How does a Ritual Caster (feat) replace their ritual book?

Question

The Player's Handbook specifically provides for how a wizard's spellbook (p. 114) and warlock's Book of Shadows (p. 108) can be replaced, but the Ritual Caster feat does not appear to address getting a new ritual book. Per the feat:

You have learned a number of spells that you can cast as rituals. These spells are written in a ritual book, which you must have in hand while casting one of them. When you choose this feat, you acquire a ritual book holding two 1st-level spells [from a chosen spellcasting class].

You can also copy additional ritual spells of the same class into your ritual book from scrolls and spellbooks, but the feat says nothing about no longer having the ritual book. (PHB, p. 169)

• Can the ritual book from the Ritual Caster feat be replaced if lost/stolen/destroyed?
• If replaced, does it contain any or all of the rituals in the old one?
• Are either of the above dependent on the spellcasting class chosen when the feat was taken?

Answers from the core rulebooks are preferred; house rules and homebrew are appreciated if supported by experience.

Answer 1

You need to restart the process of acquiring ritual spells via this mechanic.

The process of copying the spell into your ritual book takes 2 hours per level of the spell, and costs 50 gp per level.

The feat mentions this.

When you choose this feat, you acquire a ritual book holding two 1st-level spells of your choice

This occurs only when you choose the feat.

Afterwards the content of the book, a physical object, is governed by the process described above. So if you lose it, your only recourse is to find more spells and use the rule above to scribe rituals into a new book.

As a general comment, the gist of the game is for the referee to present a setting for the player to experience as their character. In this sense it is a pen & paper virtual reality. This relates to your question in that given the lack of specific rules, you should consider the issue as if you were really there. The Warlock getting his Book of Shadows (PHB 108) is an example of a specific exception to the assumption of a pen & paper virtual reality. In this case the character has a physical book filled with ritual spells. Lose the book and you lose the spells and have to spend time and money to make a new one.

Note that there appears to be no initial cost assigned to making a new ritual book. However, in the equipment list a spellbooks cost 50 gp, and a blank book 25 gp. Personally, I would charge a PC the spellbook cost for a new ritual book. However, if you are not comfortable with that then charge the player the cost of a book. Other than that, there is nothing to prohibit characters from spending additional time and money to make a backup book.

Also, this is consistent with how the Wizard spell book works on page 114, which is the closet relevant mechanic.

Of interest is that the ritual feat is the only way for a sorcerer to cast ritual spells, as he doesn't possess a ritual casting feature as a function of class as far as I can tell.

Answer 2

Nothing has changed that would affect the answer since this question was originally asked in 2015.

As the question notes, the rules do not say if a ritual book can be replaced. They are mute on the loss and on the recovery of the ritual book. They do not say "if lost, the ritual book can never be recovered", nor do they say "if lost the ritual book can be recovered thusly."

TL:DR This is a question of rulings, not rules.

If the ritual book has been lost, it has been lost as part of the narrative of the game. If the book has been lost, the GM created a narrative in which the book was lost. The recovery of the book also needs to be part of the narrative. It is up to the GM to make a ruling that serves the game.

Can the ritual book from the Ritual Caster feat be replaced if lost/stolen/destroyed?

It is entirely reasonable for a GM to allow a ritual caster to replace a ritual book.

To not allow a ritual caster to replace the ritual book is to render the feat useless, which in most games is going to punish the player, probably for no reason, and is not going to lead to more fun.

How the book gets replaced will vary from campaign to campaign. Chances are, the difference in cost of 25gp for a blank book vs. 50gp for a spellbook is not significant. Furthermore, since wizards can write their spells on any old thing, it would not be completely unreasonable for a ritual caster to write rituals on something that does not necessarily resemble a conventional book. These are narrative issues that the GM and player should work out together.
More important than rules-lawyering from either the GM's or the player's standpoint is finding a solution that works and allow the game to move forward.

If replaced, does it contain any or all of the rituals in the old one?

Whether the replacement ritual book "comes with spells" can also reasonably vary from campaign to campaign. Even a maximally cooperative GM is unlikely to say, "In the back of the mysterious bookstore you find a new ritual book that has all your spells in it."

The GM can reasonably allow the ritual caster to acquire a new book and then have to spend time and energy replacing the spells; however, a smart GM will think about whether this narratively advances the game. Is replacing the rituals a challenge for the player to overcome? Have at it. Perhaps the ritual caster was imprisoned and has escaped. A stranger in a strange land they are without weapons, coins, or friends. Under the cover of darkness, they break into the old bookstore and find an empty book. Searching through the shelves, they find a familiar spell, find familiar. Things are looking up....

In other cases, the GM can reasonably handwave the whole thing.
Ritual caster: "Now that we're in Bigmagiccity, I try to replace my ritual book."
GM: "Yes, you have lots of connections in this town. Over the course of the next week, you're able to replace your book. Charge yourself what a book costs, and the cost to replace each spell."

For the GM, this isn't a rule, but a ruling. What is the best way to advance the story? It's completely reasonable in some cases that the details of replacing the book are not narratively important. A GM could even reasonably have a player roll, and on a good roll, recover more spells, and even maybe get an extra one, and on a bad roll perhaps they aren't able to find a replacement for floating disk. Again, it is up to the GM to make the rules serve the story.

Are either of the above dependent on the spellcasting class chosen when the feat was taken?

Not directly. The feat is not class-dependent. One class or another may have access to resources that make the story narratively different. A bard or a cleric would likely have access to different resources. If recovering the book is narratively significant then it is entirely reasonable that different classes would go about it in different ways.