[inca1980]

I hear very little discussion of Ritual Magic on the forums.  I personally have never used it and never had players use it in a game.  Does anyone else have experience with it?  If so please relate your stories of cool or completely botched uses of ritual magic because I'd love to hear them!

[Mirikon]

In 99.99% of all runs, you will never have a need to even consider using ritual magic. It takes too long, the chance of failure is too high unless you actually have a strong link to the subject, and so on. There isn't really much use for it, from a runner perspective.

[All4BigGuns]

Yeah, I'd say it's pretty much relegated to only being useful in VERY long running campaigns.

[Mirikon]

Or in very specific situations. A bounty hunting/recovery campaign, for instance, would be an ideal situation for someone with ritual spellcasting and some detect spells. Wetwork campaigns are another one that could use it. However, outside of those situations, rituals are much like Arcana and Enchanting. Nice, but not worth the points, for the most part.

[rasmusnicolaj]

I have it one 1 for my character but purely for background stuff so he can get together with his buddies at the lodge and make a little magic. I don't think I will ever use it in-game.

Rasmus

[Black]

A player in my group used it to track a target who got snatched by a rival shadowrun team.  That was good.

[rasmusnicolaj]

If you don't know the target or have something really personal the penalties to the roll becomes bad really fast.
But I guess it could work it just never has been an issue in our group but I will think of finding a way to use for one of the times I will have to be a master.

Rasmus

[Makki]

giving your ally spirit the Ritual Spellcasting skill doubles your ritual team size. However I haven't seen it being used so far. And can't think of a viable char.

[JustADude]

giving your ally spirit the Ritual Spellcasting skill doubles your ritual team size. However I haven't seen it being used so far. And can't think of a viable char.

Also, after about Force 6 or so, it would be a better idea to have them lead the ritual, since they'll have more dice than you. 

[All4BigGuns]

Or in very specific situations. A bounty hunting/recovery campaign, for instance, would be an ideal situation for someone with ritual spellcasting and some detect spells. Wetwork campaigns are another one that could use it. However, outside of those situations, rituals are much like Arcana and Enchanting. Nice, but not worth the points, for the most part.

Given that Arcana seems to be the skill that would correlate to the 3.5 D&D Spellcraft skill, there are GMs out there who would question how you have any magical skill over 1 or 2 without it.

[Mirikon]

Heh. I've made level 20 magic users that had no ranks in Spellcraft before, Guns. It depends on what you focus on. (In that case, I was playing a Warlock that could get a Bluff check in the low 100s pre-epic.)

As far as Arcana goes, however, the parallel doesn't fly. Arcana is used for designing new formulas, be they spell, focus, or ally spirit formulas. That's it. Nothing to do with the actual use of the formula. You don't even have to be Awakened to do it. There is absolutely no connection between Arcana and level of magical skill. You can be a very proficient magician using formulas you purchased from others.

[All4BigGuns]

I know it's possible, but in the eyes of some GMs it isn't, and they would aggro you for having nothing in the skill but a 6 Spellcasting. Not saying it's right (I disagree with such aggro as a general rule myself), but I am saying it can happen.

[Mirikon]

Yes, there are plenty of DMs who should turn in their DM screen. But rulings should not be based on the crap DMs.

[All4BigGuns]

Yeah, but I find it best to keep skills like that in mind and take them just in case I run into to one of those.

[Mirikon]

Yeah, I'm not enough of a masochist to play with one of those.