D&D 4E Weekly Wrecana: Improving Rituals

[Garthanos]

Continuing our weekly series of recoveries from Wrecan

IMPROVING RITUALS
Categories: Dungeons & Dragons


In a recent thread in the 4e General Discussion forum, it was asked what we'd like to see in a hypothetical Fifth Edition, which got me thinking about what I thought most needed tweaking in 4th edition.
Don't get me wrong. I love 4th edition. But I'm a tinkerer at heart, so I can't leave well enough alone. For me, the one element of 4th edition that they could have done a little better is rituals. To me, rituals seemed to be one of those things that was either rushed, or not given sfficient thought.
Specifically, the decision to make ritual casting dependent on the expenditure of gold seems, to me, inappropriate for many rituals. As it stands gold translates to one thing -- combat effectiveness. Players are expected to have certain wealth levels to compete in combat, specifically by possessing a weapon/implement, neck slot item and body slot item of appropriate power. In addition, the remaining welath is to be spent on other magic items that provide benefits to combat. (This isn't strictly true, as lair items and other items have been introduced that don't directly contribute to combat. However, I think they suffer the same flaws.)
Fourth Edition was designed, appropriately, in my opinion, with the attitude that one shouldn't be forced to choose between combat and non-combat effectiveness. Character building choices should be limited to deciding wehich of many methods will one select to be effective in combat and which of many methods will one select to be effectivein noncombat.
By making rituals -- particularly rituals that provide mainly flavor or don't directly affect combat -- dependent on gold, the game is forcing a choice that is counter to what I perceive to be a central design philosophy. Already, with the introduction of martial practices, we see ritual-style effects getting away from gold expenditures, and using healing surges instead.
Here's what I would propose for any 5th edition ritual system:

• Casting Rituals. I propose three types of "expenditures" for ritual casting:
  • Coin. Gold is appropriate in some instances. Rituals that create items that can be used in combat (particularly alchemy) should continue to require expenditures of components with a monetary value. The cost of casting the ritual should be related ot the value of the item to be produced. In addition, any ritual with an effect that can be invoked in combat, and will have more than an incidental benefit, should have a cost associated with it. The most dramatic example if the 4th edition version of Drawmij's Instant Summons, which gives the recipient the power to summon a pre-designated item from afar. Casting this ritual (and other rituals that give similar benefits) should be priced as if you had a consumable item that granted this power.
    • Ritual Slot. Another way to limit the use of rituals in combat is to create a new body slot for rituals. If you limit a character to having only one combat-ready ritual on his person per tier of play at any time, it limits the abuse that might come from having more combat-ready rituals. This frees designers to come up with more rituals, confident that they are less likely to be abued.
  • Skill Challenges. A lot of rituals can be plot-wrecking for many DMs, particularly divinations, summonings, and mass enchantments. These rituals give out information that have potential to wreck a plot. In my opinion, the best way to handle these rituals is to run them as skill challenges. In this way, the party is using the ritual to potentially replace one encounter (the one for which they are using the divination or summoning) with another encounter. The skill challenge should be designed so that the entire party is involved, and the difficulty of the skill challenge should be related to the difficulty of the encounter that the party is trying to obviate or ameliorate through use of this ritual. This gives the players some flexibility in how to handle an encounter without detroying the DMs ability to create plot.
  • Ritual Surges. Healing surges tell you how many times you get to heal before you need to rest. A similar mechanic can be used to prevent the over use of rituals. In my opinion, rituals that don't fit in either of the two prior categories should cost ritual surges. While the DM can adjust these numbers to fit a specific campaign-style, I recommend that ritualists get a two ritual surges per level (which replenish after an extended rest), and rituals that require surges costs one surge per level of the ritual. If for any reason a ritual that costs surges does not end after an extended rest, the ritualist cannot replenish the ritual surges used to invoke that continuing ritual.
    • Wards. Wards particularly fall into this category, and ritualists would likely spend their remaining healing surges to ward the campsite. This is particularly helpful as it creates a nice choice for the caster -- use a ritual during the day, and their campsite is more vulnerable at night.
    • Durations. Because ritual surges, like healing surges, would replenish after an extended rest, it is important that most rituals not last longer than the end of the ritualist's next extended rest. Otherwise, there is a potential for abuse.
• Acquiring Rituals. Acquiring rituals gives you options, but they aren't combat options. Already one needs to spend a feat to get access to rituals (or be given the feat as a class feature). That's appropriate. But how do we balance the acquisition of rituals? If we require more than a nominal amount of coin we are once again force the dilemma between combat and non-combat effectiveness. If we have no limit, then all ritualists will have all rituals, which makes them identical. One of the fun things about playing a ritualist is that it helps distinguish your character from others. So I see a few ways to limit ritual acquisition.
  • Spells Known. A ritual is more than a recipe in a book. A ritualist's book is bound to him, and he to it, in order to understand the sacred texts. There is a natural limit to how many rituals a ritualist can scribe, based on the level of the ritual and of the ritualist, and on the skills in which the ritualist is trained. If a ritualist's book is full, he must delete a ritual to make room for a new one. Feats to increase one's ritual capacity might be appropriate too. This is workable, but a bit arbitrary. These rituals would not be counted as part of a treasure parcel as they have only mystic, not material, value. Finding a ritual might involve a skill challenge (involving Streetwise, History, and a ritual-related skill like Religion or Arcane) and a mystic trade.
  • Alchemy and Items. Recipe books (for elixirs, items and alchemy) can be treated differently from other rituals. Coin works fine here as a limitation, since you are using the ritual to make things that also cost coin. Basically, the recipe represents an initial investment, the cost of casting the ritual might be slightly cheaper than the cost of the item.
  • Social Standing. In some campaigns, access to rituals might require acquiring standing in some sort of arcane hierarchy. In a quasi-feudal setting, standing and privilege makes a nice alternative to money for non-combat related items, like lairs, lair items, shops, and the like. Perhaps there is a wizards' guild that tightly controls access to rituals, or a supernatural hierarchy of revelations for access to Nature and Religion-based rituals. While I find this method intriguing, it might not be appropriate for all campaign settings.
• Perpetuating Rituals. One nice use of rituals, particularly Wards, is to allow a ritualist to tailor their sanctum with interesting traps and guards. This requires some way to make rituals permanent without opening them to abuse on adventures. In my opinion, such permanent rituals should not cost gold (beyond whatever gold requirements are made for the non-permanent form of the ritual). Since one does not adventure in their house, spending gold to ward one's home forces the choice between flavor and combat-effectiveness. Rather, permanent enchantments should require an expenditure of time. The permanent enchantment of a sanctum should also involve a skill challenge -- one that would span weeks or months -- and which could involve the entire party. Wards, particularly, are appropriate for such a challenge. In addition, no ritual placed on a person should be able to be altered in this way, and any permanent ritual would have to be immobile.

I think that covers everything. As a last note, I have categorized each of the current 4th edition rituals found in the Compendium (as of September 17, 2009) into categories where I think they would best fit under the system I outlined below. (Supercript characters represent the ritual's level.) Enjoy!

Enchantments (Coin)​

Enchant Object: Acidic Fire^5, Alchemical Silver^5, Alchemist’s Acid^1, Alchemist’s Fire^1, Alchemist’s Frost^1, Alchemist’s Spark^3, Amanuensis^1, Antivenom^1, Beastbane^4, Blastpatch^4, Blinding Bomb^3,Bloodstinger Poison^3, Bravery Powder^3, Brew Potion^1, Clear-Path Mist^6, Clearsense Powder^1,Clearwater Solution^1, Clockwork Bomb^4, Corrosive Oil^3, Create Holy Water^1, Dragonfire Tar^3,Duplicate^6, Enchant Magic Item^4, Goodnight Tincture^6, Grayflower Perfume^10, Heartflow^3, Herbal Poultice^3, Inferno Oil^5, Ironwood^6, Jolt Flask^10, Keen Oil^10, Lockburst Chalk^4, Lodret Leaf^5, Make Whole^1, Noxious Grenade^11, Panther Tears^2, Resonance Crystal^4, Rust Bomb^5, Salve of Slipperiness^8, Scribe^10, Slow-Step Oil^3, Smokestick^6, Sovereign Glue^8, Spotted Toadstool Venom^10, Suppression Crystal^4, Tanglefoot Bag^2, Tension Wheel^4, Tethercord^3, Thunderstone^5,Tracking Dust⁴, Transfer Enchantment⁴, Universal Solvent¹⁰, Woundpatch³
Enchant Creature: Ancestral Whispers⁶, Aura Mask⁸, Comprehend Language¹, Conceal Dragonmark¹, Dark Gift of the Undying¹¹, Chameleon’s Cloak¹⁰, Status⁸, Deathly Shroud⁶, Divine Sight²², Drawmij’s Instant Summons¹², Feat of Strength⁴, Glib Limerick¹, Gravesight⁸, Hallucinatory Creature¹², Lich Transformation¹⁴, Masking Shroud¹⁴, Ritual of Retrieval¹⁴, Seeming¹², Share Husk⁸, Simbul’s Conversion¹, Song of Restfulness¹⁰, Soulguard²⁰, Telepathic Bond¹⁴, Visage of Life¹², Water Breathing⁸

Ritual Surges​

Convenience: Affect Normal Fire³, Arcane Mark¹, Battlefield Elocution³, Beast Growth⁴, Bloom², Clear the Path⁶, Control Weather¹⁴, Corpse Light², Dark Light⁴, Deceive Sensor²⁶, Delver’s Fire², Demicache¹², Earthen Ramparts⁶, Easy Passage¹⁶, Endure Elements², Excavation⁶, Explorer’s Fire¹, Fastidiousness¹, Fastidiousness¹, Fluid Funds², Fool’s Speech⁶, Gentle Repose¹, Knock⁴, Leomund’s Secret Chest⁶, Lower Water², Magic Map⁹, Magic Mouth¹, Mordenkainen’s Ascent⁶, Mordenkainen’s Joining⁶, Purify Water¹, Pyrotechnics², Raise Land³⁰, Secret Page¹, Shrink⁶, Summon Winds³, Tenser’s Floating Disk¹, Tenser’s Lift⁸, Time Ravager¹⁴, Tiny Lanterns⁶, Trailblaze¹⁰, Tree Shape², Unseen Servant¹, Waterborn¹⁴
Wards/Healing: Arcane Barrier¹², Arcane Lock⁴, Banish Illusions¹¹, Banish Vermin¹, Bolster Object⁶, Cauldron’s Rebirth¹⁵, Chamber of Vulnerability²⁰, Conceal Object¹⁰, Cure Disease⁶, Delay Affliction⁴, Disenchant Magic Item⁶, Disorienting Portal¹⁰, Ease Spirit²⁵, Eavesdropper’s Foil, Enhance Vessel¹⁰, Eye of Alarm², Eye of Warning¹⁴, Fantastic Recuperation¹⁶, Forbiddance²⁰, Guards and Wards¹⁸, Hallucinatory Item⁵, Hallowed Temple¹², Iron Vigil⁴, Magic Circle⁵, Purify Spellscarred¹⁸, Raise Beast Companion¹, Raise Dead⁸, Remove Affliction⁸, Reverse Portal¹², Rope Trick¹², Safeguard¹⁶, Scramble Portal¹⁴, Seal Portal⁸, Secure Shelter¹⁰, Sentinel Eye¹⁴, Signal of Pursuit⁸, Silence¹, Skull Watch⁴, Snare⁴, Solace Bole¹², Song of Sustenance⁸, Stasis Shell¹⁶, Succor²⁰, Teleport Catcher¹⁸, Thief’s Lament, Traveler’s Feast⁴, Undead Ward³, Unseen Servant¹, Voicecatcher veil²⁶, Ward the True Name²⁶, Wizard’s Curtain¹, Wizard’s Escape⁶, Wyvern Watch

Skill Challenges​

Binding: Adjure¹⁶, Animal Friendship⁵, Animal Messenger¹, Anthem of Unity⁸, Astral Guide¹⁴, Call of Friendship⁴, Call Wilderness Guide⁶, Chorus of Truth¹⁰, Detect Lies⁶, Imprisonment²⁸, Lullaby³, Mark of Justice¹², Memory Seal¹⁸, Mindshape Warwing Drake⁵, Pact of the Iron Ring¹⁰, Permanence^new, Phantom Steed⁶, Ritual of Twin Burnings²⁶, Spirit Idol⁷, Steed Summons⁶, Tenser’s Binding¹⁰, Tune of Merriment⁹, Undead Servitor⁶
Finding: Analyze Portal⁸, Aria of Revelation¹⁰, Astral Sojourn¹⁵, Commune with Nature⁶, Consult Mystic Sages¹⁰, Consult Oracle¹⁶, Corpse Gate¹⁴, Create Teleportation Circle¹⁵, Detect Object¹⁰, Detect Secret Doors³, Detect Treasure⁹, Far Sending¹⁶, Fey Passage⁶, Find the Path⁶, Fools Gold³, Hand of Fate⁴, History Revealed¹¹, Inquisitive’s Eyes⁸, Last Sight Vision², Linked Portal⁸, Loremaster’s Bargain²², Object Reading⁵, Observe Creature²⁴, Overland Flight²⁰, Passwall¹², Planar Portal¹⁸, Planar Sending¹⁴, Plane Shift¹⁸, Scry Trap²⁰, Seek Rumor², Sending⁶, Shadow Bridge⁸, Shadow Passage⁸, Shadow Walk¹², Shift Mote²⁶, Speak with Dead⁶, Speak with Nature⁵, Traveler’s Chant¹, Tree Stride⁶, True Portal²⁸, True Sending²⁰, View Location¹⁴, View Object¹⁸, Voice of Fate²⁶, Walk Crossroads¹⁴, Water Walk², Whispers of the Edifice¹⁴, Wizard’s Sight⁸

 

[cavalier973]

Just want to point out that the ritual casters in the party can create scrolls, and pass them to the non-ritualizers in the party to use.

That way everyone can get in on the ritual fun!

 

[doctorbadwolf]

And now I'm sad.

But also happy this stuff was saved from the forum apocalypse.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The suggestion that some rituals should be, effectively, encounters, sounds good in a sort of theoretical sense, but it doesn't actually seem very tenable. That is to say there would be no practical way to create a writeup of such a ritual.

Lets use Speak With Dead as a reasonable example. What Wrecan is suggesting is that you might replace something, say the investigate the murder scene SC (we may revisit the framing of this SC later, I'm not sure) with an Interrogate the Dead SC by use of the ritual in question. However, what are you going to do to explain the mechanics of this ritual use? The designer of the ritual can barely even speculate as to the appropriate mechanics and has no way to comment at all on their means of attachment to the narrative. As written, this type of ritual simply states some narrative consequences of its casting, and a check result to make in order to allow those consequences to happen. This is relatively straightforward, but leads to the issues Wrecan pointed out.

However I think the answer is more in terms of how procedures of play are handled. In other words what if Speak With Dead was rephrased somewhat so it integrated better with existing scenes. "Make a ritual check. This check can be used to replace any one skill check during the current challenge with the result. You speak with the dead and they answer some of your questions." Maybe it can be polished a bit more, but you get the idea.

This does bring us back to the question of framing a challenge. In some cases the speaking may happen at considerable remove from what is considered the 'action' of the challenge, but IMHO this shouldn't really present a problem. Either the challenge should be framed such that it extends to this other remove, or perhaps the GM will allow a ritual use as a sort of retcon, though I think this gets a bit outside of what most classic D&D DM's are familiar with.

 

[darkbard]

What you write, AbdulAlhazred, opens the possibility of removing rituals entirely from the game and replacing them with SCs. What is the ritual in your example but, essentially, an Arcana check? What if rituals were not simple one-and-done rolls (or not) by the character with Ritual Casting, costing an expenditure of gold (usually), but SCs that required input from all the party?

 

[Garthanos]

I designed a skill challenge that was used for an item creation in a very magical place like the forge of hades the place was very dangerous by default and it took quite a bit of figuring out to both protect the one forging the magic weapon and get the magic to work.... the item being forged was a McGuffin of course not just some inventory slot.

 

[thanson02]

What you write, AbdulAlhazred, opens the possibility of removing rituals entirely from the game and replacing them with SCs. What is the ritual in your example but, essentially, an Arcana check? What if rituals were not simple one-and-done rolls (or not) by the character with Ritual Casting, costing an expenditure of gold (usually), but SCs that required input from all the party?

You could replace all the mechanics in 4E with Skill Challenges if you wanted to. There was a blog called At-Will.com that covered this very topic.

I think it depends on how the DM wants to handle the situation. You could use the ritual to just summon the spirit and use an interrogation SC to get the info, assuming it wasn't magically compelled to answer. Or if you wanted to use a SC to summon a really big and nasty being, like a death titan or a primeordial being which might involve several components happening in a very specific sequence for it to be completed, that might work. I guess my first response would be be, does doing a skill challenge in this particular situation makes sense? If not, it could end up being really tedious for players.

Sent from my XT1096 using Tapatalk

 

[thanson02]

I designed a skill challenge that was used for an item creation in a very magical place like the forge of hades the place was very dangerous by default and it took quite a bit of figuring out to both protect the one forging the magic weapon and get the magic to work.... the item being forged was a McGuffin of course not just some inventory slot.

I use Narrative Challenges for the same thing. Structure wise they're very similar.

Sent from my XT1096 using Tapatalk

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

What you write, AbdulAlhazred, opens the possibility of removing rituals entirely from the game and replacing them with SCs. What is the ritual in your example but, essentially, an Arcana check? What if rituals were not simple one-and-done rolls (or not) by the character with Ritual Casting, costing an expenditure of gold (usually), but SCs that required input from all the party?

Well... The ritual serves a vital NARRATIVE function. Remember, the rules of SCs require that a player provide narrative justification for any skill use. So, supposing we are in the Investigate the Scene skill challenge, what would be the justification for using Religion? (there might be one, admittedly, but there certainly won't ALWAYS be one). If there's a dead guy around, well, now I have my justification! Furthermore I might even justify additional advantageous checks. I could state that Speak With Dead may potentially open up almost any sort of check. Likewise divination rituals can do the same, simply allowing for certain specific skills to be used in situations where that might not normally be available.

Beyond that, rituals still have their own narrative impact. Casting Speak With Dead puts the narrative of the SC onto a different path. This will certain have an effect on the rest of the SC in some way. Clever players should be able to use this to their advantage.

 

[Garthanos]

Well... The ritual serves a vital NARRATIVE function. Remember, the rules of SCs require that a player provide narrative justification for any skill use. So, supposing we are in the Investigate the Scene skill challenge, what would be the justification for using Religion? (there might be one, admittedly, but there certainly won't ALWAYS be one). If there's a dead guy around, well, now I have my justification! Furthermore I might even justify additional advantageous checks. I could state that Speak With Dead may potentially open up almost any sort of check. Likewise divination rituals can do the same, simply allowing for certain specific skills to be used in situations where that might not normally be available.

This thinking reminds me of the use of my invocations.... It could be interpreted as knowing the invocations of pyrexia and mecha allows one to apply arcana skill towards activities like jamming mechanisms...