NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7007670" data-attributes="member: 996">Prettymuch a dumping-ground for non-combat, situational spells that tended never to get memorized back in the day, so sat there, taking up page count but contributing little to the actual game.   By breaking them out from combat abilities, the game let casters keep cool, largely theoretical, tricks without having to sacrifice basic viability up-front to /maybe/ actually use one.  That it /also/ attached a gp price, and was careful to minimize potential for abuse in doing so perhaps went to far, because...In practice, IMHO/X, they still didn't see much use.  Anyway, ritual casting (in combination with spontaneous slots) seems to serve a similar purpose in 5e.  They take low-priority spells and make them more available (essentially all but free), without forcing the caster to pay much price in basic effectiveness.  Those spells are also back up to their historical levels of effectiveness.  Certainly.  4e moved away from the traditional D&D double-standard that has always emphasized spellcasting and magic items over martial ability and other skills, but it didn't entirely escape it.  One later supplement did introduce a detailed system of 'martial practices' that paralleled that of rituals, but were broadly inferior to it, so that inconsistency was addressed, even if the double-standard remained.I have certainly seen that done.   Especially in skill challenges where a magical trap, curse, or other magical obstacle is featured.In other instances it can get out of hand, making Arcana, in particular (an already very widely useful skill) all but universally applicable.It does get into one solution:  Don't take the 5e stat block as a proscription, rather, take it as a starting point and extrapolate more interesting actions & abilities for your monsters.  It seems like an example of such.  Lore can easily serve a double purpose, both in-play, and in world-painting.</blockquote>

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