Excerpt - Rituals

[Nikosandros]

I am beginning to despair a little on the ritual side of things. I do think its something they really could start to loosen up on.

I can control a mighty army of 3 whole sparrows at Epic Level! Three, fear me yea tyrants of the world and my small flock of pigeons.

Would it really be so terrible to say that at Paragon you could have hundreds of little animal helpers and as many as you care to acquire at Epic?

Its simple enough to change but annoying that I have to.

This reminds me of a little gem in Rolemaster Companion I. The druid's spell list Animal Mastery has Animal Summoning True as a 50th level spell. The description reads:

As Animal Summons I except caster can summon and control 1/lvl animals (e.g. a 50th lvl could summon 50 sheep [sic], etc).

There's nothing better to throw against a bunch of demons from beyond the pale than The Bleating Flock of Doom!

 

[jensun]

This reminds me of a little gem in Rolemaster Companion I. The druid's spell list Animal Mastery has Animal Summoning True as a 50th level spell. The description reads:

There's nothing better to throw against a bunch of demons from beyond the pale than The Bleating Flock of Doom!

I think I still have that book somewhere.

I remember a long time ago playing UO when animal tamers would control giant herds of sheep and goats and see how many fire breathing demons they could kill with them.

 

[Negflar2099]

Yes, I guess that is OK - it would be a shame to reduce the flexibility of the rare few who would want to be multi-ritual casters (I'm playing a Wizard(Cleric) multiclass at the moment, and I'm looking forward to casting the various religious rituals along with the arcane ones)

But wouldn't a person who multiclasses into Cleric be trained in Religion or a multiclass Wizard be trained in Arcana?

 

[I'm A Banana]

Bard-only rituals? Bah! Barred!

IMO?

This would have been the perfect use for a 4e perform skill.

I don't care if your the Barbarian Lord High Unculture, if you can sing a good song, you should be able to access music rituals.

At the same time, I like the separating of rituals into different "pools." The siloing here is OK, but I think it could be better.

I'm not sure "class-exclusive" is the ideal way to do it, but it's a nod in that direction, at least.

 

[Shroomy]

I'm assuming the bard only rituals somehow hook into the performance aspect of the class (based solely on their names).

 

[mach1.9pants]

It seems strange and wrong to have some rituals called out as "Bards only", after the opening up of rituals that they did in 4e. I like that the 4e wizard can cast "Raise Dead" (or even the 4e Fighter can cast "Raise Dead" if he has the requisite ritual caster feat and trained skill).

Bard-only rituals? Bah! Barred!

Yep no 'bard only' rituals in my game. I may consider making them effectively higher level for other classes or that other classes have penalties to their rolls...maybe.

 

[Runestar]

Absolutely!

Otherwise known as the "choose to target Fort with blinding smoke which will obscure vision even if they don't save, OR choose to target Will with a HUGE (120ft!) radius blinding effect spell"

At 4th level used it to bring a mounted charge by 20 nomads into a confused collapsing pile of blind nomads and horses. The rogues loved the way I set things up for them time and time again.

Not to mention that it has a fairly long range as well. Only problem is that it is affected by sr, so glitterdust has the advantage in that area, especially when fighting golems.

 

[Hellzon]

Lots of old favorites in that list. It looks like speak with animal and speak with plant got consolidated together.

Or Speak With Nature is 4E's Commune With Nature. But your theory is sound too.
Yay Pyrotechnics. Thought how it works as a ritual will be interesting.

 

[knasser]

Am I the only one who saw the Animal Friendship ritual and immediately thought "cool, now I can have two ferret pets (at paragon level) along with a panther animal companion and I can finally play Beastmaster."

Anybody? No? Okay just me then.

Not me. I want to be Snow White. Have a horde my horde of sparrows and mice clean my house.

This is probably why I'm such a bad D&D player:
"I can summon animals? Yes - clean my house! Flaming Sphere? To the bakery!"
Meanwhile troll sits in a dungeon five miles away looking at tiny sundial on his wrist with feeling something's supposed to be happening right now.

On a more practical note, you could handle the Epic PC with the sparrow army by treating them as just a Level 1 swarm which is about right. The first enemy with a flame aura is going to crisp the lot of them anyway. As to ideas like using them to get an AC bonus, I'm fine with that so long as you get an attack penalty for distraction too. My first thought on the idea, is to think of Eddie Izzard [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs-tl6GBOBo"]covered in bees![/ame]

 

[CapnZapp]

I am beginning to despair a little on the ritual side of things. I do think its something they really could start to loosen up on.

I can control a mighty army of 3 whole sparrows at Epic Level! Three, fear me yea tyrants of the world and my small flock of pigeons.

Would it really be so terrible to say that at Paragon you could have hundreds of little animal helpers and as many as you care to acquire at Epic?

Its simple enough to change but annoying that I have to.

It's a question of playability.

They have obviously decided it's much better for people like you to have to make a simple change than it is for other DMs to be forced into managing a hundred animals, making the group ranger steal more than his share of the spotlight, just because the rules say so.

And I have to say I agree with them.