Rituals take too long and creative casting is dead

[broghammerj]

First let me start by saying I like the idea of rituals. Some spells are perfect for them...divination, resurrection, scrying, etc. The seem to fit into the feel of rituals and appear appropriate.

Why does the "quickest" ritual take 10 minutes? Take something like discern lies which is level six. A shady man walks into a bar, approaching the adventurers with a proposition. "Excuse me sir. We are not ready to enter into conversation for ten minutes. Do you mind if I do a little light reading from my book here?"

Yes, strange creature from another land. I have never seen your kind before. Could you give me 10 minutes so I can cast my comprehend language ritual. Glub narl evran uptal (Loosely translated says, "I like to eat the one that is waving his arms and dancing in circles)

Or what happened to all the useful spells that could have combat applications but are now converted to rituals. "Oh no! The paladin's sword has been sundered. Hold off the orcs for 10 minutes while I attempt to make whole his weapon."

Conjuring wizards and illusionists are toast....I know I know the will come out in a new sourcebook. I'm betting that may break game balance since they weren't designed in the core.

What happened to fun spells like enlarge, grease, protection from arrows, rope trick, etc?

It seems to be the reasons I enjoyed the wizard are now gone....creative casting, resource management, pulling some trick out of your sleave that may get you out of a pinch. I would suspect this will not annoy me as much at low levels but will really get to me at higher levels.

If your a fireball, sound lance, lightening bolt wizard than I think you will be very pleased with 4E.

On the flip side I may enjoy playing the other multitude of classes much more because there is so much more to do.

 

[Cadfan]

I see all of these as features, not bugs.

And as far as "creative casting," I'm sorry, but using grease to grease something isn't creative.

 

[WhatGravitas]

Yes, the wizard suffers. But then, the wizard is only one class.

I mean "discern lies" makes a skill completely useless.

"Comprehend languages" makes learning languages more or less useless.

And the paladin's sword is broken? Well, use something else, like a stick, your fists, a dagger.

See, wizards can STILL do that - but as long as they're working, the other party members have to help out! Man in bar? Rogue has to distract him and keep him busy. Strange creature? The paladin or the well-travelled wizard uses his charisma, his skills to keep everything friendly until the ritual is completed.

I only see a lot of opportunities for more creative use of skills.

Besides: "Creative casting" is still possible, like riding Tenser's Floating Disk. But I don't call "discern lies" to discern lies really creative.

Cheers, LT.

 

[FourthBear]

Yeah, I'm really on the "feature, not a bug" side of this. I don't *want* rituals to become catch-all, solve it alls. I find it far more interesting and creative to use limited resources to solve a problem, rather than just pulling out a spell from your utility belt/spellbook. I think this is a good compromise. You *can* use rituals to translate language, open locks, find secret doors and the like. But it costs you time, money and convenience. I'd much, much rather have the PCs either have to have the language known or to have to track down a translator, rather than having the spellcaster get to shine one more time by pulling out the Universal Translator in a moment.

I'll also note that unless your PC actually had the appropriate spell prepared, you'd have to sit down for 15 minutes anyway to prepare the right spell in an open slot. So your scenario is quite likely in any edition.

 

[Doug McCrae]

It seems to be the reasons I enjoyed the wizard are now gone....creative casting, resource management

You can't be creative with ghost sound and prestidigitation? Resource management is still in - dailies, hit points/healing surges, action points.

 

[Fobok]

Maybe if I'd actually played in 3e more, (and I probably would have played a wizard), I might see this as a problem too, but as a DM I think this is great. You can still be creative, in fact there's more room for creativity than before, you just can't use the same old tricks anymore, and it'll usually require teamwork.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Yeah, I'm really on the "feature, not a bug" side of this. I don't *want* rituals to become catch-all, solve it alls. I find it far more interesting and creative to use limited resources to solve a problem, rather than just pulling out a spell from your utility belt/spellbook.

Yeah this is it. In D&D prior to 4e you could solve any non-combat problem with magic. The game basically came down to -

DM: You face problem X.
Caster player: I cast Solve Problem X.

Or, worst case scenario -

Caster player: I have to wait a day before I can cast Solve Problem X? Oh noes, the humanity!!

There wasn't anything creative about it, it was just a matter of learning the (increasingly lengthy) spell lists. Learning lists of pointless facts = major nerd appeal.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Why does the "quickest" ritual take 10 minutes? Take something like discern lies which is level six. A shady man walks into a bar, approaching the adventurers with a proposition. "Excuse me sir. We are not ready to enter into conversation for ten minutes. Do you mind if I do a little light reading from my book here?"

Exactly why it was changed. Some examples:

3rd Edition method:
Rogue: "Perfect opportunity for me to shine, I have max ranks in Sense Motive and a good Wisdom, I have a sense for these sorts of things."
Cleric: "You might, but you realize that he could have any number of magic items enhancing his bluff, and he could have taken a couple of feats to increase his bluff skill, and even if he didn't take anything, he could just roll higher than you if he has max ranks in bluff. Then what would we learn. I'll just cast discern lies...it always works. Plus, it's no big deal, I have 30 spells prepared, it's only one of them."
Rogue: "Wait...why did I spend ranks in skills again?"

4th Edition method:
Rogue: "I don't trust this guy...he seems to be lying to us."
Cleric: "Alright, maybe we should lure him outside and corner him in an alley and see if we can get the truth out of him.

Yes, strange creature from another land. I have never seen your kind before. Could you give me 10 minutes so I can cast my comprehend language ritual. Glub narl evran uptal (Loosely translated says, "I like to eat the one that is waving his arms and dancing in circles)

Easily solved. There are very few languages in 4e, most of them have been removed for this reason. Plus, according to the default setting, most of the world was under the control of an expansive human empire just a short while ago. Nearly everyone knows common. If they don't, then your DM put them into the game knowing full well you couldn't talk to them.

Or what happened to all the useful spells that could have combat applications but are now converted to rituals. "Oh no! The paladin's sword has been sundered. Hold off the orcs for 10 minutes while I attempt to make whole his weapon."

Seriously? Anyone ever cast Make Whole in combat? I know if someone tried that in our group the conversation would go something like this:

Cleric: "Your weapon broke, I'll Make Whole on my next turn to fix it for you."
Fighter: "No, thank you...Make Whole doesn't restore the magic, it's just a masterwork weapon now. If you Make Whole it, I'll have to take an AOO picking it up from the ground. I'll just pull out that +2 sword I've been carrying around as a backup. Besides, I'm almost out of hitpoints, if you don't heal me next round I'm going to drop."

Plus no sundering in 4e=no need to do it anyways.

Conjuring wizards and illusionists are toast....I know I know the will come out in a new sourcebook. I'm betting that may break game balance since they weren't designed in the core.

They won't break game balance, but you shouldn't expect to see them do the same sort of thing you see in 3e. Illusionists will use their powers to damage people with illusions so real that they look like fireballs(and do real damage) or confuse enemies with duplicates of your party giving them minuses to hit. The illusions WILL have a direct effect on: hitpoints, attacks, and damage.

Conjuring wizards will have much better conjurations than they've had in the past, but they'll have to use their own actions up in order to control their conjured creatures. And they'll only be able to have 1 or 2 around at a time.

What happened to fun spells like enlarge, grease, protection from arrows, rope trick, etc?

Enlarge: gone for now due to the difficulty of dealing with large PCs(tunnels that aren't large enough for them to fit down, doors not big enough, weapons suddenly too small, etc). Plus, the spell would logically boost strength. Stat boosting effects are right out.

Grease: Nothing wrong with it, per se...it is just much less useful than a spell that depletes hitpoints. When a creature has 85 hitpoints, it is better to do 20 of them in damage than it is to given them a minor chance of falling down and giving your allies +2 to hit for it being prone. Effects that just prolong combat rather than bringing it closer to an end are a no go.

Protection from Arrows: Limited use compared to Invisibility, Shield, Mirror Image which all protect against ALL attacks instead of just some. With limited space in the book, it was the one to go.

Rope Trick: It breaks campaigns in so many ways. As a DM, I'm glad to see this one go - "We're in the middle of the enemy stronghold, but we're almost out of spells...alright, let's cast Rope Trick and jump inside, we'll rest the night and continue assaulting the castle in the morning." Yeah, that's fair.

It seems to be the reasons I enjoyed the wizard are now gone....creative casting, resource management, pulling some trick out of your sleave that may get you out of a pinch. I would suspect this will not annoy me as much at low levels but will really get to me at higher levels.

As I've discussed in other threads on this topic, "creative casting" is another word for "too much power".

It is almost always used to refer to the moment when a wizard uses a low level spell that is supposed to be a rather bad utility spell and then uses it in such a way that it ends up being more powerful than their 9th level spells.

This makes it impossible to actually balance classes or predict the difficulty of a combat. Since one group might actually try to attack the Giant with swords and fireballs while another one convinces their DM that a Create Water by the Cleric followed by an Ice Storm from the Wizard automatically freezes him solid in the first round.

 

[Ahglock]

I do think 10 minutes is way too long, they could of gone with a much shorter cast time ad still had the effect of its only out of combat and it wont help you if you need it now. The main reason I think its too long is that when I visualize someone playing with sand, gesturing, chanting, while hoping on one foot after the 1 minute mark it comes across as a boring visual. sure in the game you hit the fast forward button, but the visual in my head just seems lame to me. 2-3 minutes I'd be sure no problem, 1 minute I'd be cool, 10 minutes snore fest.

I would of preferred if they had gone with what was implied before with non-combat slots spells and combat slot spells, with lots of the utility spells like knock being dailys. I think the big problem with 3es magic wasn't the knock spell but with wands.

Knock was easily dealt with it required fairly loud chanting making it the equivalent to the fighter kicking the door in or making it a 3rd level spell with silent, and really how many knocks are you going to prep for the day especially in your fireball or slow spell spot. Issues came up when the wizard made a wand of knock and could open doors with a wave of the wand and a single command word.

2e and 1e had the problem that well thieves sucked and even sucked at thieving so magic trumped it hard. Though if people rolled honestly in 1e high level magics were virtually unknown so end game balance was not as bad. 3d6 rolls and need a 18 int to cast 9th level spells pretty much means no 9th level spells. Still overall something needed to be done to adjust the balance of magic to mundane.

I think weakening magic was the worse option, they made non-magic better with powers and stuff but they should of gone farther and weakened magic less.

 

[zoroaster100]

I prefer to have characters have to rely on the Insight skill to discern lies. I prefer to have characters actually learning languages or to occasionally not understand the stranger except by nonverbal communication, or to have to come up with a creative way to find the time for the comprehend language ritual by using bluff or diplomacy, or retreat and then searching for the stranger to then come back to speak to the stranger. Magic should not be so overpowering that it is useless to play a noncaster character.