Reducing Time Requirements of Rituals

[INDYSTAR188]

I'm trying to get a sense of how bad/good an idea it might be to reduce the casting time required for rituals. I was thinking about making them something that could be done in combat/scenarios that do not allow for the 5-10+ minutes they might currently take. I was thinking something like two or three standard actions to complete (but that's just an early shot in the dark really).

Any thoughts on how this would negatively or positively effect my game? Have you ever seen/heard of this before? Should I only allow some rituals be cast that way?

[obryn]

Originally Posted by INDYSTAR188

I'm trying to get a sense of how bad/good an idea it might be to reduce the casting time required for rituals. I was thinking about making them something that could be done in combat/scenarios that do not allow for the 5-10+ minutes they might currently take. I was thinking something like two or three standard actions to complete (but that's just an early shot in the dark really).

Any thoughts on how this would negatively or positively effect my game? Have you ever seen/heard of this before? Should I only allow some rituals be cast that way?

Well, there's an Epic Destiny that gets to do this eventually...

In my home games, I cut most times and costs in half, and let my ritualists scavenge for materials. It works pretty well - some rituals, like Silt Walk and a modified (more dangerous) Eagle's Flight are used pretty regularly. (And one guy casts Fastidiousness every day...)

As for in-combat use, I dunno. Some - like Magic Circle - could get pretty wacky. And others just won't generally be useful. But I'd say give it a shot - even make it 1 standard action followed by a Hard Arcana check at a DC set by the ritual's level. Let your players know this is experimental, and go from there. If it works, keep it. If it doesn't, either tweak or scrap it.

-O

[Sipex]

I have a method I use where the rituals take the same time and components (although those are up to you if you want to tweak them) but a ritual can be prepared ahead of time and stored, later to be let out with a Standard Action (to be fair, you can rule any action type you want). Rolls for the ritual are done at the time of actual casting (not the prep time before) for obvious reasons.

I usually limit it to 1 ritual (which is stored indefinitely until used) but you can explore different options. Like storing a number of rituals up to 1/2 your level.

[NecroRebel]

You can reduce the casting time of a ritual by half if you use a ritual scroll, though those take several hours and some gold to create if I remember correctly. Half time is still pretty significant, though, and makes rituals practically useless in battle.

WotC appears to believe that combat ritualism is quite strong, though, as 2 standard-action ritual uses per day are considered a suitable L30 feature for the Magister. If somebody pumped their Arcana skill as high as possible and used Magic Circle against whatever it is that they're fighting, they could often render themselves practically invulnerable for 2 battles per day, so I can understand some of the apparent reluctance towards allowing things like this.

Maybe you should allow rituals to be cast at 1/10th the normal time for 10x (or some other multiplier) the cost or with a penalty to the skill check? Don't allow anything else to be done, not even free- or no-action powers, during casting, but that would let characters cast 5-minute rituals in 5 rounds, or 3 rounds with a scroll.

Actually, I like the idea of reducing the time spent by giving a check penalty - say, -2 to for each change in casting time: hour->10min, 10min->1min, 1min->5rounds, 5rounds->1round, 1round->1std. action. Arcane Lock (10min cast time normally) in 1 standard action would take a -8 penalty to the Arcana roll, for instance. Don't allow this to be used on rituals with no check or whose check is trivial (for instance, Comprehend Languages)

[INDYSTAR188]

Originally Posted by Sipex

I have a method I use where the rituals take the same time and components (although those are up to you if you want to tweak them) but a ritual can be prepared ahead of time and stored, later to be let out with a Standard Action (to be fair, you can rule any action type you want). Rolls for the ritual are done at the time of actual casting (not the prep time before) for obvious reasons.

I usually limit it to 1 ritual (which is stored indefinitely until used) but you can explore different options. Like storing a number of rituals up to 1/2 your level.

I'm going to use this suggestion for game next Saturday with the 1 ritual limit initially. If we decide this isn't what we want I'll try another of the suggestions. I appreciate your input guys. I think that rituals SHOULD be more flexible and hopefully my players will enjoy this. We have an Artificer/Alchemical Savant, Bard/Warlock/Half-Elf Emissary, and an Invoker/??? not sure what paragon path he picked yet. It should be pretty interesting to see what kinda crazy stuff they can come up with using this method.

[Adoendithas]

My rule is that a ritual can be cast in combat if it has a casting time of 10 minutes or less, but you take -10 to the check. (Based on the precedent of Thievery in combat.)