Ritualistically Tiered
The hard level gated rituals are, at times, hurdles to the powers I want the PCs to have and the stories I'm going for.
Proposal: rituals are now gated by tier instead of level
My proposed implementation:
- rituals are gated by 1/2 tier (5 levels)
- all rituals require a caster check (skill check) which is a moderate difficulty check at the ritual's level
- a failure on the caster check means that all time spent is lost and 1/2 the components are expended without effect
- on a "1" on the caster check, the focus (if any) breaks - I admit, I just want to screw with my players a bit on this one
- a caster whose level equals or exceeds the ritual's level doesn't need to make a caster check
... I'm wondering if gating the rituals is required at all - I'm just worried about all those finiky bonuses to [Arcana]: without those hard gates, I can see players getting access to plot devices a good deal beyond their regular means...
Perhaps having a more robust system for increasing effective caster level would serve better: locations that allow a 2-3 level adjustment to type X rituals, an item that make type Y easier to use, etc.