Tiers Excerpt (merged)

[Jack99]

With progression I mean things like class specific rituals and a limited amount of rituals known per level and from the wording of the excerpt this doesn't seems to be the case.
Another possibility is that this article only means that one can pay others to perform rituals and that this is no reference to player casted rituals at all.

Ah. AFAIK, the number of rituals you can learn is not capped, much like the amount of spells you could have in your spell-book, in the earlier editions. Regarding class specific rituals, I don't think they will let any class but clerics cast Raise Dead, but who knows. So many dead cows already, although I am not sure I would like the taste of that one.

 

[Derren]

I think rituals will come as feats [...]

Thats also possible. The late 3.5 books like Dragon Magic did have such feats which allowed you to use a ritual on your party. Maybe those were early versions of 4E rituals?

 

[KidSnide]

As far as rituals are concerned, everything that the designers have said on the matter makes it seem like rituals are things you buy after which you can use the rituals indefinitely. (Not every time they want - maybe it's once per day or there is also a material cost per use.) But learning rituals seems to work in much the same way that a 3E wizard can buy a scroll to put a spell in their spellbook.

This makes a ton of sense because whether you know a ritual like spider climb is effectively the same thing as having a rope of climbing. Neither rituals nor wondrous items increase your combat power, they just provide additional out-of-combat options. As such, it makes sense to treat them in a similar way -- they are both powers that you can get by adventuring or by purchasing them.

Also note that because rituals are out-of-combat powers, they are also the sort of powers that can break particular plots. (Try a "you are lost" adventure when the PCs have Find the Path.) Because they are powers that PCs find/purchase and not powers that they implicitly get as a part of their class, it is easier for GMs to remove particular "disruptive" abilities from their games.

...but, of course, this all mostly speculative.

 

[D'karr]

This list of power progression just makes me want to know all the more what all the exact powers there are going to be...


Also that dragon has an underbite of epic proportions...

Have you seen the overbite of the Green Dragon. Maybe if those two mated we'd get a turquoise dragon that needed no bracers.

 

[Bayonet_Chris]

Rituals

I would almost hope that rituals would require some sort of side quest. Knowing the ritual and getting everything you need to use it would be two separate things. For example, yes - my cleric knows the Raise Dead ritual. It may require that I take a trip to the underworld to rescue my buddy and bring him back to his body though. It might require some rare component. Or both.

It's too early to speculate, obviously, but that would be more of a "cost" that would be inline with the heroic ideal.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

This I can't understand.
Why can't WOTC show us a sample ritual. Just a little ritual. Half a ritual. Anything!

To torture us.

In fact, there are no ritual rules. But you'll only learn this after reading the core rulebooks. And before you even begin reading the book, there will be a note:
"1st rule of Rituals: You don't talk about Rituals"
"2nd rule of Rituals: You don't talk about Rituals"
"3rd rule of Rituals: Breaking the rules of Rituals means loss of internet access and inability to speak for one month."
Once you open the book, you'll read this:
"4th rule of Rituals: There are no rituals."

On a less serious note, in danger of inspiring hope that might still get disappointed, maybe we'll see a Ritual in one of the next previews?

Didn't someoe mention that Scrolls work like Rituals? So, the spell book analogy seems to fit well. I wonder if the scrolls are fire & forget (a concept I hate! When Willow and Giles use scrolls and books to cast spells, they never disappear!), or whether you get to re-use them. (Off course, I am fine with the idea that you still need material components for such rituals)

 

[nothing to see here]

Repeated text

I'm quite stoked about all of this.

Mind you I have one issue that, I'm trying to carefully phrase to avoid being stereotyped as the "every-critical, comic-book-guy" style geek.

BUT

Did anyone notice how much text is repeated verbtim between the PHB and DMG excepts. Not a big thing on its own, I know -- but if this is more widespread, we might be seeing a little bit of page-padding.

Granted, it's really good text. But we only need it once.

 

[Vempyre]

I think that article gives us more about rituals than we think, by materializing them in our mind (even if it doesn't talk about the inner workings) and letting use visualize which spell in 3E could have been transformed into rituals and at what lvl they will be available in 4E.

Heroic : Raise the Dead
Paragon : Passwall, Shadowwalk, Consult Oracle, View Object
Epic: True Portal, Observe Creature


Oh and .. the ferocious tarrasque

 

[Hellzon]

Oh and .. the ferocious tarrasque

I'm more excited about the "balor demon". Seems it's still in as a top-tier demon.

 

[Atlatl Jones]

We officially know nothing about multiclassing, except that it is different from 3e.

There's a subtle hint in this article. The powers chart is labeled "Powers by Class Level". That implies that there's a difference between class level and total level, otherwise the chart would have probably said "Powers by Level"