Banning Teleport

[Yahzi]

I feel like I've found ways to mitigate the dangers of most of the broken spells; but the one I just can't fix is Teleport.

It destroys adventures. Every single fantasy novel is about trekking through the wilderness.

It destroys danger. The party can just run away at any time.

It destroys tactics. Half of tactics is positioning, defending territory. Imagine a game of chess with a piece that could teleport anywhere on the board. Pfft!

And most of all, it's unfair - in the sense that the DM can never, ever use the spell against the players! Sure, he can have the BBEG teleport away at the last minute (although they hate that), or have the bad guys teleport into some NPCs castle, but has any GM ever launched a Scry and Die attack against his party that didn't result in many, many unhappy faces?

D&D is already too much about offense: buffing up for 3 rounds and then attacking an unbuffed enemy almost always results in an auto-win. Buffs don't last long enough to be cast defensively, and the players are almost always initiating the action. I try to mitigate this by making buffs last longer, making encounters at longer range or with less surprise, and by giving monsters an INT roll to be prepared; but Teleport just smacks all of these fixes into the floor.

Dimension Door and other short-range ports are fine, because they only modify borders, they don't eliminate them. I haven't thought exactly how to fix Gate, but somehow it just doesn't seem to be the same kind of problem.

What do you think?

[BowStreetRunner]

In a world where Teleport is a common spell, there is no reason not to expect the liberal application of Forbiddance (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/forbiddance.htm) wherever someone wants to keep intruders out.

[INoKnowNames]

From what I've heard (and the intelligence of what I've heard pretty much amounts to jack-dirt), Gate's more of an issue because you can Gate in things that can Gate in more things. Gate-Ception!

Teleport could certainly be beat with the nerf-stick for the sake of story. At the very least, a long casting time that is also entirely telegraphed at the destination would make it more manageable, with maybe higher level versions working quicker.

Again, I know jack-dirt, so take that with salt.

[Waker]

My fix for teleport is that there are certain locations where a teleport spell can go to, specifically leyline confluences. Trying to teleport to a non-leyline locale is dangerous, but possible though with a chance of teleporting to a different location entirely or some other error (taking damage, arriving several rounds later than normal...). The other change I made is that casting a teleport spell takes several minutes to activate, precluding it from being an auto-retreat option. If teleport is being used as a means of egress, then the rest of the party needs to keep the pressure off the mage while he casts the spell.

[ArcturusV]

Well, the quick fix would be changing the percents, so that even areas you've sufficiently scried or are very familiar with aren't really reliable. Do something like a baseline of, best case scenario, only a 50% chance of success, scaling up from there with the nearbies, similar to, etc. And with less familiarity being similarly worse to the point where if you're just guessing you might as well stab yourself in the foot for all the good it'll do you.

Similar quick fix I've used is Anchor Points. You can cast Teleport, sure, but it will only take you to a designated anchor point. That point being the last place you set as one (Usually with some variation on Arcane Mark or the like).

Because of that? You don't negate adventures with Teleport. All you really negate is backtracking, which can be painful, but slightly less so. If someone wants to offensively Teleport, it comes down to either letting an enemy overwhelm their old sanctuary/safe point so they can teleport into their camp (Seen it happen), or sneaking into a place to lay a Mark, and getting out so that later you can teleport in a better force (Also seen that).

But I don't really mind that, because, hell, adventures have to happen for you to use it. And with the anchor point thing going on, it's still perfectly fine for a Bad Guy get away, etc.

[Emperor Tippy]

I feel like I've found ways to mitigate the dangers of most of the broken spells; but the one I just can't fix is Teleport.

It destroys adventures. Every single fantasy novel is about trekking through the wilderness.
Um no its not. Look at the Wheel of Time series. Once the party gets high enough level to learn teleport that is pretty much the only way that they travel.


It destroys danger. The party can just run away at any time.
Um no. That is what teleport blocking is for. Drop a Weirdstone and their is no teleportation in a 6 mile radius. Hell, have people research short duration teleport blockers (say no teleporting within 1 miler per 5 CL for rounds/level) if this is really a problem for you.


It destroys tactics. Half of tactics is positioning, defending territory. Imagine a game of chess with a piece that could teleport anywhere on the board. Pfft!
No, it makes tactics and strategy far more complex and variable.


And most of all, it's unfair - in the sense that the DM can never, ever use the spell against the players! Sure, he can have the BBEG teleport away at the last minute (although they hate that), or have the bad guys teleport into some NPCs castle, but has any GM ever launched a Scry and Die attack against his party that didn't result in many, many unhappy faces?
If they party is stupid enough to let themselves be hit with scry-n-die tactics then they deserve to be screwed over.

Lower level parties have Rope Trick (which can't be teleported into). Higher level parties have Magnificent Mansion (which can't be teleported into).

Then there is Weirdstones to shut down teleport attacks. And teleporting back to your own secured base to sleep. And private demiplanes that don't allow teleportation into them.

Hell, a lower level party can sleep in a portable hole or Bag of Holding without a problem. Just get a Necklace of Adaption for everyone and you are completely fine. And you are immune to teleport and any scrying that isn't multiplanar (throw up a permanent mage's private sanctum inside your bag of holding and you are immune to that as well).


D&D is already too much about offense: buffing up for 3 rounds and then attacking an unbuffed enemy almost always results in an auto-win. Buffs don't last long enough to be cast defensively, and the players are almost always initiating the action. I try to mitigate this by making buffs last longer, making encounters at longer range or with less surprise, and by giving monsters an INT roll to be prepared; but Teleport just smacks all of these fixes into the floor.
Anyone with a brain keeps up teleportation blockers. And any BBEG worth the name above tenth level or so is sleeping inside a permanent Prismatic Sphere.

There are also Craft Contingent Spells. And magic items.


Dimension Door and other short-range ports are fine, because they only modify borders, they don't eliminate them. I haven't thought exactly how to fix Gate, but somehow it just doesn't seem to be the same kind of problem.

What do you think?

I think that you need to play far smarter enemies and modify your thinking significantly.

[Yahzi]

Forbiddance
I have in the past made very heavy use of Forbiddance; but unfortunately it has other effects, like blocking Summons spells and oh yea killing everything of the wrong alignment. :smallbiggrin:

So as a blanket solution it's not quite perfect.


Gate in things that can Gate in more things
My fix for that is:

a) Gate works off of CR, not HD.
b) These are real creatures in service to a deity so using them is a political issue: essentially, every time you do it, Team Monster gets to do it too, so you better be sure your use is worth it.


Leylines
Interestingly, both of your limitations make Teleport behave a lot more like Gate. So it's not just me that finds Gate workable, and Teleport broken.

There's just something about the whole "I disappear and reappear anywhere I want, any time I want" thing that makes it a difficult spell to work around. :smallbiggrin:

Edit: Hmm... what if the caster could only teleport to a place he has prepared with a ritual, and he has to spend a skill point for each place? This allows him to do the escape thing (which I don't mind; Clerics get it with Word of Recall), but prevents open-ended ridiculousness (and Scry & Die).

Thanks for the ideas!

[Spuddles]

Teleport is sort of setting breaking. It is pretty much the biggest force multiplier magic has, and magic itself is the biggest force multiplier in D&D.

You can address the problem in several ways:
1. ban it. nothing really lost, if you want to keep narrative structure
2. it moves at Plot. again, maintains narrative structure
3. Make it so campaign elements decide where it goes, essentially Plot derivative- city with a circle, ley lines, etc
4. increase error rate to where it's dangerous enough to use that a party only springs it as an element of last resort to avoid TPK
5. leave as is and write a setting around it (ie Tippy's "Points of Light" setting)

[ericgrau]

It can be a pain if you or the party isn't ready for it. And banning or limiting it is fine. But ideally look into the anti-teleport and anti-scry spells. Give evidence of scrying early on and launch a few minor teleport attacks at the party. Pretty soon they'll get nondetection and so on, or a nice safe forbiddance base with an NPC. For that matter plan out how NPCs and villains would prepare for it, which may include forbiddance or dimensional lock. Sketch up their rough base layouts in general. By establishing this early it both adds to the PC's options and prevents you from being surprised with the ways PCs handle your villains.

[navar100]

Your problem is not Teleport. Your problem is you want to run adventures suitable for low levels at high levels. When the party can teleport with ease, "trekking through the wilderness" is below their pay grade, unless said wilderness is the whole point of the adventure trying to find the secret entrance to something or the lair of a powerful beast. When the party can teleport with ease, they aren't supposed to be caravan guards, taking care of the goblin problem, or free the roads from bandits. When the party can teleport with ease, they need to teleport because it's the only way to get where they need to be to save the world. Even if they could walk there that would take weeks, but they need to be there Right Now or else the world is Doomed because the evil cult will be doing its Ritual Of Evil tomorrow.

[GoddessSune]

I feel like I've found ways to mitigate the dangers of most of the broken spells; but the one I just can't fix is Teleport.

What do you think?

Well, core does have a bunch of ways to deal with teleport, even more so if you add the rest of d20.

There is no reason that as a DM that you should feel bad using teleport to the fullest. If your group ''agrees'' to the ''by the book'' teleport rules, then let the dice fall where they may. You can put up with some sad faces. They did after all ''agree'' to the teleport rules.

Or you could always fix teleport. And if you run a circle type game let the players vote on it. Or if you run a tyrant game like mine you can just change it.

My Teleport Fix:Teleportation:

Teleportation spells of 4th level or lower (which includes dimension door) can’t transport you further than you can see. The range of these abilities is reduced to line of sight. You can’t use them to transport onto the other side of a closed door, or if you’re blinded, or if it’s too dark to see. You can use them to transport through a window (as you can see what’s on the other side). Spells of levels 5 to 7 allow you to teleport sight unseen and up to a maximum of one mile per caster level. Spells of 8th level and higher can be used sight unseen and no limit on distance.

Teleporting characters or objects disappear instantly, but teleportation takes a number of rounds equal to the number of miles traveled (minimum of 1 round). During this time, characters at the destination of the teleport can make a Spot check (DC 20). If the check succeeds, they are aware of the incoming teleport. If the distance of the teleport is a mile or less, characters at the receiving end of the teleport will only have a surprise round in which to take actions before the teleport is completed.

Teleport Destination: The caster must have a clear mental picture of the teleport destination. For the best results the caster must physically be in the target location for a full hour and make careful notes of the sight, sound, smell and feel of the area. The caster must pick a mostly static location, one that does not change with the passage of time. A destination only remains valid if less then 50% of area remains the same to match the mental picture in the casters mind. Small changes, such as a tree blowing in the wind have no effect, however cutting down the tree makes the destination invalid for a caster that has the tree as part of their mental destination picture.

Teleport Trace: Outgoing teleport spells leave a teleport trace during the duration of the teleport. Characters at the source of a teleport can make a Spot check (DC 20) to spot the teleport trace. Teleport spells and similar effects can be used to automatically follow the original teleport, although the caster will not know where the teleport spell goes until they arrive. Scrying sensors can be sent through a teleport trace.
Dispelling Teleports: Spellcasters who are aware of the incoming teleport can attempt to counterspell the teleport (even though they are unable to see the caster).
Blocked Teleports: If a teleport is counterspelled, blocked, or otherwise disrupted the character or object being teleported returns to its original location.

Extradimensional spaces are hazardous to teleport. There is a flat 50% chance that anything teleorted in an extradimensional space is lost. There is a further 50% chance that the contents are simply utterly destroyed or teleported to a random location(often, but not always, the Astral Plane).

[Thrudd]

Is teleport really that big of a problem? Do a lot of players use up many more than one of their fifth level spellslots on teleport? The rules already allow for there to be inaccuracy and mishaps, if you really need to nerf it you can skew those percentages as was already said. How you define the categories : very familiar, studied carefully, seen casually, viewed once are also up for interpretation. I like the idea of requiring anchor points, and/or making teleport (and other spells that you want to keep out of combat) as a ritual which takes a long time to cast. Teleport doesn't negate the need for trekking through the wilderness, because teleporting to an unfamiliar place is risky, and you can make it even more risky than it is in the rulebook if you want. Teleporting in combat isn't overwhelming, because you can't really teleport the entire party during a combat scenario, and if you did, a wizard can only have so many teleport spells prepared. So he teleports to an advantageous position in one or two combats, hardly something that should break the adventure. I can see the concern for potential abuse, but it can easily be mitigated. Teleport won't be a game-changing tactic in every encounter, and when it is, well that's what spells are for.
Greater teleport can be a little more problematic, since as written there is no chance for going off target and you only need a "reliable description" of the place. I can see this spell being nerfed or removed, although by the time players have access to 7th level spells, their best challenges will be against enemies with access to equally powerful magic including the ability to prevent them from teleporting where you don't want them to go.

[AuraTwilight]

I have in the past made very heavy use of Forbiddance; but unfortunately it has other effects, like blocking Summons spells and oh yea killing everything of the wrong alignment.

So as a blanket solution it's not quite perfect.

Homebrew a spell that's exactly the same but doesn't have those side effects. Bam.

[Humble Master]

My rule to fix teleporting is that teleportation is blocked by lead sheeting. Lead isn't ridiculously expensive so anybody who is worried about people teleporting somewhere (like a personal vault or a secret meeting area) can line their rooms with lead sheeting.

Also certain areas I rule have natural 'interference' so that PC's can't just teleport to the center of the Darklands and not have to make their way through toxic swamps, across barren deserts and over ancient volcanoes.

Basically take a page from Star Trek and only let any mode of transportation, be it warp drive or teleportation only move at the speed of plot.

As for teleporting destroying danger there are a number of ways to make teleporting not an option. Dimensional Anchor, Wierdstone, make a monster or area naturally shut down teleporting. However don't always make the PC's unable to teleport however. If they are always robbed of teleporting then they will make other escape plans. Let them think they have a flawless escape plan, then take it away to raise the tension.

Tactics are not destroyed by teleportation, they are only enhanced! Strike teams (read the PCs) can be teleported behind enemy lines to inflict surgical strikes. Explosives can be teleported directly into enemy structures. You can have traps that teleport enemies into holding cells for interrogation/prisoner exchanges/food.

[Douglas]

The ultimate counter to Scry-and-Die: (Greater) Anticipate Teleportation. The would-be victim gets his choice of either preemptively running away or setting his own ambush complete with a readied action if desired. And it lasts all day by default, so it's trivial to have up at all times.

[Yahzi]

Um no its not. Look at the Wheel of Time series. Once the party gets high enough level to learn teleport that is pretty much the only way that they travel.
But only the party travels that way. In WoT you can count the teleporters on one hand.

In almost any D&D setting, there are presumed to be hundreds of 9th level or higher wizards somewhere in the world.


Weirdstone
I only use Core, so no weirdstones. In any case the idea of selectively blocking the spell seems a bit mean; cleaner to just up front tell the wizard "nope it's gone" instead of freezing him out at convenient plot points. (Not that my sandbox has plots).


I think that you need to play far smarter enemies and modify your thinking significantly.
Without shame I confess I cannot run the Tippyverse. It's just too hard. :smallsmile:

I think a game like that needs special tables, like "1% chance that today a deity from the future changes your alignment and gender to conform to some prophecy that hasn't been made yet." It's a very interesting place, but it's not something I'm interested in (just like I have no interest in playing 007 Spy RPGs, no matter how good they are).



Let them think they have a flawless escape plan, then take it away to raise the tension.

Tactics are not destroyed by teleportation, they are only enhanced! Strike teams (read the PCs) can be teleported behind enemy lines to inflict surgical strikes. Explosives can be teleported directly into enemy structures. You can have traps that teleport enemies into holding cells for interrogation/prisoner exchanges/food.

1. That's a recipe for a TPK.

2. You can't do any of that stuff to the players. Because they would die. Because any competently played encounter of 2 levels lower than the party can kill the party if they get a well-planned ambush.

D&D only works as long as the players are murderhobos with nothing more valuable than what they have on their person or in their Rope Trick Mansion. As soon as they try to grow out of that role, they instantly die to all the same tactics they've been using against every other foe.

Scry and Die is a big, big part of why that is true.



(Greater) Anticipate Teleportation
That spell is 6th level. Teleport is 5th.

[Thomar_of_Uointer]

My fix for teleport is that there are certain locations where a teleport spell can go to, specifically leyline confluences. Trying to teleport to a non-leyline locale is dangerous, but possible though with a chance of teleporting to a different location entirely or some other error (taking damage, arriving several rounds later than normal...). The other change I made is that casting a teleport spell takes several minutes to activate, precluding it from being an auto-retreat option. If teleport is being used as a means of egress, then the rest of the party needs to keep the pressure off the mage while he casts the spell.

Another option is something like Word of Recall.

Anyways, as the GM you always have the option of fudging the teleport roll. Any BBEG who cares about scry-and-die tactics will probably put something in his lair that foils teleports, or has a decent chance of redirecting teleports to a deathtrap in the basement.

[Beheld]

The rules I play are that 40ft of contiguous material of any kind (usually earth or stone for dungeons) blocks teleportation (and scrying).

That way, teleport still does all the moving around stuff, but people can set up areas that aren't particularly accessible. It also gives you defenders advantage, because you can set your dungeon up so that you can teleport into the boss room from one specific location, but only you know of it. PCs have to go through the long way unless they figure it out.


But only the party travels that way. In WoT you can count the teleporters on one hand.

In almost any D&D setting, there are presumed to be hundreds of 9th level or higher wizards somewhere in the world.

No, very quickly travelling comes to be something that almost everyone knows, and that whole armies regularly use.

[Mnemnosyne]

Anticipate Teleportation is 3rd. Greater is 6th, but it's also a luxury that's not super-necessary.

In any case, if you want to keep teleporting but limit it, spells to that effect seem like the most logical course of action. Work out some spells that act to limit teleportation and defend against it in your setting. Possibly have lead block it, as Humble Master suggested, so that you don't need super-expensive items or maintained spells to block it in all locations.

Just because spells don't currently exist for it doesn't mean they shouldn't. Work out what those spells should be and have them exist in your world, with whatever level of rarity you feel is appropriate.

I would, however, strongly disagree with Humble Master's suggestion to have teleport work at the 'speed of plot'. Granted, perhaps your players like that, but personally I despise any situation where the rules seem to change arbitrarily and especially when they don't make much sense purely for the sake of plot. Build consistent, logical rules and make sure they always, always work that way, and that every exception has a specific reason that makes sense and that the players can, if they investigate, understand (and possibly make use of).

And I will say that banning all teleportation isn't entirely out of the question, and it doesn't necessarily make you a bad DM if you do it; some stories really are better told in a world without teleportation, and it's not all low level adventures. Although the vast majority of stories people complain about teleportation ruining are, in fact, things that should only concern lowbies, that doesn't mean that all stories that require there to be no teleporting should only be of concern to low-levels. Figure out if your world would be better off without teleportation; if it is, then just excise all teleport spells from the world and make all travel require physical movement. In some cases, this is the best solution, if teleportation keeps pulling up uncomfortable questions, the answers to which either strain credulity or would inevitably alter your world in ways you don't want.

[Yahzi]

Anyways, as the GM you always have the option of fudging the teleport roll.
No, I don't have that option. That would be harder for me to DM than just living with teleprot.


The rules I play are that 40ft of contiguous material of any kind (usually earth or stone for dungeons) blocks teleportation (and scrying).
A good classic, but not quite enough for making castles make sense.


No, very quickly travelling comes to be something that almost everyone knows, and that whole armies regularly use.
I stand corrected; I forget where in the series I stopped. :smallbiggrin:

[Trunamer]

What do you think?
I'd be perfectly happy to see teleport banned, frankly.

Some gamers enjoy the Tippyverse style and are happy to play the elaborate rock-paper-scissors game that happens between mid-high-level casters and DMs. Or they're fine with spells failing, well...because plot. And that's fine.

But I'm not one of them, and I know your game won't lose anything essential by destroying this problem at its roots.

[Emperor Tippy]

But only the party travels that way. In WoT you can count the teleporters on one hand.
Yeah, every Channeler of even moderate power. Gateways were standard. To be an Ashaman you had to be able to produce one.


In almost any D&D setting, there are presumed to be hundreds of 9th level or higher wizards somewhere in the world.
And that is a problem, why?


I only use Core, so no weirdstones. In any case the idea of selectively blocking the spell seems a bit mean; cleaner to just up front tell the wizard "nope it's gone" instead of freezing him out at convenient plot points. (Not that my sandbox has plots).
Enemies have brains. Finding ways to block or counter teleport is just common sense. If you haven't done so by level 10 + or so then you deserve to die because you are too stupid to live.



Without shame I confess I cannot run the Tippyverse. It's just too hard. :smallsmile:
No, its actually quite easy to run. Initial development is moderately more difficult and time consuming though.


I think a game like that needs special tables, like "1% chance that today a deity from the future changes your alignment and gender to conform to some prophecy that hasn't been made yet." It's a very interesting place, but it's not something I'm interested in (just like I have no interest in playing 007 Spy RPGs, no matter how good they are).
Um no. Random **** like that happens when the DM feels like throwing out a plot hook.




1. That's a recipe for a TPK.
Only if the PC's don't play smart. And death is only supposed to be a very moderate inconvenience in higher level D&D. A total party kill just means that you end up True Ressed by one faith or another and owe said church a favor (read as non compensated quest).


2. You can't do any of that stuff to the players. Because they would die. Because any competently played encounter of 2 levels lower than the party can kill the party if they get a well-planned ambush.
This is probably the big problem a lot of people have as DM's. They are unwilling to kill the PC's.

PC's dieing is (at worst) a moderate inconvenience by 10th level. It only becomes a real pain when you get into soul trapping and soul destruction.


D&D only works as long as the players are murderhobos with nothing more valuable than what they have on their person or in their Rope Trick Mansion.
Said murderhobos wear enough wealth to beggar a Kingdom.


As soon as they try to grow out of that role, they instantly die to all the same tactics they've been using against every other foe.

Scry and Die is a big, big part of why that is true.
Only if they are idiots.

Again, shutting down Scry-n-die costs 32,750 GP. That is the price of a Bag of Holding type 4, a Necklace of Adaption, a scroll of Mage's Private Sanctum, and a scroll of Permanency with enough XP to make MPS permanent.

Cast the sanctum inside the bag and now you have a portable place to rest that is totally immune to divination and can not be teleported into.

Put Nondetection on the bag and you are good to go.


---
Want a secure place to rest? Then get a Permanent Prismatic Sphere and sleep in there.

I prefer using multiple Selective Spell Permanent Prismatic Sphere's with Permanent Teleportation Circle's inside of them.

In my "room" I have a Permanent Teleportation Circle that dumps me into one of my spheres sitting out in deep space. As the Prismatic Sphere is selective I can teleport into it but no one else can.

For extra fun, leave a time lock AMF grenade (using Selective Spell so that you are not effected) inside the Prismatic Sphere and locate them inside of suns.

Protecting yourself against Scry-n-die is relatively easy with the resources that you have available in higher level play (even core only).

[Spuddles]

Yeah, every Channeler of even moderate power. Gateways were standard. To be an Ashaman you had to be able to produce one.


And that is a problem, why?


Enemies have brains. Finding ways to block or counter teleport is just common sense. If you haven't done so by level 10 + or so then you deserve to die because you are too stupid to live.



No, its actually quite easy to run. Initial development is moderately more difficult and time consuming though.


Um no. Random **** like that happens when the DM feels like throwing out a plot hook.




Only if the PC's don't play smart. And death is only supposed to be a very moderate inconvenience in higher level D&D. A total party kill just means that you end up True Ressed by one faith or another and owe said church a favor (read as non compensated quest).


This is probably the big problem a lot of people have as DM's. They are unwilling to kill the PC's.

PC's dieing is (at worst) a moderate inconvenience by 10th level. It only becomes a real pain when you get into soul trapping and soul destruction.


Said murderhobos wear enough wealth to beggar a Kingdom.


Only if they are idiots.

Again, shutting down Scry-n-die costs 32,750 GP. That is the price of a Bag of Holding type 4, a Necklace of Adaption, a scroll of Mage's Private Sanctum, and a scroll of Permanency with enough XP to make MPS permanent.

Cast the sanctum inside the bag and now you have a portable place to rest that is totally immune to divination and can not be teleported into.

Put Nondetection on the bag and you are good to go.


---
Want a secure place to rest? Then get a Permanent Prismatic Sphere and sleep in there.

I prefer using multiple Selective Spell Permanent Prismatic Sphere's with Permanent Teleportation Circle's inside of them.

In my "room" I have a Permanent Teleportation Circle that dumps me into one of my spheres sitting out in deep space. As the Prismatic Sphere is selective I can teleport into it but no one else can.

For extra fun, leave a time lock AMF grenade (using Selective Spell so that you are not effected) inside the Prismatic Sphere and locate them inside of suns.

Protecting yourself against Scry-n-die is relatively easy with the resources that you have available in higher level play (even core only).

You're kind of demonstrating Yahzi's point....

[Emperor Tippy]

You're kind of demonstrating Yahzi's point....

I never said that high level D&D wasn't a land of haxx's and counter haxx. It is.

Of course things are going to be unbalanced or overpowered if you are unwilling to use them or counter them. You are giving the PC's tools that their enemies don't have.

D&D at higher levels does not do well, at all, with the "traditional" quests. And its not even remotely balanced or intended for those kinds of quests. If you want to make it work then you need to make massive changes.

Although you can make an entire quest where the PC's are trying to restore the ability to teleport. Some Epic Mage decided to cast an Epic spell with the Ward Seed that shuts down all teleportation (and maybe planar travel) across the entire world and the PC's have to adventurer to find the spell focus so that they can disable it to restore the ability to teleport.

You can make a great campaign out of that.

[Spuddles]

I never said that high level D&D wasn't a land of haxx's and counter haxx. It is.

Of course things are going to be unbalanced or overpowered if you are unwilling to use them or counter them. You are giving the PC's tools that their enemies don't have.

D&D at higher levels does not do well, at all, with the "traditional" quests. And its not even remotely balanced or intended for those kinds of quests. If you want to make it work then you need to make massive changes.

Although you can make an entire quest where the PC's are trying to restore the ability to teleport. Some Epic Mage decided to cast an Epic spell with the Ward Seed that shuts down all teleportation (and maybe planar travel) across the entire world and the PC's have to adventurer to find the spell focus so that they can disable it to restore the ability to teleport.

You can make a great campaign out of that.

It appears to me that Yahzi wants to maintain verisimilitude across levels. Why build castles as a level 10 adventurer or spend a single gp on anything that isn't more magic items? Those resources aren't worth it. Your advice was to play a paranoid murder hobo who lives out of his hobo bag. That's not really "high fantasy" as some would like to play.

Judging by his OP, Yahzi has already taken measures to nerf/change spells to continue the persistence of a setting full of dirt farmers, fortifications that mages can easily breach, and the continued importance of fighters and feudal hereditary autocracy post level 10.

[Keld Denar]

My DM for an Eberron game had Teleport "shunt" zones in major cities like Sharn. If you tried to Teleport to someone's house, you got automatically shunted into a receiving zone with guards who check your papers and all that. It's similar to the leylines idea presented above. Useful for protecting heavily populated areas and BBEG bases.

[Emperor Tippy]

It appears to me that Yahzi wants to maintain verisimilitude across levels. Why build castles as a level 10 adventurer or spend a single gp on anything that isn't more magic items? Those resources aren't worth it. Your advice was to play a paranoid murder hobo who lives out of his hobo bag. That's not really "high fantasy" as some would like to play.
Castles are magic items. See the Stronghold Builders Guide.

And even then, the point of a castle is not to live in it. The castle is a base of operations, meeting point, and decoy most of the time. It's not a place where the PC's would consider themselves particularly secure; after all they make their money by going out and penetrating exactly the same kinds of locations to kill the people who think that they are secure in their castle.

That being said, you can make a castle that is a death trap for anyone but you if you want to. You just do things like make every tile an Ice Assassin of a shrunken Collassal Animated Object (Tile) with Permanent Emanation: Selective Antimagic Field (set to its self), Permanent Emanation: Planar Bubble (set to a plane with whatever traits that you desire), and a Permanent Telepathic Bond to you.

Use a couple different planes so that you can have Impeded, Limited, or Enhanced magic traits over the whole area as you want them.


Judging by his OP, Yahzi has already taken measures to nerf/change spells to continue the persistence of a setting full of dirt farmers, fortifications that mages can easily breach, and the continued importance of fighters and feudal hereditary autocracy post level 10.

And to make that work you need to throw out pretty much everything past level 10.

D&D was never, even remotely, intended to be played like that in the higher levels.

Are your castle walls made of Adamantium? Because if not the party fighter can slice through them with a single attack (as just one example).

[Lord Vukodlak]

Um no. That is what teleport blocking is for. Drop a Weirdstone and their is no teleportation in a 6 mile radius. Hell, have people research short duration teleport blockers (say no teleporting within 1 miler per 5 CL for rounds/level) if this is really a problem for you.
For my own setting most major cities contain a weird stone, it may be a weaker version with a shorter radius(maybe only a mile). But the people in power take precautions against teleportation magic.

I ran an adventure once where the PC's find a man dead in the slums, he's clearly been robbed but is still carrying some papers. After deciphering them they learn it documents the number of guards in the city, patrol routes and armory locations. So the question was who was this man and what was he doing with those papers.

They followed clues that led them through the thieves guild, the abandoned under city(inhabited by ghouls) and other places, before finally finding themselves in an old warehouse in the Slums where several homeless locals had vanished after entering. Inside they discovered a permanent portal coming online. Because the portal targeted an area outside the Weird Stone's radius of control it was unaffected. After failing to stop the portal from activating they raced to warn the Guard captain of the impending invasion.

The Weird Stone prevented them from teleporting to the Guard house(as the target area was within the radius) so by the time they got there on foot an army of thousands had already entered the city. And that was how a landlocked nation was conquered by an empire four thousand miles away when its capitol fell in about an hour.

That's also how the group learned not operate on the five minute adventuring day. When they deciphered the papers I gave them a little warning that something told them solving this mystery was urgent, but they took there time and stuck to the five-minute adventuring day when ever possible.

[Curmudgeon]

You're the DM, so you control the universe. If you don't want Teleport, you can decide that the Astral Plane is messed up, causing instant annihilation to all who venture into it.
Teleportation is instantaneous travel through the Astral Plane. Anything that blocks astral travel also blocks teleportation.

[AuraTwilight]

No, I don't have that option. That would be harder for me to DM than just living with teleprot.

Sorry, hold up, I had to call attention to this.

WHAT?

You're saying you don't have the option of fudging a dice roll? What do you do, roll all dice in public, period? You've never fudged a roll, ever? How is it 'harder' than living with teleport?

[JKTrickster]

1. That's a recipe for a TPK.

2. You can't do any of that stuff to the players. Because they would die. Because any competently played encounter of 2 levels lower than the party can kill the party if they get a well-planned ambush.

D&D only works as long as the players are murderhobos with nothing more valuable than what they have on their person or in their Rope Trick Mansion. As soon as they try to grow out of that role, they instantly die to all the same tactics they've been using against every other foe.

Scry and Die is a big, big part of why that is true.


Uhh I really agreed with you up until this point.

You're basically saying that your players are too powerful with Teleport...but if you try using Teleport yourself, your players aren't actually powerful enough or smart enough to deal with it?

I think you're either underestimating your players...or coddling them too much. This might just be your DM style here but here is how I feel:

1. the DM is not the same thing as a story teller - there is no Overarching Plot and no Narrative Structure controlled solely by the DM

2. Sometimes the PCs die because they make mistakes. This helps them learn how to survive in the future.

Basically I think that if you feel the PCs are abusing Teleport...then you should also use it as well.

Honestly Scry and Die isn't even that strong of a tactic....it's a classic sure, but you're honestly giving Teleport way too much credit. Even in core there are plenty of ways to defend against it. You should be teaching your party how to defend against Scry and Die by using Scry and Die against your PCs.

You should force them to adapt in order to survive....otherwise they aren't going to become better DnD players. A group that suffers no death or loss won't mature their characters. Or learn to build stronger ones.

BUT

I think both you and your players are not skilled enough to utilize tactics against Teleport. That's totally fine - you can choose to ditch Teleport if you want to focus certain types of stories/Games or you can choose to learn how to deal with Teleport because that can open up different ways of playing DnD at higher levels.

But it sounds like you really don't want to do the latter...right?

[ArcturusV]

That makes sense to me. I mean think of things like the Diplomacy Fix that Rich Burlew did on this site. Why did he do it? "Because the dice and results are vague, meaningless, and basically amount to do whatever I want" being the jist of it, at least in part, as the "The target is now friendly" and what really didn't say anything about how it directly impacts the game.

Sometimes you don't want something to just be "do whatever you want" but want real, concrete results. So rather than just being told to go fudge it when you need to (At which point you're entering Diceless RPing effectively, not bad, but it's different), you just want something to approximate the success/failure chances you want to interject that bit of luck.

Because Luck... is good. Luck ends up spawning events and plots that would never have come about if you stuck merely to what you think should happen.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Could someone remind me were wierd stones are printed?

I like hallow keyed to dimensional anchor, forbiddance, and dimensional anchor magic traps for preventing teleportation entrance and egress. Dimension lock is a good high-level option as well.

[Keld Denar]

Another option is simply to plan your game with Teleport being required. Siphon off 1-2 5th+ level slots on your party MU per day simply by creating stimulii that must be accounted for on a daily or near daily basis. If they don't teleport to solve plot agenda, they lose a certain amount of plot points which result in the BBEG completing his moon lazer and destroying the Prime to attain Elvis-dom. You can even drop hints after the first time they fail to teleport that if they had only arrived faster, the BBEG wouldn't have awakened Mechahiltler and the assault on Castle Wolfenstein wouldn't have been required in the first place. The PCs can do things the easy way (as encouraged) or the hard way (which ensures "accidental" death and dismemberment).

[Der_DWSage]

Lessee...someone else asked for input on his fix to teleport. Lemme plug that suggestion in here as well.

Dimension Door:Leave as is. This allows short-range jumps that can simply improve the drama of a situation where an opponent has it.

Teleport:Can only teleport self and 50 pounds of gear. Can also be used as Dimension Door, but taking 1 person per caster level rather than 1 person per 3 caster levels.

Greater Teleport:Can teleport self, one ally, and 200 pounds of gear. Can also be used as Dimension Door, but taking 1 person per caster level and cast as a move action in this case.

Teleportation Ring:Ancient Magic, rare to find. Cannot be taken at level-must be found in scroll form, or researched with more difficulty than the average spell.

These fixes stop the 'Well, we'll teleport around the world' issue while still allowing the iconic abilities of teleport be available, and tempting to take. It's simply limiting most things to the caster alone, unless they're only attempting short-range jumps. Teleportation Ring is unchanged because, well, it's a 9th level spell. If transport is your biggest issue at that point, you're playing in a low-magic environment already.

[BWR]

One DM I played with ruled that Teleport and its variants (excluding DD) could only take you places you had personally visited. So plenty of trekking through the wilderness and Teleport was still an immensely useful spell.

[lord_khaine]

Are your castle walls made of Adamantium? Because if not the party fighter can slice through them with a single attack (as just one example).

Is there any wall material besides force or prismatic that the fighterWarblade isnt going to slice though :smallconfused:


Sorry, hold up, I had to call attention to this.

WHAT?

You're saying you don't have the option of fudging a dice roll? What do you do, roll all dice in public, period? You've never fudged a roll, ever? How is it 'harder' than living with teleport?

Its not an uncommon gaming culture that all rolls are made out in the open, and in that case its kinda hard to cheat on the rolls.

[Tarqiup Inua]

Is there any wall material besides force or prismatic that the fighterWarblade isnt going to slice though :smallconfused:
And the wall falls on them... those ranks in knowledge (architecture & engineering) are starting to make sense.

Weirdstone can be found in the Player's Guide to Faerun - according to uncle Google anyway...

I don't think high level wizards are necessarily a problem... in "balanced" world they probably spend most of their daily spell slots protecting themselves from other high level wizards and spend most of their days waiting for their enemies to make mistake - it's a lot like cold war, actually - nations spent fortune in ICBMs, but have you ever heard of them daring to use one?

[Blightedmarsh]

Leighlines

At point A you teleport to point B. If you attempt to teleport to a place near point A you are likely to end up at point A. If you are near point A and attempt to teleport anywhere you are likely to end up at point B.

Way stones

This is a magic item. Someone attuned to a waystone can teleport directly to it. Most waystones are immobile and the portable ones quite fragile.

Unfocused teleport.

It is possible to make an unfocused jump. The further you attempt to jump and the more mass you try to carry the longer the preparation time required. An unfocused teleport can leave the jumper dazed, confused or flat out stunned for a short time.

It is easier to jump to a location you can see. It is easier to jump to a location you know well. It is easier to jump to a close location than a far one. It is easier to jump unburdened. It is easier to jump with longer preparation time.

The harder the jump is to achieve the more uncertainty there is in the target destination. Scramblers can be used to increase this uncertainty. There is an exponentially increasing percentage chance that an unfocused jump will take you high in the air or fuse the jumper into the solid rock of the ground. Pretty much the only way to unfocused jump behind the walls of a besieged town is to target the teleport several hundred yards up into the sky in the hopes of descending into the drop zone.

[Andezzar]

That is all very nice, but how does it interact with Greater Teleport (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/teleportGreater.htm) formerly known as Teleport without Error?

[Gnaeus]

One DM I played with ruled that Teleport and its variants (excluding DD) could only take you places you had personally visited. So plenty of trekking through the wilderness and Teleport was still an immensely useful spell.

I cannot think of any reason why a party who just needed to go from point A to point B and was of a level where teleport was available would trek through the wilderness just because they couldn't teleport. Walk through plane of shadow? Sure. Fly at superhigh speed above the clouds? Yep. Schlog through the jungle, not fricking likely.

If you want the party to trek through the wilderness, just come up with a good reason why they would trek through the wilderness. The minions of the BBEG brought the sacrificial virgin this way and we need to track them through the jungle. Or there is a set of instructions that require you to be on the ground to decode them (follow the shadow of the great tree 500 paces, then due north until you reach the rock with a beholder painted on it. Follow the green eye to the crypt). Or you have a magic singing map that only gives the next clue when you have overcome the last obstacle. Can you do that with a teleport (or Shadow Walk, or while flying at 12,000 feet, or with Master Earth, or tree stride, or even Greater Teleport.....)? No. Don't ban Teleport, unless you plan to gut a lot of other spells too. Just be creative!

[Alienist]

Whatever the players (over) use, I use against them. Essentially I let them set the threat level.

In Shadowrun if they want to use Panther Assault Cannons and Miniguns, that's fine, the corporations will use exactly that right back against them.

If they calm down a bit and decide that pistols and the occasional assault rifle (in a wilderness setting perhaps) is a better weapon mix then again, that's what the corporations use.

I tend to find interesting ways for 'stupid NPCs' to die in order to serve as object lessons. Let bad things happen to NPCs, it's okay.

In D&D if the players use lots of teleport, I'd use teleport against them to run their resources down and prevent the "4 round adventurer day" problem. Oh, you disappeared up your own rope trick? Well, guess what? BAMF!

Players: "you can't do that?!"
DM: okay, so you waste the surprise round being outraged that the NPCs have an IQ above 70. Roll initiative.

[JKTrickster]

Actually I'm not sure you can Teleport into a Rope Trick inter-dimensional space... :smallconfused:

[BWR]

I cannot think of any reason why a party who just needed to go from point A to point B and was of a level where teleport was available would trek through the wilderness just because they couldn't teleport. Walk through plane of shadow? Sure. Fly at superhigh speed above the clouds? Yep. Schlog through the jungle, not fricking likely.

If you want the party to trek through the wilderness, just come up with a good reason why they would trek through the wilderness. The minions of the BBEG brought the sacrificial virgin this way and we need to track them through the jungle. Or there is a set of instructions that require you to be on the ground to decode them (follow the shadow of the great tree 500 paces, then due north until you reach the rock with a beholder painted on it. Follow the green eye to the crypt). Or you have a magic singing map that only gives the next clue when you have overcome the last obstacle. Can you do that with a teleport (or Shadow Walk, or while flying at 12,000 feet, or with Master Earth, or tree stride, or even Greater Teleport.....)? No. Don't ban Teleport, unless you plan to gut a lot of other spells too. Just be creative!

Shadow Walk, Air walk and similar spells were banned.

[Karnith]

Actually I'm not sure you can Teleport into a Rope Trick inter-dimensional space... :smallconfused:
You can, however, teleport to where their Rope Trick is, and set up an ambush for when they exit.

[Emperor Tippy]

In Shadowrun if they want to use Panther Assault Cannons and Miniguns, that's fine, the corporations will use exactly that right back against them.

If they calm down a bit and decide that pistols and the occasional assault rifle (in a wilderness setting perhaps) is a better weapon mix then again, that's what the corporations use.

I'm sorry but that is about the absolute stupidest way to play Shadowrun that I have ever heard of.

Corp security is entirely dependent upon the resources of the corporation, the facility in question, and the known threat parameters for the corp; not what the PC's are equipped with or the PC's regular tactics.

Are the Runners kitted out to, and capable of a, run against an AAA z-zone? Then they can knock over all of the mom and pop stores that they want and should never be seeing things like a Panther or power armor.

Are the PC's street level gang banging runners? Well the fact that they have nothing more dangerous than some pistols and are less skilled than the Star doesn't mean that when they run against said AAA z-zone they will be facing anything less than highly trained security forces in milspec gear, defense in depth, heavy magic support, legions of drones, and assault choppers.

Shadowrun is a game where you can play perfectly, be the most paranoid bastard to have ever drawn breath, and still die because you got sniped by a naval laser on an invisible blimp floating 30 kilometers away.

[rexreg]

Hmmm...it's a little weird to me that no one has mentioned this yet.
War of the Burning Sky.
Teleport 30', take 1d6 fire damage.
Teleport 90', take 3d6 fire damage.
Teleport a mile, take...you do the math, it's too early in the morning for me.
Anyway, within WotBS, teleportation over long distances is difficult at best, deadly at worst, even with various fire protection spells

[Gnaeus]

Shadow Walk, Air walk and similar spells were banned.

Funny, it doesn't say that anywhere.

Did you also ban Wild Shape, Phantom Steed and Stag, Overland Flight, Planar binding, fell flight, carpets of flying, many figurines of wondrous power, Animate Dead, Tree Stride, PAO, Shapechange, Transport Via Plants, Miracle, Wish, limited wish, Animal Shape and all the other non core spells and items that can duplicate flight or rapid travel? And all because you lacked the imagination to think creatively about ways to make them work in your game? How sad for your players.

[Karnith]

Did you also ban Wild Shape, Phantom Steed and Stag, Overland Flight, Planar binding, fell flight, carpets of flying, many figurines of wondrous power, Animate Dead, Tree Stride, PAO, Shapechange, Transport Via Plants, Miracle, Wish, limited wish, Animal Shape and all the other non core spells and items that can duplicate flight or rapid travel? And all because you lacked the imagination to think creatively about ways to make them work in your game? How sad for your players.
He played in the game. He wasn't the DM.

[Gnaeus]

He played in the game. He wasn't the DM.

Sorry BWR. And all that because your DM had no imagination? How sad for you. I recommend finding a better DM.

Anyway, I wasn't responding specifically to BWR's game, but to the suggestion in general. Banning Teleport does nothing. You have to gut a lot of spells and items to make high level adventurers walk. Tippy is right (unsurprisingly). High level D&D looks less like LoTR or GoT and more like Wheel of Time.

[Ryulin18]

Make teleporting a 10 minute or hour long ritual. No extra costs. This means they only use it when they need to travel long distances. Fixed.

[Philistine]

And to make that work you need to throw out pretty much everything past level 10.

D&D was never, even remotely, intended to be played like that in the higher levels.

Well...
That probably was the designers' intent, however badly they botched the execution. You just know the thinking was, "Why would anyone ever prepare Teleport if that meant one less copy of Cone of Cold?"

[zorenathres]

If the OP wants his PCs to march through the wilderness & keep spellcasters limited to 3rd level spells, maybe he could try introducing E6 to his players.

I read through the thread & didn't see this mentioned, but to me its seems logical & more simple than banning/ houseruling anything, in my experience, the high level games I run look nothing like "typical" fantasy & more like an inter-planar rollercoaster, where demons can teleport at will & no one wants to walk anywhere because it would take a year/ decade/ century to get there without magic or portals/ gates.

If you want high level play without the spell-power, than go with what you have decided on, though if you ask me, that kind of play will get very old very fast, these near-epic heroes should not have to hoof it like all the other losers out there... Their adventures should be out in the planes or across the world & beyond where they can face challenges more appropriate to their power level.

[DigoDragon]

and oh yea killing everything of the wrong alignment. :smallbiggrin:

"Well if it isn't of my alignment then it's obviously wrong." -BBEG :smallbiggrin:


I'm with the crowd that's saying to put up Teleport blocks on important plot points. Powerful BBEGs should be able to afford one for their important hideout, and if the king has a high-level wizard vizier, then why wouldn't the castle have scry-blocked zones?

The other thing is how you define Familiarity for the Teleport. In my games, unless the PCs go to those destinations on a regular basis (at least once a week in most cases), then I don't consider them familiar locales.

[Emmerask]

I feel like I've found ways to mitigate the dangers of most of the broken spells; but the one I just can't fix is Teleport.

It destroys adventures. Every single fantasy novel is about trekking through the wilderness.

It destroys danger. The party can just run away at any time.

It destroys tactics. Half of tactics is positioning, defending territory. Imagine a game of chess with a piece that could teleport anywhere on the board. Pfft!

And most of all, it's unfair - in the sense that the DM can never, ever use the spell against the players! Sure, he can have the BBEG teleport away at the last minute (although they hate that), or have the bad guys teleport into some NPCs castle, but has any GM ever launched a Scry and Die attack against his party that didn't result in many, many unhappy faces?

D&D is already too much about offense: buffing up for 3 rounds and then attacking an unbuffed enemy almost always results in an auto-win. Buffs don't last long enough to be cast defensively, and the players are almost always initiating the action. I try to mitigate this by making buffs last longer, making encounters at longer range or with less surprise, and by giving monsters an INT roll to be prepared; but Teleport just smacks all of these fixes into the floor.

Dimension Door and other short-range ports are fine, because they only modify borders, they don't eliminate them. I haven't thought exactly how to fix Gate, but somehow it just doesn't seem to be the same kind of problem.

What do you think?

Our group did use that for quite some time, teleport was not banned but due to some campaign stuff it was extremely dangerous, we also tweaked/nerfed magic quite heavily.

As I said it works and we played that way for a while but in the end we decided to just switch to a system more suited for a lower magic campaign and a frankly much better combat system for none magic users (ie they actually could make choices beyond "I power-attack").

[zorenathres]

Every single fantasy novel is about trekking through the wilderness.

The Amber Chronicles, by Roger Zelazny have teleporting via "trump cards" from tarot cards depicting a specific person, among many other methods of strange travel (from moving through "shadows", to walking the pattern to teleport anywhere you wish).

Spoilers for those who may read the books:
One of the Princes of Amber becomes a "living trump" in the later books, able to teleport at will anywhere & was both intelligent & ruthless.

Its an incredible series, which changed my perspective of fantasy in general.

[Autolykos]

Want some wilderness travel? Have teleport be inaccurate (and more inaccurate the further they go), and scatter the party all over the place. That way it feels a little like a real-world paradrop. They need to organize/unite the party again (same for military operations), which takes some time, leaves them vulnerable to prepared defenders and requires special tactics and some planning ahead. It also makes teleporting straight into the dungeon ... interesting.
But in principle, Tippy is right. D&D after level 10 is basically magic users trying to outwit each others' spell combinations. The tactics are still there, they just don't happen in physical space anymore. If that's not your cup of tea, don't play high level D&D. Most classic fantasy (like LotR) happens around level 5, and a level 10+ character would be at least on par with Sauron (in the sense that he could just waltz into Mordor and kick his behind).

[The Grue]

Your problem is not Teleport. Your problem is you want to run adventures suitable for low levels at high levels. When the party can teleport with ease, "trekking through the wilderness" is below their pay grade, unless said wilderness is the whole point of the adventure trying to find the secret entrance to something or the lair of a powerful beast. When the party can teleport with ease, they aren't supposed to be caravan guards, taking care of the goblin problem, or free the roads from bandits. When the party can teleport with ease, they need to teleport because it's the only way to get where they need to be to save the world. Even if they could walk there that would take weeks, but they need to be there Right Now or else the world is Doomed because the evil cult will be doing its Ritual Of Evil tomorrow.

Pretty much this. You need to re-calibrate your expectations of what 20-level D&D represents. You've probably read that article that became the basis of E6, whereby the most skilled tradesman in the world is probably level 4 or 5? Teleport is a 5th-level spell, which means 10th-level Wizards are going to be casting it. This is why, for instance, Gandalf didn't just Teleport to Mordor and toss the Ring in himself; he was only 6th-level after all.

Level 10 is the point where PCs are quite firmly beyond the capabilities of ordinary people. They're not yet demigods with epic ballads (that comes at level 20), but they make the superhuman look ordinary. If your characters are high level, then as navar says you need to give them high-level adventures to embark on. Alternatively, consider running an E6 campaign.

[Dimers]

4e solves Teleport ... and a great many other abusable noncombat spells ... and further devalues a great many pointless noncombat spells too ... by making them cost plenty of money and time. It works. You never hear about Teleport abuse in 4e.

If you want the 3.X equivalent, look at "Incantations" in Unearthed Arcana, and make Teleport one of those. You make some skill rolls and spend some components and a few hours to make a single teleport. It's still world-changing but no longer game-breaking.

Question: why do you NOT want to ban Teleport, if it causes so much trouble?

[intothenight]

Reminds me of some of my trouble with Fly. All party members in my campaign have some source of flight, but it kills the chance for a lot of fun map hazards. I usually come up with some kind of arbitrary ban on flying, but make it so the final boss of the area cannot keep that ban up in the middle of the fight. In other words, if I'm going to ban flight for a while, I'm going to give my PCs a chance to think about things they could have done with flight and then give them a chance to really shine in aerial combat.

So maybe you should have some kind of teleport ward that the PCs can find and destroy. That way, they have a few fights where they can't abuse teleport, and they earn the right to go nuts with it later on. Try coming up with a field that would benefit greatly from teleport abuse (especially something like Dimensional Shuffle). Chances to take cover and catch the enemy off guard, environmental hazards that can be taken advantage of, an item the PCs can't have until they get past its guards (who then have to change fighting styles to get the item back from the party)... the possibilities are endless. Just make sure not to deny those possibilities for too long.

[Lord Vukodlak]

You can, however, teleport to where their Rope Trick is, and set up an ambush for when they exit.

Better... dispel the rope trick and send the party tumbling out in the middle of the night. Much better ambush

[Tar Palantir]

Better... dispel the rope trick and send the party tumbling out in the middle of the night. Much better ambush

Only if they don't pull the rope up with them, since the spell is targeted on the rope itself.

Rope Trick: All the Safety of Magnificent Mansion, None of the Frills!

[Kelb_Panthera]

Reminds me of some of my trouble with Fly. All party members in my campaign have some source of flight, but it kills the chance for a lot of fun map hazards. I usually come up with some kind of arbitrary ban on flying, but make it so the final boss of the area cannot keep that ban up in the middle of the fight. In other words, if I'm going to ban flight for a while, I'm going to give my PCs a chance to think about things they could have done with flight and then give them a chance to really shine in aerial combat.

So maybe you should have some kind of teleport ward that the PCs can find and destroy. That way, they have a few fights where they can't abuse teleport, and they earn the right to go nuts with it later on. Try coming up with a field that would benefit greatly from teleport abuse (especially something like Dimensional Shuffle). Chances to take cover and catch the enemy off guard, environmental hazards that can be taken advantage of, an item the PCs can't have until they get past its guards (who then have to change fighting styles to get the item back from the party)... the possibilities are endless. Just make sure not to deny those possibilities for too long.

I'm sorry but if flight is breaking your game you need to start seriously rethinking things.

It's countered by bad weather for pete's sake.

Wizard: "c'mon everbody, I'll cast mass overland flight and we'll be there in no time"

15 minutes pass

Fighter: "umm...... I don't know much about weather, but doesn't that bank of ominous black clouds ahead of us look like it might be trouble?"

Thunder rumbles in the distance and flashes of light can be seen all across the surface of the cloud bank.

Wizard: "yeeeaaaahhhh....... looks like we're hoofing it for a while after all."

Party descends and either walks or seeks shelter.

[Lord Vukodlak]

Only if they don't pull the rope up with them, since the spell is targeted on the rope itself.

Rope Trick: All the Safety of Magnificent Mansion, None of the Frills!

Sorry but that precaution FAILS pulling up the rope doesn't remove the window back to the material plane. Target the window with dispel magic *poof* everyone inside comes tumbling out.

Dispel magic doesn't need to target the source of the spell it just needs to hit part of it.

[Flickerdart]

Sorry but that precaution FAILS pulling up the rope doesn't remove the window back to the material plane. Target the window with dispel magic *poof* everyone inside comes tumbling out.
The window is immaterial. To dispel a Target, you need to affect the spell's target. The spell is on the rope, so you have to either target the rope, or if using the area version, include the rope in the area of effect. Since the rope is not on the same plane as you, you cannot include it in the area of effect, and since you don't have line of sight to the rope, you can't target the rope.

If Rope Trick were an Effect spell, you could dispel the window, but it isn't so you can't.

[Lord Vukodlak]

The window is immaterial. To dispel a Target, you need to affect the spell's target. The spell is on the rope, so you have to either target the rope, or if using the area version, include the rope in the area of effect.

The window is present on the Material Plane and is part of the rope trick spell. So's the entrance for that matter which is never closed even if you pull up the rope up. Because those facets are present on the material plane they are subject to area dispelling. Now would you prefer your exit is removed and take your chances as to what happens when the duration expires or just have whole spell fail.

But really Targeted Dispeling lets you target a spell to attempt to end, the window is present on the material plane and part of the rope trick spell. I don't have to target the origin just the spell and the window is part of the spell. I just need see invisibility to locate it.

[Flickerdart]

The window is present on the Material Plane and is part of the rope trick spell. So's the entrance for that matter which is never closed even if you pull up the rope up. Because those facets are present on the material plane they are subject to area dispelling. Now would you prefer your exit is removed and take your chances as to what happens when the duration expires or just have whole spell fail.
Pro tip: Proof by bold text assertion is not a widely recognized source of evidence.

Dispel Magic has this to say on dispelling:
For each ongoing area or effect spell whose point of origin is within the area of the dispel magic spell, you can make a dispel check to dispel the spell.

The point of origin of Rope Trick is the rope, not the window.

[Lord Vukodlak]

The point of origin of Rope Trick is the rope, not the window.
Irrelevant I don't need to target the origin of the rope tick just the spell it self.

Targeted Dispelling allows me to make the spell the target.

Targeted Dispel
One object, creature, or spell is the target of the dispel magic spell.
The window is present on the material plane and part of the rope trick spell. Thus I can target the window with dispel magic ending the rope trick. I don't need to touch the origin point with a targeted dispel magic. I just need to target the spell.

And technically speaking the extradimensional interface doesn't close. There is no mention of it closing when you pull up the rope. What's to stop someone who found the ropetrick from using a ladder(or a fly spell but a ladder is funnier) from giving you a big surprise.

[Venusaur]

I'm sorry but if flight is breaking your game you need to start seriously rethinking things.

It's countered by bad weather for pete's sake.

Wizard: "c'mon everbody, I'll cast mass overland flight and we'll be there in no time"

15 minutes pass

Fighter: "umm...... I don't know much about weather, but doesn't that bank of ominous black clouds ahead of us look like it might be trouble?"

Thunder rumbles in the distance and flashes of light can be seen all across the surface of the cloud bank.

Wizard: "yeeeaaaahhhh....... looks like we're hoofing it for a while after all."

Party descends and either walks or seeks shelter.

Or they fly really close to the ground. :smallbiggrin:

[ryu]

Irrelevant I don't need to target the origin of the rope tick just the spell it self.

Targeted Dispelling allows me to make the spell the target.

The window is present on the material plane and part of the rope trick spell. Thus I can target the window with dispel magic ending the rope trick. I don't need to touch the origin point with a targeted dispel magic. I just need to target the spell.

And technically speaking the extradimensional interface doesn't close. There is no mention of it closing when you pull up the rope. What's to stop someone who found the ropetrick from using a ladder(or a fly spell but a ladder is funnier) from giving you a big surprise.


How about the fact that leisurely climbing into the middle of a group of murder hobos even if most are asleep is more dangerous than going into the lairs of most dragons? Lets get cracking on seeing if you can cast a spell or use a ladder while making move silently checks to not be noticed and ambushed.

[ddude987]

I will say that in the campaigns I have been in, I had a lot of fun walking or boating or flying places and when one of the casters got teleport and teleported us everywhere we needed to go sure it saved time irl and in game for quests but it was never as interesting.

[Lord Vukodlak]

How about the fact that leisurely climbing into the middle of a group of murder hobos even if most are asleep is more dangerous than going into the lairs of most dragons? Lets get cracking on seeing if you can cast a spell or use a ladder while making move silently checks to not be noticed and ambushed.

By a bunch of sleeping people who've removed much of there equipment? Sure the listen check penalty is -10 for being asleep so it be quite easy for even untrained wizard to sneak inside and slam the party with a spell or simply slit throats but that's a little cruel.

If the guy was suppose to be a threat when faced in open combat he's certainly a dire one if he finds you all sleeping.

[intothenight]

I'm sorry but if flight is breaking your game you need to start seriously rethinking things.

It's countered by bad weather for pete's sake.

Wizard: "c'mon everbody, I'll cast mass overland flight and we'll be there in no time"

15 minutes pass

Fighter: "umm...... I don't know much about weather, but doesn't that bank of ominous black clouds ahead of us look like it might be trouble?"

Thunder rumbles in the distance and flashes of light can be seen all across the surface of the cloud bank.

Wizard: "yeeeaaaahhhh....... looks like we're hoofing it for a while after all."

Party descends and either walks or seeks shelter.
Nah, using flight for basic travel doesn't bug me. Using it to get through a dungeon without ever touching the dungeon's floor or walls is a bit more problematic. Plus they had a nasty tendency of grappling enemies and jumping off cliffs. Low ceilings, crawlspaces, violent winds, and enemies who secretly had flight abilities of their own have made flight a lot more interesting. And it even convinced my characters to use their legs every once in a while.

[BWR]

Sorry BWR. And all that because your DM had no imagination? How sad for you. I recommend finding a better DM.


Or maybe we just followed the spirit of the law rather than the letter of the law because we weren't *****, the DM was a good DM and a friend, we are there to have fun and enjoy ourselves, and if the DM wanted us to pound ground to our adventures we went along with it.

Maybe we actually understood that if the DM wants to throw out a few D&D standards from his game, that's fine rather than thinking of any possible way to circumvent his ban.

[Spuddles]

Funny, it doesn't say that anywhere.

Did you also ban Wild Shape, Phantom Steed and Stag, Overland Flight, Planar binding, fell flight, carpets of flying, many figurines of wondrous power, Animate Dead, Tree Stride, PAO, Shapechange, Transport Via Plants, Miracle, Wish, limited wish, Animal Shape and all the other non core spells and items that can duplicate flight or rapid travel? And all because you lacked the imagination to think creatively about ways to make them work in your game? How sad for your players.

Wow man, chill out.

[Silvanoshei]

Never limit your players. I would allow everything, and use that against the players as well. Be a better DM !!

[CRtwenty]

By a bunch of sleeping people who've removed much of there equipment? Sure the listen check penalty is -10 for being asleep so it be quite easy for even untrained wizard to sneak inside and slam the party with a spell or simply slit throats but that's a little cruel.

If the guy was suppose to be a threat when faced in open combat he's certainly a dire one if he finds you all sleeping.

For the record, any party that doesn't set up alarm spells and a watch order (even inside of their own rope trick or sanctum) deserves to be assassinated in the night. Same for any idiot that decides to remove his magical items when he sleeps.

[Rainbownaga]

For the record, any party that doesn't set up alarm spells and a watch order (even inside of their own rope trick or sanctum) deserves to be assassinated in the night. Same for any idiot that decides to remove his magical items when he sleeps.

Except armor- unless you want to waste a feat on endurance. Of course not learning magic is probably another reason to deserve to die in a high level moderate-high OP game.

[Lord Vukodlak]

For the record, any party that doesn't set up alarm spells and a watch order (even inside of their own rope trick or sanctum) deserves to be assassinated in the night. Same for any idiot that decides to remove his magical items when he sleeps.

A lot of players thing the rope tick is this perfectly safe sanctum(even having the audacity to use it while still inside the dungeon), I'm pointing out that its far from one.

You wear your armor while you sleep? and all your clothes? Sure jewelry makes sense but for a lot of items your just not going to be able to sleep with them equipped. Plus many of the "all day" defensive spells cast in the morning or late afternoon would have expired during the hours you spend in the rope trick. The belief in that security would cause them to forgo things like watch or alarm. If someone is threat to you in a stand up fight he's certainly a threat to you if he catches most of you sleeping.

[Emmerask]

Never limit your players. I would allow everything, and use that against the players as well. Be a better DM !!

That is only partly true,
there are several combos that would devolve the game into rocket tag and in the end the dm has vastly more rockets then the players...
and then of course there are just gamebreaking things like pun pun if you allow that the game is over...
So limiting some stuff is imo part of the dms job description :smallwink:

[Togo]

What's to stop someone who found the ropetrick from using a ladder(or a fly spell but a ladder is funnier) from giving you a big surprise.

Or just use a reach weapon... to sunder the rope. Which is still attached to the middle of the interface on the other side.

As for scry and die, don't underestimate how easy it is to spot a scrying sensor. They can't hide, they're forced to move when their target does, and they're only invisible. That's a straight DC 20 spot check. Scry on a crowded bar, and someone is likely to see it straight away. Then just walk away. Either it is centered on you, in which case a simple door will allow you shut it out, or it's centered on a location, in which case you'll be outside it's visual range within a move action.

[Lord Vukodlak]

Or just use a reach weapon... to sunder the rope. Which is still attached to the middle of the interface on the other side. I suppose destroying the rope would effectively end the rope trick.



As for scry and die, don't underestimate how easy it is to spot a scrying sensor. They can't hide, they're forced to move when their target does, and they're only invisible. That's a straight DC 20 spot check.
Isn't the sensor immaterial? I'm not sure about it being blocked by a door or similar sized object. Also until the sensor moves the spot check notice it is 40.

The real issue is scry lets you see 10ft in the vicinity of the target.(no more) I'd argue that isn't enough to get a clear view of his location in order to use teleport or greater teleport unless they happen to be pacing the room. Guess that's why it takes an hour of scrying for an area to be studied carefully. But someone who isn't moving wouldn't really give you the opportunity to study the area while someone walking down the road isn't in one place long enough for you to study it.

[undead hero]

A lot of players thing the rope tick is this perfectly safe sanctum(even having the audacity to use it while still inside the dungeon), I'm pointing out that its far from one.

You wear your armor while you sleep? and all your clothes? Sure jewelry makes sense but for a lot of items your just not going to be able to sleep with them equipped. Plus many of the "all day" defensive spells cast in the morning or late afternoon would have expired during the hours you spend in the rope trick. The belief in that security would cause them to forgo things like watch or alarm. If someone is threat to you in a stand up fight he's certainly a threat to you if he catches most of you sleeping.

My Fighter types usually have Endurance (for steadfast determination) but still sleep in the nude.

Does stretches before and after a nights rest...

It is usually a few sessions in before someone says "waaait...don't you have endurance?

Reply: Yeah so? What's that got to do with my comfort?

:smallbiggrin:

[Killer Angel]

Just my 2 cps regarding the teleport issue.


My DM banned the whole teleport line in his PF's campaign. It remained only DD, limited to sight range (so, a mere tactical use, and no DD through the wall).

It worked sufficiently well.

[Andreaz]

My take on teleporting is that it's extremely risky. There are the following possibilities:
1) You have line of sight. All is good with the world. If you enhance your vision, like scrying, you need line of sight and line of effect.
2) The target location has a teleport beacon. You appear within a few dozen meters of it.
3) No line of sight and no teleport beacon. The spell, at best, fizzles. At worst, parts of you are scattered across the way between here and there. No possible adverse effect gets you closer.
4) Plane Shift requires a different kind of beacon unless it's your home plane, in which case you go back to the nearest beacon from where you left.

The beacons themselves don't matter much, because their purpose is making sure you can only teleport where people want you to.

It's one of my most well-received balance rules, and it works wonders.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Easy counter to rope trick: build a fire under it.

Smoke crowding out all of the air in the space makes it necessary to exit and you can't even use the rope because extending it means putting it -in- the fire.

The looks on my players' faces..... :smallamused:

Hilarious as that is, I eventually ruled that rope trick's extradimensional space is too uncomfortable to get meaningful rest within. It was still useful, it just wasn't conducive to a 5-minute adventuring day.

[Piggy Knowles]

I've just started a PbP that has some teleportation changes, although that is not because I don't want the party to have access to teleport but because I want teleportation to be controlled within the game world.

Basically, the general conceit of the campaign is that two celestial spheres (think planes) have collided, and are bleeding through to each other. This bleed is the origin of magic, but as things have degraded over time, some of this magic has become unreliable.

Teleportation over a short range is fine, but there is an increasing miss chance the farther you travel, with a hard limit of around 8 miles or so. Failing on that miss chance means you end up on the wrong plane entirely.

There are giant versions of teleportation circles in the six major cities, which were set up before this problem occurred, and they still work. Most trade happens this way, and travel between the six cities is common. (In fact, the creation of these circles more or less destroyed the shipping trade, which is now only used for short distances.) There are also some limited ways around the teleportation issue (although since some of the players frequent these boards, I won't go into them right now). However, unless you're teleporting between the six cities, you're more or less stuck inside a very short range.

The goal is to create a world where most things are dark and wild - the six cities are essentially points of light that humanity has flocked to, while traveling beyond them could be entire hidden kingdoms, but no one really knows. Outside of these points of light, things are wild and nasty and dangerous. (It's also mostly unwritten, so that I can write in new parts to the campaign world as things go along - I hate "fixed" worlds that I can't modify on the fly, I'd much rather come up with a general set of rules for a world and build on that as things progress.)

And beyond that, there just might be a way to fix the teleportation issue.

Basically, the idea is that it's not a hard ban on the party, who will not be forced to trek through the mud at high levels and spend stupid amounts of time traveling (there are still plenty of ways around that in this world, and by the time the party is high enough level to be teleporting regularly, some of these solutions will have presented themselves), but rather a plot point for the world itself.

[undead hero]

Easy counter to rope trick: build a fire under it.

Smoke crowding out all of the air in the space makes it necessary to exit and you can't even use the rope because extending it means putting it -in- the fire.

The looks on my players' faces..... :smallamused:

Hilarious as that is, I eventually ruled that rope trick's extradimensional space is too uncomfortable to get meaningful rest within. It was still useful, it just wasn't conducive to a 5-minute adventuring day.

Not sure iif smoke crosses the window but awesome job.

However the inadequate rest makes zero sense. I've slepted on the ground and woke up refreshed.... Even without a sleeping bag.

[Pickford]

I feel like I've found ways to mitigate the dangers of most of the broken spells; but the one I just can't fix is Teleport.

It destroys adventures. Every single fantasy novel is about trekking through the wilderness.

It destroys danger. The party can just run away at any time.

It destroys tactics. Half of tactics is positioning, defending territory. Imagine a game of chess with a piece that could teleport anywhere on the board. Pfft!

And most of all, it's unfair - in the sense that the DM can never, ever use the spell against the players! Sure, he can have the BBEG teleport away at the last minute (although they hate that), or have the bad guys teleport into some NPCs castle, but has any GM ever launched a Scry and Die attack against his party that didn't result in many, many unhappy faces?

D&D is already too much about offense: buffing up for 3 rounds and then attacking an unbuffed enemy almost always results in an auto-win. Buffs don't last long enough to be cast defensively, and the players are almost always initiating the action. I try to mitigate this by making buffs last longer, making encounters at longer range or with less surprise, and by giving monsters an INT roll to be prepared; but Teleport just smacks all of these fixes into the floor.

Dimension Door and other short-range ports are fine, because they only modify borders, they don't eliminate them. I haven't thought exactly how to fix Gate, but somehow it just doesn't seem to be the same kind of problem.

What do you think?

Have you considered the powers of anticipate teleportation and greater anticipate teleportation? (SpC pg. 13) When used in conjunction with say, Dimensional Anchor/Lock, one can prevent tactical uses of teleport.

Presumably if Teleport is widely used, wands of dimensional anchor would likely become prevalent (the use of magic being an arms race within a universe after all)

[Gnaeus]

Or they fly really close to the ground. :smallbiggrin:

Or the druid wildshapes into a huge flying dinosaur which can fly in 50 MPH winds with no penalty and is only mildly inconvenienced by anything up to a hurricane, and the rest of the party members jump into his portable hole. OR he Animal Shapes them all into huge flyers. Or someone casts control weather. Or rather than seeking shelter when they land, they just cast the rope trick. Or they hollow out an underground cavern with spells and seal the entrance.

Weather is a threat to birds and muggles, not high level casters, unless that weather is itself being driven by other high level casters.


Wow man, chill out.

No. This line of thinking is foolish. I don't have any problem with people banning things, but in most of these threads and with his DM it is an kneejerk reaction. It is lazy, because they thought that it was easier to ban something from players than to think of an interesting way to make it work in their game. It is Railroadish (the PCs are going to walk through this wilderness whether they want to or not, and I will make them if they try to avoid it). And it is ineffective, because unless they put as much work into banning all the ways to duplicate it as they would have put into actually doing their job as a DM and being creative, the PCs can bypass the ban with minimal negative impact.

And for BWR and his willingness to go along with it, I would respond that that is metagaming, plain and simple. Like your group of characters, after walking for 10 minutes through the monster infested woods, isn't simply going to go "This sucks! Why are we doing this again? Not only is it pointlessly dangerous, it is boring and it interferes with our drinking/crafting/quest completing. Don't you have a better way to get us there?"

[Deepbluediver]

What source are Weird Stones from? I don't see them in the SRD and I'd like to look them up.



To stay on topic, I don't really like the Teleport spell, either. I think that like some other types of magic, its range is to large and it's effects to binary (you either have it and it works, or you don't).

There are a couple things that I think you could do, depending on exactly what the problem is and how much homebrew/houseruling you are willing to use.


Anti-magic Field is a middling-level spell with (IMO) a high-level effect. I like to bump it up a level or two to 7th/8th, and then homebrew a replacement spell of about 4th/5th level called Anti-spell Field. It works like AMF, but when cast it is keyed to only a single spell or subschool instead. That way, if you need to deny teleportation to a certain area you can do so without screwing up too much else, or it can be used to protect buildings from Earthquake, walls from various evocations, or hospitals and gravyards from necromancy.


If that doesn't appeal to you, or it's not enough, then you can alter the Teleportation spell in a couple of different ways. First is to reduce the range. When you can first cast the spell, you can use it to jump halfway across a continent; that seems more like Epic magic to me. I prefer to cap it a 1 mile per caster level instead of 100. In terms of story, if your party needs to travel, using Teleport as written isn't a whole lot different than saying "we charter a ship and spend 6 uneventful weeks sailing across the ocean". The only problem would occur if they really need to be somewhere really quickly, but if they party made choices that led them to not be where they where supposed to be, then they'll just need to deal with it. Assuming, of course, your campaign is fluid enough to handle something like that.

Next, you can add a requirement to the spell that you need to have a marker or anchor of some sort to aim for when you Teleport. In effect, this means you can't teleport anywhere you haven't been before. So its useful for getting back to your home base or out of a sticky situation, but it's much harder to use offensively. You can rule that Teleporting without an anchor just doesn't work, or it flings your around in a wildly random direction.

Lastly, if you want to keep Teleportation as it is, but want to have some drawbacks, you can rule that the spell occasionaly misfires (sort of like a critical fumble) and either teleports you somewhere you didn't want to go, shifts you to another random plane, or swaps you with a random creature. You can also have other weird or annoying effects, like it teleports you without any of your gear, if you want to mess with your players a bit and they won't go nuts over it.

That's my take on it.

[Karnith]

What source are Weird Stones from?
They can be found in the Player's Guide to Faerun.

[CRtwenty]

What source are Weird Stones from? I don't see them in the SRD and I'd like to look them up.

As others have said it's on pg. 124 of the Player's Guide to Faerun. It basically stops all spells that involve the Etheral or Astral Plane, all Divination(Scrying) and Conjuration(Teleportation) spells, and any Psionic, Supernatural, Extraordinary (etc) abilities that mimic those effects within a six mile radius when activated.

Note that you can still cast those spells but only if you target an area outside of the Weirdstone's effect (so a Wizard with a Weirdstone in his stronghold could teleport out of it, but could not teleport back in)

[BWR]

No. This line of thinking is foolish. I don't have any problem with people banning things, but in most of these threads and with his DM it is an kneejerk reaction.It is lazy, because they thought that it was easier to ban something from players than to think of an interesting way to make it work in their game. It is Railroadish (the PCs are going to walk through this wilderness whether they want to or not, and I will make them if they try to avoid it). And it is ineffective, because unless they put as much work into banning all the ways to duplicate it as they would have put into actually doing their job as a DM and being creative, the PCs can bypass the ban with minimal negative impact.


Or maybe, as I mention for the second time, the DM wants to run a game like this and rather than being jerks and challenging him at every point with workarounds, the players are nice and go along with it and have fun anyway.
Seriously, it's the DM's game and if there are rules and elements he wants to have in his game, his word is final. In this case slogging through mud and swamps and having 'random' encounters was part of the plan. Fine.


And for BWR and his willingness to go along with it, I would respond that that is metagaming, plain and simple.
Not all metagaming is bad. A certain amount of metagaming is often necessary for groups to work together. The players are entirely stumped and have missed an important clue? Rather than let everything go to hell (perhaps literally), the DM reminds them of something. Metagaming, but it saves the adventure, saves the campaign and saves the players from feeling frustrated and useless.
Have ragtag band of adventurers who have personal squabbles and the players play them to the point of the party disintegrating? Point out that this is where things are headed and if they don't work out their differences for the good of the group the game will have a serious hicup to overcome.
Most players are sensible, accept the metagame implications of their actions and fix it. Using "it's what my character would do" to excuse all sorts of pointless disruptive actions and refuse to compromise on anything is just being a jerk.


Like your group of characters, after walking for 10 minutes through the monster infested woods, isn't simply going to go "This sucks! Why are we doing this again? Not only is it pointlessly dangerous, it is boring and it interferes with our drinking/crafting/quest completing. Don't you have a better way to get us there?"
Or they think "This sucks, but the fate of the kingdom rests on our shoulders. Just have to grit our teeth and get it over with. You have to go through the boring stuff as well as the interesting stuff. That's life."

[Elderand]

Never limit your players. I would allow everything, and use that against the players as well. Be a better DM !!

Logic failure right there. Allowing everything doesn't make a better DM anymore than banning stuff makes a bad DM. Nor does the reverse hold either. A DM who allows everything is not necesserly a bad DM nor his a DM who ban stuff automaticly good.

No matter how much some love to pretend otherwise, the two things are separate issues.

[Eric Tolle]

A good classic, but not quite enough for making castles make sense.

Castles don't make sense in the first place in D&D. In a world with things such as flying monsters, Cloudkill, intangiblity and the like, building a castle makes as much sense as tossing one's gold into a Bag of Devouring. Putting it all underground in the form of a dungeon makes a bit more sense, but that ducks the real issue, in that in a world with 10th level wizards, the reasons for castles, such as armies don't make any sense.

I suppose the GM could go to a huge amount of effort to berg any spell or ability that makes a generic fantasy Europe or low magic world impossible, but at that point one might as well play Runequest or Warhammer FRP. In fact I recommend playing those games anyway.

[Flickerdart]

Castles aren't useful for defending when anyone past level 5 can just fly over the walls, but that's not really what they are for. Your average ruler will spend most of his time bossing around peasants, not fighting, and so the castle serves first and foremost as a symbol of power. Sure, you could bury it underground and it would be more defensible; there are probably deep catacombs under every castle. But the aboveground bit is important, because it says "look at all this wealth and power I have and you don't" to every passing merchant, farmer, and so forth. Certainly, many adventurers could afford to build decoy castles simply for the purpose of looking cool, and put all their stuff in a demiplane somewhere.

If you remove castles from your world, you need another conspicuous symbol of power to cow the masses. Elaborate palaces, perhaps, or giant statues. Maybe effigy dragons that you have patrol the land. Go crazy, it's your world.

[Lapak]

I'm in general agreement with those who are saying that there's a lot more than Teleport in medium-to-high-level D&D that breaks that kind of feel/narrative/plot you're trying to maintain (based on the original post.)

But if you don't mind that, and you want to prevent Teleport from becoming an all-the-time travel method, and particularly want to decrease the viability of Scry-and-Die, you could alter long-range teleportation by starting with of a bit of built-in Anticipate Teleport and folding in some temporary vulnerability. Make Teleporting a original-series Star Trek affair, where you stand still for a bit and phase gradually into and out of existence complete with special effects. That should keep some uses viable, and even allow for the potential of getting into enemy strongholds with Teleportation if you can target an out-of-the-way area to pop into, but trying to drop right into somebody's lap and smite them would be ill-advised and would eat up some of the duration on short-term buffs to boot. So:

Teleporting Beyond Line-Of-Sight
Creating an otherdimensional bridge between two points on the Material Plane when you do not have a clear line of sight from one to the other is a time-consuming and delicate process that leaves the subjects vulnerable until it is completed. All such effects require a period of (21-Caster Level) rounds to complete. During this time, the subjects appear to be in both places at once, cloaked in shimmering lights, and a strange noise emanates from both the origin and target points (DC 10 Listen check to detect.) During the teleport, all subjects are Incorporeal (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#incorporeality) but unable to defend themselves or initiate any actions, including purely mental actions; the caster of the Teleport effect (if also a target) may take no action but to continue or to abort the Teleport.

Aborting a Teleport
A spellcaster who chooses to end a Teleport prematurely (or who is interrupted, or rendered incapable of completing it) loses control of the process. All subjects are cast adrift and drop back into the Material Plane separately, each one reappearing 1d10 miles in a random direction from either the origin or target points - 50% chance of either. The violence of such sudden dispersal causes each subject to sustain 1d10 damage for each mile they land off-target.

I'm not necessarily recommending this as a solution to your problems, just tossing it out there as another idea.

[Scow2]

Personally, I'd disregard any advice Emperor Tippy has to offer about balancing the spells because she assumes an insane level of rules awareness and optimization, and goes about playing D&D 3.5 backward from most people (The setting and campaign serving the rules, instead of the rules serving the setting and campaign). No disrespect intended, but the Tippyverse style really is too insane for most people to find fun with.

If you want to balance Teleport, I'd suggest changing the spell - find out what role you want it to have. Fast, long-range transit (Which is useful when you DON'T want everyone wandering around for months)? Give it a 1-round casting time, and automatically saddle it with an Anticipate Teleportation effect. Or have it tend to be imprecise.


Also - most settings DON'T have large numbers of characters above level 6.

[Blightedmarsh]

You could say that teleport works by killing you and resurrecting you somewhere else with all the risks, drawbacks and stigma that entails. Further more there is a chance that you come back wrong.

[Andezzar]

You could say that teleport works by killing you and resurrecting you somewhere else with all the risks, drawbacks and stigma that entails. Further more there is a chance that you come back wrong.Now how is that better than banning the spells outright?

[Blightedmarsh]

Because it come with flavor, options, plothook and references.

A) Nothing to see here move along is less flavorful that almost any concept.

B) You can still teleport if you really need to. It would have to be worth the risk however and not just a matter of convenience. Say that a god could teleport you at the speed of plot but other than that you have to literally pay the ferryman to get where your going.

C) The brave hero comes back from foreign lands acting oddly? Came back wrong.

D) Is a trek reference.

[Xervous]

C) The brave hero comes back from foreign lands acting oddly? Came back wrong.


Do I detect a Buffy reference?

Yes, I'm one of the victims who has seen season 6...

[Andezzar]

Because it come with flavor, options, plothook and references.

A) Nothing to see here move along is less flavorful that almost any concept.Treu, but an option that is not used is no better than no option at all.


B) You can still teleport if you really need to. It would have to be worth the risk however and not just a matter of convenience. Say that a god could teleport you at the speed of plot but other than that you have to literally pay the ferryman to get where your going.I doubt many players would voluntarily take level loss for any reason.


D) Is a trek reference.I don't get it. Are you referring to William/Thomas Riker?

[Blightedmarsh]

I don't get it. Are you referring to William/Thomas Riker?

The old theory is that every single time someone set foot on a telepad they died and a clone is replicated at the target coordinates. Will/Thomas was held up by some as proof that this theory is at least valid.


I doubt many players would voluntarily take level loss for any reason.

It would have to be very grave indeed to consider it. This make teleport something not to be undertaken lightly.

[tiercel]

For a SHORT answer, let's look at the text of the teleport spell itself:


Areas of strong physical or magical energy may make teleportation more hazardous or even impossible.

I'm guessing that more than a few destinations that PCs will want to teleport into (The Forbidden Dungeons of Blah, BBEG Lair #45382, portal to the Plane of Elemental Fire that's spitting out little fire guys running around setting everything they touch on fire, etc) are likely to qualify under this clause and so you don't even need houserules to keep the PCs from just BAMFing straight into the area. (With a bit of research/Knowledge check, maybe they can teleport one or two day's walk/ride out, thus still giving the PCs bang for their buck but allowing you to have a limited "wilderness travel" preamble before the main adventure. Except for maybe all those OTHER "fast travel" spells.)

I'm pretty sure there is a published suggested houserule (Stronghold Builder's Guidebook??) that you can choose to rule that lead, or other substances such as gorgon's blood or even living wood/plant material, can block teleportation.

Alternatively, you could houserule that any non-line-of-sight teleportation effect requires a "teleport circle" to be readied at the destination first (not the spell, but a diagram much like a summoning circle, requiring a Spellcraft check or whatnot). Major cities would likely have publicly known, usable, and defended diagrams (the "airports" of the fantasy world). This would let your PCs blink home easily enough but not so much in terms of blinking all the way to a new destination.

You could get more exotic. Another piece of the teleport spell reads
You must have some clear idea of the location and layout of the destination.
which has led some to suggest that one defense against teleportation is redecoration.

Weirdstones are all well and good in the Tippyverse, but (A) a fair number of games don't necessarily allow the use of world-specific books for games not set in that world (B) of the games that do allow world-specific books for games not set in that world, some of them don't necessarily blanket allow anything from Faerun (due to perceived power/optimization level difference) (C) even if allowed, weirdstones are expensive (>200k gold) and unlikely to be common for non-20+level characters unless playing in a full-fledged Tippyverse (and with all respect to Tippy, most of us don't, through some combination of not having that many active high-level spellcasters in our world and not playing high-op RAW campaigns).

Of course, Tippy's point about rope trick as a defense holds (one of a number of points that makes rope trick as problematic in its way as teleport is, only at lower level).

Personally, I would rather use the text already in teleport or even some houseruling than just be "anyone not sleeping inside an extradimensional space is just dead," but that's just my style of gaming.

[Douglas]

and then homebrew a replacement spell of about 4th/5th level called Anti-spell Field. It works like AMF, but when cast it is keyed to only a single spell or subschool instead. That way, if you need to deny teleportation to a certain area you can do so without screwing up too much else, or it can be used to protect buildings from Earthquake, walls from various evocations, or hospitals and gravyards from necromancy.
Have you looked into the spell Otiluke's Suppressing Field from Complete Mage? It's almost exactly what you described, though limited by a caster level check.

[Deepbluediver]

Have you looked into the spell Otiluke's Suppressing Field from Complete Mage? It's almost exactly what you described, though limited by a caster level check.

No, but I'll look it up the first chance I get. Unlike the Faerun book, I actually have that one on hand. It wouldn't be the first time that I've come up with something and said "doesn't this sounds like an interesting idea" only to have some one reply, "Yeah, WotC published in splatbook XYZ, p. 368". So while it doesn't give my ego any points for creativity, it often makes things easier to introduce to a game.

And thanks to Karnith & CRtwenty for the other answer before.

[elonin]

Don't ban teleport. Just make anticipate teleport and dimensional anchor commonly used spells. Also, taking bags of holding or handy haversacks into ropetricks is problematic.

[ryu]

Which is why the smart thing to do is get necklaces of adaptation for the party and sleep in a bag of holding you've cast nondetection on and made invisible. If in dungeon keep the bag in a random side room away from places you've had combats to make being found nearly impossible.

[navar100]

Alternatively, reverse the Teleport spells order.

Teleportation Circle is level 5. You can only teleport from a specified area to a specified area which cannot be changed.

Teleport is level 7. Now you can teleport from anywhere to anywhere, but there is risk of mishap when you're not familiar with the place you want to go.

Greater Teleport is level 9. Poof, you're there. At this level of play, that's normal.

[Pickford]

The old theory is that every single time someone set foot on a telepad they died and a clone is replicated at the target coordinates. Will/Thomas was held up by some as proof that this theory is at least valid.

It would have to be very grave indeed to consider it. This make teleport something not to be undertaken lightly.

Funny, I was just finishing up the original series (including the animated episodes) and when watching the ones where they de-aged or removed diseases by going through the teleporter it occurred to me that this was a possibility.

After that, you could not pay me to enter one (As presumably 'I' would be dead, what do I care if there's a clone with my memories?).

A little like The Prestige...truly an awful fate when you consider it. (Assuming you care about the continuity of your personal existence).

Anyway, there are plenty of counters to teleportation that, assuming it is even relatively common as a spell, would be equally common rendering the spell balanced.

[undead hero]

Funny, I was just finishing up the original series (including the animated episodes) and when watching the ones where they de-aged or removed diseases by going through the teleporter it occurred to me that this was a possibility.

After that, you could not pay me to enter one (As presumably 'I' would be dead, what do I care if there's a clone with my memories?).

A little like The Prestige...truly an awful fate when you consider it. (Assuming you care about the continuity of your personal existence).

Anyway, there are plenty of counters to teleportation that, assuming it is even relatively common as a spell, would be equally common rendering the spell balanced.

There is an episode of Big Bang Theory where Sheldon has the same misgivings about the scientific teleporters.

[Togo]

It's a classic philosophy problem. Teleport effectively destroy your body hear and rebuild it over there. Does the fact that a perfect replica of you has appeared at the destination make you any less dead?

[Pickford]

It's a classic philosophy problem. Teleport effectively destroy your body hear and rebuild it over there. Does the fact that a perfect replica of you has appeared at the destination make you any less dead?

Yeah, I would argue no as it is a hard break in continuity. If there was gradual replacement (the classic example being planks on the deck of a ship) then there would be enough shared experience for the new parts to be considered a portion of the whole.

Instant destruction/reconstruction reads to me as death.

edit: Is the OP in faerun? If not the weird stones wouldn't exist.

[Elderand]

It's a classic philosophy problem. Teleport effectively destroy your body hear and rebuild it over there. Does the fact that a perfect replica of you has appeared at the destination make you any less dead?

It's only a problem if you believe in a dualistic approach to existence. If you consider that "you" is merely the sum of your parts and their interaction the exact copy over yonder is "you"

[Pickford]

It's only a problem if you believe in a dualistic approach to existence. If you consider that "you" is merely the sum of your parts and their interaction the exact copy over yonder is "you"

If your consciousness does not transfer to the other copy upon your death, then it's not you.

[Andezzar]

If your consciousness does not transfer to the other copy upon your death, then it's not you.If the consciousness does not transfer, it is not an exact copy.

[Pickford]

If the consciousness does not transfer, it is not an exact copy.

Of course it is, assuming your consciousness is a part of the body then there is now a 'second' consciousness. How does that help the one that is being destroyed?

[Elderand]

If your consciousness does not transfer to the other copy upon your death, then it's not you.

As I clearly said it's only a problem for people who believe in a dualitic approach to consciousness. If you believe that you are merely an emergent property of the meat sack then having an exact duplicate of said meat sack mean the copy is you.

[undead hero]

It's a classic philosophy problem. Teleport effectively destroy your body hear and rebuild it over there. Does the fact that a perfect replica of you has appeared at the destination make you any less dead?

Not always, teleporting can just be a gateway between two points. I think 4e does it that way.

[Spuddles]

If the consciousness does not transfer, it is not an exact copy.

Consciousness wouldn't transfer, it would be recreated, assuming that consciousness is the state and relation of neurons to each other.

[undead hero]

Consciousness wouldn't transfer, it would be recreated, assuming that consciousness is the state and relation of neurons to each other.

Do those exist in D&D?

Perhaps in D&D your soul is your consciousness and teleport destroys your body and transfers your soul then rebuilds your body? Thus you are still you?

[Piggy Knowles]

If consciousness is tied to form, how do you explain things like True Mind Switch? Or Polymorph, for that matter?

[Andezzar]

Not always, teleporting can just be a gateway between two points. I think 4e does it that way.I think teleportation works very similarly in 3E as well:
Teleportation is instantaneous travel through the Astral Plane. Anything that blocks astral travel also blocks teleportation. So no destruction recreation by RAW.


Consciousness wouldn't transfer, it would be recreated, assuming that consciousness is the state and relation of neurons to each other.OK the consciousness would not be transfered just like anything else would not be transfered. Everything would be copied and the original destroyed. So if the copy is exact, how is it distinguishable from the original?

[stanleyindraven]

My RL DMs usually ban the spell, making it some epic quest to find as the magic has been lost or just simply it doesnt exist. I have, for a level 30-40 campaign that I am working on, have decided to make teleports fizzle as they are one of the most potent magics and magic is incredibly unstable, so you get 20 ft or so on a 7th level teleport. sure it sounds like it sucks, but it forces the pc party to deal with adventuring late in their careers and they have the ability to unlock the magic power to grant teleport again, should they ever find it.
Basically, I dislike how most people use it and therefor find ways around its use.

[DeltaEmil]

I think teleportation works very similarly in 3E as well: Teleportation in 3E is a short (instantaneous) jump through the Astral Plane and then another short (instantaneous) jump to your destination. So it's more like you're shifting in a grey wobbly reality, and then shift either to another plane of reality (which the spell plane shift does), or shift back to your plane of origin (which teleport and dimension door does), but further away than you started.

You can't teleport in 3E if something blocks travel to the Astral Plane.

[Elderand]

If consciousness is tied to form, how do you explain things like True Mind Switch? Or Polymorph, for that matter?

I don't, the whole tangent has absolutly nothing to do with DnD really. Teleport for exemple explecitly mention transporting you somewhere else, not disintegrating your body and building a new one on the other end.

And DnD is pretty clear in that consciousness is not tied to form. Which means that in DnD brain damage never result in a personality change or loss of memory.
Like a lot of things, dnd stop making sense if you start thinking about it in real world term. In DnD the brain is merely a fleshy anchor point for your consciousness.

[Gnaeus]

Or they think "This sucks, but the fate of the kingdom rests on our shoulders. Just have to grit our teeth and get it over with. You have to go through the boring stuff as well as the interesting stuff. That's life."

If the fate of the kingdom rests on their shoulders, and they are slogging through the mud instead of flying to their destination and saving the kingdom, they aren't heroes. Or very smart for that matter.

[Tvtyrant]

If the fate of the kingdom rests on their shoulders, and they are slogging through the mud instead of flying to their destination and saving the kingdom, they aren't heroes. Or very smart for that matter.

Bad wrong! Bad Wrong! He rides across the forum, the scourge of low op sins. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7X1VjGsZeyw)

Seriously though. There is not some objective definition of heroism that Yahzi's party needs to meet, and it isn't wrong to do the whole "adventuring through the woods" deal. Wheel of Time has been used as an example of teleporting armies/individuals, but the Sword of Truth is also high magic and has none of that. The Silmarillion has a man kill 70 trolls in a day and a son who one shots a dragon and yet no teleportation.

[Flickerdart]

...the Sword of Truth is also high magic and has none of that. The Silmarillion has a man kill 70 trolls in a day and a son who one shots a dragon and yet no teleportation.
Neither one of those is high magic. There are very few wizards in Middle Earth, and Sword of Truth spellcasters don't really manage much basically ever.

[Curmudgeon]

There are lots of reasons why the "adventuring through the woods" approach can still be valid in a game with Teleport. Teleportation doesn't let you use Track to hunt down unknown enemies. If you're navigating via a map which refers to ground-based landmarks under a forest canopy, neither flight nor most forms of teleportation will be particularly helpful (the Tree Stride spell being a possible exception). If your job is to find someone/something via information gained from people who live in the woods, Teleport may get you to those woods faster, but then it's a ground-based game again.

Rapid transportation/relocation is only of use to you when you already know where you need to be. If you've got to figure that out as you go along, these D&D capabilities are about as useful as a private helicopter when you're looking for a wedding photographer.

[Andezzar]

Where's the Like button?

Curmudgeon is absolutely right.

[Spuddles]

Neither one of those is high magic. There are very few wizards in Middle Earth, and Sword of Truth spellcasters don't really manage much basically ever.

The first & second age of middle earth are full of things that we may consider "magic" in a colloquial sense, but perhaps not in the baroque rule set of D&D.

For instance, many of the elf & dwarf craft items, are pretty "magical". Then there are all the corrupt maiar and their offspring/creations that are pretty magical- ungoliant, balrogs, worms, ents, werewolves, carcaroth. There are some others that escape me atm.

The elf heroes also do some pretty magical stuff. All that is coming to mind atm is the girdle of melian.

Compared to the third age, the first and second age were pretty magical simply because of all the valar activity and their crafts practiced by the elves.

I would consider the Silmarillion "high magic" in relation to magical settings, but definitely at the low end. It's high magic as the "heroic" age of middle earth, but compared to harry potter or the slayers, it's not high magic.

[Asteron]

My current group has access to teleport and we've hardly broken the game... It aided us greatly a couple of sessions ago, but as most of the party has (Ex) flight, it barely saved us any time.

I would play in a campaign where teleport and other "high" magic was unreliable/nerfed/banned. It would require lateral thinking to complete the tasks at hand. However, it would have to be a one campaign thing as the adjustments required would get old pretty fast. If it's a DM's MO to have it like that in every campaign, I'd find another DM as it smacks of lazy DMing and wouldn't be very interesting.

In reality, DM's deal with it all of the time with perfectly fine results. The PCs use scry and die? See how they like it... Better yet, the target isn't Divination-able or can be reached with teleport. Very easy fixes. The next McGuffin needs to be found? It's in an unheard of/nearly mythical place that the PC's don't know anything about and can't be scried. This type of game inspires lateral thinking from the DM, IMO...

Also, I do agree with Curmudgeon.

[undead hero]

Teleportation in 3E is a short (instantaneous) jump through the Astral Plane and then another short (instantaneous) jump to your destination. So it's more like you're shifting in a grey wobbly reality, and then shift either to another plane of reality (which the spell plane shift does), or shift back to your plane of origin (which teleport and dimension door does), but further away than you started.

You can't teleport in 3E if something blocks travel to the Astral Plane.

So no destruction, you are just taking a shortcut.

Awesome

[Tar Palantir]

Yeah, I agree with what's been said above. The system has defenses against Teleport, and there's an in-universe selective pressure favoring rulers who take these sorts of precautions. There are definitely spells that I'd ban for being overpowered, like Celerity, but things like flight and teleportation just mean that you as a DM need to think through the logical consequences of those abilities before planning an adventure. It's not super difficult, and it gives a hell of a lot more verisimilitude than papering over your plot holes with DM fiat and heavy-handed nerfs and bans.

[DeltaEmil]

It really sucks when a GM has to search for logical ingame-reasons all the time about why superpowerful player character abilities don't work because of spell x and environmental effect y.
Since fiat is frowned upon, a GM now has to become a rules-expert of the highest caliber, instead of just being a guy who tells what happens and sometimes throws bad green guys with fangs at the player character.

Banning is completely fine, because you don't have to deal with all the hassle.

[Emmerask]

It really sucks when a GM has to search for logical ingame-reasons all the time about why superpowerful player character abilities don't work because of spell x and environmental effect y.
Since fiat is frowned upon, a GM now has to become a rules-expert of the highest caliber, instead of just being a guy who tells what happens and sometimes throws bad green guys with fangs at the player character.

Banning is completely fine, because you don't have to deal with all the hassle.

I somewhat agree, if it would only be Teleport or a Handful of stuff, yes you can think of that in creating the adventure.

However d&d is full of gamebreaking stuff thinking of every single one would not only feel extremely cheap to the players it also increases prep time quite a lot... time that could have gone into actually FUN stuff.

/edit the other option of course is always that instead of heavily changing a system to suit your needs to just use a system that already does^^

[Spuddles]

Forbiddance requires a cleric 2 levels higher than a wizard who casts teleport.

Preventing teleport requires high level casters, which can sort of be an issue.

A level 7 knight and his hereditary castle are easily targetable by most casters, for instance.

This is a well known issue, but if you want to nerf the importance of casters in D&D, getting rid of teleport, or at least heavily restricting it, goes a long way.

Where teleport really gets nasty is on fiends. Mid to high CR fiends can be anywhere on the prime doing some really nasty stuff, like raising an army of the dead. Pit Fiends are goddamn brutal.

[Andezzar]

You can also develop countermeasures as you go along, just as the PCs might have to, depending on what the DM throws at them.

Even if the gameworld did not think of any possible way to counteract the SOP of the PCs, as soon as it becomes known, intelligent and security conscious people (not only adversaries) will start devising appropriate tactics to prevent the PCs' tactics

Removing options rarely is satisfying for the players or the DM - or is anyone suggesting that the NPCs can teleport but the PCs can't?

Yes, it can be daunting to think of everything an intelligent murder-hobo could come up with, but that is just the nature of the game. If you start banning teleport the players will think of another spell or ability to get a similar effect. If high magic is a problem in general, 3.5 probably is not a game for you.

[Asteron]

It really sucks when a GM has to search for logical ingame-reasons all the time about why superpowerful player character abilities don't work because of spell x and environmental effect y.
Since fiat is frowned upon, a GM now has to become a rules-expert of the highest caliber, instead of just being a guy who tells what happens and sometimes throws bad green guys with fangs at the player character.

Banning is completely fine, because you don't have to deal with all the hassle.

The DM should know the rules better than the players, else the game will slow down to a crawl as the DM has to look up every effect that occurs. Handwaving the rules is an option, but if you're just going to do that, you might as well play another system.

Honestly, DMing right (ie having a well thought out plot and being prepared for the players derailing the campaign) is hard work. That doesn't even touch preparing encounters. If you're not willing to put in the work don't be a DM. Be a player. It's easier.

[Svata]

Shadowrun is a game where you can play perfectly, be the most paranoid bastard to have ever drawn breath, and still die because you got sniped by a naval laser on an invisible blimp floating 30 kilometers away.

Can I sig this?

[TuggyNE]

The Silmarillion has a man kill 70 trolls in a day and a son who one shots a dragon and yet no teleportation.

Middle Earth is full of magic, but most of it is extremely subtle, to the point where you can't quite tell what's magic and what's skill. For that matter, I'm pretty sure both of those examples were more on the side of skill than magic. :smallwink:

I kinda like the way Sil (http://www.amirrorclear.net/flowers/game/sil/), a roguelike, runs its magic system: every "spell" is a song, and every character can (and probably will) learn at least a few songs. You can have, for example, a song of light, which brightens torches; a song of slaying, which strengthens your blows as you strike down foes; or a song of Elbereth, which demoralizes your enemies and makes them more likely to flee.

[Pickford]

I think teleportation works very similarly in 3E as well: So no destruction recreation by RAW.

OK the consciousness would not be transfered just like anything else would not be transfered. Everything would be copied and the original destroyed. So if the copy is exact, how is it distinguishable from the original?

As, with all things, location.

That is to say, this twin is not that twin because it is in a distinct location.

And nobody said consciousness is tied to shape, but rather that short of proof that ones consciousness transcends ones death. (Proof that is inherently unpossible.)

I don't consider teleportation to be inherently problematic as it can be overcome through proper planning and application of force.

That is to say: A simple anti-magic field prohibits teleportation (and scry/die solutions). Any mundane royalty worth their salt would own such devices (in addition to various non-detection/spell reflection/anti-caster wardings etc...) or the support of competent wizards or they would be dead and replaced by non-mundane rulers.

Although I could imagine a scenario where-in a wizard attempts to take over a kingdom and is murdered in his sleep by the ruled. Even a wizard has to trust someone sometime or live alone.

[eggynack]

That is to say: A simple anti-magic field prohibits teleportation (and scry/die solutions). Any mundane royalty worth their salt would own such devices (in addition to various non-detection/spell reflection/anti-caster wardings etc...) or the support of competent wizards or they would be dead and replaced by non-mundane rulers.

Although I could imagine a scenario where-in a wizard attempts to take over a kingdom and is murdered in his sleep by the ruled. Even a wizard has to trust someone sometime or live alone.
A "simple anti-magic field" is a ten foot emanation. In a situation where you need to be defended while being in a particular place, that seems like a way to shut down your own defenses, rather than a way to stop other folk's offenses. Couldn't the wizard just teleport eleven feet away from the king, and use an orb or something? This seems like one of those solutions that doesn't really solve the problem.

Edit: Also, about the other stuff you listed, you should probably be more specific about your defenses. Just, "anti-caster wardings" isn't really an answer.

[ryu]

Silly Pickford what do you think charm person, dominate, and mind rape are for? Friendship is literally magic.

[Pickford]

A "simple anti-magic field" is a ten foot emanation. In a situation where you need to be defended while being in a particular place, that seems like a way to shut down your own defenses, rather than a way to stop other folk's offenses. Couldn't the wizard just teleport eleven feet away from the king, and use an orb or something? This seems like one of those solutions that doesn't really solve the problem.

Edit: Also, about the other stuff you listed, you should probably be more specific about your defenses. Just, "anti-caster wardings" isn't really an answer.

Teleport has a 'miles' difference in failure. This could kill the Wizard assuming they go into say...a wall...or lava..or (etc...)

Teleporting is dangerous business. How about an amulet of Anticipate Teleportation, or greater anticipate teleportation? Anyone threatened could escape and give alarm (the wizard would not know) and then prepare something instantly fatal to the wizard.

Ryu: AMF = no charming.

[ryu]

Unless the entire world is an antimagic field I don't much care about that in regards to charming and mindraping. It's quite simple to covertly make friends with entire cities given proper time and planning.

[GoddessSune]

Preventing teleport requires high level casters, which can sort of be an issue.


It should not be too much of an issue. Any place is often decades or even centuries old. But even a short time, say 100 years, is quite a long time. A lot can happen in 100 years.

One of my House Rules is simple-the average inhabited place can count on having one wish per year. That is someone making a wish for the city. So a city that has been around for 100 years would have 100 wishes used on it.

And teleport protections would be somewhere in that list.

[TuggyNE]

One of my House Rules is simple-the average inhabited place can count on having one wish per year. That is someone making a wish for the city. So a city that has been around for 100 years would have 100 wishes used on it.

And teleport protections would be somewhere in that list.

Hmm. Unless they're just using wish to duplicate existing teleportation blockers, it seems highly likely that one of those wishes would backfire at some point. So I'm not sure what difference this would make.

[eggynack]

Teleport has a 'miles' difference in failure. This could kill the Wizard assuming they go into say...a wall...or lava..or (etc...)

Teleporting is dangerous business. How about an amulet of Anticipate Teleportation, or greater anticipate teleportation? Anyone threatened could escape and give alarm (the wizard would not know) and then prepare something instantly fatal to the wizard.

Ryu: AMF = no charming.
First of all, you're basically saying that an AMF is useless against teleport. Second, and more importantly, how exactly would a wizard teleport into a wall, or lava? There's nothing in the rules to support that. On target gets you exactly where you want to go. Off target gets you pretty far from where you want to go, except it gets you there safely, which means no lava or walls. Similar area takes you to a similar area, which is fine, as long as you weren't trying to teleport into lava. Mishap just damages you, and goes to one of the other three options. There's nothing there that would land you in lava. Anticipate teleportation is a lot closer to being effective than an AMF, but you're going to need to do a lot better than just saying that there's something instantly fatal where the wizard arrives. If a wizard is teleporting somewhere, he's acting on his own initiative. That means that he actually will have some time to pull off a pile of divinations, and he'll have some pretty accurate and efficient questions to ask.

[Andezzar]

As, with all things, location.

That is to say, this twin is not that twin because it is in a distinct location.If you consider location an inherent property of the the original, then the whole premise of an exact copy is impossible.


And nobody said consciousness is tied to shape, but rather that short of proof that ones consciousness transcends ones death. (Proof that is inherently unpossible.)What about the whole dying and being resurrected thing. There is no indication in the rules that the person brought back is not the same persoen as the one that died. Actually he is reset to the status at death (-1 level). He does not remember what happened inbetween.

[Roguenewb]

The problem is that for the vast majority of fantasy IPs, the world has to maintain a background caster level of 6 or less. Even WoT, a series I deeply love, has the schmucks in common with a caster level of zero. 99.99% or characters aren't casters, and most of those that do are never seen casting anything north of a level 4 spell, Asha'man and damane being a strong exception due to forced training.

Most players are looking for D&D to support a current understanding of fantasy IPs. The urge to play an IP based around the D&D rules (Tippyverse et al) comes later, when the players are so used to the rules that they want to see them taken to their logical extreme. Many of you might say, "well use E6 to represent those IPs". There is a key problem with that. Lots of cool abilities, PrC/feat synergies, and just cool stuff for your character to do, comes online in the 6-12 range, as well as hordes of cool monsters and foes. So, letting Teleport shred the IP at 9 is a problem, a severe one.

The second problem is a problem that many casters have, particularly with tier 1s. They are just going along leveling and up get all these free gamebreaker powers for free. A wizard hits level 9, and for almost zero investment, almost completely masters world travelling magic. These piles of free bonuses are a problem for class balance. One of my larger projects for caster balances is to add skill checks and skill limitations to as many tier 1 spells as possible in order to make the casters choose which way to go.

My personal fix is to delay the usefulness of Teleport in order to support more "cool character stuff" while maintaining the high fantasy IP compatability. I replace Greater Teleport's text with the text of Teleport and replace Teleport with a modified version of Astral Caravan. Instead of Know(Planes) they need Know(Geography) a skill most characters end up picking up only for teleport. The base DC is 30, not 20, and the spell lasts a number of rounds equal to their caster level, they get 1 check per round, and they need to succeed on one check/hundred miles before the casting duration runs out. Astral Caravan is also added to the 1st level spell list as "Facillitate Teleport" for any class with teleport on the spell list. If they gain teleport later, they get to add Facillitate to the spell list as well.

At basic optimization levels, this means that a Wizard 9 has 12 ranks (a decent investment) +6 INT. So they need to make a 12 or higher to succeed on the check. To go the spell's normal maximum, they need to make every single check. So the spell's range decreases unless they really start to spec know(geo). Combined with how I don't allow custom skill items, if I see a player take Skill Focus(Know(Geo)) to improve teleport, I consider it a victory, because they actually had to spend resources on the ability to teleport. Clerics and non-INT casters get a little weaker at teleport. I give spontaneous limited casters (like sorcs or bards) a general +4 on all skill checks to cast a spell they know (cause I'm adding skill checks all over the place). So a Beguiler that gets teleport on their list somehow ends up awesome at it, but oh well.


By level 13, normal teleport comes back online, and it delays the game changing effects by 4 levels, and puts them at a point where a vast majority of games never reach.

[Asteron]

The second problem is a problem that many casters have, particularly with tier 1s. They are just going along leveling and up get all these free gamebreaker powers for free. A wizard hits level 9, and for almost zero investment, almost completely masters world travelling magic. These piles of free bonuses are a problem for class balance. One of my larger projects for caster balances is to add skill checks and skill limitations to as many tier 1 spells as possible in order to make the casters choose which way to go.

No. They don't just get it for free. Levelling up is the result of research and practise that is usually done off-screen. Those spells that wizards automatically get? Those are spells that they have been working on since the last level. Same goes with the Sorcerer. The cleric and druid have been working on increasing their connection to the divine. Most groups don't RP this because it would make games stupidly slow.

[Mutazoia]

No. They don't just get it for free. Levelling up is the result of research and practise that is usually done off-screen. Those spells that wizards automatically get? Those are spells that they have been working on since the last level. Same goes with the Sorcerer. The cleric and druid have been working on increasing their connection to the divine. Most groups don't RP this because it would make games stupidly slow.

For that to be true you would have to disallow your PC mages from gaining new spells if they level up while in the middle of an adventure. I can't see a wizard stopping and researching/practicing a new spell for weeks/months in the middle of a dungeon crawl.

Wizard: "Excuse me Mr. Beholder, would you mind terribly not eating me right now as I am in the middle of learning a new spell with which I fully intend to blast you in a fortnight."

Beholder: "Right oh!"

Wizard: "There's a good chap."

In standard games, every time a caster levels up *PING* the new spell pops into their head. Adventuring leaves precious time for study/practice. You could say they do all that at night but then you'd have to say they didn't get much sleep either, and thus didn't get the full benifit of said night's rest.

I rule that caster's (wizards and Sorc. at least) can't get a new spell until they go back to town and spend some time doing nothing but learning. I also restrict what spells are available to learn. I don't say spell X doesn't exist, but I say spell X isn't available in the town your currently at. Or I'll make finding a particular spell a side quest of it's own if I think it's particularly potentially game breaking.

For Divine casters, they pray for spells...perhaps their diety is on the other line (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0040.html) or has "divine" reasons for not granting a particular spell (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0007.html) at this time.

EDIT: I suppose I should address the actual topic at hand lol. Limit their access to Teleport and don't allow any cheese that gets rid of the limitations of the spell as written. As written Teleport is not 100% accurate unless you KNOW where your going, everybody has to be holding hands and can't be carrying more than their maximum weight. I've always felt that the caster should be allowed to teleport more than HIS maximum weight...that would seriously cut down on the "we just teleport out of danger" schtik. Also as everybody going with the caster needs to be holding hands, if you can keep your party seperated they can't simply teleport around the battle field.

In short, teleport isn't as powerful as people make it out to be if you use RAW, and a little common sense.

[Roguenewb]

No. They don't just get it for free. Levelling up is the result of research and practise that is usually done off-screen. Those spells that wizards automatically get? Those are spells that they have been working on since the last level. Same goes with the Sorcerer. The cleric and druid have been working on increasing their connection to the divine. Most groups don't RP this because it would make games stupidly slow.

I don't care what your particular fluff interpretation is. In terms of game mechanics and game theory, learning teleport has almost zero opportunity cost. So the Wizard gains easy-to-use continent spanning magic with almost no opportunity cost.

Even assuming they don't pick it as a free spell a scroll of teleport is 1125 gold. Adding in to the spell book is 500 gold, 24 measly hours and a trivial spellcraft check. To make it even worse, it is the best school of magic so it is unlikely the wizard would have had to make any hard specialization decisions to get the spell online. At the very least, moving it to evocation would making banning evocation a harder choice.

[Andezzar]

For that to be true you would have to disallow your PC mages from gaining new spells if they level up while in the middle of an adventure. I can't see a wizard stopping and researching/practicing a new spell for weeks/months in the middle of a dungeon crawl. That does not only apply to spells. All classes require some learning and practice between levels.


In standard games, every time a caster levels up *PING* the new spell pops into their head.Do you really know that that is the standard? You level immediately when you get the required XPs but the DM can decide when to award XPs. He could well give them out when the party returns to town.


Adventuring leaves precious time for study/practice. You could say they do all that at night but then you'd have to say they didn't get much sleep either, and thus didn't get the full benifit of said night's rest.Not quite true. The standard adventuring day is 8 hours, most characters need 8 hours of sleep. That still leaves 8 hours for other stuff. Especially at higher levels when you do no longer need much time to forage and make or break camp, that leaves ample time for research.


I rule that caster's (wizards and Sorc. at least) can't get a new spell until they go back to town and spend some time doing nothing but learning. I also restrict what spells are available to learn. I don't say spell X doesn't exist, but I say spell X isn't available in the town your currently at. Or I'll make finding a particular spell a side quest of it's own if I think it's particularly potentially game breaking.This is quite a derivation from the rules. Sorcerers and Wizards (for the 2/3 spells per level) do not need any outside equipment or help to learn new spells. So if the character levels he can choose any spell of appropriate level even somewhere in the waste.


For Divine casters, they pray for spells...perhaps their diety is on the other line (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0040.html) or has "divine" reasons for not granting a particular spell (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0007.html) at this time.Now that is just mean. Clerics get access to any spell on their spell list, not just those that you find appropriate at the moment. So no blocking of True Seeing just because you know they will be facing illusions by RAW.

[Thomar_of_Uointer]

Now that is just mean. Clerics get access to any spell on their spell list, not just those that you find appropriate at the moment. So no blocking of True Seeing just because you know they will be facing illusions by RAW.

Honestly, I don't see why so many GMs want to push for "fixing" game balance from that end of the rules. There are dozens of methods in the CORE RULES for making certain types of magic difficult. Epic illusionist dungeon? It's inside a demiplane that reduces the duration of all divination spells to a single round. Dungeon with a convoluted and heavily trapped entrance entrance? If you do any research, you'll know that that place is famous for chaotic magic that adds a 70% failure chance to teleport spells, even teleport without error has a 35% failure chance, and, oh yes, plane shift will put you randomly somewhere on the Great Wheel. Think the heal spell is overpowered? Well, this dungeon is strongly negative-energy aligned and the variable effects of all healing spells are reduced to caster level 1. Think wizards are overpowered? Okay, this dungeon is a wild magic zone, full stop.

If you really want to fix the problems that arise from high-level arcane and divine spells, do something elegant like E6, or pick a different RPG system than D&D.

[Asteron]

For that to be true you would have to disallow your PC mages from gaining new spells if they level up while in the middle of an adventure. I can't see a wizard stopping and researching/practicing a new spell for weeks/months in the middle of a dungeon crawl.

Wizard: "Excuse me Mr. Beholder, would you mind terribly not eating me right now as I am in the middle of learning a new spell with which I fully intend to blast you in a fortnight."

Beholder: "Right oh!"

Wizard: "There's a good chap."

For that to be true, martial characters can't gain that +1 BAB during an adventure as they have no time to train.

Also, they are researching a brand new spell. Teleport is a very common spell and it wouldn't take weeks to learn it, especially for a character that is smarter than anyone on this forum. How long does it take Stephen Hawking to learn a new Physics formula? Not long, I'd bet. Given that your 9th level wizard is rocking at least a 20 in INT, he/she is as smart or smarter than Hawking.


I don't care what your particular fluff interpretation is. In terms of game mechanics and game theory, learning teleport has almost zero opportunity cost. So the Wizard gains easy-to-use continent spanning magic with almost no opportunity cost.

Even assuming they don't pick it as a free spell a scroll of teleport is 1125 gold. Adding in to the spell book is 500 gold, 24 measly hours and a trivial spellcraft check. To make it even worse, it is the best school of magic so it is unlikely the wizard would have had to make any hard specialization decisions to get the spell online. At the very least, moving it to evocation would making banning evocation a harder choice.

Wizards can learn any new spell with no opportunity cost, not just teleport. Unless you are going to complain about every other powerful 5th level spell, this is pointless.

Also, I'm pretty sure that "my particular interpretation of fluff" is in the book somewhere. I'm afb atm (at work) but I'm certain that I didn't make it up. Even if I did, it's the most logical way of looking at it from an in game standpoint.

Things like this just scream "PCs can't have their abilities because it would make me think more..." or "MY story! PCs can't affect MY story!"

Teleport is hardly a broken ability at 9th level if the DM gives just a modicrum of thought. It can be stopped any number of ways and it doesn't always work right.

[Roguenewb]

For that to be true, martial characters can't gain that +1 BAB during an adventure as they have no time to train.

Also, they are researching a brand new spell. Teleport is a very common spell and it wouldn't take weeks to learn it, especially for a character that is smarter than anyone on this forum. How long does it take Stephen Hawking to learn a new Physics formula? Not long, I'd bet. Given that your 9th level wizard is rocking at least a 20 in INT, he/she is as smart or smarter than Hawking.



Wizards can learn any new spell with no opportunity cost, not just teleport. Unless you are going to complain about every other powerful 5th level spell, this is pointless.

Also, I'm pretty sure that "my particular interpretation of fluff" is in the book somewhere. I'm afb atm (at work) but I'm certain that I didn't make it up. Even if I did, it's the most logical way of looking at it from an in game standpoint.

Things like this just scream "PCs can't have their abilities because it would make me think more..." or "MY story! PCs can't affect MY story!"

Teleport is hardly a broken ability at 9th level if the DM gives just a modicrum of thought. It can be stopped any number of ways and it doesn't always work right.

But not every 5th level spell is teleport in terms of IP problems. And if you read my post, you'll see I said I'm in the process of adding skill checks to spells all over the place. So lots of the other powerful 5th level spells are in the same boat. A wizard might have to choose between teleport and Summon Monster V because they key off of different skills. And your interpretation is at best a variant rule presented somewhere. Nowhere in the base rules does it say you need to train after receiving experience points to get the benefits.

[Asteron]

But not every 5th level spell is teleport in terms of IP problems. And if you read my post, you'll see I said I'm in the process of adding skill checks to spells all over the place. So lots of the other powerful 5th level spells are in the same boat. A wizard might have to choose between teleport and Summon Monster V because they key off of different skills. And your interpretation is at best a variant rule presented somewhere. Nowhere in the base rules does it say you need to train after receiving experience points to get the benefits.

Again, not a fan of sweeping houserules to change entire system. At some point it would just be better to play a different system.

I'm fairly certain that both the DMG and PHB cover the fluff aspects of leveling up. Nowhere does it say that you just learn something with no practice at all. Heck, that is what the metagame concept of leveling up is! It's you gaining new skills and abilities and getting better at the ones you've already learned. Name one thing in RL that you can perfect or improve without effort and training (other than getting fat...)

[Lapak]

Again, not a fan of sweeping houserules to change entire system. At some point it would just be better to play a different system.

I'm fairly certain that both the DMG and PHB cover the fluff aspects of leveling up. Nowhere does it say that you just learn something with no practice at all. Heck, that is what the metagame concept of leveling up is! It's you gaining new skills and abilities and getting better at the ones you've already learned. Name one thing in RL that you can perfect or improve without effort and training (other than getting fat...)I don't think his objection has anything to do with the fluff, and that's supported by the fact that neither does his solution. In both cases the issue is mechanical. Whether you handwave that wizards have been studying in their free time or not (and yeah, that's mentioned) doesn't matter; what matters is that for the cost of no mechanical investment other than an entry in their spellbook they suddenly expand their long-distance movement potential to an almost infinite degree, essentially instantaneously. That's a big, abrupt change to a core mechanic. So he adds a solution: make it cost more than just a spellbook entry. Key it off of a skill, because skill ranks are a sharply limited resource. It's a mechanical solution to a perceived mechanical issue, and I'll admit that it's not a bad one!

You can leave the straightforward spells alone while tying the ones that change core mechanics at the campaign level - teleports, polymorphs, summons, divinations, long-term or un-dispellable mind controls, and creation spells of various stripes - to various skills so that a wizard who wants to get the full bang out of them has to understand the principles they operate on. It neatly undercuts the basic problem with Tier 1 classes: omni-competence, or at worst being able to completely change competencies with no more than eight hours' preparation time. You can be a transportation specialist, or an awesome summoner, or a polymorph guy, but you can't be GREAT at all of them just by memorizing a new set of spells tomorrow. That appeals to me, and I'd be interested in seeing it.

[Jerthanis]

I feel like I've found ways to mitigate the dangers of most of the broken spells; but the one I just can't fix is Teleport.

I find this shocking, because if you have the expertise to fix the other serious problems, you must be a creative and capable houseruler. Let me see if I can give a few tips without being completely redundant with much of what has been said here.



It destroys adventures. Every single fantasy novel is about trekking through the wilderness.

Jeepers, I'm glad my RPG experience doesn't reflect every single fantasy novel then. Movement isn't intrinsically interesting, and RPGs that I have played have tended to be about Exploration, which isn't solved by Teleportation, or Characters' Interrelationships, which isn't solved by teleportation. If Teleport solves problems and plots trivially, perhaps you should have a task of "Search Mirkwood for the Elves and gain their trust" more than "Get past Mirkwood".



It destroys danger. The party can just run away at any time.

I tend to find that resources which allow running away and regrouping is a resource which is often far, far too weak in RPGs. I've found that a group WITHOUT Teleportation magic which decides that discretion is the better part of valor has no options for getting away, since if they can move faster than their enemies, they can probably kite them and win. If they can't get away and DO choose to run, they're all dead for certain.

And if the PCs run away, they have lost the encounter. Have their enemies heal up, seek allies, reposition, set traps, and change the context of their next encounter?



And most of all, it's unfair - in the sense that the DM can never, ever use the spell against the players! Sure, he can have the BBEG teleport away at the last minute (although they hate that), or have the bad guys teleport into some NPCs castle, but has any GM ever launched a Scry and Die attack against his party that didn't result in many, many unhappy faces?

Well, if the PCs are launching Scry-and-die on NPCs, they've voided any right to complain when it's used against them. If they don't do it to NPCs, they might have an understanding that they don't want to play that kind of game, but if they are doing it themselves, they clearly DO want to play that kind of game.



D&D is already too much about offense: buffing up for 3 rounds and then attacking an unbuffed enemy almost always results in an auto-win. Buffs don't last long enough to be cast defensively, and the players are almost always initiating the action. I try to mitigate this by making buffs last longer, making encounters at longer range or with less surprise, and by giving monsters an INT roll to be prepared; but Teleport just smacks all of these fixes into the floor.

An easy fix might be that Teleportation magic brings with you your gear and person, but not any ongoing magical effects, mitigating your ability to prebuff.
It's like... if you teleport out of a Web, you're not still Entangled, are you? So surely you're not still Mirror Imaged or Flying either? Obviously this is a houserule and not a RAW fix, but it seems like you're open to houserules as a means of fixing stuff.

If not that, then simply have the PCs unaware of the names or identities of their antagonists, and have the game be about trying to discover their names and identities so that the PCs can actually scry on them in order to prebuff-teleport them. I mean, Scry doesn't work when you specify its target as, "The conspirators against the King" Or otherwise make the game involve exploration, mystery, talking, and learning things rather than a game about bypassing barriers or assassinating the enemies of the party.

[ryu]

Also I'd like to point out that by definition you can't have no opportunity cost when making any decision. Opportunity cost is a function of what you'd pick if your favored option wasn't available. Therefor, unless you literally only get a free teleport at ninth level with no option to pick other spells there's a rather high opportunity cost. Now the actual cost dealing with the amounts of resources put in to get the effect is a different matter all together.

[Pickford]

First of all, you're basically saying that an AMF is useless against teleport. Second, and more importantly, how exactly would a wizard teleport into a wall, or lava? There's nothing in the rules to support that. On target gets you exactly where you want to go. Off target gets you pretty far from where you want to go, except it gets you there safely, which means no lava or walls. Similar area takes you to a similar area, which is fine, as long as you weren't trying to teleport into lava. Mishap just damages you, and goes to one of the other three options. There's nothing there that would land you in lava. Anticipate teleportation is a lot closer to being effective than an AMF, but you're going to need to do a lot better than just saying that there's something instantly fatal where the wizard arrives. If a wizard is teleporting somewhere, he's acting on his own initiative. That means that he actually will have some time to pull off a pile of divinations, and he'll have some pretty accurate and efficient questions to ask.

Yes, safely 50' above lava. :smallbiggrin: Anything that happens 'after' arrival is not covered by the spell.

[137beth]

Yes, safely 50' above lava. :smallbiggrin: Anything that happens 'after' arrival is not covered by the spell.

50' above lava is similar to the area you were aiming for:smallconfused:

[Andezzar]

Yes, safely 50' above lava. :smallbiggrin: Anything that happens 'after' arrival is not covered by the spell.The direction and distance is determined randomly. So you cannot intentionally put the PCs there. Additionally this rule equally applies to NPCs.

[Emmerask]

Honestly, I don't see why so many GMs want to push for "fixing" game balance from that end of the rules. There are dozens of methods in the CORE RULES for making certain types of magic difficult. Epic illusionist dungeon? It's inside a demiplane that reduces the duration of all divination spells to a single round. Dungeon with a convoluted and heavily trapped entrance entrance? If you do any research, you'll know that that place is famous for chaotic magic that adds a 70% failure chance to teleport spells, even teleport without error has a 35% failure chance, and, oh yes, plane shift will put you randomly somewhere on the Great Wheel. Think the heal spell is overpowered? Well, this dungeon is strongly negative-energy aligned and the variable effects of all healing spells are reduced to caster level 1. Think wizards are overpowered? Okay, this dungeon is a wild magic zone, full stop.

If you really want to fix the problems that arise from high-level arcane and divine spells, do something elegant like E6, or pick a different RPG system than D&D.

The thing is that as a player I would feel kind of cheated if every second dungeon would feature something to hamper my character.
Overall stating the house rules beforehand (ie before creating the character)
is imo favorable to introducing such limitations afterwards ^^
*

If I then do not like the limitations I can
a) create a different character
b) not participate

In the one campaign where teleportation was extremely dangerous so that it was pretty much unusable except for the most dire situations the dm stated beforehand that teleportation among other things would work differnetly/will not really be usable.

/edit* and if you only use such things once or twice in 1 year campaign then you still have the same issue you wanted to change ^^

[Andezzar]

The thing is that as a player I would feel kind of cheated if every second dungeon would feature something to hamper my character.Isn't that the purpose of the denizens of a dungeon? Of course heavy-handedly saying that teleportation does not work here is frustrating, but it is very reasonable for the opposition to devise strategies against teleportation. What about other things that are sound tactics especially because they hamper the opposition? What about difficult terrain to make charging more difficult/impossible, what about using battlefield control to divide and conquer? What about attacking the weak saving throw of characters with a save or lose spell? What about turning part of the party against the rest?


Overall stating the house rules beforehand (ie before creating the character)That should be a given. Changing the rules without telling the players beforehand IMHO is cheating (even though the rulebook says the DM can do that). This is fair, as in everyone is equally robbed of options, but it does not make a better game.

[Thomar_of_Uointer]

That should be a given. Changing the rules without telling the players beforehand IMHO is cheating (even though the rulebook says the DM can do that). This is fair, as in everyone is equally robbed of options, but it does not make a better game.

Definitely. D&D is about consensus, the GM should not change anything in the core rules without asking the players first.

[GoddessSune]

Hmm. Unless they're just using wish to duplicate existing teleportation blockers, it seems highly likely that one of those wishes would backfire at some point. So I'm not sure what difference this would make.

If you keep a wish normal enough, you don't have to worry about backfires.



Definitely. D&D is about consensus, the GM should not change anything in the core rules without asking the players first.

I disagree with this 100%.



That should be a given. Changing the rules without telling the players beforehand IMHO is cheating (even though the rulebook says the DM can do that). This is fair, as in everyone is equally robbed of options, but it does not make a better game.

And disagree here...as I have 200 some secret house rules. It's not cheating, after all how could the DM really cheat. Even if the rule was carved in stone or something, the DM can still say ''that does not work'', ''nothing happens'' or even ''pink flowers fall from the sky''. That is the way the game works.

[eggynack]

Yes, safely 50' above lava. :smallbiggrin: Anything that happens 'after' arrival is not covered by the spell.
Safely means safely. 50 feet above lava is not a safe place to be, so that wouldn't count as being teleported somewhere safe. Additionally, off target has a pretty big range, so there'd have to be a hell of a lot of lava nearby.

[Andezzar]

And disagree here...as I have 200 some secret house rules. It's not cheating, after all how could the DM really cheat. Even if the rule was carved in stone or something, the DM can still say ''that does not work'', ''nothing happens'' or even ''pink flowers fall from the sky''. That is the way the game works.Well then you are not playing D&D, but a game the other players do not and cannot know. To not be cheating you at least need to tell the other players that you are not using the ruleset but some other set of rules that they do not have access to. I would not want to play in that game. Your players apparently cannot make that decision because they think you were playing by the D&D rules. Once this becomes apparent, they most likely will feel cheated.

[Beheld]

I'm sorry, what character is teleporting around without the ability to fly?

Fly is a 3rd level spell, Teleport is a 5th level spell. Lots of other stuff lets you fly. Overland Flight is a fourth level spell. If I am teleporting anywhere, I do not care that lava is 50 ft below me.

[eggynack]

I'm sorry, what character is teleporting around without the ability to fly?

Fly is a 3rd level spell, Teleport is a 5th level spell. Lots of other stuff lets you fly. Overland Flight is a fourth level spell. If I am teleporting anywhere, I do not care that lava is 50 ft below me.
This thing is possibly true, though maybe not entirely true. If you're teleporting people who are not you, keeping not-casters safe from lava takes up a good amount of resources, no matter how you do it. Overland flight is personal, so the other party members need to be packing some kind of flight item, or you need to cast fly on everyone, or something. Granted, this is probably stuff you should be doing anyway, but overland flight isn't a perfect answer.

[Beheld]

This thing is possibly true, though maybe not entirely true. If you're teleporting people who are not you, keeping not-casters safe from lava takes up a good amount of resources, no matter how you do it. Overland flight is personal, so the other party members need to be packing some kind of flight item, or you need to cast fly on everyone, or something. Granted, this is probably stuff you should be doing anyway, but overland flight isn't a perfect answer.

Tensor's disk?

[GoddessSune]

Well then you are not playing D&D, but a game the other players do not and cannot know. To not be cheating you at least need to tell the other players that you are not using the ruleset but some other set of rules that they do not have access to. I would not want to play in that game. Your players apparently cannot make that decision because they think you were playing by the D&D rules. Once this becomes apparent, they most likely will feel cheated.

It is true that players that think like you leave my game very quickly. The rest are having fun and just go with it.

And the fact that there are lots of secret house rules is not a secret, as the one of the main focuses of the game is for the players to discover the house rules. But problem players are not told, of course, and they do think they are playing ''by the book D&D''.

I have a good three pages on teleportation, most of that is secret. Players get the paragraph I posted back on the first page. It changes teleport a lot. But there is still more unknown.

[eggynack]

Tensor's disk?
Maybe. The duration is great, so if it works it works, but there's some trickiness to it. If you're teleporting to somewhere, the action cost to getting on the disk is low, but if you're teleporting from somewhere, it's pretty high. The size of the disk could make it impossible to carry everyone, as could the weight limitation in some cases. Additionally, it certainly wouldn't work in this case, because you're teleporting 50 feet above lava, and, "The disk also winks out if you move beyond range or try to take the disk more than 3 feet away from the surface beneath it." I still doubt that teleporting above lava can happen, but if it does happen, floating disk doesn't look like it'd work.

[Augmental]

And the fact that there are lots of secret house rules is not a secret, as the one of the main focuses of the game is for the players to discover the house rules. But problem players are not told, of course, and they do think they are playing ''by the book D&D''.

How can you tell a problem player is a problem player before the campaign even starts? And even if you can tell, why not just tell them they aren't welcome in the game instead of lying to them about your house rules?

[eggynack]

Could we not do the "GoddessSune's game is crazy by any standard we use tango," again? I mean, everyone who is not her thinks that this secret houserule thing makes absolutely no sense, so the only person who needs to be convinced is her, and I doubt she will be. If anyone who is not her wants to argue for this crazy secret houserule thing, they can go right ahead, but otherwise this all feels rather pointless.

Edit: Also, there was a whole thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=288488) about this that got inevitably locked, and I think that we said most of the stuff that would be said here. Some of the arguments against this craziness got pretty extensive and in depth too, so it's worth a read if this is a thing you're curious about.

Double edit: Actually, I totally forgot something. Back then, we kept talking around the whole teleportation with extradimensional space thing, but now that we know what it actually is, it makes even less sense for people not to know about it. Folks were assuming that wizards who are subject to this rule would die or something, but if they don't, then what's stopping these wizards from telling their friends? If I recall correctly, there's approximately 50% odds of losing your stuff in a teleport, so folks would know about this rule really fast. You tend to have extradimensional space if you have teleport, so I'd give it somewhere between a week and a month between the invention of teleportation for everyone in the world to learn this rule. *Sigh* it's really hard, sometimes, to not comment on the crazy.

[GoddessSune]

How can you tell a problem player is a problem player before the campaign even starts? And even if you can tell, why not just tell them they aren't welcome in the game instead of lying to them about your house rules?

Er....


Could we not do the "GoddessSune's game is crazy by any standard we use tango," again?

Yes check out my new thread.....post now before it is too late!

[TuggyNE]

If you keep a wish normal enough, you don't have to worry about backfires.

Yes, but "normal enough" is defined, and means "duplicates existing lower-level spells according to specified guidelines", not "random arbitrary high-level/epic effects". And if you can get the job done by duplicating existing spells, why would you be using wish instead of just using those? If you can't, then as mentioned, backfires are likely.

[Pickford]

The direction and distance is determined randomly. So you cannot intentionally put the PCs there. Additionally this rule equally applies to NPCs.

The DM determines 'what' is in that distance and direction. And safe is, of course, relative, as I was trying to point out.

Example: The teleport failure puts them on an otherwise stable ledge...however bad weather has undermined it and seconds after arriving (safely) the ledge collapses into a pool of underground lava. Voila!

[eggynack]

Yes check out my new thread.....post now before it is too late!
I'm basically saying that this is pointless in all forms, including in new threads. I mean, I did a long argumentative edit, but that's just cause I'm dumb, and kinda a sucker for debating pointlessly. No one agrees with you, at all, because your ideas of how to treat players is distrustful and wrongheaded. Why start a new thread when you're unwilling to change your opinions, and people are guaranteed to disagree with you?

Edit:

The DM determines 'what' is in that distance and direction. And safe is, of course, relative, as I was trying to point out.

Example: The teleport failure puts them on an otherwise stable ledge...however bad weather has undermined it and seconds after arriving (safely) the ledge collapses into a pool of underground lava. Voila!
First of all, a ledge over lava that would otherwise be safe, but has recently been eroded by weather, is inexplicably even more specific. The world is what it is, unless the DM just schrodingers lava everywhere, which is insane. Second of all, a collapsing ledge above lava isn't "safe" by any definition. If the ledge would otherwise be safe, and isn't now, then you could only accidentally land there when it was safe. Now that it's not safe, you can't end up there.

[Pickford]

The point is it can happen.

[eggynack]

The point is it can happen.
My point is that it can not. The place you are teleporting has to be safe. If you're on a half broken ledge over molten lava, you're not safe. Also, even if it could happen, which it can not, the chances are insanely small that you would.

[Roguenewb]

@whoever pointed out that every choice has some opportunity cost. I understand that, the point is that the opportunity cost for teleport in, in my opinion, way too low. Not zero, but close.

@whoever said adding skill checks to spells is such a different system that I should just play a different system: Ask yourself "Do you really mean that?" You've made a really bold statement I think we can all see as hyperbole and nonsense.

@whoever wanted to see my spells with skills fix, Keep your eyes on the homebrew forum next week!

[eggynack]

I don't think this has come up here, but have you considered just banning everything except for gemjump? That spell seems like a RAW version of a lot of the teleport variants that have been tossed around. You could even lower the level and create greater versions, or keep it as is and create greater versions. It seems like a pretty elegant solution.

[Mutazoia]

That does not only apply to spells. All classes require some learning and practice between levels.

I agree. Which is why I don't allow players to level up until the can stop and rest at a town/city. I'll allow new HP's and BAB's and such but no new feats/spells/class abilities until you train.


Do you really know that that is the standard? You level immediately when you get the required XPs but the DM can decide when to award XPs. He could well give them out when the party returns to town.

Granted, I should have said "90% of the games I have played in or observed at con's." Which makes things about as standard as one can find.


Not quite true. The standard adventuring day is 8 hours, most characters need 8 hours of sleep. That still leaves 8 hours for other stuff. Especially at higher levels when you do no longer need much time to forage and make or break camp, that leaves ample time for research.

So if you count an 8 hr work day for adventuring (which I doubt adventurers and monster are going to clock out at 9 sharp) and 8 hours for sleep, that leaves another 8 hrs. So if the wizard doesn't stand a watch, doesn't participate in little things like prepairing or eating food he get's 8 hours to study. But this assumes that a group of hard core tomb raiders are going to work 8 hrs a day and spend the other 16 hrs a day in rest. I find that unlikely. More like 12 hrs on 12 hrs off. We take 8 out for sleeping (but only getting 6 hrs of sleep assuming a party of 4 splitting the night watch evenly) which leaves 4 hours. 1 hour is devoted to stuff like eating, and 1 hour is spent refreshing your expended spells, leaving 2 hours to study new spells. Now since you need a "good nights sleep" to refresh your spent spells our wizard may want to use that extra 2 hours to sleep before his watch so he's sure to get his spells back....


This is quite a derivation from the rules. Sorcerers and Wizards (for the 2/3 spells per level) do not need any outside equipment or help to learn new spells. So if the character levels he can choose any spell of appropriate level even somewhere in the waste.

And again we get the *PING* factor. I'm in the middle of the Sahara but I can find a new spell under sand dune. Where is this knowledge coming from?


Now that is just mean. Clerics get access to any spell on their spell list, not just those that you find appropriate at the moment. So no blocking of True Seeing just because you know they will be facing illusions by RAW.

Again this is about limiting access to potentially game breaking spells. If you feel that True Seeing is so gawd-awful game breaking that you feel the need to nerf it, then sure... but nothing in the RAW says that players automatically have to have access to every single spell in the book. As a DM you have the right to limit access to, nerf or out right ban anything that you feel is going to upset the balance of your campaign. You should do so BEFORE game play starts, but if you feel the need in the middle of a campaign, simply letting your players know what you intend to do and why...maybe letting them replace the offending spell for free as a consolation.

Back on Topic...

I've always felt that the 3.5 teleport spell was a bit stronger than it should have been. Being able to take 1 extra person carrying up to their maximum load per 3 caster levels seems a bit over-strong. At 9th level you can transport yourself and all YOUR gear up to your max load, and 3 other party members carrying up to THEIR max load up to 900 miles (100 miles/caster level). Throw on a couple of girdles of storm giant strength and you can instantly transport several tons worth almost 1000 miles...instantly. Personally I debuff teleport by changing the 1 person per 3 caster levels to an extra 100lbs (living or not) per 3 caster levels. So in my campaigns at 9th level you could teleport yourself and an extra 300 lbs 900 miles...but you still have to KNOW where your going to avoid the random destination shift.

[eggynack]

Nothing in the RAW says that players automatically have to have access to every single spell in the book.
On page 32 of the PHB it says, "A cleric may prepare and cast any spell on the cleric spell list (page 183), provided that he can cast spells of that level." That's very much RAW. Whether an individual DM should make houserules outside of that is a separate issue, but your claim here is very much incorrect.

[Mutazoia]

On page 32 of the PHB it says, "A cleric may prepare and cast any spell on the cleric spell list (page 183), provided that he can cast spells of that level." That's very much RAW. Whether an individual DM should make houserules outside of that is a separate issue, but your claim here is very much incorrect.

Yes, they may prepare and cast any spell on the list, but you forget that as a DM you are free to append that list as you see fit. So if you choose to take True Seeing off that list for your campaign, then they can't prepare and cast it, as now it is technically not on the list. You call call it "houseruling" if you wish, but DM fiat is RAW as well. Nearly the entierity of page 14 in the DMG is all about changing the rules as you see fit. So my claim is very much correct.

[eggynack]

Yes, they may prepare and cast any spell on the list, but you forget that as a DM you are free to append that list as you see fit. So if you choose to take True Seeing off that list for your campaign, then they can't prepare and cast it, as now it is technically not on the list. You call call it "houseruling" if you wish, but DM fiat is RAW as well. Nearly the entierity of page 14 in the DMG is all about changing the rules as you see fit. So my claim is very much correct.
Sure, whatever. It's just an argument that's utterly pointless, and can be used against literally anything ever. According to that logic, there's no RAW that says that wizards can cast spells at all, or that says that monks get the "flurry of blows" ability, or that says that concentration is a constitution based skill. If you want to make house rules, that's perfectly fine, but don't go waving around an incorrect version of RAW, and back it up with rule zero.

[Scow2]

So if you count an 8 hr work day for adventuring (which I doubt adventurers and monster are going to clock out at 9 sharp) and 8 hours for sleep, that leaves another 8 hrs. So if the wizard doesn't stand a watch, doesn't participate in little things like prepairing or eating food he get's 8 hours to study. But this assumes that a group of hard core tomb raiders are going to work 8 hrs a day and spend the other 16 hrs a day in rest. I find that unlikely. More like 12 hrs on 12 hrs off. We take 8 out for sleeping (but only getting 6 hrs of sleep assuming a party of 4 splitting the night watch evenly) which leaves 4 hours. 1 hour is devoted to stuff like eating, and 1 hour is spent refreshing your expended spells, leaving 2 hours to study new spells. Now since you need a "good nights sleep" to refresh your spent spells our wizard may want to use that extra 2 hours to sleep before his watch so he's sure to get his spells back....

Actually, the usual Adventuring Day is less than an hour or two (A full, medium-sized dungeon). They can infamously be only 15 minutes.


Sure, whatever. It's just an argument that's utterly pointless, and can be used against literally anything ever. According to that logic, there's no RAW that says that wizards can cast spells at all, or that says that monks get the "flurry of blows" ability, or that says that concentration is a constitution based skill. If you want to make house rules, that's perfectly fine, but don't go waving around an incorrect version of RAW, and back it up with rule zero.
Actually, there is RAW that wizards can cast spells. They cast spells off the sorcerer/wizard list. They can prepare a prescribed number of spells per day, per their Spells/day section of their class table. Spellcasting is a class feature. The spells themselves are not.

And, it's FAR less of an issue to change/remove individual spells (Including what spells any given spell list has access to) than to change the class itself, though the DM is allowed to make such changes to match the game (s)he wants to run.

The Fallacy in "X isn't a problem because it can be fixed" is the "X is a problem". Saying "X is a problem, but it can be easily fixed" is not the Oberoni Fallacy. And, Rule 0 DOES exist, and is EXPECTED to be used in any sane D&D game. Even Tippy does this sort of stuff.

[Mutazoia]

Sure, whatever. It's just an argument that's utterly pointless, and can be used against literally anything ever. According to that logic, there's no RAW that says that wizards can cast spells at all, or that says that monks get the "flurry of blows" ability, or that says that concentration is a constitution based skill. If you want to make house rules, that's perfectly fine, but don't go waving around an incorrect version of RAW, and back it up with rule zero.

Rules lawyers and obsessive compulsives always hate "rule zero". Nothing like the potential for unscheduled random change to get their digital panties in a wad. :smallbiggrin:

If a rule in the DMG says that any other rule can be changed to better suit the style/flavor of your game, then altering a spell list or an individual spell is, I'm sorry, quite RAW.

Now...back on topic :smallbiggrin:

In short you don't have to ban teleport. It can be nerfed quite effectively (naturally I'm going to prefer MY nerf but you can design one that works for you). Naturally it's better to do this before the campaign starts. However, if your nerfing/banning it mid game, be sure to talk to your players and let them know that you are doing so and why. Most people would understand if you want to alter something that is going to potentially break the game.

[eggynack]

Rules lawyers and obsessive compulsives always hate "rule zero". Nothing like the potential for unscheduled random change to get their digital panties in a wad. :smallbiggrin:

If a rule in the DMG says that any other rule can be changed to better suit the style/flavor of your game, then altering a spell list or an individual spell is, I'm sorry, quite RAW.

Now...back on topic :smallbiggrin:
Actually, people who value intelligent argument find bringing rule zero into a RAW discussion pointless. Everything is RAW, and nothing is RAW. It just doesn't get us anywhere.

Edit: In fact, let's make this more interesting. Teleport is incredibly broken, because for some reason, it was designed as a cantrip, and gets you everywhere you want to go perfectly. Disprove it. This isn't RAW. It's pointless.

[ryu]

@whoever pointed out that every choice has some opportunity cost. I understand that, the point is that the opportunity cost for teleport in, in my opinion, way too low. Not zero, but close.


You can't be serious. Have you LOOKED at the entire list of fifth level spells? There are an absurd number of really good ones. If you said no teleport the wizard shrugs and picks something else. If he's savvy something that gets almost the same effect anyway. The opportunity cost is incredibly large. The actual physical costs of effort, time, gold, and such are low. It's basically the same way people confuse comparative and absolute advantages.

[Mutazoia]

Actually, people who value intelligent argument find bringing rule zero into a RAW discussion pointless. Everything is RAW, and nothing is RAW. It just doesn't get us anywhere.

Everything between the covers is RAW. However, RAW is subject to conditional modifiers. Sure you can play with everything exactly as written in every rule book ever printed reguardless of how convoluted and/or munchkiny things end up. Now if you want to play by RAW, then you have to use ALL the rules as writen, including "Rule Zero". So the argument ends up looking something like:

You can't say X because the PHB says Y
But the DMG says A can alter Y into X
Don't bring A into this were talking RAW
But A is RAW
A is pointless in a RAW discussion
But you said you wanted a RAW discussion, and A is RAW....

There is no spoon....Fun isn't it.

Ok...I vote enough of this...it's derailing the thread.:smallyuk:

[Psyren]

I like the idea of magical travel - trekking in a fantasy novel is nice at the beginning but quickly becomes boring. And as Tippy said at the beginning, teleport opens up a lot of tactical space in the narrative.

But there are alternatives to teleport if you'd like magical travel to still take some time, or be more dangerous. WoT used these methods too - Waygates, Portal Stones, and Skimming for example. D&D has their own versions of these as well - e.g. spells like Shadow Walk or the Astral Caravan power. If you want the party to be able to get somewhere fast (but not too fast) and still be exposed to a little danger or the unexpected along the way, banning teleport isn't too much of a problem.

[Scow2]

Actually, people who value intelligent argument find bringing rule zero into a RAW discussion pointless. Everything is RAW, and nothing is RAW. It just doesn't get us anywhere.

Edit: In fact, let's make this more interesting. Teleport is incredibly broken, because for some reason, it was designed as a cantrip, and gets you everywhere you want to go perfectly. Disprove it. This isn't RAW. It's pointless.You miss the point of bringing Rule 0 into discussions. It is perfectly acceptable to bring suggested changes through Rule 0 to fix something recognized as broken (Or at least broken for a person of interest, such as the OP), and discuss the merits and demerits of those changes here.

We have a Homebrew subforum here. We do NOT have a House Rule subforum here - Houserules are a subset of system rules, and are thus perfectly fine and acceptable to be mentioned when requested/relevent in threads within system-specific subforums.

And, this is not strictly a RAW discussion, either. It's a 3.5 discussion, which includes leeway for Rule 0ing things to make problematic rules work. When someone comes into the forum with a problem about a rule, he's asking other players and DMs that use the system to help him resolve it - Relevant houserules (Especially those that have been tested and found functional by other play groups) are valid discussion - and often even more helpful than "Change the way your game runs to accomodate the RAW", which violates the rule in the DMG to "Change the way RAW works to accomodate your and your players' preferred playstyle."

[eggynack]

Everything between the covers is RAW. However, RAW is subject to conditional modifiers. Sure you can play with everything exactly as written in every rule book ever printed reguardless of how convoluted and/or munchkiny things end up. Now if you want to play by RAW, then you have to use ALL the rules as writen, including "Rule Zero". So the argument ends up looking something like:

You can't say X because the PHB says Y
But the DMG says A can alter Y into X
Don't bring A into this were talking RAW
But A is RAW
A is pointless in a RAW discussion
But you said you wanted a RAW discussion, and A is RAW....

See, the problem is, in actual discussions we have to assume a default game. By default, according to even that section of the DMG, clerics have all spells on their list. By RAW, that is true. Just because that can be changed by a particular DM, that doesn't mean that it will be, or that the base rules stop being RAW.

Edit:

And, this is not strictly a RAW discussion, either. It's a 3.5 discussion, which includes leeway for Rule 0ing things to make problematic rules work.
Sure. Absolutely fine. Discussing what to ban, and whether things are imbalanced is perfectly alright. It's just when RAW is brought into the discussion that things get problematic, and that's what happened.

[Scow2]

Edit:
Sure. Absolutely fine. Discussing what to ban, and whether things are imbalanced is perfectly alright. It's just when RAW is brought into the discussion that things get problematic, and that's what happened.

If RAW is being a problem player, then what you do is what you do with all problem players in a game: Kick it out.

[eggynack]

If RAW is being a problem player, then what you do is what you do with all problem players in a game: Kick it out.
I really don't think we're disagreeing here. He said that clerics getting all spells on their list wasn't RAW. If you disagree with that, you disagree with me, but otherwise I think we're on the same page. I don't know if teleport should necessarily be banned, but the discussion is a valid one.

[Mutazoia]

See, the problem is, in actual discussions we have to assume a default game. By default, according to even that section of the DMG, clerics have all spells on their list. By RAW, that is true. Just because that can be changed by a particular DM, that doesn't mean that it will be, or that the base rules stop being RAW.

True, however my original statement was (and perhaps I worded it poorly in my sleep deprived state) that nothing says clerics have to have access to every spell in the book. Now keep in mind that we are discussing altering a spell list to keep a spell from breaking a game. In this particular discussion we are NOT assuming a default game but one that is being altered, specifically in reguards to the above mentioned spell list. Ergo any point in this discussion that brings rule zero into play is, by default, a valid point, as rule zero is the mechanic by which said list may be altered. (Otherwise the discussion here would be "I want to ban teleport." You can't ban/alter teleport it's in the book, deal with it.")

EDIT:


I really don't think we're disagreeing here. He said that clerics getting all spells on their list wasn't RAW. If you disagree with that, you disagree with me, but otherwise I think we're on the same page. I don't know if teleport should necessarily be banned, but the discussion is a valid one.

Again, if I worded things a bit incorrectly, chalk it up to lack of sleep... Sure, clerics getting all spells on their list is definitely RAW. HOWEVER...that list being etched in unobtanium is NOT RAW. It is RAW that the DM can alter said list (or anything else) if he/she feels the need.

I don't feel teleport needs be banned either...as mentioned in my previous posts (so no need to reitterate)

[ryu]

The problem with your statement was that by RAW you claimed clerics didn't get every spell on your list. By the Rules as Written they do. Having rule zero as a permission to invent houserules and homebrew doesn't change the fact that they are just that, houserules and homebrew.

[Asteron]

A big problem with these discussions is that people bring up their houserules and make sweeping statements on how D&D 3.5 works with those rules. I'm not just talking about this discussion or this forum either. My DM does it.

When we are having a discussion on the rules of 3.5, the only common ground by which we all can base our arguments on is the rules in the text. Once you start bringing houserules into it, you've ceased talking about D&D 3.5 as I know it because those rules aren't within my frame of reference. Rule 0 exists, yes, but your zeros are different than mine. We can't argue which one is more valid because it is completely subjective. The only objective thing we have are the rules (more or less).

[Psyren]

The Cleric list is indeed RAW - every spell lets you know if it is on that list or not.

Relating this to the topic for example, all clerics with the Travel domain get teleport. Even restricting source books doesn't stop this, because Travel is a core domain.

[Mutazoia]

The Cleric list is indeed RAW - every spell lets you know if it is on that list or not.

Relating this to the topic for example, all clerics with the Travel domain get teleport. Even restricting source books doesn't stop this, because Travel is a core domain.

ay dios mio

Never mind...

[Kelb_Panthera]

Not sure iif smoke crosses the window but awesome job.

However the inadequate rest makes zero sense. I've slepted on the ground and woke up refreshed.... Even without a sleeping bag.

It's been a while but, IIRC, I fluffed it as a supernatural element of the non-dimensional space. It doesn't matter if you could sleep like a newborn if you contorted yourself into a suitcase first. You simply cannot get comfortable enough to rest in a rope trick.

The point is that one second level slot is simply too low a cost for that effect. Tiny hut, secure shelter, magnificent mansion; sure, why not? Just no rope-trick.

Someone mentioned bad weather not being enough to stop flight because shapechanging magic -> something big enough to fly in hurricane force winds: that's not all there is to a storm; low-visibility, lightning, thunder, tornado-force winds at high altitude, altitude sickness if you try to fly over, etc, and so on. Nevermind that shapechanging magic is pretty universally viewed as problematic and very frequently housruled (my game included.)

[Pickford]

My point is that it can not. The place you are teleporting has to be safe. If you're on a half broken ledge over molten lava, you're not safe. Also, even if it could happen, which it can not, the chances are insanely small that you would.

The ledge breaks upon arrival through unfortunate circumstances but is otherwise safe. You are wrong that it cannot happen. (for the exact reason just mentioned)

[eggynack]

The ledge breaks upon arrival through unfortunate circumstances but is otherwise safe. You are wrong that it cannot happen. (for the exact reason just mentioned)
I mean, if there's an enemy attacking that particular ledge, sure. There's still a surplus of ways around that problem ( I favor heart of air, for the feather fall, followed by a more effective flight method that takes more time), especially if you have a bit of time to cast before the collapse, and the chances are so minuscule so as to be non-existent.

Edit: Actually, I was thinking that the enemies would be under the ledge, but there's lava there. I'm also failing to understand why nearby monsters would decide they hate you within a second of having met you, and if they clearly would, it looks like you'd get the surprise round. Thus, you'd have to figure that the only way this works is if lightning happens to strike the ledge immediately after you land there. If the ledge breaks without outside intervention, then it wasn't safe, and you can't end up there. This whole thing seems improbable, edging on impossible. It's not quite there yet, but we might get there soon.

[ArcturusV]

Of course, to be the voice of reason, such a thing would also just be incredibly crappy to do and worth walking away from that DM if it happened to you. Right up there with "No one uses spoons to eat soup" and the Quicksilver Shackles in my own personal experience.

Course, if I wanted players to really go on a trek, I'd make that the point of the campaign/adventure, rather than the road to get there. Most adventures only do have like 2 or three "token encounters" on the way to a locale. Of which one of them usually isn't even so much of an Encounter as a warning "You see a smoking crater with a large reptilian footprint and the burnt husk of a wagon at the bottom of it" sort of "Encounters".

Because at the end of the day most people signed on to the Adventure to Plunder the Tome of Archmagus Blows Stuff Up to plunder the tomb, not deal with random stuff roaming the wilderness between here and there.

But it's quite possible to have a 9th or 10th level party still go on a Trek. These characters are the Crusaders, the Trail Blazers. They're going places no one has seen before, seeking out new monsters, and new ruins of old civilizations. The point of the adventure becomes not so much "Plunder the tomb" but "see if there is a tomb"... which means slogging through Wilderness. And then suddenly those wilderness encounters don't feel tedious, and Teleport isn't really so much of an issue. Heck if you're using something like heavy Jungle, even Flight isn't so much an issue. "You see the tops of trees for as far as you can see... there could be an entire nation under there for all you know, you can't see it."

[Mnemnosyne]

My point is that it can not. The place you are teleporting has to be safe. If you're on a half broken ledge over molten lava, you're not safe. Also, even if it could happen, which it can not, the chances are insanely small that you would.
Actually, the teleport spell states that you 'appear safely' when you're off-target. It doesn't state you 'appear in a safe place.' The difference is subtle, but key. 'Appear safely' means that nothing bad happened to you during the teleport, but it doesn't cover anything that may happen to you immediately after the teleport, such as being instantly killed by falling into lava.

Although I agree that by the rules it is fantastically unlikely that you'll wind up in lava, unless it happens to be 'visually or thematically similar' to the place you were actually targeting. However, there is a much more likely scenario. The direction that you're off target is determined randomly. And you can appear quite a distance away. And there is nothing that states that direction is along the ground. It's entirely possible to wind up a number of miles in an upward direction. Since you cannot appear inside a solid material, 'down' is generally not going to be a valid direction for the random off-target to be. However, up, at every possible angle, is definitely valid. So you could appear (let's say you rolled 9 and 2 on your % for 18% of the distance, and were traveling 500 miles) 90 miles straight up, or 90 miles away along the surface, or 90 miles away at a 15 degree angle upward away from the ground. The vast majority of possible trajectories in a hemisphere lead upward in some fashion, which means appearing in space is actually pretty likely, purely by RAW.

If you don't have another teleport memorized, you're probably in deep trouble if that happens. To do it fairly, I'd work out a table of some kind to determine what direction you wind up going in, but given that the majority of possible angles involve 'up' and the distance is likely to be a significant amount, once that table is rolled on you've probably got some serious problems.

[Blightedmarsh]

Here is a thought; make long range teleport a limited resource. By this I mean take it off all spell lists and restrict it to limited use items. This obliges the players to be conservative in its use.

Glyph of teleportation:

This circle is enscribed into to fabric of the dungeon. It can be used to transport anyone within the circle to transport them to one or more preset destinations.

Wand of teleportation:

(X) number of uses. This will transport the target to a preset destination; usually the place of manufacture.

Scroll of teleportation:

As a full round action this will transport the users to a given known or random destination. To use it to go to a given destination it must be prepared and the destination specified in advance. If used unprepared it take you to random parts.

[Sith_Happens]

Right up there with "No one uses spoons to eat soup" and the Quicksilver Shackles in my own personal experience.

:smallconfused:

Please explain these references.

[ArcturusV]

Had to do with one of the worst DMs I had run with. His idea of "Sandbox Gaming" as he called it involved a no roll, just suck Capture and Prison sentence while an irredeemable evil person made me an offer I couldn't refuse.

The Quicksilver Shackles thing came because when he described my "Cell" it was originally sort of posh room. Except I was shackled, and to quote "The chains to your shackles are wrapped around the leg of the couch you woke up on". So after Darth Evil McBadguy leaves. I tell him that I just tip up the couch to slip my chains off. So after the fact he told me that the chains actually went "through the couch's leg", and that I could not break the leg or the chain. When I asked about the sudden change, the explanation was that they were Quicksilver Shackles.

Same session, about 5 minutes of "... the hell?" later, I recall that my Captor tried to feed me some soup (Which I declined for fear of something like Plot Insurance Poisons). But I go, "Ah ha! Soup! That means a spoon. So I'll go and bend off the business end of the spoon, see if I can snap it to a fine enough point and use said spoon handle as an improvised lockpick to escape."

After which I was promptly told "No one eats soup with a spoon, there is no spoon, or flatware of any kind".

[BWR]

Same session, about 5 minutes of "... the hell?" later, I recall that my Captor tried to feed me some soup (Which I declined for fear of something like Plot Insurance Poisons). But I go, "Ah ha! Soup! That means a spoon. So I'll go and bend off the business end of the spoon, see if I can snap it to a fine enough point and use said spoon handle as an improvised lockpick to escape."

After which I was promptly told "No one eats soup with a spoon, there is no spoon, or flatware of any kind".

Which is very much in keeping with most of history and cultures. Honestly, this is in no way objetcionable.

[Augmental]

Which is very much in keeping with most of history and cultures. Honestly, this is in no way objetcionable.

What about the Quicksilver Shackles? :smallconfused:

[BWR]

What about them? I honestly can't tell from the description if the player is just pissed at an otherwise reasonable in-universe occurance or if the DM is just being petty.

[Vaz]

Out of the variety ways of saying 'no' that was quite a terrible way of doing it. 'Make a strength test to break the wood, it is attached to the floor' being the most obvious.

Same with your open lock attempt (despite the fully reasonable 'no spoons') unless you had an open lock skill in the high 20's he could have said 'no despite your best attempts for 2 minutes you are unscusseful', or 'the guards posted outside your room hear your attempt to escape, and come rushing in, roll for initiative', and depending on your value as a prisoner, you could have near infinate guards to deal with. At which point, you are unconcious and subject to plot insurance poison anyway.

[Roguenewb]

You can't be serious. Have you LOOKED at the entire list of fifth level spells? There are an absurd number of really good ones. If you said no teleport the wizard shrugs and picks something else. If he's savvy something that gets almost the same effect anyway. The opportunity cost is incredibly large. The actual physical costs of effort, time, gold, and such are low. It's basically the same way people confuse comparative and absolute advantages.

I think that maybe you don't know what opportunity cost is...

Opportunity cost is what you give up when you make a choice (opportunity cost of a choice is the value of the best alternative forgone to be precise). So, if I have 5 dollars and there is a 5 dollar cheeseburger, a 5 dollar salad and a 3 dollar donut, if I buy the cheese burger it has an opportunity cost of the salad and the donut. The salad is the same, and the donut is a slightly different case in that it also has the opportunity cost of the burger and the salad, but I am left with more resources, in the form of 2 dollars.

Now, in the D&D sense, the cost of learning to teleport is either one of your free spells per level, which carry a reasonable (but far less than most classes get the chance to pay) opportunity cost, since a normal wizard only gets 4 5th level spells this way. But wait! There is another way to add spells! For a measly 750 gold you can scribe teleport into your spellbook. The opportunity cost for using up 750 gold at level 9 is very, very low. Its an almost trivial amount of gold, and thus to scribe teleport you give up almost nothing. It is like in the above example, if I reduced the price of the salad and cheeseburger to 2 dollars and the donut to 1 dollar. In that limited possibility space, nothing has any opportunity cost because buying an item means you give up no possible other options. Teleport doesn't have a zero op-cost, because I could buy a wand of cure light wounds, for example, for 750 gold. However, a level 9 character has so much more gold than 750, and the list of things the player reasonably wants to buy at that level may not be seriously impacted by paying 750 gold. QED the op-cost is low because not much has to be given up. The best alternative to scribing teleport is essentially irrelevant at 9th level.

With the skills idea I was talking about, the resource that needs to be spent is now primarily skill-points. If about a quarter of spells have skill checks associated (as my system is shaping up to) getting enough ranks in Know(Geo) at level 9 may shut off half a dozen very powerful spells you might have been able to manage at the same level. If the opportunity cost of Teleport is Polymorph, Planar Binding, and Scrying, the value of what you've given up is far, far, far higher than 750 gold. If the player decides to spend feats on skill bonuses to get more spells up and running effectively, than thats a valuable op-cost as well, because they aren't spending those feats on metamagic, improved initiative, extraordinary spell-aim and all the other rad feats wizards have to choose from. If the player chooses to buy tones of masterwork tools, and competence items, the total cost gets up into a significant fraction of their wealth, and the op-cost becomes all the other great magic items they could have had.

Do you get it yet? If wizards could only get their 4 free spells and nothing else, teleport would be far better, but it isn't their limit.


Sidenote: Clerics have a more balanced op-cost for teleport. It is only available in domains, and since some domains are really powerful, there is high value foregone in order to "buy" travel domain.

[Flickerdart]

Wouldn't adding skill rank prerequisites to spells screw over Sorcerers even more pointlessly than they are already screwed?

[Roguenewb]

Wouldn't adding skill rank prerequisites to spells screw over Sorcerers even more pointlessly than they are already screwed?

It is a problem yes. One I am currently looking for a solution to. But that is a homebrew problem more than anything to do with the debate about teleport =)

[Flickerdart]

It is a problem yes. One I am currently looking for a solution to. But that is a homebrew problem more than anything to do with the debate about teleport =)
Given that Sorcerers already pay a heavy opportunity cost for spells known, maybe the skill rank thing can only hit prepared casters?

And yeah, it's a bit of a digression.

[Roguenewb]

Given that Sorcerers already pay a heavy opportunity cost for spells known, maybe the skill rank thing can only hit prepared casters?

And yeah, it's a bit of a digression.

My current impulse is to give sorcerers(and favored souls) +CHA to all skills used by spells, and also to say "Whenever you add this spell to your spells known (but not your spellbook!) this skill becomes a class skill for you". My other thought was a flat bonus equal to 1/3 sorc level. Or maybe a spont-only feat chain. I dunno yet.

[Oscredwin]

I think that maybe you don't know what opportunity cost is...

Opportunity cost is what you give up when you make a choice (opportunity cost of a choice is the value of the best alternative forgone to be precise). So, if I have 5 dollars and there is a 5 dollar cheeseburger, a 5 dollar salad and a 3 dollar donut, if I buy the cheese burger it has an opportunity cost of the salad and the donut. The salad is the same, and the donut is a slightly different case in that it also has the opportunity cost of the burger and the salad, but I am left with more resources, in the form of 2 dollars.

Now, in the D&D sense, the cost of learning to teleport is either one of your free spells per level, which carry a reasonable (but far less than most classes get the chance to pay) opportunity cost, since a normal wizard only gets 4 5th level spells this way. But wait! There is another way to add spells! For a measly 750 gold you can scribe teleport into your spellbook. The opportunity cost for using up 750 gold at level 9 is very, very low. Its an almost trivial amount of gold, and thus to scribe teleport you give up almost nothing. It is like in the above example, if I reduced the price of the salad and cheeseburger to 2 dollars and the donut to 1 dollar. In that limited possibility space, nothing has any opportunity cost because buying an item means you give up no possible other options. Teleport doesn't have a zero op-cost, because I could buy a wand of cure light wounds, for example, for 750 gold. However, a level 9 character has so much more gold than 750, and the list of things the player reasonably wants to buy at that level may not be seriously impacted by paying 750 gold. QED the op-cost is low because not much has to be given up. The best alternative to scribing teleport is essentially irrelevant at 9th level.

With the skills idea I was talking about, the resource that needs to be spent is now primarily skill-points. If about a quarter of spells have skill checks associated (as my system is shaping up to) getting enough ranks in Know(Geo) at level 9 may shut off half a dozen very powerful spells you might have been able to manage at the same level. If the opportunity cost of Teleport is Polymorph, Planar Binding, and Scrying, the value of what you've given up is far, far, far higher than 750 gold. If the player decides to spend feats on skill bonuses to get more spells up and running effectively, than thats a valuable op-cost as well, because they aren't spending those feats on metamagic, improved initiative, extraordinary spell-aim and all the other rad feats wizards have to choose from. If the player chooses to buy tones of masterwork tools, and competence items, the total cost gets up into a significant fraction of their wealth, and the op-cost becomes all the other great magic items they could have had.

Do you get it yet? If wizards could only get their 4 free spells and nothing else, teleport would be far better, but it isn't their limit.


Sidenote: Clerics have a more balanced op-cost for teleport. It is only available in domains, and since some domains are really powerful, there is high value foregone in order to "buy" travel domain.

This assumes a magic mart or party artificer/warlock.

[Roguenewb]

This assumes a magic mart or party artificer/warlock.

It assumes that basic scrolls of commonly used core rulebook spells exist. I think magic mart only really comes into play in games where players wanna buy +3 martial lore items, or similiar. In games with really low magic availability, teleport gets even better!

[Kelb_Panthera]

This assumes a magic mart or party artificer/warlock.

So does the DMG. The demographics table shows that any metropolis will have a bit fewer than 30 arcane casters of sufficient level to cast teleport and the availability of magic items and liquid assets to trade for magic items makes getting a scroll for a 4th level spell absolutely trivial in the same city.

Magic items being rare or unavailable is a perfectly valid choice for a DM to make but it's not the default laid out by the DMG.

[Pickford]

Actually, the teleport spell states that you 'appear safely' when you're off-target. It doesn't state you 'appear in a safe place.' The difference is subtle, but key. 'Appear safely' means that nothing bad happened to you during the teleport, but it doesn't cover anything that may happen to you immediately after the teleport, such as being instantly killed by falling into lava.

Although I agree that by the rules it is fantastically unlikely that you'll wind up in lava, unless it happens to be 'visually or thematically similar' to the place you were actually targeting. However, there is a much more likely scenario. The direction that you're off target is determined randomly. And you can appear quite a distance away. And there is nothing that states that direction is along the ground. It's entirely possible to wind up a number of miles in an upward direction. Since you cannot appear inside a solid material, 'down' is generally not going to be a valid direction for the random off-target to be. However, up, at every possible angle, is definitely valid. So you could appear (let's say you rolled 9 and 2 on your % for 18% of the distance, and were traveling 500 miles) 90 miles straight up, or 90 miles away along the surface, or 90 miles away at a 15 degree angle upward away from the ground. The vast majority of possible trajectories in a hemisphere lead upward in some fashion, which means appearing in space is actually pretty likely, purely by RAW.

If you don't have another teleport memorized, you're probably in deep trouble if that happens. To do it fairly, I'd work out a table of some kind to determine what direction you wind up going in, but given that the majority of possible angles involve 'up' and the distance is likely to be a significant amount, once that table is rolled on you've probably got some serious problems.

Good point, lava bath it is. :)

[ahenobarbi]

Actually, the teleport spell states that you 'appear safely' when you're off-target. It doesn't state you 'appear in a safe place.' The difference is subtle, but key. 'Appear safely' means that nothing bad happened to you during the teleport, but it doesn't cover anything that may happen to you immediately after the teleport, such as being instantly killed by falling into lava.

Although I agree that by the rules it is fantastically unlikely that you'll wind up in lava, unless it happens to be 'visually or thematically similar' to the place you were actually targeting. However, there is a much more likely scenario. The direction that you're off target is determined randomly. And you can appear quite a distance away. And there is nothing that states that direction is along the ground. It's entirely possible to wind up a number of miles in an upward direction. Since you cannot appear inside a solid material, 'down' is generally not going to be a valid direction for the random off-target to be. However, up, at every possible angle, is definitely valid. So you could appear (let's say you rolled 9 and 2 on your % for 18% of the distance, and were traveling 500 miles) 90 miles straight up, or 90 miles away along the surface, or 90 miles away at a 15 degree angle upward away from the ground. The vast majority of possible trajectories in a hemisphere lead upward in some fashion, which means appearing in space is actually pretty likely, purely by RAW.

If you don't have another teleport memorized, you're probably in deep trouble if that happens.

I don't really like that rule. It's kinda trivial to handle any complications because of it (Feather Fall, Rope trick, ...) so it feels like adding complexity where it's not needed.

On the other hand I know some people do enjoy solving problems like that.

[ryu]

What you seem to be missing is that fifth level spells hold a metric ton of gems from various schools and that while functional cost is low opportunity cost is incredible. Yes 750 gold is negligible. That's the functional cost. The price you pay for scribing is irrelevant to opportunity cost though. If the wizard had nothing good to pick besides teleport opportunity cost would be miniscule precisely because he was giving up nothing good spending the gold on this rather than the other options. The fact that the wizard can just buy all of the good tricks is irrelevant. As any COMPETENT wizard will tell you though teleport is just one really good trick in a bag of hundreds of similarly good tricks. The misconception that you seem to believe, opportunity cost is a factor of the effort you put in to acquire the output rather than a measure of your next best option, is a common one that a great many people make about basic economics.

[Scow2]

What you seem to be missing is that fifth level spells hold a metric ton of gems from various schools and that while functional cost is low opportunity cost is incredible. Yes 750 gold is negligible. That's the functional cost. The price you pay for scribing is irrelevant to opportunity cost though. If the wizard had nothing good to pick besides teleport opportunity cost would be miniscule precisely because he was giving up nothing good spending the gold on this rather than the other options. The fact that the wizard can just buy all of the good tricks is irrelevant. As any COMPETENT wizard will tell you though teleport is just one really good trick in a bag of hundreds of similarly good tricks. The misconception that you seem to believe, opportunity cost is a factor of the effort you put in to acquire the output rather than a measure of your next best option, is a common one that a great many people make about basic economics.But the wizard can grab Teleport AND all those other cool tricks for negiligible cost. He is not missing out on anything by taking Teleport, because he can get everything else anyway.

[ryu]

Which is irrelevant. As I told you opportunity cost has has nothing to do with low functional costs and high funds. It has to do with the efficiency of taking individual choices as compared to taking other choices of the same or similar cost. Assuming you always pick the best option high opportunity cost is a wonderful thing that we should all strive for. It means that most of your options are powerful and efficient, which in turn means that if the current best option becomes unavailable for some reason you don't lose much.

[Gnaeus]

Course, if I wanted players to really go on a trek, I'd make that the point of the campaign/adventure, rather than the road to get there. Most adventures only do have like 2 or three "token encounters" on the way to a locale. Of which one of them usually isn't even so much of an Encounter as a warning "You see a smoking crater with a large reptilian footprint and the burnt husk of a wagon at the bottom of it" sort of "Encounters".

Because at the end of the day most people signed on to the Adventure to Plunder the Tome of Archmagus Blows Stuff Up to plunder the tomb, not deal with random stuff roaming the wilderness between here and there.

But it's quite possible to have a 9th or 10th level party still go on a Trek. These characters are the Crusaders, the Trail Blazers. They're going places no one has seen before, seeking out new monsters, and new ruins of old civilizations. The point of the adventure becomes not so much "Plunder the tomb" but "see if there is a tomb"... which means slogging through Wilderness. And then suddenly those wilderness encounters don't feel tedious, and Teleport isn't really so much of an issue. Heck if you're using something like heavy Jungle, even Flight isn't so much an issue. "You see the tops of trees for as far as you can see... there could be an entire nation under there for all you know, you can't see it."

Very much this. Some other ways to make the adventurers go on a trek while heading to the tomb may include:

The tomb is protected from magical scrying, as is the BBEG, so you have to track him there. You can't do that while teleporting or at 12,000 feet.

The chief druid is worried that some evil magic is corrupting the wilderness. He asks you to bring back a rare white flower which grows in the mountains near the tomb for him to examine.

The duke that you are working for is worried about rumors from those mountains. Rather than teleporting there, he asks if you would travel on the ground and report back what threats you encountered so that he can be better prepared.

The last survivor of a previous adventuring party tells you that the evil wizard has a mcguffin which alerts him to the use of dimensional travel magic in the area around his tower. You can teleport to the edge of his realm freely, but if you pop in (or out) any closer he will be aware of your arrival and your job will be much harder. You could still fly in, but you know there are monsters that scout the airways and the cloud of darkness that surrounds his tower is unpleasant to enter.

The resistance to the evil empire has a cell active near the enemy base. They are always on the move, but they will find you as you approach the base. They can offer you support in your mission.

Teleport is banned is boring. Teleport is not usable in this situation because of the following factors is a lot more fun and interesting for the players. Stop. Think. Most players will see that you put time and effort into things and that will make things more enjoyable for them.

[Roguenewb]

Which is irrelevant. As I told you opportunity cost has has nothing to do with low functional costs and high funds. It has to do with the efficiency of taking individual choices as compared to taking other choices of the same or similar cost. Assuming you always pick the best option high opportunity cost is a wonderful thing that we should all strive for. It means that most of your options are powerful and efficient, which in turn means that if the current best option becomes unavailable for some reason you don't lose much.

You are completely wrong. Opportunity cost is, "In microeconomic theory, the opportunity cost of a choice is the value of the best alternative forgone, in a situation in which a choice needs to be made between several mutually exclusive alternatives given limited resources. Assuming the best choice is made, it is the "cost" incurred by not enjoying the benefit that would be had by taking the second best choice available." to quote the great Wiki. It has nothing to do with efficiency or whatever you are babbling about.

The value of the best alternative to 750 gp at level 9 is trivial. Scribing teleport probably is the best choice for 750 gp at level 9, and the cost is the benefit you don't enjoy because you scribed teleport instead. Whats the next best use for 750 gp at lvl 9? A wand of lesser vigor? How big a loss is that to a level 9 party?

Multiplayer games, such as D&D, generally add a high opportunity cost to powerful options, A.) in order to prevent 1 player from obtaining all the options and rendering the other players moot, B.) in order to limit a character's utility by allowing only so many powerful options per character, C.) move players away from un-fun or game-breaking options. One of 3.5's categorical problems is that for the Tier 1s, op-costs on pretty much everything are *way* too low. A fighter can get teleport. But the fighter has to give up sooooooo much. Tons of cross-class skill ranks, likely having to had invested more points in INT at character creation, spend a large percentage of wealth on scrolls, and all to get what a wizard gets for the cost of a wand of lesser vigor. Huge op-cost. The wizard can master melee combat. The wizard learns Magic Circle and Planar Binding, spends 50 gp worth of powdered silver, about 1300 gold to learn the spells, and spends 2 spell slots every 9 nine days. Op-cost is *tiny*. Tier 1s are so powerful largely *because* or low op costs.

Please at least go crack a microeconomics textbook, look at wikipedia, or use a dictionary before continuing this conversation, ryu.

[ArcturusV]

Wouldn't it be more appropriate to say the Opportunity Cost of Teleport isn't 750 GP, but not having say, Lesser Planar Binding, or Baleful Polymorph, etc, memorized for the day?

[ryu]

Wouldn't it be more appropriate to say the Opportunity Cost of Teleport isn't 750 GP, but not having say, Lesser Planar Binding, or Baleful Polymorph, etc, memorized for the day?

If you're picking spells per day with limited slots and picking from those spells you'd be basically right. Opportunity cost is the effect of your perceived best alternative. In the case of any fifth level spell opportunity cost is massive because there are a huge number of amazing fifth level spells. Even picking all the good ones up by scribing, which I recommend incidentally, you can't do all of that for the SAME 750 gold. each use of 750 gold is mutually exclusive because you can't just turn 750 gold in for all things with equal or lessor price.

750 gp is more than cheap magic items. It's also OTHER SPELLS you could learn. Further I would recommend avoiding talking about going over the base materials of a class that I aced and went out of my way to not use the same insult in this conversation. This is a polite forum. Don't disrupt the peace of an otherwise polite conversation by resorting to ad hominem.

[Augmental]

If you're picking spells per day with limited slots and picking from those spells you'd be basically right. Opportunity cost is the effect of your perceived best alternative. In the case of any fifth level spell opportunity cost is massive because there are a huge number of amazing fifth level spells. Even picking all the good ones up by scribing, which I recommend incidentally, you can't do all of that for the SAME 750 gold. each use of 750 gold is mutually exclusive because you can't just turn 750 gold in for all things with equal or lessor price.

750 gp is more than cheap magic items. It's also OTHER SPELLS you could learn. Further I would recommend avoiding talking about going over the base materials of a class that I aced and went out of my way to not use the same insult in this conversation. This is a polite forum. Don't disrupt the peace of an otherwise polite conversation by resorting to ad hominem.

So because the wizard can't scribe an overpowered spell to his spellbook because he scribed a different overpowered spell, the latter overpowered spell isn't overpowered? :smallconfused:

[eggynack]

So because the wizard can't scribe an overpowered spell to his spellbook because he scribed a different overpowered spell, the latter overpowered spell isn't overpowered? :smallconfused:
Compared to what? If the question is in comparison to other spells, the answer is, "No, teleport is not overpowered." If the question is in comparison to other options that are not spells, the answer is, "Yes, teleport is overpowered." The point is, there's no point in banning teleport alone, because the wizard will have a wealth of other options that are about that powerful. The wizard's options will always be amazing, regardless.

[ryu]

Exactly Eggy. The wizard is powerful because the arcane spell list is a veritable Swiss army knife of raw power, versatility, and rule changing. If I take the best weapon away from a guy with a million different, similarly terrifying weapons does he stop being terrifying? No. The spells competent wizards pick are all terrifying works of art, and you won't make him cease to be overpowered by removing or nerfing one or two. This is an example of incredible opportunity cost. Even a single scribed spell can be any of hundreds of roughly equally powerful tools.

[TuggyNE]

despite the fully reasonable 'no spoons'

I dearly hope this was meant to be blue.

[Vaz]

Why? Out of sheer laziness lazinessas a student, I rarely use spoons, it just adds to the washing up. I just drink it straight from the pan/microwave dish, and use bread instead

I could see how that could then become a way of life. Or somethingn along the lines of prisoners having their shoelaces and belts taken off them, and the cutlery they get being plastic stuff when in holding cells.

I do have to admit though that 'saying no' I could do better. Such as there is no keyhole this thisside of the door.

[Sith_Happens]

Had to do with one of the worst DMs I had run with. His idea of "Sandbox Gaming" as he called it involved a no roll, just suck Capture and Prison sentence while an irredeemable evil person made me an offer I couldn't refuse.

The Quicksilver Shackles thing came because when he described my "Cell" it was originally sort of posh room. Except I was shackled, and to quote "The chains to your shackles are wrapped around the leg of the couch you woke up on". So after Darth Evil McBadguy leaves. I tell him that I just tip up the couch to slip my chains off. So after the fact he told me that the chains actually went "through the couch's leg", and that I could not break the leg or the chain. When I asked about the sudden change, the explanation was that they were Quicksilver Shackles.

Same session, about 5 minutes of "... the hell?" later, I recall that my Captor tried to feed me some soup (Which I declined for fear of something like Plot Insurance Poisons). But I go, "Ah ha! Soup! That means a spoon. So I'll go and bend off the business end of the spoon, see if I can snap it to a fine enough point and use said spoon handle as an improvised lockpick to escape."

After which I was promptly told "No one eats soup with a spoon, there is no spoon, or flatware of any kind".

...Oh. That story. I remember that story.:smalleek:

[Blightedmarsh]

The original poster said he had already managed to neuter most of the "problem" spells but was stuck on a solution to teleport that did not involve banning it outright.

Perhaps if he gave us a list of what spells he changed, how he changed them and why it would give us a better incite into how he has his system rolling.