Making Magic Items with Rituals Scrolls

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Davion

Davion

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I had a question about making items after seeing some other comments around here. Some people were talking about saving up for a "20 rit magic item". My question is, why not make a magic item and slowly build it up to 20 rituals? What Is the reasoning for doing it all at once?

Thank you
 
Not being a ritual caster and having very little knowledge of the ritual system the observation I have is that... its expensive. If someone wants an item with 20 rits on it they don't want it to expire. The perm ritual is very very expensive and rare. Last I saw its catalyst alone went for a couple hundred gold at auction. If you created an item before you had the perm ritual in hand there is a good chance you won't find the perm rit in time. I also know there is something about an item only being "open" for a small window of time but someone else would be better to explain that system.
 
If you want rits to last longer than the base time (usually a year) you have to put an extender on them (Perm or Preserve).

Each of those extenders takes a slot, and is expensive, as was noted. Add things a few at a time, and you'd end up with either rotating rituals (if they weren't extended, parts of the items would expire before others) or multiple extenders taking up spots that could have been used for other things.

Example:

+3 DA
+8 Undead Slayer
Preserve

30 Pt AA
Prot Aura 4
Release x2
Magic Armor x2
Preserve

Spell Battery 18
Prison x2
Confine x2
Spell Shield x2
Spirit Link
Perm

Now, if you'd saved up and cast it at once, you could have saved yourself the 2 Preserves, and put a couple cloaks or banes or something else. And, all the rits would be permanent, instead of more than half disappearing over time.
 
It was once proposed and done that higher extensions over-wrote lower extensions. This ended up not getting incorporated into the following book and was thus negated.

It's a shame that it was lost because I think we'd see rituals being cast more often if people knew waiting for a permanence meant they could still use their other goodies in the mean time.
 
I think an extender should overwrite any previous extender. I'd also like to see another ritual for adding just 1 year.
 
Most rituals now last one year by default.

Once upon a time rituals only lasted a few days and you needed an extender for just that one year. Since a year is now standard we did away with that ritual.
 
Each rit-casting is a separate "entity," is how I think of it. Like making multiple batches of cookies all put on the same plate. Each batch has to be assembled and made, but one has little to do with the others, except fill the plate.

You have 5 minutes to start each subsequent ritual in a batch, including the extender. After 5 minutes with no activity, the batch is closed, and no more can be added. You can cast a boost duration, which gives you 30 days to cast an extender (which replaces the boost). That's nice if the only extender you can find is in Chapter X, but all your other scrolls are in Chapter Y.

It also doesn't work logistically if you can continually re-cast a Preserve on an item and re-up it indefinately. That'd be like finding all those scrolls over and over every time. You make it, that's it. If it worked like that, I think the item bloat would be worse than it is now.
 
phedre said:
It also doesn't work logistically if you can continually re-cast a Preserve on an item and re-up it indefinately. That'd be like finding all those scrolls over and over every time. You make it, that's it. If it worked like that, I think the item bloat would be worse than it is now.
Click to expand...

What went through was that you could over-write an Extend with a Preserve, and a Preserve with a Permanence... not continually recast a Preserve.

If Preserve was changed to give you time for increased difficulty, I'd see no problem with letting someone renew a Preserve with rules being written that you only get one shot at it (so if it fails, that's the end, train stops there.)
 
Lauren, is it really 5 mins? I know the last time I looked it actually wasn't in the book and most places I have played when asked how long between rits in a batch I was given 1 min (that's 4 different chapters playing with the 1 min rule). Wow, 5 mins makes doing things really easy.
 
Jezebel said:
Lauren, is it really 5 mins? I know the last time I looked it actually wasn't in the book and most places I have played when asked how long between rits in a batch I was given 1 min (that's 4 different chapters playing with the 1 min rule). Wow, 5 mins makes doing things really easy.
Click to expand...

Per the recent ARC clarification:
viewtopic.php?f=98&t=9431
 
Is there any benefit to stacking rituals other than making multiple magical effects permanent with only one permanence scroll?

Alternatively, why not just have a bunch of separate magic items for each ritual and replace them when the ritual effectiveness ends?

It seems like it would be much cheaper and easier to acquire any additional scroll of X ritual than to hold out for amazing luck and then pay out major coin for the permanence scroll for essentially the same net effect.

Is there something I'm missing?

(I'm looking forward to being an Earth formalist soon)
 
Most people wait to find an extender. Especially a Perm, which requires a scroll and a catalyst.

Since catalysts are rare, and the extender scrolls are coveted, it makes sense to wait an extra 6 months to cast your item: you might never, as that character, get your hands on one again.

Plus, it's easier to make one item with everything on it that you can spirit link/lock than have a few smaller items that you can lose. Again, you'd run into the same problem of finding extender and SL scrolls every time. (The alternative is to leave a spot open on each item and spellcraft a Spirit Link, that way it can be passed around but doesn't get lost on random mod or disarmed by NPC Goon #7.)
 
One of the other reasons is many scrolls can be cast at different difficulties for different outcomes (spellstore, damage aura, arcane armor, etc). In order to cast them at the most effective amount it takes a good deal of components. If you are going to use that many components it makes sense to have the item last longer than a year.
With that said, I have in the past few years since the auto extend has been in place (most rits lasting a year instead of 5 days) cast a good deal of rituals for people to only make them last a year. If you're a dark elf who doesn't have much, but finds a cloak of darkness scroll, it does make some sense to cast it to make it last for a year (I can say I've done this twice now in the past two years). So there are benifits to casting immediately or waiting for a batch. The key thing is to look at your means and what you expect your means to be. Not everyone that batches rituals makes that uber 20 rit item. Most that I have seen have been between 5-12 rits. It all depends on circumstances, but generally, if you can hold out for an extender, you will be able to play with that item longer. The key is making said item before that character perms :)
 
phedre said:
Since catalysts are rare, and the extender scrolls are coveted, it makes sense to wait an extra 6 months to cast your item: you might never, as that character, get your hands on one again.
Click to expand...

To be clear, when she says rare, what that means is that catalysts only go out for a certain high number of players per event. Of the full spread of catalysts, only two of one particular type may go out in a year.

So if you pick up a permanence catalyst in January, and just happen to be the lucky guy to pick one up in June, you know, without a doubt, that another one won't be coming out for the rest of the year.

Preserve doesn't have a catalyst associated to it, but is still a fairly spendy scroll to acquire, because those who can't afford a permanence more than likely can at least afford a preserve.

Those are the only two extension rituals available. And they can still fail while casting.

So people wait for extenders instead of just making one year items... you have to remember that they aren't the only ones after these scrolls. If the ritual policy was more affluent you'd probably see people casting rituals more often and waiting for extenders less. If extenders could be applied later in that scaling up fashion, you'd probably see people casting things more often then slapping a preserve or a permanence on it when they found one.

It's a big picture problem with a lot of little pictures inside it. The entire system for it really just needs to be re-evaluated.
 
What I was thinking was that there should be a more common "+1 year scroll for a total of two years" and that you should be able to overwrite lesser extenders with longer ones that start when the item was first crafted. So if you're at the end of your (two years) and you add preserve, it'd last +3 years.
 
The original question has been answered. To discuss the matter further and share ideas feel free to move to the general discussion area. Thanks guys!
 
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