Is 10 minutes too long for a Ritual cast?

[Schwann145]

I wonder if 10 minutes, every time you want to save a spell slot, is just too unwieldy in the narrative, and I'm curious about others' opinions here.

If you need to, say, Detect Magic and Comprehend Languages, it's probably not worth using the spell slots unless you're in the middle of drama and need results now.
But is it reasonable to ask the rest of the party to twiddle their thumbs for twenty minutes? That seems like a lot, honestly.

Wouldn't it be more reasonable to just "bump the time" by a step for each spell? Meaning a Standard Action spell cast as a ritual would take one minute instead, and a one minute spell would take ten minutes.
Even if ritually casting only takes a single minute, that's still far too long to see any use in combat, so you still have to have the "do I cast fast now or slow and wait" but without the awkward pausing for the rest of the party.

[sithlordnergal]

I think its just right for the narrative. Its long enough that you can't just spam ritual spells unless you have a lot of time on your hands, but short enough that you could cast one, or even risk two, Ritual Spells while racing against the clock. I get that it could be annoying if you need Detect Magic and Comprehend Languages at the same time, but that's the system working. Its forcing you to choose between one spell or the other, so spending 20 minutes to do both.

Also, the party need not twiddle their thumbs for 20 minutes. You are allowed to move around while Ritual Casting, the party can continue to explore as you cast your spell. Then return to where they needed Detect Magic and Comprehend Languages afterwards.

[Mastikator]

I think it's intended to be unwieldy, specifically when you use it in a dungeon were it might be dangerous to linger. As for the "is asking the other party to twiddle their thumbs for 10-20 minutes" aspect really depends on why you're ritual casting. Ritual casting identify on a teammate's magic item is fine since you're doing something useful for the team. Ritual casting comprehend languages to read some text in a language nobody in the party knows because it pertains to the quest is fine too, it helps the party. Doing it just for yourself is asking too much.

[Unoriginal]

Wouldn't it be more reasonable to just "bump the time" by a step for each spell?

It certainly wouldn't.

Ritual-casting only taking 10 mins is already very generous, narratively and practically speaking, given the benefits.

Mechanically speaking, 5e spells need to have a cost, and spells for free need to have a *significant* cost to not make it the go-to option.

Keep in mind that most ritual spells are not during-combat spells already, so "1 minute is too long to use in combat" isn't much of a cost at all. 10 minutes to cast make the out-of-combat spell have a cost in out-of-combat ressources.

[MoiMagnus]

But is it reasonable to ask the rest of the party to twiddle their thumbs for twenty minutes? That seems like a lot, honestly.

It's a good moment to rest (eat, drink, answer nature's call, talk, maintain your equipment, etc). In fact, the others could take a short rest, peoples don't short rest often enough anyway.

Admittedly, if your already reduced the short rest to 5min, it make sense to reduce the time for ritual casting too.

[stoutstien]

I wonder if 10 minutes, every time you want to save a spell slot, is just too unwieldy in the narrative, and I'm curious about others' opinions here.

If you need to, say, Detect Magic and Comprehend Languages, it's probably not worth using the spell slots unless you're in the middle of drama and need results now.
But is it reasonable to ask the rest of the party to twiddle their thumbs for twenty minutes? That seems like a lot, honestly.

Wouldn't it be more reasonable to just "bump the time" by a step for each spell? Meaning a Standard Action spell cast as a ritual would take one minute instead, and a one minute spell would take ten minutes.
Even if ritually casting only takes a single minute, that's still far too long to see any use in combat, so you still have to have the "do I cast fast now or slow and wait" but without the awkward pausing for the rest of the party.

If 10 minutes is an awkward time to wait while someone cast a ritual that is an issue with the individual scene design not the, frankly extremely forgiving, ritual casting rules.

If there is a simple gate that a ritual can fix and there is nothing else going on then that's not even worth table time to begin with. You'd cast the spell and check off the 10 minutes, assuming you track time to begin with.

[Riftwolf]

I actually prefer rituals for Divinations. The party's big enough that sometimes I can say "I'm going to find somewhere quiet to cast a Divination ritual" then sit out the game for ten minutes, go get a drink and figure out what question I'm going to ask (My DM usually doesn't twist words but I prefer not to leave it open). It leaves my 4th level spell slots for more immediate uses.
Ten minutes is a good time for downtime casting as it doesn't eat into your rest time if you need to do multiple rituals, but it's long enough to discourage overuse (1 minute casting on, say, Animal messenger would definitely lead to me spamming Singing Telegram Rats when bored.)

[Lunali]

It feels to me like the OP is asking about ritual casting in social situations rather than dungeoneering.

As such I feel like it's appropriate for it to be awkward. It turns it into a challenge where there's a potential cost for casting it as a ritual instead of burning a spell slot. You have to convince the people you're talking to that it's worthwhile to wait around for 10 minutes (or 20) while someone casts a spell.

[Aimeryan]

One minute is too long for combat - anything longer than that might as well be 'just' one minute for all intents and purposes.
So, the question becomes, what does having a longer length than one minute achieve?
The obvious case is a timed scenario - every second might matter. There is a real mechanical impact to changing the time in this scenario.

The less obvious case is the DM making the players act out that longer period. The ironic thing is, that if you have each other player describe and act out what they are doing during that period it can take longer than the period itself in real life. Potentially, if frequently encountered, the players might get bored and just decide to carry on one way or another.

Example: There was a game I was in where we were in an investigative scenario - some buildings at the edge of a village had been burned down, with 'snakes of fire' having been seen from the village centre. We got there within minutes of the event, so I decided to ritual cast Detect Magic to see if there was something magical going on. The DM decided to have the players describe what they would be doing in detail during those ten minutes, with about two minutes of activity each before coming back round. After that first round one of the players decided to start investigating. Before my ritual was cast they had found a basement area with a summoning circle, and an elemental fire snake still there - I had to stop my ritual casting to come help in the fight (after the shouting and sounds of combat started!).

So, even without a mechanical impact, the other players might end up being the wrench in the works. Of course, if the DM allows for 'I take a nap' and then says 'You all nap for ten minutes, the ritual finishes' then maybe this doesn't come up. However, in this case the ritual could take an hour, or two - it wouldn't really matter unless in a timed scenario. Which does make it interesting that you might essentially be balancing/unbalancing ritual casting by how social and patient the players are in real life and how much the DM lets them just 'skip' the period narratively.

Coming back to the timed scenarios, how often do people encounter the need/desire for ritual casting during these? If it is occuring during transportation it doesn't really matter (unless the journey is really short). If not during transportation, are the rest of the players go to wait around for even a minute in a timed scenario? If not, maybe a minute would be better all round for ritual casting increase - allowing for reasonable narrative continuity without having any real mechanical impact.

[Slipjig]

I don't think the ten minutes is a problem, you are trading time to avoid spending a spell slot. If you are in a hurry, sometimes it makes sense to cast the spell. And you definitely shouldn't be ritual casting in combat (barring a DM-designed scenario where the party has to keep the ritualistic safe for X rounds).

I'm also fairly certain that one-minute ritual castings would lead to every ritual known quickly becoming a de facto always-on effect, which would be absurdly unbalanced. You're basically asking to turn a leveled spell into a out-of-combat cantrip.

And if the other players solve the problem before your ritual is complete, well, good for them! The game already has a lot of "skip the puzzle" and "make an entire skill irrelevant" spells. We don't need to make those even more powerful by making them basically instant AND not cost a spell slot.

[Kane0]

Or play a warlock or artificer.

[Sorinth]

Reducing the ritual time to 1 minute makes some sense for the 1st level rituals like detect magic, but less so for the higher level spells. So maybe something like 1st & 2nd level rituals 1 minute, 3rd & 4th level rituals 10 minutes, 5th+ 1 hour.

[Kane0]

Or you could add this into the ritual caster feat. In addition to its existing benefits, if you already have ritual casting from a class feature you get the secondary benefit of ritual casting faster, say one minute instead of ten. So that way even ritual casters have a good reason to take the feat.

[Saelethil]

Or you could add this into the ritual caster feat. In addition to its existing benefits, if you already have ritual casting from a class feature you get the secondary benefit of ritual casting faster, say one minute instead of ten. So that way even ritual casters have a good reason to take the feat.

This would be solid. I’d probably limit it to X times per day

[DarknessEternal]

Yes. The intent is clearly to not cost spell slots, not to waste a bunch of time.

[kazaryu]

I wonder if 10 minutes, every time you want to save a spell slot, is just too unwieldy in the narrative, and I'm curious about others' opinions here.

If you need to, say, Detect Magic and Comprehend Languages, it's probably not worth using the spell slots unless you're in the middle of drama and need results now.
But is it reasonable to ask the rest of the party to twiddle their thumbs for twenty minutes? That seems like a lot, honestly.

Wouldn't it be more reasonable to just "bump the time" by a step for each spell? Meaning a Standard Action spell cast as a ritual would take one minute instead, and a one minute spell would take ten minutes.
Even if ritually casting only takes a single minute, that's still far too long to see any use in combat, so you still have to have the "do I cast fast now or slow and wait" but without the awkward pausing for the rest of the party.

i mean....are you seriously making people wait 20 minutes of real time? because...thats the only way i'd see that being any kind of a problem.

like, in character, 10 minutes is really not that long to wait. some people take 10 minutes just...using the bathroom or showering. most investigation checks realistically should take several minutes, even moreso if there's no a time pressure and you allow the player to just "take 20" so to speak. its fairly normal (even expected sometimes) to show up 15+minutes early for something. so while 10 minutes of doing nothing can be tense...its just...objectively not that long. especially if there's things the other characters can be doing. like maintaining their equipment. having a quick snack. having a conversation. closing their eyes for a quick power nap. even just sitting there, watching the ritual occur it isn't crazy for it to take 10 minutes.

If you *are* making the actual players wait the full 10 minutes, rather than just hand waving it...why? do you make them wait a full 8 hours if they long rest mid session (or, realistically longer so they have time to like...eat, relax, maintain their equipment, possibly go hunting/foraging for food) ? if a player casts a 1 minute spell do you just set a timer? if thats the case then...yeah, 10 minutes is absolutely bonkers...but thats hardly the games fault, its not designed expecting the players to use the in game times as RL times.

[Schwann145]

i mean....are you seriously making people wait 20 minutes of real time?

Haha, no! That would be ridiculous indeed! :smallbiggrin:

Here's why the question is on my mind:
In session 2 of a new game, starting from 1st level, the party finds itself needing to go into a goblin den. None of the party speaks goblin, and it slipped my mind entirely that my character could cast Comprehend Languages as a ritual before we entered. So we go in and handle what needed handling and it wasn't any issue.

But it wasn't long after we entered that I remembered it was an option, and having at least one person who could understand goblin may have come in pretty clutch - who's to say? But would it have been reasonable to ask the party to hang around for 10 minutes, waiting outside of this cave (hostile territory, mind) for me to save the spell slot and let someone understand goblin? Casting it normally, at level 1, would have just been too expensive since you only have a few slots available and they have to cover everything.
I also had the option of casting Speak With Animals, but if 10 minutes sitting outside of a hostile cave is asking too much, then certainly 20 minutes would be definitely asking too much, and neither spell is going to be important enough to burn the slot on just a "maybe this'll be useful" hunch.

[Sigreid]

Never had an issue with it. Usually in our group while the ritual caster is ritualing, the rest of the party is looting and searching.

[rel]

Ritual casting, like meticulously listed prices and weights for things like rations and torches, healing rates and durations for short and long rests, and even spell slots and daily powers are all mechanics designed to hook into a largely vestigial system of time based resource management.

They all function (to some extent anyway) only if time is a genuinely costly resource to spend.
If there's no real penalty for spending time, then it doesn't matter if the interval is 10 seconds, 10 minutes or 10 days (although the spell refresh mechanics would obviously need to be tweaked before the last one made sense in the context of a ritual casting). The party spend the time and move on.

So, is 10 minutes a good length of time for a ritual casting? Only if 10 minutes is a costly amount of time to spend in your game.

[Leon]

Nope, its on the lower end of time it should be taking.

If its in an untimed narrative (and there should be occasions where Narrative time is on a limit) then you/the party are not being impeded in anyway except by the anal-retentive interpretation that the DM might have to say something and thus slow other player interactions down a smidge (actions that are going to slow down discourse anyway)

[kazaryu]

Haha, no! That would be ridiculous indeed! :smallbiggrin: i figured that would have to be true but...ya know, can't make assumptions on the internet. there are some eccentric people out there.



Here's why the question is on my mind:
In session 2 of a new game, starting from 1st level, the party finds itself needing to go into a goblin den. None of the party speaks goblin, and it slipped my mind entirely that my character could cast Comprehend Languages as a ritual before we entered. So we go in and handle what needed handling and it wasn't any issue.

But it wasn't long after we entered that I remembered it was an option, and having at least one person who could understand goblin may have come in pretty clutch - who's to say? But would it have been reasonable to ask the party to hang around for 10 minutes, waiting outside of this cave (hostile territory, mind) for me to save the spell slot and let someone understand goblin? Casting it normally, at level 1, would have just been too expensive since you only have a few slots available and they have to cover everything.
I also had the option of casting Speak With Animals, but if 10 minutes sitting outside of a hostile cave is asking too much, then certainly 20 minutes would be definitely asking too much, and neither spell is going to be important enough to burn the slot on just a "maybe this'll be useful" hunch.

honestly...it depends. if there was a time constraint to the mission, then...well i mean the 10 minute timer is doing its job. thats specifically why its there. is the spell slot worth more than the 10 minutes it'd take to cast it.

if there is no time constraint to clearing the goblin den then...well, see my last message. 10 minutes is really not that long. I look at it this way.

the point of the timer isn't to prevent you from ritual casting in combat, not really. as you point out, 1 minute would do that. but more importantly, basically none of the ritual spells would be useful in combat anyway. (there's some niche use for detect magic, but thats really the only one i can think of). The point of the timer is to create a cost to saving the spell slot. it creates a tension between the spell slot and time. SO when thinking of a reasonable time, its the situations where that time will be applicable that's important.

1hr is too long. if you have a timer thats long enough that you can afford to spend that hour...then you really don't have a timer. outside of some incredibly niche adventure styles (although now that im thinking about it...that could be an interesting setup. "you have 2 days to get X, Y, Z done. there are many methods you can pursue to make the task easier/safer/faster, but they all cost time (in addition to potentially other resources). so you can either go now, or spend some time preparing" hmmm....needs more thought, but i could see that being kind of interesting....anyway, as i was saying, 1 hour is too long. but 1 minute is really short. its hard to have a reasonable time limit where 1 minute is going to be significant. like you talk about not being able to cast it in combat, but a 10 round combat...while rare, is really not *that* long. i've had plenty of combats hit 5 or6 rounds without even really trying.


idk....i think 10 minutes is fine. if there's no time constraints then its not that long to ask a person to wait. and if there are time constraints...well thats the point of the 10 minute timer anyway so...good.

[OptimizedAC]

If a DM really wanted to quicken ritual-casting for whatever reason, here's a consideration: Quickened ritual casting at the cost of a material components.

So you have three options for casting time:

Listed actions, for the cost of a spell slot.
For the longer duration at the cost of 10 extra minutes.
Or, for 1 extra minute and some gold.


A significant amount of gold, but significantly less than a scroll. Say 10, 40, 90, 160 etc. Or 10, 20, 30, 40, etc. Ritual spells are generally weaker than non-ritual spells, and you still need to spend resources on knowing the spell, so this is basically a discounted niche spell-scroll. The exact pricing point depends on how you want to nudge things. But if you want to cut down the cost in time, another cost should come into play. Gold exists as a stand-in for other costs, so might as well use it here. For spells like Unseen Servant, you want that cost each time. For some spells you don't mind seeing cast a lot, a non-consumed component might be enough (maybe roll an arcana-check to see if it's consumed or not).

As an in-game justifications, the long-form ritual casting is casting the spell under the least supportive circumstances. You're out in the field performing surgery with a sharp rock. The casting time can be cut down under more supportive circumstances - like bringing a scalpel. The material component is here the scalpel, letting you cast the spell closer to how it should be cast. But you need to pay for a steady supply of scalpels.

Should you use these rules?

No, I don't recommend them. But they're probably fine, and worth thinking about if you want to pimp up the ritual-casting system.

As this scenario demonstrates:


In session 2 of a new game, starting from 1st level, the party finds itself needing to go into a goblin den. None of the party speaks goblin, and it slipped my mind entirely that my character could cast Comprehend Languages as a ritual before we entered. So we go in and handle what needed handling and it wasn't any issue.

But it wasn't long after we entered that I remembered it was an option, and having at least one person who could understand goblin may have come in pretty clutch - who's to say? But would it have been reasonable to ask the party to hang around for 10 minutes, waiting outside of this cave (hostile territory, mind) for me to save the spell slot and let someone understand goblin? Casting it normally, at level 1, would have just been too expensive since you only have a few slots available and they have to cover everything.
I also had the option of casting Speak With Animals, but if 10 minutes sitting outside of a hostile cave is asking too much, then certainly 20 minutes would be definitely asking too much, and neither spell is going to be important enough to burn the slot on just a "maybe this'll be useful" hunch.

There are perfectly good reasons for the general current design. A gameplay decision where you have to balance reward against risk/cost, and effective use tips that balance in your favour. Getting things for free of course feels nice until you start expecting it, but isn't necessarily great game design.

For instance, maybe it wasn't worth casting just outside the cave - but maybe ten minutes walk away would afford a safe enough spot to cast it, at the cost of 1/6 of the effective duration? Maybe if you had taken the risk, you would have discovered an opportunity that the language-barrier prevented as things unfolded? If ritual-casting was effectively free, those decisions disappear, to the detriment of players that don't just want free stuff. You also get dozens of phantom horses/unseen servants during a short rest, and other stuff that needs clean-up. These rules are okay as they are - make the most of them.

[Sigreid]

IMO, if you eliminate the casting time for performing a ritual, you've basically just made them invocations.

[Unoriginal]

Haha, no! That would be ridiculous indeed! :smallbiggrin:

Here's why the question is on my mind:
In session 2 of a new game, starting from 1st level, the party finds itself needing to go into a goblin den. None of the party speaks goblin, and it slipped my mind entirely that my character could cast Comprehend Languages as a ritual before we entered. So we go in and handle what needed handling and it wasn't any issue.

But it wasn't long after we entered that I remembered it was an option, and having at least one person who could understand goblin may have come in pretty clutch - who's to say? But would it have been reasonable to ask the party to hang around for 10 minutes, waiting outside of this cave (hostile territory, mind) for me to save the spell slot and let someone understand goblin? Casting it normally, at level 1, would have just been too expensive since you only have a few slots available and they have to cover everything.
I also had the option of casting Speak With Animals, but if 10 minutes sitting outside of a hostile cave is asking too much, then certainly 20 minutes would be definitely asking too much, and neither spell is going to be important enough to burn the slot on just a "maybe this'll be useful" hunch.

It's working as intended, then.

You had two options to do the thing, each of them with balanced costs. If one option's cost was so cheap it was obvious which to take, it would make using that option obvious/the pragmatic best.

[Slipjig]

Haha, no! That would be ridiculous indeed! :smallbiggrin:

Here's why the question is on my mind:
In session 2 of a new game, starting from 1st level, the party finds itself needing to go into a goblin den. None of the party speaks goblin, and it slipped my mind entirely that my character could cast Comprehend Languages as a ritual before we entered. So we go in and handle what needed handling and it wasn't any issue.

But it wasn't long after we entered that I remembered it was an option, and having at least one person who could understand goblin may have come in pretty clutch - who's to say? But would it have been reasonable to ask the party to hang around for 10 minutes, waiting outside of this cave (hostile territory, mind) for me to save the spell slot and let someone understand goblin? Casting it normally, at level 1, would have just been too expensive since you only have a few slots available and they have to cover everything.
I also had the option of casting Speak With Animals, but if 10 minutes sitting outside of a hostile cave is asking too much, then certainly 20 minutes would be definitely asking too much, and neither spell is going to be important enough to burn the slot on just a "maybe this'll be useful" hunch.

See that's exactly what I'm talking about. This situation forced you to make a decision.
(Or, with a little foresight, you could have had it running before you entered hostile territory.) Allowing you to cast it basically instantly turns it into an "Always On" effect, and makes knowing languages (or recruiting NPCs who can translate) pointless. It costs Warlocks a whole invocation to have Detect Magic always-on, making it a one-minute ritual would effectively do the same thing for all ritual casters at zero cost. And when you point out, "And Speak with Animals also would have been nice, but it's not worth two spells slots", that's exactly the point. Maybe you find something inside where it suddenly IS worth either a spell slot or the risk of sitting still chanting for ten minutes. But having all your rituals running all the time (or flipped on in the time it takes to sing Happy Birthday) would make ritual casting insanely overpowered.

Also, somebody said above that the casting time for rituals was pointless unless you were running a "tight-race-against-yhe-clock" scenario. The OTHER thing the casting time requirement provides is an effective cap on how many rituals you can have running at once. Burning 20 minutes off Detect Magic's duration so you can stack Speak with Animals and Comprehend Languages means that you are spending 30 minutes out of every hour ritual casting. If it suddenly only takes 3 minutes out of every hour, you'd be a fool to NOT have all three of those running at all times.

[Darth Credence]

...if a player casts a 1 minute spell do you just set a timer?

For Contact Other Plane and the like, we do! The spell lasts for one minute, and initially, we had a problem where they would aska question, then the table would debate on what the follow up would be. So now, they plan out the questions, cast the spell, and I start a timer. If I have to think about the answer, I pause it, but otherwise, they have a minute to ask their five questions. There have been times when one answer changed what they wanted, and scrambling to change meant they did not get all five questions in.

Sorry for the tangent.

[Witty Username]

How long does it take to do things?

IME, not in game but reality, 10 minutes doesn't cover that much. Like say a scan of a room, how long does it take to get a good sense of where everything is? Maybe even search the room for valubles?

How much dead time do you take between actions considering options? Even simple choices I have found can mean minutes of brain lock for the better of us.

All I am saying, 10 minutes to prep a thing doesn't represent as much of a loss of pace as people think.

[Aimeryan]

How long does it take to do things?

IME, not in game but reality, 10 minutes doesn't cover that much. Like say a scan of a room, how long does it take to get a good sense of where everything is? Maybe even search the room for valubles?

How much dead time do you take between actions considering options? Even simple choices I have found can mean minutes of brain lock for the better of us.

All I am saying, 10 minutes to prep a thing doesn't represent as much of a loss of pace as people think.

This is the thing; even in timed scenarios, how often does 10 minutes make a difference? Sure, if you've got an hour to do something it may do. However, what if you have a day? A couple of days? Six hours? It takes a very specific situation for the 10 minutes to make a difference over the 1 minute.

The goblin cave scenario isn't a real cost - you take 10 minutes or you take 1 minute, does the DM care? If they want a random encounter for your inpudence in possibly speaking to the goblin you're going to get one either way.

The only real cost this ever invokes is on a group that wants narrative continuity, such that the by the time it has gone through each player's character a good chunk of real time has passed. Ironically, the only player who gets to evade this is the one doing the ritual... because they are busy doing the ritual.

[tokek]

The old-school exploration turn was 10 minutes so while the rogue could be checking for secret doors the wizard could be ritual casting detect magic.

If you keep to those guidelines I find the ritual cast time fits perfectly

[Unoriginal]

This is the thing; even in timed scenarios, how often does 10 minutes make a difference? Sure, if you've got an hour to do something it may do. However, what if you have a day? A couple of days? Six hours? It takes a very specific situation for the 10 minutes to make a difference over the 1 minute.

The goblin cave scenario isn't a real cost - you take 10 minutes or you take 1 minute, does the DM care? If they want a random encounter for your inpudence in possibly speaking to the goblin you're going to get one either way.

The only real cost this ever invokes is on a group that wants narrative continuity, such that the by the time it has gone through each player's character a good chunk of real time has passed. Ironically, the only player who gets to evade this is the one doing the ritual... because they are busy doing the ritual.

Lots of things can happen in 10 mins.

Let's say the PCs killed a goblin patrol. It's unlikely anyone think something is wrong if the patrol is 1 min late, but if they're 10 mins late the oned in charge of patrols will likely do something, like send another squad to check and/or warn the rest that troubles may be on the way.

It's not "punishing for inpudence", it's just that the world exists beyond the PCs and waiting 10 mins can have consequences.

Granted there are plenty of situations were there are no consequence for doing that, but it's a bet to take each time.

[Aimeryan]

Lots of things can happen in 10 mins.

Let's say the PCs killed a goblin patrol. It's unlikely anyone think something is wrong if the patrol is 1 min late, but if they're 10 mins late the oned in charge of patrols will likely do something, like send another squad to check and/or warn the rest that troubles may be on the way.

It's not "punishing for inpudence", it's just that the world exists beyond the PCs and waiting 10 mins can have consequences.

Granted there are plenty of situations were there are no consequence for doing that, but it's a bet to take each time.

The patrol might not be due back for 30mins, going on the circuitous route they have been assigned - the party can go directly to the base. It has to be a pretty specific situation for the ten minutes to matter but not the one minute.

I guess its not nothing, but it does make you wonder if the verisimilitude gained is worth the real time cost. There is a reason 5e is known for being quick to play - this goes against this for a very minor gain.

[stoutstien]

The patrol might not be due back for 30mins, going on the circuitous route they have been assigned - the party can go directly to the base. It has to be a pretty specific situation for the ten minutes to matter but not the one minute.

I guess its not nothing, but it does make you wonder if the verisimilitude gained is worth the real time cost. There is a reason 5e is known for being quick to play - this goes against this for a very minor gain.

There is no perceivable difference between 1 minute and 10 minute casting times in regards to how long it takes in real life and/or play speed.

However there is quite a difference in game between 1 and 10 minutes in regards to casting a ritual.

[Aimeryan]

There is no perceivable difference between 1 minute and 10 minute casting times in regards to how long it takes in real life and/or play speed.

However there is quite a difference in game between 1 and 10 minutes in regards to casting a ritual.

Depends on whether your DM says there is not. I do wonder how many DMs just go '10 minutes pass, ritual done' vs. 'What are the rest of you doing for 10 minutes?'. The narrative length of explaining what you do for 10 minutes can actually be longer than an hour or eight, because long-term activities don't really match up with 10 minutes (like sleeping, scribing scrolls, etc.).

As I've mentioned before, the difference in real time for my group between a 1 minute ritual and a 10 minute ritual is immense. I doubt my group is that exceptional in this respect.

[rel]

Lots of things can happen in 10 mins.

Let's say the PCs killed a goblin patrol. It's unlikely anyone think something is wrong if the patrol is 1 min late, but if they're 10 mins late the oned in charge of patrols will likely do something, like send another squad to check and/or warn the rest that troubles may be on the way.

It's not "punishing for inpudence", it's just that the world exists beyond the PCs and waiting 10 mins can have consequences.

Granted there are plenty of situations were there are no consequence for doing that, but it's a bet to take each time.

Those scenarios can be reasonably approximated with a roll on a wandering monster table, with entries for both immediate patrols encountering the party, and a general increase in the alertness of the defenders and the strength of future patrols and encounters.

[TaiLiu]

It depends on the ritual. Detect magic is both a staple ritual and too short-lasting. In contrast, comprehend languages and its hour-long duration is wonderful.

Like its magic system in general, rituals in D&D 5e are frustratingly flavorless. It's up to the player to differentiate (or not) between normal spellcasting and rituals. Personally, when I think ritual, I think candles and chanting and drawing magic symbols.

Yes, you can move while ritual casting, which makes short-lasting ritual spells less painful to cast. But that ruins the immersion for me and, as mentioned, is "just too unwieldy in the narrative."

The solution isn't to reduce the 10 minutes, though. I think increasing the duration may be a better solution. It'd hardly unbalance detect magic if it lasted an hour instead of 10 minutes. It uses concentration and has limited combat use.

[OptimizedAC]

The problem with ritual casting isn't that it takes too long (as has been exhaustingely covered in this thread). It's that it's an interesting mechanic that has been neglected since this edition was released. 31 ritual spells were published in PHB. Since then, only three have been published - less than 10 % of the original. And of two of those three published in a regular source-book (XGE), with the third published in Explorer's Guide to Wildermount. Reducing the casting time isn't just bad for the game as it is - it also makes it unviable to introduce certain effects as spell rituals (like Unseen Servant and Phantom Steed, two excellent show-cases for what role rituals can have).

Rituals are an excellent mechanic for the kind of class fantasy I usually have when playing a caster. Vancian casting entails very restricted use of magic, and cantrips provides an exception only with the most basic (and narrow) spells. Ritual casting supports playing a caster that can regularly do more advanced magic that isn't directly super-impactful. I love that. And resent that 5e hasn't made better use of it (and it doesn't look like that will change). There should be more, and more interesting, ritual spells. Turning rituals into free spells undermines that. It's the wrong direction for the game in general, but individual DMs (who probably weren't introducing new rituals anyway) can obviously do what they want.

[OptimizedAC]

That being said, if some DM stumbles on this thread and is interested in exploring adjustments to ritual casting without a strict house-rule change, here's an example item to the same effect:

Haematomancer's Knife of Piercing Insights
You gain a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with this magic weapon. This dagger has 4 charges and regains 1d4 charges daily at dawn. While attuned and holding it:

As a bonus action, you can expend 2 charges to cast True Strike.
As an action, you can expend 4 charges and lose 2 HP to cast Augury.
When you start ritual-casting a divination spell, you can reduce the casting time to 1 minute for this casting. Either lose HP equal to the spell's level, or expend 1 charge. (Creatures immune to slashing or piercing damage must use the latter option). While casting this spell, you cannot move more than 5 ft from the position where you started casting the spell. (As usual, if there are several conflicting possible points of reference for this position, like on a moving carriage, the DM has final say).


While it exists primarily to be an "Orb of Ritual-casting-now-takes-1-minute", it's surrounded by other mechanics that supports it having a meaningful identity in your world. You can give it to players and not obviously be telling them "I wanted to homebrew ritual-casting without actually homebrewing it". The restriction to Divination spells is primarily because the school contains none of the problem spells, while covering a very significant portion of the spells a party might want to ritual cast under mild time-pressure, across all levels of play. It's a restriction with strong thematic identity, at the cost of support for quickened ritual-casting of a couple of interesting spells.

The other usable effects are just thrown on there as the first things that came to mind - potentially neat, but not game-breaking. As for the further mechancis: The HP cost gives a sense of cost to using it, while supporting the theme. There's not much more than a sense of it, but enough actual cost that there's hypothetical situations where you'd rather ritual cast a divination spell normally. The movement restriction is just there for thematic effect - if one's visuals for ritual casting involves tracing magic sigils or some such, the knife supports that concept while leaving open-ended specifically how rituals are conducted. Blood-reading is a rather specific tone for how rituals are cast, and not personally that appealing, but supports a relevant cost while offering a strong unified theme. One could remove that theme, and the damage. Or increase the damage, change the charge-costs, add effects, all depending on which ends one wants to adjust it to.

[stoutstien]

Depends on whether your DM says there is not. I do wonder how many DMs just go '10 minutes pass, ritual done' vs. 'What are the rest of you doing for 10 minutes?'. The narrative length of explaining what you do for 10 minutes can actually be longer than an hour or eight, because long-term activities don't really match up with 10 minutes (like sleeping, scribing scrolls, etc.).

As I've mentioned before, the difference in real time for my group between a 1 minute ritual and a 10 minute ritual is immense. I doubt my group is that exceptional in this respect.

I mean...if nothing else of note is present in that scene that is exactly what you do as the GM. It's the players responsibility to declare what they do when time jumps occur rather than the GM job to ask everyone what they do to fill the time.
If the table enjoys describing what they do in that time....that's the game....like that's the whole point of playing an RPG. 90% I the time I've found this time is used to plan out the next move for the group.

Although if you frequency rub into situations where one player is needing to take chunks of time to progress and the rest of the party is sitting in there hands you probably just need to adjust the scenes themselves rather than trying to rewrite the ritual rules.

[Aimeryan]

I mean...if nothing else of note is present in that scene that is exactly what you do as the GM. It's the players responsibility to declare what they do when time jumps occur rather than the GM job to ask everyone what they do to fill the time.
If the table enjoys describing what they do in that time....that's the game....like that's the whole point of playing an RPG. 90% I the time I've found this time is used to plan out the next move for the group.

Although if you frequency rub into situations where one player is needing to take chunks of time to progress and the rest of the party is sitting in there hands you probably just need to adjust the scenes themselves rather than trying to rewrite the ritual rules.

Sure, sure - the DM has other ways to make that time pass interestingly if the players just stare into space.