Ok, now to post this in the RIGHT game group 🙂
So two of my players in my PbP game are stuck in a burning building. An alchemical substance known as Hellfire was used in the blaze, and now they’re trying to escape through the floor into an old underground creek to avoid their fiery doom, but some of the Hellfire was knocked into the creek below earlier in the scene, so they want to take care not to allow any burning bits to fall below (Hellfire will burn, even in water).
The Wizard has asked to do a ritual, and I’m drawing up blanks on how to work this out. I think it’s an awesome idea, and think a place of power is easily met in this case as:
a. The building is a sort of homeless shelter ran by the Priests of a Goddess of the weak.
b. The loss of life to the blaze itself – some have died inside.
c. Perhaps even the Hellfire plays a part in this.
But I’m having trouble coming up with a good set of conditions for this. So, any suggestions? Do you have your players make a move when they cast their rituals usually?
Also, sorry to my players who will likely see this 🙂
I started reading that and thinking that “wow, what are the odds that someone else is in exactly the same mess as our group?”
I think the ritual is sort of just a quest to do whatever the player wants. The options are just ways to guide a quest with rules. Options like “The best you can do is a weaker version” is for when the players decide to ritual something ridiculous, like becoming a god or destroying the multiverse.
Similarly you can choose as little as you need. If you just want him to have to spend a day mumbling in the building and sacrifice any old magical item to the laws of magic, that’s cool too.
If the building is burning down, “it takes hours” is tantamount to “you can’t do it.”
The party could risk danger from the ritual intensifying the fire (if, say, it’s an air spell blowing the burning embers away from the water, it could fan the flames.)
You could require the wizard to first find (or make, with the help of allies) a place where they’ll be sheltersd from the flames.
And sacrificing an item, particularly one associated with air/water/fire/ice, is appropriate as the element that allows the ritual to work quickly.
I’ll cross my fingers that they’ll create a Hellfire demon that keeps them safe but burns down the rest of the town!