Wizard spellbook management: do you always select some rituals?

[Ir0ns0ul]

TLDR: Do you always select rituals when level up?

Assuming a regular INT 16 (+3) and not so much opportunities to find or buy scrolls.

At level 1, Wizards have 6 spells in their spellbook and 4 preparations a day — do you select 4 spells and 2 rituals or actually select 5-6 spells in order to have more options to prepare each day?

And every level after 1, learning 2 new spells. Do you guys try to get as much as possible rituals or increase the spellbook with different options for versatility?

Trying to contextualize:
Wizard A - Level 1: Mage Armor, Shield, Sleep, Tasha’s Hideous Laugher; (R) Find Familiar, Detect MagicWizard B - Level 2: Mage Armor, Shield, Sleep, Tasha’s Hideous Laugher, Thunderwave; (R) Find Familiar
Wizard A - Level 2: Mage Armor, Shield, Sleep, Tasha’s Hideous Laugher, Grease; (R) Find Familiar, Detect Magic, AlarmWizard B - Level 2: Mage Armor, Shield, Sleep, Tasha’s Hideous Laugher, Thunderwave, Grease, Feather Fall; (R) Find Familiar
Which option is optimal from a broader perspective or is it just a personal choice?

[Gignere]

TLDR: Do you always select rituals when level up?

Assuming a regular INT 16 (+3) and not so much opportunities to find or buy scrolls.

At level 1, Wizards have 6 spells in their spellbook and 4 preparations a day — do you select 4 spells and 2 rituals or actually select 5-6 spells in order to have more options to prepare each day?

And every level after 1, learning 2 new spells. Do you guys try to get as much as possible rituals or increase the spellbook with different options for versatility?

Trying to contextualize:
Wizard A - Level 1: Mage Armor, Shield, Sleep, Tasha’s Hideous Laugher; (R) Find Familiar, Detect MagicWizard B - Level 2: Mage Armor, Shield, Sleep, Tasha’s Hideous Laugher, Thunderwave; (R) Find Familiar
Wizard A - Level 2: Mage Armor, Shield, Sleep, Tasha’s Hideous Laugher, Grease; (R) Find Familiar, Detect Magic, AlarmWizard B - Level 2: Mage Armor, Shield, Sleep, Tasha’s Hideous Laugher, Thunderwave, Grease, Feather Fall; (R) Find Familiar
Which option is optimal from a broader perspective or is it just a personal choice?

It’s also campaign/DM style contingent. If you are going to be diving into ruins you maybe surprise how damn useful comprehend language and detect magic is.

Should have seen my DM’s face when he said we found an altar with inscribed with an ancient long lost language on it and I said give me 10 minutes and boom I now know this longlostnese. Lmao.

[Hellpyre]

It's very much a personal choice, flavored some by how much the ability to expand your spellbook is functional to the campaign. Personally, there are a few ritual spells I generally pick up because of the value they have when they don't draw from spell slots, but that tends to fall off as I get into higher spell-levels, where I can assume scrolls and spellbooks to be less frequently available and so getting the spells I want most immediately becomes more attractive, even if my per-day usage is lower than a ritual spell would be.

[RogueJK]

Just about every Wizard needs Find Familiar and Detect Magic. They're just that useful. So I almost always pick those at 1st level. I'll usually also take Unseen Servant and/or Comprehend Languages too.

The others are nice to have, especially if otherwise found out in the world through copying scrolls and spellbooks, but I wouldn't necessarily spend a spell choice on them, except in certain situations. For example, an Abjuration Wizard will likely also want Alarm, for a "free" way to activate his Arcane Ward each day and recharge it during lulls. A political intrigue-heavy campaign would increase the value of Illusory Script. A nautical/aquatic-based campaign would make Water Breathing a natural choice. And if your party frequently delves into huge dungeons or the Underdark for extended periods, something like Tiny Hut would be an excellent pick.

[CMCC]

There are really great rituals at lvl1 that you should def take like FF and DM. I would generally always take comprehend languages and either alarm or unseen servant.

3-4 rituals is where I’m at level 1 - so you have functionality beyond your 2 (actually 3 with arcane recovery) spell slots. You’re going to be using shield a lot at lower levels - and 1-2 hits will KO you so better to have that non-spell slot spell casting ability.

[RedMage125]

Agree on DM and FF.

I'm also fond of Tenser's Floating Disk. Nice utility spell, has the ritual tag.

[Sigreid]

I tend to focus more on utility and being for all intents and purposes the party's first magic item. So if I have access to a utility ritual, I'm probably taking it.

[SLOTHRPG95]

It depends on party composition, but minimally there's about six 1st-3rd level rituals that I always want to pick up on a Wizard, which is roughly one-third of your spell picks through 6th level. With that said, I think that a large part of what makes Wizards useful in earlier levels in their unparalleled access to utility magic, so if you'd rather play a fireball-happy wizard or BFC/controller or the like, then you probably want fewer rituals early on.

[Sigreid]

It depends on party composition, but minimally there's about six 1st-3rd level rituals that I always want to pick up on a Wizard, which is roughly one-third of your spell picks through 6th level. With that said, I think that a large part of what makes Wizards useful in earlier levels in their unparalleled access to utility magic, so if you'd rather play a fireball-happy wizard or BFC/controller or the like, then you probably want fewer rituals early on.

I think you might actually want more rituals as it gives you something to do when you've burned your spell slots on offense.

[SLOTHRPG95]

I think you might actually want more rituals as it gives you something to do when you've burned your spell slots on offense.

You might want more rituals after the fact, but someone just wanting to play a blaster wizard will likely pick up spells rendered largely redundant later on, because waiting all the way until 5th level for your first AoE to ensure better backwards compatibility will end up being less fun for levels 1-4. So when you've picked up Burning Hands, Magic Missile, Shatter, Fireball, Lightning Bolt, and probably Mage Armor and Shield for defense (plus Absorb Elements if you're allowed), then you've already eaten through about half your spells known. Throw in just a couple non-ritual utility spells like Alter Self, Misty Step, Suggestion, and Fly, and suddenly you have to be somewhat stingy in picking niche rituals.

Contrast this with a wizard less interested in blasting in the first place, who relied on cantrips (or a light crossbow) for damage up until picking up Fireball at 5th or 6th level in case of emergencies. They have a lot more flexibility in terms of picking up Unseen Servant or Skywrite or Water Breathing.

[Eldariel]

On level 1, where your actual spell slots are highly limited, I focus on huge impact spells and rituals. This way I maximise the contribution I can provide especially in conjunction with cantrips. To that end, I generally look at:
- Find Familiar
- Detect Magic
- Unseen Servant

Remember, that Wizards is the only class that natively can cast ritual spells without preparing them. This essentially means that ritual spells are extra spells you have "prepared" constantly. The opportunity cost for a Wizard learning rituals is way lower than that for everyone else and on low levels, where spell slots are sparse, you want every possible option that allows solving problems without slots consumed so rituals are highlighted.

In short, Detect Magic is way better from the Wizard's book than from anyone else's. Find Familiar is half the reason Wizards are probably the best level 1 class in the game and Unseen Servant frees up a cantrip slot (way more valuable) from Mage Hand. It also gives you a good use for your bonus action; pour oil, Create Bonfire. 1d8+5 damage per turn in a potentially 10' diameter area.

Other level 1 rituals like Alarm are also exceedingly valuable early on. Of course, rituals get better with level; Phantom Steed and Tiny Hut both completely change the game and Magic Mouth is immensely powerful for its level. These are all top tier spells I'd hurry to get as I reached these levels. Of course, I want at least one, preferably two, powerful action options for each level as well. Generally good all-rounder options and then shore up your specialist stuff by scribing.


TL;DR: Ritual casting is one of the most powerful Wizard features on low levels allowing them to far exceed the nominal spell slot limitation while still maintaining their top tier combat prowess. They also have some of the best rituals in the game. Definitely build towards that on levels 1-5. Once you begin to have more slots, it becomes less important but still, Tiny Hut is such a massive game changer that you do want it and Phantom Steed is powerful as well.

Spell versatility is also great but it's less important as long as your spell slots are largely restricted (that is, you are on a low level); I'd just make sure I have enough spells to have a good spell for most situations and then load up on rituals and begin to focus on the casty spells later.

Level 1 Wizard is really the ultimate all-rounder: they're still good at martial combat, they have great cantrips, they have great downtime ritual access and they have powerful nova spells when you need to expend resources. Long gone are the days when the Wizard needed to cower and let their Fighters handle combat when they didn't want to burn their single level 1 slot.

[LudicSavant]

I always take some rituals.

[diplomancer]

I'd say that, of your 8 1st level spells, around 3 should be Rituals (Find Familiar, 2 of Detect Magic, Unseen Servant and Comprehend Languages, Alarm IF abjurer). All 4 of theses if you want to focus more on utility, 2 if you REALLY want to focus on something else. After that, for your four 2nd levels and 4 3rd levels, I think the only must pick is Tiny Hut, though Phantom Steed is quite good. Water Breathing is nice for some campaigns, but you probably can wait to pick it up (unless your DM is a STRONG advocate for sandbox campaigns, it's a ritual that, if you NEED it, you will find it. Though it does have some good tactical uses even when you don't need it, if your DM creates nice battlefield environments). Both 5th level rituals are quite good, though how good they are depends on what you want to do.

[Porcupinata]

It's hard for me to answer this because this assumption...


Assuming a regular INT 16 (+3) and not so much opportunities to find or buy scrolls.

...doesn't fit my experiences. In my group (regardless of DM) there's usually plenty of opportunity to find scrolls or to directly pay other wizards (e.g. an organised "Mages Guild" or "University of Magic") for access to spells. That access to spells is a core assumption of the game, and without it wizards have a very limited spell selection and are basically just variant sorcerers.

So for us the limit is usually "how much can you afford" rather than "how much can you find". But with that in mind, my wizards will usually spend most of their spare cash buying spells and will buy every ritual they can get their hands on, just in case.

Admittedly, they'll not usually use the free spells they get for going up levels on rituals - they're usually used for essentials, especially since they're normally the first spells of a given level that the wizard gets accesss to. But when a wizard gets chance to spend some money on extra spells rituals are usually pretty high on the list.

[Valmark]

Generally Detect Magic, Comprehend Languages, Tenser's Floating Disk and Find Familiar are my first picks- depending on the groups this varies. I made a wizard that took Feather Fall and Alarm and only had cantrips for fighting initially just like I've made wizards with no ritual spells at all (Something like Shield, Absorb Elements, Mage Armor, Magic Missile, Burning Hands and Feather Fall).

It all depends on what strikes my fancy.

[Gignere]

At level 1 for damage magic missile and sleep are plenty. I actually didn’t have a second damaging spell until level 5 when I nabbed fireball, if you don’t count Phantasmal Force.

[cutlery]

Depends on the level; some rituals are super handy (tiny hut, alarm, detect magic).

Really, after tiny hut I'm not sure there are any rituals I'd take instead of a regular spell at level up. Divination, perhaps (if using expanded spell lists)?

Telepathic Bond or Instant Summons seem niche enough to not be worth a level up slot to me; and that's drawing from what is arguably the "best" list.

[Bobthewizard]

I try to build versatile prepared spell lists that don't need to be changed daily. So all of my spellbook spells in excess of those that I can prepare at one time go toward rituals and downtime spells. Sleep and thunderwave are about the only ones I swap out as I level up.

Every wizard I make takes find familiar, detect magic, comprehend languages, leomunds tiny hut, water breathing, and Rary's telepathic bond. Unseen servant, Tenser's disk, alarm, and phantom steed are other good ones.

[Thunderous Mojo]

In short, Detect Magic is way better from the Wizard's book than from anyone else's.

It is Ritual Magic. A Detect Magic spell cast as a Ritual spell by a cleric of the Arcane, has the exact same effect as a Ritualized Detect Magic spell cast by a Wizard.

A Bard that retrains Sleep into a Ritual spell, hasn't paid a huge cost.
Indeed, making decisions just like that , are part of the fun, of playing a bard.

The same is true for a Cleric that prepares the Silence spell.

"Way better" reads like hyperbole, (to me at least).

[Waterdeep Merch]

I'm a fiend for rituals, but some are more necessary than others. I recently did a breakdown of them for my own wizard to figure out when and where to learn spells, and it ended up like this-

Level 1, 4 rituals: Comprehend Languages, Detect Magic, Find Familiar, Identify
Level 2, 1 ritual: Alarm
Level 5, 1 ritual: Leomund's Tiny Hut (almost didn't take this until later, but the campaign necessitated it)
Level 9, 1 ritual: Rary's Telepathic Bond

I'm level 5 right now, so I don't have Rary's just yet. So far, I've been able to purchase the following extra rituals- Tenser's Floating Disk, Unseen Servant, and Gentle Repose.

This leaves the following spells for purchasing if I find them: Illusory Script, Magic Mouth, Skywrite (...I can do without this one. We're playing Out of the Abyss), Feign Death, Phantom Steed, Water Breathing, Contact Other Plane, and Dramij's Instant Summons.

For level up spells, I picked the ones that felt absolutely essential to have for an adventuring party. As one of the only two full casters in the group (the other's a Life Cleric), I wanted to be able to cover every utility angle I could. You may not need all of these yourself depending on your party makeup.

The rest I actively seek out for purchase whenever I can. Since the rest of my list is fairly tailored to both my playstyle and general utility, there aren't all that many spells I could use that I won't already have that are more innately useful than a ritual since I don't need to prepare them.

I recommend writing down three different lists when figuring out what spells to learn each level; essential spells, desired spells, and rituals. Keep the former as clean as possible, only list spells that you intend to use every adventuring day for your entire career. The second list should be your bulkiest. After adding every essential spell to your level up plan, consider the rituals, then consider the desired spells, and ask yourself if occasionally preparing any of those desired spells are better than having one of the rituals always on hand. If your answer is no, take rituals in order of applicability unless/until they become too niche and a desired spell becomes better than the remainder. I know this sounds like a lot of work, but this actually saves you a lot of headaches with level ups later and also gives you spells to look out for should you get the chance to purchase them.

[KorvinStarmast]

TLDR: Do you always select rituals when level up?
Heck yeah. Always take Find Familiar for Wizard at level 1. Always. It's that useful.

Assuming a regular INT 16 (+3) and not so much opportunities to find or buy scrolls. At level 1, Wizards have 6 spells in their spellbook and 4 preparations a day — do you select 4 spells and 2 rituals or actually select 5-6 spells in order to have more options to prepare each day?
My brother and I both arrived at that same conclusion independently, though he preferred TFD and I preferred Detect Magic.

And every level after 1, learning 2 new spells. Do you guys try to get as much as possible rituals or increase the spellbook with different options for versatility? I have a few rituals that I really like (Leomund's Hut, for example, and Alarm) but when we need them is another story. Depends on who else is in the party.

Wizard A - Level 1: Mage Armor, Shield, Sleep, Tasha’s Hideous Laugher; (R) Find Familiar, Detect MagicWizard B - Level 2: Mage Armor, Shield, Sleep, Tasha’s Hideous Laugher, Thunderwave; (R) Find Familiar
Wizard A - Level 2: Mage Armor, Shield, Sleep, Tasha’s Hideous Laugher, Grease; (R) Find Familiar, Detect Magic, AlarmWizard B - Level 2: Mage Armor, Shield, Sleep, Tasha’s Hideous Laugher, Thunderwave, Grease, Feather Fall; (R) Find Familiar


Which option is optimal from a broader perspective or is it just a personal choice?
At level 1 I'd tend to be Wizard A, though I am underwhelmed by Sleep in this edition and would take Thunderwave instead of it.

Level 2: tough choices, but I'd not use Grease. I'd probably go Alarm with either Feather Fall or Fog Cloud.
But that is because I really like Fog Cloud. A lot.

[RogueJK]

At level 1 I'd tend to be Wizard A, though I am underwhelmed by Sleep in this edition and would take Thunderwave instead of it.

Sleep is a fine choice until after Level 3ish.

[KorvinStarmast]

Sleep is a fine choice until after Level 3ish.
My experience with that spell disagrees with the consensus here. (My favorite part of that spell is No Save). But it takes a skilled 5e player to use it effectively, and Be Careful of putting your party mates to sleep! Thunderwave is more reliable and, if you are an Evoker, much more party friendly.

[Eldariel]

It is Ritual Magic. A Detect Magic spell cast as a Ritual spell by a cleric of the Arcane, has the exact same effect as a Ritualized Detect Magic spell cast by a Wizard.

A Bard that retrains Sleep into a Ritual spell, hasn't paid a huge cost.
Indeed, making decisions just like that , are part of the fun, of playing a bard.

The same is true for a Cleric that prepares the Silence spell.

"Way better" reads like hyperbole, (to me at least).

The point is that the Cleric needs to burn a spell prepared for it (unless it's autoprepared from a domain like with Arcana Cleric, in which case it's taking one of your autoprepared Domain spells and you never even have the choice of having a more useful prepared spell instead) while Wizards get all their rituals for free. Clerics in general need to spend their (initially extremely limited) spells prepared to get their rituals while for Wizards it's enough to have them in your book. Of course, Detect Magic specifically is kind of poor example since due to its casting time it can have immediate value as a prepared and cast spell too (though so extremely rarely on level 1), but the point itself remains largely unaltered: Clerics and Druids pay a spell prepared for their rituals (even worse, Bards pay a spell known!) while all Wizards pay is one spell in their spellbook. Which makes Wizard ritual casting the strongest of the bunch by a good bit (incidentally, the Ritual Caster feat gives you the Wizard version of the ability though without the ability to learn any spells automatically on a level-up).

[Thunderous Mojo]

Which makes Wizard ritual casting the strongest of the bunch by a good bit.

The fact that a Wizard, generally, has less of an Opportunity Cost in using Ritual Magic, does not mean that the magic is "stronger".

The use of the term "Stronger" is a bit of a category error, it is an imprecise descriptor.

Disciple of Life makes a cleric's healing spells "stronger".

A Wizard's Ritual Magic or School Savant abilities never make the Wizard's spells "stronger". The abilities, instead, reduce some of the costs associated with the spells.

I find precision in terms is a necessary condition to having an accurate view.

[Naanomi]

Sleep is a fine choice until after Level 3ish.
Sleep is a great spell for non-lethally bypassing non-combatants at almost any level

[Sigreid]

It's hard for me to answer this because this assumption...



...doesn't fit my experiences. In my group (regardless of DM) there's usually plenty of opportunity to find scrolls or to directly pay other wizards (e.g. an organised "Mages Guild" or "University of Magic") for access to spells. That access to spells is a core assumption of the game, and without it wizards have a very limited spell selection and are basically just variant sorcerers.

So for us the limit is usually "how much can you afford" rather than "how much can you find". But with that in mind, my wizards will usually spend most of their spare cash buying spells and will buy every ritual they can get their hands on, just in case.

Admittedly, they'll not usually use the free spells they get for going up levels on rituals - they're usually used for essentials, especially since they're normally the first spells of a given level that the wizard gets accesss to. But when a wizard gets chance to spend some money on extra spells rituals are usually pretty high on the list.

At my tables wizards and their parties tend to actively hunt for spells. If that means we're doing a session of wizard hunting, so be it.

[Hellpyre]

The fact that a Wizard, generally, has less of an Opportunity Cost in using Ritual Magic, does not mean that the magic is "stronger".

The use of the term "Stronger" is a bit of a category error, it is an imprecise descriptor.

Disciple of Life makes a cleric's healing spells "stronger".

A Wizard's Ritual Magic or School Savant abilities never make the Wizard's spells "stronger". The abilities, instead, reduce some of the costs associated with the spells.

I find precision in terms is a necessary condition to having an accurate view.

The magic isn't stronger, but the actual Ritual Casting feature is more powerful, because it provides you additional power compratively with other classes Ritual Casting feature. It provides that power primarily in the form of reduced opportunity cost and improved versatility, but it is power none-the-less. 'Stronger' as a colloquial term for that is in no way inappropriate.

[Necrosnoop110]

Another one checking in to say that Detect Magic, Find Familiar, and Leomunds Tiny Hut are absolute musts. The rest are more mutable depending on character and campaign specifics.

[Ir0ns0ul]

I wanna thank you all for the responses. I was concerned my current Hobgoblin Wizard was focusing a lot on rituals, but I guess my spell selection is ok. I have all table stakes rituals aligned with everyone here.


It's hard for me to answer this because this assumption...



...doesn't fit my experiences. In my group (regardless of DM) there's usually plenty of opportunity to find scrolls or to directly pay other wizards (e.g. an organised "Mages Guild" or "University of Magic") for access to spells. That access to spells is a core assumption of the game, and without it wizards have a very limited spell selection and are basically just variant sorcerers.

This is totally different at my table. My previous DM had some issues with prices and our loot was never enough. We also spent a lot of time dungeon crawling, so even when we had the money, no shop to buy. But I understand your point that at more balanced tables you should have much more opportunities to acquire scrolls.


Level 2: tough choices, but I'd not use Grease. I'd probably go Alarm with either Feather Fall or Fog Cloud.
But that is because I really like Fog Cloud. A lot.

I also really like Fog Cloud, just prioritized other non-Concentration spells to make the point, hehe.

[Thunderous Mojo]

The magic isn't stronger, but the actual Ritual Casting feature is more powerful, because it provides you additional power compratively with other classes Ritual Casting feature. It provides that power primarily in the form of reduced opportunity cost and improved versatility, but it is power none-the-less. 'Stronger' as a colloquial term for that is in no way inappropriate.

Colloquial examinations lead to inaccurate conclusions. Just ask Wittgenstein. 😀
A 3rd level Wizard might only have 10 spells in their spellbook.

Is a 3rd level Wizard with 12 spells in their spellbook, including the Silence spell...
That much MOar PoWerFul, then a cleric that had to prepare the Silence Spell?

On a subjective qualitative scale, if Ritual Magic for most classes is worth a .5 on this qualitative scale.....what would a Wizard's Ritual Magic be worth ?

.65? Is a Wizard's Ritual Magic worth double the value added by any other class' access to Ritual Magic.

Colloquial terms are not inappropriate, but do seem to be trending to hyperbolic.

Wizards have the best access to Ritual Magic that does not cost a feat or an Invocation. That statement, seemingly is agreed to, by all.

Quantifying the impact of a Wizard's RM vs other classes RM, in firm, non colloquial terms is not something I have seen.

[Eldariel]

Colloquial examinations lead to inaccurate conclusions. Just ask Wittgenstein. 😀
A 3rd level Wizard might only have 10 spells in their spellbook.

Is a 3rd level Wizard with 12 spells in their spellbook, including the Silence spell...
That much MOar PoWerFul, then a cleric that had to prepare the Silence Spell?

On a subjective qualitative scale, if Ritual Magic for most classes is worth a .5 on this qualitative scale.....what would a Wizard's Ritual Magic be worth ?

.65? Is a Wizard's Ritual Magic worth double the value added by any other class' access to Ritual Magic.

Colloquial terms are not inappropriate, but do seem to be trending to hyperbolic.

Wizards have the best access to Ritual Magic that does not cost a feat or an Invocation. That statement, seemingly is agreed to, by all.

Quantifying the impact of a Wizard's RM vs other classes RM, in firm, non colloquial terms is not something I have seen.

You need to establish a scale before you can do anything of the sort. Something needs to be set as a "standard" and then you work from there. However, as we talked about in the party optimisation thread, the strength of a given option isn't constant but relative. E.g. the Wizard Ritual Magic is at its strongest on the lowest levels where other classes have to pay a relatively larger amount of their spell budget on preparing ritual spells, while Wizard starts with a very generous amount of 1st level spells in their spellbook and thus the opportunity cost of spending book spell slots beyond what you can prepare daily on ritual spells is relatively lower. However, this is also influenced by the campaign: how easily accessible are scrolls, spellbooks and magical writing in general? Wizard ritual casting (and more-so the Ritual Caster feat) get stronger with better spell access as this frees up further "book slots" for ritual casting.

As such, the quantification is by necessity conditional. If we spitball some numbers and start with your scale of Cleric/Druid version of Ritual Casting being worth .5 points, I'd say in a high spell access, low level campaign the Wizard version could even be 1.0 or twice that since it can almost double Wizard's "spells prepared" and thus their daily versatility, which in turn manifests as "power" in the face of appropriate challenges. On a higher level campaign (say level ~7-8+) I'd say it still remains quite a bit stronger: about .80 or so.

On a lower spell access scale I'd say it still starts off really strong since the Wizard can easily afford to learn 2-3 "free" rituals on level 1 but it quickly becomes less amazing as the opportunity cost for learning higher level rituals remains so high. So probably still close to 1.0 - though 1.0 is probably a bit optimistic; +3 rituals is a 75% increase in spells known for a level 1 Wizard giving us .875 instead. Though not all spells are equal and thus the first spell "prepared" is probably generally the most valuable - this is the "value" provided by the Wizard-special quality of being able to cast them without preparation. It does fall off relatively more quickly to the tune of being maybe 50% stronger than the Cleric/Druid variant in Tier 2 so .75 (there are so many good rituals on these levels that preparing a portion is quite expensive for non-Wizards) seems relatively accurate. Tier 3 is where I'd say it really the Cleric/Druid version really catches up as level 5 spells are where the last rituals exist: past that point extra spells known can be spent on spells alone freeing up spells known for ritual from Cleric/Druid list (OTOH ritual casting is far less powerful around this tier as you have so many spell slots to work with anyways).

Relative scale for Wizard vs. Cleric/Druid spells could thus mathematically be modelled as the ratio of ritual spells in your average Wizard's spellbook of a given level compared to the number of spells a character of that level is able to prepare on average, where the only real variable is additional spell access and thus the number of extra spells and rituals of each level a Wizard can afford. However, the absolute scale would also have to model the speed at which ritual casting loses significance as the cost of an individual spell slot becomes lesser with higher levels, and of course it's probably worth knowing that spells prepared are generally worth more than rituals due to their ease of use in combat and more varied effects. That's a bit more arbitrary or harder to quantify in the absolute sense anyways.

[Hellpyre]

Quantifying the impact of a Wizard's RM vs other classes RM, in firm, non colloquial terms is not something I have seen.

It's somewhat difficult to quantify something that is qualitative in nature. At best, here's my go of it - Bards, the known-list-casters with Ritual Casting, are locked into any given ritual spells for at least a level, and have the greatest opportunity cost to learning any given spell. Above them, but below Wizards, we have full-list prepared casters - Artificer, Cleric, and Druid - who are locked into a given ritual spell for a full day, and have a lower opportunity cost at a spell prepared. Wizards (and users of the Ritual Caster feat) stand above them, having all known ritual spells available to them at all time and needing only to have money and access to a written copy of the spell to add it permanently to their repetoir. And finally, we have the Tomelock at the top of the Ritual Casting heirarchy, with access to Wizard Ritual Casting mechanics across all lists, although access to this feature comes at the cost of an invocation and a Pact Boon choice.

Tomelock is hardest to rank because it has a very large opportunity cost to gain access to the feature at all, but the feature itself has almost as low a cost as the Wizard, but much wider access. (The almost in this case coming from an inability to prepare the spell for normal casting, which can be desirable on some ritual spells.)

[Chugger]

I usually get rituals, but not nec. all of them. Find Fam. is a must, imho - many agree. Detect Magic and Comprehend Lang are really useful. Identify is almost never needed, as you can do skill checks or study something and learn all about it in 5e, unless your DM rules otherwise (then Identify could be great, unless he never lets it work to save you from cursed items and so on, then you're screwed, anyway).

Unseen Servant is actually a good spell that I too often forget to use. If you are able to prepare for a fight, i.e. you can do a ritual beforehand, having the US up is great - it can drop a sack of ball bearings - it can pour a potion in a downed ally's mouth - it could pick up a dropped item, and so on. It can also fit under a door and try to unlatch it from the other side, maybe your DM would let it scout for you, though how you'd get info from it is a challenge with all but the most lenient DMs. Alarm is awesome in many situations, and a way an abjuration wiz can ritually recharge his ward (if he doesn't do the 2 lvls of warlock cheese to get cast-at-will mage armor, or snvrfneblin magic of the deep gnome).

The second lvl rituals are silly - maybe very situationally useful.

The third level rituals are very good: leomund's tiny hut is fantastic - the only campaign you'd not need it on is one where the party already has a magic building they can take around, or a zeppelin, or they're always in a city and always have a safe inn room to sleep in. Water breathing is situational, but if you don't got it - you don't got it.

One thing I do is try to plan out which to pick as I level up and which to plan on acquiring and scribing later, if this is possible. In AL I know which spellbooks drop in some modules. I can also buy a scroll, though money is now severely restricted. The half off benefit for your school's spells actually matters now. You can also plan ahead and hook up w/ other wiz players and share spellbooks. This is something to see if you can plan out, esp if you do something like AL (adventurer's league).

[SLOTHRPG95]

You need to establish a scale before you can do anything of the sort. Something needs to be set as a "standard" and then you work from there. However, as we talked about in the party optimisation thread, the strength of a given option isn't constant but relative. E.g. the Wizard Ritual Magic is at its strongest on the lowest levels where other classes have to pay a relatively larger amount of their spell budget on preparing ritual spells, while Wizard starts with a very generous amount of 1st level spells in their spellbook and thus the opportunity cost of spending book spell slots beyond what you can prepare daily on ritual spells is relatively lower. However, this is also influenced by the campaign: how easily accessible are scrolls, spellbooks and magical writing in general? Wizard ritual casting (and more-so the Ritual Caster feat) get stronger with better spell access as this frees up further "book slots" for ritual casting.

As such, the quantification is by necessity conditional. If we spitball some numbers and start with your scale of Cleric/Druid version of Ritual Casting being worth .5 points, I'd say in a high spell access, low level campaign the Wizard version could even be 1.0 or twice that since it can almost double Wizard's "spells prepared" and thus their daily versatility, which in turn manifests as "power" in the face of appropriate challenges. On a higher level campaign (say level ~7-8+) I'd say it still remains quite a bit stronger: about .80 or so.

On a lower spell access scale I'd say it still starts off really strong since the Wizard can easily afford to learn 2-3 "free" rituals on level 1 but it quickly becomes less amazing as the opportunity cost for learning higher level rituals remains so high. So probably still close to 1.0 - though 1.0 is probably a bit optimistic; +3 rituals is a 75% increase in spells known for a level 1 Wizard giving us .875 instead. Though not all spells are equal and thus the first spell "prepared" is probably generally the most valuable - this is the "value" provided by the Wizard-special quality of being able to cast them without preparation. It does fall off relatively more quickly to the tune of being maybe 50% stronger than the Cleric/Druid variant in Tier 2 so .75 (there are so many good rituals on these levels that preparing a portion is quite expensive for non-Wizards) seems relatively accurate. Tier 3 is where I'd say it really the Cleric/Druid version really catches up as level 5 spells are where the last rituals exist: past that point extra spells known can be spent on spells alone freeing up spells known for ritual from Cleric/Druid list (OTOH ritual casting is far less powerful around this tier as you have so many spell slots to work with anyways).

Relative scale for Wizard vs. Cleric/Druid spells could thus mathematically be modelled as the ratio of ritual spells in your average Wizard's spellbook of a given level compared to the number of spells a character of that level is able to prepare on average, where the only real variable is additional spell access and thus the number of extra spells and rituals of each level a Wizard can afford. However, the absolute scale would also have to model the speed at which ritual casting loses significance as the cost of an individual spell slot becomes lesser with higher levels, and of course it's probably worth knowing that spells prepared are generally worth more than rituals due to their ease of use in combat and more varied effects. That's a bit more arbitrary or harder to quantify in the absolute sense anyways.

Generally speaking, this is true. However, especially in T2, the Cleric (and the Land Druid) get a large number of "free" prepared spells, thus decreasing the opportunity cost of preparing ritual spells. If even half of your domain spells are picks you'd like to prep anyways, then a 9th level Cleric can pick five rituals and still not have any difference in meaningful spells prepared relative to a 9th level Wizard. Yes there's a question of quality vs. quantity, but a Knowledge Cleric can have Detect Magic, Identify, Augury, Silence, Meld into Stone, Divination, and Commune all prepared, while still sporting 17 other prepared spells (8 domain, 9 non-domain). At the same level, a Wizard can only prepare 14 spells, total. And if they've no access to spells outside their free picks, they only have 22 spells in their entire repertoire.

tl;dr the opportunity cost is not necessarily as heavily slanted in the Wizard's favor as commonly portrayed