Rituals Designs

[Alaxk Knight of Galt]

The Rule of Three continues to openly and honestly address design issues of 4th Edition. This time, Rituals

Rule of Three

Ritual Design Goals

1. Find a home for spells that aren't spells: Identify, Contact other Plane, Clone, Raise Dead
2. Give more characters magic, reducing the reliance on spellcasters
3. Avoid complex spell embedded rules
4. Make exploration spells not compete with combat utility spells

Wow, what a list of design goals. As a player and DM of DnD, I disagree with three of the four design goals.

Goal 2 - Give more characters magic. Spellcasters solve problems with spells. Fighters solve problems with force of arms. Thieves solve problems with stealth and cunning. If I want a magical solution to a problem, I want a spell caster. Casting spells should be the domain of those characters. Just like Swords and martial prowess should be the domain of the fighter or Martial character. Don't pass out what makes the spell caster special to every other class.

Goal 3 - Avoid Complex Embedded Rules. This is a case of a company not trusting it's customers to handle complex rules. I can't say anything else nice about this design goal.

Goal 4 - Exploration v Combat Spells. Part of the fun with a spell user is spell selection. Spell selection defines the caster. I think this shows an overall change towards a combat focused game as oppose to a problem solving game. Combat is just one way to solve a problem.

Broadly speaking, I think our ritual implementation achieves most of those goals, with the exception of the last. The notion of a monetary cost as a brake on excessive ritual use hasn't worked as well as we would like.

I'm forced to agree with this. The stated goals of the ritual system were met. All combat or complicated spells were removed from the spell list. The remaining spells were handed out to anyone who wanted to spend a single feat.

There is one more goal that we should have set for ourselves with the ritual system: Is it D&D? I think the answer could have been a resounding yes, but we fell a little short on three counts: names, effects, and class identity. I wish we'd tried harder to preserve iconic names such as contact other plane and plane shift. I'm a little sad that complex, idiosyncratic effects like clone didn't make the cut. I also think it wasn't a good thing for the world story to give clerics and wizards (and others) equal access to the ritual list.

So aside from spell names (failing to preserve the classic flavor of the game), spell effects (dropping any spell that was complicated), and preserving class identity (Fighter's casting Raise Dead), the ritual system was a resounding success. That's a pretty brutal self-assessment.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

The Rule of Three continues to openly and honestly address design issues of 4th Edition. This time, Rituals

Rule of Three

Ritual Design Goals

1. Find a home for spells that aren't spells: Identify, Contact other Plane, Clone, Raise Dead
2. Give more characters magic, reducing the reliance on spellcasters
3. Avoid complex spell embedded rules
4. Make exploration spells not compete with combat utility spells

Wow, what a list of design goals. As a player and DM of DnD, I disagree with three of the four design goals.

Goal 2 - Give more characters magic. Spellcasters solve problems with spells. Fighters solve problems with force of arms. Thieves solve problems with stealth and cunning. If I want a magical solution to a problem, I want a spell caster. Casting spells should be the domain of those characters. Just like Swords and martial prowess should be the domain of the fighter or Martial character. Don't pass out what makes the spell caster special to every other class.

I agree with your point on goal 2. Mind you, only spellcasters get Ritual Caster for free, and I think most don't even get that. If someone desperately wanted to play a character like Aragorn or Bruenor Battlehammer, the rules do make this possible.

Goal 3 - Avoid Complex Embedded Rules. This is a case of a company not trusting it's customers to handle complex rules. I can't say anything else nice about this design goal.

You shouldn't hunt for an insult where there isn't one. In-combat spells with complicated rules only slow down the game. Rituals are for out of combat; you have much more time to plan what you want.

There's always complaints about round length, option overload/paralysis, and so forth.

Goal 4 - Exploration v Combat Spells. Part of the fun with a spell user is spell selection. Spell selection defines the caster. I think this shows an overall change towards a combat focused game as oppose to a problem solving game. Combat is just one way to solve a problem.

IME, players in 3.x spent time selecting between combat spells, and didn't use exploration spells unless "forced". I literally never saw a player use Clairvoyance or any such type of a spell.

Making exploration spells compete with combat spells didn't work very well with the player base; there's no reason to say WotC can't take that into account when designing an edition. In fact, WotC gave players two types of non-combat options (many utility powers have little to nothing to do with combat).

I'm forced to agree with this. The stated goals of the ritual system were met. All combat or complicated spells were removed from the spell list. The remaining spells were handed out to anyone who wanted to spend a single feat.

Not particularly different from multiclassing in previous editions and buying a wand.

"Hi, I'd like a wand of Detect Traps."

"Hi, I'd like a Ritual Scroll of Detect Traps."

Some of the examples you're using seem a little ... "forced". If a fighter is taking Skill Training (Heal) and Skill Training (Religion) or Student of Faith and Ritual Caster so they can use Raise Dead, clearly they're aiming for a certain character type and spent three feats to do it. In previous editions, that could have been done by multi-classing with cleric.

(Note, you need to take Arcana and/or Religion to take Ritual Caster, costing the fighter an extra feat.)

 

[I'm A Banana]

I am loving rule-of-three. It is sometimes more provocative and interesting than Legends & Lore!

It's worth looking at what the original article says:

First, the ritual system was the perfect place for "spells that weren't spells" to reside—in other words, things that were really processes or capabilities that you would never use spontaneously. Examples from previous editions included spells such as identify, contact other plane, forbiddance, guards and wards, heroes' feast, legend lore, simulacrum, clone, and of course raise dead and resurrection. Second, we wanted to give more characters an opportunity to play with a little magic, and we wanted to reduce the reliance on specific spellcasters in the party. Third, we wanted to avoid creating complex "embedded" rules that would require the DM to (for example) understand the workings of the clone spell if he wanted to make a bad guy with a save-point backup. Fourth, we wanted to make sure that spells that existed to enable exploration (such as knock, water breathing, or passwall—3e's "scroll bait" spells) no longer had to compete with more combat-useful utility effects. Finally, we wanted those effects to be balanced and costed correctly.

Goal 1: There's some terminology re-jiggering implicit, there. "Spells" being defined as combat effects, forex. But relocating them out of the main list of wizard attacks is a good idea, giving them room to breathe and making sure that a wizard has enough attacks to be viable in combat, without accidentally choosing a list of spells that ends up hosing a player who didn't expect a fight. I'm pretty supportive of this goal.

Goal 2: I agree with the goal. It's a good idea to free up the game so that many different characters can achieve these effects. It shouldn't just be up to the cleric to raise dead.

Goal 3: I agree with the coal. Complex embedded rules can frustrate folks and grind the game to a halt. A villain with a back-up copy of himself doesn't need to use clone, though that ability certainly could be one of the ways such a thing is accomplished.

Goal 4: Like with Goal 1, I think this is a worthy goal, for pretty much the same reason.

Goal 5: Well, this seems more like a prerequisite than a goal, but whatever. Missed the mark, though it should happen.

I think there's an issue with rituals being (a) not often very useful, and (b) too expensive to be that useless. Apparently, some groups use and abuse them into the ground, but I've not seen a ritual used yet in play that does anything that we couldn't have done without it (usually cheaper and with the entire party doing it).

The deeper issue with that is how gold is used and spent in the game, though.

 

[marelion]

Please compare the following two passages and tell me what you think of them. Below my interpretation:

Fourth, we wanted to make sure that spells that existed to enable exploration (such as knock, water breathing, or passwall—3e's "scroll bait" spells) no longer had to compete with more combat-useful utility effects.

So what Mr baker is implying is that in 3.x spells that are now riutuals had a hard time competing with combat spells. I guess, he has a point here and I can see why 4E sorted those spells out into the seperate category we now know as rituals. It was a design goal to encourage players to use rituals more frequently. What gives me a headache are the following two lines:

When you see 4E groups using rituals frequently, it's usually because they've found ways to exploit low-level rituals that have negligible costs.

So when a 4E group adapts to the new system and begins to use rituals more frequently it is a failure of the new design,which main selling point, I will emphasize this once more, was to encourage players to more frequently use them.

Am I the only one who is a little confused about this statement? It would have been helpful for the reader if Mr Baker had added a couple of examples of exploitable rituals.

I yet have to find an exploitable ritual. Might somebody enlighten me on the matter of ritual exploit? From what i have read on the internet the reverse seems to be true, e.g. that many groups forgo the use of rituals entirely because they feel wonky and of limited utility.

I`ll add that in our group (Level 15) we frequently use rituals, especially Phantom Steed and Sending, because they offer great utility. They both save a lot of story-time and help to create a larger frame for a Paragon Tier campaign. Removing messenger duties and travel issues feels perfectly right for heroes who are up to save entire continents from dragon invasions and the like. But bt, I honestly wonder how this could turn out to be a balance issue.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I 100% agree with Rich Baker!

He states the goals and notices the problems and gives the solution I had in mind:
Like bard rituals, there should be wizard and cleric rituals. (A single multiclass feat still allows acces to different rituals.)
Then put the ritual list into the class description, and you have i present where it is needed.

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

When you see 4E groups using rituals frequently, it's usually because they've found ways to exploit low-level rituals that have negligible costs.

I think his point is that rituals AREN'T being used frequently, and when they are its only when they have neglible cost and are "exploitable".

Now, I'm not sure what his definition of "exploitable" is, but I certainly agree with the rest. PCs aren't using rituals - the opportunity cost (both in terms of GP, which is now hardwired into PC progression & casting time) is simply too great. And in that, the current ritual rules have failed in their goal.

 

[delericho]

I've mentioned before on another thread that I consider Rituals to be one of the very best aspects of 4e. The biggest weakness of the system is that they don't use them more.

Ritual Design Goals

Find a home for spells that aren't spells: Identify, Contact other Plane, Clone, Raise Dead
Make exploration spells not compete with combat utility spells

To a large extent, these two go together. D&D always had a bit of an odd nature in that both fireball and contact other plane were both classed as 'spells' when the one was a quick-cast instantaneous effect that (per the source literature) would typically be the effort of the lone mage, while the other is a much slower, much more involved process that would typically involve the efforts of many acolytes, assistants, and many ritual trappings.

Splitting the two made a great deal of sense.

At the same time, forcing the wizard to choose between fireball and detect traps sounds like a good idea, but it really wasn't - either the Wizard will find a way to have both (scrolls, or whatever), or they'll always choose the combat spell. So much for choice. (It also didn't help that 3e Wizards were granted exactly the wrong number of spells, as Monte Cook noted some years ago.)

Give more characters magic, reducing the reliance on spellcasters

I don't agree with this as-stated, but I do think there's a very large space for non-magical rituals that the game hasn't exploited. There's no reason, for example, that (mundane) item crafting shouldn't be a ritual, or that there should be a non-magical healing ritual (though healing surges may make this redundant).

Avoid complex spell embedded rules

I don't agree with this as-stated, either. But I do think it's a good thing to keep the powers system nice, clean, and as simple as is feasible. The more complex and messy parts of the system (such as the complexities of contact other plane) could be usefully confined to rituals - since those are used infrequently, take place outside of the pressures of combat, and are probably a pretty significant thing when they do happen, requiring the group to check the rules at that time is not a huge problem.

 

[delericho]

Now, I'm not sure what his definition of "exploitable" is, but I certainly agree with the rest. PCs aren't using rituals - the opportunity cost (both in terms of GP, which is now hardwired into PC progression & casting time) is simply too great. And in that, the current ritual rules have failed in their goal.

IMO, the great problems with rituals are as follows:

1) The Ritual Caster feat. This should be removed, and all characters allowed to use rituals. Individual rituals can have pre-requisites, of course.

2) WotC have insisted that no challenge in an adventure should require a ritual to complete. This is a good thing. But where it goes wrong is that they seem to have taken it a step further - almost no challenge in an adventure is set up so that a ritual is the best way to complete.

And, probably most importantly:

3) Rituals cost money, and generally not a trivial amount of it. In almost all cases, the PCs would be better saving that money to buy new and more powerful magic items. Indeed, the game assumes that they'll do this, which means that by using rituals they are throwing off the balance of the game (albeit in a fairly minor way).

#1 and #2 are easy to fix, of course. #3 is much more tricky, since the purchase and balancing of magic items is pretty important to the engine of the game. I would hope that when 5e hits, they'll adjust this fundamental aspect of the game (to get rid of the item economy in its current form), to make rituals more viable. Unfortunately, my sense is that they're actually drifting the other way, and that rituals are more likely to be dropped instead.

 

[Stalker0]

To me rituals is an attempt to solve the ongoing problem of higher level DND.

How can we allow some characters access to "magic" (which is a force that allows abilities and powers beyond normal limits)...but expect them to be balanced with characters without it?

In 3rd edition, a high level wizard beats the pants off the fighter/rogue, etc. And its not just the combat factor, its everything that happens around it.

Its the fact that to get to the main guys base, I need a teleport. To know where the bad guy is, I need a divination. To break that magical lock, I need a knock. To fight the commonly flying enemies, I need a fly spell...etc.

The game more and more assumes access to magic to combat the increasingly magical effects the party is exposed to.


The ritual system provides access for spellcasters to get some of these traditional spells, but with a bit more cost than they used to have. Further, nonspellcasters can get access to these effects if they want them.

Now, ultimately I don't think rituals solved the problem, its simply a design issue that has not gotten a good answer yet.

 

[Zaran]

I love rituals. I gave my group a floating Silver Plated rune etched skull that is a ritual book that talks. He grants the group access to the Ritual Caster feat. He gives Knowledge checks a +2 enhancment bonus. He can "remember" rituals they don't have by consuming healing surges after which they have access to the ritual from then on. Last of all, for most rituals he can cast for them there is no component cost.