Skill Rituals: Adding more ritual-only, non-spell possibilities. Suggestions?

[PhoenixPhyre]

I'm thinking about a counterpart to the Ritual Caster feat (allows people to learn spells marked as rituals, can't cast them out of a spell slot) except centered around the skills. These should (in my opinion):


Provide a reason to have proficiency in the less-used skills (animal handling, etc).
Have comparable power to ritual spells
Not be explicitly spells (so no "you cast speak with animals")
Have a bigger effect based on an ability check result.


What do people suggest as possible rituals (for each skill)? Other parameters (component cost, retry limitations, etc)?

[Avigor]

I'd only bother with component costs for healing effects (which would also need to have limitations on how often they can be used in any given day on any given creature), or effects that were relatively powerful like a ritual teleportation or flight effect (albeit I can't think which skill other than arcana would be appropriate for that).

Religion - purify and exorcise a location or person, getting rid of demonic influences, ghosts, curses, or the like. give both various complications, such as the person version has to deal with the whatever trying to take the victim's soul with them when they leave, while locations try to burn down.

animal handling - strength of the effect varies by check result, from simple calming (from a one-way "we mean you no harm" message), to empathic communication, to temporary bonding. also, help cattle or such grow stronger, produce more milk or put forth more effort while acting as beasts of burden.

history - see into the past, learn the history of an unknown item, anticipate enemy tactics based on what they've done before.

nature - predict or even control (with high check results) the weather, help crops grow, find medical herbs easier.

medicine - beyond just heals, cure minor diseases (acne, the common cold), fertility rites, ease childbirth, help with losing weight or putting on muscle.

perception - darkvision, something akin to the barbarian's eagle vision.

athletics - spider climb.

acrobatics - can control how you fall in the air (i.e. can pull a mario jump off the platform over the hole and then redirect in mid-air to land where you started).


I must admit, I want to create a homebrew class designed based on the warlock that gets spells and invocations based on skill proficiencies and an ability to use almost any spell as a ritual albeit requiring more than 10 minutes for those that aren't already rituals...

[clash]

I'm curious as to what you are trying to accomplish with codifying mundane rituals?

If one of my players wanted to perform a mundane ritual with holy water to keep demons out of a place, I would say roll religion and see how well he did.
If someone wanted to try to tame or guide an animal to their ends then roll animal handling and see how well he does.

I guess I'm not really sure how skill rituals enable players to do something they cant already do. In my mind once you add them, you've just made that anybody with the religion ritual can't consecrate a place regardles sof how well they know religion.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I'm curious as to what you are trying to accomplish with codifying mundane rituals?

If one of my players wanted to perform a mundane ritual with holy water to keep demons out of a place, I would say roll religion and see how well he did.
If someone wanted to try to tame or guide an animal to their ends then roll animal handling and see how well he does.

I guess I'm not really sure how skill rituals enable players to do something they cant already do. In my mind once you add them, you've just made that anybody with the religion ritual can't consecrate a place regardles sof how well they know religion.

I'm looking more to allow more access to "spell-like" effects that don't require being a caster. Things like what are covered by current ritual spells, but give incentives to have proficiency in certain skills that aren't directly combat related.

Spells have the advantage that they automatically work--no DM intervention required. If you cast Alarm, you'll know if something crosses it. Doing this with skills requires a lot of DM adjudication.

As it stands, taming an animal or consecrating an area aren't by-the-books valid uses of ability checks. Animal handling is about calming down domesticated animals, keeping a mount from being spooked, or intuiting an animal's intentions, as well as controlling a mount while doing risky maneuvers. Religion is about lore, not practice. Having proficiency in these merely makes you better, it doesn't give any new capabilities. I'm looking to build a framework for adding new capabilities to these, probably requiring a feat (like ritual caster) to gain access to them.

An example might be cajoling local fey into covering your tracks (using survival). Or gaining the ability to do a "feat of strength" (lift several times your normal or something) for a short amount of time using Athletics. Or a feat of mnemonics--memorize a single piece of information for future recall (using Arcana/History depending on the type of information). Or convince an animal to work for you (teaching an animal tricks) using Animal Handling. Or Sherlock Holmes-like feats of deduction using Investigation.

Does that make more sense?

[clash]

If that's the case I would not have them roll at all, but they can only gain the ritual for a skill they are proficient in. Then have expertise result in a sort of upcasting of the ritual so to speak. As you said, when a caster performs a ritual it they should know it will work. I would design the skill rituals in the same way.