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#1 RustedKitsune Jul 17, 2014 23:30:47	Alternate Title: Useless In The Dungeon - Magic For The Common Person   I'm going to start off by discussing one of the few things from 4E that I liked: Rituals (Which showed up in 3.5's Unearthed Arcana as Incantations). The ability of non-spellcasters to perform a ritual that created a magical effect was a great addition in my opinion. It helped show that magic in general was not just the province of spellcasters. Indeed, in any magical world (even the standard magic of standard D&D, not just a world with high levels of magic), there are minor spells and rituals that don't serve any purpose to the common adventurer, but are useful to the common person. What adventurer needs a ritual that takes 10 people, 1 hour, the sacrifice of 2 chickens, and 2gp worth of components just to increase the yield of a harvest by 20%? What farmer wouldn't? Who wouldn't mind a ritual that can find a good place to dig a well? A Miner would find great use of a ritual that points them in the direction of a rich vein of ore. But what adventurer would find a use for such rituals? And why discuss this, if adventurers aren't going to use it? Because plotpoints ("We can create a boundry that helps keep goblins away, but every goblin within 10 miles will be drawn to attack us while we're making it. Can you help defend us?"), because interesting background events (passing by a farmer leading a ritual to increase the harvest), because it shows how much the world is effected by magic. And some rituals can be useful to adventurers. A ritual, lead by a cleric, that gives up to 25 people a +1 on Saves versus Death for 4 hours is useful - and typically done before a battle. Heavy restrictions on magic work in epic fantasy, where magic is very rare, and usually very scary. But in a world where every adventuring party has a cleric and a wizard, they don't. In a fantastic world, people should be able to do fantastic things - even if it is just increasing the harvest. "I Have No Need For Chickens, But Bat Guano is Good" - Spellcasting, High Rituals, and Low Rituals "When everybody has some form of access to magic," some will argue, magic is no longer fantastic. Why should the common people be able to access this power, when it takes a wizard years to train? Well, why shouldn't they? The answer lies in how fantastic the magic is. A ritual designed to call down some long term, somewhat subtle, effect using cheap components is easy to imagine and place in the world; especially one that seems useless to an adventuring group. So is a ritual that provides some boost, has a signifigant component cost, and requires a spellcaster to lead it. And spellcasting on demand, the forte of wizards and clerics, is the ultimate expression of magical power. Thus, we have three groups of magic: Low Rituals, which are cheap to do and provide some long term effect like increasing the harvest and locating good veins of ore; High Rituals, which are not that cheap, take a spellcaster to lead, and provide some short term useful effect; and Spellcasting, which we have already covered in the Basic Rules. Balancing rituals against each other and against spells requires one primary rule: A Low Ritual should not be as good as a High Ritual, and a High Ritual should not be as powerful as a spell. An example is the High Ritual I described in the previous section - Battlefield Savior, which is effectively a weaker form of Bless, but stronger at the same time. Let's look at the stats for it: Battlefield Savior High Ritual (Cleric) Casting Time: 15 minutes Casters: 1 Divine Caster and 2 Helpers Proficiency: WIS/Religion DC10 (Primary Caster) Targets: Up to 25 people Duration: 4 Hours Components: 1gp of Holy Water per Target, Religious Tools (Focus) Effect: For the next four hours, the recipients of the ritual gain 1 use of the special ability At Death's Door: When you are reduced to 0 hit points, but not killed by Massive Damage, you may use this ability to gain a +1 on Death saving throws for 1 minute (10 rounds), or until you die or stabilize. If you stabilize, you regain 1 hit point after 1d4*30 minutes.   As we can see, this is a fairly useful ritual, but still not as powerful as Bless. It effects only 1 type of throw, for up to 1 minute. It does not require concentration from the caster, but it does require a divine spellcaster and two helpers. The effect can be triggered anytime in the next four hours, and cuts the time to recover 1hp by half. It requires far more time to cast than Bless (150 actions that preculde tactical movement, as opposed to just 1 action that allows it), but effects more people (casting Bless on 25 people requires either a level 25 slot, or enough clerics that available slots amount to 25), and requires a listed amount of a material component (1/25 of a pint of holy water, which costs 25gp/pint). Somewhat powerful, but only in a limited context. Let's look at a Low Ritual, Bountiful Harvest Bountiful Harvest Low Ritual (Farming) Casting Time: 1 Hour (minimum) Requirement: Must be cast a solstice Casters: Any 10 people Proficiency: INT DC5 (Ritual Leader) Targets: Up to 6 acres of food-producing land Duration: 1 growing season Components: Farm tools (Focus), 1 gallon of Ale per 8 or less chickens, 5sp of magical herbs per gallon of ale, up to 16 Chickens (see note), Dinner Effect: The participants sacrifice a certain number of chickens, and perform ritualistic actions with farm tools under the direction of the Ritual Leader. The blood of the chickens is mixed with the ale and the herbs, and is sprinkled over the fields. The ritual is ended with the participants eating dinner at the ritual site, to show the purpose that the increased harvest will be put towards. The chicken corpses are often saved for another meal, and it is believed that eating them will help the ritual take effect, but just as many are buried in the fields. Note: The number of chickens sacrificed depends on how much the group can spare, and how much they can spend on the other ingredients. The amount of chickens sacrificed also effects the crop yield in a reducing bonus. The first two increase yield by 25% each, the next 4 increase yield by 20% each, the next 4 increase yield by 15% each, and the next 6 increase it by 10% each   As we can see, Bountiful Harvest can increase a harvest by up to 250% (total multiplier 3.5), with the sacrifice of 17.2sp of materials, plus dinner. The average production in the middle ages (for wheat) was 8 to 12 bushels an acre in an average year, and there are 60 pounds of wheat in a bushel. With this at maximum effect, the average family farm will produce 28 to 42 bushels per acre, and such farms will have 6 acres. Holding back about 1 bushel per acre for replanting, that means they are selling 27 to 41 bushels per acre, so they make 97.2-147.6gp for the entire crop, if they keep none for their own eating. A massive boost for the family finances! Very useful, for a farmer. Useless, for an adventurer. It takes a long time for the effect to show up, and its effect is mostly background. It has a very specific effect, which may or may not be too powerful in the context of your world. "As We Can See, Having A Three Person Group Performing These Actions Provides..." - Designing Rituals How good should one make a ritual? Follow this rule of power: Spells rank above High Rituals, High Above Low. A High Ritual causes a specific effect, that is effectively a lesser form of a spell. Designing them is a bit of a hit and miss affair - you want to take a spell, choose one specific effect, make it less powerful, add in some components that can't be skipped, maybe add a focus or two, make sure it requires multiple participants to be cast, then choose a spellcasting statistic, maybe a skill, and give the ritual a DC that starts at 10 for a ritual based off of a level 1 spell, then increase the DC by 1-3 for every spell level. Some portions can be modified above what the spell could normally do - consider the weakened effect to be the balance for that, and it is in their nature for rituals to effect groups of people (imagine a ritual based off of Astral Projection that takes you only to a demiplane dedicated to hedonism). Some High rituals could be cast by non-spellcasters - they should have a higher DC than rituals that require spellcasters. Casting a High ritual while High should give massive penalties, unless it calls for that. Now that the obligatory joke is done, let's move on. Low Rituals are rather specific and have almost no use in adventuring contexts. They also tend towards long term effects, or vague results. When designing one, pick an effect that is very practical, will lessen the effort required for a task required for that effect to happen normally, and is useful enough for common use. Increasing crop yields, or divining the location of water sources and ores are good examples, cleaning clothes and cooking food is not. Low Rituals should not be as powerful, or as useful in an adventuring context, as High Rituals, which should be less powerful and useful than spells. Here's an interesting one: Cinematic Rituals. These are DM ONLY rituals, and should serve some useful purpose for the plot. Rituals that call down the servants of an evil god to lay waste to the countryside, pernemently increase the power of PCs, or orther such game changing effects are good examples. Handle them with care, put thematic limiters and conditions on them, and remember: player requests for a cool cinematic ritual they read in some source should be denied. These rituals are at your discretion, and, as stated above, should some purpose to the plot. Like empowering the enemies of a PC whose player has requested that you do this cool, game changing or breaking, thing for them.   So there we have it - a set of guidelines for adding more magic than the PCs spells to your game. Hopefully this will increase the wonder and magical feeling of your world, and might even offer more plot devices to base adventures off of.
#2 bawylie Jul 18, 2014 7:49:45	To an extent, we've always used "cinematic rituals."    But for me personally, I opened up ritual casting after watching Buffy: The Vampire  Slayer. Mostly in my d20 Modern/Future game. i inserted powerful arcane formulae as treasure.
#3 Mephi1234 Jul 18, 2014 8:40:40	I've never really seen the need to add such things.   Or, rather, take the harvest spell for example.     I assume that most farming communities have local Nature clerics or druids who take care of that kind of magic with their spells.     Battlefield medics I've had make do with healing kits in the past, though now there's a very nice cantrip that works wonders as well.       I guess the point is that I've never been shy about having priests or spreading the divine magic around when this kind of  thing makes sense.   Clerics in D&D are the medics and doctors, druids the farmers and local wise herbalists and shamans, wizards the scholars and bards the diplomats.  Warlocks are the 'black magic users' people get scared of and burn at the stake; sorcerers don't really fit other than as a variation on elemental magics.   I guess its that, under this method, while not everyone had access to magic, there was a thriving trade to have people even in the smallest communities to learn the trades.    Your village elders, etc.     So, I mean, even if your common person didn't have a ritual, there was someone who DID have nearby.