Rachel, this space is for answering questions about the policy, not venting. The issue of spirit linked items that violate the ritual cap is a thorny one, but we do believe that the solution we have detailed is the best one available. It is, we believe, a better alternative than allowing spirit linked items to violate the cap or randomly transferring to another character or any of a half dozen other solutions that were discussed. Permanently dying would cause a character to lose all items anyway, because the character is dead. What else would you have happen with spirit attached items? If you have a constructive suggestion the staff and I would be more than happy to hear it, but making attacking statements at the chapter's policies and by extension the people who designed them is not productive.
The ritual cap policy is something that we HAVE been talking about for a long time now, and the version detailed in this thread is not the most restrictive iteration we entertained. The entire staff, 10 people, all support the idea of limiting the amount if magic items in the game. The feedback we have gotten from our players has been, predominantly, supportive and encouraging. The game WILL benefit from having a hard limit on ritual effects because doing so allows us to scale back the stat cards of the monsters and other NPCs we send out. When defensive abilities and body/damage numbers come down across the board the game is more accessible for new players and new characters of old players. If someone feels that there are unable or unwilling to play a character because of the ruling on spirit linked items or the policy in general, I would encourage them to play a different character instead. Last season involved the culmination of a massive, epic story arc wherein the fate of the world was very literally in play, and in that environment it was reasonable to have PCs capable of doing unbelievable things by pulling out all the stops. That is not the style of story or game that we will be focusing on going forward. This is the best time to introduce this policy, and also a good time for people to try a different character they don't play as often, or even a brand new one. I do understand that the policy doesn't please everyone, but NOT having such a policy would not have pleased everyone either.
This is the right decision for this chapter. If you, personally, feel it to be a dealbreaker then that is your decision and you will be missed. If you truly feel the policy needs to be adapted in some way then please feel free to raise that opinion civilly here or in any manner you like to me privately. Regardless of your decisions, however, please do not resort to making belittling statements about the chapter or its staff on our forums. It is not appreciated.