RITUALS will be officially modified :)

[AbdulAlhazred]

It would still be separate from your allotment utility powers; perhaps I didn't make that clear. My bad. Basically an additional "Ritual" power slot.

The reason I would do it like that is because I don't believe the people saying it's due to cost are right. In fact, all my anecdotal evidence points to the contrary - that cost has nothing to do with it. Even at higher levels when low level rituals are cheap, they were rarely used. Similarly with Bards, when they get free ones. They're basically an afterthought, because the ritual system itself seems like an afterthought. I'm willing to bet that if rituals were folded into the power system, they'd see a lot more use.

Ahhh, OK. Yes, I agree with you. I think that is a lot of the reason. Rituals are stuck off in the very back of the PHB on the far side of a chapter that is rarely ever referred to, sort of the 'attic' of the game. I don't know if folding them into the power system would bring them to the forefront or not, but at least it couldn't make them LESS prominent.

I think part of the problem is the way they are handled on the character sheet TBH. somewhere back on page 2 you get a bare list of the names of the rituals you have in your book. If you want to actually USE one you have to go dig up the correct book and look it up, or bring it up in the Compendium. Most players have their powers on cards so they can refer to the (slightly abbreviated) text right there without page flipping. Rituals obviously won't fit on a card and take up a decent amount of space, but it WOULD be nice if there was an option to print out your ritual book in CB. In a sense 4e rituals are still stuck back in the days of what all spell casting was in days of yore. I think that really tends to make them a bother and players hate bother. Then toss on a cost, however trivial, and the thought that goes through the player's head is "Oh, heck, I could go dig through the book and find out if one of these rituals would help me, but that's a pain and on top of that it will cost some gold." So they just don't bother.

Hmmm, maybe I'll just make a ritual book printer-outer program. THAT should be an afternoon's work.

 

[TarionzCousin]

I want a separate book for rituals that collects all of WotC's rituals, complete with errata, and smooths out the bumps.

Is that too much to ask?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I want a separate book for rituals that collects all of WotC's rituals, complete with errata, and smooths out the bumps.

Is that too much to ask?

Well, apparently that's what we're getting. Personally I hope it doesn't muck with the mechanics too much.

 

[shamsael]

The rest looks good, but I could really do without that. 4E and Essentials have resisted subrace creep for the most part. I really don't want to see it come back.

But defining subraces as backgrounds prevents us from later having to deal with subraces defined as racial variants or mutliclass feats or themes are some other over intrusive design.

 

[Runestar]

Subraces? Bah!

Give me Savage Species 4.0, wotc.

 

[LostSoul]

Out of curiosity, what exactly is the problem with Rituals as they are now for typical players?

1. Rituals cost money.
2. You can buy whatever magic items you want.
3. Encounter building guidelines assume that you have a certain amount of magic items.
4. If the DM wants to create a good encounter, it can take a long time and requires a lot of thought. The game is about the encounter, so he had better!
5. Encounters are not supposed to block you from progressing towards the goal (there's a reason they didn't give Kalarel a timeline in Keep on the Shadowfell, or consequences for failing to stop him).
6. Encounters are not supposed to cause a TPK. Encounters that are too difficult for the party should be adjusted so they aren't.
7. Things that can unbalance an encounter have been removed from the game.

You're spending money (1) that you could spend on magic items (2), magic items the game assumes that you'll have (3), making you "punch below your weight"; that money you spend isn't going to avoid the encounter (4 & 5), nor is it going to allow you to overcome an encounter you couldn't normally have (6) or give you a really good benefit in the encounter (7).

1-3 and 4-7 seem to contradict each other. They do; that's why rituals don't work in the typical 4E game - a game where you get to show off how bad-ass you are by going through the DM's pre-planned encounters. Spending money on rituals means that you aren't as bad-ass as you should be.

Rituals as they are now can work if you put in unbalanced ("status quo") encounters, don't pre-plan outcomes or encounters, and don't allow (or cut back on) the ability of PCs to buy magic items. If you play like that, rituals are very good.

 

[fanboy2000]

Subraces? Bah!

Give me Savage Species 4.0, wotc.

You know, Savage Species didn't see a lot of use at my table, but I like this idea. For the most part, playing exotic species in 3.x was problematic because of 1) level adjustments sucked, and 2) 1HD =/= one Character level. Now that those problems are gone (because there's no longer the idea that every monster essentially has the same set of abilities, just with maybe different HP, feats, and skill point allocation) I think this could work out really well. Species write-ups don't take up a lot of room, so the book could have things like names and social structure with a few feats thrown in.

 

[fanboy2000]

1-3 and 4-7 seem to contradict each other. They do; that's why rituals don't work in the typical 4E game - a game where you get to show off how bad-ass you are by going through the DM's pre-planned encounters. Spending money on rituals means that you aren't as bad-ass as you should be.

I give out rituals and magic items as treasure so this doesn't seem to apply to me. I mean, it's not like the PCs have to buy a new magic item after every encounter.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well, Essentials has virtually shut down PCs making items. I don't really agree that the game is as sensitive to character item possession as you make it out to be either. PCs are virtually guaranteed to get the basic necessary item quota from treasure to function fully at their expected power level. The DM also has a pretty wide latitude in terms of encounter difficulty, so if a party were underequipped to the degree that they actually couldn't punch their weight it really shouldn't be a big deal, just shave a bit of XP off here and there or heck just give them an extra item or two.

I think people take point 5 too rigidly as well. Encounters certainly shouldn't be absolute choke points that you can't progress past without defeating them but they most certainly can block progress in a given direction or have dire consequences for failure. There just need to be ways for the party to recoup. This is tough to do in published adventures where the content was paid for and thus it is rather expected that the adventure will utilize all the material, but it certainly is possible and should be favored in a more developed story arc where the DM can continuously edit and is generating new material as needed. On a more tactical level it is even possible in more standard content.

The thing is, even assuming a party's ritual casting activities absorb a considerable amount of their resources, those rituals should be providing a very significant benefit, especially at a strategic level. The characters are paying for something, presumably the DM should be seeing to it that they have the chance to benefit proportionately. In this regard at the very least the less expensive rituals (the vast bulk of them) SHOULD work fine. Casting a 10gp ritual at an opportune time should CERTAINLY be well worth the almost insignificant cost.

I really think it is a presentation issue more than anything else.

 

[Peraion Graufalke]

I think part of the problem is the way they are handled on the character sheet TBH. somewhere back on page 2 you get a bare list of the names of the rituals you have in your book. If you want to actually USE one you have to go dig up the correct book and look it up, or bring it up in the Compendium. Most players have their powers on cards so they can refer to the (slightly abbreviated) text right there without page flipping. Rituals obviously won't fit on a card and take up a decent amount of space, but it WOULD be nice if there was an option to print out your ritual book in CB.

In Character Builder Classic, using the Character Viewer: Options -> Show Normal Item Cards. Now you've got ritual cards with the basic descriptions, although the ritual costs aren't displayed.

Am I the only one who's aware of this?