Expanding ritual rules

[Madeiner]

Hi there.

The spellcasters in my game are telling me that they don't enjoy not being able to use as much magic outside fights, with the limited slots they have.
My sorcerer for example used to cast multiple disintegrates just to bash down doors and walls, or keep trying to dispel magical stuff while exploring even if he failed multiple times. He can't do that now, as the spells per day are too limited.

I was thinking of a little homebrew expanding the ritual casting rules.

What about something like this:
- every spellcaster can cast rituals. Every spell has now the ritual tag. If you can cast a spell, you can cast a ritual of that spell.
- Ritual casting time increases every time you cast one, and resets on a long rest. The first ritual you cast takes, for example,1 minute, the next is 5 minutes, and then 10m/30m/1h/2h/6h

After that, every ritual takes 6 hours. But it's probably the end of the day anyway.

Is there any problem with that? Anything obvious that i'm missing?
I can not just a couple of things: healing and removing bad status effects is easier, way easier. Not sure how that is a bad thing: out of combat healing is scarce enough.
Also, caster classes get way more utilities than non casters. This can be balanced with the amount of available daily rituals (by increasing cast times)

Alternatively, i was thinking of just using overchannel rules for casting rituals after the first one, but all spells can be cast as ritual.
HP will be the limiting factor in casting rituals.

[hymer]

Well, some things to look out for: You're boosting those who don't usually have a lot of rituals quite a bit. You also get more time spent waiting around, making duration spells less useful. And you hit Concentration spells too, since you use your concentration for spellcasting taking longer than a round (or an action, can't remember which).

Edit: Oh, and you get an awful lot of high level spell slots all of a sudden.

[Chronos]

Not all combat spells need to be cast in combat. Consider a high-level sorcerer who wants to blast an army, for instance: He finds a good hiding spot a mile away, and then spends ten minutes casting a free Meteor Swarm. Or a caster casts a long-duration summon spell as a ritual, and then gets those minions for free.

[Person_Man]

In 1E/2E/3E and all the various half editions in between, spellcasters had far fewer slots at low levels, and (most classes) had to memorize each individual spell, which was a very big part of the resource management metagame.

Rituals make that metagame dramatically simpler. You no longer have to memorize most utility spells, you just have to choose a class that knows them (or take the appropriate Feat or subclass). Making spellcasting even easier basically destroys that metagame. And there are bound to be a few spells that can be exploited, such as Animate Dead, Conjure whatever, divinations, etc.

I don't think that necessarily a bad thing. It just makes spellcaster the kings of utility, and further deminishes the niches of non-casters.

[Ralanr]

I don't think that necessarily a bad thing. It just makes spellcaster the kings of utility, and further deminishes the niches of non-casters.

That's pretty much a bad thing in my book. Sadly we can't seem to find a perfect world where both casters and martials are both equal.

Well we had 4e...but that wasn't perfect so much as it was everything is the same with a different coat of pant.

[Demonic Spoon]

Rituals make that metagame dramatically simpler. You no longer have to memorize most utility spells, you just have to choose a class that knows them (or take the appropriate Feat or subclass). Making spellcasting even easier basically destroys that metagame. And there are bound to be a few spells that can be exploited, such as Animate Dead, Conjure whatever, divinations, etc.


Note that only wizards can cast any ritual they know. Other classes have to have them 'prepared' (or known if they're not a prepared spellcaster, but those know few spells).

I agree that this is a poor idea, though.


OP: Suggest to your players that they look into preparing more ritual spells, perhaps taking the ritual caster feat. Alternatively, they can cast fewer 'proper' spells in combat to save their slots for noncombat encounters. Spellcasters are balanced by the number of spells they can cast per day - increasing that will beg the question "why play any non-caster"?

[eastmabl]

13th Age (d20 system by Rob Heinsoo and Jonathan Tweet) have a similar system for ritual spells. Anything that's not combat oriented is treated as a ritual and is not subject to the normal rules of spellcasting.

I'd suggest you look at the 13th Age SRD for some inspiration, but I will note that the spellcasting system is much more like 4e D&D than any other iteration of the world's most well-known roleplaying game.

Edit: truthfully, I'd suggest playing 13th Age. While by no means is it a perfect RPG, I have a blast playing it with friends. It plays a lot like 3.9 Edition, and incorporates a good number of really good ideas from indie games.

[Madeiner]

I have looked at 13th age but found it not to my tastes, sadly.

However, i have revised my take on ritual rules:

- ritual tagged spells continue to function as normal
- Casters that can cast rituals, can also cast a ritualized version of any spell with a cast time of 1 action or less, that still takes 10 minutes to cast. Anytime they do so, they take damage as per overchannel rules (2d12 first time, and +1d12 each time thereafter). Not all spells work the same: any spells that creates/conjures/summons things or creatures, or heal HPs, cannot be casted as rituals.
Also, any spells that are ritualized like this and have a duration, are considered concentration spells while active. However, anything minor can break concentration of a ritual spells: suffering any damage, or even just entering combat ceases concentration immediately.

If i'm not mistaken, casters now have a nice resource they can use to do things, but cannot be exploited for in-combat benefit. Also, they suffer damage when they do so, which requires healing. This means if something can be accomplished without a ritual, it's usually faster and more efficient to do it with mundane methods (or slots)

[TheOOB]

Casters are already really good, especially at high levels. While I think more spells should be ritual spells, I don't think something this extreme is the answer.

[Demonic Spoon]

OP, there is no change you can make that will address your player's concerns that won't either overpower full casters or nerf them in some other fashion. Casters in 5e are balanced around limited spell availability. No matter how many asterisks you put around that, if you allow them to cast more freely such that your players won't feel so restricted, you have now broken the balance.

If you want a homebrew solution to this problem, that's fine, but we need an idea of what your players are willing to give up.

[Madeiner]

I'm not really worried about balance, really.
I can take that into account and decide for myself if i want to accept the shift in balance or not. At the moment all my party is casters, so i doubt balance would shift much.
It's a matter of what type of adventures i can create, really.
Using this ritual system, i can create more complex puzzles and setbacks that can be overcome with clever use of magic.

What i was asking is if the rule has any loophooles, if you can think of any uses or spells to exploit the system, and so on.

[MadGrady]

Have you considered allowing some cantrips to do the job you want?

Instead of disentegrating a door, cast firebolt on the lock and turn it to ash.

The dispelling stuff is a bit harder, and I believe well above a cantrip level idea.

[Naanomi]

Go Tome Warlock!

[Icewraith]

It really bites to be faced with a dungeon puzzle where the only way out I can think of is blowing a 5th level spell slot. Yeah, I'm technically bypassing a challenge that would otherwise stop us, but even at high level those things are really valuable. It feels like using a life raft to drive in a nail on the Titanic's maiden voyage- you're gonna need that later.

Bigby's hand is a super useful, super versatile exploration tool (especially when you're facing a strength-based puzzle and the barbarian couldn't make it to the session), but with the 1 minute concentration you can't even drag it into the next fight unless combat happens as soon as you complete the current challenge.

Also, it would be nice if low-level rituals like Detect Magic eventually dropped down to a minute or so ritual cast time.

[Ralanr]

I'm not really worried about balance, really.
I can take that into account and decide for myself if i want to accept the shift in balance or not. At the moment all my party is casters, so i doubt balance would shift much.
It's a matter of what type of adventures i can create, really.
Using this ritual system, i can create more complex puzzles and setbacks that can be overcome with clever use of magic.

What i was asking is if the rule has any loophooles, if you can think of any uses or spells to exploit the system, and so on.

This reminds me of a fellow player. This also makes me cringe.

It's your say, fair enough. But are you going to change it back in a new session where you have someone not playing a caster? Cause if not then it'll be almost like 3.5.

My 2cp

[ImSAMazing]

Hi there.

The spellcasters in my game are telling me that they don't enjoy not being able to use as much magic outside fights, with the limited slots they have.
My sorcerer for example used to cast multiple disintegrates just to bash down doors and walls, or keep trying to dispel magical stuff while exploring even if he failed multiple times. He can't do that now, as the spells per day are too limited.

I was thinking of a little homebrew expanding the ritual casting rules.

What about something like this:
- every spellcaster can cast rituals. Every spell has now the ritual tag. If you can cast a spell, you can cast a ritual of that spell.
- Ritual casting time increases every time you cast one, and resets on a long rest. The first ritual you cast takes, for example,1 minute, the next is 5 minutes, and then 10m/30m/1h/2h/6h

After that, every ritual takes 6 hours. But it's probably the end of the day anyway.

Is there any problem with that? Anything obvious that i'm missing?
I can not just a couple of things: healing and removing bad status effects is easier, way easier. Not sure how that is a bad thing: out of combat healing is scarce enough.
Also, caster classes get way more utilities than non casters. This can be balanced with the amount of available daily rituals (by increasing cast times)

Alternatively, i was thinking of just using overchannel rules for casting rituals after the first one, but all spells can be cast as ritual.
HP will be the limiting factor in casting rituals.
Rituals are fine. They survived the playtest and there aren't much strong ritual spells which have a big impact. Just let the rituals be.

[Person_Man]

Using this ritual system, i can create more complex puzzles and setbacks that can be overcome with clever use of magic.

A laudable goal. But I would warn you that this might be very difficult to do well.

If you make the exploration encounters highly tailored to be overcome by a specific spell, then players may not always guess what they're supposed to do, and then they feel frustrated. And if they do guess what they're supposed to do but it doesn't feel like a reasonable/organic part of the game world, it feels very contrived. (See also Eigan Plot (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PlotTailoredToTheParty?from=Main.EigenPlot) and/or This Looks Like a Job For Aquaman (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman)).

Alternatively, if players just have tons of magical options that they can usually or always access through rituals, then creative use of that magic basically allows them to overcome any exploration encounter. This wasn't much of an issue in 1E/2E, because spells were so limited, players had to memorize specific spells, and dungeons were freaking huge. But it was a serious issue in 3.X D&D, where 7th level-ish+ spellcasters could easily overcome most exploration encounters. (Which is why E6 or bans on particular spells were so popular).

[Shining Wrath]

I created a homebrew called Ceremonial Magic.

To cast a spell as a Ceremony you have to have access to it in written form.

If you can cast a spell normally as part of your class features you gain absolutely no benefit from casting it as a Ceremony, other than putting on a show.

What Ceremonial Magic lets you do is take a scroll or tome or spellbook and "wing it". You can attempt to cast any spell you have a copy of, making a check against your primary spellcasting ability at a DC set by the DM and not known to you. You have to expend a spell slot to power the spell.

It is known that the following things lower the DC

Higher spell slot used for power
The spell being one you could learn
The spell being one you once learned, but traded away
Having audience participation - singing, dancing, chanting (the traditional cultists summoning Cthulhu scene)
Appropriate material components



The following things raise the DC

The level of the spell
The spell not being one your class(es) can cast
Distractions


Basically any casting character can attempt any spell of any level, given a scroll - but if you don't make the DC roll, your spell may fail. And the DM decides what it means - fizzle, or something worse. Also, the time required to perform the ceremony is not known prior to starting.

I invented it more for NPC use, as something cultists could do attempting to open a portal to Hell or the Far Realms and so on, but if a character wanted to take the risk they could do it. It's very iconic: cultists summon demon, lose control, get slaughtered; Lovecraft protagonist meddles with Yog Soggoth, loses sanity; and so on.