Could Rituals cover Skills?

[Incenjucar]

While I love the overall notion of rituals, we should probably see how they actually work in 4E before they become the new core mechanic.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Yeah, but something like this could solve people's issue with these missing skills.

 

[Plane Sailing]

This has maybe been discussed before, but it was a random thought that popped into my head.

Yes, somebody made a post a month or so ago in this forum about the possibility of effectively treating crafting skills like rituals. IIRC they included some example rules about how they thought it might work, and looked like a pretty reasonable idea.

Cheers

 

[Kaisoku]

Regardless if the terminology is off kilter, it's a sound mechanic.

Like PeterWeller said, maybe just call these mundane ritual-style written skill checks as "Professions".

I had been toying with the idea of giving people in my games bonuses based on background profession concepts, and even possibly further bonuses based on jobs they'd been doing while adventuring (bounty hunter, soldier, sailor, etc). The bonuses would be checks for actions or knowledge regarding those professions...

Giving access to a list of ritual-like profession skill checks would be a neat way to bring these things into the game. And since they don't really affect your character's combat capability, it can be tacked on "as you get them", giving it more of a simulation feel (you exist and interact with the world).. as opposed to a strictly gamist feel from picking them as you level, etc.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

My suspicion is that rituals are going to work very much like the Incantation rules in Unearthed Arcana. If that is the case, then rituals will work almost exactly like skills - incantations use a complex skill check mechanic similar to the one used in the "escape from Sembia" scenario, where you need to make X number of success before X number of failures.

 

[Irda Ranger]

What if many of the skills that are missing have instead become rituals. This could work out actually since things like; Perform, Craft, Decipher Script, Forgery, Appraise, in some cases Profession.

These could all be covered by basic rituals, especially if Rituals require various skills in combination to work, and it means too there can be varying degrees of rituals, so... Perform: Simple Dance, Sing a Sonnet, etc.

They could each have their own skill checks for it and own unique DCs and effects.

*Shrugs shoulders* just an idea.

This has come up before. I think it's a good idea. You'd have different kind of rituals: Divine, Arcane, Mundane, Fey, etc. etc.

A Fey Ritual might open a door to the Feywild or summon a particular Eladrin. A Mundane Ritual would be a fine mechanic for simulating how swords or castles are made, or putting on a play.

As I see it, a Ritual is just a mechanic for "doing work over a period of hours, days or longer which requires a certain amount of skill and materials and produces a particular output." The basic stat block of any ritual would look like:

NAME OF RITUAL
Work/Unit Time: _____________ (10 minutes uninterrupted, 1 hour a day for a tenday, 1 day a week for a growing season, etc.)
Skill(s) Required:_______________ (Architecture, Class Levels, etc.)
Costs/Materials:___________ (50 gp, incense, 10 lbs. iron and coke, glass rod, etc.)
Difficulty:________ (Note: this could be a Skill DC or a Level check for Wizards/Clerics).
Outcome:____________ (Sword, summoned demon, 100 bushels of wheat, etc.)

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Maybe they are NOT rituals, but follow a similar mechanic... Maybe everyone can use crafting rules, and Rituals are some kind of variation to the crafting rules only for those trained in Arcana and with class training wizard or cleric?

 

[Irda Ranger]

Maybe they are NOT rituals, but follow a similar mechanic... Maybe everyone can use crafting rules, and Rituals are some kind of variation to the crafting rules only for those trained in Arcana and with class training wizard or cleric?

Why have two mechanics for achieving the same thing? Call them something else though if it makes you happy.

You could have ...
Martial Powers = Exploits; Arcane Powers = Spells.
Mundane Activities = Crafts/Professions; Arcane Activities = Rituals.

Better?

 

[Fallen Seraph]

*Nods* That could work, perhaps too Rituals is a general term (like how Powers are) and Magical Rituals are called something else anyways.

A ritual doesn't have to mean magical, hell we have always heard of the term "your daily ritual" for what you do during the course of the day, certainly nothing magical about that. Just a selected course of actions you act out.