Are rituals a shared party resource?

[msherman]

As near as I can tell, there's no rule that requires any kind of personalization of the ritual book -- assuming each PC ritual caster spends 8 hours on it, can they master rituals out of each others' books? And can they all share books that they find as treasure?

Other than the importance of backups, is there really any good reason to have more than one ritual caster in the party?

On a related note, the economics of the market price of rituals doesn't make much sense to me; anyone can copy from an existing book, so why are the market prices so high?

 

[Mirtek]

On a related note, the economics of the market price of rituals doesn't make much sense to me; anyone can copy from an existing book, so why are the market prices so high?

Making a copy from an existing books costs the full market price.

 

[msherman]

Is that supposed to be the cost of inks and other materials for doing the actual copy? Or is it just the fees that the owner of the original books charges for 8 hours access to his book? I'd been assuming the latter, but if it's the former, that makes more sense.

So presumably, someone operating a "magic bookstore" would be charging an additional vig on top of the base market price in the PHB, just like someone selling weapons or other magic items?

 

[Smeelbo]

Don't try to make sense of 4E fantasy economics: that way lies madness. For example, if magic items sell for 1/5 their value, why can't we can't find someone selling their magic items at 1/5 their value? And who, in their right mind, would sell at 1/5 value?

If the economy made sense, one could probably sell magic items for closer to 50-90% of their value. But this would break various game assumptions that have been made. If 4E ever actually becomes an MMO with a bazaar, you can bet magic items will sell for much more than 1/5 their "market price."

Smeelbo

 

[Doctor Proctor]

As near as I can tell, there's no rule that requires any kind of personalization of the ritual book -- assuming each PC ritual caster spends 8 hours on it, can they master rituals out of each others' books? And can they all share books that they find as treasure?

Other than the importance of backups, is there really any good reason to have more than one ritual caster in the party?

On a related note, the economics of the market price of rituals doesn't make much sense to me; anyone can copy from an existing book, so why are the market prices so high?

Well, I think that would depend on your DM. I don't recall anything specifically in the rules that allows for that kind of sharing, but neither is there a rule saying that I can or can't give the magic Longsword I'm no longer using to another party member. So it's really up to your DM I think...but I don't think that there'd be a huge problem with it. Perhaps he could cut the price in half or to a quarter? Essentially still charging for some specials inks and such, but eliminating the charge for studying the shopkeepers books?

As for having more than one ritual caster in the party, there are some reasons for it. For one, there's skill selection... While most of the rituals are Arcana, there are a fair number that are Religion or Nature checks. And while a Wizard can potentially have all 4 skills at 1st level, he won't necessarily have as high of a Wisdom for Nature as someone like a Cleric might. So sometimes it can be good just to have multiple ritual casters so that the can specialize in rituals fitting their stats.

If you had both a Wizard and a Cleric in the party, they both get the Ritual Caster feat for free...so why not have both of them get rituals? They can each buy separate rituals as they see fit, and thus allow the party as a whole to have more rituals covered. This might also work well since you can have other characters assist in rituals, meaning that the Cleric and Wizard might often end up working together to get the rituals they're castin completed.

Ultimately though, it might be good to have two ritual casters in case someone leaves the game or dies. They could always pick up the old character's ritual book and use it as their own once the original owner is gone.

 

[Doctor Proctor]

Sorry for the double post, but I just found a better answer to the question about copying your buddy's book. You don't need to.

Check out page 298 whee it talks about the rituals. Under the section on creating a ritual book it talks about how you need the exotic inks and such, which essentially means you would pay market to price to copy your ally's book.

Under Mastering a ritual though, studying it for 8 hours is the only requirement. You don't have to physically own the ritual in order to use it...or a better way to put it is that you don't need to have written it out yourself (this is why you can find rituals as part of treasure, master them, and then keep them along with your normal book). In this way, two characters in the same party can master their own rituals, as well as the rituals of the other PC. Then each of them will know how to cast it, and will only need to "borrow" the other ritual book if they want to cast one that's not in their own book.

 

[Oompa]

Don't try to make sense of 4E fantasy economics: that way lies madness. For example, if magic items sell for 1/5 their value, why can't we can't find someone selling their magic items at 1/5 their value? And who, in their right mind, would sell at 1/5 value?

If the economy made sense, one could probably sell magic items for closer to 50-90% of their value. But this would break various game assumptions that have been made. If 4E ever actually becomes an MMO with a bazaar, you can bet magic items will sell for much more than 1/5 their "market price."

Smeelbo

No where in the books it say's magic weapons can't be sold for lower prices or anything..

You cannot sell mundane armor, weapons, or adventuringgear unless your DM allows, in which case youreceive one-fifth of an item’s market price. Art objects or fine goods that have a specific value, such as a gold dagger worth 100 gp, bring their full price.

So magic weapons can be sold at dm's said percentages..