What rituals should we get?

[blargney the second]

Our 4e party lacks anybody with Ritual Caster, but it occurs to me that we could get scrolls to fill the gap. If you were a 10th level party of five, what scrolls would you buy? We don't have anybody with more than +10 in Arcana, Heal, Nature, or Religion, and our max budget is probably about 1200 gp.
-blarg

 

[fba827]

I know this sounds like a snarky response but it's not meant to be:
what do you find that you need?

if you don't have someone with high theivery but you run in to locked doors often, then Open Portal. If you find yourself trudging through wintery tundra or seering desert terrain often then endure elements. if you die a lot then raise dead. if you often feel you don't have enough information then some sort of divination, etc.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Do you remember stuff that regularly comes up for you, where you know there is a ritual but you don't have it? If not, then you might just not need any at all.

Traditionally, I'd always try to get some long-range transportation rituals - Linked Teleport or maybe Phantom Steed.

A ritual for safe resting can also be helpful. (I think there are some like "Leomund's Secret Shelter or something like that, but I don't remember offhand).

A Remove Afflication/Disease could be useful - even if the checks are difficult to make, it beats running around with a severely hampered character (or, god forbid, losing him to a disease).

A simple divination ritual like Hand of Fate perhaps?

Transfer Enchantment can be useful, depending on whether you regularly get "fitting" magic items or not. The other item creation related rituals (Brew Potion, Enchant Magic Item, Disenchant Magic Item) might not be so useful for your group, since you won't have regular access to them.

 

[the Jester]

Comprehend languages, hand of fate, raise dead, disenchant magic item, enchant magic item, remove affliction, transfer enchantment are a few that occur to me off the top of my head. These are all highly useful in a wide range of situations (well, except raise dead, which is quite specific)- even the dis/enchant rituals let you "swap" magic items.

Better would be for someone to spend a feat on Ritual Casting, imho. It's really worth it- although if none of the pcs feels it fits their character or has a feat to spare, it might not be possible.

 

[Wik]

Better would be for someone to spend a feat on Ritual Casting, imho. It's really worth it- although if none of the pcs feels it fits their character or has a feat to spare, it might not be possible.

Sigh. I wish they would. Right now, though, the only guy who would come even CLOSE is the bard, and he took Alchemist instead (and is having a lot of fun playing around with what amounts to laying around IEDs and landmies).

I think, knowing what's coming up for the group, that they should just invest in a dozen scrolls of Raise Dead.

 

[blargney the second]

Sigh. I wish they would. Right now, though, the only guy who would come even CLOSE is the bard, and he took Alchemist instead (and is having a lot of fun playing around with what amounts to laying around IEDs and landmies).

I think, knowing what's coming up for the group, that they should just invest in a dozen scrolls of Raise Dead.

I had Ritual Caster on Tongs from level 1 until he retired at level 8. In all that time I think he cast two rituals. He never really had access to components or to learning rituals, so I eventually decided that it was a waste of a feat in this particular setting. (For the record, I'm not complaining, just explaining my decision-making process. )

Nowadays we don't have anybody with the appropriate skills to back up Ritual Caster, so I'd just as soon pick up a few scrolls that could help us along the way.
-blarg

 

[Wik]

Yeah, I kind of screwed things up, there. In my defence, I'm still learning 4e... and I really didn't throw in the opportunities for ritual use early on... and now the group could really benefit from rituals, but I've discouraged their use unconsciously.

Whoops!

 

[blargney the second]

We ended up getting two scrolls of hand of fate, one speak with dead, and one raise dead before the budget ran out. Thanks for the recommendations, everybody!

Don't worry about the ritual situation, Wik - your game's fine!

 

[Wik]

Glad I passed the audition.

Kind of funny - the group got the ritual of hand of fate, made a plan to use it, and then just.... didn't. I think they forgot they were going to cast it, and did a skill challenge instead.

 

[blargney the second]

I was never planning on using hand of fate tonight... we didn't have any clear directions to choose between (that we knew of), so I thought it would've been a waste of a scroll.