Rituals & Scrolls

[Demogorgon]

In order to use a ritual you have found in a ritual book you will need to spend 8 hours to learn it. During this time you can also copy the ritual into your own book provided you first purchase the components required (which is the cost of the ritual).

When you gain new rituals through leveling you are assumed to be working on it before you gain a level. When you attain the level you finally figure out the details and can add the ritual to your ritual book. We can assume that during rests or periods of inactivity your character is studying his books and/or experimenting.

Rituals
Rituals are complex ceremonies that create magic effects. You don’t memorize or prepare a ritual; a ritual is so long and complex that no one could ever commit the whole thing to memory. To perform a ritual, you need to read from a book or a scroll containing it.

A ritual book contains one or more rituals that you can use as often and as many times as you like, as long as you can spare the time and the components to perform the ritual.

A ritual scroll contains a single ritual, and you can perform the ritual from that scroll only once. After that, the magic contained in the scroll is expended, and the scroll turns to dust. Anyone can use a ritual scroll to perform the ritual it contains, as long as the appropriate components are expended.

Owning a ritual book isn’t enough to let you perform the ritual or rituals in it. You must first master a ritual by studying it for 8 uninterrupted hours. (If you gained a ritual by creating its book yourself or by obtaining it as a class feature, you have already mastered it.)

You must meet two requirements to master a ritual. You must have the Ritual Caster feat, and your level must equal or exceed the ritual’s level. If you meet those requirements and spend 8 hours studying a ritual, you can add it to your list of mastered rituals. As long as you have the ritual’s book handy, you can perform a mastered ritual whenever you want.

There’s no limit to the number of rituals you can master.

Performing a Ritual: To perform a ritual that you have mastered, you spend a certain amount of time (specified in the ritual description) performing various actions appropriate to the ritual. The actions might include reading long passages out of the ritual book, scribing complex diagrams on the ground, burning special incense or sprinkling mystic reagents at appropriate times, or performing a long set of meticulous gestures. The specific activities required aren’t described in most ritual descriptions; they’re left to your imagination.
A ritual requires certain esoteric components, which you purchase before you perform the ritual and which are expended when the ritual is complete. Each ritual specifies the cost of the components you need. If a ritual requires a skill check, the check usually determines the ritual’s effectiveness. Even if the check result is low, a ritual usually succeeds, but if the result is high, you can usually achieve better effects.

Assisting in a Ritual: Unless a ritual specifies otherwise, up to four of your allies can help you perform a ritual. Everyone assisting you must be within 5 squares of you, and each assistant must actively participate in the ritual for the entire time required to complete it. Your assistants need neither the Ritual Caster feat nor knowledge of the specific ritual. Your allies can assist you in two ways.
First, if the ritual requires spending healing surges or some other resource, willing allies can contribute those resources. (Certain rituals might allow unwilling participants to pay those costs as well, but such rituals involve sacrifices to malevolent gods or demon lords and are not found in the ritual books of most player characters.)
Second, your allies can assist with the skill check you make to complete a ritual, using the normal rules for cooperating on another character’s skill check.

Interrupting a Ritual: At any time before a ritual is completed, you can stop it and suffer no ill effect. You don’t expend any components or pay any costs until a ritual is completed. You can’t resume a ritual that was interrupted, however, so you do lose the time you spent on an interrupted ritual.

[Demogorgon]

Ritual Scrolls
A ritual scroll is a single page of parchment, vellum, or paper.

Buying a Ritual Scroll: Like a ritual book, a ritual scroll can be purchased for the given market price.

Finding a Ritual Scroll: Ritual scrolls can also be found as treasure.

Creating a Ritual Scroll: You can create a ritual scroll by transcribing a ritual you have mastered. Creating a ritual scroll takes twice the amount of time as creating a ritual book but costs the same price.

Limitation: Even though a ritual scroll lets you perform a ritual, you can neither master a ritual from a scroll nor copy a scroll into a ritual book. A scroll is a condensed version of a ritual, partially cast and primed so that it only takes up a single page.

Using a Ritual Scroll: A ritual scroll holds one use of a particular ritual. You can perform a scroll’s ritual even if you don’t have the Ritual Caster feat, regardless of the level of the ritual. You still have to expend the components and supply any focus required by the ritual, and you can enlist your allies’ assistance. Once you have finished performing the ritual on a scroll, the scroll turns to dust. If the ritual is interrupted, the scroll remains intact.

Time: Casting a ritual from a scroll takes half the time indicated in a ritual’s description, since the creation of the scroll has primed the magic.

[Demogorgon]

Ritual Book
You can buy ritual books or find them as treasure. You can also make a copy of an existing ritual book, and some classes give you free access to a number of rituals. Wizards hold both their spells and their rituals in their spellbooks.

Buying a Ritual Book: You can buy a ritual book for 50 gp. A ritual book is 128 pages long. Each ritual takes up a number of pages equal to its level. The description of each ritual gives its market price, which is the gold piece cost for a book containing that ritual or the cost to add the new ritual to your existing ritual book or spellbook (if there’s enough room in it).

Finding a Ritual Book: When you explore a ruined library, delve into a lost temple, or do away with a villainous wizard, you might discover tomes on arcane philosophy that contain rituals. Such ritual books are part of the treasure you acquire while adventuring.

Creating a Ritual Book: You can create a new ritual book by copying an existing one. You can’t make a ritual book for a ritual that’s higher level than you are, and you can’t make a book by copying a ritual scroll, because the scroll doesn’t contain the entire ritual.

When you create a ritual book or copy a ritual into an existing book, you don’t just write a series of words on each page; you bind some of the ritual’s magic into the book. Therefore, you need a book of the highest quality, exotic inks, and expensive components, with a total cost equal to the ritual’s market price. You don’t save any gold by creating a ritual book instead of buying it.

In addition to requiring gold, creating a ritual book or copying a ritual into an existing book takes time: 8 hours for a heroic tier ritual (1st–10th level),
16 hours for a paragon tier ritual (11th–20th level),
and 24 hours for an epic tier ritual (21st–30th level).
If you copy a ritual that you haven’t already mastered, the time you spend copying it enables you to master the ritual.

[Demogorgon]

House Rule:

Normally you can't learn a Ritual (copy it into your ritual book) from a scroll in 4e. I will allow you to reverse engineer the scroll with an Skill check. If successful the scroll will be consumed and you will have copied it into your book. Failure will require you to wait another level to learn it again, but the scroll will not be consumed. If you roll a 1 on your skill check the scroll will be consumed.