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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sepulchrave II" data-source="post: 3054066" data-attributes="member: 4303">Ritual FactorsAs originally envisaged, the progression of ritual factors was founded upon the increasing size of a cabal which the Epic Leadership feat provided.In the section on 'Exceptional Followers' (ELH, p.37) it states that:• Adept or Aristocrat followers count as followers two levels higher than their actual character level.• Characters with levels in a PC class count as followers three levels higher than their actual level.• Characters with any levels in a PrC count as followers five levels higher than their actual level.It then goes on to show an example where a character has a 6th-level adept follower, who counts as a 7th-level follower. Nice to see that this was proof-read. I've always ignored the example, and gone by the rules text which precedes it.I'm going to ignore adepts for the moment, because they throw a spanner in the works. I also think that adepts are unsuitable as permanent cabal members for flavour reasons – their magic is too wild and undisciplined etc. Arguably, this could be extended to sorcerers as well - their magic is innate, rather than formulaic. Ironically, sorcerers make the best cabal leaders with their high Charisma - all of those lowly wizard drones feeding into the transcendental ego of a sorcerer actualizing his Will is a compelling idea, though. If one substitutes all of a character's NPC-classed followers of 4th-level or higher with PC-classed followers 3 levels lower, you get the following followers for a Leadership score of 25:4  x 1st-level; 2 x 2nd-level; 2 x 3rd-level ; 1 x 4th-level; plus one 17th-level cohort.In any ritual that you perform, you could therefore draw on 6 x 1st-level slots, 3 x 2nd-level slots and 1 x 9th-level slot – this assumes a fully optimized spread (i.e. the 3rd-level characters are wizards, clerics or druids – not sorcerers). 21 spell levels.Rather than reject the Epic Leadership feat as a source of mitigation through followers, I'd rather integrate it into the assumptions about how ritual magic works. The total number of spell levels which can be contributed by a fully optimized spellcasting PC-classed group of followers (including an epic-level cohort when the Leadership score reaches 32) are therefore:Leadership Score……………………Spell Levels Contributed25……………………….............................…2130................................................….2735….................................................5040….................................................8145…................................................11850…................................................14955…................................................17760…................................................21965................................................…24970…................................................28375…................................................318A Leadership score of 60 is achievable for a 39th-level sorcerer (or bard) with a Cha of 41 (15 base + 9 level + 12 cloak + 5 inherent), who has a reputation of great renown (+2), fairness and generosity (+1), and special power (+1); and a stronghold (+2).A Leadership score of 75 is barely achievable for a 50th-level character who can pump his Cha to 48. This is a big cabal – 230 members including the primary caster and his 42nd-level cohort. Note that the Great Charisma epic feat starts to look more attractive, as it now informs mitigating factors as well as Save DCs and bonus spells/day.Deriving a Mitigating Factor ProgressionThis is the tricky part. If we go a nonlinear route with factors (or factors modified by feats),  then a simple linear equivalence is out of the question (I had originally pegged it at –1 per spell level contributed).But I want the Cabal Master feat to remain competitive against the opportunist cabalist (say a regular 50th-level sorcerer, who pulls together a ritual involving 10 x epic-level casters = 100 spell levels).And I want it to be simple. At this point (having just worked through the whole process again on my keyboard), I'm tempted to reword the Cabal Master feat so that it no longer has the clause "which only includes spellcasting followers gained by the Leadership and Epic Leadership feat" – i.e., it would not have to be exclusively composed of followers to gain the benefit.Say 1/4 the total number of levels contributed act as a mitigating factor – i.e. 10 x epic casters will provide a –25 mitigating factor. The 50th-level Cabal Master would  therefore gain a –79 mitigating factor (which still seems kind of high) – he could also enlist 20 x epic-level casters (he has the Ritual Adept feat as well) and augment his cabal for a further –50. Is –129 too way out there? We're talking one big mother of a ritual here.Any ideas?Some things that have occurred to me at various times:1) Ditch the Ritual Adept feat and let rituals only be achieved by characters with the Cabal Master feat.2) Have some kind of 'ritual inefficiency' - the bigger the cabal, the more inefficient it becomes.3) Ignore the rules text in the ELH and come up with something else - it's an optional rule in an optional supplement, after all.4) Use the example as precedent - i.e. a PC-classed character counts as a follower two, not three, levels higher. Calculate mitigating factors based on the new progression.5) Familiarization. NPC casters can't just pop up and contribute an epic spell slot, they must be familiar with the ritual proceedings. This strikes me as entirely logical. Depending on how long this process takes may make hiring them very expensive. I think a week is not unreasonable. This cost wouldn't apply to your cabal via Leadership, of course.Demographics, willingness and availability notwithstanding, I am inclined to preserve the base costs for hiring NPC casters and translate them to assembling rituals which don't involve followers - i.e. 10gp x caster level x spell level: hiring a 21st-level NPC to contribute a 10th-level slot will therefore cost the caster 2100 gp. Because a ritual involves additional inconvenience for the NPC, I had assumed and additional 100gp/level/day: the best case scenario for 10 epic casters (at 1/4 spell levels = -mitigating factor) would therefore be 42K -> -25 Spellcraft Prerequisite. If you make them spend a week familiazing themselves with the ritual, however, the cost jumps to 168k: this seems perfectly OK to me.</blockquote>

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