Decrease Ritual Casting Times

[UngeheuerLich]

You could allow preparing Rituals in the Morning, just like in former editions spells were memorized.

That is: draw your book, prepare your materials etc and so on. When time is there to cast the Ritual, you have all prepared and thus less time is needed.

You only have to decide, if the incredeients once prepared for your certain Ritual can still be used for others... i.e.: do you have it already mixed, or only just sorted out etc.

Maybe you could say: Only prepared, ready to be mixed: halves time (like the scroll)
Everything done except the last few words spoken: 1 minute

Your creativity has no limits here, play in a way thats fun for your group!

 

[DracoSuave]

I think this is completely right, and ultimately what our back and forth is about. As my group feels pretty much all the same about this, it makes far more sense to just change the rules slightly to fit our style of play then to try to convince ourselves to change our gaming paradigm.

In such cases I just like to say 'It takes some time.' 'How long -exactly-?' 'Well, break out your stopwatches and time it.' 'We don't have those!' 'Then you'll not know how long it is anyways. It feels like a very short time.'

 

[IceFractal]

I think this "skill protection" thing is going way overboard. Let's remember that a single use of a single skill is not a huge part of a character. At most, it represents a single feat (Skill Training). Being able to pick locks is not what makes a Rogue special, because any character who spends a feat can do that and more. Having the Rogue powers and class abilities is what makes a Rogue special.


Secondly, many of the rituals don't just cost more, they're also worse, and take longer. That's doesn't fit any kind of balance. For instance, Knock:
A) Knock: 10 minutes, costs money, skill check at +5.
B) Taking 20 on Thievery: 2 minutes, no cost, skill check at +10 (effectively).
C) Smashing down the Door: Time varies (0.25-2.5 minutes for one person, faster with help), no cost, no skill check required.

B & C are a trade-off. A is just a waste of time.


Rituals should be at least comparable to the mundane solution, not objectively worse. That means they can be:
* Faster but expensive
* Better but expensive
* Better but slower
* Faster but worse

But making them slower, more expensive, and no better than mundane means is just dumb.
This is the kind of stuff I'm talking about:
Secret Page - This ritual does nothing that leaving the page blank and just remembering the message wouldn't.
Travelers' Feast - Not completely useless, but almost so - how often are you going to be out of any food and water, but still have plenty of expensive herbs or residuum for doing the ritual?
Excavation - The ritual is not much faster than just digging the pit manually, and lot more expensive.
Wizard's Curtain - An actual curtain costs less than 30 gp, takes less than 10 minutes to set up, and is completely opaque, not just "nearly".

 

[Falling Icicle]

I think this "skill protection" thing is going way overboard. Let's remember that a single use of a single skill is not a huge part of a character. At most, it represents a single feat (Skill Training). Being able to pick locks is not what makes a Rogue special, because any character who spends a feat can do that and more. Having the Rogue powers and class abilities is what makes a Rogue special.

Well said. And it also irritates me how so many people equate "ritual caster" with "wizard," which further reinforces their niche protection ideas. Granted, wizards do get ritual casting and a few rituals for free, but anyone, any class, can gain access to rituals if they wish. Likewise, anyone can learn thievery. In previous editions, these kinds of things were pretty much exclusive to certain classes, but in 4e, this is no longer the case.

Secondly, many of the rituals don't just cost more, they're also worse, and take longer. That's doesn't fit any kind of balance. For instance, Knock:
A) Knock: 10 minutes, costs money, skill check at +5.
B) Taking 20 on Thievery: 2 minutes, no cost, skill check at +10 (effectively).
C) Smashing down the Door: Time varies (0.25-2.5 minutes for one person, faster with help), no cost, no skill check required.

B & C are a trade-off. A is just a waste of time.

Exactly. Using the skill is almost always a superior option to using a ritual to accomplish the same goal (i.e. picking a lock). So all these people that seem to think the party wizard with the knock ritual somehow makes their rogue useless, well I just don't know what they're thinking. And what about a wizard that is trained in theivery? Is that also an unacceptable heresy? And did it ever occur to them that their rogue can become a ritual caster and show up the wizard in his supposed niche?

 

[DracoSuave]

Not at all. Rituals don't endanger skill use because they're -supposed- to be the inferior option if the skill/feat is available. They aren't the 'This is better than the skill in this situation' option but rather the 'we don't have that skill, so pull out the ritual' option in those cases. It's a replacement for absent skills, and shouldn't be as powerful as them in those cases for obvious reasons. That said, rituals have things only rituals can do, and they're fine in their role as is.

 

[FabioMilitoPagliara]

I would also point out that the number of rituals available to PC can be BIG

with few ritual you don't have a lot of problems in shortening their duration

but if your character have dozens of rituals for each level they could do a little too many things just with rituals and they would stop being rituals but look more like spells

that's the reason why I am resisting the idea of reducing the casting time of rituals

 

[IceFractal]

Not at all. Rituals don't endanger skill use because they're -supposed- to be the inferior option if the skill/feat is available.

Are they? Let's not forget that someone with Knock spent more resources getting it than someone with Thievery - one trained skill, versus a trained skill, a feat, finding someone to learn it from, and paying for it. Let's also not forget that Knock is costing you money every time you use it. Even if it were as fast and effective as Thievery, it would still be worse because of the cost.

but if your character have dozens of rituals for each level they could do a little too many things just with rituals and they would stop being rituals but look more like spells

Unless your PCs are swimming in monty-haul amounts of loot, they're unlikely to take this path, because rituals cost significant amounts of money. And if they did, would it really be so bad? Remember, this isn't "the Wizard doing everything" - maybe the Rogue is the one casting Knock. Rituals are open to everyone in the party, and using skills to do stuff doesn't make it more exciting.

 

[Herald of I]

So it seems to come down to whether or not the casting time of rituals is a significant balance factor.

There's only three ways that I can see it coming into play. (I'm feeling some lists )

1. If players spam rituals in 1/10 the time they can as written.
   1. Given ritual costs, this already seems prohibitive.
   2. Most rituals don't give benefits that grow better with repetition in the first place.
   3. Even without those concerns, any abuse is not going to be much different from normal. An abusive combo is just as bad as an abusive combo x10. The real concern is whatever ritual the player is using.
2. If DM's allow it to affect story concerns.
   1. As we discussed earlier, game time is entirely subjective and entirely pliable to the DM's whim. If the DM needs to interrupt a ritual for story reasons, it hardly matters how long the ritual is.
3. In combat.
   1. Ten rounds is a really long and dangerous time to stand still in combat, making ritual use still mostly a non-combat tool.
   2. Rituals don't generally have effects that are useful in combat, meaning players will have to strain creatively to come up with uses for rituals in combat, and I think this is no bad thing.

Is there anything in terms of game balance that I'm missing?

The only other issues with the proposed change that I'm seeing seem to be variations on the arguments:

1. "That's not how it's written, and there's no need to change."
   1. This is all a matter of taste. I don't think there's any way to argue this point either way.
2. "This could lead to rituals having too big a role, potentially eclipsing other aspects of the game"
   1. Again, this an attitude I don't think we can argue. I don't mind rituals having a substantial role in my game.
   2. I think some of this is lingering wariness of the 3E "utility belt wizard," which the basic nature of rituals in 4E gets around (they're potential accessible to everyone, expensive and far more limited in scope of effects) regardless of casting time.

I think that's a fair summary.