Wait, you want us to WHAT?, When Mr. Johnson asks you to do the very weird... Options

[Draco18s]

And 18P drain split between 3-4 casters isn't that scary - it WILL hurt, but whatever was on the other end of the spell won't get any deader.

Read the ritual spellcasting rules again. Drain is not divided between participants. Each one of them has to resist the full value.

Yeah.

It sucks.

[Seriously Mike]

Read the ritual spellcasting rules again. Drain is not divided between participants. Each one of them has to resist the full value.

Yeah.

It sucks.

I'm gonna say only one thing about that:
"Ouch."
This way, ritual spellcasting doesn't really have that much advantage over "point and cast" - all right, being hidden from sight in a (presumably fortified) magic lodge with a blood sample or a lock of hair may buy you some time, but I doubt anyone will be able to crank out a spell powerful enough to take a guy out in one hit without melting himself with the drain.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

I'm gonna say only one thing about that:
"Ouch."
This way, ritual spellcasting doesn't really have that much advantage over "point and cast" - all right, being hidden from sight in a (presumably fortified) magic lodge with a blood sample or a lock of hair may buy you some time, but I doubt anyone will be able to crank out a spell powerful enough to take a guy out in one hit without melting himself with the drain.

Why, if you have that capability with Normal Spellcasting, what is stopping you from achieving that with Ritual Spellcasting? Ritual Spellcasting can be frighteningly powerful, if used well. Especially if you have no hope of Stopping the ritual.

We had an Extract gone sour, and while we were over the ocean with our extractee, we began to notice the effects of a Ritual Casting. Long story short, our Extractee became a Statue (They had the VP of Security's Ritual Sample) while we could do absolutely nothing about it in the moment. Once the spell was in place, we did manage to reverse the effects with Normal Counterspelling and some judicious expenditure of Edge, but had it been a Fireball, we would all have died a flaming, horrible death, and then plunged into the Sea. So, if not dead from the Fire or Impact, we would likely have drowned. That Sucks. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)