Talk:Ritual Magic (Apath)

Mark

What I Know: - Spellcasters with a maximum spell level of level 9 may learn rituals in place of spells (they are called primary casters). Others can learn rituals once they learn the ritual caster feat. - Rituals take 2 minutes or more to cast. - Rituals take multiple spellcasters to perform. One must be a primary caster. - There is a physical cost to rituals to the participants. - I have a partial list of ritual spells now.

What I Don't Know: - What is the cost. - How many casters are needed. - Should rituals be organized by ritual level or by combined caster level needed.

Carl

The basic idea for rituals in my head right now is that you start out with a spell, or even the idea of a spell that has a spell level but doesn't exist. You then go through a list of powerups and powerdowns to get a ritual level. Powerups would be things like covering an entire town or having your summon be a calling instead. Powerdowns would be time, components you have to quest for, number of casters, and such things. There are also minimum caster requirements, a ritual can never be a spell usable in combat. You end up with an effective spell level that determines how hard it is to use the ritual. I'm not so fond of using a die roll for the ritual itself. I'd rather just have a power limit based on skill ranks. I prefer the difficulty to be in setting it up and avoiding interruption.

This is probably too free-form to work straight away, but its what I have in mind at this point. It will need development.

I see three main uses for rituals and will write rules around these.

The first is to cast high-level spells you cannot yet cast normally - such as raise dead. Some campaigns are and remain low-level, and yet require these spells from time to time. Making them rituals explains how a temple in a low-leveled world could have access to such magics - they do them as rituals. It can also justify the costs. This also saves us from having to make a large bunch of new ritual effects that mimic spells - just use the spell already!

The second is to allow more freeform magic for higher level characters. This is what I can be called "dungeon level magic". How come this dungeon is under permanent "darkness" or "obscuring mist"? How to teleport an entire army, or an entire country? How do I make my castle permanently teleport-proof? This is obviously abuseable, but by making effects either instantaneous or anchored to places, I think this can be made mostly defensive. PCs can now build strongholds as impressive as dungeons, but unless the enemy actually attacks their stronghold, this never comes into play. For effects you can wear on your person, magic items are still the thing.

A third use would be flexibility in unexpected situations. When your party suddenly needs Water Breathing or something equally specific, a high-level party can fudge this as a ritual, letting even spontaneous casters have some flexibility. This would be the two-minute rituals, and must not be too easy. Still, having this sort of magical preparation be possible increases the value of scouting and intelligence, something i very much like.

I feel that if there is to be a point in having rules for ritual magic, it should be something that it is realistic for PCs to use. NPC-only ritual magic doesn't need any rules, its just a backdrop for scenarios. "You need to stop the evil cult from summoning Jubilex" is a scenario, not something where you need ritual magic rules - unless the PCs are trying to do it. That said, having ritual magic rules in the back of your head might help write such a scenario. Why are cultists out picking Deena flowers each dawn? Why are pigs bladders disappearing? And why are the sewers full of slimes? All this could be ritual prerequisites that serve as clues in a scenario.

Besides all the complications mentioned, I would also like to have a lack-of-secrecy figure (needs a better name) for each ritual. This is the clues you let out about your magical project, giving a chance that some enemy group realizes what is up and tries to sabotage your effort. The more preparations you do, the more likely you are to be interrupted, and the more powerful the interruption will be. Powerful rituals that require a lot of preparation also provoke lots of opposition. Such sabotage would likely be in the form of an attack on the ritual when in progress, replacing a number of skill checks à la Paizo with an action scene. This would require a GM section at the end of the book, but I think this is unavoidable anyway, GMs need lots of advice on how rituals are to be used in the game.

Thinking about class balance, I don't think you HAVE to be a spellcaster to use ritual magic, but it would certainly help. Not only would a ritual based on a spell you know be easier, you are also more likely to have the relevant skills. Maybe, just maybe, this could be expanded to a system of projects even if they are not magical per se. Want to build a castle? Establish a theive's guild? Institute patrols to keep your lands safe? Just a wild idea at this point, but maybe something similar could work there, making this a downtime-management system.

About skills, I think the regular knowledge skills would be tight, Arcana for arcane rituals, Religion for divine rituals, and so on. I have to look on the Porphyra RPG's skill list and check. But I think only skill ranks should be used, not skill bonus. Skill ranks are much less fluid and optimizable. I'm not 100% on the skill ranks bit, it might feel unfair. But all Knowledge skills use Intelligence, and having Intelligence govern all rituals also feels unfair. This should get clearer as I look at things.

These are my thoughts so far. please comment on any or all of it.

Mark Gedak

Wed, Dec 26, 9:02 PM (4 days ago)

to me

The basic idea for rituals in my head right now is that you start out with a spell, or even the idea of a spell that has a spell level but doesn't exist. You then go through a list of powerups and powerdowns to get a ritual level. Powerups would be things like covering an entire town or having your summon be a calling instead. Powerdowns would be time, components you have to quest for, number of casters, and such things. There are also minimum caster requirements, a ritual can never be a spell usable in combat. You end up with an effective spell level that determines how hard it is to use the ritual. I'm not so fond of using a die roll for the ritual itself. I'd rather just have a power limit based on skill ranks (or caster level). I prefer the difficulty to be in setting it up and avoiding interruption.

Raise Dead, Binding, Summon Planar Ally, Major Creation, really any of the awkward non-combat spells.

Some campaigns are and remain low-level, and yet require these spells from time to time. Making them rituals explains how a temple in a low-leveled world could have access to such magics - they do them as rituals. It can also justify the costs. This also saves us from having to make a large bunch of new ritual effects that mimic spells - just use the spell already!

Or adapt the spells. There are currently many spells being cut from the main book as I work through edits. Mostly things with longer casting times or complicated processes or very expensive material components.

The second is to allow more freeform magic for higher level characters. This is what I can be called "dungeon level magic". How come this dungeon is under permanent "darkness" or "obscuring mist"? How to teleport an entire army, or an entire country? How do I make my castle permanently teleport-proof? This is obviously abuseable, but by making effects either instantaneous or anchored to places, I think this can be made mostly defensive. PCs can now build strongholds as impressive as dungeons, but unless the enemy actually attacks their stronghold, this never comes into play. For effects you can wear on your person, magic items are still the thing.

An extension of the ideas presented in guards and wards (which was also cut).

A third use would be flexibility in unexpected situations. When your party suddenly needs Water Breathing or something equally specific, a high-level party can fudge this as a ritual, letting even spontaneous casters have some flexibility. This would be the two-minute rituals, and must not be too easy. Still, having this sort of magical preparation be possible increases the value of scouting and intelligence, something i very much like.

This might be an area specific to spontaneous casters.

I feel that if there is to be a point in having rules for ritual magic, it should be something that it is realistic for PCs to use. NPC-only ritual magic doesn't need any rules, its just a backdrop for scenarios. "You need to stop the evil cult from summoning Jubilex" is a scenario, not something where you need ritual magic rules - unless the PCs are trying to do it. That said, having ritual magic rules in the back of your head might help write such a scenario. Why are cultists out picking Deena flowers each dawn? Why are pigs bladders disappearing? And why are the sewers full of slimes? All this could be ritual prerequisites that serve as clues in a scenario.

Yes.

Besides all the complications mentioned, I would also like to have a lack-of-secrecy figure (needs a better name) for each ritual. This is the clues you let out about your magical project, giving a chance that some enemy group realizes what is up and tries to sabotage your effort. The more preparations you do, the more likely you are to be interrupted, and the more powerful the interruption will be. Powerful rituals that require a lot of preparation also provoke lots of opposition. Such sabotage would likely be in the form of an attack on the ritual when in progress, replacing a number of skill checks à la Paizo with an action scene. This would require a GM section at the end of the book, but I think this is unavoidable anyway, GMs need lots of advice on how rituals are to be used in the game.

Yep.

Thinking about class balance, I don't think you HAVE to be a spellcaster to use ritual magic, but it would certainly help. Not only would a ritual based on a spell you know be easier, you are also more likely to have the relevant skills. Maybe, just maybe, this could be expanded to a system of projects even if they are not magical per se. Want to build a castle? Establish a theive's guild? Institute patrols to keep your lands safe? Just a wild idea at this point, but maybe something similar could work there, making this a downtime-management system.

That might split the design goal to much initially.

About skills, I think the regular knowledge skills would be tight, Arcana for arcane rituals, Religion for divine rituals, and so on.

There is no such thing as arcane magic or divine magic. Just magic.

I have to look on the Porphyra RPG's skill list and check. But I think only skill ranks should be used, not skill bonus. Skill ranks are much less fluid and optimizable. I'm not 100% on the skill ranks bit, it might feel unfair. But all Knowledge skills use Intelligence, and having Intelligence govern all rituals also feels unfair. This should get clearer as I look at things.

Caster level still seems easier.