The DCC RPG and Spellslinging

[DCCfan]

I think causing problems for everyone I talked to or looked at would be going to far. Wizards and anyone who looked like a wizard would be burned at the stake. With no questions asked just in case talking might trigger some bad effect.

[Fabio.MilitoPagliara]

I think causing problems for everyone I talked to or looked at would be going to far. Wizards and anyone who looked like a wizard would be burned at the stake. With no questions asked just in case talking might trigger some bad effect.

unless wizard also are the only source of magic (healing too), and yes maybe I took it a little too far but it must be tested and tested again

and if superstitions are true killing a wizard could bring the worst of the curses.... (the kind of curses that destroy towns....)

[mshensley]

Wizards are scarce, and the few there are guard their secrets jealously.

My favorite conception of a fantasy game world is exactly this. If a wizard were to walk into town -- and people discovered he was a wizard -- he might be run out of town (or worse) by afeared and angry villagers, or they might all keep their eyes on him, suspicious, wary, afraid they might do the 'wrong' thing, and ready to bolt if it looks like he's pulling out a wand... There are no arcane schools. There is no trade in magic items. A wizard is in contact with forces most folks don't even want to think about, much less explore. They aren't normal, even if they look normal. The guy that wanders the land in his furs, resting that huge battle axe on his shoulder is scary -- wizards are just unimaginable.

Yay for wizards.

Sounds like WFRP to me. And that's a good thing.

[JRR]

Sounds like WFRP to me. And that's a good thing.

QFT.

[JRR]

One thing I'd like to see is a mechanic for interrupting a spellcaster. The 3e ready an action method just doesn't do it for me. It's almost always better to cast your own spell or make your own attacks than to ready an action to counterspell. One of the balancing factors of 1e (and I've touched on that in this thread) is that although magic users were powerful, it was insanely hard to get a spell off. I'd like to see some kind of method for interrupting a caster. Something simple, but it has to be worth using up your rounds worth of actions for. 1E did this well, but the trade off was a clunky initiative system.

[joela]

One thing I'd like to see is a mechanic for interrupting a spellcaster.

Well, right now the DCC RPG requires a spellcasting roll of 10(?)+ to minimally get the spell off with a cumulative penalty when casting the same day. I can tell you that, after playing in one of the test games, it's very difficult to get a spell off once the penalty passes -4. (And the penalty increases regardless if you succeed or not).

[JRR]

Yes, but that's a passive mechanic. There should be an option to actively interrupt the spell.

[Fabio.MilitoPagliara]

Yes, but that's a passive mechanic. There should be an option to actively interrupt the spell.

like "if you hit the mage he is going to use a lesser die for the spellcasting"?

[Harley Stroh]

Yes, but that's a passive mechanic. There should be an option to actively interrupt the spell.

like "if you hit the mage he is going to use a lesser die for the spellcasting"?

That's an interesting nuance, Fabio. I like it.

//H

[finarvyn]

I agree. It sounds pretty simple to use in a game situation, which has to be better than some complex equation or system of tables.

[DCCfan]

Yes, but that's a passive mechanic. There should be an option to actively interrupt the spell.

like "if you hit the mage he is going to use a lesser die for the spellcasting"?

A good idea. I like it!

[smathis]

Reducing the die used for a spellcheck when a spell is interrupted is a good idea. And would integrate all those weird dice into one more aspect of the game. Not that I'm a fan of the weird dice. But if we're gonna use 'em. They may as well see more use than the typical d12 in D&D.

I've read this thread 3+ times. I'm geeking out left and right for this game. One of the things that hasn't been mentioned are Rituals. In a lot of the source material, really powerful magic is the result of rituals -- often involving sacrificial virgins, bloodletting or some other such nastiness.

Is there going to be anyway to reflect this mechanically? I mean, sure, we could make it a Big Plot Hook to stop the evil Necromancer from completing a Nasty Ritual and save the Farmer's Daughter. But I think it would be nice to have some guidelines.

I think Spellburn is a good start for reflecting the effect magical forces can have on you. But what about if you want to re-direct Spellburn through a Ritual? Maybe something like that. Maybe the Bad Guy Necromancer needs to chant with his cronies for an hour and sacrifice the Farmer's Daughter for a +10 Spell bonus at the cost of only one Ability point for himself or something.

While easy enough to make the centerpiece of the final conflict in an adventure, I think it's nice to have a general idea of how this would work mechanically. If only to tempt players with when they need that extra boost, if you will. That was the genius of the Dark Side mechanic in WEG Star Wars, IMO. In my games, PCs rarely turned to the Dark Side. But it was always there, tempting them. And when they did, ouch.

Also, Potions and things like Charms. Are there rules for those too? I've always felt some spells, such as Change Self, Charm Person or Polymorph, always fit more with Potions in the original fiction. When a sorcerer/sorceress changed their appearance in the source fiction (at least what I've read of it), it was almost always an illusion. But if they really wanted to change their physical appearance, they drank some vile brew of some sort.

Are there going to be rules for Potions? Hopefully as streamlined, simple and randomized as the spellcasting rules are?

Also, the idea of Low Magic or Charms. Things like small magic or cantrips that can be performed by non-spellcasters. Maybe 0-level types of spells -- requiring only an 8 or better for success. Things that regular folk could accomplish with a good deal of risk and effort. Nothing like a farmer casting Light instead of lighting a lantern. We're not talking about 4e here. But something along the lines of an old Healer woman casting a blessing over a wounded farmboy to give him, say, a +1 on a save. Or an extra 1 hp of recovery the next morning. Small things, that are attainable by some of the masses. But, in contrast, make true Wizards look that much more powerful. Sure, the shaman can curse you and give you a -2 to hit for the next hour. But that Wizard? He can put you and your party to Sleep for a month!

Brainstorming here... Maybe non-spellcasters have to use spell-burn to get any effect at all? So to cast a 0-level spell a non-spellcaster gets a d3, their Luck bonus and has to make up the difference with Spellburn after an hour or so ritual?

Or maybe only Thieves get this option? Opening the door for a Gray Mouser sort of character... A Thief could "read" a Magic Scroll and add a "spell" to his repertoire. But could only cast any sort of magic at a cost. And even then, only get the barest of results. Or maybe not. Maybe the rabble only EVER get the d3. But the Thief could eventually upgrade to a d4, d5 or a d6?

Just some random ideas...

I also wouldn't mind seeing more about the Clerics. Cleric Magic has always been a sticking point for me in D&D. I see the Exorcist sort-of role. Even the Buff-Meisters. But rarely the heal-bots that we've come to expect of the Cleric. At their best, I just classify Clerics as "White Wizards" or something. But I think about the best RPG treatment of Clerics I've seen has been those in High Valor or WHFRPG. Just a good treatment with a viable place in the world for that belief system and that sort of magic.

This is probably more an issue of what sort of powers are available to them. How they manifest. And the flavor of the Clerical Orders that help cement a place for them in society at large and give them something to do in regards to adventuring. Like Witch Hunters or the Priest of Sigmar or the pacifist Healers. Probably all stuff that could be handled by just giving some sample religious orders and bonuses to cast specific spells and such.

[geordie racer]

I'm hoping for unpredictable (maybe almost unfathomable) magic items - maybe random generator tables rather than a stock list.

[goodmangames]

You guys have hit on a lot of things I've been thinking about. Some of it is in the rules, some of it is up to the DM, but you're definitely on the right wavelength.

As with monsters, I think magic items are more interesting when such an item is "the" magic ring rather than "a" magic ring. In all the classic literature, magic items are always unique. Always. The idea of a "generic" +1 sword simply doesn't belong in a game that's truly grounded in the original inspirations for D&D. And yes, there are random tables.

You hit the nail on the head with thieves' abilities to read scrolls. Just as when Cugel the Clever tried to cast Iucounu's spells back on him but mis-read the magic, thieves can read magic scrolls but they use a much lower die for the spell check. There's a chance of success, but it's small...and a lower die means a higher chance of a "1" and a mis-cast or corruption...

I've played with the idea of allowing village healers, shamans and other "zero-level spellcasters" to cast spells with a lower die, as you suggest. There's a lot you can do with the idea of the spell check mechanic. Whether or not this makes it into the final rules, I'm not sure. This falls into the category of "interesting to read about but won't come up in games very often." I'm trying to limit the core rules to only the basic concepts that come up in every session. There are a million other ideas that doubtless will get expanded on down the road if this takes off (and not necessarily by me - blogs and the third party license will allow for others to join the fun).

Without making this thread too long, let me just say that you definitely "get it" - everything you've suggested are things I think the rules will help facilitate.

[Geoffrey]

As with monsters, I think magic items are more interesting when such an item is "the" magic ring rather than "a" magic ring. In all the classic literature, magic items are always unique. Always. The idea of a "generic" +1 sword simply doesn't belong in a game that's truly grounded in the original inspirations for D&D. And yes, there are random tables.

I entirely agree. And I'm glad to hear about the random tables for magic items.

In at least the majority of the works in Appendix N, the characters don't run around with magic items. When they do, it's typically a magic item that has a very specific use and none other. When this use is accomplished, the magic item is dropped. Very seldom does a character keep a magic item for any length of time. (Elric is a notable exception here, but even he had only a couple of magic items.) What magic items did Conan (whose adventuring career as recounted by REH covered nearly 30 years: from about age 17 to about age 45) carry around? What magic items did Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser lug around? Etc.

The standard D&D party carrying around dozens of magic items just isn't in Appendix N anywhere. Consider that AD&D paladins are "limited" to 10 magic items at one time. Good grief. The other party members must have 15+ magic items each.

With these considerations in mind, I hope that the DCC RPG rules do not assume that PCs have a lot of magic items. (Consider the number of A/D&D monsters that require "+1 or better weapon to hit".) I further hope that magic items verge on the nonexistent in the DCC RPG modules.

[Fabio.MilitoPagliara]

A few more though on the matter

1) Spellsinging failure consequences: Forgetting the spell OR lowering the die for that spell?
reading of the spellburn mechanic I get that in fact you never really forget a spell (since you can use spellburn to try spellslinging it), so why don't take a different route?

1.a) if you fail a spellroll further spellslinging of that spell will use a lesser dice (1d16 vs 1d20) until you "fix" it (by studying it again)
OR
1.b) as in 1.a but it's reiterative (each failure bring down the dice d20/d16/d12/d8/d4) until you "fix" it

*as an aside this could bring the point on how to rise the casting dice (e.g.:
1Dup (like in d20 to d24) you read the spell from a scroll
1Dup you cast the spell from a specific prepared magic circle

2) Higher level spells?
it would be very interesting, and could be linked to how a mage learns spells, a few ideas:
one way to bring this in and tie it to spellslot could be that you can "prepare" X (this should be a fixed number and/or a number modified by Int and/OR a number modified by dark pacts, darker the pact higher the spell level preparable) spells beyond the one you got in slots but this spell have are harder to cast (say the start with a d16 die), this could tie in with 0th level character casting spells w/out slots

3) Spellburn maximum?
how much can you spellburn? can you "kill" yourself by putting all your stat into the spell for massive bonus (say an average of +65 bringing everything to 0 in one roll?), the maximum amount could be linked to the patron (a lesser entity could support you up to X, a greater one up to a greater amount). This is most important if you can prepare high level spell when you are low level.

[smathis]

1) Spellsinging failure consequences: Forgetting the spell OR lowering the die for that spell?
reading of the spellburn mechanic I get that in fact you never really forget a spell (since you can use spellburn to try spellslinging it), so why don't take a different route?

I think this would be very interesting. It could also be interesting from the standpoint of creating Specialist Wizards. Enchanters may roll a d24 on Charm Person but a d16 on Magic Missile. The only problem I could foresee is all the bookkeeping -- which could be helped by a good character sheet and it's not like it's not already there to a degree with keeping track of spells that were forgotten or whatnot.

1.a) if you fail a spellroll further spellslinging of that spell will use a lesser dice (1d16 vs 1d20) until you "fix" it (by studying it again)
OR
1.b) as in 1.a but it's reiterative (each failure bring down the dice d20/d16/d12/d8/d4) until you "fix" it

*as an aside this could bring the point on how to rise the casting dice (e.g.:
1Dup (like in d20 to d24) you read the spell from a scroll
1Dup you cast the spell from a specific prepared magic circle

Man, another good idea. Reading a spell from a scroll or casting from a ritually prepared magic circle increases the die type. Maybe other ritual tropes add to the die type as well. Or maybe they can add a bonus to the spell roll too. Looks like I'll need that d30!

I'm hoping the game makes clever use of these sorts of things -- increasing/decreasing die types, bonuses, etc.

2) Higher level spells?
it would be very interesting, and could be linked to how a mage learns spells, a few ideas:
one way to bring this in and tie it to spellslot could be that you can "prepare" X (this should be a fixed number and/or a number modified by Int and/OR a number modified by dark pacts, darker the pact higher the spell level preparable) spells beyond the one you got in slots but this spell have are harder to cast (say the start with a d16 die), this could tie in with 0th level character casting spells w/out slots

You're on a roll. Another interesting idea. Considering I'm a fan of handing some magic off to the non-magic types, this sounds like the perfect way to introduce Low Magic to the masses -- or at least those crazy enough to try spellslinging without proper training.

3) Spellburn maximum?
how much can you spellburn? can you "kill" yourself by putting all your stat into the spell for massive bonus (say an average of +65 bringing everything to 0 in one roll?), the maximum amount could be linked to the patron (a lesser entity could support you up to X, a greater one up to a greater amount). This is most important if you can prepare high level spell when you are low level.

Also can spellburn be mitigated through actions like sacrifice? Can my character (or my character's arch-nemesis) get a +8 bang out of spellburn for the cost of only 2 points of Stamina by sacrificing a virgin in an appropriately skimpy chainmail bikini?

Because if I can't do that, Joseph has been reading the WRONG books!

[Machpants]

I think causing problems for everyone I talked to or looked at would be going to far. Wizards and anyone who looked like a wizard would be burned at the stake. With no questions asked just in case talking might trigger some bad effect.

unless wizard also are the only source of magic (healing too), and yes maybe I took it a little too far but it must be tested and tested again

and if superstitions are true killing a wizard could bring the worst of the curses.... (the kind of curses that destroy towns....)

That reminds me of the first actual DnD novel I read as a teen, bandits discussing letting Raistlin 'wander off a cliff' rather than killing him- which would make their hands blacken and fall off. Love it.

[geordie racer]

Also can spellburn be mitigated through actions like sacrifice? Can my character (or my character's arch-nemesis) get a +8 bang out of spellburn for the cost of only 2 points of Stamina by sacrificing a virgin in an appropriately skimpy chainmail bikini?

I like how Microlite20 Conan does this:

Instead of paying the HP cost of casting a spell, a Scholar can conduct a human sacrifice to pay for the spell. The amount of HP cost that can be covered in this way is capped by the full HP total of the victim as well as the number of rounds spent conducting the sacrificial ritual.

[goodmangames]

Fabio, these are great ideas and along the same ideas as what I've been playing with. I think many initial readers were turned off by the "funky dice" but you're aptly demonstrating all the things you can do with them. (And there are more, too, which we'll get to over time.)

Allowing a better, or worse, die to be used for the check under certain circumstances is part of the core assumptions, but in the rules as written now I don't have it happen too often. It can become difficult to track too many dice flying around, so I focus it more on "your standard die is a d20 and for one particular spell, or under one particular circumstance, you use a d30 or d16 or whatever." I'm also trying to avoid too many circumstances that add iterative bonuses (+1 for a human sacrifice, +1 for a magic item, etc.) as I don't want to end up with a system that encourages players to find and stack bonuses. (We've all been there and it's not OD&D...)

The most fun use of iterative dice is in what I call action dice. In traditional D&D, a fighter gains an additional attack at a certain level. In 3E, his attacks went up by +1 each level, and upon achieving a +6 BAB he earned a second attack at +1. Rather than have to do multiple sets of math ("I add +6 to the first roll and +1 to the second roll"), I use action dice. The warrior gets a d20 as his first action die. When he earns a second attack, he gets a second action die, which is an iterative die. I'm still playing with the progression but the second attack could effectively be earned at a lower level if that second die is a small one, like a d12. Then it progresses to d14, d16, and finally d20. And at some point the d20 "first" attack could become a d24. And so on.

That's been covered before here. But in application to spellcasting: once you conceptually go from "second attack" to "action die", you can start thinking about what that second (and subsequent) action die can be used for. In every edition of D&D, even wizards get an extra attack at some level. But clerics never get a second healing or turn undead attempt...thieves never get a second "open locks" attempt...and wizards never get a second spell to cast in a round. Why not?

Where I'm going with the action die right now is exactly that: it's a second action, as dictated by class, that starts at a lower die (with the same bonus) and progressively goes higher with levels. So a wizard of a certain level gets a d20 action die to be used for attack or spell check, then a second action die to be used only for another spell check. The second die progresses from d14 to d16 to d20. A cleric also gets a second action die at the appropriate level. And so on. I never really got why wizards could earn a second attack but not a second spell. A cleric, on the other hand, should probably be able to use his second action die for both attacks and spells/healing/turning.

To get back to your original questions, I'm avoiding defining too many "circumstance bonuses" such as reading from scroll, preparing magic circle, sacrificing someone/something, etc. Whether it's an iterative die or an incremental +1 bonus, having too many ways to earn a bonus is the road to power gaming, and therein lies only evil. More seriously, though, I also want all those elements to be assumed in the spellcasting. It's assumed you've drawn a magic circle, made the necessary sacrifices, and obtained the necessary components...that shouldn't grant a bonus. But I like your ideas, and several of them are along the same idea of what I've been playing with. When I'm ready to show off the final playtest rules we can compare notes in more detail.

[Fabio.MilitoPagliara]

Fabio, these are great ideas and along the same ideas as what I've been playing with.

snip

Where I'm going with the action die right now is exactly that: it's a second action, as dictated by class, that starts at a lower die (with the same bonus) and progressively goes higher with levels. So a wizard of a certain level gets a d20 action die to be used for attack or spell check, then a second action die to be used only for another spell check. The second die progresses from d14 to d16 to d20. A cleric also gets a second action die at the appropriate level. And so on. I never really got why wizards could earn a second attack but not a second spell. A cleric, on the other hand, should probably be able to use his second action die for both attacks and spells/healing/turning.

To get back to your original questions, I'm avoiding defining too many "circumstance bonuses" such as reading from scroll, preparing magic circle, sacrificing someone/something, etc. Whether it's an iterative die or an incremental +1 bonus, having too many ways to earn a bonus is the road to power gaming, and therein lies only evil. More seriously, though, I also want all those elements to be assumed in the spellcasting. It's assumed you've drawn a magic circle, made the necessary sacrifices, and obtained the necessary components...that shouldn't grant a bonus. But I like your ideas, and several of them are along the same idea of what I've been playing with. When I'm ready to show off the final playtest rules we can compare notes in more detail.

thank you and great,
I was just throwing ideas that kept swimming in my head
I have grown up with appendix N (met even before discovering D&D) and I found your project really interesting

I cannot wait to get the playtest rules

thank you for your work and attention

[mntnjeff]

Wow...wonderful posts. I'm loving the way this game seems to be trending.

Smathis brought up an interesting point that I had nearly forgotten: Rituals. I love the idea of rituals. They bring a certain flavor to the game that sometimes seems to be missing from newer versions. Remember in AD&D, the first time you looked up some of those spells? And the descriptions of the things you actually had to do in order to cast them? Those got left by the side of the road in more recent iterations, and that's a bummer. It takes the "magic" out of magic. And turns a spell into just another generic sort of attack. Phbbbt!

I use rituals in my game to mitigate the memorized versus the in-my-spell-book issue. In other words, I let the player cast any spell they have in their book via ritual as long as they have the proper components / preparations and time.

But furthermore, I can see rituals lending a wonderful flavor to NPCs. Hedge wizards, witches, witch doctors, etc. They all gain a sense of dimension when you add rituals. I know that the vaunted Appendix 'N' is the driving force behind the game, but there are a few books out there that don't fall into this list (and rightfully so), but that also have the potential to add that certain something to a game. The series that comes to mind for me, especially after reading these posts, is the Vlad Taltos series by Steven Brust.

There's a ton of ritual versus arcane magic in there that's wonderfully portrayed, and has been the basis of much creativity in my game. Great stuff.

Anyway, if the game plays anything like these forums read then I think we've got a winner on our hands.

[smathis]

Smathis brought up an interesting point that I had nearly forgotten: Rituals. I love the idea of rituals. They bring a certain flavor to the game that sometimes seems to be missing from newer versions. Remember in AD&D, the first time you looked up some of those spells? And the descriptions of the things you actually had to do in order to cast them? Those got left by the side of the road in more recent iterations, and that's a bummer. It takes the "magic" out of magic. And turns a spell into just another generic sort of attack. Phbbbt!

I'm not sure how DCC will address Rituals, but I hope it does. Both for Hedge Wizards and Witch-Doctors casting low level spells as 0-level casters as well as serious Magic-Users putting oomph into 9th level spells and beyond.

I think the rules for Spell Rolls and Spellburn will allow magic to feel magical. But it would be nice if a caster could do a couple of ritual-ish things. Even if it's just to minimize the negative effects of Spellburn, cast above his "level", get a die increase or have the die on any negative effect lowered. That right there covers the bare bones of almost an entire working "ritual" system.

And considering that Rituals are too unwieldy to be used in combat, I don't see it as an imbalance. Sometimes you just gotta call Yog-Sothoth collect...

And Rituals could be the way to do that.

We're currently using a hacked-together Ritual system for LotFP and it does give the game a lot of flavor. And, man, those Rituals hurt when they go wrong. If DCC doesn't include some sort of Ritual system, I'll kick things around until I find one that fits. But Appendix N certainly has more rituals than demi-humans, so it would stand to reason that Joseph already has it figured out.

[joela]

Smathis brought up an interesting point that I had nearly forgotten: Rituals. I love the idea of rituals. They bring a certain flavor to the game that sometimes seems to be missing from newer versions. Remember in AD&D, the first time you looked up some of those spells? And the descriptions of the things you actually had to do in order to cast them? Those got left by the side of the road in more recent iterations, and that's a bummer. It takes the "magic" out of magic. And turns a spell into just another generic sort of attack. Phbbbt!

I'm not sure how DCC will address Rituals, but I hope it does.

Rituals sounds like a good 3PP item.

[smathis]

Thinking about the idea of Rituals in DCC and operating off what little I know about DCC...

What if Rituals were just a special kind of spell? A spell whose chart included results geared towards Ritualists and not Spellslingers?

Something like this...

Ritual: Summon Gnarlyhotep
Casting Time: 2 hours
Requirements: Virgin Sacrifice, Magic Circle
This ritual is used to summon an Elder God (Gnarlyhotep) in the hopes of acquiring power. See chart below.

Code: Select all

Roll	Result						Cost			Encounter
1-9	Gnarlyhotep appears. Caster is			Life			3 in 6                 
	so freaked out he dies.

10-18 	Gnarlyhotep doesn't show. But			1 Luck permanent	5 in 6
	he sends some friends out to                  
	eat you.

19-27	Gnarlyhotep shows up. And finds			2 CON, 1 Luck temporary	4 in 6
	you lacking but decides to mess            
	with your head because [i]that[/i]
	seems like fun. Caster is [i]confused[/i] 
	for 1d6 hours.

28-36	Gnarlyhotep is impressed by your		1/2 hit points, 1 Luck*	3 in 6
	moxie. Caster receives a +2 to
	Intelligence for a month, after which
	the Caster's Luck drops by one point
	permanently.

37-45	Gnarlyhotep got a booty call. Caster		1/2 hit points, 1/4 hit points permanent 3 in 6
	gets +1 to an attribute of his choice.      
                                                                                       
46-54	Gnarlyhotep loves you like a dew-eyed		1 Luck permanently	3 in 6
	puppy. Here comes... ULTIMATE POWER!  
	Caster increases a level. Permanently.

Rules for Spell Rolls, Spellburn and all that would all be the same. With the caveat that anybody could cast a ritual. A 0-level Butcher could try to call up Gnarlyhotep if he wanted to. It probably wouldn't work out for him though.

The "Requirements" would be requirements to cast the Ritual. They wouldn't have their own chart though, they'd just adjust the Ritual in different ways.

A "Magic Circle" would increase the chance of an "Encounter" by one, as the Ritualist has to take longer to prepare for the ritual.

A "Virgin Sacrifice" would allow the Ritualist to add the Personality rating of the virgin being sacrificed to his Spell Roll. This affects a ritual in two ways. First, the target numbers for these rituals are higher. A PER 6 Virgin Sacrifice is not going to help you out much. Second, it also increases the chance for an encounter by one because it's far more likely that the virgin's family/boyfriend/pet dog Lassie is going to run in and try to stop the ritual.

A "Sympathetic Item" requirement would decrease the target numbers overall. But would require the ritualist to acquire something of value to the target.

Similarly any other special item would indicate a Ritual whose target numbers are lower. Such items would be destroyed in the casting of the ritual whether the ritual was successful or not.

The concept of an "Encounter" is the chance that someone is going to try to run in and stop the ritual. The Ritualist is busy casting so, hopefully, he'll have some help on hand to stop the angry villagers and what not. Something like calling up Gnarlyhotep will have a higher chance for encounter -- because it's evil, requires a Magic Circle and Virgin Sacrifice.

Something like a Witch Doctor trying to do a healing ritual would have almost no chance for an encounter. It's a very short ritual. It's beneficial. And who's going to want to stop him?

One upside is that we have rituals! Another is that these are things that can be cast by non-Magic Users but Magic-Users would still be significantly more adept at them -- by virtue of being able to add their level to a spell roll. And probably rolling better dice (a d20 versus a d16 or d12).

The cost would prevent haphazard use of rituals all over the place. If casting a Healing Ritual costs the ritualist 1d4 hit points and a temporary CON loss, then a Cleric is going to choose Cure Light Wounds everytime.

Rituals would be things that got found, researched and handed out as potential treasure.

And, even more, DCC could write a sourcebook of these things -- covering things from Hedge Wizard chicanery to Wise Woman healing magic to dealings with Faerie to H.P. Lovecraft Boom-Boom time! Just drop a few into the core book as examples. Then release a small booklet for those who are interested in more...