Rituals, Alchemy, and Pacing...

[Primitive Screwhead]

I am looking for some assistance with a problem I have in my game...

I am running the War of the Burning Sky and have a limited about of time at the table, meaning most sessions consists of a couple battles a bit of roleplay and we move on. Major scenery changes occur via email between sessions and we have limited PBEM activity.

Additionally, I tend to avoid giving out loot in the way of GP or components.

So, the PC's with the Ritual casting and Alchemy rarely use these abilities.

What I am looking for is some means for the Alchemist in my party to get items created off-screen while eliminating/reducing the tracking of the individual bits and peices.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Quickleaf]

Here's how I'd do it. Take the treasure parcel total GP, say about 1,000 gp for 2nd level, divide it by the number of players (say 5), and that roughly gives you the ritual/alchemy gold (200) each player can use per level. That translates to about 8 rituals or alchemical items at 2nd level. So if your PCs were to level about every 2 sessions, granting them access to 4 alchemical items/rituals per sessions would be a fair approximation.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

I like that idea and will probably go with it. Thanks for the great input!



I am also considering a 'stored ritual' HR in which PC's can 'scribe' a ritual onto a scroll and use it in combat.

In order to make this into less of a no-brainer move, the following costs would be included:
PC must expend a healing surge to 'hold' the ritual in the scribed form
PC must expend a healing surge to 'release' the ritual

releasing a ritual takes a standard action and a number of consequtive move actions. The number of move actions depends on the number of variables the ritual requires.

For instance, when casting the ritual 'Tree Stride', you must identify two individual trees within LOS. Releasing a scribed version would take 1 standard action and 2 move actions.
The caster must maintain LOS on all targets for the duration of the time spent releasing the ritual.

Caveat: I haven't played much with rituals.. would this make them too useful?