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4 months ago ::
Feb 02, 2013 - 9:42AM
#51
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I 100% support the idea of allowing Ritual Casting as a Feat to any and all classes.
And I agree that requiring Rituals to be memorized as spells to be used is foolish.
Personally I think that something should either be a Ritual OR a Spell, not both.
Which would solve that issue permanently.
I think its pretty arbitrary to call memorizing ritual foolish or not foolish as long as there are clear benefits to each which there is currently.
I prefer to have a variety. I would like to see in addition to what we have now, ritual only spells and spells that both take a spell slot and must be cast as ritual. This adds variety to spell casting and allows for more variety in caster.
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Imagine a world where the first-time D&D player rolls stats, picks a race, picks a class, picks an alignment, and buys gear to create a character. Imagine if an experienced player, maybe the person helping our theoretical player learn the ropes, could also make a character by rolling ability scores and picking a race, class, feat, skills, class features, spells or powers, and so on. Those two players used different paths to build characters, but the system design allows them to play at the same table. -Mearl
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4 months ago ::
Feb 02, 2013 - 9:51AM
#52
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Date Joined:
Aug 24, 2008
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I see this as completely backwards. The whole point of ritual casting is to allow access to niche spells that are difficult to choose for preparation for fear of not preparing bread and butter spells for more common combat scenarios/threats.
There should be a cost to not preparing Knock (for instance) and relying on it in ritual form. That cost should be a spell slot usage, without the need for the spell caster to have it prepared ahead of time. You're still casting a spell per day, you can just do it out of your book instead of out of your head.
Extended time for casting is NOT a true cost or balancing factor; that kind of design is conditional to the adventure, map and campaign. In core rules I would prefer to see it simply consume a spell slot so a real choice needs to be made on the caster's part. It's a real resource with real consequences spent for good reasons.
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4 months ago ::
Feb 02, 2013 - 10:42AM
#53
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Date Joined:
Sep 26, 2012
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@sleypy I see what you're saying and I think I agree there.
@circumnavigate This is quite an interesting and new perspective that I haven't seen yet. Thanks! That resource could easily be changed to be significant in another way for your campaign. For example, a return to a gold cost for use, or material component. Or even, make it cost a slot if you like.
I actually prefer that rituals don't cost spell slots per day. I think that time is a 'real' resource, although I will agree that sometimes it is not actually very 'costly'. Taking 15 minutes to cast a summon monster spell is a lot different than doing it in 6 seconds. The rogue opening a door in 6 seconds, is a lot different than a mage doing it in 15 minutes. Maybe you are right and that in most cases it is a non-choice or non-cost. However, spells come at a premium and do take some money to actually get in the book itself. Maybe those end up being non-costs as well, although I run a low money, low magic campaign as a DM, and so those choices are not trivial (and at 5th level in a party with 3 mages, not a single mage has copied a spell from another mage).
To push the envelope a bit here are two interesting ideas as well.
An earthquake that takes 4 hours to prepare and cast, is a lot different than one which can be done in 6 seconds (although I doubt these two should be equal parts of the same "spell").
An interesting cost might be maximum hps for the day. If you cast this ritual, it weakens you by reducing your maximum hp by XXX. That would be pretty awesome and would be similar to how we see magic weakening mages in literature.
Currently running a playtest, weekly, online D&D Next Session using a virtual table system called roll20.
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4 months ago ::
Feb 02, 2013 - 11:36AM
#54
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Date Joined:
Aug 24, 2008
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Flux
i appreciate low magic low money games, and perhaps that's a dial for the DM. I am uncertain whether you are suggesting no spell slot cost but still requiring preparation. This just seems upside-down to me since requiring preparation lowers versatility and not costing a slot improves sustainability. As a DM I would want to grant MORE versatility for the group while challenging them in the survivability/attrition department. Especially at low levels, spell casters have a precious pool of spell slots so one of the important (some might say classic) adventuring decisions for them is the management of those slots. Generally, 'how long can you last in the dungeon with the tools you have?' is the name of the game.
Re: hp maximum cost I ask you what the difference is between that and spell slot usage? Hps are simply a limited per day resource, though they are even more guarded, obviously because losing them is lethal, but also because one cannot truly control their depletion. Plus many casters are already on the bottom of the barrel when it comes to hp, I'd hate to tap into that for the sake of making decisions like "should I risk my life so we can understand this infernal writing on the wall using Comprehend Languages?" Casters already have a (non-lethal) store of resources that make them vulnerable when depleted, they're called spell slots.
I am also not in favor of an extended array of monetary costs for rituals. Adjudicating how much or little a spell should cost in gp is just a pain for designers, not working out well at all for the game (as seen in 4e). Plus, then you end up spending all this time parsing out gold for components, deciding how much to convert, as a dm deciding how much to drop in dungeons, etc. What a hassle. I'm not opposed to key spells requiring diamonds etc to fuel their special nature (stone skin, raise dead, et al), but components for ritual casting just starts a whole economy around their usage, and I expect most players come to the table to escape the trappings of finance in their lives and not to simply translate it into a fantasy version of balancing their checkbooks.
Lastly, spell slot usage scales very well, and hit points or money do not. Spell slots will always be valuable to a caster, but if it costs 50 gp to cast Augury, then that naturally forms an ideal time in a characters career when the benefits clearly outweigh the cost. 50 gp is a lot for level 3 character, and a pittance for a level 10 character. This means at level 10 you should expect tons of lower level spells crashing the adventure with little tax to the players. It's a discomfort I had in 4e where my 15th level characters basically always had water walk, giant bonuses to skills and could all see in the dark cause they had lower level rituals that cost pennies for them. I wasn't opposed to that magic being available in some fashion, I just wanted its use to be a real choice and not a given.
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4 months ago ::
Feb 02, 2013 - 11:48AM
#55
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Date Joined:
Jan 29, 2005
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On a related note, how are/should spell scrolls handled? I'm thinking there needs to be some limit on scroll usage.
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4 months ago ::
Feb 02, 2013 - 12:00PM
#56
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Date Joined:
Mar 22, 2008
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I have to say that I really dislike having to have a spell memorized to do the ritual. It almost completely negates what rituals are for.
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4 months ago ::
Feb 02, 2013 - 12:41PM
#57
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Date Joined:
Mar 19, 2004
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No, I don't like having to prepare rituals ahead of time either, and especally dislike if they waste slots. The latter is also virtually pointless, as you can leave your spell slots open and prepare them later based on the challenge faced, gaining similar results as spending it for a ritual (and possibly less time spent preparing themvs casting the ritual). Likewise, I too would want to see ritual casting return as a feat.
An interesting cost might be maximum hps for the day. If you cast this ritual, it weakens you by reducing your maximum hp by XXX. That would be pretty awesome and would be similar to how we see magic weakening mages in literature.
How about Hit Dice instead (mentioned earlier I'm sure)? They represent fatigue quite well, have a daily limit, yet also don't interupt spell slots. Consequentially, this will allow non-casters to interact with rituals without hiccups, but unfortunately will leave rituals out of games that don't use HD.
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4 months ago ::
Feb 02, 2013 - 1:53PM
#58
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Date Joined:
Apr 10, 2009
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What about there being two different ways/ costs for rituals:
If you have the spell prepared, the ritual does not cost a spell slot.
If you do not have the spell prepared, the ritual does cost a spell slot.
Used either way there is a benefit and a cost; using a ritual always has a benefit to balance against its cost of the ritual and yet it doesn't open up the door to all rituals, all the time.
Carl
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4 months ago ::
Feb 02, 2013 - 4:34PM
#59
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Date Joined:
Sep 26, 2012
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@ShinQuickMan Actually the recovery HD is another great suggestion. Although it may not be a real drain on magic users. I guess it would need a playtest.
@CarlT That is a very interesting suggestion. It makes memorization (err preparation) of spells a bit more tactical yet again.
@Maxperson At this point I agree. However, I'm starting to at least see where folks might be coming with the opposite.
@Mithrus I've never really had scroll use run amok in my games, even when I handed them out quite liberally as treasure. I can see how conceptually they might present a problem. Like if a level 1 character had 50 magic missile scrolls. But how did that happen? I had one player in 3.5 days who created almost all her spells as scrolls and never used dailies. But there was some pretty serious cash going into those scrolls before levels got very high at all and using them meant a very real drain on permanent (not daily) resources. Is scroll use a very real problem in some games that you play in or just something that you thought made sense to discuss at the same time?
Currently running a playtest, weekly, online D&D Next Session using a virtual table system called roll20.
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4 months ago ::
Feb 02, 2013 - 8:12PM
#60
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I have to say that I really dislike having to have a spell memorized to do the ritual. It almost completely negates what rituals are for.
Yeah, I agree that this is foolish.
Though, fortunately, it sounds like it is just a mistake.
If Mearls on Twitter can be trusted 
Still, I think the BIG issue is that Ritual Casting should be available via Feat to other classes.
This makes me disagree with any "use a spell slot" system, as it'll kill multi-class access to Ritual Casting permanently.
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