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12:42, 28th March 2024 (GMT+0)

Making Rituals (and Alchemy and Martial Practices) work.

Posted by engineFor group 0
engine
GM, 2 posts
Wed 24 May 2017
at 04:05
  • msg #1

Making Rituals (and Alchemy and Martial Practices) work

I really liked how 4th Edition separated out many of the traditional D&D spells into rituals, and made ritual casting (and alchemy) something anyone could do, simply by acquiring a feat. Scrolls, of course, became not just something for characters who could already cast the spell, or roll Use Magical Device, but for anyone with the gold, the components, and the time.

But I have to admit that I've struggled with making rituals (and alchemical formulas, and martial practices) useful in my games, or seen them made useful in games I've played in. I'd like to fix that.

So:

Why aren't rituals (etc.) used? Is it the time involved, because they don't slot easily into the round/short rest/long rest timing of the rest of the game? Is it the expense or difficulty of finding components? Are the effects of the rituals not considered useful? If not, were the spells they were meant to emulate ever considered useful, or just kept handy in case of need?

What can GMs and groups do? I think they mainly have to create or collaborate on games that make rituals, etc., very nice to have, and worth spending money on, outside of Raise Dead and Enchant Magic Item. I'll offer some ideas below.

Here's a handy link to the list of existing rituals, to help the discussion.
http://dnd4.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_Rituals

When I find a list of alchemical formulas and martial practices, I'll post those too.

I'm working up a spreadsheet of rituals to help me understand casting times and costs. If I ever make significant progress on it, I may share it.
GreyGriffin
player, 1 post
Wed 24 May 2017
at 17:37
  • msg #2

Making Rituals (and Alchemy and Martial Practices) work

I think Rituals are a great idea and are sort of underused in 5th edition.

The problem with Rituals, I think, boils down to adventure design and time.  4e's emphasis and greatest strength is its tactical combat.  It really emphasized intricate combat encounters and a sort of core dungeon crawling experience.  Any environmental puzzles that could have a Ritual thrown at them were mechanically underwhelming by comparison.

They're also pretty carefully engineered to be low-impact quality of life features rather than the sort of world-cracking magic that fantasy fiction dramatizes.  This is especially apparent in 5e, where the selection of rituals is so sparse that only a handful of them ever really see use.
engine
GM, 4 posts
Wed 24 May 2017
at 20:57
  • msg #3

Re: Making Rituals (and Alchemy and Martial Practices) work

GreyGriffin:
I think Rituals are a great idea and are sort of underused in 5th edition.
I didn't realize they had continued in 5th Edition. I thought the spells they had replaced had just been turned back into spells.

GreyGriffin:
The problem with Rituals, I think, boils down to adventure design and time.  4e's emphasis and greatest strength is its tactical combat.  It really emphasized intricate combat encounters and a sort of core dungeon crawling experience.  Any environmental puzzles that could have a Ritual thrown at them were mechanically underwhelming by comparison.
I can't think of a single published adventure in which rituals were planned for. I ran "Trolls of the Shadowhaunt Warrens" which had an overland skill challenge (which are their own topic) and the wizard cast phantom steed, which could handily deal with bogs and difficult terrain. A brilliant application of it, I thought, but the adventure didn't offer me any idea how to alter the skill challenge to account for that. Thinking about it these days, I would have just lowered the complexity of the skill challenge.

I don't know why adventures never really worked in rituals. Part of what I want to talk about here is how we, in our own adventures, can make them more worth using.

GreyGriffin:
They're also pretty carefully engineered to be low-impact quality of life features rather than the sort of world-cracking magic that fantasy fiction dramatizes.  This is especially apparent in 5e, where the selection of rituals is so sparse that only a handful of them ever really see use.
At least for Heroic tier, I'd generally agree that rituals are seemingly low impact, but they're fairly evocative. I think of arcane lock as what Gandalf cast to try to keep the orcs and the balrog at bay in Moria. One can speak with the dead or, heck, even raise the dead, and travel to other planes.

The ones I think would be easiest to make useful in Heroic tier are the warding rituals. Make taking an extended rest in the dungeon risky and heading back to town somehow costly. The risk of staying in the dungeon could be that some event might occur, such as a wandering monster, or some kind of annoying pest that disrupts the rest. Eye of alarm, arcane lock and silence would plausibly make the rest less likely to be disrupted.

My problem is figuring out how to make that work. What possible, plausible cost could their be for going back to town? How risky should the extended rest be? How much should the rituals offset that? What if they take the full risk, or the rituals aren't enough? Do I want to play the next game day with the character having not rested?

I do a lot of collaboration, where I try to find out from the players what kinds of risks and costs they want in their game, so ideally I'd work with them on this kind of thing, but I think it shows the challenge of accounting for the existence of rituals, and making them worth having and using.
Redsun Rising
player, 1 post
Wed 24 May 2017
at 21:28
  • msg #4

Making Rituals (and Alchemy and Martial Practices) work

Holy smokes, I talk a lot. Bear with me on this, though, and hopefully the journey will be worth it.

Rituals in 4E seem to take the role of most of the utility spells in 3E: long-ranged teleportation, comprehend language, speak with dead, things like that which lack an immediate battlefield impact, but can have tremendous use or even break an adventure used correctly. Can't have a mystery when one can just ask the dead man, "Who killed you?" Unless he was killed from behind, anyways...

A Ritual would likely be used during a rest of one kind or another, unless the situation demanded otherwise. And the problem with that is most such ideas would be handled as a Skill Challenge, to try and stay focused on the Ritual, and it does tend to remove the ritualist from the battle, As Written, anyhow.

A lot of players seem to forget a cure-all ritual component: residuum, a frequent by-product of magical production and destruction. It is actually useful enough that players will often be torn between saving it for trade to an enchanter to create a new magic item and using it for the ritual they need right now.

Some rituals are highly specialized, with a specific "just in case" viewpoint. Wizard's Escape requires 150gp in components, something you are not likely to have on you while you are imprisoned...unless you can get someone to smuggle it to you. Still handy to know, however, just in case.

Mostly rituals seem to be designed to have adventures made around them. Linked Portal means a lot more when the ritualists know of cities which have a teleportation circle they can access. The GM would need to make sure the party can get the rituals they need as part of treasure drops (and hope they don't sell them or something absurd like that), and the GM would also need to pay attention to the rituals his players are wanting to buy. A PC with Speak With Dead or Hand of Fate is someone who shouldn't be getting flak: build the adventure around them having these things, if they have used them to sequence break past adventures.

On an aside, I rather like the idea of a player using a ritual to bypass a skill challenge. After all, that ritual just cost them resources, and they had to prepare in advance for it. Perhaps a bit of old-school nostalgia coming in, but I can respect that forethought and willingness to sacrifice resources for expediency and safety immensely.

The best way to provide a cost for returning to town is a time limit. Sure, you can leave and go back: but in three days, if the Draconian bandit king Reswob's demands for the hand of the princess are not met, his warlock will finish a ritual and turn the region into solid stone, and go to work on everyone thus afflicted with sledgehammers. Travel time is tight, and retreat is not an option once the journey begins. In addition, if you leave, he might simply send reinforcements to the area the party just fought at, making their work for naught.

Insight checks at a low value are every GM's friend. Roll it for them, behind a screen, and fudge the results if needed.

Alchemical formulas are less effective, as they use flat attack values for most of the interesting things they can do. My experience with those has been players aiming to produce those things in bulk, to create colossal explosions that could not care less about a roll, whether RAW supports it or not. And this is extremely hilarious, more often than not. Utility alchemy is stuff like the Smokestick, Sovereign Glue, Universal Solvent, and Alchemical Silver, mostly used for either mischief or specialized foes.

Martial Practices didn't get a whole lot of time before 5E rolled in, and weren't really popular, unless my notes are seriously out of date on that. Many of them did things that players were already used to doing with skill checks, and the few that didn't were not seen as worth a feat to get. On the other hand, that does mean they were a field with a lot of room to grow in, with some creativity.

Most Rituals average around 10 minutes or an hour of casting time. Component costs vary, between 10 gp to as much as 50000 for an Epic Raise.
GreyGriffin
player, 3 posts
Wed 24 May 2017
at 21:42
  • msg #5

Re: Making Rituals (and Alchemy and Martial Practices) work

Rituals do indeed live on in 5e, albeit in a different form.  Certain Spells have the Ritual tag, allowing them to be cast as rituals if they are in your Spells Known, Memorized Spells, or Spellbook.  These are typically flavoriffic spells like Find Familiar.

Certain spells are excluded to keep spell slots as a commodity and to enable some degree of niche protection.  Knock for,  instance, seems like a good Ritual candidate, until you realize how much infinte Knocks affect the usefulness of a Rogue, and how Knock's positioning at 2nd level does make it a potential resource drain even for lower-mid level characters.  Got to have some incentive to brave those traps.

But when I am talking about low-impact, I am deliberatgely neglecting the Whammy effects of Resurection and Enchanting items, but I think they are actually useful benchmarks.

Take a look at the Wizard's Sight ritual for an example.  At 8th(!!) level, you can place your scrying sensor a whipping 100 feet away.  Scrying has been a 4th level spell effect since the days of yore, allowing you to see miles upon miles away.  With an attached monetary cost, why is the Wizard's Sight ritual such a garbage pile?  As an Arcana ritualist, you don't get View Location until level 14.

It's this inefficiency, both in levels, time, and cost, that make Enchant Item good.  If you're into scrying, look how much scratch you'll save just by buying, finding, or making a crystal ball.

Not every ritual has to have the impact of Resurrection, but they should definitely use it as a benchmark.  If it's not as good, as exciting, or as interesting, it should be cheaper, faster, or lower level.  Most rituals just don't meet that bar.
engine
GM, 5 posts
Wed 24 May 2017
at 22:01
  • msg #6

Re: Making Rituals (and Alchemy and Martial Practices) work

Redsun Rising:
Holy smokes, I talk a lot. Bear with me on this, though, and hopefully the journey will be worth it.
It was!

Redsun Rising:
Can't have a mystery when one can just ask the dead man, "Who killed you?" Unless he was killed from behind, anyways...
Right. That seems like a problem that's been around long enough to have been solved, though. But that's for another thread.

Redsun Rising:
A Ritual would likely be used during a rest of one kind or another, unless the situation demanded otherwise. And the problem with that is most such ideas would be handled as a Skill Challenge, to try and stay focused on the Ritual, and it does tend to remove the ritualist from the battle, As Written, anyhow.
Yes, and that also quashes interesting uses of rituals by enemies. The "stop the ritual" type of encounter can't generally involve an actual ritual very easily, though 10 minutes casting time is enough for about two fights and two short rests.

Redsun Rising:
Some rituals are highly specialized, with a specific "just in case" viewpoint. Wizard's Escape requires 150gp in components, something you are not likely to have on you while you are imprisoned...unless you can get someone to smuggle it to you. Still handy to know, however, just in case.
Yes, that would seem to require a combination of a couple of rituals, one to give you access to the components and then the ritual itself.

Redsun Rising:
Mostly rituals seem to be designed to have adventures made around them. Linked Portal means a lot more when the ritualists know of cities which have a teleportation circle they can access. The GM would need to make sure the party can get the rituals they need as part of treasure drops (and hope they don't sell them or something absurd like that), and the GM would also need to pay attention to the rituals his players are wanting to buy. A PC with Speak With Dead or Hand of Fate is someone who shouldn't be getting flak: build the adventure around them having these things, if they have used them to sequence break past adventures.
Exactly. I want to get to where rituals aren't strictly necessary but would make things much easier for the characters. To where one or more of them is thinking seriously about investing a feat in ritual casting. I think the trouble there is figuring out how to balance things so that the game is still fun without the rituals, but that more options get opened up.

One option that springs to mind is that the PCs learn about an item or a piece of information that would make a certain type of enemy easier to fight. Well, their local town doesn't have it, but there's one X days travel away that probably does. Here's the sigil sequence for it, if they want to just jump over there....

Redsun Rising:
On an aside, I rather like the idea of a player using a ritual to bypass a skill challenge. After all, that ritual just cost them resources, and they had to prepare in advance for it. Perhaps a bit of old-school nostalgia coming in, but I can respect that forethought and willingness to sacrifice resources for expediency and safety immensely.
I think I lack that same sort of nostalgia. I tended to prefer a challenge, not something that was just an oddly shaped lock with an expensive key. As a GM, my issue with this is that I don't want to spend time creating something that's likely to be either ignored or short circuited, even if it does cost the players resources. If I had a better grasp of available rituals, I'd want to put something in that gives certain rituals a specific mechanical benefit for a particular challenge, such as several free successes, or a lasting bonus. Failing that, I'd want the ritual to be a way for the players to change the basis of the challenge from something that's not in their wheelhouse to something that is. They're not good at or interesting in rolling checks related to a mystery, so they ritual the mystery away and the real challenge is running through the city to stop the next murder, or something.

Redsun Rising:
The best way to provide a cost for returning to town is a time limit.
I about smacked my head when I read that. Of course. I've recommended that a number of times in other situations (mostly as a way to deal with the 5 minute workday), but it completely slipped my mind.

Redsun Rising:
Sure, you can leave and go back: but in three days, if the Draconian bandit king Reswob's demands for the hand of the princess are not met, his warlock will finish a ritual and turn the region into solid stone, and go to work on everyone thus afflicted with sledgehammers. Travel time is tight, and retreat is not an option once the journey begins.
Yes, the trick is being willing to set up consequences and follow through with them, which I suppose isn't 4th Edition specific.

Redsun Rising:
In addition, if you leave, he might simply send reinforcements to the area the party just fought at, making their work for naught.
A classic response, the main downside being repetitious combat encounters.

Redsun Rising:
Insight checks at a low value are every GM's friend. Roll it for them, behind a screen, and fudge the results if needed.
Oh, I'll just tell them. Assuming they didn't help me create the consequences themselves.

Redsun Rising:
Alchemical formulas are less effective, as they use flat attack values for most of the interesting things they can do.
I'm okay with that, and while it's a bit odd it seems like a great way to make such items accessible to everyone, rather than only those with good throwing arms and aim.

Apart from the items with combat application, it seems like there's another opportunity for helping out with skill challenges. Like "If players make use of heartflow, they DC for all Bluff checks in this skill challenge are decreased by 5." Administering the item itself might be a skill challenge.

Thanks for the insights!
engine
GM, 6 posts
Wed 24 May 2017
at 22:50
  • msg #7

Re: Making Rituals (and Alchemy and Martial Practices) work

GreyGriffin:
Take a look at the Wizard's Sight ritual for an example.  At 8th(!!) level, you can place your scrying sensor a whipping 100 feet away.  Scrying has been a 4th level spell effect since the days of yore, allowing you to see miles upon miles away.  With an attached monetary cost, why is the Wizard's Sight ritual such a garbage pile?  As an Arcana ritualist, you don't get View Location until level 14.
I've never been much into scrying in D&D, and somehow never had anyone in my groups be much into it, so I can't speak much about it's use and effectiveness in past editions. Did such spells get used for seeing all those miles, or was it more about seeing stuff elsewhere in the same dungeon?

Redsun Rising:
It's this inefficiency, both in levels, time, and cost, that make Enchant Item good.  If you're into scrying, look how much scratch you'll save just by buying, finding, or making a crystal ball.
I'm not sure what you mean by a crystal ball. There's the crystal ball of spying which is a 10th or 20th level rare wondrous item, that if used as a focus for scrying rituals grants a bonus to the arcana check.

But you probably mean the crystal ball in the Magnificent Emporium, an 8th level rare (which means it can't be enchanted, I believe) magic item. My read of it is that it lets one effectively use wizard's sight once per day, though the higher level versions are much better. I took the Magnificent Emporium as an effort to win people over to 4th Edition, even if it meant stepping on earlier design choices. Take its healing potions, for example. So, if it undoes the usefulness of a Player's Handbook ritual, I don't take that as an indictment of the ritual. For someone like me who probably wouldn't scry much even if he could, I agree that the item looks like a good deal compared to the ritual. It pays for itself after four scries.

On the other hand, it's a once per day power, which might not be enough for a more serious scrier.

Redsun Rising:
Not every ritual has to have the impact of Resurrection, but they should definitely use it as a benchmark.  If it's not as good, as exciting, or as interesting, it should be cheaper, faster, or lower level.  Most rituals just don't meet that bar.
I have to say that I don't agree that Raise Dead or even Enchant Magical Item are fair benchmarks. I think of both of those as "patches" that the game itself needs to offer as options at fairly low levels. Not that I think a lot of science went into balancing out rituals. I do agree that rituals need to be exciting and players need to feel good about using them. That's what I think adventure design can help bring about.
GreyGriffin
player, 4 posts
Wed 24 May 2017
at 23:29
  • msg #8

Re: Making Rituals (and Alchemy and Martial Practices) work

I have to say that Scrying and Divination are some of the most underused spells in D&D.  In high level d20 games, the Scryaport party is a nightmare to deal with, which is part of the reason that Teleportation and Scrying work the way they do in 4e.

Look at the cost/benefit of Wizard's Sight.  It costs 270 gold and 10 minutes, which is a fair chunk of change to make an immobile visual sensor that lasts for probably 2-3 rounds.  Unless you're probing blindly (which is an expensive proposition), A reasonably statted, well-kitted (level 8!!) rogue could probably handle whatever it is you're trying to spy on, get back, and write a detailed report by the time you're finished casting, and spending 1000 gold guessing which floor of the tower the BBEG's meeting is being held in.

Unless the adventure is designed explicitly for it to be useful, which doesn't indicate bad adventure design, but bad ritual design.  If you have to contrive a scenario for your tool to be useful, you don't have a bad scenario, you have a bad tool.

If Wizard's Sight were cheaper, faster, or better, it would be a great tool.  Imagine if the scrying sensor lasted minutes instead of rounds, and could move 5' per round, passing through certain barriers.  The high cost and long casting time could be easily justified just by the vast increase in the amount of information you could gain.

Would that be a good change for the game overall?  Maybe not, given other design considerations.

A lot of changes were made to the game specifically to encourage PCs to get closer to the ground and expose themselves to adventure rather than nuke dungeons from orbit.  The game is intentionally designed to favor the 8th level rogue spying on the BBEG.  Those overall design decisions affect the usefulness and efficiency of rituals like, for instance, Wizard's Sight, and other rituals that typically have taken the place of spellcasters' utility toolkits.  As a result, utility rituals are unappealing because, unfortunately, they've been partially intentionally designed to be in some cases.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:31, Wed 24 May 2017.
Redsun Rising
player, 3 posts
Weeaboo or Superman fan?
You be the judge.
Thu 25 May 2017
at 02:10
  • msg #9

Re: Making Rituals (and Alchemy and Martial Practices) work

I would actually say if one wanted to improve that spell, I would make it so that an Arcana check was required to detect the ward, not Perception, or raise the difficulty of the check to something that an enemy trained in Perception (which is a lot of them) would not notice on a 10. As it stands, while the spell has a decent chance of being detected, the worst it might do is warn the enemy of an existing presence, but not where (such as a fleeing rogue might give).

But I do agree, Wizard's Sight is a niche spell for the most part. It's equal level counterpart from Open Grave, Gravesight, not only requires that book be allowed, but would also require an allied undead in order to work, ideally of Tiny size, like an undead bat. But it is, while more niche, a potential superior scrying spell and actually quite powerful. But it is also very conditional, a running theme throughout most of the rituals, especially around Heroic Tier.

Most other heroic tier divination rituals are either fairly specific (Detect Secret Doors, Detect Treasure, etc.) or best suited to acquiring information to yes/no questions (Hand of Fate, Consult Mystic Sages, etc.). Pinpointing the villain's location from a long range is generally Paragon tier stuff or higher, when Scry-and-Die tactics actually start becoming a potential M.O., if the villain has not taken some kind of precaution against that sort of thing (Passwall is also available on Paragon tier, meaning walls won't do much if they know where to go and have the gold to burn).
LonePaladin
player, 1 post
Thu 25 May 2017
at 02:26
  • msg #10

Re: Making Rituals (and Alchemy and Martial Practices) work

GreyGriffin:
I have to say that Scrying and Divination are some of the most underused spells in D&D.  In high level d20 games, the Scryaport party is a nightmare to deal with, which is part of the reason that Teleportation and Scrying work the way they do in 4e.

Case in point: almost all teleportation effects in 4E are relatively short range, require line of sight, and can't go through barriers. To my recollection, there is only one teleportation power that breaks the latter two -- a paragon-level warlock power that is specifically written as a way to pass through walls. I think it even has a range of only 1 or 2 squares.
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