Would a house rule letting anyone cast their ritual spells as rituals be game-breaking?ded#91matde rwa500up xpas f bissorenzx rL
By default, there are limited ways for characters in D&D 5E to cast ritual-tagged spells as rituals. Either they choose a class with the Ritual Casting feature, choose warlock with the Book of Ancient Secrets invocation, or choose the Ritual Caster feat.
I'm considering a house rule that gives this benefit to any spellcaster. The rule would create some overlap between classes, adding some utility to a wider variety of party combinations (e.g., parties with a Sorcerer instead of a Wizard). The wording would be something like the following:
If a feature lets you cast a spell that has the ritual tag, then you can cast that spell as a ritual.
This rule should apply to ritual-tagged spells gained through a class, subclass, racial feature, or any other feature. It could also apply to spellcasting NPCs. But it should not apply to spells cast through scrolls or other items.
While this rule benefits some (sub)classes but not others, thereby shifting the relative power balance between classes, that is intentional. For example, this change adds versatility to Rangers and Eldritch Knights, yet it should not let them overpower Druids and Wizards, respectively.
My main concern is about mechanical choices that would significantly boost the character or party beyond what's expected for their level, such as somehow exploiting Magic Initiate to gain something much stronger than an ASI or feat.
So far I've considered possible consequences, and can't find ways it could unbalance or break the game. Am I missing anything? What possible exploits, if any, could be caused by this house rule?
1 Answer
Rangers will love this. Slightly unbalanced.
Bard, Cleric, Druid and Wizard all already posses the Ritual Casting feature from 1st level. This house rule would have no benefit for them and therefore makes them weaker in comparison. Pure martial characters also gain no benefit from this house-rule. They have no spells (other than racial) and therefore have no ritual spells.
House-rules that benefit only a subset of classes/characters are by definition unbalanced. But how much of a benefit is it really?
By RAW this is a benefit that is worthy of a feat or an Eldritch Invocation. Both of those however, also grant the ability to learn additional spells. Your house-rule isn't as powerful. Though playing with this house-rule would make both those options significantly less attractive.
This house-rule is buff for classes that have spells but don't have the Ritual Casting feature. The benefit will be limited by the number of ritual spells on the respective class spell lists. Rangers with 11 ritual spells on their list will benefit the most, Paladin (4), Sorcerer (4), Warlock (4) will all benefit to a lesser degree. The Arcane Trickster, Eldritch Knight and any other class with a spellcasting feature will also benefit. I am not aware of any races with a ritual spell but if they did exist they would benefit too.
Notably most classes that lack the Ritual Casting feature also have very few ritual spells on their spell list, compared to the Bard (8), Cleric (7), Druid (13), and Wizard (22). The exception to this is the ranger. Rangers have a lot of ritual spells on their list but relatively few spell slots and no Ritual Casting feature.
Since your house-rule so heavily favours a single class, and slightly favours a few others, I would have to say that it is unbalanced. That said, ritual casting is not so powerful a feature as to be game-breaking, I would consider allowing this on a playtest basis.
Some things you may want to watch for during playtesting:
- Significant boost to Rangers' utility spellcasting
- Other casters stepping on the toes of Wizards
- Combining this with the Magic Initiate feat to gain cheap access to unlimited utility spells
-
8\\$\\begingroup\\$ "House-rules that benefit only a subset of classes/characters are by definition unbalanced" - this would only be true, if classes were perfectly balanced originally. They are not, see Ranger. \\$\\endgroup\\$ – András 8 hours ago
-
1\\$\\begingroup\\$ I've revised the question a bit. This is a good answer, however "unbalanced" was the wrong criteria to ask for, since the house rule intentionally benefits some (sub)classes and not others. \\$\\endgroup\\$ – MikeQ 8 hours ago
-
\\$\\begingroup\\$ I might add that if the table didn't have a Bard, Cleric, Druid or Wizard, or perhaps only one of them, that the rule wouldn't be that unbalanced. Or if there were no Ranger. \\$\\endgroup\\$ – Orisa is your shield 2 hours ago
-
1\\$\\begingroup\\$ @András are you saying that Ranger is underpowered, so rule that benefits this class more would actually bring them closer to balance? \\$\\endgroup\\$ – Mołot 2 hours ago
-
5\\$\\begingroup\\$ @Mołot, of course you can make even Rangers overpowered with big enough changes, but this is my point, yes. The mentality that any positive change automatically upsets the balance hurts objective examination of homebrew in my opinion. \\$\\endgroup\\$ – András 2 hours ago