Ritually Speaking article

[Klaus]

Except it's not entirely true. There's a chance it might show up in a Dragon Annual, and there have been some article content taken from the DDI magazines and placed in actual books, such as into the DMG2 (off the top of my head).

It's not all inclusive, but not everything is a dead-end. My only gripe about so much being digital is that I'm still not happy with e-reader technology and electronic distribution models presented so far, but I still I still love the articles, the character creator, and the Compendium.

AND, these rituals (and more) might show up in an Adventurer's Vault 3.

 

[Aduro]

At least one of the Dragonborn breath enhancing Feats from Dragon Magazine made it into the new Dragonborn book.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Except it's not entirely true. There's a chance it might show up in a Dragon Annual, and there have been some article content taken from the DDI magazines and placed in actual books, such as into the DMG2 (off the top of my head).

Well... given the last annual I don't hold a lot of hope. That said, I didn't know that dragon stuff had made it into DMG2.

It's not all inclusive, but not everything is a dead-end. My only gripe about so much being digital is that I'm still not happy with e-reader technology and electronic distribution models presented so far, but I still I still love the articles, the character creator, and the Compendium.

Well, yeah, that's part of the issue: PDFs are significantly inferior to real books + my brain's way of indexing things spatially.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well... given the last annual I don't hold a lot of hope. That said, I didn't know that dragon stuff had made it into DMG2.


Well, yeah, that's part of the issue: PDFs are significantly inferior to real books + my brain's way of indexing things spatially.

A large part of the discussion of skill challenges in DMG2 is straight out of articles that Mike Mearls wrote for Dragon and Dungeon. I agree, I'd rather see my favorite stuff in print, but there's SO MUCH that it can't all make it and someone is going to be left out one way or another.

The thing is I think inevitably a lot of the DDI material is going to have to leak out into printed books in a codified form. They have invented a lot of little character development subsystems in various articles plus stuff like these rituals. Some of it really is too tempting to leverage and just goes into design spaces that the game is obviously going to want to exploit going forward. I think a lot of that stuff will pretty much have to get published in book form sooner or later.

As Noman said, its already starting to happen in a small way. I really expect the hard barrier between DDI and published will crumble over time.

 

[SabreCat]

There are so many magic items out there, they'd need a whole book just to get rituals done for all of them, but this idea is fantastic. I'm going to brainstorm a set of rituals corresponding to the magic items my party currently has, and introduce an artificer NPC who can sell such ritual scrolls ^.^

 

[JohnSnow]

I honestly think the most logical place for these "Item Rituals" to see print would be in a future DMG (like, oh, DMG3 maybe...).

Not every DM will want them (though most will), they require a fair amount of DM adjudication, and guidelines for making new ones would sure be nice. Hence, where they belong (IMO) is in a Dungeon Master's Guide. That would be a logical way for both these rituals (and more) to see print in a future DMG. And the added rules for building new ones would mean the information would also benefit those who previously got this info on DDI.

My two cents.

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

My main problem with them is that they don't have an opportunity cost to use them other than the time spent casting them - unlike other rituals, they do not use any reagents to cast.

Given that many of their abilities seem superior to those of normal rituals, this can be kind of an issue, in that if one owns an item, there is no real reason not to go buy (if the DM allows you) the ritual as well.

This may not mean there's a ballance problem, but it does make them smell a bit fishy.

 

[JohnSnow]

My main problem with them is that they don't have an opportunity cost to use them other than the time spent casting them - unlike other rituals, they do not use any reagents to cast.

Given that many of their abilities seem superior to those of normal rituals, this can be kind of an issue, in that if one owns an item, there is no real reason not to go buy (if the DM allows you) the ritual as well.

This may not mean there's a ballance problem, but it does make them smell a bit fishy.

Personally, I think the cost of rituals is largely spurious as a balance issue. With very few exceptions, the cost to perform a ritual is just high enough to discourage the use of interesting rituals, but just about anytime the PCs need to perform it, they can scare up the dough. So, the cost is not a very strong balance point.

As someone said earlier, what these rituals really do is provide item powers (non-combat ones) in disguise. And frankly, since I think most of the non-combat item powers are pretty weak, I'm okay with that.