted to differentiate between the three types of rituals, I would give them different point costs (like your primary one costs X points, while non-primary rituals cost X+2 tokens).

I'm looking for a different ritual system too (since I want rituals to be much more prevalent in my campaign). So I'm reading your thread with great interest!

 

[Arctic Wolf]

Thanks Nytmare for that blog post. While it does give me another thing to think about involving time which I will need to work on later, I thought about doing it another way.

First, you will start off with 6 ritual points. You gain a ritual point every 2 levels and the max will be 21 points. Rituals in your current tier will cost 3 points while the next tier down will be 2 and heroic will be 1 ritual point when you are in epic. You will regain 1 ritual point every time you take an extended rest so you can't blow them all at once and get them back the next day and make sure that they can be a good resource to save for the right moment.

In the case of enchant magic item ritual, aside from having a weapon to enchant I was thinking of doing it like this. Epic tier items will cost 7 additional points, 5 points for paragon and 3 for heroic and you can't make an item that is higher level than you. So at level 4 when you would gain the ritual, you would have 8 ritual points. To make a magic item would cost 3 points since you are in the same tier as the ritual where as in paragon where it could cost 2 ritual points plus 3 for it being a heroic level item for a total of 6 points.

So by making an item for you to use that tier you would spend most of your points and have to wait one more day to use anymore rituals. Now if you were at level 30 it would cost 4 ritual points to make a heroic item and you would still have 17 points left over. This would show that since you are more powerful, you can make a decent amount of heroic items.

 

[Arctic Wolf]

I like your idea RandomThoughts. This allows casters to use martial practices and martial users to use caster rituals. So what does everyone think of how this is coming along?

 

[Rhenny]

I hate that Rituals need specific components that PCs must buy/attain. It makes for a bookkeeping nightmare. When my players go into town, they have to shop for components and keep records of how much they have so it becomes tedious.

What if Rituals could be performed using a standard component like the idea of Magical Residuum? Each ritual attempt would need Ritual Level x Magical Residuum...so a 3rd level ritual requires 3 parts Residuum. Residuum could be made from deconstructing magical items, or in special cases it can be bought for about 75 gp per part.

Here's another idea:

Just get rid of components and make ritual casting more physically demanding. Perhaps the lead Ritual caster conducting suffers loss of healing surges as a result of the casting. Make the Ritual itself attack the Lead Caster d20+level vs. WILL -- If the caster resists, he or she only loses 1 healing surge. If the caster fails to resist, he or she loses 1d6 healing surges. And, if others are helping to conduct the ritual, if the lead caster fails, have them lose 1 healing surge also.

I just thought of these on the fly. I may try out the Healing Surge one in my own campaign.

 

[Crowsion]

Using Rituals House-rules

I am actually in the process of playtesting this mechanic below. So far the party has been casting short rituals and have managed to complete them during combat. So the combat casting mechanic hasn't been fully tested.

Component Cost: All rituals no longer cost gold, with the exception of creation rituals. Whether or not a Ritual costs gold is always up to the DM.

Market Price: The Ritual costs an amount of gold equal to a potion of its level.

Time: Rituals take 1/10th their normal cast time (6 second in 1 round). Thus,
1 minutes = 1 round
5 minutes = 5 rounds
10 minutes = 10 rounds
30 minutes = 30 rounds (Short Rest)
1 hour = 60 rounds (Milestone)
3 hours = 180 rounds (Extended Rest)
8 hours + = 480 rounds + (Extended Rest)

*The value in brackets is to keep powerful rituals balanced, and the PC must have reached it in order to cast the ritual. A PC being able to cast lengthy rituals between encounters can imbalance the game. If a PC casts a Ritual that has a milestone or rest requirement they must wait until the next milestone or rest before they can cast another Ritual with the same requirement. The PC must declare they are casting the ritual once the rest starts.

*Scrolls reduce casting time by one step.

Combat Casting: A caster may wish to cast a ritual during combat, each round they must succeed on an easy DC skill check related to the Ritual's key skill. If they fail, the checks become a moderate DC each round, if they fail again, the checks become a hard DC each round, fail one more time and the ritual fails completely and any resources spent are wasted.

Making this check provokes attacks of opportunity. If hit by an attack, the PC chooses to either to grand combat advantage (only if not already granting CA) until the end of their next turn or make a saving throw to avoid the DC from increasing. If the DC is hard and is supposed to increase, the ritual fails and any resources spent are wasted.

Always interested in feedback.