Rituals are in it would seem

[am181d]

The worst is when they make all the 'utility' magic rituals, but all the attack magic normal spells.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't 4e explicitly include Utility Spells that are granted to casters every few levels?

Two points about 5e rituals:

1) just because they're working on 5e ritual rules doesn't mean those rules will be core or will even show up in the first few books (they've already said they're working on some material that may not show up till further down the road)

2) I would expect 5e rituals to look much like 4e rituals; the design team has already gone on record pointing out some problems with the current rules

 

[Ainamacar]

• A ritual should cost a specific something, not a generic portion of gold. The eye of a dragon, the heart of a troll, a relic of the chief saint of a particular deity.
• A ritual should typically involve more subjects than a single caster (although it does not always have to).
• A ritual should have a particular flavour, be it arcane, divine or primal.
• Rituals take a varied amount of time from about a minute to days or perhaps even years in stranger circumstances.

Very costly (or not depending) but I think the general concept [volunteering life essence] is excellent in capturing the flavour of rituals, allowing the ritual caster to "shine", but also keeping the party importantly involved and a stakeholder in the situation.

I'm largely agreed on all these points, with the exception of the first. I think rituals should usually have a basic version that uses only gold or other materials we assume can be easily obtained. This is principally so the game can provide the most basic functionality without needing a sidequest to find tongue of troll every time someone wants to cast a ritual. I'd much rather that special items have a major impact on the efficacy or operation of the ritual, but not be strictly necessary.

In my point-based homebrew game Raise Dead works as follows. The base version of the ritual takes 10 minutes, costs a fair amount of gold, costs 2 character points (roughly half the cost of learning a new spell) spent by the caster or raised creature or other participant, and can restore life to a fully intact and present corpse that has died within the last several weeks. The creature returns to life in a weakened state, but the caster makes a skill check to determine how long the recovery takes (about a week for minimal success, only a few rounds for maximum success).

The ritual has additional components that can be accessed by casters with specialized skills. A highly skilled user of spirit magic can make a separate check to return creatures to life that have been dead far longer. Each additional year increases the check's difficulty and increases the character point cost by 1. The math of the game is such that raising someone dead longer than 5 or 6 years will almost certainly require even the most powerful caster to find additional help, both to make the check and to defray the CP costs. Similarly, characters skilled in manipulation and creation of matter can help return life to a less-than-fully intact corpse. The ritual also specifies a phoenix heart as a "quest component", which in this case supplies 2 character points and a very significant bonus to all the ritual's skill checks (equivalent to about 5 assistants participating).

The PCs would be able to get by in most cases with the base version of the ritual, while in very difficult situations finding assistants or tracking down a phoenix might be necessary. However, the ritual also scales to the bad guy who tries to gather enough resources to raise an evil king dead 500 years. It is thus a framework on which one can hang adventuring as well as some plot duties.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

I like quick teleports.....the wounded bad guy quickly teleports away with a normal teleport spell. But 'the wounded bad guy retreats to a room and casts his three hour teleport ritual to escape' just does not work.

What if your three-hour Teleport ritual provides a Gate, that follows the same restrictions as 3.x Teleport? The walk in and walk out is still possible but only where the gate is. Perhaps how well you know the destination assists in determining how long the Gate lasts for (with the DM keeping the duration behind the screen). I think this would be an interesting compromise to shave off a little of the power and absoluteness of teleport and focus on alternative methods of escape (which should be baked into the system as well).

Of course you could still have teleport as an actual spell (in addition to the ritual), except that it is higher level/has more significant restrictions/is costlier in some way.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Libramarian]

Aren't rituals where cool spells go to die?

 

[Kzach]

If I was going to make a ritual system for D&D I'd first determine that all rituals are a 'source' unto themselves, so there are no 'divine' rituals or 'arcane' rituals, they're all just 'ritual magic'.

Secondly I'd make it so that anyone can cast a ritual, with or without the ritual casting feat. The only requirement would be that you would need to be of the required tier to be able to cast it.

Thirdly there would be at least three tiers of each ritual, heroic, paragon & epic. Rituals would not have levels. Each tier would require a more expensive component and the expense of the component would be commensurate with the power of the ritual, ie. a heroic Knock ritual would require a silver-wrought key of 1 gold value and would open a single lock (non-magical) that the caster was touching at the time of casting, the paragon version would require a gold-wrought key of 100 gold value and would open all locks (non-magical) within a 3 square blast, and the epic version would require a platinum-wrought key of 1,000gp value but would open all locks (non-magical) within a single structure, such as a castle.

Fourthly, there would still be a ritual casting feat, however it's purpose would be to either make rituals more powerful or reduce/negate the cost of the rituals. So the above heroic version of knock would cost nothing instead of 1gp a pop, the paragon version might only cost 10gp and the epic version 100gp.

Fifthly, I would have a fourth tier called "Miracles". These are essentially world-shaking rituals that go beyond the scope of the three tiers and encompass any incredibly powerful ritual. These would be handled in much the same way as artefacts.

And finally, sixthly, I would have a level of rituals below heroic tier called "Knacks". These are castable only by people with the ritual casting feat and who are trained in Arcana. They are very, very, very minor things, much like cantrips only with slightly greater effect and slightly more time/effort required. A for instance would be a Knack version of the Knock spell that enabled the caster to pick a lock using their Arcana score, however it would have a higher DC than Thievery/Lockpicking.

 

[Andor]

I have to say, I disagree with the "All rituals should cost the soul of your firstborn child and the eyeteeth of every redhead within 40 miles" crowd.

Rituals serve many purposes, not the least of which is to allow caster to achieve somethig magical without consuming their (tiny) pool of vancian spells.

For these purposes, Hold Door, Animal messenger, Alarm, etc. I feel there should be a version that costs nothing but time and effort. Not all rituals have to raise (all) the dead, knock the stars out of alignment, cow the gods, and get congress to cause progress. Sometimes they just make tea.

Perhaps there should be Greater and Lesser rituals.

Or perhaps we can go way back to AD&D and allow Wizards to cast any spell in their books as a ritual instead of as a Vancian spells by changing the casting time from segments to minutes. (Except without burning it out of your book.)

 

[Scribble]

Rituals in my opinion should be anything that lasts for any extended length of time.

Spells should be reserved for short and temporary effects.

 

[D'karr]

I don't think there is any reason why rituals can not be designed to be scaleable for effect/time to cast. A gradient of effects could be built into the ritual so that it can be cast in short time (combat), long time, or very long time.

A ritual cast in combat would have a slightly longer casting time than a spell, let's say 2 rounds (full round action, etc.), and would have a much decreased duration/effect. So an "Undead Army" ritual cast in combat might raise one creature as a zombie for a short duration, for example. However the same ritual cast in the normal ritual times would provide more "benefits". Possibly more creatures. If the ritual is cast at much higher level then the creatures might be more powerful.

The "Teleport" ritual cast in combat might have a very short distance, and possibly some "dangerous" effects, but when cast over a long time should have more "benefits". A longer distance and more accurate come to mind as benefits.

The "Knock" ritual cast in combat might give a bonus to opening a door, possibly commensurate with the "ability" to "Open Locks". When cast at longer duration it might create a single use item that opens a door. When cast with the super duration it might create a magic item such as a "Chime of Opening."

In addition "costs" need to be really looked at, since it's one of the most frustrating issues with the current ritual system. Expensive at low levels and nearly Trivial at high levels is not the way to go. The scaling effect is what needs to be looked at so that a low level ritual does not lose it's utility at high level or become overpowering when cast at high level. Rituals should have discreet effects for this reason.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Perhaps there should be Greater and Lesser rituals.

This is pretty much what folks are saying... except rather than "Lesser Rituals", they just call them 'utility spells'. So the small stuff like you mentioned (Alarm, Animal Messenger et. al.) would not be "rituals" (like they were in 4E), but just utility spells. Spells you memorize like all the rest and thus need no more "stuff" to cast them than any other spell. Verbal and somatic and basic material components, perhaps.

Rituals would be the longer-term, larger-effect magic-- your Magic Circles, your Gates, your Raise Deads, your Wishes, etc. The ones that could require a ritual caster and an entire party to participate in. Perhaps large expenditures of gold, perhaps rare components, perhaps life energy a la XP... each in varying amount depending on the ritual being cast. All these things that the party has to expend as a group, rather than just the ritual caster himself (and I have to say I do love that idea of the entire party "giving stuff up" to fuel some rituals, as Keldryn and Elf Witch put forth.)

 

[Stalker0]

For teleport, make the spell have a miss chance(like 2E) and a uncontrollable 'random factor' and maybe a stun effect from the stress. But the ritual version would have none of that.

Or you could collapse tiers of some spells into the same spell with a ritual and noritual version.

Non-Ritual Teleport could be the equivalent of dimension door. Its a teleport, long range, still good for escapes....but you are not completely out of the woods.

Ritual Teleport would be the actual thing.