There is one thing I really like about D&D 4th edition is the ritual system. I think it gives an excellent way of raising the magic level of a D&D campaign without ditching the vancian system. The basic innovation is that you spend gold in the form of components and you can cast a spell without memorizing it. Problem spells can be handled by require specific components that are rare and expensive.

Rituals

Any spell in the rule books can be casted as ritual. The casting time is 10 minutes. The component cost is the spell level SQUARED times ten gp. (level^2 * 10 gp). Components can be bought at most magic shops like the Sorcerer's Supply Shop in the City-State of the Invincible Overlord. As an option the referee may wish to impose specific component requirement on certain spells particularly for those 7th level or higher.

The intent of this system is that most utility spells are cast via ritual in the Majestic Wilderlands. This changes the role of scrolls. For Magic-Users and Thothian Mages, they are mainly created to increase the number of combat spells that can be cast. They are of particular importance to Orders who do not memorize spells.

Using this house rule provides a nice explanation of the differences between Chainmail Magic and D&D Magic. In Chainmail turns are a lot longer than rounds allowing the Chainmail Wizards to cast spells via rituals. As long as the supply of components don't run out he can cast even if the battle lasts all day.

Interesting.  It gives a good place to sink money from a campaign.

So, I could do a Ritual of Knock by spending 2 x 2 x 10 = 40 gold and 10 minutes?   That sounds too cheap.  

In general, most people seem to play with scrolls costing Level x 100 gold so you could get 2nd level spells for 200 gold and no extra casting time.   However, I have seen people on Dragonsfoot claim its Level x 500 or even 1000 gold.

Instead of a fixed cost, I would say that rituals should cost 1/2 of whatever an equivalent scroll would cost in their campaign.  As for time, I may consider making the ritual take 1 turn per level so a Knock would take 20 minutes to cast.  

If you expand on this idea, it could be a good article for Knockspell or Fight On! magazine.

Very clever. Particularly the whole part that integrates Chainmail and D&D in the same basic world logic but from different POVs/time frames.

There's really no point in overly limiting PCs outside of specific tactical circumstances where resource management will matter in terms of survival, so allowing for some type of ritual magic makes sense, really. It multiplies the options available to the PCs while not dramatically altering the tactical balance of the game (same can be said about 4e's ritual magic, btw). All good.

I'm doing a S&W mod for my setting, and I'm going to use a slightly altered version of this, Rob; if'n that's cool.

You might want to say casting time is ten minutes per spell level; meaning higher-level spells are longer, more complex rites.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;326059You might want to say casting time is ten minutes per spell level; meaning higher-level spells are longer, more complex rites.

RPGPundit

Yes.  I use a version of ritual casting/witchcraft in my games, to enable weaker casters to use more powerful magics, utilizing time and more expensive components to make up for the caster's lack of spell ability.  It actually multiplies the casting time by a level modifier.  
It's used rarely by casters, but it really helps for my NPC casters, and to explain the presence of magic items in my setting.

Yeah, Ritual Magic was a great idea that 4E had, one of its few.  The execution of it is patchy but excellent food for thought and surprisingly easy to port into any version of D&D.

I figured I might as well include a link to the rules and some examples we use.
Ritual Magic in Guildschool
The interestin part is when a few players actually get this, and start using it for some longitudinal spells.