Why all the ritual hate?

[Garthanos]

I don't think it should be weaker just because it's magic, personally.

It isn't because "its magic" its because of the character design resource you are NOT allocating towards it. See my reference to re-flavoring skills in there most magical or fantasy light.

I also don't have a problem with giving "martial" classes a little bit of magic (rogues who learn how to turn things invisible, forex), though that's probably something D&D as a whole can't get away with.

It can work check out the Dragonmark feats.(yup they feel a tad world specific - Eberron ) Basically they grant ability to learn and use a specialized subset of rituals and also enhance a skill/or another ability... related to that same set of rituals... and if you wanted some combat oriented roguish magic mixed in hybrid or multiclass warlock eye bite leaps to mind.

Of course there is also the use of skills mixed in with powers...
When you have a stealth skill and your magic missile looks like fairy swarming with little knives.. the surrepticious magic missile attack is the fairies sneaking up on your enemy not you.... when you use glowing silvery light magic missiles then its you trying to suppress the glow so it is dim.

Magic which emphasizes stealth could indeed emphasize a gestural component.(DEX)

Now you got me wanting to build a character or two of this ilk, cool.

 

[FireLance]

"Supporters" should be able to help the party recover from a failure (healing rituals, Endurance, Heal, Survival, etc.). This maps to "leader."
"Scouts" should be able to look ahead (divination rituals, stealth skills, movement stunts, perception skills). This maps to "striker."
"Solvers" should be able to bypass things that are blocking progress (flight, lock-picking, riddle-solving). This maps to "controller."
"Sentinels" should be able to deal with NPC's and let the party set their own pace (intimidation, social skills, illusion rituals, etc.). This maps to "defender."

These are the "noncombat roles" of the PC's.

Interesting. In a previous blog post, I postulated that there were only four basic types of non-combat challenges: Learn, Move, Survive and Persuade. They don't map perfectly onto the four roles you identified, but there is some significant overlap: Supporter -> Survive, Scout -> Learn, Solver -> Move, Sentinel -> Persuade.

 

[frankthedm]

Rituals are fine, too many people just have allergies to spending GP on consumables.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

I see a common theme here and I will address it, because it is one of my pet peeves:

Other Editions Don't Matter.

We are talking about 4e, and I don't care if it is an improvement over the way it used to be, rituals are not good enough now (for me at least). For the record, yes I did play previous editions, and yes I do enjoy a game of 4e. I just don't see how past editions handled things is relevant unless you are trying to start up an edition war. If the amount of rage and vitriol you have from previous experiences of wrongness prevents you from seeing things that are wrong now, then there is little hope for the future of the hobby and the industry.

First off, yes they do. Its why wizard fans are griping they cant do everything, and better than everyone else. For 30 years, the wizard player tricked themselves into thinking that "cast spell X" to overcome problem X was creative play. "Hey look at me! I used affect normal fires to put out a camp fire! I used dominate person/ read thoughts on the guard! I used speak with dead to learn the identity of the murderer! I flew over the raging river! I'm brilliant!"

Those days are thankfully over. 4th edition gets it almost right, and IMO, rituals should be more difficult to pull off due to requiring specific components, not generic "magic cash". For comprehend languages, it should be a tongue of someone who could speak the language. The gist is, utility magic should be a slight edge, not the easy street to plot busting and problem solving players were used to.

A previous poster was complaining he couldn't cast water walk to stop creatures from dragging a party member off. Don't you have ranged control power options? Didn't you anticipate there might be trouble and you might need to reach the scout quickly? Utility magic takes a little more planning than spending the minor action to retrieve your cheap scroll.

Sure, rituals like knock should be "second string" to having a character with a good thievery score. But knock isn't second string, or even 5th string. Knock is over 10 times worse than the alternative.

Given that the alternative is NOTHING, and most ritual casters didn't even have blow a feat to bogart someone else's skill, I think this illustrates just how entitled caster players grew over the course of D&D. Magic still lets you do stuff no one can do, but its somehow still not good enough.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Interesting. In a previous blog post, I postulated that there were only four basic types of non-combat challenges: Learn, Move, Survive and Persuade. They don't map perfectly onto the four roles you identified, but there is some significant overlap: Supporter -> Survive, Scout -> Learn, Solver -> Move, Sentinel -> Persuade.

When I was in the very early stages (which you can still see on the FFZ page), I arrived at three, but there was the problem with one character dominating each encounter. Talk to the king, it's the Persuade guy, research the BBEG, it's the Learn guy, go through the forest, it's the Survive guy. With the idea above, I wanted to get at something even more general, so that everyone could contribute, and since the dungeon can be a metaphor for plot, I basically figured what gets you through the dungeon is what your character does in every situation, exploration, or talking, or trying to unravel mysteries, etc.

But the blog post is interesting. My gears are turning quite nicely. Awesome.

The gist is, utility magic should be a slight edge, not the easy street to plot busting and problem solving players were used to.

Well, in my view, for a magical class like the Wizard or the Cleric, it SHOULD be easy street. Since it is their schtick.

I don't think it should overlap what other classes do, either, though.

Which is roles, again. If the Wizard does one thing with magic well (and the Cleric does another) and the Fighter does something with skills well, and the Rogue does a fourth thing with skills well, there's no one stealing anyone's thunder. Wizards get to cast magic and do cool stuff all the livelong day, and so do fighters and rogues, without magic treading on their toes.

Rituals, right now, are so expensive and situational that they are kind of a waste of space unless the DM goes the extra mile to include them. I've had several characters who had Ritual Caster, even taken as a feat, under different DM's, and I don't get to use them, because they're expensive and a hassle and they stop the flow and they're not that useful because plot points and skill challenges take care of everything anyway.

But this is part of why I would meld the skill challenge and ritual systems. Making rituals the equivalent of "skill stunts" or something would put everyone on even footing, and let the wizard accomplish stuff with magic, and the rogue accomplish different stuff without it.

 

[BryonD]

For 30 years, the wizard player tricked themselves into thinking that "cast spell X" to overcome problem X was creative play. "Hey look at me! I used affect normal fires to put out a camp fire! I used dominate person/ read thoughts on the guard! I used speak with dead to learn the identity of the murderer! I flew over the raging river! I'm brilliant!"

Those days are thankfully over.

Thankfully, the times I ran into groups like you imply your is, I was able to go find better groups.

 

[Puggins]

Just look at the knock ritual.

10 minute casting time, costs 35 gold and a healing surge, for something that can be done for free in about 6 seconds by a skill.

I, personally, don't have any skin in this game- I find rituals rather bland, but haven't thought about them enough to have an informed opinion.

I do have to point out, however, that your exact argument, twisted backwards, was used dozens (if not hundreds) of times to argue that magic was far too easy and powerful in 3.x. To wit:

Just look at the Knock spell.

1 round casting time and no component cost for something that completely invalidates one of the rogue's main skills.

__________________
When Perseus fought Medusa the math didn’t work and the combat was really swingy.
Perseus was a hero.

...And Perseus didn't fight Medusa.

 

[Pseudopsyche]

Those days are thankfully over. 4th edition gets it almost right, and IMO, rituals should be more difficult to pull off due to requiring specific components, not generic "magic cash". For comprehend languages, it should be a tongue of someone who could speak the language. The gist is, utility magic should be a slight edge, not the easy street to plot busting and problem solving players were used to.

Given the reception to the current implementation of rituals, I can't see making them more difficult to perform while maintaining their current power level. I see some potential, however, in making them more difficult to obtain or perform but consequently more powerful and flavorful. Perhaps instead of being alternatives to skill checks, they should be true game changers: more like artifacts than like standard magic items.

In particular, I would be happy with a smaller number of more powerful (or broadly applicable) rituals, instead of tomes of minor rituals. Whenever a character gains a utility power (usually used during a combat encounter), they could gain a ritual or martial practice that gives them an ability closer to the class features of 3E: the bard's fascinate, the druid's trackless step, the paladin's mount, the ranger's tracking. But you can't get them just by buying access to a merchant's ritual book. They should be weighted closer to the value of spending one feat to get one ritual, not spending one feat (and some money) to get all rituals.

 

[Alan Shutko]

Rituals are something a DM can absolutely ruin for a group. We had the "rituals are too expensive" problem. It wasn't that we were averse to spending gold on reagents. Our DM decided that the Points of Light in the Nentir Vale were smaller areas, and didn't have much reagents. On a good day, we bought 30gp of reagents at a 2x markup.

We eventually worked out so that we could do arcane checks to try to find reagents in treasure drops, and got Disenchant Magic Item, which made things somewhat better. We still only used a ritual about once every four or five sessions, though. When we rebooted the campaign, nobody took any rituals because they weren't going to be used.

(We've got a similar problem with stealth, actually.)

 

[Leatherhead]

First off, yes they do. Its why wizard fans are griping they cant do everything, and better than everyone else. For 30 years, the wizard player tricked themselves into thinking that "cast spell X" to overcome problem X was creative play. "Hey look at me! I used affect normal fires to put out a camp fire! I used dominate person/ read thoughts on the guard! I used speak with dead to learn the identity of the murderer! I flew over the raging river! I'm brilliant!"

This is the attitude I am talking about. It's full of nothing but hate for the way things used to be, which isn't relevant because things aren't that way anymore.

Given that the alternative is NOTHING, and most ritual casters didn't even have blow a feat to bogart someone else's skill, I think this illustrates just how entitled caster players grew over the course of D&D. Magic still lets you do stuff no one can do, but its somehow still not good enough.

The alternative is bashing the door down. Rogues are now properly strikers and have a meaningful role to fill in a party beyond just being a skill-monkey. Thievery is no longer the niche protection of rogues, and 4e is supposed to let you have whatever classes you want in a party. It's OK, no wait, it's essential that the other classes can handle those kinds of challenges. We need to give up this outdated "thieves pick locks and nobody else can" mentality, and replace it with a "how does X class handle a lock?" paradigm.