Rituals are in it would seem

[Steely_Dan]

*sigh*

HP are abstract. Always have been, always will be. It costs the caster stamina..

There's no need to type *sigh*, you can just physically do it; and I am all for HP being abstract, I go old school, they represent stamina, luck, divine favour etc, but casting a spell/"ritual" that lets you understand languages should not cost you any of that, imo.

So casting a ball of fire takes nothing out of you, oh, but dear god, don't cast a spell that lets you understand French, or you will pay with your body?

So contrived, and silly, imo.

 

[Kinak]

I've been using "rituals" since 2nd Edition, but it seems like the vast majority of them should be setting or adventure specific. I don't need a 'Raise Dark God' ritual in the rules, I need the specific ritual they're using in the adventure I'm running.

Even looking at the non-specific ones, they're often plot devices, even (perhaps especially) stuff like speak with dead. Having the split off into a separate system the DM has explicit control over would help a great deal, even if DM control isn't always maintained in practice.

Regardless of where they list the rituals, I'd love for them to be something the entire group does (perhaps along the lines of a skill challenge). Knock is way cooler when the whole party is joining together to help the rogue through some ridiculous warded door. And it puts the world-breaking plot-derailing powers in the party's hand rather than one character's.

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[grimslade]

Components should be commensurate to the scope of the rituals intended result. Bigger effects require bigger investments of time and treasure. There gp cost should be represent the purchase of esoteric inks and rare incenses, maybe the powdered horn of a wooly rhino or fairy dragon wings. Do we list the individual components or leave it to the imagination of the players and DM.

I would like to see a small list of the more common rituals and then a 1E artifact creation style charts to create campaign specific rituals. A chart for cost vs effect. A chart for various ritual components and costs. A chart for ritual mishaps.

Rituals are a good place to show how ' magic is dangerous'. A failed ritual should be a catastrophe. Maybe spellcasters have a 15% chance to flub a ritual, less feat or out leveling, but there should always be a chance. Non-spellcasters have a higher chance, maybe 30 - 40%. Mishaps should be antithetical to the intended result of the ritual. Raise Dead would create some advanced undead. Animate Dead would create free willed undead bent on killing the caster. A Gate ritual might teleport you to the plane with no ride home.

 

[GreyICE]

There's no need to type *sigh*, you can just physically do it; and I am all for HP being abstract, I go old school, they represent stamina, luck, divine favour etc, but casting a spell/"ritual" that lets you understand languages should not cost you any of that, imo.

So casting a ball of fire takes nothing out of you, oh, but dear god, don't cast a spell that lets you understand French, or you will pay with your body?

So contrived, and silly, imo.

You know, I could write a whole big explanation of why it worked that way. But then I realized that I've played Mage the Awakening, a system where casting a ritual to comprehend every language could result in you growing horns out of your head or having a demon from the pit show up and eat you and the extreme pointlessness of it struck home.

Magic is magic. Maybe magic you have recorded in your spellbook is easy, while ritual magic requires more. I mean one makes some fire. Fire is everywhere. One requires accessing a mystical repository of every single language that any race has ever used, whether or not any member of that race is currently alive. So, I'm thinking you're either knocking on the door of some deity, or poking a hole to some sort of knowledge plane.

Yeah, I can see that taking something out of you.

 

[steeldragons]

So, I'm thinking you're either knocking on the door of some deity, or poking a hole to some sort of knowledge plane.

lmao!

I'm sorry. This is "not fer nuthin'/completely unrelated...I was just totally swept up in the image of a wizard (or ritual casting priest/cleric), conducting a ritual to comprehend languages, being swirled about in purple incense-laden smoke to find himself at a gi-HUGE-ic door with the sigil of the god of knowledge upon it.

Knocking.

And this ittttty bitty character looking up at the god of knowledge, looking down at him in disbelief, and the PC saying, "Please sir, can I have s'more?"

LOLOL.

Too good. I gotta use that some time.

Sorry. Nothing else to see here...Move along. hahahahaha. Too funny.
--SD

 

[triqui]

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

Mostly so, but not completelly:
"beguiling tongue" (warlock utility 2, +5 Bluff or Diplomacy) or "words of deceit" (wizard utility 10, +5 bluff or recharge a charm power) are examples. But mostly you are right, yes

 

[Gadget]

4E did have utility spells as part of the AED power mechanism, by the way.

I don't see rituals as being only for the huge, destroy the world type magic. One of the things that has always bothered me about D&D magic has been the rather obvious conceit that it was designed around PC adventuring in a Dungeon, and virtually all magic (with some exceptions) can be cast within the space of a combat round. This can be very verisimilitude breaking, especially when taken out the immediate 'adventure' context and applied to the campaign world at large. Sure, a wizard who fills up his spell slots with fireball and the like can do a lot of damage, but it has always seemed more world breaking to me if someone uses low level utility magic like Rope Trick outside the Dungeon. I personally do not care for campaigns where everyone is flying around a lot like Peter Pan, It changes the feel quite a bit. Sure this is personal preference and I could ban said spell/Items, make only one in a billion people in the setting a spell caster, etc., but rituals allow me to put a bit of a limit on spamming campaign changing magic outside of the adventure context. They allow the campaign world as a whole to integrate a little better with the magic system.

Mind you I'm not advocating shoving all Utility magic into the Ritual System, something like feather fall would be pretty useless as a ritual, but relatively long lasting or permanent effects that you can see really changing the setting might be up for consideration. I think one of the problems with the 4E system was that it tried to be a little bit too one-size-fits-all. There is probably no need to have all rituals be 10 minutes to cast, and working out the cost could be tricky as well, but a somewhat longer casting time will help to balance things out for most PC in the game.

 

[steeldragons]

Mostly so, but not completelly:
"beguiling tongue" (warlock utility 2, +5 Bluff or Diplomacy) or "words of deceit" (wizard utility 10, +5 bluff or recharge a charm power) are examples. But mostly you are right, yes

<Bolded/emphasized by me>

Well, the above bolded sections are great examples of ways I never hope to see spells...or rituals...or any other ability, for that matter, presented. For that they are, indeed, "good examples" of how not to do it.

Nothing disagreeing about what you said, specifically, trigui.

But a [personal] "fluff" presentation preference to the "crunch" presentation preference.

BUT, I thought it relevant enough to mention in case anyone from WotC is watching/listening. [KamikazeMidget's "call to arms", as it were, to get your voice heard the nearer we come to playtest time is ringing through me brain. ]

--SD

 

[Kzach]

I hope they are not accessible to any class simply by taking a feat.

Guh! No. I'm the opposite. Rituals, by their very nature, should be open to anyone REGARDLESS of having a feat or not. Rituals are the laymans magic. Only with training comes greater success and more powerful rituals. Closing rituals off ruins the flavour and potential of rituals, especially as story elements. If they're only accessible to the chosen few, then they may as well just be long-casting time spells.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

Guh! No. I'm the opposite. Rituals, by their very nature, should be open to anyone REGARDLESS of having a feat or not. Rituals are the laymans magic. Only with training comes greater success and more powerful rituals. Closing rituals off ruins the flavour and potential of rituals, especially as story elements. If they're only accessible to the chosen few, then they may as well just be long-casting time spells.

I completely disagree with this from the point of view that something that takes a wizard many years of focused training, a priest years and years of ecclesiastic commitment, or a shaman years and years of primal devotion can be reproduced by a layman in the form of a ritual with no more devotion than that required to spend a single feat on. That completely takes away from what it really means to be a wizard, priest or shaman in my opinion. {Niche protection needs to go both ways}.

However, you raise a very good point in regards to "folk magic", or stuff that is as much weaved in superstition and folklore as anything else. Such cantrip level "rituals" should be included as a form of magic accessible to those who take an interest but without the demands of full on arcane or ecclesiastical study or primal devotion.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise