Ritual Economy

[Hereticus]

What are your thoughts on Ritual casting and the cost to the party at large? Do you withold a 10% value of treasure parcels? Grant an extra parcel of ritual components? Not charge PC's for some rituals?

As the party's Wizard, I did most of the ritual casting.

First, all arcane based rituals were given to me without costing me share of treasure. The Cleric got the religion, nature and healing based rituals. When the Cleric died, the Warlord got the healing based rituals and I got the rest. Four group members usually participated in a ritual casting that required a roll.

Second, I convinced the group to spend the cost of ritual casting out of group funds, unless they were for personal use. Some were for the personal use of myself or other characters, and the beneficiary paid the entire cost. I made no profit from ritual casting from party members.

Lastly, we made no rules changes. But as a group we favored five changes:
1) That the stated cost for ritual casting be in silver rather than gold.
2) That the Enchant Item ritual take a full day per item level to cast.
3) Replace the Brew Potion ritual with a healing ritual that granted a healing surge.
4) That wizard utility spells be castable as rituals.
5) That the time to cast rituals be reduced somehow.

 

[Hereticus]

I mean, yeah, if you're in a city where components are easily attained, go for it, gp=components. But outside a city? Really? Do your players have the ability to perchase ten-foot poles and magic vorpal blades from out of nowhere?

Most rituals are cast in remote ares, where few components are available.

I had to cast three month's of Traveler's Feast and Endure Elements (twice each per day) because our party of eight was snowed in in an abandoned ruins with no food or firewood.

 

[DracoSuave]

Most rituals are cast in remote ares, where few components are available.

I had to cast three month's of Traveler's Feast and Endure Elements (twice each per day) because our party of eight was snowed in in an abandoned ruins with no food or firewood.

That's exactly my point tho. If components are tracked, you throw in a tension of how long you can survive based on your meager resources. If not, that tension is reduced, because 'Well, we can just keep tossing gp at the problem.'

It then becomes less of a resource issue and more of an extended inn stay with Jack Frost as the bill collector.

And I disagree personally with the sp instead gp thing. Rituals are supposed to solve problems, but aren't supposed to be the cheap solution. Tenser's Floating Disc would be cast daily at 1gp per cast. At 10gp per cast tho, a level 1 character has to think carefully about whether he needs that thing around the dungeon. You're -supposed- to think carefully about using a ritual.

 

[Regicide]

However, the seperate ritual components does enforce one simple benefit. It makes the skill used in rituals that don't require a roll to matter. Also, it makes Disenchant -matter-. If you can just plunk down gold coins in your magic circle, then there's no benefit whatsoever to having risiduum even existing in the game, so there's no point disenchanting when you can just sell the weapons.

So all your party does is convert their coins to residuum. Which trades 1:1 with gold. And the point of that was...?

If you're going to say it's not available, then again, I'll point to my previous post where a party just needs to go to a big town and voila access to residuum.

If you really really don't want to let your party have access to residuum, then it means your party will immediately convert all extra coin into ritual components other than residuum, which will again, trade 1:1 with gold.

Alternately you can skip all the silly hoop jumping, hand waving, teleport circle jumping and book keeping and pretend your characters are heroic enough to have brought what they need with them and toss some gold on the ground to get what they want.

 

[Hereticus]

That's exactly my point tho. If components are tracked, you throw in a tension of how long you can survive based on your meager resources. If not, that tension is reduced, because 'Well, we can just keep tossing gp at the problem.'

It then becomes less of a resource issue and more of an extended inn stay with Jack Frost as the bill collector.

If that's what you enjoy, then incorporate it into your game. As for me, I'd rather concentrate on the role playing and killing things.

And I disagree personally with the sp instead gp thing. Rituals are supposed to solve problems, but aren't supposed to be the cheap solution. Tenser's Floating Disc would be cast daily at 1gp per cast. At 10gp per cast tho, a level 1 character has to think carefully about whether he needs that thing around the dungeon. You're -supposed- to think carefully about using a ritual.

Very few first level characters can afford to cast first level rituals. I couldn't afford to cast fist level rituals until I hit fourth level. At 12th level, I could barely afford to cast 12th level rituals.

I joined my present group at 7th level. In their game previous to this and up until my arrival, they hardly used any rituals despite having a Wizard and a Cleric. There was initial resistance to spending group gold for rituals, but even the biggest critical is now a believer in rituals. Rituals add interest to the game, but they cost too much.

Personally I do not like the concept of healing surges. I'd rather rituals be free and healing surges cost gold per level. Probably nobody else will agree with me, and I'd never bother to propose it as a house rule.

 

[DracoSuave]

Very few first level characters can afford to cast first level rituals.

That's sort of the point... equivalent level rituals -aren't supposed to be cheap.-

But if you're a wizard, you get your staff, your cloth armor, and your adventuring kit... you can easily afford 50gp of Arcana components which is enough for 5 ritual castings. That should be enough to get you through to second level, and if it isn't, you need to learn restraint.

Rituals are supposed to be nice to have, but hardly necessary.

If you really really don't want to let your party have access to residuum, then it means your party will immediately convert all extra coin into ritual components other than residuum, which will again, trade 1:1 with gold.

You mean, run it by the book? That IS how it is in the PHB.

Alternately you can skip all the silly hoop jumping, hand waving, teleport circle jumping and book keeping and pretend your characters are heroic enough to have brought what they need with them and toss some gold on the ground to get what they want.

Or just have them take five -real- minutes to prepare, and stop sacrificing versimiliatude so that the player who wants to kill stuff just wants to kill stuff faster at the expense of others who actually -do- enjoy that aspect of the game. And believe me, many people do.

Granted, a feat that gave access to a particular ritual for free isn't a bad idea either. I actually like the invoker, bard, and druid abilities to cast that free ritual a day. It shouldn't be -all- rituals, but being able to cut costs on a single ritual that is handy, but not auto-need is pretty decent, imho.

 

[Flipguarder]

And believe me, many people do.

LIES! DIRTY LIES!

*goes back to calculating what his lvl 30 minatour barbarian's damage is on a charge crit.

 

[Tuft]

If the problem is the bookkeeping, however, then previous editions must have been particularily troublesome for you. It's not like you're keeping track of how much bat quano, sulfer, and marjoram you have on you. Heck, components sounds like something better handled with party treasure, and usually you have someone keeping track of that for you.

Eschew Material Components was always a favorite feat with me in 3.5... usually the first one I picked, just because I did not like the image of my spell caster fiddling around with spiders and guano.


Using gold is actually better for me; then I can pretend that my bard spent her time partying up the gp at the last stop, getting "inspired" enough to dance up a ritual at request, rather than the ingredients being spent in the ritual itself - call it a small protest at the 4E ritual economics, which I direly despise, if you like.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Maybe the game I run has weird players or something. We all seem to think the ritual rules work great out of the box.

Component tracking is fairly trivial. In theory a character could have 4 different components to track. In actuality it is far more likely any given ritual caster will only require 1 or 2 categories. Residuum would have to be tracked anyway, so that means it is really no big problem. As far as I'm concerned resource management and planning are part of skill set required of a good player. You can't be bothered to buy any components, then oh well, guess you weren't prepared.

Cost-wise rituals really fall into basically 3 categories, trivial, expensive, and tied to some other cost (enchant item basically). The trivial cost ones nobody need bother to complain about, the cost IS trivial. Expensive rituals are genuinely designed to be expensive enough that they can only be used rarely. Enchant Item (and Alchemy) are tied to item costs and you really can't change them without creating bad problems.

I mean look at it this way. What is 10gp? Even for a 1st level starting character it is not a really heavy cost. By 2nd level your character should have at least 720gp. Certainly the PARTY will have that. Now what is the burden of that 10gp Tenser's Disc? Sure if you cast like crazy you might burn an appreciable amount of gold, but if you use your rituals judiciously when they will do you some real good, just like you would consumable items then it just isn't much of a problem.

The very expensive rituals? Well, they do really cool things. You want to avoid travelling 500 miles by using a teleportation ritual? Well, its probably worth the cost. If not then hoof it and buy some mounts or a little better magic item.

Anyone who hates the cost of rituals in any case must REALLY hate most consumables. The Potion of Healing aside I personally don't think a lot of them are worth the cost. Most of the alchemy items REALLY aren't worth the cost. Yet still my players disagree and just love buying blast patches, lol.

 

[Alaric_Argent]

Since gaming is in a sense an ensemble performance, there are storytelling ways around this. My DM had me find a scroll of Rope Trick, which now requires an expensive focus (a metal rope of quite high value). Later, we helped out a Dwarven clan rescue their children and a valuable cup; as my reward, I had the metalsmiths fashion the focus. In another encounter, we rescued our cleric and I stayed behind to help our ranger pry out a load of pearls from the temple sanctuary; I later gave half of my share to the cleric, partly because of her suffering in the plotline (she lost an arm and a foot) and partly to offset her component costs. We also have a group treasure fund, but that can be used for anything we PCs agree upon.