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View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next Base Class Idea Discussion: 5e Ritualist



LichMan13
2019-10-21, 05:04 AM
This spin on the class from 3.5e is ironically like real world spell casters. In real life, spells (if you believe this stuff exists), are basically just rituals with words, actions, items, ingredients, times of year, seasons, phases of the moon and so on. It's something that takes time, care, and patience. Spells cast by all the caster classes in Dnd 5e are mostly something that are cast on the fly. So here's where the Ritualist differs, they are a class specialized and revolved around rituals. All spells they use can be cast as rituals not usable in the heat of battle, instead of spell slots they can employ premade talismans with spells bound to them for later use, limiting them considerably. Their backbone is preparation, they are a class that accomplishes things with time and care. Some abilities unique to them would be putting spells over a set area, spells made more potent when in ritual form, blood empowerment capable of use even in the midst of battle, rituals for buffing allies and debuffing foes, cursing or blessing areas, affecting weather, ritual binding, exorcism, protection, shielding, sacrifice and so on.

Subclass ideas I have:

Destroyer: a subclass dedicated to bringing destruction to your enemies, boost the damage of your spells and buff the offensive powers of your allies. Perform powerful rituals to rain destruction on your enemies.

Protector: a subclass dedicated to protecting and healing yourself and allies. Boost and buff defenses of allies, create barriers or wards, utilize healing. Use rituals to create vast and powerful barriers or even reverse death.

Summoner: a subclass dedicated to summoning creatures and either binding them to your service or forging a contract. Later rituals include temporarily summoning powerful beings for single battles, and forging permanent portals between points.

Seer: a subclass based around gleaning the future, seeing into the past, spying on the present. contacting and communing with spirits, the dead, and beings from other planes of existence. Last but not least is influencing events, affecting the luck of your allies and foes. Later rituals can let you call upon gods for boons.

Puppeteer: a subclass based around charming, influencing, and controlling others. Influence minds, alter memories, read thoughts, improve how npc's like you, subdue targets, make voodoo dolls to affect victims on the go, even access rituals that can enslave and completely bind individuals to your will. Later rituals allow for mass sleep spells, mass confusion, commands that can work on groups, mass memory wipe, creating bezerkers bound to your will.

Defiler: a subclass based around commanding, creating, and raising the undead, inflicting maladies and illnesses, spreading blight and plagues, even create shadowy minions from people's corpses. Later rituals include mass creation of a temporary undead army, transforming oneself or others into a myriad of undead creatures, resurrection of those long since dead, wonky death spells, and plague infliction.

Trickster: a subclass based around illusions and shapshifting. Create perfect illusions, shapeshift yourself or others. Later rituals allow for the creation of large reality bending illusions and powerful, lasting shapeshifting, even temporarily materialize objects, castles or towns.

Subclasses may seem overpowered but keep in mind those godlike rituals in later levels require a lot of items and conditions on top of the long time needed to complete the rituals. Materials are often required for this class, with expenses and hunting for items. So what do you think the potential of such a class could be? Overpowered, underpowered? Let's discusses the possibilities.

Trandir
2019-10-21, 05:24 AM
This seems like an NPC class.
Lot of potential but should require lot of gold and prep time in the form of both actual rituals and components hunt.
The BBEG probably has spent the last century collecting materials for a ritual but a player now needs to go on quests for ritual scrolls, rare materials, legendary places to play his class.


There is no such thing as underpower and overpowered about consepts if you don't provide also the mechanic part of it. My impression is unplayable in combat and maybe good in social/exploring situation but I can't say.

LichMan13
2019-10-21, 06:10 AM
The rituals aren't exactly at the level of plot based ones. The gold, materials, components and time have to be reasonable in order to even be pliable, one needs a middle ground. Also materials aren't exactly quest worthy, think herbs, animals parts, basic gemstones, salt, spring water, blood prices, minor sacrifices. Also Ritualist uses rituals to cast his spells or prepares talismans, bard uses songs, cleric uses prayers. Plus pre-prepared reusable paper talismans are used in place of spell slots to cast normal spells in battle. It means you have to choose what spells and how many you have available before hand, meaning less flexibility and capacity to adapt. Plus casting the rituals before a fight when possible can be a boon. 9th level meteor could soften up a target. Preparing talismans can be done during long and short rest or if you have time to spare. The usable rituals can be affect battle and campaigns. You can use cast spells in ways you normally couldn't with other classes. Mainly made this thread to figure what the class could look like, and how it can be made viable while striking a balance. To iron out the mechanics and class features.

So any suggestions?

Trandir
2019-10-21, 06:16 AM
**Cut for space**

So any suggestions?

Ok I see how you intended it to work.

About the suggestions: write down a class and the subclasses not just the concept of one. The best way to balance a class is to actually have something to work on

LichMan13
2019-10-21, 06:21 AM
Ok I see how you intended it to work.

About the suggestions: write down a class and the subclasses not just the concept of one. The best way to balance a class is to actually have something to work on

Alright I'll start on that.

DeTess
2019-10-21, 06:24 AM
The rituals aren't exactly at the level of plot based ones. The gold, materials, components and time have to be reasonable in order to even be pliable, one needs a middle ground. Also materials aren't exactly quest worthy, think herbs, animals parts, basic gemstones, salt, spring water, blood prices, minor sacrifices. Also Ritualist uses rituals to cast his spells or prepares talismans, bard uses songs, cleric uses prayers. Plus pre-prepared reusable paper talismans are used in place of spell slots to cast normal spells in battle. It means you have to choose what spells and how many you have available before hand, meaning less flexibility and capacity to adapt. Plus casting the rituals before a fight when possible can be a boon. 9th level meteor could soften up a target. Preparing talismans can be done during long and short rest or if you have time to spare. The usable rituals can be affect battle and campaigns. You can use cast spells in ways you normally couldn't with other classes. Mainly made this thread to figure what the class could look like, and how it can be made viable while striking a balance. To iron out the mechanics and class features.

So any suggestions?

Well, maybe you should start by actually describing some class features? As it stands, I think you could refluff a wizard to have the 'ritualist' fluff you describe here (with wizards making their prepared spells for the day into talismans and stuff).

Anyway, here are some ideas for how to make it different:

Have this class be an arcane caster using a spells known and prepared system similar to that of paladins/cleric/druids, with an entire list of spells known, but only a subset prepared at any time. Have the list itself depend in part on their subclass. The class would get a couple of generic staples, such as detect magic and magic missile and leomund's tiny hut and the like on it's base chassis, and then the subclass would add a lot of spells that fit that theme (Destroyer would get a lot of blasting spells, for example).

Give them a feature around designing their own rituals. The difference between rituals and more standard spells that I often see used is that rituals can be more improvised while normal spells are rather rigid. This feature should include a table to help the DM figure out that magnitude of the ritual's effect, and of course there should be the option for things going wrong.

LichMan13
2019-10-21, 06:37 AM
The talismans part was the make the class less op, plus it fits the flavor and theme, for example preparing 2 magic missile, 3 fireballs for later use and so on.

DeTess
2019-10-21, 06:45 AM
The talismans part was the make the class less op, plus it fits the flavor and theme, for example preparing 2 magic missile, 3 fireballs for later use and so on.

I'd be very careful with going this route. DnD 5e is generally about making the game a bit simpler and more accessible compared to 3.5, and I don't think trying to implement 3.5 style prepared casting will work well. You shouldn't try to balance mechanics by making them complicated/annoying to use.

Grod_The_Giant
2019-10-21, 07:23 AM
I made a similar class (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?325646-The-Ritualist-A-tier-3-crafter-spellbook-user-maybe-%283-5-PEACH%29) in 3.5; you might get some inspiration out of it. There's also a make-magic-items-ahead-of-time artificer type in my Guide to Greatness (https://www.dmsguild.com/product/267038/Grods-Guide-to-Greatness) if you want to check out a more preparation-oriented 5e mage.

jjordan
2019-10-21, 10:28 AM
Yeah, I'm on board with this, with caveats. First, this is how I play a lot of NPCs in the setting. I've never encountered a player who wanted to play this sort of class but if I did the model for doing so would probably be Ars Magica (the general concept of spellcasters that spend months and years in research and labor, not the magic system or the setting).

I deal with the mechanics by structuring my setting so that ritual spellcasting as the default form of spellcasting makes a lot of sense. I'm not afraid to take a standard spell and re-skin it. If I make variations of spells (which I do, all the time) I tend to make them weaker or harder to use in one or more fashions. I do this because I consider that the official spells are the most common spells because they're top of the line and useful for combat casters.

Lastly, I deal with the various flavors of casters, what you're casting as sub-classes, through the simple expedient of limited spell lists. This, again, ties in with the cosmology of my setting and was one of the determining factors in creating it.

In summary, I like your ideas, I wouldn't design them as PC-playable, I'd allow a PC to play them if everyone was on board with the demands this would make on the structure of the game, I'd build on the Ritual Spellcaster feat and used limited spell-lists rather than creating a new class and multiple sub-classes.