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I’m playing an occult-focused Enigma bard in a 2E conversion of Hell’s Rebels. Pretty soon we’ll hit level 4, when I’m planning to take the Ritualist dedication, which will let him learn two uncommon rituals of no more than half his level. As a neutral good character, my bard is not interested in learning how to create undead, and he is an expert only in Occultism.
As far as I can see, there are no 1st level rituals he qualifies for, and the only 2nd level rituals are Inveigle and Create Undead. Without Create Undead, he’s going to be short one ritual until level 5 - assuming he puts his next skill proficiency increase into Arcana, Nature, or Religion - or level 6, when he can take Resourceful Ritualist. Am I missing anything? Has anyone heard if there will be new rituals available when Secrets of Magic comes out in late August?
Obviously I can discuss other options with my GM, like researching something new, and it won’t be the end of the world if my bard needs to wait a level or two to get a second ritual. It just seems as though Ritualist is lacking in options at lower levels - it’s set up for each Ritualists expert in each of the four knowledge skills to have two available 2nd level rituals to take, but one of them only works for evil Ritualists, which makes it useless for many characters.
Is there any value in knowing a ritual you don't intend to use? For example, could knowing Create Undead give you any sort of advantage in combat against undead? That is the only way that I could see Ritualist Dedication being useful at 4th level. Otherwise, you may want to consider taking that dedication a couple of levels later if you are going to reach 4th level before you have Secrets of Magic in hand.
Being an Occult caster doesn't mean that's the end of the line for rituals requiring other skills, especially if you are a Ritualist. Animate Object requires Expert Arcane sure, but that's technically doable. Not only that but for a Skill Feat at L6, Ritualist offers Resourceful Ritualist which lowers the skill requirement. With Trained Arcane, you can do Animate Object just fine. My Ritualist picked this skill feat up as a planned part of their build. I think it's a must have for the archetype. It's a skill feat to boot so you don't have to spend two class feats to qualify for another dedication.
I built my Ritualist to be an Animate Object focused character who picks up other useful rituals. The focus is on guardians for covering physical weakness. Why are you going Ritualist? If there's nothing at 4th you want, why not wait until 6th? Then you can pick L3 rituals to start with as well as get the RR Skill Feat at the same level. Looking at what you want rituals for and building around the timeline for that may give you more options.
You could also use your L3 skill increase on Arcane instead, then at 6th when you pick up RR, retrain your L3 skill increase to something else.
Inveigle seems just as evil as Create Undead.
Subverting anothers will with a spell is nasty.
Animate Object is a very cool ritual. Who doesn't want an animated object minion? But for that to work well, you need an indulgent DM willing to homebrew critters for you. At 4th level, I'd want an animated armchair that could carry me while I study my spellbook.
Very soon we will get Secrets of Magic with an undisclosed number of cool rituals. But you're very right that the number of available low-level rituals is limited.