New Rituaaaals

[Tenniel]

I is in ur board double-posting, sorry

 

[LightPhoenix]

Excavate - You know what does this without costing 70gp each time? A shovel. While there are no rules for digging pits, 10 minutes seems adequate to dig a single square pit in earth and loose stone, especially if the rest of the party helps out. And since Craft/Profession skills have been removed, your character is an expert ditchdigger as long as you say they are.

I have to completely disagree.

A 5' cube is a lot of dirt, and it would certainly take more than ten minutes to dig. You could argue all five (in a standard party) characters would dig, but realistically I don't think any more than three could dig without getting in each other's way. It would probably be faster to have two or even one dig.

I would also tie it to an Endurance or Strength check - dirt is heavy! I looked up estimates on Google. The standard for rock is 1.5 tons in a cubic yard, or 55 lbs/cubic foot. We'll assume a less dense misxture - 40 lbs/cubic foot. Given a 5' cube is 125 cubic feet, that's 5000 lbs. Even assuming something like a loose packed soil, say 20 lbs/cubic foot, that's still 2500 lbs - over a ton.

Second, you dig a 5' square for every ten points on the Arcana check. For a wizard at 6th level, that's on average a 22 (+5 Trained, +4 Int, +3 Level), so usually two 5' squares. With the given (conservative) modifiers, that's potentially three 5' squares, in ten minutes. That's a lot of dirt (250-375 cubic feet - based on the lightest estimate, between 5000-7500 lbs).

 

[doctorhook]

Not quite that big as each square in a Wall can only share sides with no more than two sides (PHB 271). But you could do something like below. This is 240 squares. BYO Minotaur.

+++++++++++++++++++++
....................+
+++++++++++++++++++.+
+.................+.+
+.+++++++++++++++.+.+
+.+.............+.+.+
+.+.+++++++++++.+.+.+
+.+.+.........+.+.+.+
+.+.+.+++++++.+.+.+.+
+.+.+.+.....+.+.+.+.+
+.+.+.+.++@.+.+.+.+.+
+.+.+.+.+...+.+.+.+.+
+.+.+.+.+++++.+.+.+.+
+.+.+.+.......+.+.+.+
+.+.+.+++++++++.+.+.+
+.+.+...........+.+.+
+.+.+++++++++++++.+.+
+.+...............+.+
+.+++++++++++++++++.+
+...................+
+++++++++++++++++++++

Whoa. I've been there! (lol The @ is a nice touch.)

I have to completely disagree.

A 5' cube is a lot of dirt, and it would certainly take more than ten minutes to dig. You could argue all five (in a standard party) characters would dig, but realistically I don't think any more than three could dig without getting in each other's way. It would probably be faster to have two or even one dig.

I would also tie it to an Endurance or Strength check - dirt is heavy! I looked up estimates on Google. The standard for rock is 1.5 tons in a cubic yard, or 55 lbs/cubic foot. We'll assume a less dense misxture - 40 lbs/cubic foot. Given a 5' cube is 125 cubic feet, that's 5000 lbs. Even assuming something like a loose packed soil, say 20 lbs/cubic foot, that's still 2500 lbs - over a ton.

Second, you dig a 5' square for every ten points on the Arcana check. For a wizard at 6th level, that's on average a 22 (+5 Trained, +4 Int, +3 Level), so usually two 5' squares. With the given (conservative) modifiers, that's potentially three 5' squares, in ten minutes. That's a lot of dirt (250-375 cubic feet - based on the lightest estimate, between 5000-7500 lbs).

Maybe IceFractal has never worked in the construction industry; if he had, he'd know from first-hand experience that digging a 5' cube manually in a span of 10 minutes is very, very difficult.

 

[SkidAce]

Takes longer than 10 minutes to dig a fox hole.

 

[IceFractal]

Ok, so it takes long than ten minutes. But does it take long than 30 minutes? Because in most game situations, if you have ten minutes to do something you have 30 or more. And that's not even taking into account that probably some members of your party have metahuman strength by the time this ritual is affordable. How fast could someone with the strength of a Titan dig a 5' hole?

So the situation it's useful in is where:
1) You don't have people to help you. And ...
2) You need to dig a number of holes faster than you could normally do it, but not extremely fast or in combat. And ...
3) You don't mind spending a lot of components. And ...
4) You learned this extremely niche ritual.

 

[Goumindong]

Second, you dig a 5' square for every ten points on the Arcana check. For a wizard at 6th level, that's on average a 22 (+5 Trained, +4 Int, +3 Level), so usually two 5' squares. With the given (conservative) modifiers, that's potentially three 5' squares, in ten minutes. That's a lot of dirt (250-375 cubic feet - based on the lightest estimate, between 5000-7500 lbs).

Its 5+5 iirc, so if you've got a 22, you're getting 3 squares iirc. 5 for the basic, 5 for hitting 10, and 5 for hitting 20.

 

[doctorhook]

Ok, so it takes long than ten minutes. But does it take long than 30 minutes? Because in most game situations, if you have ten minutes to do something you have 30 or more. And that's not even taking into account that probably some members of your party have metahuman strength by the time this ritual is affordable. How fast could someone with the strength of a Titan dig a 5' hole?

So the situation it's useful in is where:
1) You don't have people to help you. And ...
2) You need to dig a number of holes faster than you could normally do it, but not extremely fast or in combat. And ...
3) You don't mind spending a lot of components. And ...
4) You learned this extremely niche ritual.

To use your own example, some might consider a shovel to be an extremely "niche" tool; after all, it's useful for is moving earth.

...Yet, somehow, the shovel is ubiquitous. Practically every garden tool shed, workshop, and contruction site has one. In fact, you'd be hard-pressed to find even a medium-sized construction site that didn't have probably even a half-dozen shovels, despite that the majority of earth that gets moved is done so by machines. Why are shovels, (and, in fact, other "extremely niche" landscaping equipment, including the aforementioned machines) so common? Because the ability to efficiently manipulate the earth is a powerful one, employed by human beings across the globe constantly, from prehistory to the modern day, and often on a grand scale.

Expect earth-moving rituals such as earthen ramparts and excavation to see a lot of use by clever players.