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Message: <blockquote data-quote="doctorbadwolf" data-source="post: 7941637" data-attributes="member: 6704184">I appreciate the feedback, but I think that we have some very different assumptions about the game and the people at the table.I can't imagine the group ever caring about whether someone already has a given ritual, or rituals in general, before deciding whether they want to be able to use rituals. Such decisions are made based on the desires and goals of the character. Now, "no one has this very useful tool" is a reason that often leads to someone learning to do something, but we only worry about "doubling up" during character creation or when picking major character features like subclass. There are no "combat PCs" in any of the campaigns I'm part of, and we haven't had someone who only cares about combat in over a decade. Even then, it was just the people who only played because it was what their freinds happened to be doing that were like that. IME, no one stays a maker of "combat PCs" in a game where everyone else is engaged with the game world, where the DM asks players things like "who cares about you?" and "who trained you?" and the like, etc. We don't push anyone toward three dimensional characters, but IME even the most "combat is what is fun about dnd" players tend to get into other aspects of the game at such a table.Giving everyone the feat for free might be "easier" by some measure, but it isn't how we do things, and it isn't half as much fun for anyone at any table that I am part of. It took me and my buddy about half an hour of texting back and forth to work out those rules above. Not a meaningful amount of time or effort. So, easier isn't really...a concern, here?But it also wouldn't be satisfying in the fiction. Not everyone should have ritual casting. Not everyone will learn any rituals. The posted rule would allow a scholar to learn some rituals by spending time and money. That feels right. It makes sense. Everyone just having ritual casting doesn't. Requiring some specialised knowledge (proficiency in the appropriate skill), and taking longer to learn if you don't have access to spells of that level, makes sense, and makes the gameplay feel like the narrative. It also allows someone to put in work to get what they want, when the game mechanics make gaining that the traditional way a bad deal. It feels like cheating yourself to take ritual caster as an MC caster with 4 or so levels of a full caster class. It's a feat to...get the rest of a class feature. That's wonky. So, we fix. 5e isn't a game that cries for extreme caution in such things, to be frank.Now, I would personally allow someone to try to cast from a ritual book with enough preparation, because narratively it makes sense that a ritual is something that just works if done correctly, but anything above level 2 would be complex enough that it would comprise a complex skill challenge, as would a unique ritual to do a specific thing that isn't really covered by the rules or where the existing rules don't really fit the scenario, like counteracting a complex contingency-triggered ritual of lichdom, as in my recent eberron session.</blockquote>

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