RITUALS will be officially modified :)

[AbdulAlhazred]

I've been of the opinion for a while now that the biggest problem with rituals is that they're not part of the power system. I really hope they're re-written as pseudo-utility powers.

Spit balling, I'd make the casting time for most as Short Rest (kind of like the pre-release Artificer powers). Some longer ones might be an hour, or as part of an extended rest. Most durations would be in the immediate to "end of next encounter" range, with some until "end of next extended rest". Ritual Caster would give one free ritual per day. Additional rituals could be paid for a number of ways - Residuum, Healing Surges, Burn a Daily Power... there's room for playing around here.

A very rough possible example:
[sblock]
Tenser's Floating Disk
Arcana Utility 1
Ritual * Arcane, Creation, Force
Short Rest * Ranged 5
Effect: You create yadda yadda yadda. The disk lasts until the end of your next extended rest or until banished by the caster (as a free action).
Component: 10gp Residuum.
[/sblock]

Except nobody would take this as a utility power when Shield is available at the same level and has HUGE combat utility. The WHOLE idea was to make it so that the players don't have to trade off combat utility for OOC utility to such a high degree.

I mean there were TONS of these kinds of spells in AD&D. Nobody ever bothered to memorize them. Another good solid combat useful spell was pretty close to always a winner over something that you might pull out once a level. The only time any of them ever saw use back in those days was if you were a fairly high level caster and level 1 or 2 attack powers were no longer much use. By level 11 a magic user might well have wands and such for ordinary use attack spamming and high level spells for the big guns situations. THEN you'd see some low level utility type spells thrown in for that one oddball situation. Otherwise forget it, I sure wasn't dropping my one or two shots a day of Charm Person to get Tenser's Floating Disc, no way. I might use it as a 'town spell' at best.

Now, a utility power that let you invoke any one of several rituals as if they were powers? That might work. Like I said above though, the exact list of which ones could be applied that way would have to be pretty carefully enumerated. It still forces the player to choose between combat and OOC utility to some extent, but if the utility is high enough that it makes a crucial difference to the party on a regular basis then at least people might contemplate using it.

 

[AllisterH]

I think in a lot of ways, 3.x "spoiled" people on how easy and ubiquitous magic should be in the hands of he players...

In 1e/2e, Knock wasn't a spell that you were happy to use, because it meant you wasted one of your precious spell slots AND Learned spells on something that your theif friend should be doing.

In 3.x there's no significant cost to utilizing a wand of knock and in many ways, Knock is superior to letting the rogue handle it.

 

[Ryujin]

I think in a lot of ways, 3.x "spoiled" people on how easy and ubiquitous magic should be in the hands of he players...

In 1e/2e, Knock wasn't a spell that you were happy to use, because it meant you wasted one of your precious spell slots AND Learned spells on something that your theif friend should be doing.

In 3.x there's no significant cost to utilizing a wand of knock and in many ways, Knock is superior to letting the rogue handle it.

Knock is an interesting case. In 4e, the idea of burning a healing surge to open a door makes it a significant cost to cast. When you only have perhaps 6 surges, one is BIG.

I tend to make rather extensive use of Rituals. My last character, by level 20, had amassed a total of 39. It became a joke that my character could crawl around in a sewer, then go to the king's ball in the same clothes, because the first order of business every day was to cast Fastidiousness.

 

[Mapache]

I think it goes deeper than that, to a particular attitude to resource-management. I can't speak for others in my group, but I know that when I play computer games that include powerful consumable items, like scrolls and wands in the Baldur's Gate games, I tend to equip them to quick-slots ready to use at a moment's notice - and then reach the end of the game with them still there, ready but unused, because I was always saving them for the moment I'd really need them. I think the same thing tends to happen with rituals.

This. Even if the material cost is small, the psychological difference between free and any price at all is enormous. Players don't want to spend their gold on single-shot effects even if they have a mountain of it, because they could use it to buy permanent magic items or they might need it in the future. Hoarding is such an instinctive behavior that I've become utterly convinced that applying a permanent cost to any game effect is dooming it to only be used as an absolute last measure of desperation. If that's designer intent, then fine, but if it's meant to be a regular feature of play, then it needs some kind of renewable pool to power it. Either players need to be able to cast some number of rituals for free periodically, or rituals that don't create permanent benefits (e.g. not Enchant Item and Raise Dead) need to be fueled by healing surges instead of gold.

 

[Nyronus]

Really, the issue is partially to do with the huge variance in quality between rituals. Compare the usefulness of Tenser's Floating Disk vs. Comrade's Succor. Tenser's provides... a way avoid the encumbrance rules everyone ignores and the ability to ignore difficult terrain? There are some cases where it is useful to have, such as moving an extremely heavy object which can't be hand waved quickly, or moving over dangerous terrain, but all in all its a niche power. Comrade's Succor on the other hand is a great tool for parties to increase survivability and lengthen the adventuring day. Having DMed 4e since day 1 I can tell you that the way to scare and the way to kill a party of 4th Edition character is to go after their healing surges. Either directly or via attrition. When one guy gets low and there is no end in sight, the party really starts to sweat. One guy goes down without surges, then the whole fight instantly swings in the favor of the enemy. Every party should have a guy with Ritual Caster just for this and Ressurection if nothing else.

Thinking on it, the best place for rituals is probably a paragon tier sandbox game. That way the party can get access to a large number and variety of rituals with little to no cost, and can make use of it. Decide you want to take on that nasty Red Dragon whose terrorized your new Duchy since the days of the Red Hand by can't cross the lava moat around his volcanic stronghold? Tenser's Disks for everyone!

Even if one doesn't use them mechanically as written, I still think rituals are a great addition to the game as they open up a lot of doors plot wise. Summoning a dark god? Summoning Ritual. Need to assault the hidden mountain keep? Portal Ritual. Its just a useful grounding for a variety of plot ideas.

 

[Aegeri]

Am I the only person who noticed on Amazon this book is reported to be a hard cover?

Are we having a return to sanity here?

Edit: Also July next year is when we finally get themes outside Dark Sun? Really? Also more Heroic Tier support. Just what I've always wanted.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Really, the issue is partially to do with the huge variance in quality between rituals. Compare the usefulness of Tenser's Floating Disk vs. Comrade's Succor. Tenser's provides... a way avoid the encumbrance rules everyone ignores and the ability to ignore difficult terrain? There are some cases where it is useful to have, such as moving an extremely heavy object which can't be hand waved quickly, or moving over dangerous terrain, but all in all its a niche power. Comrade's Succor on the other hand is a great tool for parties to increase survivability and lengthen the adventuring day. Having DMed 4e since day 1 I can tell you that the way to scare and the way to kill a party of 4th Edition character is to go after their healing surges. Either directly or via attrition. When one guy gets low and there is no end in sight, the party really starts to sweat. One guy goes down without surges, then the whole fight instantly swings in the favor of the enemy. Every party should have a guy with Ritual Caster just for this and Ressurection if nothing else.

Thinking on it, the best place for rituals is probably a paragon tier sandbox game. That way the party can get access to a large number and variety of rituals with little to no cost, and can make use of it. Decide you want to take on that nasty Red Dragon whose terrorized your new Duchy since the days of the Red Hand by can't cross the lava moat around his volcanic stronghold? Tenser's Disks for everyone!

Even if one doesn't use them mechanically as written, I still think rituals are a great addition to the game as they open up a lot of doors plot wise. Summoning a dark god? Summoning Ritual. Need to assault the hidden mountain keep? Portal Ritual. Its just a useful grounding for a variety of plot ideas.

Well, I agree that feats are a great asset to the DM in terms of devising plots and working them out. They are a great resource.

I don't know about variance. Sure, there is some variation in the usefulness of rituals, but one of the whole points with them is that they are a cheap resource to acquire and since there are no 'slots' there really isn't much reason to be too concerned about it. If a given ritual seems not very useful you don't buy it. If it does, you do. It may end up being handy less often than another one, but if it returns good value then its all good. This is in sharp contrast to powers and feats where you have a serious opportunity cost involved with not taking the most optimal choice. Besides, it is hard to say that one ritual is vastly better than another. They are hard to compare. Sure Comrade's Succor is a great ritual, but OTOH if Tenser's Disk is the one you really need in a given situation then it is hard to say it is 'worse'. Powers you can usually pretty much say "X is better than Y" at least for your particular character. It is a lot more clear cut, certainly with attack powers.

 

[Stalker0]

I did notice my players using rituals more at paragon because by then heroic tier rituals are a lot cheaper. But they almost never used rituals of near their level, too expensive.


And while there are some rituals out there that are powerful...even game breaking (magic circle i'm looking at you!), most of them are just...well....lame.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I did notice my players using rituals more at paragon because by then heroic tier rituals are a lot cheaper. But they almost never used rituals of near their level, too expensive.


And while there are some rituals out there that are powerful...even game breaking (magic circle i'm looking at you!), most of them are just...well....lame.

Hmmmm, really?

I want someone to point out what "cheap enough" would BE if it isn't what rituals cost right now in general. Lets look at a level 6 party. They will have by the parcel system accumulated 10,395 gp in MONEY treasure (and almost 50k in magic items) by the end of this level. So, hmmm, you mean out of that 10 THOUSAND gold they can't afford to cast a couple rituals per level? I mean an adventuring day is 5 encounters, so a level is 2 'days'. If they cast a ritual a day for the whole party that would be 12 rituals in 6 levels. Heck if they cast one PER ENCOUNTER that would only be 60 of them.

The most expensive ritual available at 6th level in the PHB is a measly 150gp (Cure Disease, a highly useful ritual indeed). Now, considering that you could cast that ritual roughly 60 TIMES with the gold you're party has earned in those 6 levels, I'm going to have to say that I find the 'to expensive' argument to be simply not supportable.

People will argue that there are 'other things' to spend your gold one that are more vital, but really there just aren't that many things it is worth spending gold on. A level 6 item costs 1,800 gp. Even if the party has managed to buy several items they should easily have enough gold left over for a few rituals. Besides the vast majority of the rituals at that level cost a LOT less than 150 gp. Typically your talking 10-25gp, which really pretty well aught to be so trivial as to be lost in the noise.

I mean I can definitely see where a party that has to cast a bunch of Raise Dead rituals or something is going to start feeling the pinch, but on the whole I just don't really get the costs too much thing. I realize that IS a perception people have, but the question isn't why are rituals too expensive. The question is why do people THINK rituals are expensive when they most plainly aren't?

And I don't really get the lack of utility argument either. Certainly not ever ritual is useful to every group, but I can definitely come up with LIKELY situations where all but one or two of them could be pretty invaluable. How is Magic Circle OP? You've seen it used in a game breaking way? I mean it is definitely a potentially really useful ritual, but it is far from infallible. In any case is the ritual system mechanic really BROKEN if there is a given ritual that is a bit more powerful than the others at its level? It isn't like you only get one. Are there some you probably won't bother to buy because you're not really likely to use them? Sure, but it was never the intent that you'd collect them ALL (at least not before you've progressed to considerably higher levels and probably not even then).

 

[LightPhoenix]

Except nobody would take this as a utility power ... <snip>

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.