D&D 5E Ritual casting - Is 10 min a fair price for a spell slot?

[Blue]

In my experience, Ritual Casting helps deal with the issue that otherwise, combat resources and non-combat resources would come out of the same pool, for the characters who rely on spells as their primary combat ability.

No other type of class use the same resource pool for their primary combat ability and for the other pillars. The Warlock is a full caster without Ritual casting - but their spell slots recharge on a short rest so they can get them back and use them both ways. They also have a number of at-will invocations that do more than cantrip-level spells.

If you distill the question you are asking through that lens, it can be restated as "for my table, are the casters able to take too large an advantage of out-of-combat casting"? If they are casting too many spells that they are overshadowing the other characters out-of-combat, then by all means increase the ritual time. If on the other hand it feels that they make an equal (but different) contribution out-of-combat as other classes that have other non-combat features, increased skill lists, etc. - well in that case everyone is getting equal chance at spotlight and I'd say leave it.

 

[Caliban]

I've found that the 10 minutes is mainly a consideration when the party has other spells going that have a duration of 10 minutes to an hour. (Armor of Agathys, Hex, Invisibility, etc.)

At that point the 10 minutes for the ritual effectively reduces the duration of those other spells. (Same holds true for any other hour or less time constraint the party may be operating under, but spells are the ones most frequently imposed by the party themselves.)

 

[Lidgar]

IME, the 10 minute rule works great. While, rituals are meant for out of combat situations, there can be plenty of tension about whether if it is worth precious minutes to cast one.

I have had plenty of situations where spending 10 minutes to cast a ritual was just too risky. Like when infiltrating a giant's lair and worrying about stealth and patrols. So I would not characterize it as "free." Time is a resource like any other, it depends on the circumstance you are in.

 

[Gadget]

I agree that ritual 'cost' is to not be able to use the spell in combat. Other than that, sure, knock yourself out. The idea is to not spend "combat" resources for an out of combat utility ability. That said, in many adventures, the danger of being interrupted/attacked during a ritual could be played up, it at all feasible. What specific issues (i.e. spells) and situations are you running into that is causing a problem.

 

[Monayuris]

The problem, I feel, is modern D&D has downplayed or completely abandoned the concept of formalized exploration turns. The pace of exploration in 5E feels completely arbitrary and inconsistent. As a consequence, time has lost its value as a resource.

For example, Moldvay B/X is the gold standard in consistent exploration rules. It explicitly designates exploration turns as a 10 minute time period.

These exploration turns facilitate a constant risk/reward tension... wandering monster checks are made every 2 turns (20 minutes) and actions in the dungeon explicitly take 1 turn each (searching a 10'x10' area of a room, searching for a secret door, picking a lock, etc...) The implication is that every activity taken in the dungeon has to be measured against the likelihood of running into a wandering monster.

If you look at exploration in that light, then ritual casting is balanced against any other dungeon exploration activity. But without a consistent game implementation of time, the idea of ritual casting ( or wandering monster checks, for that matter) is completely arbitrary.

 

[Tony Vargas]

(I missed the other eds. that had ritual casting)... Do you think that the design intent was more or less what I have described? How does it work (or not) in your games? Do you see it as a problem?

I think the point of rituals is to be 'free,' yes, not to trade time for slots (if 10 minutes = 1 slot, there'd be a feature to that effect in at least one class, for instance, instead, it's a 1-hr short rest minimum, to recover a slot). Rituals started, AFAIK, in 4e, as out-of-combat options that were limited by expensive, but generic, material components. They were prettymuch labor-saving devices powered by gold. The point was to get all the 'utility spells' onto a separate resource pool from the daily-renewable combat spells. It worked. It worked so well rituals tended to be decidedly under-utilized.

5e is back to non-combat spells being listed as spells per usual, but the Ritual option makes burning slots for one unusual. So there's still the combat | non-combat divide. Casters can use spells out of combat without degrading their combat effectiveness later...

... which is fine, if you figure that non-combat challenges aren't supposed to count as 'encounters....'

Have you houseruled it to something other than 10 minutes?

I haven't in 5e. In 4e I considered a variant that rituals would be 'cast during a short rest' or 'cast during a long rest' instead of having specific casting times. I'd consider that for 5e, too. It'd, effectively, extend the casting time to 1 hr, and link the decision to use rituals to the rest pacing of 5e.

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

Note that it is not just a time cost. Casting a ritual requires 10 minutes of concentration.

 

[ad_hoc]

If there is no time pressure then spell slots are also free.

There must be time pressure for resource usage to have any meaning.

 

[the_redbeard]

Note that it is not just a time cost. Casting a ritual requires 10 minutes of concentration.

I missed that. It isn't under the Concentration casting rules, but under the normal spell casting rules it specifies that a longer casting times require concentration. It's confirmed by a Crawford tweet. Good catch. My Book of Ancient Secrets has been getting away with this unfortunately. Damn.

10 minutes (in older editions, 1 turn) was a standard time period for a wandering monster check. Like Monayuris, I'm pretty sure this isn't a coincidence. Rituals are essentially free if you're not in a dangerous situation, but if you're in most dungeon environments then you have to balance your need to conserve spell slots against the risk of a monster. That's the game.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

5e is back to non-combat spells being listed as spells per usual, but the Ritual option makes burning slots for one unusual. So there's still the combat | non-combat divide. Casters can use spells out of combat without degrading their combat effectiveness later...

I've found that this is generally not true. It is nice when you do run into an issue that can be solved by a ritual spell that you have ready to cast. But often even out of combat spells are likely to cost a slot.