Ritual casting is a major tool in the spellcaster’s arsenal in Dungeons & Dragons. Whether identifying magical items, determining if items are cursed or not, buffing the party before battle, or preparing to transport across continent, there are so many uses for ritual spells throughout a campaign and having a spellcaster who can set up for ten minutes and perform ritual after ritual is incredibly useful.
Starting out there are five total casting and partial casting classes that can cast ritual spells, and six that can’t. Because of this, if your spellcaster doesn’t start with that ability, you may want to take a serious look at this feat and what it can provide.
The One DnD Ritual Caster Feat allows a player to increase either their Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma by +1 (player’s choice) up to a maximum of 20; choose two 1st-level ritual spells from the Arcane, Divine, or Primal spell lists that you now always know, have prepared, and can cast with any of your spell slots using the increased ability score from this feat; and you can cast one Ritual Spell prepared using regular casting time as opposed as Ritual and this doesn’t require a spell slot once per long rest.
So this is one of the more complicated feats, but does that make it a great one? That’s the important question.
Let’s do a deep dive into the Ritual Caster Feat to see what it brings to the table.
Ritual Caster Feat One DnD Review
The best way to break down a feat is to check out the exact wording.
From Unearthed Arcana:
Prerequisite: Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma 13+
You have studied ritual magic, granting you the following benefits:
Ability Score Increase. Increase your Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
Ritual Spells. Choose two 1st-level Spells that have the Ritual tag from the Arcane, Divine, and Primal Spell Lists. You always have those two Spells prepared, and you can cast them with any Spell Slots you have. The Spells’ Spellcasting Ability is the ability increased by this Feat.
Quick Ritual. With this benefit, you can cast a Ritual Spell that you have prepared using its regular casting time, rather than the extended time for a Ritual. Doing so doesn’t require a Spell Slot. Once you cast the Spell in this way, you can’t use this benefit again until you finish a Long Rest.
Unearthed Arcana, Expert Classes, 2022
Let’s break down each benefit one by one to really dive into this feat and see what it has to offer.
Benefit #1: Increase your Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma by 1 up to 20.
This is a pretty basic ability score improvement we’ve come to expect out of most One DnD feats, seeing as how the majority of them are Half-Feats. This makes perfect sense. Since casters are going to be the ones who take this feat, having the three ability scores that are tied to spell casting makes perfect sense.
Benefit #2: Choose 2 total 1st-Level Ritual spells from the Arcane, Divine, and Primal spell lists. You always have these prepared and can cast them using spell slots and the ability score you increased in Benefit 1 of this feat.
Picking up two spells is never a bad deal, especially for classes like Warlock which have a very limited spell list. Ritual spells are versatile and even at level one you will find no shortage of great spells that you will want to add to your spell book.
Benefit #3: Quick Ritual – you can cast a prepared Ritual Spell using its regular casting time instead of the longer Ritual time period. This doesn’t require a spell slot and can be done once per long rest.
This is a nice little addition to set the feat apart and while it’s not going to come in all that often in most cases, with certain spells or when time is at a crunch because of in-game situations. Not something that is going to make or break a feat, but a free cast spell is never anything to sneeze at so it’s a great add-on to this feat.
How Does Ritual Caster Feat Measure Up?
This is a really good feat that fits in with what you expect from a magic-based feat in One DnD. While some players are going to be upset that the obvious loophole from 5E is closed, this is still a strong and useful feat that fits the flavor of what it’s supposed to do in-game, gives some serious magic boost to character builds who take it, and fits in perfectly from a flavor standpoint.
This is an excellent feat and one of the best ones as far as spellcasting goes that we currently see from the One DnD system. It’s one that is only aimed at a certain number of spellcasters, but for those who don’t start with ritual casting, it’s a very good option to pick up and use.
Ritual Caster Feat: One DnD Vs 5E
While One DnD’s Ritual Caster feat adds a +1 to the casting stat of your choice as well as the Quick Ritual bonus of getting one free cast at normal speed per long rest, the biggest change players are going to notice is that 5E’s trait of being able to copy other ritual spells into your spell book is gone, which was a loophole that pretty much every 5E Warlock took advantage of, as did many other spellcasters who needed more ritual abilities like Paladins and Sorcerers.
Related Article: 5E Ritual Caster Feat Guide
Overall I think One DnD Ritual Caster is a slightly stronger feat that plays better mechanically, but it is a nerf because the old benefit of being able to basically learn every ritual spell with enough time/money was a sort of “power loophole” in 5E and this feat clearly was made with the intention of offering a powerful alternative to shut that loophole.
Who Should Take the Ritual Caster Feat in One DnD?
Non-casting classes and those that start able to cast ritual spells have no reason to take this feat. However, for the third-casters and half-casters this can be a very good pickup (notable exception Artificers, who can already ritual cast) and for the Paladin who wants the ability to do a little bit more or the Warlock who wants to open up spell options this can be a great feat.
Even the Sorcerer can use it if they find themselves as the only caster in their party, to fully round out everything that can do to help out.
Classes that start with the ability to cast ritual spells:
- Artificers
- Bards
- Clerics
- Druids
- Wizards
Classes that need the ritual caster feat to cast ritual spells:
- Arcane Tricksters
- Eldritch Knights
- Paladins
- Rangers
- Sorcerers
- Warlocks (exception Pact of the Tome Warlocks who take the Book of Secrets Invocation)
Keep these in mind and it becomes clear pretty quickly which builds are going to benefit the most from taking the One DnD Ritual Caster Feat.
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DnD One Ritual Caster Feat Final Grade
The Ritual Caster feat isn’t needed by the casting classes that start out with this ability, but it can be a great addition for multiple classes that extends the number of spells they can learn and cast, and sometimes adding those one or two little pieces of utility can make all the difference. This is one of those classic casting feats that is going to do a lot of work for many builds but not so much for some others.
Overall, a very good feat that can do some serious work for the right builds and add a strong degree of versatility which is something you really like to see for your spellcasting builds.
Other Articles of Interest
- One DnD Magic Initiate Feat Guide
- One DnD Elemental Adept Feat Guide
- One DnD Mage Slayer Feat Guide
- Every Type of Damage in DnD 5E
- One DnD Epic Boons Level 20 Feats Guide
- Detect Magic 5E Spell Guide
Proud to embrace the locally created moniker of “Corrupt Overlord” from one of the all time great Lords of Waterdeep runs, Shane is one member of the Assorted Meeples crew and will be hard at work creating awesome content for the website. He is a long-time player of board games, one time semi-professional poker player, and tends to run to the quirky or RPG side of things when it comes to playing video games. He loves tabletop roleplaying systems like Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, Werewolf, Fate, and others, and not only has been a player but has run games as DM for years. You can find his other work in publications like Level Skip or Hobby Lark.