D&D General Maybe I was ALWAYs playing 4e... even in 2e

pemerton

Legend
once again an official adventure that doesn't account for a spell being an I Win Button could be any edition
IMO, the real sin is expressly adding an element to your adventure so annoying that the designers preemptively added a means to bypass it.
The thing that puzzles me is that I was able to have plenty of skill challenges, including challenge ones, at all three tiers without Phantom Steeds being an "I win" button. And even though the PCs had a Basket of Everlasting Provisions from pretty low level - I put it in as GM so that we wouldn't have to bother keeping track of food!

There are ways of framing a challenge - navigation, avoiding an enemy, avoiding terrain (not all phantom steeds can fly), spotting a desired thing in a desert, etc - that don't depend upon the PCs being on foot or mortal steeds.
 

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The thing that puzzles me is that I was able to have plenty of skill challenges, including challenge ones, at all three tiers without Phantom Steeds being an "I win" button.
i don't know the adventure... but my guess is that the idea was you needed to do things either at stop points or inorder to get across. in ahome game we would just say "Okay and keep going" but the adventure kinda depended on it.
 

James Gasik

We don't talk about Pun-Pun
Supporter
i don't know the adventure... but my guess is that the idea was you needed to do things either at stop points or inorder to get across. in ahome game we would just say "Okay and keep going" but the adventure kinda depended on it.
I mean it wasn't just that one, that was the ritual that finally made the DM tell me to stop. I'd provided food, water, and shelter with rituals already to this point.

It's high level play where rituals really become irksome to some DM's like when you start swapping around healing surges or use Feywild Bole to full rest whenever.
 

Garthanos

Arcadian Knight
I mean it wasn't just that one, that was the ritual that finally made the DM tell me to stop. I'd provided food, water, and shelter with rituals already to this point.

It's high level play where rituals really become irksome to some DM's like when you start swapping around healing surges or use Feywild Bole to full rest whenever.
I have heard of enough people who ignored rituals entirely because they cost money, so to be honest hearing of them being used extensively is a bit of a warm fuzzy
 


James Gasik

We don't talk about Pun-Pun
Supporter
To be honest, few people bothered with Rituals when I played 4e, but it's worth noting that there are a few reasons for this.

One, filling your Ritual book isn't easy. While early on, finding Ritual scrolls in adventures as treasure was commonplace, somewhere along the line it stopped being the case.

Two, you needed time, which wasn't always present. Most Rituals are very narrow in use, so there is an opportunity cost to get a Ritual that might be useful, but even if you happen to have the right Ritual for the job, you might not have the time to use it.

Three, since 4e allows you upgrade gear with money, unless your DM is adjusting wealth based on consumables used, some miserly players might feel it's not worth all this hassle.

I'm the weird guy who likes to collect niche spells and magic items, and I'm usually the one in my groups that can be relied upon for a solution to whatever problem we come across. That might mean my bonuses are a little lower, but I'm a sucker for versatility.

But that actually leads to point four- one could get magic items that did what Rituals could do, and usually were more flexible. For example, one of my Ranger's favorite items was something called a dimensional knife. It let you carve a doorway into an object, which you could open into an extradimensional space which lasted for 8 hours. This only took a standard action to do, where a comparable Ritual would take much more time and cost residuum each time.

Plus, I found other ways to use the knife, such as the time I carved the doorway onto the hull of a Githyanki astral ship so we could hitch a ride to their capitol city during Scales of War.
 

Garthanos

Arcadian Knight
really? I didn't run or play in a single campign in 10 years of playing that didn't have at least 1 ritual caster
4e Ritual magic is perhaps the most authentic magic to come out of D&D ever. And being able to know an indefinite number and that means easily hundreds of them in late game 4e and use a true strategic resources and choices in how to apply them. The use of Arcana to modify them was something which made them pop even more (this was given as an example I think also in the DMG2) .
 

4e Ritual magic is perhaps the most authentic magic to come out of D&D ever. And being able to know an indefinite number and that means easily hundreds of them in late game 4e and use a true strategic resources and choices in how to apply them. The use of Arcana to modify them was something which made them pop even more (this was given as an example I think also in the DMG2) .
I ran a Harry Dresden game using 4e and I LOVED it... the ritual system was exactly need for that setting.
 

Vaalingrade

Legend
I ran a Harry Dresden game using 4e and I LOVED it... the ritual system was exactly need for that setting.
I've been working on making it more robust with multi-caster casting, rituals to create one-shot magic items and other consumables, rituals that can be quick-cast at a price (blood, rare components, more spell points than normal), non-magic rituals in the form of alchemical formulas, clockwork schematics, medical practices, martial katas, etc, and witch engines, powerful spells that require large, permanent structures to power and maintian including teleportation circles, communications arrays, city defense shields, beast control systems, and in one special case, a moon-slaying laser the PCs have to dismantle.
 


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