D&D 4E The Best Thing from 4E

[pemerton]

That was the main one of course. Some others that fall into the "you will be assumed to have access to this" would be Phantom Steed, Speak With Dead, Raise Dead, Tenser's Floating Disk, Enchant Magic Item, Disenchant Magic Item. Its not that you can't do without them, but any adventure that doesn't properly anticipate their use will run into problems, so they generally become close to mandatory.

My 4e game has seen a fair bit of ritual use, but I'm not familiar with Comrade's Succour. The name suggests it's for moving healing surges around - is that right?'

Phantom Steed sees a lot of use in our game.

Speak with Dead has never been used.

Raise Dead has been used a few times (but moslty by NPCs), Tenser's Floating Disc a few times, and Enchant/Disenchant on occasion (but not that often - I tend to give out items directly via wish list than have the PCs make them out of gold in the fiction).

Object Reading has been popular in our game, and Hallowed Temple (for taking extended rests in dangerous places), Endure Elements (for travelling through dangerous places), Wizard's Curtain (for stealthing the party), Seeming (ditto), and others I can't recall off the top of my head! (OK, just recalled one - Remove Affliction. A good cure-all ritual.)

 

[darkbard]

My 4e game has seen a fair bit of ritual use, but I'm not familiar with Comrade's Succour. The name suggests it's for moving healing surges around - is that right?'

Yep. There's a wondrous item called the Vistani Buzuq (level 7 item) that essentially performs the ritual for free once per day.

 

[analyst123]

Yep. There's a wondrous item called the Vistani Buzuq (level 7 item) that essentially performs the ritual for free once per day.

Actually, the component cost is only 10gp, and Vistani Buzuq is 2600gp, so you need at least 260 days to just break even...

 

[darkbard]

Actually, the component cost is only 10gp, and Vistani Buzuq is 2600gp, so you need at least 260 days to just break even...

True, although you're forgetting the ritual market price of 150 gp in your calculations. However, the item's value comes in its allowing characters who are not ritual casters to use the Comrades' Succor ritual (and thus needing to spend a feat for Ritual Caster). If your party has a ritual caster, though, of course the ritual itself is the better option.

 

[analyst123]

True, although you're forgetting the ritual market price of 150 gp in your calculations. However, the item's value comes in its allowing characters who are not ritual casters to use the Comrades' Succor ritual (and thus needing to spend a feat for Ritual Caster). If your party has a ritual caster, though, of course the ritual itself is the better option.

yeah, even without a ritual caster, by the time the investment starts to pay off, the party is probably in mid paragon, and probably does not care about the extra 160gp per day expenditure..

 

[darkbard]

yeah, even without a ritual caster, by the time the investment starts to pay off, the party is probably in mid paragon, and probably does not care about the extra 160gp per day expenditure..

That's not how 4E works. A party of as low as 3rd level can expect a level 7 item as one of their reward parcels according to the pacel system in the DMG. It's not a question of cost per se but access. Whom is your party paying to cast that ritual for them when they are in the dungeon, the wilderness, the abandoned ruins, etc? Without a ritual caster in the party, they don't have access to the ritual when they need it most. (And if they can pay a ritual caster for its use in the city or someplace similar, they likely don't need to make use of the ritual in the first place, since opportunities for rest and recuperation presumably abound in areas with resources such as ritual caster NPCs.) But if they have no ritual casters but a Vistani Buzuq, they're golden.

 

[analyst123]

They can always get the scroll b4 head out... and Comrade's Succour is not some ritual the party needs to cast all the time...

And 2600 gp is abt casting the ritual 16 times, assume you take 2 extended rests per lvl, that means breakeven at lvl 11... well my bad, not mid paragon, early paragon...

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I actually like the Essential classes especially the knight. But the slayer has also proven its worth in play, as has the thief and the berserker. Heck, even the bladesinger worked in our group.



I think Essentials was designed to fail. It was a fake revised edition that sold a few products to keep the brand afloat while 5E was being planned. If it had been meant to succeed, they would have led with a product called a Player's Handbook. That name is vital to D&D. And the book would have been a proper size, not those silly little mini-books.

I still liked Essentials but I would have like to have seen a proper 4.5 edition that incorporated all the errata and included a PHB (and DMG and MM) that I could actually use without having to print out the errata first.

Anyway, to go any further into this means entering spilt milk territory. I'm glad we still have 4E and even more glad that 4E fans ensured we would still have electronic tools no matter what WotC does with DDi.

Well, I don't subscribe to this theory. I think they may well have decided to just do a big experiment and maybe they had no HUGE expectations for Essentials, but it clearly was given a pretty good chance to succeed. They tested a new book format, some updated game play, and tried to present a more approachable product format. It might actually have succeeded if it had been released in say 2016 and not 2011, and branded as a re-release of 4e. It would have had to have more support for more classes and been a little stronger in other respects. I still say a true 4.5 was their best bet, though honestly 'best' is perhaps relative.

I mean, I agree that what we wanted to see was a revised and cleaned up set of core books, but still...

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

My 4e game has seen a fair bit of ritual use, but I'm not familiar with Comrade's Succour. The name suggests it's for moving healing surges around - is that right?'

Phantom Steed sees a lot of use in our game.

Speak with Dead has never been used.

Raise Dead has been used a few times (but moslty by NPCs), Tenser's Floating Disc a few times, and Enchant/Disenchant on occasion (but not that often - I tend to give out items directly via wish list than have the PCs make them out of gold in the fiction).

Object Reading has been popular in our game, and Hallowed Temple (for taking extended rests in dangerous places), Endure Elements (for travelling through dangerous places), Wizard's Curtain (for stealthing the party), Seeming (ditto), and others I can't recall off the top of my head! (OK, just recalled one - Remove Affliction. A good cure-all ritual.)

I'm trying to remember the name of the level 1 ritual that lets your whole party travel basically camouflaged. It reduces all stealth checks against you by 5 points, and a few other things. I simply cast this ritual EVERY SINGLE DAY as it was NEVER a bad idea. It was clearly intended to help characters travel overland in a bit sneakier way, but the way it was worded it just worked anywhere at any time. Once we actually slipped through a gate aided by the bonus it gave. That was probably the most used ritual in the one game I was a player in for any length of time. Odd that I have a mental block on the name of the ritual, but I'm not actually sure which book it was in now and its not worth rummaging without DDI access.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

That's not how 4E works. A party of as low as 3rd level can expect a level 7 item as one of their reward parcels according to the pacel system in the DMG. It's not a question of cost per se but access. Whom is your party paying to cast that ritual for them when they are in the dungeon, the wilderness, the abandoned ruins, etc? Without a ritual caster in the party, they don't have access to the ritual when they need it most. (And if they can pay a ritual caster for its use in the city or someplace similar, they likely don't need to make use of the ritual in the first place, since opportunities for rest and recuperation presumably abound in areas with resources such as ritual caster NPCs.) But if they have no ritual casters but a Vistani Buzuq, they're golden.

IMHO any party without a ritual caster is in sheep dip. Its VITAL stuff! You can buy scrolls and maybe get NPCs to cast some things for you, but rituals represent a very deep reserve of capability to adapt to unexpected situations and such. Endure Elements for instance is VERY likely to save your bacon in various unforeseeable situations.