Ritual Spells - do they need to be a separate category?

[BlivetWidget]

I was pondering, how much would the game actually change if all spells were rituals? Instead of ritual spells being treated as a special case, simply allowing ritual casters to cast any spell as a ritual.


Some thoughts:
- At +10 minutes to cast a spell as a ritual, there is no effect on combat spellcasting (setting aside extreme edge cases like a magical siege).
- The duration of most spells is short enough that, for the most part, this does not result in much opportunity for out-of combat, preparatory buffs, with a few exceptions (Mage Armor spell tax goes away -arguably that should have been a ritual anyway- and spells like Invisibility would likely see more use, etc.).
- More spells would be used to solve out-of-combat problems, spell slots would become largely a combat resource.
- A lot of spell-related features cap out at 5th level. If all spells as rituals ends up too disruptive somehow, the feature could easily be given a cap without breaking form with the rest of the rules.

So, I feel like the game changes slightly, but not significantly, and not in any ways I don't like. Feels more streamlined in the ruleset while adding flexibility in the gameplay. Might be an interesting idea for a high-magic campaign. Or a new wizard subclass feature (granted at what level, I wonder?). Or flip the tables by making spells only castable as rituals for a lower-magic setting (but that's another discussion for another time).

Do you see anything particularly game-breaking here?

 

[BluejayJunior]

Most exploration challenges that don't have a time limit will mostly just be solved by magic. Right now, there is a cost of a spell slot that may be useful at some other point.

Party gets to a cliff. They're in no hurry, why try to climb it? They can just take an hour to levitate everyone up there without actually using any resources.
If that works for your group, then go with it. But in my opinion, it just makes magic users even more powerful and encourages more boring solutions. The party never has to come up with an interesting plan to get past an environmental obstacle because someone has a spell that they can cast for free to solve it.

 

[BlivetWidget]

A fair point if your group relies on overcoming mundane obstacles with mundane solutions for their excitement. By mundane I mean non-magical, take no offense. But using magic to overcome an obstacle is only as uninteresting as you want it to be. Personally, if someone levitated me up a cliff face, I would find it far more exciting than you seem to indicate!

But in all seriousness, the obstacles facing a player group need to be customized to their abilities anyhow (your sheer cliff face is just a dead end for a group of characters with no applicable skills or equipment), so it is not particularly out of the way to come up with interesting obstacles that require creative use of spells.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

A fair point if your group relies on overcoming mundane obstacles with mundane solutions for their excitement. By mundane I mean non-magical, take no offense. But using magic to overcome an obstacle is only as uninteresting as you want it to be. Personally, if someone levitated me up a cliff face, I would find it far more exciting than you seem to indicate!

But in all seriousness, the obstacles facing a player group need to be customized to their abilities anyhow (your sheer cliff face is just a dead end for a group of characters with no applicable skills or equipment), so it is not particularly out of the way to come up with interesting obstacles that require creative use of spells.

It’s not the solving of a challenge with magic that is the issue. It’s the solving of a challenge with magic at zero spell slot cost that is the issue.

 

[Mort]

A fair point if your group relies on overcoming mundane obstacles with mundane solutions for their excitement. By mundane I mean non-magical, take no offense. But using magic to overcome an obstacle is only as uninteresting as you want it to be. Personally, if someone levitated me up a cliff face, I would find it far more exciting than you seem to indicate!

But in all seriousness, the obstacles facing a player group need to be customized to their abilities anyhow (your sheer cliff face is just a dead end for a group of characters with no applicable skills or equipment), so it is not particularly out of the way to come up with interesting obstacles that require creative use of spells.

Your proposal would vastly increase the utility of spell casters - especially wizards.

Basically the only resource cost remaining would be time. If that's acceptable then sure, but it needs to be acknowledged.

 

[Shadowdweller]

Destroys the utility of non-casters. Terrible, game-destroying idea.

 

[BlivetWidget]

It’s not the solving of a challenge with magic that is the issue. It’s the solving of a challenge with magic at zero spell slot cost that is the issue.

I guess I've played enough games where mana recharged and still had fun, so I don't see it as an insurmountable issue. You just have to have obstacles that are more like puzzles and less like enemies to roll dice at.

Your proposal would vastly increase the utility of spell casters - especially wizards.

Destroys the utility of non-casters. Terrible, game-destroying idea.

I've been discovered! [clutches wizard hat and disapparates]

 

[BluejayJunior]

I mean, in real life, someone levitating me up the side of the cliff would be exhilarating! It's just not a very interesting solution when you can do it to every problem of that type. Sure that could be the solution with the rules how they are, but it costs the wizard the ability to be effective in any future battles or encounters.
Without a time factor, magic is the solution to everything. By level 5, party of 4 characters could potentially walk around everywhere invisible and by level 7 fly anywhere they wanted as long as they had 2 spellcasters with those spells. At the cost of nothing except 10 imaginary minutes. Who needs a thief when the wizard can freely make anyone invisible or cast knock. And the wizard doesn't even need to have those spells prepared, so they are always available. And they can load up on combat magics. Wizards wouldn't have to make a choice about which spells to prepare since they can cast all utility ones as a ritual.

Wow, the more I think about this, the more I realize how overpowered wizards would be with this change.

If your group enjoys it and doesn't feel like martial characters are overshadowed out of combat, go for it. But I think you're greatly underestimating the impact this will have. Just go look at the spell lists for casters, especially for level 1-3 spells, and ask "Will this be overpowered if characters can do it without a cost?"


Thinking more, healing spells can be cast outside of combat with no cost. Druids/rangers could make unlimited goodberries. The healing spirit druid spell (or whatever it is in Xanathar's) would be even more broken.

 

[BlivetWidget]

Eh, it's not like the rogue expends a finite combat resource to pick locks. And the magic is not quite as out of hand as you think: you seem to be forgetting that spells like Fly and Invisibility are concentration. And that ritual spells are always cast at the lowest level.

The healing doesn't bother me overmuch. For the amount of time it would take to ritual Goodberry a team to full health, you may as well have taken a long rest. I've played games where HP is a scarce resource and ones where you can always be at full between combats. Both work, both are fun, they are just thematically different.

I feel like in a world with magic, magic would be the answer to everything. But point taken, I think I've just got Harry Potter on the brain and this thought experiment should be reserved for wizard-only games =).

 

[CydKnight]

There are some interesting points raised here but I don't feel that all out of combat solutions (or in some cases combat preparation) should potentially be solved without any tangible cost. At your table you can always do as the player collective wishes if you feel it works for you.