So here’s the situation: Rituals should be awesome. They’re typically a little bit open-ended, they’re not direct combat actions, they’re ripe for interesting roleplaying, and they’re fairly accessible to a wide range of classes. But they have a couple of problems that get in the way of them being fun, in my experience:
- Their costs are cumbersome and nitpicky, requiring the tracking and gathering of several otherwise useless resources.
- Because of their long casting times, the entire set of mechanics basically don’t exist in most of the tense game play situations that my groups typically find themselves in.
- Because they require a limited, non-renewable resource, I find that many players are hesitant to use them, even fairly minor ones, because they’re afraid of wasting the resources.
- Having enough of the components is dependent upon A: active effort from the DM, or B: having a steady flow of gold – a standard, steady gold economy, by the books.
I’ve tried house-ruling them before (cast as full-round action, pay costs with healing surges/action points/daily powers), and typically removing some of these barriers has good results, but I haven’t been 100% satisfied with my own efforts. I often need to make a lot of little exceptions to compensate for the wide range of rituals available.
It’s worth noting that I usually play with groups that enjoy RP and play fast and loose; I’m not concerned about accounting for all the loopholes or anything, since none of my players are the types to try and break the system, or min-max at the expense of fun.
So, without further ado: do you guys have good tips or tricks, or even fleshed out houserules, that make casting rituals more feasible and accessible?