We already know that someone said they were tired of the choice forced upon wizards; Phantom Steed vs. Fireball. The first is only useful outside of combat, the second only in combat. The game is, regardless of what some people say, primarily built around combat, so choosing the first for whatever reason is going to be penalized. They've said they'll be deliberately designing the game with powers and abilities focused on combat and with others focused on outside of combat; never the twain shall meet (unless you find a good reason to use a combat power outside of combat, I suppose).*
We've seen a lot of powers and exploits, and they're all combat oriented. Since we know they're putting in non-combat options as a separate list, it makes sense that they'd be part of the only system we've heard of for which we've not yet seen any fluff. Since we're reasonable and we know WotC is reasonable, it doesn't make sense for something like a ritual for Phantom Steed to cost two flying carpets and a virgin in addition to taking a week to perform, so that implies a relatively cheap ritual that doesn't take much time. Conversely, it wouldn't make much sense for a ritual that would kill all dwarves and turn the eladrin into the guys from the Queer Eye show to cost a chicken dinner and take five minutes, so we would expect a ritual that would take a lot of time and money (so the PCs could kill the ritualist at the last second and take all his stuff).
So, to put things in a quick and dirty list:
1) Do we have any info on rituals? No. All we know is that they'll exist, they'll require a feat or power of some kind to access, and they'll take time and money.
2) Non-combat things are not, so far as we know, accessible through the feats and powers we've seen.
3) We don't know how they'll be handled.
4) It's reasonable to assume that things like Phantom Steed and Scrying will be handled with rituals.
5) It's reasonable to assume that a ritual for something like Phantom Steed will be quite different from one for Destroy the World or Bake Me a Pizza.
6) Are rituals our stock answer? You betcha! Mostly because we don't know anything about them, but also because everything we've heard has led us to believe they are, in fact, the answer. I don't know if the wizards implied it or we inferred it, but there you go.
7) There is no seven.
* I believe this was in one of the podcasts. It's hard to remember, what with so much information been thrown at us.
We've seen a lot of powers and exploits, and they're all combat oriented. Since we know they're putting in non-combat options as a separate list, it makes sense that they'd be part of the only system we've heard of for which we've not yet seen any fluff. Since we're reasonable and we know WotC is reasonable, it doesn't make sense for something like a ritual for Phantom Steed to cost two flying carpets and a virgin in addition to taking a week to perform, so that implies a relatively cheap ritual that doesn't take much time. Conversely, it wouldn't make much sense for a ritual that would kill all dwarves and turn the eladrin into the guys from the Queer Eye show to cost a chicken dinner and take five minutes, so we would expect a ritual that would take a lot of time and money (so the PCs could kill the ritualist at the last second and take all his stuff).
So, to put things in a quick and dirty list:
1) Do we have any info on rituals? No. All we know is that they'll exist, they'll require a feat or power of some kind to access, and they'll take time and money.
2) Non-combat things are not, so far as we know, accessible through the feats and powers we've seen.
3) We don't know how they'll be handled.
4) It's reasonable to assume that things like Phantom Steed and Scrying will be handled with rituals.
5) It's reasonable to assume that a ritual for something like Phantom Steed will be quite different from one for Destroy the World or Bake Me a Pizza.
6) Are rituals our stock answer? You betcha! Mostly because we don't know anything about them, but also because everything we've heard has led us to believe they are, in fact, the answer. I don't know if the wizards implied it or we inferred it, but there you go.
7) There is no seven.
* I believe this was in one of the podcasts. It's hard to remember, what with so much information been thrown at us.
