[3.5 and earlier] Removing Extraordinary Mobility: Thoughts?

[Lapak]

Mobility is one of the key factors that changes play dramatically as characters move from low to mid level and from mid to high level: the addition of flight, teleportation, and other exotic methods of transport fundamentally alter the nature of the game. It's also one of the great divides between casting and non-casting classes, as everyone needs it and only some classes get it as a class feature. In a greater context, the existence of such things makes a lot of 'standard' setting features illogical - castles and caravans really wouldn't make sense in a world with flying artillery-mages and permanent teleport circles.

So I was wondering: what would happen if I removed that aspect of gameplay? If I removed all spells, spell-like abilities, powers, class features, and so on that provide one of:
- moving from place to place without crossing the intervening distance
- controlled flight
- moving to other planes
- creating or accessing an extradimensional space.

So no Flight. No Dimension Door. No Rope Trick. No Abundant Step, no Shadow Jump, no Boots of Flying. Maybe I'd leave levitation alone, I'm not sure. Most likely, effects that just accelerate normal movement would be left alone, but if you want to get from Point A to Point B you're going to walk or ride there. If you want to get to the Abyss, you're going to have to find a natural gateway.

The only flyers would be creatures capable of it naturally. (I know this opens the door to mobility through Polymorph spells, but they are their own problem I'd want to tackle separately; for the purposes of this discussion treat that as unavailable.)

What problems do you see with this approach? Would this hurt the game, do you think, or is it a workable idea? Would it be bad for the 'feel' of the game? There's a lot of fantasy precedent for these kinds of effects, I know, but there's also plenty of fantasy in which they don't exist or are explicitly impossible.

[Aharon]

It will surely have the intended consequences. I don't think there's a lot more to say. Your fix would work, and I don't see it as a major problem. I prefer having these abilities, but I realize that it's lots of work to make a campaign setting where people have access to so much easy transportation work.

Another possibility, of course, is trying to adjust the realities of the campaign setting to the abilities that are there. For examples, castles can be built in a way that makes entrance really hard. And trade caravans would still have their place to provide local settlements with stuff. In the Forgotten Realms, for example, it would be totally plausible to have stuff teleported from Baldur's Gate to Deepwater and vice versa - but Daggerford, a relatively small settlement in between, could still be reliant on caravans.

[Violet Octopus]

What about spells/effects like swift fly or spider climb, that are not so game-changing?

If the game still had PC races like raptorans, I doubt it'd work well.

The weakening of that kind of utility magic (like flight being pretty much off limits until paragon tier, IIRC) is one of the things I like about 4th edition.

Things like trivial intercontinental teleportation was one of the many reasons I didn't enjoy the low-epic game my group once played. I prefer journeys through forbidding terrain and exotic locales over dungeoncrawl-teleport-dungeoncrawl, and OOTS would be a less interesting comic if V hadn't barred Conjuration.

Overall, I'd probably enjoy playing, say, a 10th level game with houserules like that, and would prefer it to a straight out low-magic campaign. Around that level allows for characters to be well-established in their classes/prestige class, have more exciting spells than summoning a celestial badger, while avoiding a perpetually flying party.

[ZeroNumerous]

What problems do you see with this approach?

I do hope you don't intend to use competent dragons as enemies if you remove the only way for melee characters to attack them.

[Lapak]

Another possibility, of course, is trying to adjust the realities of the campaign setting to the abilities that are there. For examples, castles can be built in a way that makes entrance really hard. And trade caravans would still have their place to provide local settlements with stuff. In the Forgotten Realms, for example, it would be totally plausible to have stuff teleported from Baldur's Gate to Deepwater and vice versa - but Daggerford, a relatively small settlement in between, could still be reliant on caravans.I take your point on that, but I've found that adjustments like that cascade pretty quickly until the world starts becoming either unrecognizable or TOO recognizable. I'm looking for changes at the party scale as well as the world-scale, though, so making the change to the magic is not just easier but is killing two birds with one stone. :smallsmile:


What about spells/effects like swift fly or spider climb, that are not so game-changing?

If the game still had PC races like raptorans, I doubt it'd work well.

The weakening of that kind of utility magic (like flight being pretty much off limits until paragon tier, IIRC) is one of the things I like about 4th edition.

Things like trivial intercontinental teleportation was one of the many reasons I didn't enjoy the low-epic game my group once played. I prefer journeys through forbidding terrain and exotic locales over dungeoncrawl-teleport-dungeoncrawl, and OOTS would be a less interesting comic if V hadn't barred Conjuration.

Overall, I'd probably enjoy playing, say, a 10th level game with houserules like that, and would prefer it to a straight out low-magic campaign. Around that level allows for characters to be well-established in their classes/prestige class, have more exciting spells than summoning a celestial badger, while avoiding a perpetually flying party.That's more or less what I was shooting for, so that's good to hear! I hadn't considered every spell, and you suggest some that are definitely on the borderline of potentially-allowable. PCs with natural flight is also something I'd need to think about. It's not something I generally encourage, but natural flight is a lot less problematic than magical for several reasons: it can't be shared, movement-impairing effects can turn it into a nasty fall, it has pretty strict weight limits, and so on. Short of having a whole party of Raptorans, I'm not sure it would create the same problems.

I do hope you don't intend to use competent dragons as enemies if you remove the only way for melee characters to attack them.I intend for dragons to be a pretty considerable threat, yes. They're in the name of the game, after all. If you don't catch it off-guard, on the ground, and in a location where it can't take to the air, you're going to have a hard time of it. On the up side, dragons can't teleport to safety either - if you DO catch one in a vulnerable location, it has to fight its way out just like anyone else.

That should go for casters as well, even if not to the same degree as melee. This change should undercut many of their best defenses against a threat like a dragon in open terrain, and I can't imagine they'd want to engage in that fight any more than the melee classes would. But if I'm missing something obvious, well, that's why I posted this thread! Let me know.