Topic: RMU Spell Law - Resisting Ritual Spells

[muz]

When casting normally the target number of the resistance roll is based on the result of SCR. As ritual spells do not have a normal SCR, how is resisting ritual spells handled? I couldn't find anything in the books about this.

SCR and Ritual Spell Maneuver roll work in different orders of magnitude (skill ranks vs skills, 0+ to succeed vs 101+ to succeed properly), so using the Ritual Maneuver as the target number means a successful ritual is quite irresistible. But perhaps this is intentional as rituals are meant to be powerful, on the other hand this might cause balance issues as they are much easier to boost.

Is there some rule for this that I have missed?

It is also not clear to me what should the casting level of the Ritual Spell be? There are alternatives for casting level for normal spell casting, but none of them seem like a good match in all situations for rituals. (But you get +50% on absolute success)

[rdanhenry]

Casting level is that of the primary caster (p. 53).

RR target should probably be at the default 50, modified by the spell's casting level, but it should be made explicit.

[muz]

"The casting level of the resulting spell effect is based on the primary caster. " is the sentence to which I assume you are referring.

Out of the three alternatives, neither skill rank based casting level nor PP based casting level makes sense for rituals (at least as written), so yes, the default of casting level equals primary caster level seems like the way to go here.

This leaves us strangely limited in trying to, for instance, dispel a powerful enchantment with rituals. In theory, I would consider something like this a prime candidate for reasons to perform a ritual instead of regular casting. You are able to boost all the other parameters of the spell after all. On the other hand, it would go hand-in-hand with the fact that a default target of 50 for resistance would have a lower expectation value than normal casting.

[jdale]

If you pile up enough bonuses, you can get an absolute success for +50% casting level.

That said, I don't think assured success at dispelling unwanted magic is necessarily a design goal to aim for.