Upgrading A Ritual From 2nd to 4th Edition

[Leliel]

Anyway, I just got the PDF of the Ravenloft book Van Richten's Guide To The Lich for 4E ideas, and one entry caught my eye-in Ravenloft, liches can perform a "power ritual" that both ups their power significantly for a short time and research and develop spells much more efficiently for about a month.

From there, I got these basic parameters for a ritual based on this process-

*The Power Ritual can only be cast by a lich, quite obviously.

*The ritual, if successful, will triple the effects of all the liches spells for 1d20 hours-simple enough, triple the range, AOE, duration of any effects, and damage of the lich's spells-and renders him invulnerable to all forms of mundane harm for 1d20 days.

*All daily spells only require a short rest to recharge for a month-long period from the completion of the ritual.

*If the lich has an uninterrupted period of studying for the next month, he gains a level.

*The effect I have a problem with: The Power Ritual as written in Guide, allows a lich to instantly transcribe any spell he reads into his book, but this is 4th edition, and so, wizards nor warlocks do that, so I need help upgrading this effect.

Besides that, I have no idea what the casting time for the ritual should be-after taking the necessary steps of preparing the area for it, which takes several days-and many of the spells used in the book to prepare for the ritual no longer exist (such as wish, stabilize, wind wall, and guards and wards) in a form that I know.

So could you help a fellow out?

[Leliel]

Eh? I didn't see this on the main forum.

Maybe bumping it will help.

[bahamut920]

Well, you might just have to remove the part where you automatically gain new spells. I don't see any equivalent ability (besides a wizard feat, and you don't want a repeatable ritual granting the same bonus as a feat...). Or you could have the ritual grant access to a new spell for a temporary period of time, such as a month.

As for the spells used in the ritual no longer existing, that's not a problem. In 4th Edition, rituals are self-contained. They need components, but anyone who knows the ritual and is trained in the ritual's key skill can perform it. They need the components to do so, but even a fighter could resurrect somebody with the correct feat and some money spent.

As a side note, you might want to scale the effects of the ritual and the duration of those effects to the results caster's Arcana check, making the ritual weaker or stronger based upon the results of the check. Also, you might not want to make the caster invulnerable to all harm. It was common in 1st and 2nd Edition, but nothing is invulnerable in 3rd or 4th. What you can do is make it difficult to harm the caster, such as by giving him, say, resist all 20 (or more, depending on the ritual level and the check results).

[Leliel]

OK, good ideas.

I'll be posting the updated ritual soon.