Its funny. When i play I find using rituals to be sooo useful and fun. But the DM is the one who makes it unimportant and useless when I use them, giving it no meaning. I still continue using them when ever I can regardless. i like the practicality and they are useful to me. Wonder if your players dont use them because you as dm unintentionally devalue its use. Not saying that you are but normally player response to ignoring a tool is usually lack of dm response to making the tool matter. Your idea to make it more dynamic by taking time to cast out is definitely a good thing! Perhaps I will suggest same for our table, and use it "in your face" to our dm so he has to take notice, and respond.
The player at the table who has the most access to rituals is also the player who is most likely to follow the rules exactly. So I do feel a need to tell her "If you find a cool way to do this and it doesn't match the description, that's okay." My hope in part is this will prompt all of them to start looking at rituals in more broad sense.
For example, one of the players has the Invunerable Coat of Arhd. It is possessed of the spirit of the martyrd dwarf priest who first wore the coat. If a player were to use Speak with the Dead on the coat, I would be ecstatic! But, since the ritual goes to great lengths to specify a dead body, they just wouldn't think to do that.
You do realize that you've described Scrolls to some degree, yes?
Creating a Ritual Scroll: You can create a ritual scroll by transcribing a ritual you have mastered. Creating a ritual scroll takes twice the amount of time as creating a ritual book but costs the same price.
Using a Ritual Scroll: A ritual scroll holds one use of a particular ritual. You can perform a scroll’s ritual even if you don’t have the Ritual Caster feat, regardless of the level of the ritual. You still have to expend the components and supply any focus required by the ritual, and you can enlist your allies’ assistance. Once you have finished performing the ritual on a scroll, the scroll turns to dust. If the ritual is interrupted, the scroll remains intact.
Time: Casting a ritual from a scroll takes half the time indicated in a ritual’s description, since the creation of the scroll has primed the magic.
So if you want to house rule that, instead of halving the time required, you reduce it to a single action? Why not?
It's yours and your players' game. If it works how you want it to, great; if it doesn't, adjust.
I looked at scrolls. I am thinking more along the lines of potions or other consumables. Even spending 5 minutes in the middle of a fight casting something that would give you only a brief advantage wouldn't seem useful to the players.
So if you want to house rule that, instead of halving the time required, you reduce it to a single action? Why not?
It's yours and your players' game. If it works how you want it to, great; if it doesn't, adjust.
I looked at scrolls. I am thinking more along the lines of potions or other consumables. Even spending 5 minutes in the middle of a fight casting something that would give you only a brief advantage wouldn't seem useful to the players.
I emphasized what I originally said, just to make sure that it was seen, but, to make sure I didn't confuse you...
Make a minor change to the Ritual Scroll rule: Change "half the time indicated etc..." to "a single action." Problem with potions is that they activate as a Minor action; while I can see making rituals Easier, I wouldn't make them too easy....
Or, here's another possibility: add it as an option to the "normal" ritual scrolls. If you go check out Dragon 405, there's an article on Heroic Tier Rituals. A handful of the rituals, in addition to the normal Ritual Scroll rules, have an additional option of being made into Ritual Scrolls that activate as a Standard Action. In each case, the power of the spell — either duration or effectiveness or some other part of the ritual — has been reduced by making the "quick scroll," but it's still a viable ritual nonetheless.
Don't get me wrong: I understand your reasoning for what you're doing, and may even consider doing it in my own games, to some degree or another. As I said before, go for it. I'm just laying down some slight variations on the theme, so if you're concerned about doing so — which clearly you are, or you wouldn't have bothered asking about it, I don't think — you might come up with some compromise position that encourages ritual usage without making you quite so uncomfortable about doing so.
• Ad Hominem— Attacking the person's circumstances, not addressing the argument. • Ad Hominem Abusive (Personal Attack)— Insulting the person, not addressing the argument. • Ad Hominem Tu Quoque— Saying the person's inconsistent, not addressing the argument. • Appeal to Authority/Belief/Common Practice/Consequence of a Belief/Emotion/Fear/Flattery/Novelty/Pity/Popularity/Ridicule/Spite/Tradition— Using emotion instead of Fact. • Bandwagon— Use of peer pressure. • Begging the Question— Assuming premises which haven't necessarily been agreed to. • Biased Sample— Using a sampling which may not properly represent the whole. • Burden of Proof— Shifting it to the wrong side. • Circumstantial Ad Hominem— Attacking the person's interests in supporting their argument. • Composition— Assuming that the whole has the same qualities as individual parts. • Confusing Cause & Effect— Assuming that one thing causes another because they appear in conjunction. • Division— Assuming that the individual parts have the same qualities as the whole. • False Dilemma— Assuming that only two options exist. • Gambler's Fallacy— Assuming the odds have changed because of past occurances • Genetic— Assuming a perceived defect in the origin of a claim is proof of a defect in the claim. • Guilt by Association— Attacking others who agree with the claim. • Hasty Generalization— Assuming a quality based on too small a sample size. • Ignoring the Common Cause— Assuming there is no outside cause of two connected things. • Middle Ground— Assuming the midpoint of two extremes must be correct. • Misleading Vividness— Assuming a colorful anecdote outweighs statistical evidence. • Poisoning the Well— Using unprovable claims about the person instead of addressing the argument. • Post Hoc— Assuming that something caused something else simply because it happened first. • Questionable Cause— Assuming that one thing causes another. • Red Herring— Using irrelevant evidence to divert a discussion. • Relativist Fallacy— Asserting that a claim may be true for some but not for the speaker. • Slippery Slope— Assuming the inevitability of one event based on another. • Special Pleading— Claiming exemption without justification. • Spotlight— Assuming individuals that get the most attention to be indicative of the whole. • Straw Man— Misrepresenting the opposing argument. • Two Wrongs Make a Right— Justifying something unethical/immoral as response or pre-emption to something else unethical/immoral.
Response to those who like to compare 4e to a Video GameShow
Also, I find that the "D&D 4e is like an MMO" argument is often a sign of someone who is deliberately being obtuse and/or is potentially ignorant of actual MMO play. As someone who only ended a 6-year World of Warcraft addiction a year ago, I can say that most of your bullet points actually don't match up to the truth of it.
In D&D 4e, you can choose a hybrid, you can choose to play one class as though it were another (people played Warlords as Bards frequently, when the edition first came out, and Rangers were refluffed to Monks), you can focus your class on its secondary role (a Warlock who is more controller than striker, for instance), you can multiclass, and you can create a particular concept (a mounted lancer, a charger, etc.) within the mechanics via feats, choice of powers, and choice of skills. You decide which set of stats you use--are you a Chaladin, Straladin, or Baladin?--and you have ultimate influence on how your character turns out in the end. Yes, powers require you to be using a particular weapon within your class's available selection, but the powers are not themselves tied to the gear. Powers tied to weapons or armor are typically powers that belong to the item, not to the character class that's most likely to use it.
Yes, there are only so many powers available, and these will be what you do in battle; this is all that the designers created. Yes, there is a time-frame in which they can be used; this has always been the case, even in the days of Vancian casting. Yes, there are suggested builds, but you can routinely ignore those if it pleases you; the only parts of a class you have to take are the class features, and even those have options at this point. But the only way that this can be considered at all conflatable with MMO character building/playing is if you are deliberately ignoring all of that.
In WoW, you choose a class and you're done. No multiclassing or hybridization, no way to mimic one class with careful building of a different one. There is a firm dividing line on what is a WoW class. No secondary roles or creative concepts, either; you're going to be what the class sets out to be, and that's it. You'll always have the same stat allocation as another of your class, because you get set numbers as you level up, and you've got at best four options--and that's only the Druid class--to build, and if you plan on running dungeons, particularly heroic level ones, or raiding, you'd better not even think of deviating from the single defined best build on the talent tree for what you want to do. It was only recently, with the complete tear-down and recreation of talent trees for Mists of Pandaria, that there was a concept of there being anything but the one best build that people who calculated such mechanical advantages (the folks on Elitist Jerks, for example), and the people who did things like achieve "World First" at various top-tier raids set precedent for.
Also, no class will ever not have a specific set of powers; all Priests in WoW have the same baseline, with deviation only based upon their talent tree specialization, where a D&D4e player could take whatever power in their class pleases them. Any Retribution Paladin will be the same as any other in terms of powers, because that is what a RetPally is. Any Assassination Rogue will always have the same powers as another, etc. All powers are always on specific cool-downs, but will always be there when they start a battle, where a 4e PC might enter an encounter with only At-Wills, or without their Daily powers due to what plot has done up until that point. Furthermore, no power that is not already specifically tied to an item will ever "require" you have that item, to my recollection. Classes get all their powers based on class; gear only gives bonuses to stats, possibly cuts down cast times for abilities or cooldowns, grants temporary extra bonuses to stats (the latter two most often on the raid tier equipment), and on rare occassions an extra power that may or may not be valuable, as some are only special effects instead of valuable abilities.
Most honest/open response on why DDN needs to be InclusiveShow
I've always felt it is in the best interests of D&D to be as inclusive across the playerbase as they can be and still have a game. I've never felt though that making a game that was inclusive within a group was very useful or even desirable. DM's and players can decide amongst themselves what options or restrictions they want for their games. I tend to lean to the DM to make most of those decisions but again that is a group specific thing.
Having said that. I get the distinct impression that there are a lot of players on these boards who come from groups that generally ruled against their own desires. It's almost like they are an oppressed minority from a gaming perspective. I also get the impression that they tend to advocate against things that if available their fellow group members might like and vote them down on.
Do a lot of you feel this way?
Just for clarification...here are some examples... 1. Alignment restrictions as an option. 2. Alignment Mechanics 3. Martial healing 4. Races being included or not.
I know my perspective is not that I often play at tables where my likes are not represented. Instead, my perspective comes from the many years I spent being a bad DM. I was a bad DM because my guidance came from the books, and the books gave bad advice. The books told me that alignment was a useful approach to roleplaying, so I went with it even though it felt kind of weird to me. Now I know that, at least in my style of running games, alignment destroys rp. I trusted the books to give good advice, and it messed up my game. Now I'm much more mature as a DM, so I know how to take advice with a grain of salt. And I still learn new stuff every session I run.
I don't want future DMs to go through my problems again. There's a big enough DM shortage as it is. DMing well is hard.
The biggest thing I had to unlearn in my process of becoming a good DM was the idea that the game is a simulation of a world. I understand many DMs prefer a more simulationist approach, although I am always skeptical simply because I would have said the same thing until I learned and grew as a DM. This doesn't mean their approach is completely invalid, but it still gives me a personal twinge when I see a regression back to 3e era sim style gaming.
I also have noticed many groups where one or two old-school players run a whole group's playstyle because the newer players aren't even aware there are other ways of doing things. The newer players tell me stories of things they hated in the session, and I end up explaining to them how those things they hate are very fixable, and in fact are fixed in the newer edition of the game their older players have told them is terrible.
In regard to things like martial healing, I don't think it's necessary for it to be in the game for the game to be fun. However, the attitude that says martial healing is terrible and shouldn't exist is an attitude that, to me, reveals a wrongheaded approach to the game. Therefore, my fight for it to be an option is to help legitimize the more narrative approach that I think is what most players want, but many don't know is possible, because they've never been exposed to it.
So if you want to house rule that, instead of halving the time required, you reduce it to a single action? Why not?
It's yours and your players' game. If it works how you want it to, great; if it doesn't, adjust.
I looked at scrolls. I am thinking more along the lines of potions or other consumables. Even spending 5 minutes in the middle of a fight casting something that would give you only a brief advantage wouldn't seem useful to the players.
I emphasized what I originally said, just to make sure that it was seen, but, to make sure I didn't confuse you...
Make a minor change to the Ritual Scroll rule: Change "half the time indicated etc..." to "a single action." Problem with potions is that they activate as a Minor action; while I can see making rituals Easier, I wouldn't make them too easy....
Or, here's another possibility: add it as an option to the "normal" ritual scrolls. If you go check out Dragon 405, there's an article on Heroic Tier Rituals. A handful of the rituals, in addition to the normal Ritual Scroll rules, have an additional option of being made into Ritual Scrolls that activate as a Standard Action. In each case, the power of the spell — either duration or effectiveness or some other part of the ritual — has been reduced by making the "quick scroll," but it's still a viable ritual nonetheless.
Don't get me wrong: I understand your reasoning for what you're doing, and may even consider doing it in my own games, to some degree or another. As I said before, go for it. I'm just laying down some slight variations on the theme, so if you're concerned about doing so — which clearly you are, or you wouldn't have bothered asking about it, I don't think — you might come up with some compromise position that encourages ritual usage without making you quite so uncomfortable about doing so.
Ah, yeah, I missed that part, thanks. I will talk with my players this weekend and see what they all think. Appreciate all the responses
If you don't mind doing a bit of extra work (or even enlisting the players to help you tailor it to their needs) I'd personally go with a bit of a more modular system for rituals, somewhat similar to what other games like GURPS and crpgs like Morrowind do with their custom spells... For example...
- You can cast the full version, and it works as normal. But reduce both the original cost of purchase and the casting cost by at least half. Any sort of expensive focus or other materials still need to be paid for, though.
- You can cast a reduced time/cost version that works with either a reduced duration or effect (or both), whichever applies. Cut the casting time either in half or to 1/4, and reduce the amount it cost to cast even further. Maybe even have a sliding scale where how long you spend on the casting determines cost and effect...
- Or you can cast them quick and dirty, so they cast as a single action and only last either a turn or two or a single encounter... Cost to cast should be pocket change, but perhaps institute a limit on how many can be cast per day or something, maybe 1 per character level.
