D&D 5E What spells should have had the ritual tag, but don't?

Li Shenron · Jun 30, 2019

Underpowered spells.

Really, the true benefit of casting a spell as a ritual is that it doesn't cost a slot. So this should be the case for spells that make you feel expending a slot is a bit too high a price.

Spells that are rarely useful would rather need something different, for example not require to be prepared (which is actually the case for wizards' rituals, but not for others). But if they are very useful on that rare occasion when you need them, why should they not cost a slot?

Yaarel · Jun 30, 2019

Mage Armor is worth a half-feat.

And it is definitely for combat thus inappropriate for a ritual.

StormbringerAUS · Jul 1, 2019

doctorbadwolf said:
Find Steed

Find Greater Steed

Mage Armor

Rope Trick

Magnificent Mansion

All the high level “create a structure” spells

Probably some divination spells

Don't agree on Mage Armor but that is just me

doctorbadwolf · Jul 1, 2019

Yaarel said:
Mage Armor is worth a half-feat.

And it is definitely for combat thus inappropriate for a ritual.

It’s not a spell cast in combat, so I don’t see any problem with ritualizing it.

And it’s not at all worth a half feat by itself. That’s bonkers. It’s equivalent to less than an armor proficiency, and nearly everyone agrees that the armor proficiency feats are practically worthless.

Yaarel · Jul 1, 2019

doctorbadwolf said:
It’s not a spell cast in combat, so I don’t see any problem with ritualizing it.

And it’s not at all worth a half feat by itself. That’s bonkers. It’s equivalent to less than an armor proficiency, and nearly everyone agrees that the armor proficiency feats are practically worthless.

Mage Armor is powerful because it equals chain armor AC 13, but at the same time allows an unlimited +5 Dexterity bonus.

Light armor by itself is officially worth half of a feat, and Mage Armor is even better than light armor.

Even at the most generous evaluation, Mage Armor is worth half of a feat. It is what it is.

Mage Armor cannot be ritualized for free.

With regard to the armor feats. It seems to me all three armor proficiencies − light, medium, and heavy, are worth a single feat, meaning each is worth about a third of feat. (It should be worth more theoretically, but passive feats are always worth less than damage-dealing feats.) So where light armor is worth a third of a feat, Mage Armor is better, worth half of feat.

Cap'n Kobold · Jul 1, 2019

Fenris-77 said:
What would happen if we made 60% of the spell list ritual. Which I think we could. Access to ritual spell casting is a feat away for any character. What does that do to the balance of the game?Part of me really wants to try this out.

It would increase the power of ritual casters quite considerably. Their spell slots are set up so that they have to last them through a day of adventuring including both combat encounters and non-combat challenges.
The classes are balanced around the basis of those limited resources, and that often a caster character won't have the slots available to resolve a situation using a spell, so the other characters get a chance on the spotlight. - In most situations a Fighter can't compete with Fireball, a Rogue can't compete with Knock etc. The game is designed that a lot of the time the casters are down to cantrips and the other characters are able to shine.

By lessening or removing the need to burn spell slots for the utility spells used in non-combat encounters, you increase the spell slots available to the casters over the course of a day, particularly in combat. This increases the relative power over casters by a considerable degree.

So ultimately, it will depend upon your game. If you're averaging the assumed 6 encounters/long rest and find that the casters aren't able to shine, then maybe this change would be worth it to bring them up to the in- and out of-combat performance of the martial characters. If you have considerably more encounters per log rest, this may even be required.
If you have less than 6 encounters/long rest, then you are likely already favouring spellcasters, and should be wary of increasing their power over the rest of the party to such a degree.

In my opinion saying everyone can do this by taking the feat is not a valid balancing factor.

Fenris-77 · Jul 1, 2019

It might not seem so unbalanced in a low magic setting where characters with the right mix of Arcana and/or the feat or whatever can cast as rituals, especially if the time on the rituals is extended somewhat so as to make spam a little harder. My initial thought was half casters and lower, so no casting normally over lvl 5, and then stuff over 5 that makes the list gets to be a ritual. It would let you keep some of the magic in the game and available to players without the need for full caster PCs or NPCs. Give ritual spells a DC and a consequence for failure and it sounds interesting. To me anyway, but I've always liked lower magic settings.

Blue · Jul 1, 2019

Quartz said:
Anytthing that can't be cast in combat.

Just to confirm, what's the criteria? Is this "really anything too long to cast in combat", or are you including ones that you normally wouldn't cast in combat, like Knock or Sending, but could.

Blue · Jul 1, 2019

My first thought is the opposite:

Anything where a caster can easily replace a skilled mundane character absolutely shouldn't have the ritual tag. Knock, Invisibility, all of those spells that just make other character's specialties less relevant are adding a huge amount of flexibility to casters to do without slots and stepping on others toes. It doesn't need to invalidate another character - sometimes you wouldn't what Knock for the loud noise - just often make their skills and feature less relevant.

Then I would start looking at spells that merely having them known/prepared instead of something else is enough of an opportunity cost to allow "reasonably unlimited" amount of casting. Unlimited there varies by utility - Rope Trick or Detect Magic (already rituals, just used for example) have a limited amount of usability so have a low bar, while a healing spell could be used over and over and probably wouldn't be made a ritual.

Note that anything on the Wizard list has next to no opportunity cost this was because it does not need to be prepared for them. How that gets resolved is a knotty problem - does anything on the wizard list have a higher bart because there's less opportunity cost, whihc hurts others that share that spell list, or do wizards get a big increase in their utility? I'd personally lean the latter, but I'd still keep it in mind.

Of interest are spells with expensive consumed material components. Those have a greater opportunity cost to use already. Raise Dead has a low usage rate and material costs so it sounds like a good ritual. But what are the effects on playstyle of making Raise Dead more accessible? *shrug*

billd91 · Jul 1, 2019

doctorbadwolf said:
It’s not a spell cast in combat, so I don’t see any problem with ritualizing it.

Might as well just define a wizard's AC as 13+Dex then. Because, if mage armor were a ritual, that's exactly what it would be. And that's probably a major reason it is not a ritual. It's too dominating a strategy at that level. Making it a spell you can't have as a ritual imposes a balancing and necessary trade-off.