Simple House Rule for Ritual Casting - thoughts?

[eriktheguy]

Not to stomp all over what is already proposed, but this is my suggestion for a simple variant that incorporates most of what is being said here.

---

Memorize a ritual: You can memorize any ritual by casting it. Do not roll skill checks for the ritual at this time. You have two slots with which to memorize rituals at 1st level, three slots at 11th, and 4 at 21st. Used slots are refreshed after an extended rest. You may choose to keep a an unused memorized ritual rather than refreshing a slot.

Cast a memorized ritual: You can begin recalling a memorized ritual as a standard action. You may only be recalling one ritual at a time. You may sustain a ritual you are recalling as a minor action, or sustain the ritual and gain one charge as a standard action. You may cast the ritual as a free action by expending a charge for every full 10 minutes of the ritual's preparation time. The ritual becomes expended from the its slot when you cast it. Roll any required skill checks at this time. If you are stunned, or unconscious, or you do not sustain a ritual on a given turn, you lose all charges. Rituals which require special preparation (eg. a circle of silver dust on the ground, special symbols drawn on a subject) are still subject to those requirements. The dungeon master has the final word on which rituals may be used in combat.

Edit: Optional: If you refresh a ritual slot during a full rest, you create an amount of residuum equal to the component cost of the ritual originally cast.

Edit: Now requires 1 charge for every 10 FULL minutes of casting time, so 5 minute spells require 0 charges, 15 minutes requires 1.

---

As far as I can tell the wording is concise, resistant to abuse, robust to most of the suggestions in this forum. Also simple.
Component costs are still required and level requirements are still imposed (the ritual must be usable by the player).
The players won't abuse this to make just to cast rituals fast, since the entire ritual must still be cast to memorize it. They could however memorize a ritual somewhere safe, then cast it somewhere dangerous (eg. Knock, while sneaking around an enemy castle). I would encourage that.
The number per day makes sense (two per day is plenty for most parties, 1 per day per level is too much to bother tracking IMO).
Casting time is 1 round per ten minutes in the ritual, plus one additional round to start the casting. A ten minute ritual takes two rounds to cast, seems balanced. Two rounds is a lot actually. A 1 hour ritual takes 7 rounds to cast (essentially an entire combat).
Players can use action points to speed things up.
This rule is also concise about what happens during the rounds that the player is casting, what happens when they want to attack part way through (they sustain minor and don't get a charge), what happens when they get stunned etc. Also, failing to cast the ritual doesn't waste resources, only time.
Players could still use this rule to create magic items etc during combat, but it seems like a waste of time to me. If they can actually find a way to make it work, then what the hell.

I suggested this because I liked the ideas in this thread but I wanted to see a user friendly concise rule to describe it.

 

[john112364]

AAAAAUUGH! Too many options! Head ready to explode!

Seriously though, this thread keeps getting better and better. I like this latest variation. It seems relatively simple yet effective and balanced. And abuse resistant too!

 

[eriktheguy]

AAAAAUUGH! Too many options! Head ready to explode!

Seriously though, this thread keeps getting better and better. I like this latest variation. It seems relatively simple yet effective and balanced. And abuse resistant too!

Thanks. Compliments are nice but criticism is always welcome too!

 

[weem]

@erik

I like it.

I thought I had a question about this, but reading it again cleared it up. Would love to see what others think about this as well.

 

[Infiniti2000]

When do you pay the component cost, erik? It seems like when you memorize it, which means that a player will be extremely reluctant to refresh a slot.

 

[eriktheguy]

Yes, component costs are payed when you memorize it. This isn't specified, but occurs because you pay to cast it. I figured that wasting the ritual when players don't use it in a day would be unfortunate, so I created the option of not refreshing the spell slot if you don't want to. I am assuming that using rituals in combat is very situational, and that players will do so only rarely, so I didn't see the slots getting filled to quickly. I'm adding an optional clause for this situation though.

I'm also adding a ruling on 5 minute rituals.

I'd like to see some suggestions for which rituals can be used effectively in combat, especially at low level. I'm also interested in which rituals are combat abusable.

 

[eriktheguy]

Banish vermin: 2 rounds to cast, could end a combat or at least eliminate swarms for 30gp. Very situational.

Comprehend languages: 2 rounds to cast. Communicate with a strange monster instead of fighting it. Anyone here played the original Phantasy Star?

Comrade's Succor: Most useful spell in any situation. For the cost of one surge, you and your party can redistribute any surges they want. Since this encourages extending the adventuring day, I wouldn't see it as a balance issue.

Fastidiousness: Boomer bile gone in just 2 actions.

Raise Beast Companion: Would be broken in combat, 4 hour casting time = 25 turns. Problem solved.

Bloom: Produce some nice terrain in 2 rounds, or create food to distract animals.

Water walk: Obvious

After reviewing the first few levels of rituals I see a few that could be useful and interesting, none that could be broken. In some cases it depends on what you define as 'clever' and what you define as 'abuse'.

 

[Infiniti2000]

I'll tell you, though, "very situational" is really what I don't like about it. I hate the 'slot' concept when you have to foresee potential uses. I can't stand it.

If the problem we're trying to solve here is "use rituals in combat" then imposing a very situational design is not a good option IMO. I'd much rather make "Memorize ritual" essentially an extra daily power and not restrict it specific rituals. Yeah, the flexibility certainly makes it much more powerful, but making the player hold "banish vermin" for weeks or risk losing 30gp sucks. Actually, making it so unattractive that he'll never prepare banish verman sucks even more. Although some DM's are able to plan their games so well that the players might have a chance to grab a clue on what to prepare, but not me and I'd wager not even 80% of the DM's out there. Actually, though, I'm sure even those who prepare that well like to surprise the PCs once in a while. Such surprises essentially mean "you had this cool chance to use <ritual A> but too bad so sad you didn't miraculously choose to prepare it."

Anyways, sorry for the soapbox diatribe. I hope it's at least useful constructive criticism (as I intended it).

 

[eriktheguy]

Well certainly not all of the rituals are situational. The banish vermin ritual is a very situational one that I would have trouble finding a use for in any game, even without this houserule, so I think it's a bad example. On the other hand, a player who knew a castle was infested by rats might use it.

 

[Dragonblade]

Erik, I like the way you simplified everything and sort of combined my rules with the concept in the original post. That was very well done.

However, I agree with infiniti2000, I personally can't stand slot based systems or any game mechanic that requires players to have to anticipate in advance what power/spell/ritual they may need. I immensely disliked Vancian casting in all the prior editions of D&D and have no desire to ever go back to it.

Heck, I don't even like the 4e mechanic of daily powers and extended rests as it is now. I think all player powers should be at will or per encounter, with some sort of mechanic to boost them into the equivalent of a "daily" and even to refresh expended encounter powers in combat. I like what WotC has done with the new psionic powers, for example.

But anyway, the 4e system is tolerable enough as is and I haven't really felt like dedicating the time to really improving it despite some minor bolt on house rules of mine. For example, one of my other house rules is that Wizards can choose on the fly which of their spellbook spells to use when they need it. They don't have to pick one in advance at each Extended Rest. But once they use one of them in an encounter, they essentially lose access to the other spell of that level in their spellbook until they take an extended rest. I'm all about giving players flexibility.

I felt, and still feel rituals are underutilized in 4e mostly because the long casting times make them unsuitable for spur of the moment situations. Though I disliked the Vancian spell slot system of prior editions, I did feel like the diversity of spells added a sense of spontaneity that I think 4e needs a little bit more of. WotC did an exceptional job of making a balanced game but in some cases I think the power system lends itself to a certain rigid stratification that I find dissatisfying.

My main goal when designing my ritual casting rules was to encourage spur of the moment on the fly casting of rituals to meet the situational needs of the party without being too powerful, but yet also create a relatively simple system that could seamlessly integrate with the current ritual rules.