D&D 4E 4e Rituals -> 5e

I never got to play 4e except for a couple of quick games I ran for my daughter and her friends before they asked to go back to Savage Worlds. One of the things I really liked about 4e was all the rituals. So. Many. Rituals! Just loved them.

I recently (as of this morning) "found" a website that lists all the 4e rituals and I wanted to bring them all over to my next campaign in 5e.

Has anyone brought them over? If so, how'd you do it? If not, how do you think you'd do it? What were the pros? What were the cons?

Why I'm thinking of adding 4e Rituals? Most D&D campaigns that I've been in have been of the "The Golden Age of Magic was in the past and we stand on the Shoulders of Giants." By adding in Rituals that just about everyone can cast, I'm looking to put forward the feel that THIS is the Golden Age.

Plus it would give so-called "useless" skills such as Medicine more use. (Please note: I don't consider Medicine worthless. I've just seen it called that before.)

I was thinking of letting the 4e Rituals be a Tool Proficiency that can be selected to replace any tool proficiency at character creation that the characters might have or learned via downtime tool learning.

Also, I was thinking of dividing the 4e Ritual Level by 3 and round up. That would be the level of the character needed to cast the Ritual without difficulty. Casting a ritual of 1-4 levels higher would require burning a Hit Die to show that it requires a lot of effort. Casting a ritual 5+ higher level would also cause a level of Exhaustion. Rituals 10+ levels higher than the Character cannot be cast.

This keeps level one characters from casting a Level 20 Ritual.

Thanks for any help!

Just dawned on me that I'd have to do something about the GP cost of the Rituals as well. Hmmmm...

People often complain that there is nothing to do with all the gold you get in 5e, so I’d only worry about gold cost for low level rituals.

Overall I like this idea! Could you share the site you found, or PM it to me? I have the old offline character builder on my desktop still, but firing it up to find a ritual is kinda a pain.

I definitely like the idea of more rituals in 4e. Not sure about making them a proficiency. But then, just adding them to ritual casting leans too heavily toward already powerful caster classes.

Doc_Klueless said:

One of the things I really liked about 4e was all the rituals.

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Agreed.

I was thinking of letting the 4e Rituals be a Tool Proficiency that can be selected to replace any tool proficiency at character creation that the characters might have or learned via downtime tool learning.

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Do you use feats? The only reason I ask is because you seem to be offering the Ritual Caster Feat for free or at a cost of a Proficiency at least.

Plus it would give so-called "useless" skills such as Medicine more use. (Please note: I don't consider Medicine worthless. I've just seen it called that before.)

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I'm not following you here. How does the casting of rituals tie into the Medicine skill?

Also, I was thinking of dividing the 4e Ritual Level by 3 and round up. That would be the level of the character needed to cast the Ritual without difficulty. Casting a ritual of 1-4 levels higher would require burning a Hit Die to show that it requires a lot of effort. Casting a ritual 5+ higher level would also cause a level of Exhaustion. Rituals 10+ levels higher than the Character cannot be cast.

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I already have a cost of 1 HD for rituals, reflecting some effort is required by the caster, but my idea on rituals has not been fully developed. It is one of those areas I intend to look into still, but gold and HD cost as well as the exhaustion track are IMO the right direction for casting of rituals.
At our table spellcasters require a minimum of 10 + x in their spellcasting ability, where x is the level of the spell (as per prior editions). The same requirement would apply for non-spellcasters when casting a ritual of a particular level.

Sadras said:

Do you use feats? The only reason I ask is because you seem to be offering the Ritual Caster Feat for free or at a cost of a Proficiency at least.

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Sort of, kind of. The Ritual Caster Feat lets a caster cast a ritual spell at a cost of only time. While the Ritual Tool Proficiency would allow require a monetary (Component Cost), time (Casting Time) and Skill check (Key Skill).

Sadras said:

I'm not following you here. How does the casting of rituals tie into the Medicine skill?

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Many of the 4e Rituals have a "Key Skill" such as Key Skill: Healing (which would be 5e Medicine to my mind).

From a 4e Wiki:
Key Skill
A ritual's key skill determines the type of components required to perform the ritual, and if a ritual requires a skill check, the key skill is used for the check. If this entry ends with "(no check)," then the ritual does not require a skill check.

If a ritual has more than one key skill, you choose which skill to use. Your choice determines both the components you use and the skill you use for any checks required by the ritual.

Unless a ritual's description says otherwise, you make your skill check when you finish performing a ritual. You can't take 10 on one of these skill checks.

and

Performing a Ritual

Performing a ritual may require a skill check, and may have time, material, and other requirements, depending on which ritual is being performed and whether a ritual scroll is being used.

So to use the, say, Cure Disease Ritual would require a Key Skill: Medicine check.

Sadras said:

I already have a cost of 1 HD for rituals, reflecting some effort is required by the caster, but my idea on rituals has not been fully developed. It is one of those areas I intend to look into still, but gold and HD cost as well as the exhaustion track are IMO the right direction for casting of rituals.

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Thanks!

Sadras said:

At our table spellcasters require a minimum of 10 + x in their spellcasting ability, where x is the level of the spell (as per prior editions). The same requirement would apply for non-spellcasters when casting a ritual of a particular level.

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Interesting. I could see where that would come in handy as well. Gonna have to give this a think.

Why not tie the rituals directly to the skill proficiency?

Yunru said:

Why not tie the rituals directly to the skill proficiency?

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No other reason than I like the idea of it being a Tool that must be learned to be mastered sort of thing. Like cooking or brewing, etc.

I would assume that the 5e spells that can be cast as rituals wouldn’t be included in the tool proficiency?

If I’m wrong, you might want to rethink that, for balance sake. Also, I’d be careful about obviating any existing spells with a ritual. Raise Dead, for instance.

Doc_Klueless said:

Has anyone brought them over? If so, how'd you do it? If not, how do you think you'd do it? What were the pros? What were the cons?

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I think the major Con was that the rituals essentially required money to cast (what was it, Residium?), and the 4E system as written tightly constricted money and items to a set amount (I think it was something like 4 of 5 party members will get 1 item per level (of a variety of levels) and enough gold to buy two additional magic items of about that level, so basically buying the 5th party member an item with just a little gold left over for the party to split). So, spending money on rituals meant explicitly less magic items in theory, although in practice it probably wasn't a significant amount of money. Just all about the mentality.

I also think the gamification of 4E probably encouraged a mentality of not getting too much in the abstractness of rituals. Since everything is balanced around the PCs, presumably the DM will provide the PC with everything that they would need for information or story altering effects.

Lastly, I seem to recall the issue that while all of your powers were listed on your character sheet print-out, you'd have to physically go find the book that had your ritual. So, out of sight, out of mind.

That said, they were a fantastic idea, but I really prefer the way that 5E handled a lot of these issues allowing casters to have access to non-combat spells without concern of tying up limited spell slot resources: Having the Ritual tag for the obvious way, plus allowing casters to "prepare" a spell without tying up a spell slot. However, I think there's room for improvement with moving over a lot of the 4E rituals and/or adding the "Ritual" tag to more spells.

Good luck!

doctorbadwolf said:

I would assume that the 5e spells that can be cast as rituals wouldn’t be included in the tool proficiency?

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Right. Those should probably be excised from the list.[/QUOTE]