New Rituaaaals

[Herald of I]

With my ritual casters griping, and these new options, I'm sorely tempted to drop ritual casting times at 10 minutes down to 1. I think that's enough to keep them out of combat, unless my party really wants to cast something, which given the effects, does not seem game-breaking.

I rather like the idea of rituals being useful under duress. Does anyone see any particularly dangerous consequences arising from this? Perhaps should I limit the option by making it a feat, either one that affects all rituals, or one that functions more like 3.5 Spell Mastery.

 

[Goumindong]

Yeah...and if you have to know ahead of time you'll want the effect, and pay the gold for it, and if it turns out you don't want it...oh well.

There is a large difference between "exactly 10 minutes from now" and "any time in the next 24 hours". This is exactly the reason that these types of spells had their duration changed to 10 minutes. Because "any time in the next 24 hours" is overpowered and breaks campaigns.

 

[Lizard]

There is a large difference between "exactly 10 minutes from now" and "any time in the next 24 hours". This is exactly the reason that these types of spells had their duration changed to 10 minutes. Because "any time in the next 24 hours" is overpowered and breaks campaigns.

Some campaign are more fragile than others.

Given the (proposed) limits on preparing rituals, I do not see any serious issues. There's a big difference between "I can spend x thousand gold to do something", and "I can memorize invisibility five times, since I don't have any other second level spells likely to be useful".

Some people might argue the ability to cast many spells (remember, the number of rituals is only going to keep increasing) with only ten minutes prep time, anywhere, anywhen, is "campaign breaking". After all, if you didn't prepare the right spell in 3x, you have to wait 8 hours to get it, 8 hours you may not have. Ten minutes is a lot less.

Campaigns tend to adjust to what's permitted. Scry/buff/teleport is virtually useless in the campaign I'm in, for two reasons:
a)The world knows those spells exist, high level casters are common, and any enemy we face is prepared for such things and has nasty surprises waiting.
b)Villains tend to attack first. Usually when you're in a situation when combat is not expected.

I can almost guarantee you that, sometime before D&D 5.0 comes out, there will be an "official" method to cast rituals quickly.

(You can avoid many of the concerns by simply saying a ritual cannot be cast when any enemies have line of effect to you -- in short, they can only be cast "out of combat". I agree this still doesn't solve the problems with Memory Vault, which seems to be limited so as not to make it a plot-killer, and I can understan that. As written, it's more of a plot SEED. ("You wake up in an alley. You're almost dead. You have no idea what happened. Last thing you remember, you were at the Royal Ball...") NOTE: Plot seed is NOT a bad thing, and plot seed spells/rituals were one of the things I considered most greviously missing in 4e core. WOTC, IMO, released a sub-par set of core rules, but they are doing gangbusters in correcting what I perceive as their mistakes, and I am actually starting to get excited -- not just tolerant -- of 4e. Go, WOTC!)

 

[Goumindong]

Wall of useless text; Plot seed is NOT a bad thing, and plot seed spells/rituals were one of the things I considered most greviously missing in 4e core. WOTC, IMO, released a sub-par set of core rules, but they are doing gangbusters in correcting what I perceive as their mistakes, and I am actually starting to get excited -- not just tolerant -- of 4e

1. So what you are saying is that I am right and that your feat as written is broken and stupid?

2. Read the DMG. Plot seed is not missing in 4e. Almost nothing is missing in 4e. 4e is not a simulation, its whatever you need it to be at the time. If you want stuff to happen off screen, then you just do it. If you want a BBEG to have a ritual that does something funky then they have it. Its that freaking simple. Everything else is how you resolve the problem. Do you resolve it like a combat? Do you resolve it like a skill challenge? Do you resolve it as a quest?

Those are the three main things you do. Either its a combat resolution to fix(kill the monster), a skill challenge to fix(open the complex lock/navigate the desert), or a quest to fix(complete some previously known objective).

The job of the DM is to set these in motion for the players to go through. Everything that happens off screen doesn't need to be simulated. Everything that is big and complicated gets to be a quest or skill challenge.

 

[Lizard]

1. So what you are saying is that I am right and that your feat as written is broken and stupid?

"Do not argue with an idiot; people might not be able to tell the difference." (Mark Twain)

 

[fba827]

I've posted a compilation index of all the rituals (that I could find) in this thread: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?t=238591

Enjoy!

Nice

 

[Sonny]

I've posted a compilation index of all the rituals (that I could find) in this thread: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?t=238591

Enjoy!

Thanks Doc! I can't tell you how much I appreciate you spending your valuable time to help the rest of us save time.

 

[Evilhalfling]

pdf saved.

These rituals look just lovely. Im just a sucker for new magics, enough rituals and many of the problems I have with world building in 4e vanish.
I like the concept that nonmagical means are competitive with magic - unless the caster is very good (re: excavation and the new wall of Stone.

Plus it gives my epic warlord - emperor NPC more rituals to play with.
(at least before he got killed off)

 

[MarkB]

I'd say that if any class should have quick-casting rituals as a class feature, it'd be the Artificer. It feels appropriate for them.

One thing I'd consider is allowing (with a feat) faster casting of rituals at the expense of greatly reduced durations or increased skill DCs. Something like, if you reduce casting time by a factor of two, duration is reduced by a factor of four - or if you halve casting time, add +5 to the check DC, and if you reduce it to one-quarter, add +15 to the DC. Rituals with neither durations nor skill checks would not be eligible for quick-casting.

 

[sukael]

Something I've been pondering is the idea of ways to cast rituals without spending the component cost.

Maybe a feat that lets you cast rituals of (your level / 2) by spending X healing surges instead of the component costs (where X is determined by level / ritual / whatever), and these healing surges take a week (or longer) to come back instead of a day.

That way you can have the wizened mystic who channels his ki into amazing pseudo-magical feats (especially if somebody adds some Endurance-based rituals), no residuum or mass expense of components involved.