House Rule: Ritual Points

[TerraDave]

Part of a growing series...

Ritual Points: Ritual Casters have ritual points that may be used in lieu of ritual components. They can have up to 50 + 10 per level, and gain (up to) this amount when they gain a new level. These can used for most rituals and copying rituals, but not to create potions, enchanted items, alchemical items or scrolls. Components can be used to augment RPs and or normally.

Rational: Get more rituals into play in a non-gamebreaking way.


Let me know what you think.

 

[vagabundo]

Interesting. I've been looking for more ways to encourage ritual use in the game.

Here is a method I've been mulling over: Ritual casters to have a component pouch, it is measured in GPs. They can buy more components when in civilised locations - basically they transfer GPs from their treasure on the character sheet to the component pouch.

Or they can harvest creatures they kill for components:

Creature Origin (numbers not playtested)
Natural: 10 x level gp
Aberrant: 50 x level gp
Magical: 60 x level gp
...

I was also thinking of allowing Dungeenerring/Nature checks to forage for components when in appropriate locations.

 

[TerraDave]

Harvesting components...is pretty nice. I guess it can get out of hand, and you need to decide which creatures its really apropriate, but still, I like it.

 

[buddhafrog]

Harvesting!

We use harvesting ritual components for our games as well and it works very well. It both encourages/reminds PC's about their rituals, but also makes the kills more fun and thematic. I don't give a fixed ritual value per type/level, but more based upon whether what magical component could be harvested from a creature. I've had players take the nose of a troll, the dried blood from a Mezzodemon, the wings from a Chasme, etc. The PC's know not to try to take the entire creature, but just part of a magical creature that might contain it's essence.

I make the PC's take time to convert these into usable ritual components (such as drying, grinding, storing, etc), which usually is simply done around a camp fire or during short stays in town, etc. It does, however, provide a little more dimension into what the PC's are doing.

A problem I made at first was I gave too much gold value per harvested items. Now, I've trimmed it down a little and am not letting them harvest components from everything. It's a good balance.

This has been fun and has led to other uses of harvesting enemies not just for ritual use. The PC's took the skull of a minotaur and traded it to a tavern for a week's high class room and board -- and they were the honored guests at the tavern party when the mounted minotaur head was put on the wall.

One PC has begun collecting the hair of Drow (who are the primary BBEG's in our campaign). The PC sports quite a length of braided Drow hair as a sash around him. Now, when he walks into cities, people look at him with awe (and sometimes horror). In border towns where Drow walk freely, this has led to tons of fun role-playing and battle encounters. This length of Drow hair is now his signature characteristic and has really helped him understand his character better and role-play his bravery and savagery.

 

[LostSoul]

Harvesting components...is pretty nice. I guess it can get out of hand, and you need to decide which creatures its really apropriate, but still, I like it.

You could potentially work backwards from your equation to make harvesting = RPs.

RPs are based on level; level comes from XP; XP comes from killing monsters; therefore RPs = dead monsters!