I have a player who is an experienced player. Our party consists of path of Devotion Paladin, Bladesinger Wizard (the player), Thief Rogue, College of Eloquence Bard, College of Whispers Bard, and Battle Master Fighter. It’s already a strong party and the two bards can throw a wrench in a lot of stuff.
My campaign is doing a time jump (homebrew) of 2-2.5 years following the end of Phandelver. The wizard (who is a Changeling) is asking if he can pick up the following rituals during this time jump:
- water breathing
- unseen servant
- tensers floating disk
- phantom steed
- magic mouth
- leonmunds tiny hut
- illusory script
- identify
- gentle repose
- find familiar
- detect magic
- comprehend languages
- augury
- alarm
My response to him was as follows:
“I want to be a yes DM, but also you’re so low of level that many of these will subvert a lot of potential enemy actions. It feels like a little too much utility for [level] 5. With two bards, it’s already ridiculous with what you all can get away with.”
I did say that I am willing to let him have a few though.
Am I being too strict? If not, how many would you allow?
What I would do is to give everyone an amount of gold pieces that they can use during this downtime. I would also make sure to charge them to live style expenses as well or net that out to zero is you are assuming they are working for their living. With this gold give set costs for each spell scroll (I would do it by level) and then the player can choose what they want to do with it. Get new ritual spells or keep the gold or upgrade equipment