Congenio's Ritual

[CapnZapp]

Congenio's Ritual

Over the course over a tenday, you join the elders of Savras in retreat, in an attempt to unlock the mystical energies of Ioun stones. As a prerequisite you must permanently devote one of your attunement slots to Ioun – it can no longer be used to attune any other item than Ioun stones. Then make three DC 20 Intelligence (Arcana) ability checks, each taking 8 hours of time. Each success means one extra Ioun stone can share the attunement slot you devoted to Ioun.


Something I whipped up for Tomb of Annihilation, in order for my 5th edition campaign to make Ioun stones a bit more special, and to better support canonical D&D lore like this:



(As you can guess, Larry here has unearthed an even more powerful version of this ritual )

 

[CapnZapp]

Here's a link to explore the probabilities involved:

http://anydice.com/program/f1eb

In this particular case, we have a character with a +6 Arcana bonus (maybe a 1st level Wizard, or a tenth level Rogue with 14 Int). As you can see, the probabilities are as follows.

There's a 4% chance of the character getting to share four Ioun stones in one attunement slot. There's a 28% chance of him getting to share at least three, and a 73% chance of the ritual doing anything at all (=sharing at least two stones). The probability of wasting your time and money is 27%.

 

[CapnZapp]

Important note: you still must buy/find the actual Ioun stones you wish to use. Without any stones, this ritual is worthless

It might be worthwhile to add that I don't have any Wizard in my campaign. The characters are currently level 9, but will probably be higher level when they return to Port Nyanzaru before their final Omu delve. Still, that means that +6 Arcana is probably the highest any of them will sport.

If your party consists of only Wizards you might want to increase the diff... wait, scratch that, since how many Ioun stones will you let them find in your campaign?

Unless you answer "a dozen" only a single character can benefit from this ritual anyway. And remember that "one" is perhaps the most common answer.

 

[TwoSix]

Here's a link to explore the probabilities involved:

http://anydice.com/program/f1eb

In this particular case, we have a character with a +6 Arcana bonus (maybe a 1st level Wizard, or a tenth level Rogue with 14 Int). As you can see, the probabilities are as follows.

There's a 4% chance of the character getting to share four Ioun stones in one attunement slot. There's a 28% chance of him getting to share at least three, and a 73% chance of the ritual doing anything at all (=sharing at least two stones). The probability of wasting your time and money is 27%.

Clever, although realistically by the time you get two ioun stones you're probably looking at minimum an arcana check from +7-9, assuming wizard. (+3-4 prof, +4-5 Int). Not that other characters can't go, but the flavor text involves feels very wizardy.

Couple other thoughts:

1) Does guidance give any benefit?

2) Maybe ascending difficulty checks? Say, DC 15 for Ioun stone 2, 20 for number 3, and 25 for number 4?

3) Actually having the Ioun stones in your possession should give you a bonus.

 

[CapnZapp]

Clever

Thanks!

Not that other characters can't go, but the flavor text involves feels very wizardy.

Everyone can go, but Arcana and Intelligence sure helps

Couple other thoughts:

1) Does guidance give any benefit?

2) Maybe ascending difficulty checks? Say, DC 15 for Ioun stone 2, 20 for number 3, and 25 for number 4?

3) Actually having the Ioun stones in your possession should give you a bonus.

1) if your DM allows it to work on checks made over a long time

2) Maybe not? The probabilities doesn't appreciably change since the order of successful checks doesn't matter

3) I'd think not bringing any would give you a penalty

 

[TwoSix]

2) Maybe not? The probabilities doesn't appreciably change since the order of successful checks doesn't matter

My personal feeling is that if the PC is willing to go on a ten-day pilgrimage with crazy people, AND risk sacrificing an attunement slot, the chance of getting something from it should be pretty darn good. Like in the 90-95% chance range if it's something that fits the profile (a character with a good Arcana check). Up to you, of course, what you want the PCs to get out of it.

3) I'd think not bringing any would give you a penalty

Would it? My assumption was that the ritual would open up the attunement slot to hold between 2-4 ioun stones, but you could add them in at any time after the ritual. But having a penalty for not having ioun stones, instead of a bonus, certainly makes sense. Although I don't see why, in game, the PC would do the ritual if they didn't have any stones..it would be like questing for a scabbard for your non-existent holy avenger.

 

[CapnZapp]

My personal feeling is that if the PC is willing to go on a ten-day pilgrimage with crazy people, AND risk sacrificing an attunement slot, the chance of getting something from it should be pretty darn good.

Maybe a misunderstanding but the worst outcome is that one attunement slot gets tied up to one ioun stone.

Since we can assume a character that does this has at least one stone, that's hardly worse than before.

I would not expect a hero to jump onto this "blind", i.e with no stones and no certainty of ever finding any.

In my case the wondrous etc bazaars of Port Nyanzaru has at least four (Ioun stones) for sale of various sorts.

So the scenario where this ritual permanently wrecks one of your slots is not intended. It is quite okay to not do this until you have found at least one Ioun stone you think you can live with for the rest of your career. [emoji2]

In other words, a ritual can be harsh when it is voluntary. We can expect characters with poor prospects to simply pass. The ritual does not need to cater to them.

 

[TwoSix]

So the scenario where this ritual permanently wrecks one of your slots is not intended. It is quite okay to not do this until you have found at least one Ioun stone you think you can live with for the rest of your career. [emoji2]

In other words, a ritual can be harsh when it is voluntary. We can expect characters with poor prospects to simply pass. The ritual does not need to cater to them.

OK, that makes more sense. The cost is some roleplaying, gold, and time, and the possibility of one of your attunement slots being locked to only be available to one ioun stone. The benefit is having a decent chance (73% with a +6 bonus) of being able to cram in an extra ioun stone. Makes sense. I like it.

 

[CM]

Independent of this thread I was thinking about just making stones take up one attunement slot regardless of the number you have. They aren't exactly common IMC.

 

[CapnZapp]

In any campaign where you the DM knows there will be only two (or maybe three, tops) Ioun Stones, then yes, that's a simple approach - and 5th edition is about being simple.

However, if you run a magic shoppe enabled campaign (like I so, see my Fabulous Bazaars thread) there will be at least five Ioun Stones available (in total; loot plus purchasable) with the potential for more in the future.

So my concern is: I don't want the players to min-max by giving ALL ioun stones to a single character. And really, with the simple approach that becomes the obvious and only course of action for a party.

I do need to lighten the RAW on them - if each stone requires it's own attunement slot, the concept of Ioun Stones loses most if not all of its utility as established by lore.

Again, if there's few enough items that attunement doesn't become a huge headache, there's no problem and RAW works. (Say, around 15 or maybe 20 attunable items total for a five-man party)

But in my style of campaign, you would simply dump most Ioun Stones for not bringing enough individual bang for the buck of a whole attunement slot.

While "all of them" becomes
a) very generous (too generous?)
b) boring for the other players, who will never be able to justify a new Ioun Stone going to anyone else than the character who can use it "for free" (from an attunement slot perspective)

Hence the ritual as written [emoji3]