Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 obryn Mar 31, 2011 12:56:32	Alrighty, so one of my players - running an S-K Pact Templar Warlock - picked up Ritual Casting.  I seeded a Ritual Book as a reward, and he'd like to get some use out of it.  Because the economy is all jacked up, and because I don't want to completely nerf his ability to cast rituals despite being out in the desert most of the time - I came up with this... It's mostly meant for PCs; for NPCs, it's inappropriate as-written.  It's also written on the assumption that the Warlock - who's kind of a goody two-shoes - will continue to avoid defiling. (1) As a general rule, if you're using components to cast a ritual, everything but the Item Creation rituals take half the components to cast.  Also, casting times are generally cut in half, as well.  I don't distinguish between incense, residuum, alchemical components, etc; components are components, period. (2) You can use the stuff around you - dead enemies, plants, insects, etc. - as part of your components.  Usually you can harvest about 1 ceramic of components per 100 xp the creature is worth, rounded down, though creatures without bodies (like ghosts and wraiths) can't be harvested.  Magical Beasts double this.  If you are trained in Nature or Dungeoneering, you can also harvest some materials if you're in the right sort of setting.  (I haven't come up with exact rules on this yet, but I was thinking DC 15/18/21 + Ritual Level + 1d4 hours' work to ignore half of the already-halved ritual's cost.) (3) Let's say you want to cast something, but don't have the components?  Well, there's always defiling, if you have the Arcane Defiling power! Ritual Defiling is different from your normal Arcane Defiling.  First, it just makes most creatures uncomfortable; it only kills the plant and small animal life around you.  It's faster than casting a ritual the long way, too - it takes 1/10th of the original ritual's casting time.  Also?  No components are necessary; you defile 1 5'x5' square per 10 gp of the original ritual's cost, assuming a normal desert environment.  It will be bigger on salt flats, or lower in a rainforest.  So it's fast, and it's cheap. Sounds like a sweet deal, right?  Well, not so fast.  The problem is that defiling like this is seriously addictive.  I'll make an attack (Ritual's level + 3/6/9 vs your Will).  You won't know if I hit or miss.  If I hit, you will involuntarily defile the next time you cast a Daily spell in combat, though you will still get the benefits for defiling.  After that, you will make a saving throw; failure means two things - you will defile next time, too, and you will have a -2 to that saving throw.  If you keep failing them until your defiling saving throw is impossible, you will defile every time you cast a Daily spell from there on out, and you no longer get any benefit from using Arcane Defiling.  (My quick and dirty math puts this at about a 9% chance if the attack hits, assuming no save bonuses.) ...so, thoughts?
#2 Bera Mar 31, 2011 15:33:07	Your system seems overly complicated. If the player wants to defile and there will be few in-game repurcussions, there's no reason not to just say he defiles when he casts a ritual. Harvesting arcane reagents from enemies is a perfectly reasonable thing to include, so that can be included as part of your treasure. In fact, rituals and ritual components are a great way to hand out treasure without handing out piles of gold and magic items, so there's nothing inherently imbalanced in DS about giving components and rituals as treasure. Track it (or not) just like you would any other type of treasure. Giving the Disenchant ritual even lets them cannibalize their old magic items for residuum to cast rituals. Unless you want to give a mechanical benefit for defiling with a, rituals are pretty awesome for a DS game already. If you simply want to enable ritual casting more and didn't just want to hand plenty of components out or give a small benefit for being a defiler, let him cast one ritual per day without expending components (assuming the ritual has a fixed component cost, so no Enchanting items). If, on the other hand, you want to tempt a player to defile (probably not necessary for a SK-pact templar warlock), then adding a special line at the bottom of his rituals that says he gains a +5 or +10 bonus to the ritual check and/or only expends half the components when defiling gives a nice temptation. If you give a bonus for defiling, however, there needs to be in-game repurcussions. Plus, you need to be willing to deal with an overpowered PC who is addicted to defiling. Most of the defiling fixes people propose here give huge bonuses for defiling which will quickly make Arcane characters outpreform other classes, fine for story-reasons but that can be the sort of thing that makes the game unfun for the other players. I like your idea for an addiction to defiling, though I just use the disease mechanics in my game. Altering the defiling rules, however, is very dependent on the group and the story you want to tell.
#3 obryn Apr 04, 2011 13:38:00	I see what you're saying, re: power levels, but honestly - it's rituals.  I'm not entirely sure my players would use them if they were always free.  There are no rituals to make travel easier, to create food or water, etc., so I'm not sure the balance concern is really that much of a concern, here.  I'm not going to touch any combat spells with a system like this, other than the forced defiling. I'm fine with complicated, as long as it's flavorful.  Thanks for the feedback, though. -O
#4 mgbeach Apr 23, 2011 20:25:18	I really like the idea of adding a possible defiling component to rituals. It's a good way of bringing in that iconic vision of green plant life turning to ash in an expanding ring around the caster.  I agree that it might be a little overcomplicated in this version (for me at least.. if it works for you and your players, then that's awesome) but the idea is very sound. I'm surprised this wasn't addressed at all in the campaign setting itself.