Essentials -- What happened to Rituals?

[I'm A Banana]

There's something coming up with me talking about this more with Outsider, but some of the Essential Class Features that are "Ritual Effects" are great because they remove the $ aspect completely.

Tying Rituals to GP was as narmed as 3e tying magic item crafting to XP. It's the same general class of issue: Why spend this resource we only get a limited amount of, ever, and never, ever recharge, on something we can do for free, without spending it?

I've replaced a GP cost with a "healing surge" cost, which is something of a stop-gap.

I'd love to see a "power surge" mechanic for these long-term effects to be measured...

 

[Barastrondo]

Didn't see this idea mentioned in the thread (but then again I'm reading at like 5am so I coulda missed it)...but the cost aspect of rituals is pretty easy to mitigate as a DM while encouraging players to use them...

...throw ritual components and such into the mix as treasure rewards. When my players defeat an evil wizard, his bag of components and ritual book find their way into players' hands.

I do this. I still find that PCs don't use rituals much, however (though the exceptions are usually clever, roleplaying fun). I faintly suspect that it's because I encourage them to use their skill set as a possible approach to most things, and have relatively few things that only a ritual can solve -- and since every PC can try to use mundane (if quite remarkable) resources, and not every PC can use rituals, mundane approaches are more popular.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

It's not jsut a psychologicla barrier, it's a logistical cost. The actual cost of muddling out all that stuff is clearly non-trivial. I mean i put a lot of effort into the two games i run, but i still look at rituals and even treasure and go "ughhhhh". I eyeball XP as well.

I agree on the logistical cost. I'm running a Dark Sun campaign using inherent bonuses rather than magic items. PCs hardly get any loot, but the players can request minor magic items and so forth.

One PC does use rituals, and those cost money he won't have. But now I'm thinking he can get residuum from the elven market somehow. (Not for money, I do not want to start tracing that again.)

 

[LostSoul]

Tying Rituals to GP was as narmed as 3e tying magic item crafting to XP.

It's only "narmed" if you include magic item shops in the game.

 

[The Little Raven]

Tying Rituals to GP was as narmed as 3e tying magic item crafting to XP.

The XP cost in 3e was an order of magnitude worse than spending gold in 4e, especially since the gold isn't necessarily factored into necessary itemization like the rest of the parcels. XP costs make you lose progress towards your next level as well as providing some kind of strange limit on when you can craft items (just leveled? sorry, no item crafting for you). And, in addition to the XP, you still had a GP cost as well.

 

[fumetti]

They're not relevant in combat, and that's really all the game is about now.

D&D is becoming more and more like Warhammer Quest or Descent, where there's no world outside the Encounter. That's too bad, as I think it's the only thing D&D does better than those other games.

I am trying DESPERATELY to accept 4E. It has many interesting new features. But... it is more and more simply a "combat strategy" game and almost nothing like a roleplaying adventure game.

I hate being a curmudgeon all the time. But combat is only one part of adventuring. The more I dig into 4E, the more I see how un-DnD it really is.

At this point, 4E is only good for the combat scenarios of an adventure. And I'm going to have to bring out the 1E/2E books for the other half of the game...

 

[fumetti]

I think part of the problem with the whole "There's no non-combat focus" issue is that I think its fairly hard to write that into a book. After all, what would you put into a PHB to emphasize "out-of-encounter" interactions?

Aside from expanding the skills section...

Timekeeping.
Mapping.
Movement (various environs)
Weather
Equipment section (explaining how they're used in adventuring).
Equipment and goods (everyday items encountered in the DnD world).
Food (sources, duration, mechanics for starvation, etc)
Light (sources, duration, etc)

Social, political, economic factors (nobility/feudalism, etc, and how it plays in the DnD world)
Ranks of nobility
Guilds
Magic research


Basically... all that stuff that filled TWO 1E hardbacks (wilderness and dungeoneering guides) and parts of the PHB and DMG.

To me, THAT stuff is what makes DnD better than playing a video game. DnD used to be vastly superior to any fantasy video game. But 4E has LESS roleplaying in it than Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. And that's just sad.

 

[I'm A Banana]

The XP cost in 3e was an order of magnitude worse than spending gold in 4e, especially since the gold isn't necessarily factored into necessary itemization like the rest of the parcels. XP costs make you lose progress towards your next level as well as providing some kind of strange limit on when you can craft items (just leveled? sorry, no item crafting for you). And, in addition to the XP, you still had a GP cost as well.

Right.

The takeaway is: Don't make things without permanent effects cost resources that are not replenishable.

Paying 1,000 gold for a +1 Sword? Okay, that'll add +1 to all my sword attacks forever.

Paying even 10 gold for a chance to maybe move over terrain a little faster?

Well, that's one little step farther away I get from that +1 sword, isn't it?

 

[LostSoul]

There's also the idea that you balance encounters to be as challenging as the DM wants them to be, so if a ritual throws that off (i.e. is useful), the DM just adjusts for that, balancing it out. If you play with that assumption, rituals are just an empty waste of character resources.

 

[Shin Okada]

I like the ritual rules as they are.

But I don't like the way they are shown. It is harder to find useful rituals available to a certain character (of certain class, level & skill) even with online D&D compendium. Also, it is hard to grasp the overview of ritual systems in 4e.

We do need better summery and lists of rituals, good articles and strategy guides.

If WotC just makes a Book of Ritual, which has such contents, more players will enjoy using rituals. The book may also contain new rituals and related feats to attract power gamers whom already memorizing all the existing rituals.

Essentials-style paperback will do well. Then, when I go playing a 4e session, I can just bring that Rules Compendium and that book to the games and left all the other books behind.