Ritual Casting class

[BornValyrian]

I've had an Idea for a while but with no real thought on how to implement it. I figured when a wizard prepares his spells, he casts most of it and just finishes it up with the final few gestures and words to release the magic. What if this process wasn't separated, and each time the character cast a spell, it took the entire time to cast.

This is mainly intended as a low-magic campaign class, or an NPC version of the wizard in a high magic campaign. Partly I'm thinking of the way people "cast" in shows like Supernatural, reciting relatively lengthy (longer than 6 seconds) passages of ancient text straight from a book.

Does anybody have any ideas how to implement this into a base class?

[Rogue Shadows]

Hmm.

Well, it takes 15 minutes for a wizard to prepare his spells every day. 1 minute is 10 rounds, so 15 minutes is 150 rounds.

A 1st-level human generalist wizard with no stupid AFCs and with 18 intelligence can prepare a total of 5 spells: 3 cantrips and 2 1st-level spells. Assuming that each spell takes the same amount of time to prepare regardless of level, that's 30 rounds per spell cast, plus however many rounds or actions the spell itself normally takes.

Now, conversely, a 20th-level wizard with, say, a 30 Intelligence can cast a total of 57 spells per day (4/7/7/6/6/6/6/5/5/5), but still only needs 15 minutes to prepare all his spells. Again, assuming all spells take the same amount of time to prepare regardless of level, that's 2.63 rounds for each spell. Since we always round down in D&D, let's just call that 2 rounds, plus however many rounds or actions the spell itself normally takes.

...so, yeah. Sucks to be a 1st-level wizard in this system, but even a 20th-level wizard is feeling a bit of hurt.

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Now, to make this work in an interesting way for a low-magic campaign...might I advise the following:

Cantrips: Whatever their normal time is.
1st-level: Standard action or whatever the normal time is, whichever is longer, with certain specific exceptions such as feather fall
2nd-level: Full-round action or whatever the normal time is, whichever is longer.
3rd-level and higher: +1 full round/level, or normal time for the spell, whichever is longer. So a 5th-level spell takes at least 6 full rounds to cast.

[BornValyrian]

I was thinking something along those lines, but casting in combat definitely wasn't the original intention.

Or at least, if he was in combat, it adds a layer of urgency as you need to finish the spell while these enemies are bearing down on you.

Just found this in the SRD:
"If she wants to prepare all her spells, the process takes 1 hour. Preparing some smaller portion of her daily capacity takes a proportionally smaller amount of time, but always at least 15 minutes, the minimum time required to achieve the proper mental state."

So would that mean that in order to cast a spell period, the caster has to wait 15 minutes? Maybe for spells that already have long casting times like Planar Binding?

[Rogue Shadows]

I was thinking something along those lines, but casting in combat definitely wasn't the original intention.

Or at least, if he was in combat, it adds a layer of urgency as you need to finish the spell while these enemies are bearing down on you.

I would advise creating a series of "core" spells for each school that can be cast as no more than full-round actions, regardless of level - here I'm mostly thinking of the summon monster line.

Note that while the spellcasters remain stupid powerful in this system as in the normal system, it does make them VERY unattractive to PCs.

I also advise just cutting the spell time stop entirely. Probably the Quicken Spell feat, as well.

[Eulalios]

Hmm.

Well, it takes 15 minutes for a wizard to prepare his spells every day.

This totally is a [3.5?]e+ thing.

Pre-3e, it was 10 or 15 minutes of near-trance per spell level which granted some now-lacking balance among the classes. (Fighters protected the wizard during spell prep ...).