WotC sayz "People don't use rituals much" - O RLY?

[Evilhalfling]

At paragon with 2 ritualists it comes up all the freaken time.
last night

1. linked portal between the 2 cities pcs own property in.
- its a minor irritation that one of the portals is in someone else's house. They rent his (grandfathers) portal room, and by contract, use sending to announce when they want to use it.

2. multiple Sendings to taunt an old villain, after hearing rumors of his reappearance.
3. received a sending that they needed to return to the city.
4. sending/linked portal to that guys house.
5. speak with dead on a guard killed by assassins (after PC thief broke into the temple mortuary and stole his head.)
6. view history on uncommunicative captured NPC - Exposing a long held secret, rumored in the second session of the campaign.
7. object reading on a destroyed golem to see who killed it.
8. sending more taunting of villain from 2# (as he killed golem in #7)

no uses of phantom steed, comrades succor or travelers chant, although each of those gets used at least 1 in 3 sessions.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I know I've said this before, but ALL of the things that seem to be underutilized share the same characteristic, they represent a limited supply of cash going out of the character's hands forever. They actually generally ARE worth the price (most rituals certainly). The problem isn't rituals, or alchemy, etc. It is parcels.

Every player knows they will get N amount of gold every level. No more, no less. There's no stacking up on consumables and using them cleverly to defeat a bigger challenge and get more treasure. No, you're on a treasure diet from day one. The DM has you on 'gold watchers', and as a consequence players would MUCH rather convert their precious gold to durable items than to consumables that once used are gone forever. If you can tough it out without using them you end up richer and better equipped later on. It is as simple as that.

The treasure system, as wonderful a concept as it appears to be when you first come upon it, is the real culprit. In the old days you had no idea what gold you might get, and if you did it was because you carefully figured out where the best treasures were likely to be and went for the big ones. Or you got by on less (but who did that).

Alchemy and Potions and such could fix this by just being BETTER than they are to some extent, because what they do is pretty inherently limited anyway. You can't really break the game because you can toss a few Alchemist's Fire.

Rituals though are a bit different story. They're just expensive enough that you won't buy/cast them regardless or they're cheap but only moderately useful.

I've actually seen a lot of ritual use, a decent amount of use of alchemy, and even some potion brewing. But in terms of treasure I'm not living by any fixed amounts. The players know that. If they want to play dangerous they can get more or play safe and they can get less, and there's always that chance of running into something really good and making any consumables investment decisions you made 3 levels ago basically moot.

 

[Eric Tolle]

In my current D&D game, the DM has made rituals cost 1/10th the standard amount, and so there's been a number of rituals I've used a lot; Animal Messenger to keep in contact with our home village and allies; Comprehend Languages so I can help in negotiating a truce between hobgoblins and elves, Silence to perform an ambush, Alarm for camping, and so on. My main complaint is that in this resource-poor game I don't have enough rituals.

In general I love the idea of rituals, since they seem far more magical than either Vancian magic or powers. I also think the two major problems with rituals are:
a) they cost too much.
b) they have too little combat effectiveness.

The former can be solved easily, by drastically reducing the price. The later problem might involve rituals that give bonuses that are held until triggered. Say one that gives a bonus to initiative for the next combat, or increases the chamce for the next critical, or something like that.

 

[generalchaos34]

i keep giving my players piles of free rituals and not a one has been cast, they just dont seem to want to use them, since they want to save the cash for some weapons, or they use it at the gambling dens.

 

[wedgeski]

As usual I will pop up here and say that rituals are used heavily, and to good effect, in my campaign. Invent new ones, encourage players to scrounge components from the environment, and foster a world in which creative rituals can solve challenges.

 

[S'mon]

I don't care that PCs rarely use rituals, for me they're a fantastic world-building tool. They're for NPCs; they let me have non-combat NPCs who wield powerful magic, almost for the first time ever in D&D (the 1e Sage had some magical abilities). Players don't buy rituals, they seek out NPC ritualists, especially for Raise Dead. Now I can have NPCs who can cast Raise Dead but who don't have to be 8th level Clerics capable of completing low-level adventures on their own.

Edit: I also make up new NPC rituals as necessary. Eg IMC recently the Wizards' Academy of Endhome used a powerful group ritual to temporarily freeze a river, enabling an army to cross and surprise the enemy on the far side.

 

[S'mon]

I
In general I love the idea of rituals, since they seem far more magical than either Vancian magic or powers. I also think the two major problems with rituals are:
a) they cost too much.
b) they have too little combat effectiveness.

The former can be solved easily, by drastically reducing the price. The later problem might involve rituals that give bonuses that are held until triggered. Say one that gives a bonus to initiative for the next combat, or increases the chamce for the next critical, or something like that.

Ugh, I love Rituals BECAUSE they have no direct combat effectiveness.

 

[Danzauker]

I'd just wish that rituals:

1) had some "renewable" metagame regulation mechanism but not gold cost. Action points, healing surges, "ritual points", one use per day, whatever. Steep casting time and gold costs make most players steer away from them.

2) they were designed to substitute skill challenges, not combat. The river wading example made above is excellent. You have learned/found the Lower Water ritual? Excellent, you pass the river. You don't? You pass the skill challenge in order to achieve the same result.

 

[Ryujin]

I tried tossing in a little extra gold, for ritual use. The players just banked it towards purchasing magic items and consumables, so I stopped that in short order.

 

[wedgeski]

I tried tossing in a little extra gold, for ritual use. The players just banked it towards purchasing magic items and consumables, so I stopped that in short order.

Toss them *reagents* not gold.

"That magic portal looks old and disused. The runes etched into its surface glitter in the torchlight."
"Can I get any residuum from that?"
"Roll Arcana..."