Are Rituals Vaporware?

[Lizard]

Pish tosh, my boy. The storm warden, like all paragon paths, is about new ways to define your relationship with the world. If you are unable to use the provided material to take your campaign in new and different directions, that's your lookout.

Please tell me how the mechanical material provided gives something to the DM and players they couldn't just do themselves. Nothing in the mechanics concretizes your putative goals; it's 100% pure DM fiat if the paragon paths have any meaning whatsoever out of combat. Compare to, say, the Arcane Arranger from Urban Arcana, a non-combat Advanced Class that was VERY mechanically defined.

Seems to me that you've just decided that you WANT 4e to be more than a pure combat rules set, and so, you've decided it IS, facts and evidence be damned.

Wanting actual proof of your arguments is, of course, "thinking too hard about fantasy".

 

[hong]

Please tell me how the mechanical material provided gives something to the DM and players they couldn't just do themselves.

You are still in the mindset that the mechanics define what happens in the game world. The whole philosophy of 4E is that the mechanics only need to handle what happens when PCs interact with NPCs, whether violently or otherwise. The non-mechanical part of the paragon paths is the interesting bit. They provide hooks for further adventure, plot development, character growth, and all those other fancy-schmancy things that make the game more than just combat. And that is noncombat information, which is what was asked for, and is provided in the paragon path article.

The fact that paragon tier abilities happen to focus on combat as much as at any other tier s entirely beside the point. WHY a paragon tier character fights, and WHAT he fights, are what differentiates that tier from the one below.

 

[hong]

That is the most useful part of your post. It should give you a bit to think.

Alas.

What is a Paragon path?

A definitional relationship between the character and the milieu.

A name and some combat powers. That's it. Nothing which in any way changes the characters relationship with the world except how he kills things. That is first and foremost a role playing thing which is not influenced by combat powers.

One might, as a first approximation, consider "roleplaying things" to be a vital part of a "roleplaying game".

 

[broghammerj]

Can we not threadjack this into a discussion of paragon paths and their purpose.

Back to rituals.....my only fear is that old spells which are likely to fall into ritual magic will now be excluded from creative uses in combat. A few examples:

1. Create water used to form a pool to hold a fire elemental at bay.

2. Stone shape to suddenly create a barrier to block oncoming enemies. A more liberal use of the spell was to entrap an evil NPC in rock....the DM thought it was a cool application and allowed the NPC a reflex save.

3. There is a whole plethora of illusion spells which had non-specific combat uses such as distraction/intimidation tactics.

4. Plant growth creating an impediment to attackers.

5. Shrink item to hide a weapon, wand, or staff before capture.

6. Hold portal as a party is fleeing from the enemy.

The list could go on. I think any of the above listed spells could be appropriately placed into the ritual category. One of the things I used to love as a wizard was to save a small percentage of spells (see resource management) for creative combat uses as above. Pure ritual use would really restrict the mage to being a blaster and thus make me lose interest in the class.

 

[Lizard]

The fact that paragon tier abilities happen to focus on combat as much as at any other tier s entirely beside the point. WHY a paragon tier character fights, and WHAT he fights, are what differentiates that tier from the one below.

And tell me how 4e does this any differently than 3e...or, indeed, any other game where there is a steady power accumulation. In my LSH-ripoff Hero System game, the PCs went from being the New Kids On The Block to Saviors Of The Galaxy. In my D20Modern game, the PCs went from being scared college students uncovering mysteries to the gods of another world. Somehow, I managed this without "Tiers" formally declaring that as soon as the PCs hit an arbitrary level cap, they stop fighting orcs attacking the village and start fighting drow attacking the city.

"Tiers" not only add nothing to the game experience mechanically, they cheapen it by creating wholly artificial breakpoints that have no in-game meaning and provide nothing that wasn't provided in the 1e DMG "advice to the dungeon master" sections.

There's nothing in the *rules* which makes 4e more campaign-arc friendly than 3e or any other version of D&D, and thus, it doesn't count as a selling point. "The DM can change the scope and scale of the campaign at will" is a feature of every mainstream RPG since brown-box D&D.

 

[Lizard]

One might, as a first approximation, consider "roleplaying things" to be a vital part of a "roleplaying game".

One might. One wonders why the 4e designers didn't. While you are as free to roleplay in 4e as you were in any other edition, there's nothing added to the game to enhance or drive roleplaying -- no non-combat skills, no flaw/merit system, for example, no rules for contacts and connections, nothing which adds mechanics to anything other than hitting people with sticks. Not only are there no such things, they have been explicitly disdained by the developers as trivial and unworthy of mechanics, with the infamous, "Yeah, whatever, if you want to be a blacksmith, just write it on your character sheet, not like it ever matters" and "If a game session ever involved a Craft check, you weren't have enough fun" comments.

 

[hong]

And tell me how 4e does this any differently than 3e...or, indeed, any other game where there is a steady power accumulation.

It puts into 2-column, 9-point serif font what was previously an informal understanding of how level progression should be interpreted as it affects a character's role in the game world. As such, it formalises the zeitgeist and provides a solid conceptual foundation for designing adventures that are meaningfully different from one tier to the next. And it counts as noncombat information, which is what was asked for, and what was provided.

"Tiers" not only add nothing to the game experience mechanically, they cheapen it by creating wholly artificial breakpoints that have no in-game meaning and provide nothing that wasn't provided in the 1e DMG "advice to the dungeon master" sections.

They are an excellent spur to the imagination by which DMs can PROVIDE in-game meaning to the otherwise unbroken slope of stat advancement.

Like this.

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=224926

 

[hong]

One might. One wonders why the 4e designers didn't. While you are as free to roleplay in 4e as you were in any other edition, there's nothing added to the game to enhance or drive roleplaying -- no non-combat skills,

???

no flaw/merit system, for example, no rules for contacts and connections, nothing which adds mechanics to anything other than hitting people with sticks. Not only are there no such things, they have been explicitly disdained by the developers as trivial and unworthy of mechanics, with the infamous, "Yeah, whatever, if you want to be a blacksmith, just write it on your character sheet, not like it ever matters" and "If a game session ever involved a Craft check, you weren't have enough fun" comments.

This is a game that has always, at its core, been about killing monsters and taking their stuff. Of course, this means that compromises have to be made.

 

[Sashi]

Originally Posted by muffin_of_chaos
If you approve of the Vancian system, you probably aren't qualified to comment on the viability of 4E's unknown magical mechanics.

And why is this?

Don't bother answering, I already know you're just a troll.

muffin may be trolling, but he's also got a point.

Any spell that, in the vancian system, was useless in or not meant for combat can be turned into a ritual. Because, really, that's what we wanted them to be. Scry isn't "I prepare scry, cast it, and then sit down with this crystal ball" it's "I bring out my crystal ball, enact the ritual of scrying, and during this ritual I see far away places through the ball."

Rituals will add to versimilitude, because not all people who can do one kind of magic can do another. In 3.5 if you needed to contact another plane, you had to track down someone who could cast the 5th level spell "Contact other plane", which implied that they were a 9th level wizard at least, with all that being 9th level implies. With Rituals, you have the "contact extraplanar being" ritual, which belongs to Glenda the Good Gypsy. She could be a high level Warlock (and the potential villain of a campaign down the line) or just a one-shot NPC. The fact that she knows the ritual means only that.

I have a feeling that creating new rituals will be fairly simple:

Step 1: Find a spell/Spell Like Ability that existed in 3e/2e/BECMI/1e but isn't an ability in 4e
Step 2: Make sure it's not disallowed/obsolete through 4e (Magic Weapon? Probably not allowed/needed. Overland flight? Probably yes.)
Step 2: Follow a simple guide to determine the cost/level/length of a corresponding ritual
Step 5: Make it accessible to the proper PC/NPC/Monster

As far as I can tell, rituals are almost literally "magical abilities from previous editions that have been removed from combat" and instead of making it a BAD choice to prep a certian spell to make it "ritual like" ("Phantom Steed? You prepared PHANTOM STEED? As your 3rd level spell? We needed dispel magic!") they make it a ritual. Rituals are probably going to be intentionally vague because they're just "how to make magic that does whatever you want but doesn't affect combat balance".

Want an NPC weather shaman with the ability to make rain for crops? He knows a ritual for that.
Want a nobel djinn to have the ability to bring willing allies to the brass city? He knows a ritual for that.

Where things get difficult are when people want to use rituals as a backdoor to bring abusive spell use back into combat. There may be a "Wall of Iron" ritual that allows you to repair breached holes in castle walls, or wall off a tunnel to prevent your enemies escape. But you're probably not going to be able to make a wall of iron just to crush people like you did in previous editions.

 

[Lizard]

They are an excellent spur to the imagination by which DMs can PROVIDE in-game meaning to the otherwise unbroken slope of stat advancement.

Like this.

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=224926

I don't consider going on a quest to be keyed for a new zone to be the height of roleplaying. YMMV. To me, it is rather the antithesis of immersion and imagination. There may be better ways to metaphorically slam the player's face into a brick wall while chanting "YOU! ARE! PLAYING! A! GAME!", but I don't feel like thinking of them now.