Earlier today Mike Mearls asked “Thursday’s #dnd question - have rituals seen much use in your game?”
Looking through several responses, it looks like many groups have not used rituals. Those groups that have used rituals, do not use rituals very often. The largest complaint about rituals were the casting costs associated with them.
My proposed solution to this problem is to follow the example given in the Player’s Handbook II with the Bards. Bards are allowed to perform one ritual per day of their level or lower without having to pay the component cost. The only catch is that the ritual must be a bard specific ritual. At paragon and epic tiers the bard is allowed one additional ritual per day for free.
Following this example I would extend this class feature to the Wizard, Cleric and Druid classes, since I consider these to be the main ritual casting classes of their power sources. Wizards would be only be allowed to perform Arcane based rituals for free. Clerics would be restricted to Religion based rituals, while Druids would only be allowed to cast Nature based rituals without component cost.
This house rule should increase the usability of rituals in your campaign, and make the Wizard, Cleric and Druid classes the best ritual casters of their power source.
Related posts:
- Speeding up combat in D&D 4e: Part 1 One of the largest complaints that I hear about forth...
- Removing magic weapons from DnD 4e In an upcoming Dungeons & Dragons Forth Edition campaign, I...
- Black Rage, Solo Brute: Take 1 The Black Rage is a giant that has been twisted...
- Introducing new players to DnD 4E How would you introduce new players to Forth Edition? How...
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
Tags: 4e, DM Advice, DND, house rules, rituals
I like the idea. My players like the flavor of many of the rituals, but none ever seem to be worth the cost and hassle to them. The economy of the game is more than a bit off base at points, rituals being the most obvious example. Mind you, I don’t play for the economy so normally no biggie.
Of course, this does nothing for a Fighter, Ranger, Shaman, Paladin & Warlock game like mine…
If fact, this change is bad in that you’ll move back closer to the “every party needs a Wizard and a Cleric”.
The proper 4E way to do it is instead to say *any* character with the Ritual Caster feat gets to cast one ritual for free, provided they’re trained in the ritual’s key skill.
Why not give that stupid fighter maximum encouragement to invest in the Ritual Caster feat? :-)