D&D 5E Modifying/Expanding Ritual Casting

[Salthorae]

a) the group’s wizard is just starting to understand how this feature works but is frustrated (as I am) of what spells qualify, b) the group cleric (my wife) is adverse to casting ANY of her spells for fear of not having healing spells available when the party needs them

The point of Ritual spells in 5e is to allow those casters with them in their repertoire to preserve slots for combat relevant spells.

I wouldn't allow any spells above 6th level. There is good game balance reasons why the Ritual spell list is so limited and doesn't include anything above 6th level.

if you do allow up beyond 6th level, absolutely under no circumstances should wish be on that list. Even having only 1/day as a Ritual just made the most powerful class in the game potentially immeasurably more powerful. Again, game balance.

The ritual spell list was pretty deliberately thought out by the dev's in combination with the rest of the system. I'm not saying don't mess with it in anyway, just saying be careful because adding all these spells is going to make your casters much more effective than they already are.

Also - bards have Ritual casting as well.

 

[NotAYakk]

How about this...

Rituals

If you have the Ritual caster feature, you have a number of Ritual spell slots equal to your casting stat modifier.

You can use these slots to cast any spell you have a copy of in a ritual book (a wizard's spellbook counts as a ritual book) of a level up to half your CR or character level, rounded down, or your proficiency bonus, whichever is less.

When you cast a spell as a ritual, for every 10 minutes you spend casting it you cast it as a spell 1 level higher, to a max of your proficiency bonus.

In addition, certain spells are marked as "Rituals"; these can always be cast at their min level in 10 minutes without expending a Ritual spell slot.

 

[Bacon Bits]

Forgive me, I'm still getting my hands wet with utilizing the existing ritual system, so please ignore me if I'm already calling out spells that are already rituals; my main goal is to expand the list without it becoming too powerful.

Yup, that's fair.

That's part of the reason for the tight clamp - attunement + 1/day. I'm hoping to start with higher restrictions and loosen them, rather than needing the reverse.

I would avoid the phrase "attune" simply because "attunement" is used to describe the limit on the number of magic items that you can use at any one time. I would just say "prepared rituals" or "selected ritual spells".

Also, since I don't run campaigns past about 9th-12th level (in the 30 years I've played), I'm not overly familiar with higher level spells in actual play (especially for this version). Part of posting here was to get some comments on what spells added to the list were or were not appropriate.

Honestly, with the requirements you've set (prepare only proficiency bonus rituals, 24 hours to prepare one ritual (or was this just restating the 1/day thing?), each ritual only once a day) I'm not convinced there are any spells below 6th level that would not be acceptable as a ritual 1/day. Polymorph is probably one that stands out to me that I would think about, or planar binding or similar magic. Anything that lasts longer than the ritual's casting time (even with your extended time) or is instantaneous (i.e., permanent) is at least a little suspicious.

Conversely, I'm not sure I would allow any 6th level spells to become rituals. There are only two 6th level spells that are currently rituals. It would really depend on the spell. I can't think of any spells of 7th level or higher that I would allow to be rituals (there are zero ritual spells of 7th level or higher currently). The game very deliberately limits spellcasters to a very small number of 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th level spell slots. You must be level 19 to have two 6th level spell slots, and you must be level 20 to have two 7th level spell slots. You never get more than one 8th or 9th level spell slot each.

If you look at Warlock, you'll notice that 6th and higher level spells are cast through Mystic Arcanum instead of Pact Magic, and you get different rules. In reality, all spellcasters have this limitation, it's just better hidden. It's a very deliberate design decision. Having access to 6th-9th level spells is itself a major class feature.

Either way, I think this adds a significant amount of flexibility and power to most spellcasting classes. I'd personally rather have the ability to cast detect magic when I needed it, but this is more powerful.

As for spells such as Charm, those are more villian options - using a ritual on a captured enemy to bend them to your will to perform some required task. Less so something I would expect an actual PC might use, but possible.

I would not even worry about this. If an NPC needs a spell out of combat, they should just have it prepared and available to cast. Especially a 1st level spell. NPCs are not really obligated to follow the same rules as the PCs. It's not cheating. It's DM's perogative to keep the game moving. You're the man behind the curtain; don't feel bad about pulling a few tricks. Unless you're doing something like casting charm on 100 people in a row, it's not worth bothering with the details (and then you could use eyes of charming).