Dragon 398: Rituals Index

[Kobold Avenger]

One thing this list tells me is things that aren't Rituals yet, and 2 of the neatest spells in previous editions that could be worked into rituals but aren't yet would be Wind Walk and Prying Eyes.

Anyways I noticed they removed references to Bard as a requirement for some rituals, and they don't include the tiered pricing on alchemical items. Maybe they are changing some rules. I always found alchemical items strange in their pricing because of the tiered prices, with somehow a version that's a little bit better than it's lower level equivalent being worth 2 million gold.

I think that alchemical items should just cost the same and only act as a certain as the 25th level version when used by a 25th level character.

 

[Dannager]

Do you expect wizards to operate as a charity? Really? Then don't expect the same of their clients either. It's entirely reasonable to ask for as much as you can get, for as little as you can - in fact, that's kind of the point of a market...

Yes, that's how perfectly reasonable people operate in the market. And when they don't get exactly what they want (because they're asking for something for free), they accept it and move on, and consider paying the measly $10 for a veritable pile of gaming material.

There's a difference between that and getting pissed because you didn't get your way. The latter is called over-entitlement.

 

[eamon]

Yes, that's how perfectly reasonable people operate in the market. And when they don't get exactly what they want (because they're asking for something for free), they accept it and move on, and consider paying the measly $10 for a veritable pile of gaming material.

Ah, but you're completely oversimplying things! It's the difference between a single prisoners dilemma and an iterated prisoners dilemma - or rather an iterated prisoners dilemma with multiple parties.

Clearly, what's at stake is not just this single transaction between a single customer and the company, but many transactions by many customers, including possible future transactions. And the costs here are not merely a few dollars; but scarce attention and time; in particular given D&DI's setup which encourages prolonged subscription.

People are often and wisely willing to choose a seemingly less optimal negotiating result if they feel unfairly treated; as a group such altruism can have quite attractive results.

Don't get me wrong - I think it's ludicrous to suspect some kind of Machiavellian plan in WotC's keeping this particular index behind the paywall. It's just not that important. But I do think it's very important not to frame the discussion as a context free choice of what one guy can reasonably expect from WotC in one case. WotC is selling a bunch of books with rules that turn out to be hard to use for various reasons. If we don't expect them to address shortcomings (e.g. errata, or indexes in this case) - there's no reason for them too.

So I don't much care about the specifics - but I think it's important to support a sense of fair play as that group cohesion is absolutely essential for any semblance of a reasonably efficient asymmetric market.

So, I buy D&D books with the expectation - indeed the sense of entitlement - that they'll be well supported. This expectation is reflected in the price and market share that D&D books have. Note that without this sense of reliability and entitlement the D&D brand would be almost worthless, so this sense of entitlement is actually hugely valuable to D&D.

So what's the risk to WotC and their clients? One risk is that if this attitude persists - "don't expect your books to be usable without a D&DI subscription" - that people won't buy the game without a D&DI subscription, thus raising the barrier to entry and reducing the market size.

To put it bluntly: quit undermining D&D and grow a sense of entitlement. The game deserves it

 

[Lalato]

Those are a lot of words to justify a lot of whining and gnashing of teeth over this.

 

[eamon]

[...]Don't get me wrong - I think it's ludicrous to suspect some kind of Machiavellian plan in WotC's keeping this particular index behind the paywall. It's just not that important. But I do think it's very important not to frame the discussion as a context free choice of what one guy can reasonably expect from WotC in one case.[...]

Those are a lot of words to justify a lot of whining and gnashing of teeth over this.

I don't appreciate being called a whiner; and you've summarily ignored the essence of what I said. This specific instance concerning the index is not a big deal, but the attitude "quit whining and don't expect something for free" is an argument I see repeated all over the place - and it undermines the game for the reasons explained in the post you ignored.

 

[Ryujin]

I'd go a step further and do the same for (some) rituals. Essential classes have "powers" that were originally rituals (like raise dead).

And I would say that doing this sort of thing is a mistake. Rituals fill the gap, from earlier editions, of the supportive and informative spells that Wizards and Clerics had, but would rarely take in preference to combat and healing spells. Having them, as rituals, increased flexibility of use incredibly. That's one of the reasons why I can't understand that so many groups seem to practically ignore rituals.

On top of that they created a situation in which the party Ranger, who has good Healing and Nature skills, can take Ritual Caster and play Aragorn healing Frodo.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

And I would say that doing this sort of thing is a mistake. Rituals fill the gap, from earlier editions, of the supportive and informative spells that Wizards and Clerics had, but would rarely take in preference to combat and healing spells. Having them, as rituals, increased flexibility of use incredibly. That's one of the reasons why I can't understand that so many groups seem to practically ignore rituals.

On top of that they created a situation in which the party Ranger, who has good Healing and Nature skills, can take Ritual Caster and play Aragorn healing Frodo.

Oh, having run AD&D throughout its life I'm entirely sure I understand. See, all those fancy 'support spells' just never really actually ever got used. I mean there were a few that were used because the rules pretty much demanded it (Identify for instance). Higher level wizards might also have enough other resources to justify one or two others, but generally they were 'book spells', they made your character seem like a clever knowledgeable wizard but actually impacted play once in a blue moon. I'd say half of the 2e wizard spell list at every level I've never actually seen used in 20 years of play.

So it isn't so much that rituals changed anything at all, they just split out the stuff nobody much bothers with into a separate bucket where people would notice that they aren't using it. Also note what people are usually asking for with rituals. They are asking for them to be turned into an infinitely usable set of powers basically (well, OK, people generally suggest 'a healing surge' as the cost). Obviously since they wouldn't occupy any kind of 'slot' they'd see more use than their AD&D counterparts, but I still doubt most of them would be used much.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

Also note what people are usually asking for with rituals. They are asking for them to be turned into an infinitely usable set of powers basically (well, OK, people generally suggest 'a healing surge' as the cost). Obviously since they wouldn't occupy any kind of 'slot' they'd see more use than their AD&D counterparts, but I still doubt most of them would be used much.

For the record, when 4e first came out, my group played with a party that had several ritual casters (I even blew a feat for it on my character until Learned Spellcaster came out). Like you suggest, we hardly used them. The reason was the cost. Our DM was going "by the book" with regards to wealth, so I knew that anytime I blew gold on ritual use, I was spending a resource that I would never get back. That's gold I could be spending on a permanent magical item. So unless I thought it would greatly help the progress of the group, I didn't use them. That, and the DM made getting my grubby hands on the "good ones" very trying.

Fast forward to my own game, where I've houseruled rituals to consume healing surges (2 surges for at-level, less as your level becomes higher than the level of the ritual until eventually they're free). Now they see use all the time. The biggest limitation now is the casting time, but this seems like a good trade-off between utility and power, at least to us.

 

[Ryujin]

For the record, when 4e first came out, my group played with a party that had several ritual casters (I even blew a feat for it on my character until Learned Spellcaster came out). Like you suggest, we hardly used them. The reason was the cost. Our DM was going "by the book" with regards to wealth, so I knew that anytime I blew gold on ritual use, I was spending a resource that I would never get back. That's gold I could be spending on a permanent magical item. So unless I thought it would greatly help the progress of the group, I didn't use them. That, and the DM made getting my grubby hands on the "good ones" very trying.

Fast forward to my own game, where I've houseruled rituals to consume healing surges (2 surges for at-level, less as your level becomes higher than the level of the ritual until eventually they're free). Now they see use all the time. The biggest limitation now is the casting time, but this seems like a good trade-off between utility and power, at least to us.

I just considered it money that I would otherwise be spending on expendable items, and had a ton of rituals. They always seemed to come in handy; the secret compartment I found that hid the controls for the trap, the rumours that I found while sitting in my room at the inn, the bridge across the chasm that we otherwise would have gone 20 miles out of our way to bypass....

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

For the record, when 4e first came out, my group played with a party that had several ritual casters (I even blew a feat for it on my character until Learned Spellcaster came out). Like you suggest, we hardly used them. The reason was the cost. Our DM was going "by the book" with regards to wealth, so I knew that anytime I blew gold on ritual use, I was spending a resource that I would never get back. That's gold I could be spending on a permanent magical item. So unless I thought it would greatly help the progress of the group, I didn't use them. That, and the DM made getting my grubby hands on the "good ones" very trying.

Fast forward to my own game, where I've houseruled rituals to consume healing surges (2 surges for at-level, less as your level becomes higher than the level of the ritual until eventually they're free). Now they see use all the time. The biggest limitation now is the casting time, but this seems like a good trade-off between utility and power, at least to us.

Yeah, the whole cost thing has always puzzled me. There are some rituals that in some situations can be costly. OTOH most ritual use is trivially cheap. I still go back to the old time 'plot' type spells though, they almost never saw use either, though some of the reasons were a bit different.

The interesting thing is, in my game I simply emphasize ritual magic. Combat casting is obviously a VERY handy thing and central to the main activity in play, killing stuff. From anything beyond the tactical standpoint though serious magic means ritual magic. NPCs accomplish their goals (when they involve casting) via ritual magic, not powers. PCs often advance their cause in the same way. Rituals could still see more use in some situations. What I found was when the big picture, or even when exploration type play, is in focus the players stepped right up and used rituals without any qualm.

I mean if you think about it, outside of tactical situations, you're not likely to get critically needed use out of even most permanent items you're likely to be able to make more than a couple times in a whole campaign. Spending the same money on ritual casting really is likely to give at least as good a return on your investment.

I think this is the real issue with monkeying with the ritual system. It really isn't broken in any mechanical sense. When you look at it objectively there's little that needs fixing and many possible 'fixes' that are worse than what we have now.