New Rituaaaals

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Many of the rituals seem to be mostly useful in situations where you DON'T have the time needed to cast them. Chameleon cloak, Memory Seal, and wizard's escape, for example. Perhaps there should be some means of "precasting" rituals and then "releasing" them? A Feat which lets you "store" a single ritual? Something...

(Please, do not present me with endless hypotheticals about how the above CAN be used with plenty of prep time. I can imagine such scenarios myself. I can imagine a lot MORE scenarios where you'd want to use them FAST. Consider, for example, this...

I agree, for a lot of rituals a shorter casting time would be nice... Maybe there will eventually be a "fast-cast" method for rituals. The key to balancing them is to avoid making it easy, and to avoid making them useful as a tool in combat - meaning a way to "win" the combat - a retreat/avoid of combat using rituals seems to be fine in many situations.

Maybe going back to the "spell preperation" idea - you can prepare one ritual, and then finalize it as a standard action - with a few caveats, like taking penalties while doing so, or a strong limitation on how many rituals you can have prepared this way (maybe no more then one per tier, each requiring a feat.), or requiring an expensive item.

 

[Rechan]

Well really, Lizard, when I read "Wizard's Escape", I pegged it as more "Bypassing obstacles/getting into naturally difficult passage". Take for instance a cavein. Tiny creatures might be easier to get through little cracks. Or, a porticullus blocking the passage.

Also, the duration is ten minutes. If you want to get into a fortress or a tower, do the ritual two minutes walking distance. Rent a room in a tavern, do the ritual, then walk next door and slide through the wall, y'know?

 

[AllisterH]

Well, you can cast them from a scroll in half that time of the normal ritual.

Could be interesting to run a ritual WHILE the combat is going on.

Even better, make the PCs decide for themselves. "We can use this ritual and easily bypass this obstacle (KNOCK for example) or we can beat down the orcs first then use the ritual but it will take us 10 minutes then and the evil necromancer is going to complete his foul ritual in only 10"

 

[Lizard]

Maybe going back to the "spell preperation" idea - you can prepare one ritual, and then finalize it as a standard action - with a few caveats, like taking penalties while doing so, or a strong limitation on how many rituals you can have prepared this way (maybe no more then one per tier, each requiring a feat.), or requiring an expensive item.

How about this:
Store Ritual
Prerequisite: Ritual Caster
Benefit: You can perform a ritual and then 'hold' it, so that the ritual does not truly complete until later. There are many limits to this:

• It must be a ritual recorded in your ritual book.
• It must be of the same, or lower, level than you.
• You must release the ritual within 24 hours of casting, or it has no effect, and all components are expended without result.
• Releasing a ritual requires all of your actions for a round.
• You can 'hold' only one ritual per Tier.

How's that look? I'm "meh" on the 24 hour thing, though...I think that can be dropped without unbalancing. I like the idea of the Rogue who has Wizard's Escape "prepped" just in case....I'd say either 24 hours OR the Tier limit, but both might be too limiting. What do you think?

BTW, wasn't Overland Flight supposed to be in the core rules? I'm sure it was mentioned in previews.

 

[Lizard]

Well really, Lizard, when I read "Wizard's Escape", I pegged it as more "Bypassing obstacles/getting into naturally difficult passage". Take for instance a cavein. Tiny creatures might be easier to get through little cracks. Or, a porticullus blocking the passage.

Also, the duration is ten minutes. If you want to get into a fortress or a tower, do the ritual two minutes walking distance. Rent a room in a tavern, do the ritual, then walk next door and slide through the wall, y'know?

It's called "Wizard's Escape" not "Wizard's Sneak Into The Tower".

Like I said, I have no trouble thinking of ways many of these can be useful even with the casting time limits; it's just that many would be MORE useful without them, and not in a "I win the combat!" kind of way. While I understand not wanting Wizards (or ritual casters of any class) to trump skill use, it seems that the utility of many rituals for dealing with the weird stuff that comes up in play is limited. (I mean, look at the flavor text for WE; I guess the guard didn't both stripping them of their very expensive ritual components, and didn't notice them setting up a magic circle, etc...) (Of course, one could ask why they didn't just blast the guard, and the jail, to smithereens since there's no way to keep a 4e caster from casting, but that's ALSO another thread...)

 

[Umbran]

Looks like this has turned into a discussion more fit for the 4e Rules forum.

 

[Mercule]

How about this:
Store Ritual
Prerequisite: Ritual Caster
Benefit: You can perform a ritual and then 'hold' it, so that the ritual does not truly complete until later. There are many limits to this:

• It must be a ritual recorded in your ritual book.
• It must be of the same, or lower, level than you.
• You must release the ritual within 24 hours of casting, or it has no effect, and all components are expended without result.
• Releasing a ritual requires all of your actions for a round.
• You can 'hold' only one ritual per Tier.

How about just giving wizards, or a wizard path, a daily power that says basically the same thing?

Better yet, since wizards still "prepare" spells from a pool, add a feat like you presented, but have it be "prepared" in place of a daily spell? If you want to "prepare" the ritual for tomorrow, you need to recast it (at the normal cost). That's basically the same as you were presenting, except the "in place of" bit seems a bit more in keeping with the 4e spirit.

 

[LostSoul]

Preservation (and similar rituals) are very cool, but they hearken back to a more simulationist game; since the core philosophy of 4e is "Get to the adventure!", it's unlikely any 4e DM is going to bother players with rations rotting in the jungle damp, or whatever.

When the player chooses Preservation, the DM should take note and create a situation where it might be of use.

I suppose you could argue using it can justify a bonus on Skill Challenges related to outdoor survivial.

You could use the check to perform the ritual as a skill check in the skill challenge - or say, "Nice work, using that ritual; you get a success."

 

[sukael]

I really like the setup of the "permanent after a year and a day" rituals, and the sustaining ability of Tenser's Binding.

 

[balard]

Why excavation isn't a Nature ritual?