Rituals

[WarlockLord]

Is it just me, or is the ritual system kinda blah? They cost too much, take too much time to cast...and don't really do much. It takes10 minutes and cash to create a Tenser's floating disk in 4e, whereas it would have taken six seconds in 3e. Few of the rituals do much that's really interesting or dramatic, such as raising an army of the walking dead or conjuring creatures. And some of them are just puzzling nerfs: did the image line really need to be turned into rituals?


Also, what are the interesting, dramatic rituals that don't feel like they should have been utilities or cantrips?

 

[Aurumvorax]

Rituals are basically the lazy man's way of handling things. You have the gold, you have the time, but you don't feel like doing it yourself so you let magic handle it. Some make life convenient, others create things, but most of the time they aren't necessary.

The cost and limitations is basically WotC designers saying "We want you to be doing things hands on, not rely on magic." In almost every situation you're better off relying on your own manpower than rituals.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

And this is a good thing...

Tenasers floating disk is very cheap at the time you are using it at will. A horse to carry your loot is actually more expensive and inconvenient...

Protecting your camp is cheaper than hire mercenaries and much more secure... A wizards curtain or a silence spell should not be used all the time, but if it is important that you are not eavesdropped... in case you suspect a spy listening to you.

Rituals are tools. You can use them whenever you need them in only 10 minutes. Guess how long it takes to get a horse and a cart...

And also I personally think its more dramatic to set up the ritual than blast anything in just a few second. Maybe 1 or 2 mins would have been sufficient, but better safe than sorry.
Why should magic solve everything at no cost at all?

 

[ExploderWizard]

I found the basic system blah so I changed it for my campaign.

My ritual rules:

Most rituals (with a few exceptions) take a standard action to perform.

Ritual aquisition cost =cost to scribe rituals into a personal book. Once learned, a ritual becomes a daily power.

A ritual that is scribed dissappears from the original source. Only first level rituals are available for sale generally. Others must be found during adventures. Most rituals are like lost magic from another age.

Rituals can now be a useful resource in time sensative situations without being spammed because they are 1/day.

Capturing an enemy ritual book is exciting because it might contain spells that no one else in the area has access to.

Its easy to control the type of magic available in the game via ritual availability. There may only be a handful of people in the kingdom that know the cure disease ritual, for example and the PC's might have to quest to find such a person.

It has made rituals more exciting. I think the combination of increased utility along with scarcity of acquisition makes them more interesting.

 

[Tale]

I'm glad they don't do much. They really shouldn't be campaign altering actions like raising an army. That's just a silly idea in my mind.

They are utilities. But they're utilities that don't count against your normal utility power count and they're available to all classes with a feat (or two if the character doesn't normally have arcana/religion).

 

[Infiniti2000]

I'm glad they don't do much. They really shouldn't be campaign altering actions like raising an army. That's just a silly idea in my mind.

They are utilities. But they're utilities that don't count against your normal utility power count and they're available to all classes with a feat (or two if the character doesn't normally have arcana/religion).

Agreed 100%. The DMG even describes that the DM can create such campaign-altering rituals and the WotC modules even have them, though not in a way PCs could use.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I found the basic system blah so I changed it for my campaign.

My ritual rules:

Most rituals (with a few exceptions) take a standard action to perform.

Ritual aquisition cost =cost to scribe rituals into a personal book. Once learned, a ritual becomes a daily power.

A ritual that is scribed dissappears from the original source. Only first level rituals are available for sale generally. Others must be found during adventures. Most rituals are like lost magic from another age.

Rituals can now be a useful resource in time sensative situations without being spammed because they are 1/day.

Capturing an enemy ritual book is exciting because it might contain spells that no one else in the area has access to.

Its easy to control the type of magic available in the game via ritual availability. There may only be a handful of people in the kingdom that know the cure disease ritual, for example and the PC's might have to quest to find such a person.

It has made rituals more exciting. I think the combination of increased utility along with scarcity of acquisition makes them more interesting.

IMHO this is no goood idea in general. Usual blasting one door is enough. I would at least increase time to 2 mins (as take 20 takes). Also it should still cost materials.

 

[Dausuul]

I'm glad they don't do much. They really shouldn't be campaign altering actions like raising an army. That's just a silly idea in my mind.

Ehhh... I'm of two minds about this.

Pre-3E, animate dead had the potential for gross abuse. With a few months to work in and a few handy graveyards, you could create an army of warriors who could march endlessly without rest, didn't need food or water, weren't vulnerable to disease, and obeyed all orders without question or hesitation. (Ask your local historian how many real-life medieval warlords would have sold their souls for any one of those traits in their soldiers, let alone all!) It needed fixing.

Yet while I didn't like the implementation, I did like the idea. Ever since 3E came out, D&D magic has focused more and more on adventuring-oriented spells, with less and less attention paid to the larger world the PCs inhabit. Spells like animate dead put the wizard into context within that larger world - in this case, as a necromancer-warlord.

Could you make a ritual that would do in 4E what animate dead was capable of in 2E, without having it be hideously overpowered? I'm not sure. I think you would need some kind of mass combat system for 4E before it was even possible to judge. But in principle, I like such spells and want to see more of them.

 

[WarlockLord]

Yes, I understand why WoTC went the way they did. My main problem though, is that the rituals give pretty much nothing to PC mages while the rules encourage the DM to give NPC mages interesting effects. The design is set up so your level 30 archmage, who is supposedly powerful enough to challenge gods, cannot animate a skeleton for more than 5 minutes. Really? And most of the rituals take too long to cast to do things. Wizard's Escape? Sure hope the guard isn't made suspicious by the man dancing around in the bathrobe. Yes, I know this was a deliberate design attempt so that the fighters/skill users would get their day. However, the mage is reduced to nothing more than the Runescape, boring blaster. And that's terrible.

 

[Tale]

Rituals aren't a Wizard v. Fighter concern. The Fighter can learn Rituals.

They're a Ritual v. Power concern. A Ritual needs to be a secondary option after Powers and Skills.

For those wanting rituals for quick and first option utility, they should be looking to utility powers. It's certainly a better design than the center-of-attention I've-got-a-spell-for-that Wizard.

I know the temptation. It's why I plan for my Warlock to get Ritual Caster. Because I want him to be some sort of swiss army knife. But I do know the reason for that is simply because I love being the center of attention.