D&D 5E Modifying/Expanding Ritual Casting

[Stormonu]

I’m contemplating modifying ritual spells as follows in my D&D games, and wanted to share to see what others think. I’m only listing PHB spells in this first post, but may add spells from other sources as I work this out further.

Wording of ritual spells would change thusly:

Ritual Spells

Ritual spells can be cast following the normal rules for spellcasting. The ritual version of a spell takes 10 minutes per spell level longer to cast than normal (for example, a 5th level ritual takes an extra 50 minutes to cast). Casting a ritual version of a spell doesn't expend a spell slot, which means the ritual version of a spell can't be cast at a higher level. A ritual version of a spell cannot be cast more than once per day

To cast a spell as a ritual, a spellcaster must have a feature that grants the ability to do so. The cleric, druid and wizard, for example, have such a feature. The caster must also have the spell prepared or on his or her list of spells known, unless the character's ritual feature specifies otherwise, as the wizard's does. Likewise, the spellcaster must attune themselves to the ritual spell to use it in ritual version. A spellcaster can attune themselves to a number of ritual spells at one time equal to their Proficiency modifier. It takes 24 hours to attune or reattune one's self to a ritual spell.

Level 1

Alarm (1)
Animal Friendship (1)
Bless (1)
Charm Person (1)
Comprehend Languages (1)
Create or Destroy Water (1)
Detect Magic (1)
Detect Poison And Disease (1)
Disguise Self (1)
Faerie Fire (1)
False Life (1)
Find Familiar (1)
Healing Word (1)
Identify (1)
Illusory Script (1)
Longstrider (1)
Mage Armor (1)
Protection from Evil and Good (1)
Purify Food And Drink (1)
Sanctuary (1)
Silent Image (1)
Speak With Animals (1)
Tenser's Floating Disk (1)
Unseen Servant (1)

Level 2

Aid (2)
Alter Self (2)
Animal Messenger (2)
Arcane Lock (2)
Augury (2)
Barkskin (2)
Beast Sense (2)
Continual Flame (2)
Darkness (2)
Darkvision (2)
Detect Thoughts (2)
Enhance Ability (2)
Enlarge/Reduce (2)
Find Traps (2)
Gentle Repose (2)
Invisibility (2)
Lesser Restoration (2)
Levitate (2)
Locate Animals Or Plants (2)
Locate Object (2)
Magic Mouth (2)
Mirror Image (2)
Nystul's Magic Aura (2)
Phantasmal Force (2)
Prayer of Healing (2)
Protection from Poison (2)
Rope Trick (2)
See Invisibility (2)
Silence (2)
Suggestion (2)
Zone of Truth (2)

Level 3

Animate Dead (3)
Bestow Curse (3)
Clairvoyance (3)
Feign Death (3)
Fly (3)
Gaseous Form (3)
Glyph of Warding (3)
Leomund S Tiny Hut (3)
Magic Circle (3)
Major Image (3)
Mass Healing Word (3)
Meld Into Stone (3)
Nondetection (3)
Phantom Steed (3)
Protection from Energy (3)
Remove Curse (3)
Revivify (3)
Sending (3)
Speak with Dead (3)
Spirit Guardians (3)
Tongues (3)
Water Breathing (3)
Water Walk (3)

Level 4

Arcane Eye (4)
Banishment (4)
Conjure Minor Elementals (4)
Conjure Woodland Beings (4)
Control Water (4)
Death Ward (4)
Divination (4)
Fabricate (4)
Freedom of Movement (4)
Giant Insect (4)
Hallucinatory Terrain (4)
Leomund's Secret Chest (4)
Locate Creature (4)
Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound (4)
Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum (4)
Polymorph (4)
Stone Shape (4)
Wall of Fire (4)

Level 5


Animate Objects (5)
Antilife Shell (5)
Awaken (5)
Commune (5)
Commune With Nature (5)
Conjure Elemental (5)
Contact Other Plane (5)
Contagion (5)
Creation (5)
Dispel Evil and Good (5)
Dream (5)
Geas (5)
Greater Restoration (5)
Hallow (5)
Insect Plague (5)
Legend Lore (5)
Mislead (5)
Modify Memory (5)
Planar Binding (5)
Raise Dead (5)
Reincarnate (5)
Scrying (5)
Seeming (5)
Teleportation Circle (5)
Wall of Force (5)
Wall of Stone (5)


Level 6


Arcane Gate (6)
Blade Barrier (6)
Conjure Fey (6)
Contingency (6)
Create Undead (6)
Drawmij's Instant Summons (6)
Find the Path (6)
Forbiddance (6)
Guards and Wards (6)
Heroes' Feast (6)
Magic Jar (6)
Mass Suggestion (6)
Move Earth (6)
Planar Ally (6)
Programmed Illusion (6)
Transport via Plants (6)
True Seeing (6)
Wall of Ice (6)
Wall of Thorns (6)
Wind Walk (6)
Word of Recall (6)

Level 7

Conjure Celestial (7)
Etherealness (7)
Forcecage (7)
Mirage Arcana (7)
Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion (7)
Plane Shift (7)
Project Image (7)
Regeneration (7)
Ressurrection (7)
Reverse Gravity (7)
Sequester (7)
Simulacrum (7)
Symbol (7)
Teleport (7)

Level 8

Animal Shapes (8)
Antimagic Field (8)
Antipathy/Sympathy (8)
Clone (8)
Control Weather (8)
Demiplane (8)
Earthquake (8)
Holy Aura (8)
Mind Blank (8)
Telepathy (8)
Trap the Soul (8)

Level 9

Astral Projection (9)
Foresight (9)
Gate (9)
Imprisonment (9)
Prismatic Wall (9)
Shapechange (9)
Time Stop (9)
True Polymorph (9)
True Ressurrection (9)
Weird (9)
Wish (9)

 

[commandercrud]

My house rule so far has been rituals take 30 minutes minimum. May switch to this, I like it.

 

[Celebrim]

I generally approve of your rule changes, but I would hesitate to make a ritual version for:

a) Any long duration spell the spell caster was probably going to cast at the start of the day anyway. I'm looking at your 'Mage Armor'. You do this sort of thing, you might as well make the spells class features and be done with it.

b) Any spell where repeated casting has potential economic impact. I'm look at for example 'Create Water' or 'Purify Food and Drink'. Even if these already have a ritual tag, I'd look to remove it simply because the balancing point on these spells is not what can they do for a party in a dungeon, but what can they do the society as a whole. Or, if you don't want to remove the ritual tag, consider giving the ritual a small cost in material components that will tend to discourage players from just declaring that they spend the next 10 hours repeatedly performing a ritual.

 

[Stormonu]

On your point B, that was why I limited it to a 1/day.

As to Mage Armor, I think that the expanded list opens up enough options that it’s not a given to automatically take - after all, you’ll only be able to do between 2-5 (Max) rituals in a day.

 

[commandercrud]

How about one ritual per day total. Things like Light will matter again.

 

[Arnwolf666]

Eh. For rituals I would just wing it as needed rather than hard code it. Although good rules of thumb may be helpful. I think the main key to a ritual is that it can’t be done in combat and flavor. I don’t care if it is 30 minutes or 60 minutes. I want to know what rare item they need for it and if their is some astrological time it needs performed. I really don’t need a system to day water breathing takes 30 minutes as a ritual to cast. That’s pretty boring and doesn’t need alot of time devoted to it.

 

[Celebrim]

On your point B, that was why I limited it to a 1/day.

Aha! Missed that in your earlier text. Which is interesting, because what you've essentially done at that point is define a set of ritual exclusive spell slots. And that's probably going to prove very hard to break.

Of course the down side of that is that effectively you are just giving casters more spell slots.

 

[Stormonu]

Well, ritual casting already existed, so the extra slots were already there. This opens up more spells to be used, but curtails how many can be used overall.

 

[Blue]

I've evaluating this in the framework of a normal campaign I'd be in. If you have some specific goals you are trying to achieve I'd love to hear them so I can talk more in that context. My comments may seem negative, but I don't know what you are looking to get out of this at your table so my default point of view may not match what you are aiming for.

On one side, you are opening up a number of utility spells that weren't rituals, ones that wouldn't be cast a lot so the 1/day isn't a big limit, which seems to make casters able to do more in non-combat pillars of play due to not needing to expend a slot. Where they arguably are already overpowered compared to non-caster classes. I'd probably want to winnow the list of additional spells added.

On the other side, you are limited rituals you can cast on top of the already limit of spells known and reducing them each to 1/day. For many limited-spells-known casters it was the fact that the spell could be cast ritually which made it stand above it's peers. I fear with this some spells that were provisionally worthwhile now aren't anymore, and we'll see less variation among those casters. Especially with some of the new spells added that were good even without being rituals, I fear that the same ones will be the top of the bunch and get attuned every campaign, so that characters of the same class will have less variation and pick the same spells to attune to campaign after campaign.

The once each per day feels like pre-5e casting, where each slot had a specific spell assigned to it and you were laser focused on what you could cast. Part of the march of progress as a system seems to be having a usage per day from a larger list, and how many of each you use each day can be tailored to the story. Along those lines if you want to limit usage, I'd make it proficiency uses per day, split as you like among all rituals, rather than limiting the number of rituals and making each 1/day.

 

[tetrasodium]

here's a blurb from something I'm writing. You might want to pull some stuff from it since you also include a bunch of spells like conjureX & faerie fire/banishment/etc. I don't really care if the party manages to somehow catch/restrain an extraplanar being long enough to banish it, but I want that being's friend's/allies/etc to be able to track down the party and repay them with their kindness clubs > This is only a small part & it's still early, it makes references to stuff not quoted, take from it what you will.

Spells with a ® are also ritual but take 1 hour per spell level, if that spell was already ritual it changes to 1 hour/level ritual casting time. When I use the word week to describe a duration, that is however many days exist in a week for the setting. To the best of my knowledge Eberron, darksun, & Ravenloft (possibly others) have a 7-day week but Forgotten reals is different with a ten day week. Ask your GM. Spells with an ® can be tracked back to the caster just like 友 spells. Be aware that ® are even louder than ® spells & involve quite a bit of loud chanting along with flashy effects as the spell is being cast in that manner. Races that do not sleep a full 8 hours such as elves, warforged, & Kalashtar can use the portion they don’t need in order to cast (or begin casting) these spells while the rest of their party is sleeping…. Huzzah for the sleepless!

The concentration mechanic is problematic for some of the spell changes I made. In some cases, a spell is changed to refresh every so often or made ritual. Spells with the 友 (friend) Kanji denotes that a caster can only have one instance of this spell active at any given time. A successful arcana check on someone affected by these spells will result in learning the caster. If the caster is present at the time of the check then the results are obvious. If the caster is not present, then the magic can be tracked back towards the caster using wis(arcana) for a duration equal to 1 minute per spell level after the death of the spell’s recipient. The gentle repose spell will extend the time this can be tracked for the duration of that spell.

Spells with a © can be counterspelled by targeting the caster with counterspell even after they have been cast as long as the caster is present & known or correctly guessed. Counterspell works in this manner even if the target is inside an antimagic field.