Ritual Casting in C&C

[Ogre]

Do you think this house rule would unbalance the game greatly?

Ritual Casting

At any time a wizard may cast any spell in his spell book that he is of adequate level to cast. The caster spends 30 minutes casting the spell from the spell book, he may not be interrupted or distracted during this time, he loses one of his prepared spells that day from this casting.

[serleran]

So, a 1st level wizard can spend 30 minutes to cast a prismatic sphere and give up his create water to do it?

No thanks. Conceptually, it could work... mechanically, it needs some serious counterbalances. Wizards are already very, very powerful. This makes them gods.

I would probably add in some restriction like:

When the caster finishes completion of the higher level spell, he loses, for one day per level of that spell, a number of spell slots equal to the level of the spell being cast (for example, the casting of a 9th level spell causes the loss of 9 spell level equivalents for 9 days) unless the spell is permanent -- in this case, the loss is also permanent.
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Serl's Corner

[Ogre]

Hmm... seems to be some confusion, let me rephrase.

Ritual Casting

At any time a wizard may cast any spell in his spell book that he is high enough level to cast. The caster spends 30 minutes casting the spell from the spell book, he may not be interrupted or distracted during this time, he loses one of his prepared spells of the same level with this casting.

[Go0gleplex]

So in essence, he uses his spellbook like a non-depletable scroll...in exchange, the spell takes 30 minutes to cast...and it goes off as if he had done a memorized spell?

What's the point? No wizard in their right mind is going to spend half an hour casting a spell in the wilderness or dungeon. And they will be needing to get as much rest as possible to recharge the memorized spots they have. If this is to replace memorized spots, then taking a half hour to cast a spell just made the wizard untenable in an adventuring capacity.

No, it will likely be used only in the safety of their home base...and unless you're tracking each minute of "home time", it makes it a rather pointless complication.
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The obvious will always trip you up FAR more than the obscure.

Baron Grignak Hammerhand of the Pacifica Provinces-

High Warden of the Castles & Crusades Society

[Ogre]

Ok.

Let's say you are a third level wizard, you have one prepared second level spell and you prepare Acid Arrow, now you come to a door that is magically shut, and you have Knock in your spell book, so you have the rest of the party stand guard while you chant over your spell book for thirty minutes and cast knock, which makes you lose acid arrow.

[Treebore]

I had ritual casting, back in my 2E days, increase the duration of spells with durations, by one increment for each 10 minutes spent casting it. Which was called a turn back then.

So say a spell has a duration, at the current casters level, of 1 round per level. Lets use 10th level as the example. So if the spell would normally last 10 rounds, for each 10 minutes spent casting it that duration adds upon itself, so if they spent an hour casting the spell would last 60 rounds upon completion.

The most common use of ritual casting in my games was typically for the Rope Trick spell and the Leomond's Hut and Shelter spells. They also did it every once in a while for Haste and Improved Invisibility. I don't recall any other regular uses.

As to your application, it certainly will not be usable in combat situations without fore knowledge as well as planning, so I think it would work pretty well and not be abuse-able too often.
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[neuronphaser]

Ogre wrote:
Ok.

Let's say you are a third level wizard, you have one prepared second level spell and you prepare Acid Arrow, now you come to a door that is magically shut, and you have Knock in your spell book, so you have the rest of the party stand guard while you chant over your spell book for thirty minutes and cast knock, which makes you lose acid arrow.

Sounds good to me. Like-for-like, more non-combat versatility; nothing wrong with that. You might have to consider a few spells being "off-limits" for this, maybe by designating spells as "ritual acceptable", which is easily done off the cuff. You wouldn't have to go through your entire PHB and figure it out in one sitting, just do it as it comes up on the players' side of the screen.

I'd even consider lessening the casting time. 4e does the 10-minute ritual (more for complex rituals), and that seems fine for non-combat stuff. You could do something like 5 or 10 minutes per level.

You might also consider imposing a limit on the number of rituals per day outside of simple time restrictions, too, just in case you play high level and everyone's blowing their spells for multiple wishes or something ridiculous like that, but I'd say that's an unlikely occurrence anyway. Add in the house rule "don't be a jerk about it" and it should work fine

[Ogre]

neuronphaser wrote:
You might also consider imposing a limit on the number of rituals per day outside of simple time restrictions, too, just in case you play high level and everyone's blowing their spells for multiple wishes or something ridiculous like that

How would that be different or more beneficial to the character than just memorizing Wish a bunch of times?

[neuronphaser]

Ogre wrote:
How would that be different or more beneficial to the character than just memorizing Wish a bunch of times?

Because wish can't fix every situation, and there may be other 9th level spells worth memorizing or, using this system, aren't worth memorizing but are worth casting.

It's impossible for a wizard to memorize all the right spells, all the time when they have so few slots to do it with, and so many potential spells. Campaign-specific spells, spells from other books, etc.

[Go0gleplex]

hehehee....this just screams "wandering monster encounter."
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The obvious will always trip you up FAR more than the obscure.

Baron Grignak Hammerhand of the Pacifica Provinces-

High Warden of the Castles & Crusades Society

[Relaxo]

Yeah I think that works.

It's like the 3.x sorcerer casting any spell they currently know not necessarily have memorized) but it won't work in combat, so I don't see a problem.

(that's what you meant, right)?

especially w/o a sorcerer class, I think this is good. If the PCs really don't want to bash the door down to stay quiet (borrowing the example above) this is a smart move. It does leave time for something else to go wrong, however. he he he he.