True Rituals

[Baaldam]

Has there been any discussion of updating them to Pathfinder? While reading Occult Adventures it struck me how much they sound like Occult Rituals from that book, but i have heard of no info, errata or update discussing if they might be one and the same thing, different techniques or whatnot. I think both them and a lot of stuff related to the Slarecian Legacy could be quite benefited by crosspolination with that particular book.

Anyone has experiences or opinions of their own on the subject? I would really like to hear from other people and exchange some ideas and input.

[Ian Turner]

Has there been any discussion of updating them to Pathfinder? While reading Occult Adventures it struck me how much they sound like Occult Rituals from that book, but i have heard of no info, errata or update discussing if they might be one and the same thing, different techniques or whatnot. I think both them and a lot of stuff related to the Slarecian Legacy could be quite benefited by crosspolination with that particular book.

Anyone has experiences or opinions of their own on the subject? I would really like to hear from other people and exchange some ideas and input.

I think they meld nicely with the Incantations concept in 3.X and Pathfinder, them being two approaches towards the same sort of concept.

Other areas that a True Ritual could adapt would be rebuilding rules. If a GM isn't comfortable just allowing anyone to take a few weeks off and swap out feats or even class levels, a special ritual of renewal tied to Incarnate beliefs could be used to wrap someone up in a 'cocoon' of materials inscribed with transformative runes and soaked with special alchemical formulas, could allow a person to burst free from the cocoon a week later with different feats, or different skill ranks, or different spells known, or domains, rage powers, rogue talents, etc. selected. More specific rituals might allow a Sorcerer to change her bloodline, or a Wizard to change their specialist school, or a Cleric to transition to a new god. Changing one's race, gender, class, etc. might be other choices, and a high level and difficult ritual might allow someone to take on a template like fiendish or celestial, while an even higher level ritual might allow someone to add a buffer template like half-dragon or half-fiend.

Tangent;
Ideally, and this seems unlikely to happen, I'd love for True Rituals to absorb certain existing spells like planar ally/binding, teleport, simulacrum, raise dead, create undead, control weather, etc

Spells that have more long-term effects, or potentially setting-affecting scales, and might be better off not being something that any spellcaster that gets tall enough can just toss off daily. Breaking those effects out into something that requires ritual and specific times or multiple casters or various other ST/GM controlled aspects would be one way of making a fantasy game in which the spellcaster could still heal wounds or dimension door across a battlefield or throw lightning, but for the actual world-changing effects that, in a fantasy *book,* or fantasy *movie,* might require a quest to accomplish, could be sort of gated off. But that would be a very different game than this one.

[Psyclus]

They're on page 152 of the Scarred Land's Player's Guide.

[Baaldam]

They're on page 152 of the Scarred Land's Player's Guide.

I'm aware of that. My point is that True Rituals seems to have come up before Occult Adventures and the - quite similar - systems for Occult Rituals presented in that particular book. So i ask myself if they should not be simply treated as such as, in fact a bunch of Scarn specific materials seems like they might be superseded/subsumed by the systems in Occult Adventures.

[Psyclus]

The writing occurred after Occult Adventures. I believe it's intended to be a separate system because of Occult Adventures being somewhat more tied to an attempt at alternate psionics/psychic powers through "occult" magic. The thought may have been that the Occult Adventures rituals were more appropriate for something like Slarecian rituals, or simply not a good fit for what they wanted to do.

But that's all just suspicion on my part.

When I look at the True Rituals system, I see shades of the original True Rituals system from Relics & Rituals 1. When I look at Occult Adventures, I do get gleeful ideas of what to do with the Slarecian Legacy, and, agree with your original post that there's some definite benefit from cross-pollination there.

[Dragonchild]

There's one big difference that I haven't seen mentioned in this thread.
True rituals require you to be a spellcaster, whereas you explicitly don't have to be a spellcaster to use occult rituals, in fact most spellcasters view them as dangerous for that reason. A random person with no knowledge of how to control magic can use an occult ritual if they know how the steps to take.

I could see that tapping into something to do with the slarecians, at least based on what little I know of them.

[Psyclus]

In Echoes of the Past, one of the reasons the Slarecians had for being so dangerous was their nihilistic outlook and actual desire to end the material plane. So... yeah, that does fit them entirely. Hand some schmuck the keys to destroying themselves and chunks of their reality? Sure!

[Baaldam]

Truth be told, i always felt using 3.0 Psionics as a basis for the powers of the Slarecians was not really that great an idea but the parapsychology inspired stuff from Occult Adventures is a definite step up in making psychics phenomena as a whole fitting the fantasy milieu. If merging it with True Rituals creates some substrat of intercession between the gods and the slarecians, well, so much better i guess, previous take felt severely problematic to me in play, to be honest.