Lower level rituals

I think it would help reconcile my in-setting view of magic with the game rules if I unhooked rituals from being solely high level spells.  I mean, leave those high level rituals where they are, but allow new rituals of any spell level down to 1st, and drop the caster level requirement for those.  (As with spell research more generally, I'm still convinced those magic research target numbers are a sufficient drawback to low level casters that no hard level requirement is necessary.)  Also stipulate you'd need to be able to cast a regular spell of a certain level to cast a ritual of the same level.

Using the spell creation rules in the PC, what kind of modifier would you assign for a ritual spell?

And to give an example right off the bat, I'll steal an example from Zak S:

One Thousand Hogs

A thousand hogs crawl up from beneath the earth. They know no master.

That's it, the whole spell.  (Permanent/instanteous is stipulated at the top of the post.)  As a ritual, what level would you assign this?  As an instantaneous spell, or could that be done at all?

I did run it through the Summoning Spells table, solely out of curiousity.  It doesn't fit, as expected, but I come up with a point cost as high as 21,000, which is clearly out of the table's range and into GM call territory.  I mean, it's powerful, but it's no Wish, nor even a full Cataclysm.

Hi Dave! The Heroic Fantasy Companion, an upcoming supplement for ACKS, provides detailed rules for Ceremonial Magic. Ceremonial Magic takes 1 - 6 turns depending on caster level and spell level, and requires a casting throw. 

Reading Zak S's page, most of the commentators suggest that One Thousand Hogs should be 2nd or 3rd level because it doesn't have much utility to an adventurer. But spells like One Thousand Hogs tend to be very high level in ACKS, because ACKS is so focused on economics. Being able to create a thousand hogs is economy-breaking if it's anything short of a very high level spell. I'd say it's an 8th level ritual spell. 

 

[quote="Alex"]

But spells like One Thousand Hogs tend to be very high level in ACKS, because ACKS is so focused on economics. Being able to create a thousand hogs is economy-breaking if it's anything short of a very high level spell. I'd say it's an 8th level ritual spell.

[/quote]

As I mentioned in the G+ post on this same topic, your article in Axioms handily makes it easy to calculate JUST how ruinous for the economy this would be.

Additionally, I'll repeat what I said there: based on the description of the hogs coming up from the ground, this strikes me as neither conjuring from thin air nor calling the nearest 1000 hogs to the area.  This spell might be more accurately described as "Transmute Mud to Hog".  Depending on how much area/volume 1000 hogs occupies, you could very quickly ruin the soil in the area unless you concentrated the transmuting into a single deep pit.  This leads me to believe that, if this spell exists in a form other than a ritual, it is no doubt employed by beastmen who had already largely ruined their tribal lands with unsustainable farming techniques.

[quote="Dave"] I'll steal an example from Zak S:

One Thousand Hogs

A thousand hogs crawl up from beneath the earth. They know no master.

That's it, the whole spell... I mean, it's powerful, but it's no Wish, nor even a full Cataclysm. [/quote] I hereby dub this spell "Lifetime of Bacon."

Given that the ritual spell rules are practically identical to the magic item creation rules, you could just reflavour scroll creation as low-level ritual spellcasting with no need for special mechanics. That'd put ritual spellcasting within the reach of any mage powerful enough to cast fireball.

Thanks for the input folks, that's a start.  But I think Thousand Hogs overshadowed my main question, which was what kind of modifier to use for making a spell a ritual.  Say a more conventional summons, or a variant of Control Weather or whatever.  1 turn to cast and only 1 per week is an easy X .64, for instance.  A ritual subsumes those and adds a research throw and gold cost.  I could see going pretty low, like .25, but then I think I don't want to break anything, so maybe .4?

[quote="Alex"]

Hi Dave! The Heroic Fantasy Companion, an upcoming supplement for ACKS, provides detailed rules for Ceremonial Magic. Ceremonial Magic takes 1 - 6 turns depending on caster level and spell level, and requires a casting throw. 

[/quote]

I will be interested to see that, but I hope to have something working to my own satisfaction in the next week or two, even if houseruled.  It's for an active campaign, and although there's no huge rush, I'm at a stage where my warlock's player is asking questions about the game world, which is cool.

Edit to add:  Pegging Thousand Hogs as a mighty 8th level spell is actually quite helpful.  I'm prompted to place a scroll of 'Hog in my home game; in a land of famine such a spell would surely be a treasure of quest and legend, although one that just might not work out as the caster intends ("they know no master!").  It's just that Hogs was an afterthought to my more general thoughts on rituals.

Well, so if I'm not mistaken, rituals are just the next level of spells, so 7th level mage spells can spend up to 70 points instead of 60 on a 6th level spell. This is probably a conservative estimate, but you could probably give yourself an extra 10 points for a ritual spell, which is essentially equivalent to a research breakthrough by increasing the effective spell level by 1.

The next option is to try and extrapolate the time to cast.  If a standard casting time is 1 round aka 10 seconds, and 1 turn is 10 minutes or  60 rounds, so by making a spell require 60 turns, aka 10 hours, you might give yourself another discount of the same proportion as increasing the casting time to 1 turn.  This makes a certain degree of sense because the jump from 1 round to 1 turn is the difference between in and outside of combat, while 10 turns (maybe just say 1 working day) means you could never reasonably cast it in a dungeon, and even casting it in the wilderness is risky unless you've build a sufficiently protected camp.  Beyond 10 hours, though, you run up against the fact that the supposed limitation of "spells per day" loses it's meaning.

The Ritual Spell system was designed before the Player's Companion Spell Building system. I had already made a decision, in running the Auran Empire Campaign, that some magic was simply too powerful to permit as simple spells if I wanted historical versimilitude and economic rationality for the setting.

Is it possible to reverse-engineer the modifiers for ritual spells? Probably not directly. In creating ritual spells, I have tended to allow small effects to scale up to an area of effect that's huge - much more rapidly than otherwise would be permitted. Hence Harvest and Cataclysm, which are very weak as single target effects, can affect an entire 24-mile hex with their effects. The largest area of effect of a non-ritual spell is probably Growth of Plants (3,000 square feet) so this is many orders of magnitude greater area of effect! But there are no ritual spells which can do  even two orders of magnitude more damage to one target (100d6 per level of the caster). 

So there's a basic asymmetry there! I would say if you're designing a spell for a very large area of effect, go with the following: 

1. Design a spell with an area of effect of up to 3,000 cubic feet (or square feet if height is irrelevant), or single target. 

2a. If it has an area of effect, add "ritual spell with area of effect increased by 4,646,400 times" as a modifier. That will increase 3,000 cubic feet to 500 square miles. For Blast spells it is a x2.5 modifier. For Transmogrification spells it is a x24 modifier.

-> to do a 6-mile hex, make the modifier x1.375 for Blast and x6 for Transmogrifcation maybe?

2b. If it has a single creature target, add "ritual spell targets up to 60,000 creatures within 500 square mile area" as a x5 modifier.  

Harvest: Harvest increases the Land Value in a 500-square mile area by 2gp per peasant family per month for 12 months. Typically, selecting one rank of a proficiency will increase an adventurer's wage by 10gp per month . So this is one/fifth of a proficiency. Since granting a proficiency costs 20 points, this effect costs 4 points. 3,000 square feet of unintelligent plants has an area of effect modifier of x0.3. The duration is 12 months, which probably should cost the same as indefinite (x3.5). It's a beneficial effect (x1). Range is 0' (x0.6). Total cost for the spell is 2.5 points. We make it a "ritual spell with area of effect increased by 4,646,400 times", which increases area of effect to 500 miles. This increases the cost to 60 points, making it a 6th level divine ritual. 

Cataclysm: Cataclysm kills half of the peasant population in an area of 500 square miles, along with damaging structures. A blast spell dealing 1d6 points of damage to every creature in the area of effect with no saving throw works as the effect, as most humans having 3-4 hp, a little over half will be killed by 1d6 damage. The base effect cost is 27 for 1d6 damage per caster level x 0.1 for 1d cap = 2.7. The range is special - the caster must have seen the domain or met the ruler. Let's call that a x5 modifier, raising the cost to 13.5. Duration is instantaneous. No saving throw is permitted. For the area of effect, a 20' diameter sphere is close to 3,000 cubic feet, so that's x2. Overall the spell has a cost of 27 points. We make it a "ritual spell with area of effect increased by 4,646,400 times", which increases area of effect to 500 miles. This increases the cost by 2.5 to 67.5 points, making it a 7th level divine ritual. 

This is just me riffing. Let's play around and see what comes of it. 

Thanks, that's very helpful!  I'll try to get some trial cases up soon.

Okay, just thinking as I type here.  

Dreams of Greed and Madness

Arcane Ritual ??

This ritual affects all humans and humanoids within a radius up to five miles from the caster who sleep at any time between the next sundown and sunrise.  The ritual identifies the single most valuable treasure within that same area.  Each sleeper awakes with a certain sense of their own distance from and direction to that one treasure.  This sense of distance and direction lasts until each person next sleeps, when it evaporates from their minds.  Madness often ensues, but the ruthless may believe they can prepare to reach it first, or simply cast it to cause chaos within a realm.

Math:   Detect Treasure is 15, 1 area/object is x.7, five miles is x6, day's duration is x8, and we have 504.  (Error!)  But!  Detection spell only castable once per week is .2, and one turn to cast is .8.  That gets us to 80.64 without any ritual modifier (except 80 is a ritual).  I was thinking dealing in the peasants was a drawback worth a discount, and it might well be, but I can see it's got tremendous disruptive potential as well.  So this one won't be my white whale of a low-level ritual.  Level:  ???

Witch Marks

Scratches made in the beams of buildings, protecting against the malign spells and evil eye of witches.  +1 bonus to saving throws (5) and Invulnerable to Bestow Curse (15).  Range 0 (x1), affects 10' cube (x1.25) is 25 before... duration, permanent unless defaced or dispelled (???...  x5?).  Without rituals, Summoning allows a net .64 for one turn to cast and only one per week, while Detection net .16 for the same.  Protection doesn't list those modifiers, leading me to think they're not meant to have any, but if applied that's either 80 or 20, depending.  Then I still think I need some modifier for the gold cost and the magic throw - x.5?  Gets me to a level 4 or level 1, and level 1 is what I'm after for non-adventuring wizards, but at this point I wonder if I'm just goosing the input to get the result I want.

....

I seem to keep coming back to Summons' one turn to cast (x.8) and only once per week (x.8), net x.64 without a ritual.  Detection are even cheaper, x.8 and x.2, for a net x.16.  Rituals subsume those limits and add a gold cost and a magic throw.  Rituals are worth x.4 to x.1, depending on school?