D&D 5E Is It Time to Partition Ritual and Non-Ritual Spells?

[Stalker0]

Magic has to have some kind of cost, whether its money or slots or some drain on the caster (like 4e healing surges).

Even 4e at wills meant another at-will you couldn't use. If 5e rituals could all be cast at will with no cost it would simply be too strong.

Now it might be that perhaps a spellcaster learns X amount of rituals as he levels and so is limited by the rituals he knows....but that chafes against the wizard concept who can learn and research many spells.

 

[Ultimatecalibur]

Rituals should be allowed for non-wizards. Like The Grey Mouser or even John Constantine. One of the best things 4e did - and one of the Essentials changes that annoys me - is introduced people who can only cast through ceremonial magic to D&D. This not only matches myth, it allows for worlds that don't often have six-second spellcasters but people can still do some magic. (This really helps if you want to play in Middle Earth).

Which is why I like skill check based Ritual casting systems: As long as the characters have the skills to successfully complete the Ritual (no matter what class they are) they have a chance to complete the Ritual.

 

[Li Shenron]

I understand your point about strategic choices for scrolls, but as a sensible compromise, could it be that the specific components for a ritual must be prepared/purchased in advance? It's equivalent to scribing a scroll in that way, such that when you're back in town you must think about what to spend your GP on carefully - indeed if the components you want are readily available. I think this would add flavour, and rituals would remain distinct from scrolls due to their casting time.

I think there is room for all these options in the game, components are cool for me but not everybody wants to track them and in some action-heavy campaign I wouldn't want them myself. But they are really easy to ignore, 3ed had components defined for a lot of spells but also suggested to just assume you had them and tick off the cost when you cast the spell.

Really, I'm not bothered by the current presence of rituals in the game, I am just afraid that they become too mandatory to be ignored, either because of siloing or because of removing costs (but perhaps I could still manage if the straight gp cost was replaced by hard-to-find components in the hands of the DM).

 

[tuxgeo]

Lots of good considerations in this thread. My take:

Regarding the OP: No, let's not have rituals in a separate silo from spells. (Yes, 4E did it that way. Wasn't WotC disappointed with how seldom PCs used rituals in 4E?)

Regarding costs: I'm OK with keeping some expendable GP costs, but having them fairly low. However, I greatly like the idea of requiring a costly "Focus" item for each different ritual. The Focus item doesn't get expended, but each one costs money, so being prepared to cast 100 different rituals would require buying (and carrying around!) 100 different costly Focus items. That might help in the effort to reduce the versatility of the ritual caster, to the point where balance might be achievable by judiciously adjusting the expendable components cost.

 

[Gadget]

One of the ways the D&DN team seems to be trying to solve the quadratic wizard/linear fighter is to limit available spell slots. This could work (along with limiting the auto-scaling of spells), but it makes the choice between preparing esoteric spells much more of a trap choice. I always found it rather artificial that almost all magic was conveniently packaged into brief spells that could be fired off in a six second combat round. And while there have always been spells that had the longer casting time, it can be difficult to 'waste' a precious prepared slot on such unless you are sure you will need it or it is a real game changer. However, the free casting of rituals seems a bit too much, as there should be some cost, though not necessarily in gp; maybe fatigue point/hit point cost. Perhaps combined with a skill check that can fail, as others have mentioned? Perhaps sacrificing a prepared spell slot to cast the ritual? That would make sure you don't cast the ritual unless you really need to, but seems like it may be a rather harsh cost.

 

[GreyICE]

Rituals should be allowed for non-wizards. Like The Grey Mouser or even John Constantine. One of the best things 4e did - and one of the Essentials changes that annoys me - is introduced people who can only cast through ceremonial magic to D&D. This not only matches myth, it allows for worlds that don't often have six-second spellcasters but people can still do some magic. (This really helps if you want to play in Middle Earth).

This was a great feature. Anyone from a fighter to a rogue could pick up rituals. It might take them significant investment (Arcana as a skill, a feat (Ritual Caster) but they could do it.

Ritual Caster could be a great background as a matter of fact. Let players cast spells as rituals.

 

[Rhenny]

Magic has to have some kind of cost, whether its money or slots or some drain on the caster (like 4e healing surges).

Even 4e at wills meant another at-will you couldn't use. If 5e rituals could all be cast at will with no cost it would simply be too strong.

Now it might be that perhaps a spellcaster learns X amount of rituals as he levels and so is limited by the rituals he knows....but that chafes against the wizard concept who can learn and research many spells.

I agree. There should be a cost. Here's my take on ritual casting:

There should be some limit to how many rituals a spell caster can cast. I'm actually even willing to make ritual casting potentially dangerous to the caster. I love the idea that very powerful (game breaking spells like divination, scrying, teleport, even speak with undead and augury...to name a few) could possibly drain a wizard of constitution or max hit points (just like energy drain) or randomly diminish another ability score. I'm a fan of Michael Moorcock's Elric series. Casting spells (or summonings) for Elric and others was completely draining and often dangerous. That's exciting.

Another option: Maybe there could be something called "Ritual Fatigue" so that each time a PC performs a ritual he or she has to roll a Constitution check DC 10 + spell level. If he or she fails, he takes 1d6 fatigue points. If fatigue points total more than caster levels then the caster becomes exhausted and can't cast another ritual until after an extended rest (then the points disappear). If the fatigue points ever get to -10, the spellcaster dies (or for less dangerous tastes, the ritual participant can't cast a ritual for a week of game time). This would prevent spellcasters from casting "Teleport" basically at will for anyone who will pay. It will prevent wizards from using "Stoneshape" to create castles (unless it takes a good long time). It will even make lower level PCs more wary about casting "Speak with Dead" or "Augury"...both spells that could really be incredibly valuable if used too often.

 

[the Jester]

My impression was that Mearls meant free as in no cost, not free as in you don't have to prepare the spell.

I favor mixing them in with regular spells (not siloing rituals), as I think the limited spell slot idea may be a major part of the balance of the caster classes and I'd rather not break that balance with rituals. I do see your point about it being a trap choice, but I don't think so. As long as the final game gives easy options for at will spells for the casters, they'll usually have a useful spell available.

I also favor non-casters being able to access rituals- perhaps similar to warlocks in the earlier packet, where you can know and cast only the ritual versions of spells. The idea of a "ritual caster" background (or specialty) really appeals to me, in fact.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I'd agree that 'silo'ing rituals is an idea that's time has certainly been here a while. Among the many deep and insoluble problems with the Vancian model is a tendency for combat spells to eclipse others. Spell slots are few, combat is important, life-or-death, interaction can always be allowed to degenerate into combat, and exploration can usually be handled at a measured pace, allowing needed spells to be brought in in other ways. Combat spells become the priority, and combat dominates the game.

Now that we've heard the "three pillars" articulated and the concept rings true, it would make sense to start equipping every class with balanced features and abilities for each of those pillars. Rituals would correspond to the 'exploration' pillar to a high degree, while prepped spell stay combat-oriented. You'd still have how casters deal with interaction to hammer out, but it would be a fair start.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

I find it interesting that some are concerned with there being trap choices in wizard spells. I've always felt the uncertainty involved in spell preparation is part of the fun of playing a Vancian caster. Even some of the mainstay spells, like fireball, are situational due to potential consequences.

D&D Next gives wizards some decent at-will spells to round out the rough edges, and rituals provide even more of a safety net. Further siloing would only harm the last vestiges of the Vancian risk/reward system.