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Aspected Magicians and Rituals

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Stainless Steel Devil Rat

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« on: <02-06-18/1440:06> »
Are rituals considered spells even when they lack the spell keyword, and are therefore inaccessible to aspected magicians who cannot cast spells?

E.G. Can a conjuring aspected magician learn the Watcher/Homonculus ritual?
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firebug

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« Reply #1 on: <02-06-18/1446:58> »
Technically, yes.  People who cannot learn Ritual Spellcasting cannot use rituals unless they are specifically noted (like the Adept rituals).

I personally think that anyone should be able to learn the ritual if they are capable of performing it, which I believe is why mundanes are specifically noted as able to learn (and perform) the Calling ritual.  With this logic, if mundanes can use a ritual and are allowed to substitute Arcana for Ritual Spellcasting, then I'd say if the ritual doesn't ask for skills a character can't use (or doesn't know) then they can learn it.  I especially want this to be the case so Aspected Conjurers can use Ally Conjuration, which is a ritual that does not require any Sorcery.

That said I don't know if there's any errata on the subject.
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Stainless Steel Devil Rat

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« Reply #2 on: <02-06-18/1521:48> »
It "seems like" any magician ought to be able to create a ward, and conjurers certainly ought to be able to "summon" watchers.  But yeah the way the rulebook is organzied, all rituals (even stuff that has nothing to do with spellcasting) are part of the spellcasting rules section.

There's a lot of "should be" I guess, but there's also what is RAW.  For what it's worth, Chummer has no problem having a non-spellcasting magician learn rituals.  But it also says having 26,000 =Y= left unspent also passes validation too :}

RPG mechanics exist to give structure and consistency to the game world, true, but at the end of the day, you’re fighting dragons with algebra and random number generators.

firebug

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« Reply #3 on: <02-06-18/1526:19> »
Intepretation of game rules should be a career.  I'd be a lawyer if I didn't hate the government so much.

Sadly, what Chummer says works doesn't really mean much.  It's just a guy working off what the community and he agree on.  Actually, no, that does mean something.
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Rosa

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« Reply #4 on: <02-07-18/2235:48> »
Sadly in previous editions many of these rituals were either common abilities of the awakened or metamagics, but now they are suddenly lumped together as rituals, probably in order to make ritual magic more relevant, but then you do get these weird cases such as an aspected conjurer not being able to conjure ally spirits or watchers or great form spirits. So i would let an aspected conjurer learn at least all rituals with the keywords contractual and/or minion and substitute the ritual sorcery skill with the binding skill for those rituals.

firebug

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« Reply #5 on: <02-07-18/2249:05> »
substitute the ritual sorcery skill with the binding skill for those rituals.

That's the thing, some of those (like Ally Conjuration) aren't clear if they even need Ritual Spellcasting.  Strictly speaking, Step #7 of every ritual performance is "roll Ritual Spellcasting vs Force x 2" but then you get lines like the rules for Conjuring An Ally saying "The ritual for summoning an ally must be performed in a magical lodge with a Force at least equal to the ally being summoned. Follow summoning rules (p. 300, SR5)." making it sound like the summoning rules supersede the normal ritual spellcasting rules.  I'd remark that having to resist drain from Step #7, and then a Summoning roll, and then a Binding roll is incredibly harsh, but seeing as an Ally Spirit is probably the hands-down most powerful option available to players in the game (alongside being one of the coolest IMO) makes is reasonable to demand that the magician better have some real mojo to pull it off.
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Reaver

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« Reply #6 on: <02-07-18/2252:26> »
Talk to your GM, I too would allow an aspected conjurer to learn spirit rituals.

But, there are is also the moto of shadowrun 5e that I have seen used for justification as well; "Everything has a price"

Meaning, that by choosing to Aspect instead of going full magician has a cost for that lower "letter grade".... And that being the loss of the other parts of magic, even if that means losing out on other helpful paths. 
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FST_Gemstar

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« Reply #7 on: <02-10-18/1725:33> »
I rule strictly that ritual spellcasting and use of rituals (that aren't otherwise called out differently) are only available to those who can learn ritual spellcasting. 

This means aspected conjurers aspected echanters cannot learn rituals/perform rituals. 

Jack_Spade

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« Reply #8 on: <02-10-18/1736:31> »
Since Adepts can use certain rituals without ritual spellcasting, I think it's fair to let the other magic users also get that option for rituals specific to them.
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PiXeL01

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« Reply #9 on: <02-10-18/1821:38> »
Watchers spirits and other summoning rituals should naturally belong to the summoning skill. If you want it to be a separate skill then force summoners to develop a Ritual Summoning skill.
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FST_Gemstar

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« Reply #10 on: <02-11-18/1918:21> »
Adept rituals are for particular adept-only rituals.   

as for conjurers, they have spirits. what do they need watchers for? Ritual minions are the only pets aspected sorcerers have access to. It is Enchanters that need some kind of minion ability.

Jack_Spade

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« Reply #11 on: <02-12-18/1139:00> »
...yeah, sure. Why on earth would dedicated summoners have any reason to use

- Living Vessel Preparation
- Ally Conjuration
- Summon Great Form Spirit

 ::)
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« Reply #12 on: <02-12-18/1642:16> »
It wouldn't be unreasonable to allow Aspected Summoners to use Ally Conjuration and Summon Great Form Spirit by substituting their Summoning skill.  Otherwise those things are out of reach of all aspected magicians, which is kind of lame.  It's not like it's a huge power jump; I don't think I've ever heard of anyone on these forums actually making use of either of those things.

As for vessel preparation, I'm pretty sure that could be outsourced.
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Rosa

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« Reply #13 on: <02-12-18/2359:00> »
I make use of great form spirits fairly often actually.

In 4th edition everyone who could astrally perceive could make a basic ward, so that included adepts and aspected magicians as well.
Everyone with the conjuring skill could summon a watcher.
Ally conjuration was a metamagic, summoning great form spirits was something you could do if you learned the Invocation metamagic. So both things were definitely available to aspected conjurers.

In 5th edition all of the above are now suddenly rituals. Imo this has more to do with an attempt to make the ritual spellcasting skill relevant, which it more or less wasn't in 4th edition. I don't know if it was an oversight or what it was, but I agree that it's silly to deny aspected conjurers these abilities, there's little enough reason as it is to play an aspected magician,  since they were already hit very hard with the nerf hammer from 4th to 5th edition.

Marcus

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« Reply #14 on: <02-13-18/1010:06> »
Watchers spirits and other summoning rituals should naturally belong to the summoning skill. If you want it to be a separate skill then force summoners to develop a Ritual Summoning skill.

I so miss Watcher spirits. We used to have lots of fun coming up with Spirit Appearance descriptions, and Watcher Spirits always ended up as some variant of Paperboys.
Sending msg via Ghost Paperboys, or setting Ghost paperboys to watch this cornier was such an amusing image.
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