IceFractal
First Post
Rituals apparently fix everything in 4E.
Not enough versatility? Rituals.
Spells seem purely combat oriented? Rituals.
What happened to X spell? Rituals.
How does anyone do X? Rituals.
Not having fun yet? Rituals.
But where exactly is this information on rituals coming from? Not from WotC - they've made some vague mention of rituals, but haven't given any concrete info on them, or even confirmed that they do what people think they do. And yet time after time, people claim rituals will fix whatever problem is mentioned.
All we actually know about rituals is that you need "Ritual Casting" to learn them, they take time (a minute? a week?), and they have material components (but how rare/expensive are they?).
Most notably, we do not know that there will be actual rules for any specific rituals in the PHB or DMG. Nothing WotC has said contradicts the possibility that the ritual rules will simply be a list of things rituals can do, a vague guideline regarding difficulty, and the DM has to ad-hoc the specifics.
And this is a problem because it isn't just rare events like raising the dead that require a ritual, it's most non-combat magic. And while I'm fine if Resurrection is a significant event requiring a quest to find rare components and so forth, I don't want basic things like Leomund's Secure Shelter to work that way. Things like Phantom Steed, Prestidigitation - I want rules for that, so my Wizard can just do it and not have to have each DM homebrew them differently.
Because that's what improving in spellcasting is good for. Bigger damage numbers in combat - so what? Your enemies have bigger HP numbers to match. But being able to say "Screw walking through this swamp - Phantom Steed time!", that's rewarding. Not so rewarding if casting Phantom Steed costs all your money or takes so long you could have just walked, or you can't cast it because the DM hasn't gotten around to creating the ritual for it.
Now if WotC has actually released some real information on rituals, tell me - I'd be happy to be wrong in this case.
Edit: Ritual Casting is mentioned as a feat, fixed.
Not enough versatility? Rituals.
Spells seem purely combat oriented? Rituals.
What happened to X spell? Rituals.
How does anyone do X? Rituals.
Not having fun yet? Rituals.
But where exactly is this information on rituals coming from? Not from WotC - they've made some vague mention of rituals, but haven't given any concrete info on them, or even confirmed that they do what people think they do. And yet time after time, people claim rituals will fix whatever problem is mentioned.
All we actually know about rituals is that you need "Ritual Casting" to learn them, they take time (a minute? a week?), and they have material components (but how rare/expensive are they?).
Most notably, we do not know that there will be actual rules for any specific rituals in the PHB or DMG. Nothing WotC has said contradicts the possibility that the ritual rules will simply be a list of things rituals can do, a vague guideline regarding difficulty, and the DM has to ad-hoc the specifics.
And this is a problem because it isn't just rare events like raising the dead that require a ritual, it's most non-combat magic. And while I'm fine if Resurrection is a significant event requiring a quest to find rare components and so forth, I don't want basic things like Leomund's Secure Shelter to work that way. Things like Phantom Steed, Prestidigitation - I want rules for that, so my Wizard can just do it and not have to have each DM homebrew them differently.
Because that's what improving in spellcasting is good for. Bigger damage numbers in combat - so what? Your enemies have bigger HP numbers to match. But being able to say "Screw walking through this swamp - Phantom Steed time!", that's rewarding. Not so rewarding if casting Phantom Steed costs all your money or takes so long you could have just walked, or you can't cast it because the DM hasn't gotten around to creating the ritual for it.
Now if WotC has actually released some real information on rituals, tell me - I'd be happy to be wrong in this case.
Edit: Ritual Casting is mentioned as a feat, fixed.
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