Rituals Via Spellpoints?

[Khaalis]

I am currently a bit disappointed in the monetary requirement on the use of rituals. Ritual spells should be more readily usable by those who know how to cast them and not so heavily reliant on the DM passing out the appropriate treasure levels.

Has anyone thought about allowing rituals to be cast using a Spellpoint system instead of &/or in addition to the current gold system? I haven't seen any, but I could have missed it.

If not, would this type of system interest anyone? If so, any ideas on how to implement it?

 

[FireLance]

I'm also not a fan of the current approach to rituals. I think the rituals are too specific and thus, they don't gel very well with 4e's more freeform approach to out-of-combat challenges. The costs make it even worse. You pay once to gain access to a specific ritual, and then you pay again when you actually use it.

My thought was to make the ritual system a little more freeform by allowing characters to take feats that allowed them to create more generic magical effects. By spending a healing surge and making a few skill checks, they would also be able to duplicate the effects of specific rituals.

I posted my initial thoughts on the issue here. I'm finding it rather difficult to balance, so I haven't done much more work on it, though.

 

[weem]

Interesting ideas.

A friend suggested feats for this purpose as well.

In fact, I started a discussion about this earlier this morning (iirc) - maybe you could toss in your thoughts?...

http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-4th-edition-rules/246742-making-adjustments-rituals.html

 

[DreamChaser]

I posted my initial thoughts on the issue here. I'm finding it rather difficult to balance, so I haven't done much more work on it, though.

The difficulty balancing comes from the fact that the ONLY balancing factors of rituals are time and money. If using rituals is an endlessly replenishable source, then the Ritual feat becomes not only "must have" but also a virtual requirement for every character. It arcs the classes that get the feat automatically into the heights of power (a la the wizard of older editions) and makes it a massive blow to character power to not take the feat for "character" reasons. (hell, magic items would become free...)

IF one has a DM that fails to hand out parcels properly, then one should not take the feat. Of one is a wizard or cleric who is based upon the feat, then one should speak with one's DM to correct any lack of treasure.

Most importantly, rituals as a gp-based ability allows them to be a PARTY resource and encourages ritual casters to make group-conducive choices so that they can justify the ritual components coming (at least partially) from group resources. The bulk of the rituals are designed be things that the whole party can benefit from.

So to answer your question, I don't believe any ritual point system COULD EVER be balanced in with the system...the closest I could see would be giving ritual casters a "component reserve" a la the artificer craft reserve which reset by level...even this though is going to boost the power of the feat unless the amount of the reserve is a fraction of the expected cash wealth of the character...perhaps 1/5th.

DC

 

[Khaalis]

The problem I have with rituals is based entirely on the Component Cost aspect of the system. Ritual Casters have to spend an exorbitant amount of money to do something that should be a basic class function. Personally, and I know not everyone feels this way, I think that a class like the wizard should be able to cast basic rituals like Comprehend Languages, Arcane Lock, etc. any time they feel the need to do so without having to fork out huge amounts of cash (10g for a 1st level character after costing 50g to learn?).

Now on certain rituals like Brew Potion, Enchant Magic Item, etc. then yes they should require an expenditure of cash.

I am currently toying with 2 ideas for this. Both "exclude" any ritual with a Component Cost of "Special".


Idea 1: New Ritual

CREATE RITUAL CASTER FOCUS
You create a focus item used to cast a specific category of ritual.

Level: 2
Category: Creation
Time: 1 Hour
Duration: Permanent
Component Cost: Special
Market Price: 100gp
Key Skill: Arcana, Nature or Religion (no check)

You touch a normal item and turn it into a magical focus of your level or lower for one specific Ritual Category such as Travel. As long as you wield this focus when casting a ritual of the foci's category and of up to your level, you do not need to supply a Component Cost. This ritual’s component cost is equal to the Component Cost of a ritual of your level times 2.
.....You can also use this ritual to improve the level of an already created focus.

Example: Harry is a 2nd level wizard and chooses to create a Warding Focus. He chooses to create a silver bracelet and performs this ritual, spending 50gp as the Component Cost (the standard component cost for a 2nd level ritual). From now on, whenever Harry casts a Warding Ritual he knows of 2nd level or lower, he can do so without paying the Component Cost of that ritual if he is wearing the Warding Focus Bracelet.



Idea 1: New Feat

FOCUSED RITUAL CASTER
Prerequisites: Ritual Caster, 2nd level
Benefit: You gain the ability to cast a finite number of rituals each day without paying the associated component cost (as seen in the table below).
2nd - 2
6th - 3
10th - 4
12th - 5
16th - 6
22nd - 7
26th - 8


Thoughts?

 

[CapnZapp]

The problem I have with rituals is based entirely on the Component Cost aspect of the system. Ritual Casters have to spend an exorbitant amount of money to do something that should be a basic class function. Personally, and I know not everyone feels this way, I think that a class like the wizard should be able to cast basic rituals like Comprehend Languages, Arcane Lock, etc. any time they feel the need to do so without having to fork out huge amounts of cash (10g for a 1st level character after costing 50g to learn?).

Could you expand on your underlying reasoning and your motivations here?

In other words, why do you think a character should get to use all these rituals practically for free?

Before we can offer comments, we need to know what the real problem is.

 

[Khaalis]

Could you expand on your underlying reasoning and your motivations here?

In other words, why do you think a character should get to use all these rituals practically for free?

Before we can offer comments, we need to know what the real problem is.

Rituals are meant to be the filler for the "missing" magic in the 4E system that casters lost when moving to the Combat Only ability model. All of the non-combat magic that really defines a caster. A wizard is not just Magic Missile. The class assumes the use of rituals since Ritual Caster is a Class Feature.

However, ritual casters have to spend a LOT of money to actually USE this class feature. Not only do they have to Pay to learn most of their rituals, they have to pay fairly decent sums of money to USE their class feature. No other class than a ritual user has to pour money into the use of their class features. Why does the use of a utility like Comprehend Languages cost 10g each time it is used when it should be a defining class feature?

From what I have seen of in-game testing, this creates a disparity in the party. Any non-ritual caster sinks their money into the necessary magic items that the system expects them to have to make the math work. A ritual caster (if they want to use their class feature) falls behind on the magical gear they acquire because they have to sink money into their rituals.

If a 1st level ritual caster uses says 4 1st level rituals on an adventure they are automatically 40g behind every other member of their party toward that shiny new item. This gap continues to grow each adventure as the ritual caster uses more and more rituals.

I simply don't see this as balanced from a DMing perspective. This basically encourages ritual casting classes to ignore one of the class features that Should be a major defining factor for them.

Am I the only one?

What I propose isn't completely free access to rituals, but a limited way of allowing SOME free uses of rituals.

1) Allow some form of Ritual Material Focus that replaces the material cost of using some rituals.

OR

2) A feat that allows a certain number of rituals to be cast without a material cost.

OR

3) A spell point system that grants the ritual caster a "pool" of points that can be used to substitute for the material cost of rituals. This is the option I like most personally. This could be granted on a per day basis or a per level basis.

Am I even making myself clear? Writing from work always tends to be more difficult due to distractions.

 

[DreamChaser]

Khaalis, I think I see where you're coming from but I think your missing a core part of the issue.

Those rituals have a cost because they unbalanced the wizard in past editions. The wizard was the single core class that could do everything, be everything, and often do it better than the specialist. (who needs a rogue, I made a wand of detect traps and a wand of knock).

When you say that non-combat spells were removed, you're right. Of course in past editions spellcasters were the only classes who even had significant out of combat abilities. What were the OOC abilities of the fighter? the barbarian? the ranger? Now, any that you did name, which are not still covered by skills?

As long as spellcasters had a built in additional "silo" that no other character possessed, they could simply not be balanced. The solution: costs. And, now other characters can gain the abilities too.

If, however, they become free, the feat becomes **that** much more valuable and clerics, wizards, and other auto ritual classes fall out of balance with the other classes who have a cost associated with learning the feat.

I can absolutely understand the frustration: wizards lost the most in the transition between 3e and 4e but I think they lost things that were necessary to lose in order to not make a mid-to-high level party the story of the wizard and his body guards.

DC

 

[Archus]

I love rituals in concept - the time cost stops devaluation of skills and class features compared to previous editions and making them available to everyone evens the playing field.

But I'm in agreement with Khaalis. Rituals cost too much. This isn't a perceived cost, I crunched some numbers. Based on the treasure guidelines in the DMG and cost of rituals, it costs a ritualist 40%-75% of the gold he will earn on a given level to learn a ritual and cast it once... once. If you consider rituals something for the party and they chip in, it costs the party between 8%-15% of the gold the party will earn for a given level for someone in the party to cast a ritual once.

Example at 5th level to buy and cast a 5th level ritual once:
Party Treasure: 2000gp
Individual Treasure: 400gp
Ritual Market Price: 250gp
Ritual Component Price: 50gp
% Cost of Individual Gold: 75.00%
% Cost of Party Gold: 15.00%

Use tensers floating disk to carry out dead party members, I don't think so. Summon a feast at night, hardly!

My players really didn't want to cast rituals so those that took the feat dropped it and those that got it as a class feature felt ripped off - doesn't much feel like a feature when you can only rarely use it.

The players also wondered "where do the components come from?", "can I gather components?", "why would I risk my life as an adventurer when the smart money is on gathering components... however that is done", or "I have nature, religion, arcana, and dungeneering, can I use those to gather some components?"

I too wanted more ritual magic in the world than the meger fare afforded by the rules as is. Alarm the camp with rituals, use comprehend languages to infiltrate the camp, etc.

Here are our house rules:
All characters with the Ritual Caster feat automatically gather enough components or generate enough magical energy each day to cast their Level in ritual levels. The components or energy is perishable and cannot be accumulated over time. The exception is for rituals with a permanent effect like Brew Potion and Enchant Magic Item; these spells always have their normal cost.

Example: A level 4 character could cast 4 levels of rituals a day essentially for free. This could four 1st level rituals (Tenser's Floating Disk, Silence, etc), one 4th level ritual (Knock), or any combination of rituals who's levels add up to 4.

 

[Paul Strack]

Here are my current ritual house rules, which eliminate the monetary cost of rituals. I haven't found them to be unbalanced. In fact, despite the ease of casting, my wizard has only cast one ritual since the campaign started (three adventures).

Rituals are grouped into three categories, based on the ritual’s level and the caster’s level:

Hard: Rituals between the caster’s level and the caster’s level – 2.

Moderate: Rituals between the caster’s level – 3 and the caster’s level – 5.

Easy: Rituals below the caster’s level – 6.

For an 8th level caster, rituals level 6-8 are hard, 3-5 are moderate and 1-2 are easy.

A ritual caster starts with 2 rituals and gains 1 ritual per level. Wizards start with 3 rituals, gains 1 ritual per level plus a bonus ritual at the levels specified in his class description (5, 11, 15, 21, 25). The caster can only learn a ritual if he is trained in the key skill and if the ritual is not higher than his current level. You can retrain a ritual to another, equal-level ritual by using your retraining option when you advance a level. To reduce overall bookkeeping past a certain point, a caster automatically knows all easy rituals (those below his level – 6) for the key skills in which he is trained.

A ritual caster can only cast 1 hard ritual per day. This limit is increased to 2 hard rituals at the paragon tier and 3 at the epic tier. A ritual caster can cast 1 moderate ritual per hour. A caster may exceed these limits by spending a healing surge, to cast a hard or moderate ritual sooner than he would normally be allowed. This is in addition to any healing surge cost for the ritual itself. A ritual caster can cast easy rituals as often as he likes, limited only by their casting time.

The caster does not need to spend any gold for the ritual’s component cost, but a caster needs special equipment to cast a ritual. If a caster is separated from his equipment, he cannot cast rituals. Any other ritual casting costs (such as healing surges) are still required.

The very expensive Raise Dead ritual is no longer allowed.