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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 5751929" data-attributes="member: 2067">FWIW, I have some horribly malformed ideas on why 90% of rituals are ineffective piffle in the first place. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />I think it boils down to Baker's point #3: that there shouldn't be "embedded effects" so that you don't NEED clone to do a backup-self. Rituals are unnecessary, and designed to be unnecessary. No one wants to be stuck in a situation where, if you don't have phantom steed (or whatever), you're boned. I think we need to find a happy medium between that place and where we are now, with superfluous rituals that no one ever has reason to use muffling up the place. There should be effects, broadly, that are "ritual-specific effects," things that only rituals are able to accomplish. If you include "martial practices" in the ritual category, it doesn't leave any characters out.I've got a partial list, but I'm sure there are others. Rituals should be the only things capable of..<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Raising the Dead or other big healing effects (remove disease, remove curse)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Killing outright, or other big harmful effects (inflict disease, curse)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Safe long-distance travel (flight, teleport, plane walk)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Significant divination (scrying, true sight, speak with dead)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Significant charm/domination (charm person, dominate)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Significant creation (summoning, item crafting, steed-conjuring)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> ...probably other things...</li> </ul>I have a sneaking suspicion that the things rituals should be capable of in my book lines up well with the three non-combat roles of PCs (Explorer -- travel, Face -- charm, and Sage -- divination), and ways of accomplishing these things more easily than with skill checks. As long as rituals are not reserved only for spellcasters (fighters and rogues can get in the mix with martial practices), so that we can ensure that every character could do any of these things if they had to (much like any character can deal damage), I think we may have a winner.I do think one of the reasons rituals are under-utilized probably has to do with skill challenges, and how abstract and quickly those things can solve any problem. No longer is charming an NPC important, when any character who has trained Bluff and upped Charisma and taken a background and maybe has a skill power and maybe has a friendly half-elf nearby can pretty much press the win button on any social interaction anyway. Getting SC's to work nicely with rituals is a bit of a challenge, but I've got a few horrible ideas for it (like making rituals into SC's!).</blockquote>

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