How do you provide Rituals of non-Wizard classes?

[Man_Over_Game]

So, for most people who have access to Book of Ancient Secrets, or Ritual Caster, they focus heavily on gathering Wizard rituals.

Which makes sense. Not only is making a scroll usually dependent on Arcana (if any skill), which is dependent upon Intelligence, but the Wizard also has some of the best rituals.


But say a Warlock wanted to gather a Druid or a Cleric Ritual. How do they get it?

Neither Druids or Clerics have any reason to write down their spells, as people from their orders are prepared casters and can simply be able to cast the required spell the following day. They also generally wouldn't be very good at writing scrolls, and so would produce much less of them than you'd expect a Wizard to.

I mean, sure, you could provide the ritual as a scroll just because you know a player is seeking it out, but narratively it wouldn't make hardly any sense.
"Hey, I know you were looking for a magic weapon, so...you turn the corner and...Oh look! There's a generic +1 Sword!"
If possible, I'm looking for solutions that...well, make sense.

So...what's a Warlock gotta do to learn a Divine Ritual?

[Sigreid]

So, for most people who have access to Book of Ancient Secrets, or Ritual Caster, they focus heavily on gathering Wizard rituals.

Which makes sense. Not only is making a scroll usually dependent on Arcana (if any skill), which is dependent upon Intelligence, but the Wizard also has some of the best rituals.


But say a Warlock wanted to gather a Druid or a Cleric Ritual. How do they get it?

Neither Druids or Clerics have any reason to write down their spells, as people from their orders are prepared casters and can simply be able to cast the required spell the following day. They also generally wouldn't be very good at writing scrolls, and so would produce much less of them than you'd expect a Wizard to.

I mean, sure, you could provide the ritual as a scroll just because you know a player is seeking it out, but narratively it wouldn't make hardly any sense.
"Hey, I know you were looking for a magic weapon, so...you turn the corner and...Oh look! There's a generic +1 Sword!"
If possible, I'm looking for solutions that...well, make sense.

So...what's a Warlock gotta do to learn a Divine Ritual?

You could find another ritual caster (feat or invocation) book. You could find a scroll. Or my favorite, make nice with a druid or a cleric and ask them to teach you.

[Man_Over_Game]

You could find another ritual caster (feat or invocation) book. You could find a scroll. Or my favorite, make nice with a druid or a cleric and ask them to teach you.

I guess I'm looking for solutions that'd make sense "in the wild". As in, where would someone find something like Speak With Animals, in a way that makes sense for them to find it?

Wizards have spellbooks. They make scrolls. They have libraries. Why would a Druid write down a copy of Speak With Animals, in a way that'd make sense for someone to find it?

[Sigreid]

I guess I'm looking for solutions that'd make sense "in the wild". As in, where would someone find something like Speak With Animals, in a way that makes sense for them to find it?

Wizards have spellbooks. They make scrolls. They have libraries. Why would a Druid write down a copy of Animal Friendship, in a way that'd make sense for someone to find it?

A ranger with ritual caster could be defeated that has a book. A temple might have prayer books that ensure the entire congregation follows the ritual in just the right orthodox way. A demon, devil or fey could offer written copies as rewards or temptations. A scholar studying the appropriate religion could have the rituals written down in their notes. Just off the top of my head.

[SLOTHRPG95]

Do you use the scroll-scribing material from Xanathar's? If so, you could commission a scroll. You pay a friendly Cleric/Druid the cost it takes them to make the spell scroll, plus you fetch whatever materials they need, plus you reimburse them for the labor. It'd be expensive, but it's a reasonable transaction that makes more sense than randomly stumbling upon the scroll you're looking for in the next dungeon you crawl through.

[Inmate XIII]

I guess I'm looking for solutions that'd make sense "in the wild". As in, where would someone find something like Speak With Animals, in a way that makes sense for them to find it?

Wizards have spellbooks. They make scrolls. They have libraries. Why would a Druid write down a copy of Animal Friendship, in a way that'd make sense for someone to find it?

For Speak with Animals specifically, you could give them a quick encounter with a Fey creature with a simple to solve problem (Help, a bird stole my flute! It stashed it in a tree and I'm afraid of heights!). Upon solving said problem, the Fey could offer them a choice of useless trinkets or to teach them the spell as a reward.

For other spells you could use this formula (e.g. learn a cleric ritual after performing a quest for a temple).

[Crucius]

If I understand correctly, you are asking WHY would clerics and druids eternize their spells (on paper), not HOW would they share it?

Any community becomes stronger when information is written down, to be remembered by the next generation. Be it the next generation within a clergy or in a tribe.

These ritual spells might not take the form of spell scrolls (this is the 'HOW would they share it'), but religious texts and sermons for clerics, or cave paintings and campfire stories with the ritual embedded in the story for druids. So where? Holy parchment and stone slabs or paintings on animal skins.

[GreyBlack]

So, for most people who have access to Book of Ancient Secrets, or Ritual Caster, they focus heavily on gathering Wizard rituals.

Which makes sense. Not only is making a scroll usually dependent on Arcana (if any skill), which is dependent upon Intelligence, but the Wizard also has some of the best rituals.


But say a Warlock wanted to gather a Druid or a Cleric Ritual. How do they get it?

Neither Druids or Clerics have any reason to write down their spells, as people from their orders are prepared casters and can simply be able to cast the required spell the following day. They also generally wouldn't be very good at writing scrolls, and so would produce much less of them than you'd expect a Wizard to.

I mean, sure, you could provide the ritual as a scroll just because you know a player is seeking it out, but narratively it wouldn't make hardly any sense.
"Hey, I know you were looking for a magic weapon, so...you turn the corner and...Oh look! There's a generic +1 Sword!"
If possible, I'm looking for solutions that...well, make sense.

So...what's a Warlock gotta do to learn a Divine Ritual?

If what you say is true, that neither clerics nor druids have any reason to write down their spells, then why do spell scrolls of those two classes exist?

[Jama7301]

Instead of paper, could they be found etched into pieces of barks designed to look like... ritual foci? Maybe a wreath of flowers and leaves woven into a specific pattern that when investigated can reveal a ritual to the caster. Maybe remnants of the ritual can act like a sort of "instruction" guide for how it works.

[SLOTHRPG95]

If what you say is true, that neither clerics nor druids have any reason to write down their spells, then why do spell scrolls of those two classes exist?

Spell scrolls for non-Wizards exist to be able to cast more spells in a given day than otherwise possible. However, this makes less sense for ritual spells, since ritual casting them doesn't take a spell slot. It still makes non-zero sense, since non-Wizards generally have to "use up" a prepped spell on a ritual, and also using a spell scroll takes less time than ritual casting. However, generally speaking, would you want to spend 4 weeks and 5,000 gp so you can cast Commune once without preparing it/without it taking an extra 10 minutes? Or would you rather that time and effort into making a spell scroll of Flame Strike or Planar Binding or something of that sort?

[Tiadoppler]

Neither Druids or Clerics have any reason to write down their spells, as people from their orders are prepared casters and can simply be able to cast the required spell the following day. They also generally wouldn't be very good at writing scrolls, and so would produce much less of them than you'd expect a Wizard to.

I agree that PC druids and clerics have no real reason to ever write down their spells, but NPC 'druid-like creatures' and 'cleric-like creatures' might. Perhaps a village priest doesn't actually know the spell Augury or Ceremony, but has them written down in a tome of the town's ancient traditions.

Generally, I treat very low-level npc casters as either magic initiates or ritual casters (or both): they know a few spells from a class, but don't have all of the class features, and might not have access to their spell list's full repertoire, so they'd benefit from having some extra spells written down as scrolls or ritual books.

[Max_Killjoy]

Optional home-rule idea:

Roll each time you see the spell being cast, build up success margin total on Int(Arcana) checks, and when you hit the required total you understand enough about how the spell works that you can scribe the spell in your tome.

(Maybe something like this is already buried in the books, IDK.)

[Cikomyr]

Imagine a Stonehenge structure, sacred to druids of all neighboring regions. This place is sacred, and the stones have been raised to be the focus of ritualistic magic.

Engraved in the stone are pictograms. Words and symbols written in Sylvan; ancient instructions of the First Druids - or perhaps the Fey benefactors - who created this ancient ritual. They wrote it down to this sacred place so no pilgrim coming here would not know it.

That's why a Druid would write a ritual. Not in paper to be traded, but in stone to be remembered.

Cleric rituals would probably be akin to the Roman's ancient religious scrolls that described the covenant between them and their Gods. Think less of a "Bible" religious text, and more of a "how to do appeal to God for Y", written specifically for clerics.

Just because a cleric spontaneously know their ritual spells when they reach a certain level doesn't mean they may not have learned it during their apprenticeship, perhaps? Or during down time? These ancient religious text, jealously guarded by the Church, hold the information to recreate the ritualistic spells.

Don't ask me about bards.

[Tiadoppler]

Don't ask me about bards.

What about bards?

Bards write down everything! Their rituals might be passed on through stories, recorded in poetry or in sheet music. Maybe an NPC bard writes a play that contains all of the steps to a ritual, unknowingly cast by the actors.

[Cikomyr]

What about bards?

Bards write down everything! Their rituals might be passed on through stories, recorded in poetry or in sheet music. Maybe an NPC bard writes a play that contains all of the steps to a ritual, unknowingly cast by the actors.

That's a good idea actually. I guess inhave a bit of a hard time conceptualizing a ritual based on music or art. Is it appealing to a deity, or is it basically channeling the universe 's cheat codes?

[Tharkun]

Scrolls are useful to all casters, especially for spells you don't necessarily want to use everyday. So while wizards are obviously the heaviest users and creators of scrolls, clerics, druids and even warlocks find them useful.

More than once I have found augury scrolls. I can see reasons to find scrolls from any casters that may be able to create them.

[Eriol]

Spell scrolls for non-Wizards exist to be able to cast more spells in a given day than otherwise possible. However, this makes less sense for ritual spells, since ritual casting them doesn't take a spell slot. It still makes non-zero sense, since non-Wizards generally have to "use up" a prepped spell on a ritual, and also using a spell scroll takes less time than ritual casting. However, generally speaking, would you want to spend 4 weeks and 5,000 gp so you can cast Commune once without preparing it/without it taking an extra 10 minutes? Or would you rather that time and effort into making a spell scroll of Flame Strike or Planar Binding or something of that sort?
I'd say it makes sense from the simple perspective of limited number of spells prepared per day. If your "usual" loadout doesn't carry Detect Magic (or whatever), maybe having a scroll or two around for an emergency still makes sense. Or even for a high-level ritual, maybe you know it's something unlikely on ANY day, but the day you need it, you can't wait until tomorrow either.

No matter which of the above reasons are right, it still makes sense for Divine Casters to have scrolls around, from a loadout perspective.

[Tiadoppler]

That's a good idea actually. I guess inhave a bit of a hard time conceptualizing a ritual based on music or art. Is it appealing to a deity, or is it basically channeling the universe 's cheat codes?

In a most basic sense, any written spell is just a series of actions that a caster must take in order to produce a result. Bards channel their magical power through music and speech. It's not inconceivable that a bard's method for casting a ritual might be playing a song or delivering a monologue. Therefore, to a bard, a sheet of music might be an accurate guide to casting a spell (and they might regard a Wizard's stream of arcane incantations as artless or crude in comparison).

Alternatively, imagine if the various spells and incantations written into Shakespeare's plays were genuine, and a trained bard could actually empower those rituals as part of a performance. I've been inspired to write a short sidequest about an unlucky play (it has a name, but actors prefer to call it 'The Dwarfish Play'). Terrible accidents happen with alarming regularity during performances of The Dwarfish Play, but nobody knows why.

Answer: if some of the actors playing certain roles in the show happen to have the ability to cast certain bardic spells, they un-knowingly empower various nasty spells which were written into the script by the playwright, jealous of his wife's success on the stage. Both husband and wife died years ago, but the play's script has remained unchanged, as it is an excellent and well-written drama.

At the same time, this production of The Dwarfish Play is full of mundane sabotage and drama, concealing the true mystery under the veil of petty squabbling.

[GreyBlack]

Spell scrolls for non-Wizards exist to be able to cast more spells in a given day than otherwise possible. However, this makes less sense for ritual spells, since ritual casting them doesn't take a spell slot. It still makes non-zero sense, since non-Wizards generally have to "use up" a prepped spell on a ritual, and also using a spell scroll takes less time than ritual casting. However, generally speaking, would you want to spend 4 weeks and 5,000 gp so you can cast Commune once without preparing it/without it taking an extra 10 minutes? Or would you rather that time and effort into making a spell scroll of Flame Strike or Planar Binding or something of that sort?

Until you realize that you didn't prepare the spell today. Divine spellcasters can't ritual cast the spell unless they have it memorized, so it would make sense for them to have scrolls of their weirder spells on the list just in case they need it but don't have access to it right now.

[Lyracian]

That's a good idea actually. I guess inhave a bit of a hard time conceptualizing a ritual based on music or art. Is it appealing to a deity, or is it basically channeling the universe 's cheat codes?
Fighter: Why does it take you ten minutes to cast detect magic?
Bard: I have to walk around backwards in a circle while reciting act III of Euripides play in a squeaky voice.

If Clerical training involves learning lots of spells by rote so you can then prepare any of them on a given day then lots of sacred texts would contain rituals. The other is these spells still take up a preparation slot and you may not have a day to wait if some emergency happens. It could also be a way for Druids to teach Rangers or Magic Initiates spells by having them written down.

Finally rich followers of some gods might want to buy high level divination spells as scrolls so they can commune directly with higher powers.
High Priest: Hello Lord Trumpington you want to order some more scrolls so you can know the outcome of building a wall to keep the Goblins out?

[JackPhoenix]

There are multiple reasons to have non-wizard ritual spells on scrolls. NPCs generally don't have PC classes, so they may lack the ability to switch their prepared spells, people capable of ritual casting but not "proper" spellcasting exist, and scrolls allow casting of spells too powerful for the caster's own ability (i.e. higher level than what the caster can do normally). And just because something is a ritual doesn't mean you want to use it as a ritual... Speak with Animals is a nice example. There are many, many situations where you simply need to talk to an animal *now*, not in 10 minutes or worse, after you take a rest and switch the spells you have prepared.

And scrolls are more available to NPCs than to PCs. Crafting times and costs in DMG and Xanathar are made for adventurers who sometimes want to create magic item as a side job, not for NPCs who can be dedicated magic item crafters.

[Blood of Gaea]

Scrolls are my go to. Any spellcaster can make use of the ones for their spell list, so it's perfectly reasonable that people would produce them.

[Witty Username]

Spell scrolls for non-Wizards exist to be able to cast more spells in a given day than otherwise possible. However, this makes less sense for ritual spells, since ritual casting them doesn't take a spell slot. It still makes non-zero sense, since non-Wizards generally have to "use up" a prepped spell on a ritual, and also using a spell scroll takes less time than ritual casting. However, generally speaking, would you want to spend 4 weeks and 5,000 gp so you can cast Commune once without preparing it/without it taking an extra 10 minutes? Or would you rather that time and effort into making a spell scroll of Flame Strike or Planar Binding or something of that sort?

clerics and druids, if I remember right, can only cast rituals off of their prepared list, so using scrolls would be a way of having a broader spell list rather than the need to conserve spell slots.

Going to a church during downtime could probably be reasonable to acquire new rituals, churches could even use the rituals as incentives to attract volunteers for things.

[SLOTHRPG95]

I'd say it makes sense from the simple perspective of limited number of spells prepared per day. If your "usual" loadout doesn't carry Detect Magic (or whatever), maybe having a scroll or two around for an emergency still makes sense. Or even for a high-level ritual, maybe you know it's something unlikely on ANY day, but the day you need it, you can't wait until tomorrow either.

No matter which of the above reasons are right, it still makes sense for Divine Casters to have scrolls around, from a loadout perspective.


Until you realize that you didn't prepare the spell today. Divine spellcasters can't ritual cast the spell unless they have it memorized, so it would make sense for them to have scrolls of their weirder spells on the list just in case they need it but don't have access to it right now.


clerics and druids, if I remember right, can only cast rituals off of their prepared list, so using scrolls would be a way of having a broader spell list rather than the need to conserve spell slots.

Going to a church during downtime could probably be reasonable to acquire new rituals, churches could even use the rituals as incentives to attract volunteers for things.

Yes, as I (very briefly) noted, it saves you a spell prepared. And sure, there's probably some situations in which having a ritual you'd otherwise not prepare on hand is do-or-die. My point was that the calculus for creating spell scrolls of ritual spells is markedly different from other spells, since the other major advantage (not using a spell slot) is already rendered moot by the very nature of ritual casting.

[Vogie]

If you're trying to find them around, in the sense of loot, I'd do something like:
For clerics:

Prayerbooks written by aging priests
Blessing Plaques on statues of saints (or the equivalent)
Hidden in the midst of lengthy religious texts.
For Druids:

Pictographs written on cave walls
Clubs and Quarterstaves with the ritual written over them in Sylvan
Primordial Runes
For Bards:

Sheet Music
Shorthand Tablature
Hidden amongst books of poetry or philosophy

[Man_Over_Game]

If you're trying to find them around, in the sense of loot, I'd do something like:
For clerics:

Prayerbooks written by aging priests
Blessing Plaques on statues of saints (or the equivalent)
Hidden in the midst of lengthy religious texts.
For Druids:

Pictographs written on cave walls
Clubs and Quarterstaves with the ritual written over them in Sylvan
Primordial Runes
For Bards:

Sheet Music
Shorthand Tablature
Hidden amongst books of poetry or philosophy


These are actually really damn good.

I could see non-Wizard classes being much more careless about where and when they put their rituals about.

For Wizards, a scroll/ritual/written spell is a currency. It has direct value that can be weighed in gold.

But a Cleric's Ceremony procedures? A simple translation spell for when Bards need to learn a foreigner's music? Non-Wizards don't really go looking for spells of their class, because they'll only ever be a single-use spell (except by someone who has a Ritual collection ability). Most Wizard spells would probably be scooped up and sold, if not stockpiled.

Or, put another way, you'd find Wizard Rituals in stores or in chests, and you'd find Cleric rituals in libraries and instruction manuals. While Wizards likely print more rituals than Druids/Clerics/Bards, Wizard Rituals are so coveted that you'd be unlikely to see many of them. Which makes a good in-narrative reason for why players might encounter an equal number of both Wizard and Cleric rituals.

[Keravath]

Prepared spell casters can only cast the spells they have prepared. If they want to cast something else then they have to take a long rest to change their spell selection. If a cleric or druid wants to have access to a spell they don't prepare regularly, including rituals, then they need to create a scroll for it.

If a bard or sorcerer wants to occasionally cast a spell they don't know then they need a scroll for it. All of these options would include rituals and other characters or those with the ability to learn ritual spells from other classes could learn from whatever form these resources might be ... whether notebooks, actual spell scrolls, or something else.

Scrolls or any other medium to cast a spell has a lot of utility for far more than just wizards and all the other casters might be well motivated to both create spell scrolls and have them available.

In fact, ritual spell scrolls have far LESS utility for wizards than anyone else since once the ritual spell is copied to their spellbook, they will never need the spell scroll again unless they don't want to spend 10 extra minutes casting the spell so most wizards probably wouldn't bother making scrolls for ritual spells since any wizard will typically only need one copy to add to their spell book. Since the resource doesn't get used regularly, the trade in them is probably pretty limited.

[Witty Username]

Yes, as I (very briefly) noted, it saves you a spell prepared. And sure, there's probably some situations in which having a ritual you'd otherwise not prepare on hand is do-or-die. My point was that the calculus for creating spell scrolls of ritual spells is markedly different from other spells, since the other major advantage (not using a spell slot) is already rendered moot by the very nature of ritual casting.
My bad, I must have missed that on my read.
Come to think of it, would clerics be obliged to share rituals, for spread the faith reasons.

[SLOTHRPG95]

My bad, I must have missed that on my read.
Come to think of it, would clerics be obliged to share rituals, for spread the faith reasons.

That would really depend on both the deity and sect in question. Clerics of Pelor, for example, might feel obligated to share the rituals with moral, pious individuals who'd potentially use them to further his goals (helping the downtrodden, opposing undead, etc.). On the other hand, Vecna (being the god of secrets) would probably actively disapprove of his priests sharing information, at least without good reason. Varying cells of Erythnul's many cults might fall on either extreme, or somewhere in between. One might seek to spread fell knowledge to hopefully drive others into starting mad slaughters of their own. Another might view proliferation of knowledge as inherently progressing order and civilization, and hence as antithetical to Erythnul's portfolio. I'd say as a rule of thumb, most deities or sects focused on law or knowledge would be more likely to share rituals with others of the faith, if only for preservation of particular traditions and/or lore.

[OvisCaedo]

As far as finding things in the "wild" like 5th level scrolls or such, for any class... I feel like you'd just have to lean heavily towards them just being old relics from a time where their creation wasn't so enormously time consuming and costly. That's the part that makes it feel so questionable. It's not that nobody would ever have a use for these things, it's just sketchy that they'd find that need so likely that it was worth spending a month of time and thousands of gold on making. Much less of an issue with the lower level spells, of course, though still kind of pricy. Higher level ritual spells are pretty rare, too.

As far as non-scroll written records... well, mechanically speaking there's not any real reason for it for the divine casters, but that might just be a disconnect between how the world should be and how PC options are treated. Maybe NPCs don't just get access to their entire spell list of divinely granted magic each day and DO know a limited amount, and have to teach or learn things.

[Man_Over_Game]

As far as finding things in the "wild" like 5th level scrolls or such, for any class... I feel like you'd just have to lean heavily towards them just being old relics from a time where their creation wasn't so enormously time consuming and costly. That's the part that makes it feel so questionable. It's not that nobody would ever have a use for these things, it's just sketchy that they'd find that need so likely that it was worth spending a month of time and thousands of gold on making. Much less of an issue with the lower level spells, of course, though still kind of pricy. Higher level ritual spells are pretty rare, too.

As far as non-scroll written records... well, mechanically speaking there's not any real reason for it for the divine casters, but that might just be a disconnect between how the world should be and how PC options are treated. Maybe NPCs don't just get access to their entire spell list of divinely granted magic each day and DO know a limited amount, and have to teach or learn things.

That might be true for a Scroll, but there's a difference between a spell written down and a usable Scroll. After all, it's not like you can use a Wizard's spellbook like a scroll, right? A Scroll is designed to be an expendable resource, but theoretically anyone could write down the instructions for casting a spell. The big difference is, the Wizard has a mechanical reason to when other classes don't, but there might be a good enough narrative reason for a caster to.

[patchyman]

Divine soul sorcerers. The answer is always divine soul sorcerers.

[JackPhoenix]

Divine soul sorcerers. The answer is always divine soul sorcerers.

Not really. Cleric spells aren't on DS spell list unless they choose them as their spells known, so they can't use most scrolls with cleric spells, and if they can use it, they don't need to. It's a mistake Lord Drako does every time he spams his nonsense.

[GreyBlack]

Yes, as I (very briefly) noted, it saves you a spell prepared. And sure, there's probably some situations in which having a ritual you'd otherwise not prepare on hand is do-or-die. My point was that the calculus for creating spell scrolls of ritual spells is markedly different from other spells, since the other major advantage (not using a spell slot) is already rendered moot by the very nature of ritual casting.

Maybe it's just my experience, but often times the cleric can't have every ritual they'll need prepared for the day. Think about the basic, bog standard, level 5 cleric spell memorization, which would look something like Cure Wounds, Bless, Augury, Spiritual Weapon, Spirit Guardians, Revivify, Dispel Magic, Silence, and Gentle Repose.* Preparing such a list for the day leaves off:

Detect magic, detect poison and disease, purify food and drink, Meld into Stone, and Water Walk

Those are all some fairly decent rituals to have prepared for any given day, and that's even with memorizing some of the more useful rituals to cast during the day (e.g. Augury, Silence, and Gentle Repose). You're not wrong that the cleric can change them out after a long rest... but also, it's good to remember that sometimes you can't wait for that long rest to change your spells. When you're in the middle of the dungeon, you need to know if that door is magical, and you need to know before you touch it because the necromancer isn't going to put his ritual on hold so you can change spell slots in 8 hours.

Which, again, leads back to the problem that clerics cannot ritual cast a spell if they don't have it memorized for the day.



You can cast a cleric spell as a ritual if that spell has the ritual tag and you have the spell prepared.


That single change to ritual casting for Clerics makes having a spell scroll for certain situations that you might not have foreseen a great idea. Sure, it won't happen all the time, but it happens with alarming enough frequency for certain clerics to play the Wizard game and prepare in advance.



*Yes, other cleric lists exist. I'm just going with a bog standard, "This is what a normal cleric list for the day might look like" list.

[Dork_Forge]

You could come across a book that records rituals as part of a historical or anthropological text, in which case you could still find the rituals in libraries or the studies of sages, monasteries of certain monk orders etc. Or it could be part of texts (be it books/scrolls/tablets/monuments etc.) that are meant to teach the next generation how to be Clerics/Druids.

[Anymage]

I'm going to agree with the idea that NPCs are more likely to have relevant feats (particularly Ritual Caster) than full PC class levels. The enemy high cultist probably has proper spell slots if he's going to be part of a meaningful fight, but it would be pointless overhead if the priest of the local temple had a divine domain and channel divinity uses. As such, with other ritual casters out in the world, there's justification for ritual books.

How to get them into PC hands is trickier. The simplest solution is to let the PCs find ritualists with the spells they want, and either buy or bargain for what they want. Assume that access to a ritual costs as much as accessing a wizard's spellbook, and that's an easy way to go about things. Having ritual spells fall into PC hands as random treasure is trickier, because as mentioned enemies who are a meaningful challenge will also tend to have spell slots.

[SLOTHRPG95]

Maybe it's just my experience, but often times the cleric can't have every ritual they'll need prepared for the day. Think about the basic, bog standard, level 5 cleric spell memorization, which would look something like Cure Wounds, Bless, Augury, Spiritual Weapon, Spirit Guardians, Revivify, Dispel Magic, Silence, and Gentle Repose.* Preparing such a list for the day leaves off:

Detect magic, detect poison and disease, purify food and drink, Meld into Stone, and Water Walk

Those are all some fairly decent rituals to have prepared for any given day, and that's even with memorizing some of the more useful rituals to cast during the day (e.g. Augury, Silence, and Gentle Repose). You're not wrong that the cleric can change them out after a long rest... but also, it's good to remember that sometimes you can't wait for that long rest to change your spells. When you're in the middle of the dungeon, you need to know if that door is magical, and you need to know before you touch it because the necromancer isn't going to put his ritual on hold so you can change spell slots in 8 hours.


So swap out one of the above for Detect Magic, assuming nobody else in the party has it known/prepared. You always want to have someone in the party with access to that one. The remaining rituals are all of varying utility, often something you won't need on an average day, so if you're pretty sure that you won't have to walk across any bodies of liquid that day don't prepare Water Walk (for example). Notable exceptions are Meld into Stone (which is a really fun spell), and Detect Poison and Disease (whose utility varies wildly from DM to DM). Sure, you could spend hundreds or thousands of gold pieces and weeks of downtime stocking up on ritual scrolls, but often you won't have that luxury. And wouldn't you rather, for example, prepare a spell scroll of Revivify and just prepare Meld into Stone for all your daily ambush needs? If not, that's up to you, but in most campaigns you don't have unlimited time or money. With that said, you can't be prepared for everything.

[GreyBlack]

So swap out one of the above for Detect Magic, assuming nobody else in the party has it known/prepared. You always want to have someone in the party with access to that one. The remaining rituals are all of varying utility, often something you won't need on an average day, so if you're pretty sure that you won't have to walk across any bodies of liquid that day don't prepare Water Walk (for example). Notable exceptions are Meld into Stone (which is a really fun spell), and Detect Poison and Disease (whose utility varies wildly from DM to DM). Sure, you could spend hundreds or thousands of gold pieces and weeks of downtime stocking up on ritual scrolls, but often you won't have that luxury. And wouldn't you rather, for example, prepare a spell scroll of Revivify and just prepare Meld into Stone for all your daily ambush needs? If not, that's up to you, but in most campaigns you don't have unlimited time or money. With that said, you can't be prepared for everything.

What else are you spending your gold on?

[JackPhoenix]

What else are you spending your gold on?

Hookers and booze, of course.

Generally, the biggest problem with crafting isn't gold, it's time, at least for anything above 3rd level spell.

[OvisCaedo]

I think it's very both, unless your adventures are really showering you with massive amounts of gold. Which they might be! I have no idea what "normal" treasure amounts in, since they've varied massively in every campaign I've been in.

though in any of them, there's probably other emergency supplies I'd be more likely to spend thousands of gold on than utility scrolls. While scattered, there are some excellent spells with very costly ingredients and all. Though... I guess I REALLY don't know which ones are on divine lists. There's that one hero feast with the expensive bowl and diamonds/scrolls for revival spells...?

on the other hand my mind does keep jumping to the unreasonability of 4/5 level scrolls; 3 are still kinda pushing it in price, but most utility rituals are probably the somewhat affordable and not super time consuming 1/2 level spells.

[2097]

Why would a Druid write down a copy of Speak With Animals

To save spell slots.

[noob]

Were not druids supposed to not write stuff or something?
If there is no such interdiction then of course druids write stuff at least for their apprentices.

[Max_Killjoy]

Were not druid supposed to not write stuff or something?
If there is no such interdiction then of course druids write stuff at least for their apprentices.

There is speculation that the priests who were part of the "learned men" social class of "druids" did not write things down in order to keep certain things secret, because memorization was highly valued, etc.

However, as the druids in D&D have jack squat to do with anything historical, feel free to entirely ignore that and have them writing volumes... as long as the books don't have metal hinges*.

* because no metal armor blah blah blah.

[SLOTHRPG95]

What else are you spending your gold on?


Hookers and booze, of course.

Generally, the biggest problem with crafting isn't gold, it's time, at least for anything above 3rd level spell.

Except in campaigns where wealth is sharply limited, in which case thousands of gold pieces per spell scroll is a staggeringly bad investment. But barring that, yeah the time is a big factor unless you regularly get lots of downtime. And if you regularly get weeks of downtime, and also thousands upon thousands of gold is nothing to you, then I vote on spending the time and money to build and develop a stronghold, for starters. If you're blessed with lots of downtime, having a good stronghold is a great boon.

[noob]

Except in campaigns where wealth is sharply limited, in which case thousands of gold pieces per spell scroll is a staggeringly bad investment. But barring that, yeah the time is a big factor unless you regularly get lots of downtime. And if you regularly get weeks of downtime, and also thousands upon thousands of gold is nothing to you, then I vote on spending the time and money to build and develop a stronghold, for starters. If you're blessed with lots of downtime, having a good stronghold is a great boon.

but people will target your stronghold with space weapons then(do not forget you are in dnd 5e where space weapons are a good choice)

[SLOTHRPG95]

but people will target your stronghold with space weapons then(do not forget you are in dnd 5e where space weapons are a good choice)

I'm not sure what you mean by space weapons in this context.

[JakOfAllTirades]

After reading this discussion, I'd have no problem houseruling the entire issue out of existence.

In my game, I'd allow any character with access to ritual casting, whether it's via feat or class feature, to gain one (maybe two) new ritual(s) of a level and class they are capable of casting each time they gain a level.

Done.

Now the ritual casters can gain spells from any list they would normally be able to cast from.

Would that break anyone's game?

[GreyBlack]

I'm not sure what you mean by space weapons in this context.

He means weapons.

From space.

Starjammers are a thing.

As far as the "playing where gold is sharply limited," I first of all wish to glare intently at Adventurer's League.

:furious:

Now that that's out of the way, those campaigns are a thing, sure. Most of the time, though, even low magic campaigns assume you're starting with 500 + gold pieces, and there's nothing preventing characters from making extra gold on their campaigns. For example, by setting up an arms market and selling the weapons they take from the fallen that they've killed. I don't disagree on the downtime requirements, but most good DM's will at least allow you to assume that you've been working on the downtime stuff when you're not necessarily adventuring. When you're on the road and you want to take a leak for a few minutes, you character will take a couple minutes to scribble down a little bit more of the scroll, for example.

That said... this is simply to say that there are _very good_ and _very legitimate_ reasons for non-Wizards to scribe down their Ritual spells. It's not to say that there aren't reasons why a _character_ might not, but to say that _no_ Cleric or Druid would scribe down their Ritual spells is fallacy.

[noob]

I'm not sure what you mean by space weapons in this context.

example: make a tenser floating disk spacecraft then drop stuff while you are in space.
and no it have nothing to do with starjamers or whatever.

[JackPhoenix]

example: make a tenser floating disk spacecraft then drop stuff while you are in space.
and no it have nothing to do with starjamers or whatever.

3' off the ground isn't anywhere near space.

[noob]

3' off the ground isn't anywhere near space.

well it is not trivial to make tenser disk spacecraft but the idea is that a tenser floating disk can not get lower or higher relatively to the ground and does not applies force on the ground.
so make a ship that contains a ground that is attached to the roof and have a strong spring that is naturally closer to the ground than a tenser disk and that is attached to the roof so that when you push the spring it applies the force to the ship and thus pull upwards the floor (since there is no reaction force from the tenser disk because it does not push back on the floor then the ship gets pushed as a whole upwards)

It seems you really are ignorant about 5e space exploration but now you know how it works: it is based on having something that can push without following the law of action reaction.

[JackPhoenix]

It seems you really are ignorant about 5e space exploration but now you know how it works: it is based on having something that can push without following the law of action reaction.

Nah, it seems you're ignorant of what the spell does. And your explanation of how it's supposed to work is really bad.

There are ways to get to space in 5e, but Tenser's Floating Disk ain't it.

[noob]

Nah, it seems you're ignorant of what the spell does. And your explanation of how it's supposed to work is really bad.

There are ways to get to space in 5e, but Tenser's Floating Disk ain't it.

My spaceship design is relatively simple: the disk stays 3 feet above the ground of the spaceship which is attached to the roof of the spaceship through the walls and the disk is supporting a spring attached to the roof that is tensed enough for lifting the whole(the spaceship is under 500 pound for example a spaceship that weights only 30 pounds) and since the disk can not go lower the spring is constantly trying to revert to its normal shape thus pulling the roof upwards thus pulling the floor upwards as well which makes the disk float higher.
It would not work if the disk applied force to the ground to lift stuff but the disk is not doing that: it hovers magically.

Before casting the disk you have to push upwards the spring so that the disk can appear at the right spot which in itself does not lift the spaceship because your feet are applying force on the ground of the spaceship proportional to your weight and to the force you apply to the spring.

[JackPhoenix]

My spaceship design is relatively simple: the disk stays 3 feet above the ground of the spaceship which is attached to the roof of the spaceship through the walls and the disk is supporting a spring attached to the roof that is tensed enough for lifting the whole(the spaceship is under 500 pound for example a spaceship that weights only 30 pounds) and since the disk can not go lower the spring is constantly trying to revert to its normal shape thus pulling the roof upwards thus pulling the floor upwards as well which makes the disk float higher.
It would not work if the disk applied force to the ground to lift stuff but the disk is not doing that: it hovers magically.

Before casting the disk you have to push upwards the spring so that the disk can appear at the right spot which in itself does not lift the spaceship because your feet are applying force on the ground of the spaceship proportional to your weight and to the force you apply to the spring.

Doesn't work for multiple reasons. The "spaceship" would have to count as a ground, which is dubious in itself. And considering the disc can move over uneven terrain, your springs won't do anything, the bottom of the contraption would simply move closer to it. The whole contraption (including the caster and any payload you want to use for orbital bombardment) would have to fit into 500 lb, it won't weight 30 lb just because you say so. And even if your GM accept the first assumption, ignore the second problem and you engineer your way around the second, the disk is immobile if the caster is too close, and disappears if he's too far, meaning you'll never get to space.

[noob]

Doesn't work for multiple reasons. The "spaceship" would have to count as a ground, which is dubious in itself. And considering the disc can move over uneven terrain, your springs won't do anything, the bottom of the contraption would simply move closer to it. The whole contraption (including the caster and any payload you want to use for orbital bombardment) would have to fit into 500 lb, it won't weight 30 lb just because you say so. And even if your GM accept the first assumption, ignore the second problem and you engineer your way around the second, the disk is immobile if the caster is too close, and disappears if he's too far, meaning you'll never get to space.

All the disk did was staying 3 foot above the ground: relatively to the ground it is not moving.
The spring is attached to the roof and is not below the disk but instead above so I do not see any interaction with uneven ground.
Also get a halfling caster and with some squeezing you can have the whole thing be rather small and under the mass(500 pounds makes approx 200 kg which is quite a lot)
Also the halfing caster is constantly close to the disk which is not moving in the spaceship ground referential: it is always staying exactly 3 foot above the spaceship ground.
The disk is not moving relatively to the spaceship floor while applying no counterforce to the ground under and it is specifically what makes the spaceship go upwards.
Also if you start being restraining about what ground is then you quickly start being able to use tenser floating disk to detect pit traps and so on thus providing utility that was probably not intended in the spell.
(and if you manipulate the definition of ground to be hard to fit in then quickly people will find a way to make entire castles with no "ground" but where people can walk around normally which prevents the use of some spells in those castles(and thus is a potential defence that might start getting used in all castles))

[patchyman]

Not really. Cleric spells aren't on DS spell list unless they choose them as their spells known, so they can't use most scrolls with cleric spells, and if they can use it, they don't need to. It's a mistake Lord Drako does every time he spams his nonsense.

In my rush to be pithy, I failed to be clear. 😄

I meant that DS sorcerers have a reason to make scrolls for cleric spells they know, if only to be able to cast without using spells slots. And unlike wizards, they don’t get ritual casting for free.