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Making Ritual Casting Instant

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
beholdergaze
Dec 07, 2009 12:51:17 I'm playing with an idea to set a rule that will allow ritual casting to be instant, if the character needs it to be. For example, allowing the Knock spell to be instant will allow more uses such as during combat. A caster who chooses to make Phantom Steed instant can hop right on at the end of a chase scene. The idea is to open up more rituals for combat use and also for the cool effect.

The house rule is if the character chooses the ritual to be instant cast, they must roll the associated skill at DC 10+ritual level. If they pass they may choose to cast at instant speed. If they fail, they may choose to continue the ritual, but at regular casting time posted for the ritual. Easy as that.

Does anyone know of any game breaking that could occur because of this house rule? Which rituals in particular would be overly powerful if they could reliably be cast at instant speed?

Thanks.
#2
dragonsblood
Dec 07, 2009 15:18:53 Here's just the PHB1.

Disenchant Magic Item is like a 9th level 3.5 spell (Mord's Disjunction), with no save though you have to touch the object instead of it being an area.

Cure Disease nullifies any disease bearing monsters.

Brew Potion gives the players a resistance to every energy type on cue.

Enchant Magic Item gives the players a defense or offense to everything in a fight.

Forbiddance nullifies teleportation.

Hullucinatory Item gives any caster wizard walls, and even more power depending on how creative the player is.

Raise Dead nullifies death.

Decern Lies makes many social challenges too easy.

This houserule is a huge can of worms, even if you don't agree with my opinions of these rituals.
#3
dave2008
Dec 07, 2009 15:57:20 I don't think this could or should be done for all rituals, but I like the idea in general. Here are a few suggestions that might balance it out a little:

Provide a penalty for failure, such as losing the ritual.

Limit this option to Spell/Prayer casting classes.

Speed up the casting, but not instantaneous. How about: casting takes 1 action per level. Thus, a level 3 ritual would take 1 round, but a level 30 would take 1 minute (10 rounds).

Just some quick thoughts.
#4
copycatzero
Dec 07, 2009 16:11:01 There's an epic destiny (I don't remember which one off the top of my head) whose level 30 ability is to make two rituals per day standard actions. The next closest equivalent is a paragon tier feat that's open to artificers only and makes item creation feats take 1 minute.

To be perfectly honest, considering what's currently in the game, even with the chance to fail to make it "instant" (standard action, I'm assuming), the ability for anyone (who can cast rituals) to do this right out of the gate seems rather overpowered.
#5
kieferz
Dec 07, 2009 16:51:04 I'd recommend not making them quite so quick to cast; that brings back the days of 3.5 when spellcasters could usurp every other player's role with a standard action. What could be fun, though, is making some rituals (probably not creation or healing rituals) take 1 minute to cast. That means 10 rounds, or 5 from a scroll; short enough that they can conceivably be used in combat. Alternately, change how assisting works: Instead of giving a bonus to the check when someone performs a ritual, allow assistants to take, say, 20% off of the casting time. At the upper limit of four assistants, you can cast most rituals in 2 minutes (20 rounds), or 10 rounds from a scroll.

Knock to get through a door when the Rogue's unconscious or busy trying to keep you from being overrun, Arcane Lock to keep a horde of monsters from following you, Tenser's Lift or whatever it is to get up a vertical shaft before you're overrun. Linked Portal and its variants to make a clean getaway. You could even create offensive rituals that took multiple rounds to cast and had component costs, but had much greater effects than even Daily powers, but that's kind of stretching it.
#6
beholdergaze
Dec 07, 2009 23:27:28 Thanks for the responses and good points everyone. I certainly don't want to break the game in terms of nullifying monsters who inflict disease or by giving the group access to a battle rez, and I certainly don't want to step on the toes of any class who gets similar abilities later in their career.

Could it be as easy as making it a standard action, making the DC 20 + ritual level, and only usable on rituals that have less than 1 hour regular casting time? In this case, low level rituals would work less than 50% of the time (for optimized characters) and seem to become more difficult at higher levels with a level 30 ritual needing a DC 50 to cast instantly. Making it a standard action would give the character a choice during combat to potentially waste his turn (seeing as that a character would let the ritual fizzle if he didn't hit the DC, forgoing the 10 to 1000 combat rounds it would take to cast normally). Of course I wouldn't rule the components dead either.

Also, classes that get similar abilities are not worried about being obsolete. I'm hoping the less than 1 hour idea takes care of the most problematic of the rituals or one that just feel like they should take time.

If this fix doesn't work i'll probably scrap the idea. I don't want a page of rules to make it work.
#7
mergon
Dec 08, 2009 16:12:58 I'v e created a new feat (based on Amber the Diceless RPG) called Hang Spell.

This feat is available to any caster who has the Ritual Casting feat and is 11th level or higher. It allows the caster to pre-cast and 'hang' a number of spells (main casting stat modifier plus 1 per tier). These rituals must have a casting time of 10 minutes or less.

The character must meet all requirements for the casting of the ritual and pay the full cost up front. He or she can then cast the ritual as a standard action by making the appropriate skill check vs. a DC of 20 + Ritual Level.

My players enjoy this, though one of them cursed me mightily over it on one occassion. I am running a 4th edition spelljammer campaign and that character, who had just hung a full load of rituals, lost them to the helm. The rest of the party laughed until they realized they wouldn't have those rituals for the comign dungeon unless they could somehow come up with the residium (The wizard was out).

#8
greatfrito
Dec 10, 2009 16:13:48 I'm guessing there would be balance issues that I'm not seeing, but I'm toying with the idea of offering my players the following feat:

Utility Ritualist
Prerequisite: Ritual Casting, 6th-level or higher utility power.
Benefit: The quick ritual feat power relaces one of your 6th-level or higher utility powers.

Quick Ritual Feat Power
With a flurry of motion and a handful of mystical components you quickly complete a simple ritual.
Daily
Standard Action
Effect: You perform the chosen ritual. If it has a duration other than instantaneous, it ends after five minutes, or its original duration - whichever is shorter. You must expend all of the normal components required by the ritual when you use this power.
Special: When you gain this power, choose a ritual you know with a level equal to 1/2 your level or less, and no greater than the level of the utility power this power replaces. The ritual must have a casting time of 10 minutes or less.

That would let a player replace a utility with a quick ritual, but they'd have to retrain to select a different one (or to migrate their "quick ritual" power up to allow for stronger rituals). It maxes at a level 15 ritual, and with the 10-minutes-or-less requirement, I don't think it'd be a huge problem.
#9
Chimerasame
Dec 11, 2009 9:48:55 I've been thinking about making some rules for combat-casting rituals, myself. It makes me wonder:

First, what rituals might be broken (or at least unusually overpowered) if allowed to be cast in combat? (e.g. Bloom: if a party is optimized for difficult terrain, such as a bunch of elves, then this becomes significantly stronger than some difficult-terrain-creating class powers, for the expense of 20gp)

Second, what rituals that aren't on the above list might even be useful to cast in combat? (e.g. Knock, probably Phantom Steed)

If there are a great many in the first category, then it may be necessary for any combat-casting-rituals rule adjuncts to take these lists into account when determining how difficult it is to combat-cast.

I haven't combed the ritual list myself.... Can anyone add to either list? I'll see what I can come up with myself this weekend, but I've gotta head off to work shortly.

Edit: I started thinking about this a while ago ( community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/758... ) and it's sort of been brewing in the back of my mind since then, but I haven't actually gotten anything down on paper, so to speak. Thanks for reminding me of it again.
#10
Damon_Tor
Dec 11, 2009 12:24:04
First, what rituals might be broken (or at least unusually overpowered) if allowed to be cast in combat?

Magic Circle

Transfer Enchantment: grab a dude and siphon his magic goodness into your lame gear.

Excavation: ground beneath foe go bye bye.

Mordenkainnen's Joining: Your boots are part of the floor now. Enjoy!
#11
copycatzero
Dec 11, 2009 15:44:04
I'm guessing there would be balance issues that I'm not seeing, but I'm toying with the idea of offering my players the following feat:

Utility Ritualist
Prerequisite: Ritual Casting, 6th-level or higher utility power.
Benefit: The quick ritual feat power relaces one of your 6th-level or higher utility powers.

Quick Ritual Feat Power
With a flurry of motion and a handful of mystical components you quickly complete a simple ritual.
Daily
Standard Action
Effect: You perform the chosen ritual. If it has a duration other than instantaneous, it ends after five minutes, or its original duration - whichever is shorter. You must expend all of the normal components required by the ritual when you use this power.
Special: When you gain this power, choose a ritual you know with a level equal to 1/2 your level or less, and no greater than the level of the utility power this power replaces. The ritual must have a casting time of 10 minutes or less.

That would let a player replace a utility with a quick ritual, but they'd have to retrain to select a different one (or to migrate their "quick ritual" power up to allow for stronger rituals). It maxes at a level 15 ritual, and with the 10-minutes-or-less requirement, I don't think it'd be a huge problem.

Hm... not a "balance" issue per se, but in keeping with my pointing out classes who get their toes stepped on by this sort of thing... the Planeshifter PP (which is only open to warlocks and wizards) from Manual of the Planes gets a level 12 utility that allows them to open a portal (a la Linked Portal) as a standard action, at the cost of 3 healing surges and 1 healing surge per round maintained.

This feat would allow a member of any ritual-capable class with any PP to do this at level 16 (Linked Portal being level 8) for nothing more than the (at that point) minor component cost, and the ritual would last the full duration (given that the maximum duration is 5 rounds, well below the 5 minute mark) without any additional cost to the caster.
#12
dave2008
Dec 12, 2009 7:04:48

Hm... not a "balance" issue per se, but in keeping with my pointing out classes who get their toes stepped on by this sort of thing... the Planeshifter PP (which is only open to warlocks and wizards) from Manual of the Planes gets a level 12 utility that allows them to open a portal (a la Linked Portal) as a standard action, at the cost of 3 healing surges and 1 healing surge per round maintained.

This feat would allow a member of any ritual-capable class with any PP to do this at level 16 (Linked Portal being level 8) for nothing more than the (at that point) minor component cost, and the ritual would last the full duration (given that the maximum duration is 5 rounds, well below the 5 minute mark) without any additional cost to the caster.

That is actually a really good suggestion. Have the ability to speed up a ritual cost healing surges. Having to spend a feat to have the ability and then spend healing surges to cast the "fast ritual" seems like it could work.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 beholdergaze Dec 07, 2009 12:51:17	I'm playing with an idea to set a rule that will allow ritual casting to be instant, if the character needs it to be. For example, allowing the Knock spell to be instant will allow more uses such as during combat. A caster who chooses to make Phantom Steed instant can hop right on at the end of a chase scene. The idea is to open up more rituals for combat use and also for the cool effect. The house rule is if the character chooses the ritual to be instant cast, they must roll the associated skill at DC 10+ritual level. If they pass they may choose to cast at instant speed. If they fail, they may choose to continue the ritual, but at regular casting time posted for the ritual. Easy as that. Does anyone know of any game breaking that could occur because of this house rule? Which rituals in particular would be overly powerful if they could reliably be cast at instant speed? Thanks.
#2 dragonsblood Dec 07, 2009 15:18:53	Here's just the PHB1. Disenchant Magic Item is like a 9th level 3.5 spell (Mord's Disjunction), with no save though you have to touch the object instead of it being an area. Cure Disease nullifies any disease bearing monsters. Brew Potion gives the players a resistance to every energy type on cue. Enchant Magic Item gives the players a defense or offense to everything in a fight. Forbiddance nullifies teleportation. Hullucinatory Item gives any caster wizard walls, and even more power depending on how creative the player is. Raise Dead nullifies death. Decern Lies makes many social challenges too easy. This houserule is a huge can of worms, even if you don't agree with my opinions of these rituals.
#3 dave2008 Dec 07, 2009 15:57:20	I don't think this could or should be done for all rituals, but I like the idea in general. Here are a few suggestions that might balance it out a little: Provide a penalty for failure, such as losing the ritual. Limit this option to Spell/Prayer casting classes. Speed up the casting, but not instantaneous. How about: casting takes 1 action per level. Thus, a level 3 ritual would take 1 round, but a level 30 would take 1 minute (10 rounds). Just some quick thoughts.
#4 copycatzero Dec 07, 2009 16:11:01	There's an epic destiny (I don't remember which one off the top of my head) whose level 30 ability is to make two rituals per day standard actions. The next closest equivalent is a paragon tier feat that's open to artificers only and makes item creation feats take 1 minute. To be perfectly honest, considering what's currently in the game, even with the chance to fail to make it "instant" (standard action, I'm assuming), the ability for anyone (who can cast rituals) to do this right out of the gate seems rather overpowered.
#5 kieferz Dec 07, 2009 16:51:04	I'd recommend not making them quite so quick to cast; that brings back the days of 3.5 when spellcasters could usurp every other player's role with a standard action. What could be fun, though, is making some rituals (probably not creation or healing rituals) take 1 minute to cast. That means 10 rounds, or 5 from a scroll; short enough that they can conceivably be used in combat. Alternately, change how assisting works: Instead of giving a bonus to the check when someone performs a ritual, allow assistants to take, say, 20% off of the casting time. At the upper limit of four assistants, you can cast most rituals in 2 minutes (20 rounds), or 10 rounds from a scroll. Knock to get through a door when the Rogue's unconscious or busy trying to keep you from being overrun, Arcane Lock to keep a horde of monsters from following you, Tenser's Lift or whatever it is to get up a vertical shaft before you're overrun. Linked Portal and its variants to make a clean getaway. You could even create offensive rituals that took multiple rounds to cast and had component costs, but had much greater effects than even Daily powers, but that's kind of stretching it.
#6 beholdergaze Dec 07, 2009 23:27:28	Thanks for the responses and good points everyone. I certainly don't want to break the game in terms of nullifying monsters who inflict disease or by giving the group access to a battle rez, and I certainly don't want to step on the toes of any class who gets similar abilities later in their career. Could it be as easy as making it a standard action, making the DC 20 + ritual level, and only usable on rituals that have less than 1 hour regular casting time? In this case, low level rituals would work less than 50% of the time (for optimized characters) and seem to become more difficult at higher levels with a level 30 ritual needing a DC 50 to cast instantly. Making it a standard action would give the character a choice during combat to potentially waste his turn (seeing as that a character would let the ritual fizzle if he didn't hit the DC, forgoing the 10 to 1000 combat rounds it would take to cast normally). Of course I wouldn't rule the components dead either. Also, classes that get similar abilities are not worried about being obsolete. I'm hoping the less than 1 hour idea takes care of the most problematic of the rituals or one that just feel like they should take time. If this fix doesn't work i'll probably scrap the idea. I don't want a page of rules to make it work.
#7 mergon Dec 08, 2009 16:12:58	I'v e created a new feat (based on Amber the Diceless RPG) called Hang Spell. This feat is available to any caster who has the Ritual Casting feat and is 11th level or higher. It allows the caster to pre-cast and 'hang' a number of spells (main casting stat modifier plus 1 per tier). These rituals must have a casting time of 10 minutes or less. The character must meet all requirements for the casting of the ritual and pay the full cost up front. He or she can then cast the ritual as a standard action by making the appropriate skill check vs. a DC of 20 + Ritual Level. My players enjoy this, though one of them cursed me mightily over it on one occassion. I am running a 4th edition spelljammer campaign and that character, who had just hung a full load of rituals, lost them to the helm. The rest of the party laughed until they realized they wouldn't have those rituals for the comign dungeon unless they could somehow come up with the residium (The wizard was out).
#8 greatfrito Dec 10, 2009 16:13:48	I'm guessing there would be balance issues that I'm not seeing, but I'm toying with the idea of offering my players the following feat: Utility Ritualist Prerequisite: Ritual Casting, 6th-level or higher utility power. Benefit: The quick ritual feat power relaces one of your 6th-level or higher utility powers. Quick Ritual Feat Power With a flurry of motion and a handful of mystical components you quickly complete a simple ritual. Daily Standard Action Effect: You perform the chosen ritual. If it has a duration other than instantaneous, it ends after five minutes, or its original duration - whichever is shorter. You must expend all of the normal components required by the ritual when you use this power. Special: When you gain this power, choose a ritual you know with a level equal to 1/2 your level or less, and no greater than the level of the utility power this power replaces. The ritual must have a casting time of 10 minutes or less. That would let a player replace a utility with a quick ritual, but they'd have to retrain to select a different one (or to migrate their "quick ritual" power up to allow for stronger rituals). It maxes at a level 15 ritual, and with the 10-minutes-or-less requirement, I don't think it'd be a huge problem.
#9 Chimerasame Dec 11, 2009 9:48:55	I've been thinking about making some rules for combat-casting rituals, myself. It makes me wonder: First, what rituals might be broken (or at least unusually overpowered) if allowed to be cast in combat? (e.g. Bloom: if a party is optimized for difficult terrain, such as a bunch of elves, then this becomes significantly stronger than some difficult-terrain-creating class powers, for the expense of 20gp) Second, what rituals that aren't on the above list might even be useful to cast in combat? (e.g. Knock, probably Phantom Steed) If there are a great many in the first category, then it may be necessary for any combat-casting-rituals rule adjuncts to take these lists into account when determining how difficult it is to combat-cast. I haven't combed the ritual list myself.... Can anyone add to either list? I'll see what I can come up with myself this weekend, but I've gotta head off to work shortly. Edit: I started thinking about this a while ago ( community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/758... ) and it's sort of been brewing in the back of my mind since then, but I haven't actually gotten anything down on paper, so to speak. Thanks for reminding me of it again.
#10 Damon_Tor Dec 11, 2009 12:24:04	First, what rituals might be broken (or at least unusually overpowered) if allowed to be cast in combat? Magic Circle Transfer Enchantment: grab a dude and siphon his magic goodness into your lame gear. Excavation: ground beneath foe go bye bye. Mordenkainnen's Joining: Your boots are part of the floor now. Enjoy!
#11 copycatzero Dec 11, 2009 15:44:04	I'm guessing there would be balance issues that I'm not seeing, but I'm toying with the idea of offering my players the following feat: Utility Ritualist Prerequisite: Ritual Casting, 6th-level or higher utility power. Benefit: The quick ritual feat power relaces one of your 6th-level or higher utility powers. Quick Ritual Feat Power With a flurry of motion and a handful of mystical components you quickly complete a simple ritual. Daily Standard Action Effect: You perform the chosen ritual. If it has a duration other than instantaneous, it ends after five minutes, or its original duration - whichever is shorter. You must expend all of the normal components required by the ritual when you use this power. Special: When you gain this power, choose a ritual you know with a level equal to 1/2 your level or less, and no greater than the level of the utility power this power replaces. The ritual must have a casting time of 10 minutes or less. That would let a player replace a utility with a quick ritual, but they'd have to retrain to select a different one (or to migrate their "quick ritual" power up to allow for stronger rituals). It maxes at a level 15 ritual, and with the 10-minutes-or-less requirement, I don't think it'd be a huge problem. Hm... not a "balance" issue per se, but in keeping with my pointing out classes who get their toes stepped on by this sort of thing... the Planeshifter PP (which is only open to warlocks and wizards) from Manual of the Planes gets a level 12 utility that allows them to open a portal (a la Linked Portal) as a standard action, at the cost of 3 healing surges and 1 healing surge per round maintained. This feat would allow a member of any ritual-capable class with any PP to do this at level 16 (Linked Portal being level 8) for nothing more than the (at that point) minor component cost, and the ritual would last the full duration (given that the maximum duration is 5 rounds, well below the 5 minute mark) without any additional cost to the caster.
#12 dave2008 Dec 12, 2009 7:04:48	Hm... not a "balance" issue per se, but in keeping with my pointing out classes who get their toes stepped on by this sort of thing... the Planeshifter PP (which is only open to warlocks and wizards) from Manual of the Planes gets a level 12 utility that allows them to open a portal (a la Linked Portal) as a standard action, at the cost of 3 healing surges and 1 healing surge per round maintained. This feat would allow a member of any ritual-capable class with any PP to do this at level 16 (Linked Portal being level 8) for nothing more than the (at that point) minor component cost, and the ritual would last the full duration (given that the maximum duration is 5 rounds, well below the 5 minute mark) without any additional cost to the caster. That is actually a really good suggestion. Have the ability to speed up a ritual cost healing surges. Having to spend a feat to have the ability and then spend healing surges to cast the "fast ritual" seems like it could work.