Keep on the Shadowfell and Rituals

[Mindseye]

************Minor Spoilers*************



I received a copy of Keep on the Shadowfell this weekend and had a chance to read through it.

One thing I found that I thought was interesting was the section on the town priest. It reads:

"Although Linora is not a cleric, she is a non-heroic priest of Avandra. She doesn't have access to Cleric powers, but she does know the following rituals: gentle repose, cure disease, and raise dead."

I didn't know if we had seen this before and I thought it was interesting for a few points: a NPC with no class levels using rituals. Also, thought it changes the mechanic of needing a high level cleric to deal with death. I didn't see any further details on it in the adventure.

 

[TerraDave]

This is something. I don't know if it is good or bad without seeing the details, but it is definetly something.

 

[Daniel D. Fox]

I like this. As in, a whole lot.

Not neccessarily that a non-leveled cleric can use Raise Dead, but that you can assign Rituals to non-classed NPCs. Once again, it cuts down on all of the clutter for NPC stats and allows DMs the flexibility of "ad hoccing" a lot of decisions for abilities, much like 1st edition.

 

[Kordeth]

I don't think this really tells us all that much, to be honest. NPCs in 4E, as we've seen, are generally built with the same rules as monsters rather than PCs, and the concept of "NPC class levels" doesn't seem to exist in 4E. When you add to that the fact that all monsters have a level in 4E, I don't think this really changes much beyond the need for a high-level cleric specifically. I'm pretty sure we'll see that, if raise dead is an 11th-level ritual, for example, this priestess will be a level 11 leader or some such.

 

[Rex Blunder]

It was stated elsewhere that in the heroic tier, when you died, you generally rolled up a new character.

However, it's logical to put Raise Dead access into KotS, where there are 5 pregens and that's it, and if you die, you can't roll up another character.

It does sound like there is no minimum level needed to cast Raise Dead, which is interesting. I wonder what the cost is - that prevents it from being routinely used at level 1. Is it the GP cost of the ritual - which the NPC already paid? or will the PCs have to cough up the equivalent of 5000 gp of diamond dust whenever they fall victim to Mearls and Cordell's traps?

 

[Wormwood]

I really like the dichotomy between heroic and non-heroic characters being right there in the text.

 

[Kordeth]

It does sound like there is no minimum level needed to cast Raise Dead, which is interesting. I wonder what the cost is - that prevents it from being routinely used at level 1. Is it the GP cost of the ritual - which the NPC already paid? or will the PCs have to cough up the equivalent of 5000 gp of diamond dust whenever they fall victim to Mearls and Cordell's traps?

Unless there's a stat block for the town priest as a level 1 NPC, I'm not seeing any evidence of no minimum level here--just that you don't need to be built like a PC with a PC class to use rituals.

 

[Wolfspider]

"Although Linora is not a cleric, she is a non-heroic priest of Avandra. She doesn't have access to Cleric powers, but she does know the following rituals: gentle repose, cure disease, and raise dead."

Are there any descriptions of what these rituals actually do?

If not, their inclusion in this introductory product is pointless.

 

[Korgoth]

I like the idea on general principle, although my hypothetical DMing of 4E would include making Raise Dead an ultra-rare, "search for the Holy Grail" type of ritual. So I certainly wouldn't have it known to the first flunky cleric in the first 1.5-horse flunky town.

 

[Celebrim]

Some observations:

a) Most NPCs are probably built with monster rules. They won't have PC classes. If Linora has stats, its likely a monster stat block. (Similar to 1st edition.)
b) Linora probably doesn't even have stats. You aren't intended to fight her, and 4e encourages winging it outside of combat.
c) This isn't a simulation. NPCs don't come back from the dead because rituals like 'raise dead' don't work on them by DM fiat. So there is no reason why 'raise dead' couldn't be a readily available ritual that any priest could perform, because the logic of the scarcity of 'raise dead' isn't based on the scarcity of priests but on the scarcity of PC's.
d) I'm really curious as to what balancing mechanic if any will be provided with regard to rituals. Can Linora raise dead at will? What is the cost and who pays? It doesn't appear that the balancing cost will be valuable material, because it is unlikely that the PC's will come up with enough treasure in a 1st level adventure to pay a balancing cost for raise dead. It could be that its balanced with rare material (a dragon's heart or some such), and this could be provided but that is either the same thing or it has its own issues (how covertible to wealth is the rare item?, how convertible to the rare item is wealth?). I'm starting to feel that 4e has either some novel balancing mechanic ('a ritual is only usable once per level') or else handwaves balance entirely.