What kind of ritual spells do you think are missing or that would improve play?

[Coidzor]

Whether just a type of effect in general or something from an older edition that hasn't been officially brought back.

[Yora]

Magic Circle always seemed like an oversight.

[H_H_F_F]

Astral Caravan (+Astral Traveler, of course) is in my opinion one of the coolest ideas in 3.5. Making low level planar travel pragmatic without resorting to DM decision on portals, and in a way that really makes you feel like you're traversing the planes, unlike just casting plane shift.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Turn most non combat spells into rituals only and give them some other cost. Then let everyone cast them (or at least have the chance to learn to cast them without spending feats or levels).

[Coidzor]

Magic Circle always seemed like an oversight.

I was wondering where it was a few times, yeah. OTOH, with conjuring outsiders not really being a thing except for some very limited, pretty short duration effects, I'm not really sure what niche it could fill.

Was there something in particular you were thinking, here?


Astral Caravan (+Astral Traveler, of course) is in my opinion one of the coolest ideas in 3.5. Making low level planar travel pragmatic without resorting to DM decision on portals, and in a way that really makes you feel like you're traversing the planes, unlike just casting plane shift.

I do remember those seeming like a lot of fun whenever I was looking at psionics.

That definitely could be interesting, though I'm less sure of that as a Ritual Spell or some other kind of effect instead.


Turn most non combat spells into rituals only and give them some other cost. Then let everyone cast them (or at least have the chance to learn to cast them without spending feats or levels).

What sort of cost were you envisioning? 4e style where it's largely just a function of money?

The idea of some spells that you can only cast as rituals could be neat, although that's also kind of already the case for any spell with a half-hour or longer casting time (aside from the being able to do it without expending a spell slot).

There definitely are some spells where being able to cast them repeatedly feels like there could be some interesting world-building opportunities if you're not scared of players running wild and doing something silly.

[Psyren]

Find Steed maybe? Guards and Wards, if you added a "ward one area at a time" rule?
Most of the things I think should be rituals already are.


I was wondering where it was a few times, yeah. OTOH, with conjuring outsiders not really being a thing except for some very limited, pretty short duration effects, I'm not really sure what niche it could fill.

The idea is that you first conjure/summon something (shorter duration), preferably into a Magic Circle, and then Planar Bind it so it sticks around (override with longer duration.)


Magic Circle always seemed like an oversight.

If you made that a ritual though, upcasting it would be a no-brainer as there'd be no tradeoff for doing so.

[Composer99]

If you made that a ritual though, upcasting it would be a no-brainer as there'd be no tradeoff for doing so.

As a point of clarification, you can't upcast a spell cast as a ritual since you're not casting it with a spell slot.

[stoutstien]

Turn most non combat spells into rituals only and give them some other cost. Then let everyone cast them (or at least have the chance to learn to cast them without spending feats or levels).

I've played with this approach and even went as far as split them into 3 categories (primal,arcane,divine) that function a lot like the book of secrets invocation where the level of the ritual was tied to your class, or individual class levels for multi-classing. This type of magic or mystic choice would act like the safer but slow approach to the high risk of skills.

Then the second half of this was to take all the other spells and introduce some type of tree. So you can take burning hands and then shatter and learn/create fireball or take burning hands and magic missile and make scorcher Ray. Different classes would have different combos so it's been a massive project that eventually I'll finish.

[Daracaex]

Turn most non combat spells into rituals only and give them some other cost. Then let everyone cast them (or at least have the chance to learn to cast them without spending feats or levels).

I always laugh a little when someone suggests a change to 5e to make it more like 4e. Proof the edition deserved a little better criticism than it got.

[stoutstien]

I always laugh a little when someone suggests a change to 5e to make it more like 4e. Proof the edition deserved a little better criticism than it got.

I gets more hate than it deserves while simultaneously getting too much praise. Had a strong clear design goal and they executed it well. If anything a lot of the MMO/4e comparison have it backwards. 3.x super charged the idea of hyper specialized roles and MMOs copied that where 4e strive to break it but they copied the one thing they shouldn't have. 4e turn everyone into wizards basically because they had super defined limited resource actions (spells). To many cooldown and X times per *insert random parameter*.

On the other side 4e actual had strong story element support and great world building tools. It might have had a clunky gamey identity but it had one at least. Still has my favorite encounter design system as well. As a DM a loved it but hated as a player.

[PhoenixPhyre]

What sort of cost were you envisioning? 4e style where it's largely just a function of money?

The idea of some spells that you can only cast as rituals could be neat, although that's also kind of already the case for any spell with a half-hour or longer casting time (aside from the being able to do it without expending a spell slot).

There definitely are some spells where being able to cast them repeatedly feels like there could be some interesting world-building opportunities if you're not scared of players running wild and doing something silly.

Tiers of costs:
1. Time. Incantations take longer, generally. This is "enough" for some effects that naturally resist being spammed.
2. Money (expensive components). Not my favorite cost, but works for other effects.
3. Implicit cooldowns. "Once you perform this incantation, performing it again in that same <time period> causes <penalty such as exhaustion, damage, loss of hit dice, insanity, rocks falling, whatever>". Here, you can cast it again, but each time you do you incur a penalty.
4. Explicit cooldowns. "Once you perform this incantation, you can't do it again until the next day because <reasons>." Maybe the gods you're importuning won't listen to you if you keep bugging them. Or something. Or else (for those that have durations) "This incantation cannot be performed again until the previous effect expires."
5. Ritual environment. "This incantation requires 4 performers and a prepared ritual site with <characteristics>." Or "This incantation can only be performed in a temple that has been consecrated to <entity or descriptor of type of entity> and can only be performed by someone with the blessing of that entity." Or "this incantation can only be performed when <the moons are aligned/it's a high holy day/etc>". Or "performing this incantation requires the [willing|unwilling] sacrifice of <person meeting description, such as a small child, a warrior with more than X HD, etc>".

Generally, the more powerful the effect or the worse effect for it to be spammed or the more "setting-disrupting" effect, the higher the costs should be on the tier list. So True Resurrection? Might be a level 5 cost (plus some other ones). A regular divination? Might be a level 1 (for a very short-range divination), 2 (for a medium-range or medium-power divination) or a level 3 or 4 (for a more substantial one like Commune). Etc.

Edit: and 4e had lots of good ideas. Not a fan of most of the execution of those ideas, but there's a lot worth stealing and implementing better. One big one being the concept of the power sources (not the implementation, necessarily, but the idea of "every class gets its power from <source> and all the classes are intrinsically beyond-mundane by virtue of that source").

[Lokishade]

Turn most non combat spells into rituals only and give them some other cost. Then let everyone cast them (or at least have the chance to learn to cast them without spending feats or levels).

I had a simiar ideas when thinking of a more complex and involving system of rituals.

-A conductor: someone who knows the ritual in and out and guides the non-proficient participants when there are.

-Materials: Consumed or not, depending on quality. Required to perform or optional for added effect.

-Conditions: Weather, phases of the moon, seasons, anniversary of an event, alingment of stars. The more powerful the effect, the more rare and precise the conditions.

-Sacrifices: More powerful and/or permanent effects should require sacrifices. Like blood (conducting the ritual causes HP loss and leaves you vulnerable) stat loss (temporary or permanent), contracting a curse (as long as you bear the curse, the effects of the ritual last) or even someone's life. It doesn't have to be an evil ritual. A hero can willingly give his life to create a sentient sword, for example.

[HPisBS]

... or even someone's life. It doesn't have to be an evil ritual. A hero can willingly give his life to create a sentient sword, for example.

That begs the question of how you imagine that interacting with the likes of Clone, Reincarnate, or even just Revivify.

- Include a clause saying the sacrificed soul is either kept in the item / effect, or is permanently destroyed?

[PhoenixPhyre]

That begs the question of how you imagine that interacting with the likes of Clone, Reincarnate, or even just Revivify.

- Include a clause saying the sacrificed soul is either kept in the item / effect, or is permanently destroyed?

One element of my setting is "sacrifice". And a constant of all of them is that for the biggest effects, you're not just sacrificing your life (although that has power). You're sacrificing your existence.

So a weak(er) effect might require a life; here you can be brought back to life by some other effect. Effectively you're trading some time spent dead (with the risks that entails) to burn up the energy of your body to fuel the effect. And then someone else has to spend the energy to bring you back; revivify won't work, neither will anything that requires a body. The body's gone, consumed to power the magic.

A stronger effect might require your future existence; at this point your soul is gone. Either eaten by a demon or unravelled to pay the cost. But your past remains fixed. Generally this either requires working with a demon (bad news, but can do unwilling sacrifices) or using one of a set of artifacts; those latter require fully-willing participants (without even any bit of coercion). Willing sacrifices are more powerful.

The very strongest effect (using a particular artifact to write a new Priority Directive into the Great Mechanism that runs reality) requires you to willingly sacrifice your entire existence, past, present, and future. You cease to ever have existed. Anything you did was really done by someone else. All memory of you is either erased or blurred out--you can remember that someone existed, but any attempt at reconstructing the individual in your memory fails.

[tsotate]

One element of my setting is "sacrifice". And a constant of all of them is that for the biggest effects, you're not just sacrificing your life (although that has power). You're sacrificing your existence.

The very strongest effect (using a particular artifact to write a new Priority Directive into the Great Mechanism that runs reality) requires you to willingly sacrifice your entire existence, past, present, and future. You cease to ever have existed. Anything you did was really done by someone else. All memory of you is either erased or blurred out--you can remember that someone existed, but any attempt at reconstructing the individual in your memory fails.
Does that have a weaker effect if the sacrifice is made by someone who'd prefer to have never existed anyway? I'm not sure how I feel about a universe whose Priority Directives are all set by the seriously clinically depressed. (I mean, kind of awesome, because at least I'd get to set one rule of the universe, but still.)

[PhoenixPhyre]

Does that have a weaker effect if the sacrifice is made by someone who'd prefer to have never existed anyway? I'm not sure how I feel about a universe whose Priority Directives are all set by the seriously clinically depressed. (I mean, kind of awesome, because at least I'd get to set one rule of the universe, but still.)

For a sacrifice to have power, that sacrifice must be of something held to have value. So someone who doesn't value their own existence won't be capable of fueling a major sacrifice (ie anything but their own flesh and blood). Cheer up, you could serve as a sacrifice to a demon prince, however. They don't really care who they eat (generally, some are more picky). :smalltongue:

Oh, and that artifact only becomes available once per age. And is quite picky about winnowing down who gets to use it.

It's part of why paladins have power--their oaths entail sacrifices. And (heretically) I've considered that the most powerful paladins are those for whom the Oath doesn't come easy--the depressed, cynical one who swears an Oath of the Ancients, the guy with the temper who swears the Oath of Peace, the peace-lover who swears an Oath of Vengeance, etc.

[Lokishade]

As prerequisite for rituals, I also thought about the race of the participants. Like, there are elven rituals, dwarven rituals, etc.

I thought of it as a means of making the Elves more magical without making them all superpowered gestalts.

Same for dwarves, I wanted a way for them to craft legendary weapons while also being stereotypically suspicious of Wizards.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Same for dwarves, I wanted a way for them to craft legendary weapons while also being stereotypically suspicious of Wizards.

Note: there's no need to be a wizard or even cast spells to craft magic items. Just being a good smith is enough (if you have the other pieces). This is not 3e.