Heroic Tier Rituals

So…rituals. Well, also ritual feats. Rituals have been a tricky thing in my games, despite my including them–both in book and scroll form–with the specific intent to give my players an edge, components to use them, and reducing the casting time on a lot of them.

Who knows, maybe new Ritual Feats will give them the last bit of incentive they need? You need Ritual Caster as well as some rituals to pick them up, but they let you use your skills in flexible ways and eliminate the cost of using a ritual once per day. For example, Binding Mastery lets you use Arcana or Religion in place of Diplomacy and Intimidate against unnatural creatures, as well as a bonus. I like the flavor behind this, using your knowledge of binding magic to threaten or bargain with the fey or a devil. Warding Mastery is also pretty nice, giving you a bonus on Perception to find traps and hazards and checks to disable them (as well as casting warding rituals).

The new rituals include classics like Alarm, Hold Portal, and Explosive Runes. Most have castings times of only 1 minute, though Hold Portal clocks in at an outstanding one standard action. Frankly I wish more rituals had shorter casting times, if only to give them more utility when time is a factor. I mean, in a lot of cases the players did not use one simply because they did not have the time, but to me charging them each time is punishment enough. Speaking of casting costs, a lot require healing surges in lieu of cash, or a small amount of cash in addition to your surges.

I also like this, as it represents a caster exhausting herself from using magic (as well as giving the wizard a way to use healing surges). A pretty good article. I am going to reduce more rituals to a minute or less casting time and see what happens. I might also let them burn healing surges more often (perhaps at an exchange rate).

Rituals Index

I like the concept behind rituals, giving players pay-per-cast spells largely intended for out of
combat uses, but I hear that there’s no shortage of groups that just don’t use them (or don’t like them). I don’t get to play, and since I do like rituals often pepper treasures with rituals that have an immediate (or soonish) use. For example, if the adventure calls for the players to find a way into an underwater grotto in order to confront and star cult, I’m likely to put a Water Breathing ritual (or scroll if they’re too low level). If they bust up a necromancer’s crypt, I might put in an Undead Servitor ritual for kicks.

Oh, and I also throw in residuum or ritual components to make sure they can use it (as well as padding treasure out if they like to use them, so they don’t feel like they have to “choose” between ritual usage or loot).

Really, my biggest complaint with rituals isn’t so much having trouble finding uses for them, but having a way to easily identify what rituals do what. Thankfully there’s a fix for that. Yeah, I know that you can surf the Compendium for all the rituals ever made, but this thing makes it a lot easier by giving you the category, level, cost, brief description, etc. Even better, the last six pages categorize them into groupings like Access Mounts, Bind a Soul, Change Objects, Copy Text, and more. This makes it sooo much easier to easily identify a ritual that suits a need, on either side of the screen. I suspect that this will make them more attractive options for players, so even though its not technically new content, I’m still grateful that something at WotC threw it together.

Divine Power: Rituals

Looks like there will be eight new rituals in Divine Power. The one that interests me the most is Create Holy Water. Its only level 1 and probably will do wonders against undead and likely evil-aligned immortals. Not much of note, though they do preview one of the rituals.

Adjure

Filled with righteous authority, you order an immortal entity to serve you.

Level: 16
Category: Binding
Time: 1 hour
Duration: 8 hours or until discharged
Component Cost: 3,000 gp
Market Price: 7,500 gp
Key Skill: Religion

You command an immortal creature whose level does not exceed yours. The subject of this ritual must be able to see and hear you and must remain within 5 squares of you for the entire time necessary to perform the ritual. Because most creatures do not willingly submit to this ritual, you must usually make the creature helpless or restrain the creature by means of a Magic Circle ritual. Unless it is prevented from doing so, the creature can leave at any time. Finally, you must be able to communicate with the creature, or the ritual automatically fails.

To determine the extent of your authority over the subject, you engage in a special skill challenge during the time it takes to perform the ritual. The DCs for the checks in this challenge are equal to the subject’s level + 10. Religion is the primary skill; each time you or an ally succeeds on a Religion check in the challenge, you or an ally can use Diplomacy, History, Arcana, or Intimidate for one subsequent check. Once you have amassed 3 failures or achieved 10 successes, the skill challenge ends. Consult the following table and apply the effect associated with the number of successes you achieved.

Number of Successes	Effect
0 or 1	The creature has authority over you and can issue one command that you must obey, a task that requires up to a day of effort.
2 or 3	You have immediate authority over the creature. You can command the creature to perform one task that takes no more than 5 minutes.
4 or 5	You have moderate authority over the creature. You can command the creature to perform a task that requires up to a day of effort.
6 or 7	You have significant authority over the creature. You can command the creature to perform a task that requires up to a week of effort.
8 or 9	You have great authority over the creature. You can command the creature to perform a task that requires up to a month of effort.
10	You have ultimate authority over the creature. You can command the creature to perform a task that requires up to a year and a day of effort.

When the specified task is completed, the ritual is discharged, and the creature (or you) is released from service. You can request any kind of service that does not compel the subject to obey multiple commands, force the subject to engage in combat, or ensure the subject’s death. (The subject can engage in combat to achieve a task if it wishes, but combat cannot be required.) If the task is impossible, such as commanding a creature that cannot fly to soar into the sky, the creature can ignore the command.

Excerpts: EPG Rituals

Nothing much to write home about, here. Just a list of rituals in Eberron Player’s Guide, with writeups for two of them.

Fluid Funds lets you drop shit into a coffer and have it transform into whatever types of coins you want. The ritual specifies changing art, gems, and silver into gold pieces, but I’m assuming that it lets you exchange items for any combination of coins that totals the item’s value.
Strangely, it doesnt affect magic items or “mundane” equipment. I can understand magical goods, but I’m going to immediately houserule that you can swap out non-magical loot (for the item’s sale price, of course).

You need the Mark of Warding to master and use this ritual, which they also preview.

Mark of Warding
When you use a power that grants a bonus to a defense, it increases by 1. When you mark an enemy, it takes a -3 to attack rolls instead of a -2. Finally, you can master and use rituals in the warding category, as well as Fluid Funds, Knock, and Leomund’s Secret Chest.

Fantastic Recuperation lets you take an extended rest in only an hour’s time (instead of the normal six). You can only use it when you could take an extended rest. It runs 3,600 gp up until epic tier when it costs 9,000 gp, and finally tops out at 45,000 gp per use at level 26. Cripes.