Fun With Rituals!

[Scribble]

So I had a few ideas about rituals that seemed kind of fun. Figured I would post and see what people though.

Power Components

I was thinking that certain components could eb considered "power" components. Special things like Dragon's Blood, Powdered Unicorn Horn, Water from the lake of tears, whatever... The caster could use these to do things like cut down on time to cast or boost the caster's check results

Certain rituals could even be designed with the idea that the caster NEEDS power components to actually use it.

I wouldn't want to set anything "official" ie I don't want each ritual to have a specific power component (that way the DM could do his own ideas.) I'd also like to plug this together with power locations... places of power that can do the same sort of thing. (Ley lines and the like.)

This leads me to:

Power Casting

Maybe in combination with the power components the caster could make a skill challenege of some type to cast rituals that are actually higher level then he can legaly cast.

To make it more of a "we realy have to think if it's worth it" type of thing, I'd add some danger... Failure has consequences. Maybe something like number of levels above your range x number of failures in healing surge loss. And if it's more then you have, you die?

I haven't thought out the skill challenges yet- I was just thinking of this stuff on the train this morning.

So I also thought:

Ritual Modification

I think it would be cool, to again use power components and a skill chalenge system to let the caster kind of "modify" a ritual in certain ways. The bigger the modification the harder the chalenege. IE if say you're lockig a portal to the abyss, and you just want the portal not to be opened unless someone uses a spell laced with power components... that would be one cost. If you want to set it so it would only work if say, it's under the still moon, another cost... Or if it can only be opened by a good priest and an evil mage after traveling through time with the mage's beefcake brother... That would probably be an epic level challenege or soemthing.


Anyway just a few thoughts... Haven't actualy fleshes anything ou yet.

Thoughts?

 

[Garthanos]

Love rituals.. and I usually assume some sort of components ranging from bat wings to unicorn horn is being bandied about... depending on the price range.

Are there rules other than purchase price for gathering them?
presumedly nature skill application, or arcana or alchemy depending on the ritual could allow one to hunt up your own ingredients.

Truly exotic ones sound like quest material... and when using quest aquired components there should be a cool chance of some bigger more significant effect.(perhaps a form of permanence for some rituals)

 

[Quickleaf]

Great ideas Scribble, I've been thinking the same thing but haven't had time to develop it. There's definitely precedent with the phoenix feather allowing you to raise dead a creature that has been dead for up to a year. My guess is that power components will appear in Arcane Power.

As for ley lines, I think there might be several kinds associated with the monster origins & keywords: Draconic, Faerie, Holy, Shadow, Unholy, etc. Spells/prayers/evocations with certain keywords would be empowered/augmented within the ley line.

 

[chronoplasm]

I was thinking about this as a possible way to do cooking. That is, players would be able to prepare special dishes using recipes. Recipes would be similar to rituals but would require specific ingredients (the carcasses of certain types of monsters) rather than components.

 

[LostSoul]

Power Components

Like it.

Love the idea about ley lines - no component cost! That could be really, really cool.

Maybe that portal to the Shadowfell in Keep on the Shadowfell is one of these "places of power" in my campaign... that'll help out the Wizard - if he wants to break the seal that he created...

Nice.

Maybe in combination with the power components the caster could make a skill challenege of some type to cast rituals that are actually higher level then he can legaly cast.

To make it more of a "we realy have to think if it's worth it" type of thing, I'd add some danger... Failure has consequences. Maybe something like number of levels above your range x number of failures in healing surge loss. And if it's more then you have, you die?

Did that in game play. It was very cool.

I would not have a pre-defined result for failure; I'd have it depend on the ritual itself and what actions the PCs take (and fail on).

Let's say that I'm trying to create a Teleport Circle - stuck in a dungeon, no place to rest. I might end up opening a portal to Hell (especially if I'm an Infernal Warlock).

Ritual Modification

This would probably be best if you ran it as a skill challenge.

 

[Garthanos]

Like it.

Love the idea about ley lines - no component cost! That could be really, really cool.

Maybe that portal to the Shadowfell in Keep on the Shadowfell is one of these "places of power" in my campaign... that'll help out the Wizard - if he wants to break the seal that he created...

Nice.
.

Places of power, nexus of ley lines, whatever ... they can represent a very cool alternate cost. Such places may be guarded just like the treasure you don't want to spend ;-) as they too are a treasure to some.

 

[Silverwave]

Like the idea, don't like the name though.

The "Power" word already means something else in the game. At the very least, if you can't find a better synonym, "empowered ritual".

 

[Scribble]

Like the idea, don't like the name though.

The "Power" word already means something else in the game. At the very least, if you can't find a better synonym, "empowered ritual".

Good point. As I said these were just thoughts I had on the train ride to work that morning. I haven't had a chance to flesh anything out, and just wanted to get the idea across more then anything...

This would probably be best if you ran it as a skill challenge.

Yeah I think asking for both a "power" component and a skill challenge is a bit much when I could just up the level of the skill challenge.

Love rituals.. and I usually assume some sort of components ranging from bat wings to unicorn horn is being bandied about... depending on the price range.

Yeah that's why I said I didn't want to nail down what the specific components would be... One mans "exotic" is another man's usual. The idea is less about what the thing is, and more about just that it exists. The particular DM can set the where and what.

 

[Garthanos]

Like the idea, don't like the name though.
The "Power" word already means something else in the game. At the very least, if you can't find a better synonym, "empowered ritual".

I like the term "Empowered".
Has anybody codified this a little further?

It might be reasonable for most nexus of lay lines move about a bit and fluctuate, picture ritual caster wandering about holding staff like a divining rod. So setting up shop on top of one ... might be difficult.
The rarer stable locations would be suitably invaluable to "creation" enchantments.

ie by spending more time .. results in less component cost... resulting in profit.

 

[Quickleaf]

I'm taking a crack at a ley line writeup which will include description of different types of ley lines and possible properties by type, how to "tap" a ley line and the dangers of doing so, a random fluxuation table, a skill challenge for competing over control of a ley line, and an example ley line.