RITUALS will be officially modified :)

[Jefe Bergenstein]

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

I have no objection to them at all as they are great for the roleplaying aspects of 4e. Is it the idea that they are not combat oriented or slow that turns people off? Because that is very easily houseruled.

I'll be interested to see the new take on rituals for what its worth...but I see nothing in the current system that needs changing...I'd rather this attention go elsewhere in the game.

Basically its that people werent happy havign the wizard relegated to only "somewhat better" than everyone else in terms of out of combat problem solving.

He's got skills, utilities, etc like everyone else. And rituals. But because he couldnt do everything at the drop fo a hat, for free, people whined.

There's really nothing wrong with rituals. If you want to do it quickly and cheaply, get someone who knows how to do it. Casters were just spoiled in previous editions by being able to replicate any skill set, and do things martial characters could never dream of by memorizing the right spell suite each day. As much as non-casters were marginalized in combat, having access to mind bending, information gathering, summons, and reality warping out of combat spells made the fighter and rogue even more useless in comparison.

Rituals were pretty fun. They could use a bit more flavor injected in them, perhaps with a specific focus, or even just more fluff in component description. Perhhaps some rule for harvesting magical creatures for components would encourage their use, but I like that they cost something.

 

[badmojojojo]

woohoooo!!! Hardcovers are back

 

[AllisterH]

The only rituals I think were actually "bad" are the divination rituals in PHB1. The duration was way too short IMO for those rituals to ever be chosen...

OTher than that, I find most rituals are more than fair/adequate/game changing as written.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The only rituals I think were actually "bad" are the divination rituals in PHB1. The duration was way too short IMO for those rituals to ever be chosen...

OTher than that, I find most rituals are more than fair/adequate/game changing as written.

Divinations are pretty tricky. Even if they are bad they are often too good. I'd assess the existing low level ones as possibly falling into both categories. Honestly I haven't seen too many divinations used. In some ways eliminating them would be convenient, but then it seems sort of like just leaving a big gap there where something interesting should go.

 

[Pseudonym]

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.

To take one example, what makes a wood elf different from a high elf, to use the older edition terms? Using the existing 4E PHB2 backgrounds you can take the Elf-Wild Elf option to represent a character from a more primitive background than other elves or Geography-Forest to represent someone who was raised in a forest. This is what I did for my ranger. I really don't see why I need a background to specifically define him as a wood elf as opposed to an elf who is from the woods.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

To take one example, what makes a wood elf different from a high elf, to use the older edition terms? Using the existing 4E PHB2 backgrounds you can take the Elf-Wild Elf option to represent a character from a more primitive background than other elves or Geography-Forest to represent someone who was raised in a forest. This is what I did for my ranger. I really don't see why I need a background to specifically define him as a wood elf as opposed to an elf who is from the woods.

Agreed, but suffice it to say that not everyone seems to share this opinion. There seem to be a lot of players that simply aren't amenable to anything except "It says X on my character sheet" and simply aren't interested in "I'm an elf with the background 'Geography (Forest)' and thus I am a Wood-elf". It is the same people that refuse to be satisfied with "Occupation (Farmer)" as a background element and insist that there MUST be a 'skill' of some sort and a list on their character sheet with a checkbox next to that item before they're satisfied. They also want some rule somewhere that defines exactly what that does for them, regardless of how trivial it might be or however unlikely the DM is to ever make some obscure profession that nobody in the party is likely to have a key element of an adventure. Etc.

At least in the case of sub-races we can all have our cake and eat it too if they are handled as backgrounds. You and I can pick "Geography (Forest)" and the other guy can pick "Sub-race (Wood-elf)" and get exactly the same benefits. All are pleased.

As for the professions thing, I seriously doubt I'd use it in a game. I think it has various annoying negative effects in play, but it is a fairly minor issue as long as it doesn't intrude on the existing skill system and can basically be treated as just more background info. Anyway, we haven't seen how they implemented it yet, so there's no real reason to pass judgment at this stage.

 

[babinro]

I've always looked at rituals as a Qwest Reward bonus or treasure parcel option. As such, I've personally treated it separately from the money and magical item expectations of the game. They are instead their own subset of mechanics that should not interfere with what the game expects UNLESS a player chooses to make excessive use of them in which case it'll really start to dig into their funds.

Did you save the princess in time or merely kill her abductors and bring the body back? If you save her, the king will allow the party to learn the following ritual(s) from the elders.

The actual use of rituals in games I've seen typically relate to completion of quests and skill challenges. They are often the result of creative thinking by the party which is then rewarded. They are often also used when a known encounter location is given. The Tree Stride ritual got several uses in our campaign be it as a means of stealth travel, or in order to appear behind a known barricade in order to make combat easier.

I also agree that rituals serve a very useful DM service in the game as it can be used to establish non-rule based events or changes and acts as a nice quest tool. Stop the wizards ritual before he opens a portal linking the realms and allowing the evils to pass freely onto our lands.

 

[RyvenCedrylle]

I'll abbreviate my overall stance on rituals by saying go here.

I'm a huge fan of rituals and will be interested to see what WotC does to them. The most necessary 'fix' from my experience is that the casting time is prohibitive. Players don't want to spend the game time setting them up and casting them. I've begun allowing my ritual casters to prepare ahead of time and then fire off as a standard (a la every other edition) and that's increased their use substantially.

 

[WalterKovacs]

Now? Wasn't this debated exaustively on Wotc boards? After all those Wotc employees praising the "awesomess" of the new skill system?

...

I believe the argument was that using the skill system for professions (i.e. like the crafting skills, or the actual profession skill) was a bit of a waste. Having a seperate system for proffessions like a background or theme, or even some sort of pseudo-ritual concept like alchemy is something that is possible, but wasn't something that "belonged" in the first PHB.

No mention of skills in the article seems to indicate the professions are an "extra" option, as opposed to an option that competes with useful things like class skills.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I'll abbreviate my overall stance on rituals by saying go here.

I'm a huge fan of rituals and will be interested to see what WotC does to them. The most necessary 'fix' from my experience is that the casting time is prohibitive. Players don't want to spend the game time setting them up and casting them. I've begun allowing my ritual casters to prepare ahead of time and then fire off as a standard (a la every other edition) and that's increased their use substantially.

See, for most rituals I always found the 'it takes too much time' thing to be an odd kind of complaint. Most "plot" rituals aren't cast in time critical situations and since the TABLE time is the same no matter what the longer casting times seem to mostly amount to "you can take an extended rest while this plot element plays out".

The more 'tactical' rituals don't generally take more than 10 minutes to cast. In a lot of situations this isn't an issue. When it is an issue I have to ask myself the question "is it really a good idea if the wizard can do X in a single turn?" I mean take Knock as the poster child example. At a cost of what, 10 gp once you hit basically 5th level it is almost free, by 7th level it is indistinguishable from free. If the wizard can just pop it off instantly then it seems like the main use for thievery (opening locks quicker than the 10 minutes now needed for Knock) goes out the window. I don't think this would be game breaking for this one example, but I'm not so sure when you extend it to all or most rituals (and there are a few that instant casting would make into very potent combat spells). I guess I'd want to hear about people's experience with that before I was going to go near it.

One way to actually handle it would be to do something like make a rare consumable that let you store a ritual effect. Of course then the question would be why wouldn't people just horde THAT. I just keep running all the options around in my head and I keep coming back to the way they DID design rituals has some pretty solid game design logic behind it.