No doubt. I think it would be hard to make a ritual that is completely, 100% useless in every hypothetical situation, no matter how rare.
However, as it stands Wizard's Sight isn't worth touching for the price until many levels later - if you get it free as a scroll or find a ritual book with that in it, yay I guess - that doesn't mean it's a well-designed spell, and it just wasted a treasure parcel that could've been something you'd actually use. And that being the case, they might as well have labeled it as a higher-level ritual, and invented something weaker (though I guess that would be hard!) and cheaper to tide people over at lower levels.
I do agree with Decivre that the worst part is the duration, though the range is a close second for me.
my only issue is the duration, but as a dm I changed it to minutes instead of rounds. cost is not a biggie to me, though the game i am running has a less expensive economy, so I added ritual components to treasure finds when it makes since "ie a temple likely have religious components etc.
That said, in the case of wizard's sight, the ability to see in the next room for potential ambushes or traps without actually putting yourself in harm's reach can be near invaluable to a party. The ability to spy in an area with something that is fairly difficult to see (level + 10 DC to spot it) means that it's usability as a means to watch someone without them knowing can be quite useful. The fact that you can earn it at a time you are gaining at least 680 gold per encounter means that it's 270 gold cost is only slightly less trivial than Arcane Lock's cost in a similar timeframe.
Wizard's Eye does allow you to observe a space you have no line of sight to, ignoring darkness, and allowing you to hear. That is pretty useful. However, the negative is as you point out:
I think Wizard's Sight's only weakness is it's duration (1-5 rounds seems too little to me).
This is the weakness of all scrying rituals. They all have horrendously low durations, considering the costs and time involved to cast them. I am certain this was WotC erring on the side of caution, but it was extreme overkill. Rituals, especially these sorts of rituals with relatively high component costs and expensive foci needed, would indeed benefit from some power creep to bring them up to snuff. That, or solve this imbalance via Wondrous Items such as crystal balls and mirrors that significantly increasing the duration of the spell. Better yet, either the ritual itself, or such a Wondrous Item, should allow the caster to sustain a scrying ritual with a standard action indefinitely. Many rituals should allow an action to sustain them, in my opinion, as too many rituals seem to have a high cast time relative to the duration. Then again, they've made the Ritualist Ring to mitigate this somewhat. Hopefully there will also be a Tome of Rituals or whatnot to significantly expand on rituals, including feats and items to reduce costs and casting time, and to increase duration and effect.
Warweaver wrote:
I do agree with Decivre that the worst part is the duration, though the range is a close second for me.
The range is on purpose, methinks, since this is the lowest level scrying spell. The more powerful scrying rituals have no limit in terms of distance, but do sometimes require you to have visited the location before, or know it by description.
Question - can you really Aid Another on someone if you aren't trained in the skill? That seems...off.
The Aid Another rules aren't very restrictive. Training is indeed not required. I'm OK with it in most situations, but I noticed some of the folks in my 4e group thought it was a bit weird. It's another one of those rules that seems to come down to the DM's idea of what makes sense. So one DM might not allow the untrained to help with rituals while another might. I'd allow it as long as the ritual caster PC had a few minutes to tell the non-casters exactly what was needed from them.
Ed_Warlord, on what it takes to make a thread work: I think for it to be really constructive, everyone would have to be honest with each other, and with themselves.
Areleth: How does this help the problems we have with Fighters? Do you think that every time I thought I was playing D&D what I was actually doing was slamming my head in a car door and that if you just explain how to play without doing that then I'll finally enjoy the game?
I'd allow it as long as the ritual caster PC had a few minutes to tell the non-casters exactly what was needed from them.
That sounds ripe for comedy. :P
Wizard - "Alright, this is a complex arcane ritual so I need your help. You, rogue - light the incense. Paladin, if you could scribe a circle with this chalk - perfect. Barbarian, if you could repeat the inscription in this tome to me as I concentrate on-" Barbarian - "Uh...I...I can't read." Wizard - "Oh, right. Augh. Then...I dunno...can you make a sand castle out of the residuum in the circle? I guess that might help open this door. It's a castle, we're in a castle..." Barbarian - "Whee!"
Wizard - "Alright, this is a complex arcane ritual so I need your help. You, rogue - light the incense. Paladin, if you could scribe a circle with this chalk - perfect. Barbarian, if you could repeat the inscription in this tome to me as I concentrate on-" Barbarian - "Uh...I...I can't read." Wizard - "Oh, right. Augh. Then...I dunno...can you make a sand castle out of the residuum in the circle? I guess that might help open this door. It's a castle, we're in a castle..." Barbarian - "Whee!"
I like it.
Alternatively: Wizard: "This is a complex ritual, and I need your help. First, y-" Barbarian: "Grug dance?" Wizard: "What? No, dancing wouldn't h-" Barbarian: "Grug dance!" Wizard: "Riiiight. Okay, now, the rest of you, who didn't dump Intelligence."
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Alternatively: Wizard: "This is a complex ritual, and I need your help. First, y-" Barbarian: "Grug dance?" Wizard: "What? No, dancing wouldn't h-" Barbarian: "Grug dance!" Wizard: "Riiiight. Okay, now, the rest of you, who didn't dump Intelligence."
Just one thing to say about them: one day I'm going to make an Eladrin Warlord named Gandalf who always says he's a Wizard. Eladrin Education: Arcana. Feat at first level: Ritual Caster.
Poof! Gandalf!
Resident jark. Resident Minister of Education and Misinformation.
Considering a) It only takes 2 rounds of movement for the NPCs to get to you (more if we realistically consider they don't know where you're scrying from, but not that much more), and b) the Rogue's Stealth check is almost guaranteed to be way better than the scrying Perception DC...
...I doubt it's worth 270gp to do it. Casting this spell actually hurts your chances at a surprise round.
Trying to send the rogue in to check the place out hurts your chances as well. While the scrying sensor is easier to find than a sneaking rogue, it's ability to be stealth increases faster in general than a rogue does. It's already immune to the passive perception of someone with 16 Wisdom unlike rogues, who have to roll and therefore always have a chance of being seen (unless their bonuses are equal to your passive perception score). It will be immune to someone with maximized wisdom at level 15, someone who's trained at 21, and by 30th level the only creatures that could spot it will have a passive perception score of 40. If their check is that high, even a rogue couldn't likely sneak past.
Warweaver wrote:
That's a nicer DM interpretation than some will use. Forbiddance specifically prohibits scrying - thus you don't lose money to it, as you physically can't scry there (the ritual informs you of this when you start). You can physically scry into a wall just fine - you just won't see anything besides solid rock in all directions. It's a little weird you're willing to kill off people's horses and take their gear, but not this. Each DM has their own style though.
Scrying sensors appear in air only. It says so in the spell. Someone or something will likely take things if a horse is left unattended in the wilderness (kind of like how if we were playing Shadowrun, the stuff you leave in your car would be stolen in a heartbeat if you left it in the worst part of town unattended with no locks), but the question I still have to beg is why an unattended horse is holding all of your valuables, why isn't it being attended, and how is a horse left alone in the wilderness even a fraction as useful as a disk that floats a few feet away from you to and carries a similar (or larger) amount of gear that is easily accessible while in a dungeon environment?
Warweaver wrote:
Unless there's been some serious inflation between the editions in hireling salaries, or they all joined unions, I doubt it. :P
If you can simply pay for a horse and leave it unattended everywhere, you're right that it will pay for itself well over in no time. However, if you have to pay the guy watching your things even a gold piece every two hours, you are losing money in comparison to a floating disk. You'd be better off stabling it in town. Even then, we still have to talk about the fact that the items you leave on said horse are not as easily accessible as they would be on a disk floating 25 feet or less away from you.
Warweaver wrote:
Realistically, to function in 4e you need to carry far less with you than before - with the paucity of monsters that destroy equipment and no DR, one weapon (or implement), your armor, and a few sundries/magic items is it. The situational use of such items, treasure parcel rules, necessity of milestones/short rests, and new encumbrance rules lead to carry weight being much less of a problem, and when it is it's not like going back to your horse is a bad thing - better to take a short rest there than inside the dungeon. Also, by the time your number of magic items becomes big enough to weigh down even the weakest classes, you'll have extradimensional means of carrying stuff. The only exceptions to this are DM specific - if the MacGuffin you need to take back to town is the statue of Eric the Valiant, or if the DM's feeling old school and ignores the ususal parcels to make an "old school" dragon's hoard, with buttloads of coppers and silvers. :P
If all this is the case, then we come back to the fact that rituals are situational devices, not something you would use all the time. If at some point you have to carry something heavy and still be able to fight, a floating disk could be your absolute best friend.
Warweaver wrote:
And the break DCs rise equivocally, making Arcane Lock no better than it was at 4th level (which is still better, but you know - scaling).
That's true, but it's far better than the fact that PCs don't generally have a way to scale their methods of barring a door. Unless they find rods of adamantine lying about wherever they may be in the epic levels, the ever-odd wooden plank they've always used will become less and less useful down the road. By that estimate, using Arcane Lock eventually becomes almost a necessity for making a decent barricade.
Warweaver wrote:
I didn't notice feed in the PHB equipment, but I don't have my books on me. If it's not there, no they don't - it is another abstraction 4e uses to save time. If it is, I highly doubt it costs 25gp a day.
It'd usually be a safe assumption to figure that there's enough grass around that a horse can survive on it's own during any given travel (by letting it graze when camping). That said, if you leave it chained to a confined space for longer than a meager 24 hours (the length of time necessary to start making it more useful than a floating disk) while you crawl in a dungeon, the limit of the amount of food it has in it's immediate vicinity should become something that must be noted. It's one thing to assume that an animal on it's own can survive just fine, it's another to confine it someplace where food is limited and assume it can survive indefinitely without being removed from said confined space at some point.
Wizard's Eye does allow you to observe a space you have no line of sight to, ignoring darkness, and allowing you to hear. That is pretty useful. However, the negative is as you point out:
This is the weakness of all scrying rituals. They all have horrendously low durations, considering the costs and time involved to cast them. I am certain this was WotC erring on the side of caution, but it was extreme overkill. Rituals, especially these sorts of rituals with relatively high component costs and expensive foci needed, would indeed benefit from some power creep to bring them up to snuff. That, or solve this imbalance via Wondrous Items such as crystal balls and mirrors that significantly increasing the duration of the spell. Better yet, either the ritual itself, or such a Wondrous Item, should allow the caster to sustain a scrying ritual with a standard action indefinitely. Many rituals should allow an action to sustain them, in my opinion, as too many rituals seem to have a high cast time relative to the duration. Then again, they've made the Ritualist Ring to mitigate this somewhat. Hopefully there will also be a Tome of Rituals or whatnot to significantly expand on rituals, including feats and items to reduce costs and casting time, and to increase duration and effect.
Now, to be fair, we're comparing combat rounds for something that allows us to view, not fight. 6-60 seconds is actually quite a bit of time for looking at something, just not fighting it. That said, I say the duration sucks because the other uses I could see for Wizard's Eye (spying on a conversation, waiting for something to arrive from a safe distance while fully concealing yourself) would be extremely limited (conversations go on longer than a minute, and if you're waiting for something to arrive a minute just won't cut it). Wizard's Eye and the other scrying rituals serve for their basic function, which is to see what's there, very well in that short of a time. I'd just prefer they have more uses by adding to their duration (or have other rituals to fit those uses).
