I like the idea of ritual magic in fantasy settings.
What I do not like, I find, is the implementations of it used in 4E and Next. Neither manage to capture the concept in a way that satisfies me.
In 4E, ritual magic is locked behind the wall of the Ritual Caster feat. You need to invest character resources (or pick a class that grants the feat for free) in order to be able to perform a ritual. That, or find a single-shot scroll that is both unable to be copied and which crumbles to dust after use.
In Next, last I looked (and feel free to correct me here if I've gotten it wrong), rituals were just a category of spells available to spellcasting classes. The only universal thing that sets them apart from other spells is that they take more time than a single action to cast (making them generally inappropriate for combat, unless you've got a particularly lengthy combat and don't mind someone sitting out ten rounds or more). Some have effects with longer durations than can be achieved with non-ritual spells, but it's certainly not a blanket trait that applies to all rituals.
My conception of ritual magic is somewhat different. To me, a ritual is a set of actions that you do not need to understand to perform. The idea of needing special training (a feat, or being a spellcaster) to perform them gets in the way. Certainly, it may be unwise to perform an unfamiliar ritual without the training to understand what it will actually do … but that's half the fun of it.
Cultists (none of them magic-users) performing an elaborate ritual that they believe will bring about their greatest desires, but not understanding that it will actually unleash something they have no hope of controlling.
The impatient student of wizardry who decides that studying takes far too long, and—using a ritual he found in a book he didn't have permission to read—forms a pact with a greater power to become a warlock.
The clever scoundrel who, despite never having studied magic, has picked up a few useful tricks over the years.
The warrior who, despite her distaste for magic and people who use it, finds herself in a bind where the most effective solution is a ritual she once saw performed.
The superstitious tribesman who performs ritualistic behaviour to appease the spirits, despite the scorn of his more 'civilized' companions.
… those are the sorts of things I want to be using ritual magic for when I play.
I don't want to have to have a specific feat, or class. I don't want to have single-shot scrolls. What I want is for a ritual to be a set of instructions. Some requiring material components that are destroyed in the process (sacrifices), some possibly requiring skill or ability checks to determine success or failure (or degree thereof). More complex ones might require those instructions to be written down, and they might be found in books of magic alongside spells … but they may also be found in religious texts, or in any other sort of book (or inscribed on a tablet, etc.). Others might be simple enough to pick up just by watching (and the grey area between those and the ones where there's some aspect that an untrained observer might not spot is rife with potential for things to go wrong in interesting ways). Some might be never written down at all (those from non-literate cultures, or ones that are too secret to write down).
Next time I get around to DMing 4E, I might experiment with removing some of the barriers to access rituals there, just to see what happens.
So that this isn't just me blathering on about myself, I'll ask: has anyone else tried different approaches to ritual magic in their campaigns? Anyone have stories to share of success (or interesting failures)?
What do you want from ritual magic, and are either of the WotC approaches satisfactory to you?
What I do not like, I find, is the implementations of it used in 4E and Next. Neither manage to capture the concept in a way that satisfies me.
In 4E, ritual magic is locked behind the wall of the Ritual Caster feat. You need to invest character resources (or pick a class that grants the feat for free) in order to be able to perform a ritual. That, or find a single-shot scroll that is both unable to be copied and which crumbles to dust after use.
In Next, last I looked (and feel free to correct me here if I've gotten it wrong), rituals were just a category of spells available to spellcasting classes. The only universal thing that sets them apart from other spells is that they take more time than a single action to cast (making them generally inappropriate for combat, unless you've got a particularly lengthy combat and don't mind someone sitting out ten rounds or more). Some have effects with longer durations than can be achieved with non-ritual spells, but it's certainly not a blanket trait that applies to all rituals.
My conception of ritual magic is somewhat different. To me, a ritual is a set of actions that you do not need to understand to perform. The idea of needing special training (a feat, or being a spellcaster) to perform them gets in the way. Certainly, it may be unwise to perform an unfamiliar ritual without the training to understand what it will actually do … but that's half the fun of it.
Cultists (none of them magic-users) performing an elaborate ritual that they believe will bring about their greatest desires, but not understanding that it will actually unleash something they have no hope of controlling.
The impatient student of wizardry who decides that studying takes far too long, and—using a ritual he found in a book he didn't have permission to read—forms a pact with a greater power to become a warlock.
The clever scoundrel who, despite never having studied magic, has picked up a few useful tricks over the years.
The warrior who, despite her distaste for magic and people who use it, finds herself in a bind where the most effective solution is a ritual she once saw performed.
The superstitious tribesman who performs ritualistic behaviour to appease the spirits, despite the scorn of his more 'civilized' companions.
… those are the sorts of things I want to be using ritual magic for when I play.
I don't want to have to have a specific feat, or class. I don't want to have single-shot scrolls. What I want is for a ritual to be a set of instructions. Some requiring material components that are destroyed in the process (sacrifices), some possibly requiring skill or ability checks to determine success or failure (or degree thereof). More complex ones might require those instructions to be written down, and they might be found in books of magic alongside spells … but they may also be found in religious texts, or in any other sort of book (or inscribed on a tablet, etc.). Others might be simple enough to pick up just by watching (and the grey area between those and the ones where there's some aspect that an untrained observer might not spot is rife with potential for things to go wrong in interesting ways). Some might be never written down at all (those from non-literate cultures, or ones that are too secret to write down).
Next time I get around to DMing 4E, I might experiment with removing some of the barriers to access rituals there, just to see what happens.
So that this isn't just me blathering on about myself, I'll ask: has anyone else tried different approaches to ritual magic in their campaigns? Anyone have stories to share of success (or interesting failures)?
What do you want from ritual magic, and are either of the WotC approaches satisfactory to you?
And then there's Denethor and Wormtongue, both of whom might have been able to perform rituals but we never saw any of them dish out any spellcasting.
