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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FourthBear" data-source="post: 4213905" data-attributes="member: 55846">I remain very optimistic about the role of rituals in 4e to fill in many valuable roles in 4e.  However, I am concerned that people, both pro and con, have unrealistically high expectations of the rules for rituals.  I am expecting that rituals will primarily be represented by specific examples in the PH and the DMG will have a discussion on creating campaign appropriate new rituals.  However, I don't expect any kind of broad, all encompassing guidelines that delineate how to create and balance any kind of ritual that the human mind can conceive.  Even the HERO RPG can't manage that in a book the size of a phone directory.  I think that 3e made a stab at a similarly broad system to create magic items, attempting to leverage the spell system.  It showed several major problems with such attempts, I think.  Context in abilities is highly important.  A ritual that allows you to instantly be whisked from the Forest of Dreams to the Feywild's Glass Spires may be no problem, but that doesn't mean that a similar ritual that allows you to teleport into the lair of your greatest enemy should be balanced in a similar way.  They both may involve teleportation, but just word-replace power building doesn't capture that all locations don't have the same role in a campaign.I agree with Lurks-No-More's assessment of a few of the main roles that I see rituals filling.  I also see them used to replicate the plot-device magic that is found throughout both the inspirational fiction for D&D and that fills most of the campaigns and adventures in D&D itself.  There are countless examples where in D&D modules and campaign settings that the authors simply ignore the by-the-book abilities of the monsters, NPCs and such to create the kind of fantastic effects in fiction.   By encouraging specific rituals with limitations and requirements that would not be appropriate for a standardized PC ability, I think it finally acknowledges that there are many fantastic things that are only uncomfortably crammed into everything that is appropriate for a PC of a given level.I hope that rituals are simply led by good examples, some solid guidelines and warnings about what may cause problems.  I certainly don't expect some kind of uber-system that can perfectly balance Phantom Steed, a sacrificial rite that will doom the world if completed, another that finds the perfect mate for the Queen and yet another that curses a village with infertility.</blockquote>

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