Arcane Power Excerpt: Rituals

[Campbell]

One of the ideas that I'm currently toying with is allowing ritual casters to hang a ritual like Merlin hung spells in the Amber books in order to introduce an additional level of strategy to my 4e games.

• A ritual caster can only hang one ritual at a time.
• When you hang a ritual you pay the component costs and spend the usual time required to use a ritual. You also pay a healing surge.
• All decisions about the ritual must be made during the hanging process.
• If you replace a hung ritual with another one you still lose the components associated with the first ritual.
• Casting a hung ritual is always a standard action.

Of course this system would require a certain amount of DM adjudication to account for different rituals, but I'm largely okay with that.

 

[CapnZapp]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure we'll be getting a way to pre-cast rituals eventually.

 

[erf_beto]

I guess I understand Moridin... once we allow ANY ritual to be cast within combat boundaries (even pre-casting), future ritual design will suffer serious limitation, having to keep that option in mind.

I think Moridin fears the possibilty that, in the future, there will be a ritual powerfull enough that casting it inside a combat will possibly break the game.

IMO, the "best" example we have so far is probably Teleport - and as Lord Tirian showed, it's not a good example. =/

To solve this issue, I'd rather introduce a feat or magic item or scroll in a case by case basis that allowed you to cast a single specific ritual (or set of rituals) once per day, like a feat to use Comprehend Languages as a minor action, or a magic key you "enchanted" with Knock or a special stone or crystal you activated to teleport back home (and nowhere else)...

 

[bluekieran]

Standard action to make an easy check
Move action to make a moderate check
Minor action to make a hard check

It means the wizard can still participate in stuff to a greater or lesser extent depending upon how well the ritual is going, how desperate things are at the moment etc.

That is interesting. I participated in an adventure recently where my Wizard was tied up for the entirety of a 3-round combat performing a (story-specific) ritual, and it did suck: I love combat and was left out of it. I'll suggest your system to my DM for future use...

 

[Rechan]

According ot the new excerpt, we're getting the Warlock Pact on Monday.

 

[Shroomy]

Is anyone else having problems with the link to the new excerpt's pdf file?

 

[Scribble]

Is anyone else having problems with the link to the new excerpt's pdf file?

yeah... it's not working

 

[Rechan]

I do have a hope that the Ensnaring Swordmage will be playing off Charisma. Although I have the feeling that won't be. But it would be nice.

 

[Hawke]

Is anyone else having problems with the link to the new excerpt's pdf file?

I am :-(

 

[Kobold Avenger]

The link is actually http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/excerpts/excerpt_pp_swordmage.pdf