Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Slit518 Jun 24, 2015 13:02:53	If Ritual Spells are spells that can't be cast in combat because it doesn't make sense, mainly for the length of the Casting Time, why is the Ritual list so random?   I find spells on it like Feign Death which are Ritual Spells, but the spell takes 1 Action to cast...   Then, I find spells that aren't Rituals, that have 1 minute or 10 minute Casting Times, such as Foresight or Guards and Wards.   When is 10 minutes going to be a quick enough Casting Time for somebody in combat to cast Guards and Wards? Let me cast Halow real quick with it's 24 hour Casting Time while that hoard of vampires come this way.  Just hold up a minute.   Some of this just doesn't make sense... I should just assume any spell with a Casting Time of 1 minute or more are out of combat.  But why not list them as a Ritual?  Why have some Rituals only cost 1 Action?
#2 AaronOfBarbaria Jun 24, 2015 13:15:08	Rituals aren't rituals because they can't be cast fast enough to use in combat.   Rituals are rituals because they are spells which are primarly beneficial outside of normal combat conditions, often extremely situational, and, in the past, have been skipped over or disliked because spending a spell slot on such a spell feels less useful than using that spell slot for something primarily beneficial in combat or that is useful in a wider array of situations.
#3 Saeviomagy Jun 24, 2015 21:57:40	In short: there is no rhyme or reason that dictates what is or isn't a ritual. There might be some rules which dictate what cannot be a ritual (ie - direct damage spells, spells which directly cause conditions, spells which give bonuses to combat stats, spells which heal), but there are many spells which are denied ritual status for no apparent reason, and several ritual spells that probably shouldn't be.
#4 Macv12 Jun 24, 2015 22:17:52	First, no ritual has a 1-action casting time. PHB 201: casting a spell as a ritual takes 10 minutes longer than normal.   Second, the nifty thing about rituals is that they don't cost a slot, if you cast them as rituals.   A spell with the "ritual" tag can be cast normally, using the listed duration and costing a spell slot, or you can cast it as a ritual, taking an extra 10 minutes beyond the listed duration and expending no slots.   As for which spells are designated rituals and which aren't, shrug. Probably has to do with which spells they wanted players to be able to cast virtually all day long without expending tangible resources, and which ones seemed like that would cause problems. Foresight for example. Casting as a ritual lets you cast that level 9 spell over and over, potentially before every fight if things work out for you.
#5 Slagger_the_Chuul Jun 24, 2015 22:55:21	As Macv12 said, rituals are generally spells that won't be a problem to cast effectively at-will if you've got plenty of time on your hands.   They presumably consider it a problem if everyone walks around with foresight all over their party, or if they blanket the nearby countryside with guards and wards, so those aren't rituals.  Hallow already has such a long casting time that there's little point making it a ritual, and it consumes an expensive material component you wouldn't want to spend even if you could cast it as a ritual.  Feign death is a ritual with a 1 action casting time because it both has an in-combat use (fooling the enemy or protecting a buddy), but also can be used non-abusively when cast repeatedly outside of combat.   Although there is certainly the potential that they might have overlooked a spell or two that would make sense as a ritual, for most of the ones I can see, you can guess why they decided to allow or disallow it.  Contact other plane, for example, is allowed to be a ritual because it risks giving you temporary brain damage each time you cast it (so there's a built-in drawback).   Slit518 wrote:
#6 Slit518 Jun 25, 2015 15:19:51	Thanks for the clarification, everyone!