Consequences of Banning Teleport

[asnys]

This is just a hypothetical question, not something I'm planning to do in a game, but the more I think about it, the more it seems like a good idea: banning teleport and any other spell or effect that lets you teleport. So no dimension door, teleportation circle, gate, plane shift, etc. Planar travel would be by fixed, naturally-occurring portals only.

The advantages I see are: it gives players a reason to buy those cool vehicles they keep printing. It prevents scry-and-fry tactics, at least in their classical incarnation. You don't have to keep giving your villains weirdstones. Most of all, though, it means you don't lose "the long journey" as a trope in high-level play. Getting from point A to point B is a classic source of adventure, and it's something you can't do any more once you have access to teleport - imagine Lord of the Rings if Gandalf could just teleport the ring to Mordor. (Of course, there are a lot of wizard abilities that would have made LotR very different...)

Am I missing something? (I've been known to do that.) Are there consequences to banning teleport I'm not seeing?

[ryu]

This is just a hypothetical question, not something I'm planning to do in a game, but the more I think about it, the more it seems like a good idea: banning teleport and any other spell or effect that lets you teleport. So no dimension door, teleportation circle, gate, plane shift, etc. Planar travel would be by fixed, naturally-occurring portals only.

The advantages I see are: it gives players a reason to buy those cool vehicles they keep printing. It prevents scry-and-fry tactics, at least in their classical incarnation. You don't have to keep giving your villains weirdstones. Most of all, though, it means you don't lose "the long journey" as a trope in high-level play. Getting from point A to point B is a classic source of adventure, and it's something you can't do any more once you have access to teleport - imagine Lord of the Rings if Gandalf could just teleport the ring to Mordor. (Of course, there are a lot of wizard abilities that would have made LotR very different...)

Am I missing something? (I've been known to do that.) Are there consequences to banning teleport I'm not seeing?

The fact that no one actually wants to spend several sessions traveling through a bland field or similar fighting random encounters? If players wanted to teleport directly to a place it's because the journey between wasn't expected to be interesting or valuable. For an example of this feeling play through early gen pokemon without repels in the caves of infinite zoobat, or the ocean with an infinite supply of really bland jellyfish.

[Demidos]

If you are doing this, there are a couple other things to consider--

Phantom Steed also makes overland journeys fairly moot. It is difficult to think of a monster that could reasonably interact with players if they're travelling at 480 feet per round (almost 60 mph) (with double moves, although technically there is no reason for the horse not to full run as a construct, bringing it up to 120 mph).

Fly spells do the same, by keeping the party from interacting with the ground/the world. The problem here is that you then end up banning Fly spells as well, and then the party buys griffon mounts, and you have to ban that as well...From personal experience, it's hard to deal with unless your players are very willing to deal with you.

It's not NECESSARY to ban fly, of course, but it causes the same lack of interaction as teleport, albeit on a lesser scale. One way to cancel the fly non-interaction is to make the skies interactive as well -- either some crazy homebrew sky world or make them dangerous to fly in.

TLDR I have a similar concern in my game, which is that mobility spells keep players from interacting with the world. However, its a slippery slope of how much to ban, and if you're not careful they could trivially bypass your ban.

[asnys]

The fact that no one actually wants to spend several sessions traveling through a bland field or similar fighting random encounters? If players wanted to teleport directly to a place it's because the journey between wasn't expected to be interesting or valuable. For an example of this feeling play through early gen pokemon without repels in the caves of infinite zoobat, or the ocean with an infinite supply of really bland jellyfish.

I've certainly spent my time in a campaign where travel was boring. This was 1E, and we spent months of real time hiking from one part of Greyhawk to another, and my God it was dull. Mostly what I remember is that our DM had massive tables of weather pre-rolled, and every time it rained, he rolled to see if we were struck by lightning... We actually lost a character that way, to a lightning strike.

But the solution, it seems to me, would be to make travel more interesting, not to get rid of it. Or, if there's just something about travel that's intrinsically dull, shouldn't we be giving everyone a way out of it? Why make 'em wait until they're high enough level for teleport?

[Gruftzwerg]

I wouldn't straight ban it, cause that would limit the players to much and cause to much down times (e.g. you travel for 2 weeks. does something happen on day 1? no. day 2? no. ... It's something you can use for low lvls who might have some fun with some bandits/wolves/whatsoever, but for higher lvl PCs it gets really fast boring.

Imho try to restrict it:
- you can only teleport to places where you have already been (in person, not with magic).
- increase the availability for anti teleport mechanisms (e.g. wealthy cities limit your targeted location to the "towns portal" and suppresses any kind of other teleport within the city to prevent crime). wealthy NPCs should have access to these tools to.


There are enough ways to restrict it without banning it completely. Imho you should consider this solution.

[ryu]

I've certainly spent my time in a campaign where travel was boring. This was 1E, and we spent months of real time hiking from one part of Greyhawk to another, and my God it was dull. Mostly what I remember is that our DM had massive tables of weather pre-rolled, and every time it rained, he rolled to see if we were struck by lightning... We actually lost a character that way, to a lightning strike.

But the solution, it seems to me, would be to make travel more interesting, not to get rid of it. Or, if there's just something about travel that's intrinsically dull, shouldn't we be giving everyone a way out of it? Why make 'em wait until they're high enough level for teleport?

At very low levels the party presumeably started in a civilization of some sort. You can't think of enough things to do within reasonable distance of the first town to get to level seven?

[Kantolin]

To be fair, even without teleport, the players can just say, 'Okay, we go to Helm's Deep', and then the the DM can respond, "Two weeks later, you arrive in helm's deep / interact with this encounter/event/etc on the way" in so many words.

Or include a much longer description to make the distance feel more like distance, mind you, but the point is that it doesn't need to take you two weeks realtime to journey two weeks gametime.

Just ask Haley (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0155.html) about later that evening... although it doesn't work so well for Roy later when he's tromping through the desert, haha. :P

[Runeclaw]

To be fair, even without teleport, the players can just say, 'Okay, we go to Helm's Deep', and then the the DM can respond, "Two weeks later, you arrive in helm's deep / interact with this encounter/event/etc on the way" in so many words.

So much this. "Travel is boring" makes no sense as a response to a proposal to eliminate teleport.

It seems like the goal is more to prevent PCs from bypassing all the initial encounters to scry-and-die the big bad. Which seems like a legitimate concern. Anti-teleport magic works, I suppose, but that's shifting your world towards high-magic, which maybe isn't your preference.

I wouldn't include Dimension Door in the list, though, as that form of teleport is tactical and not plot-busting.

[ryu]

So much this. "Travel is boring" makes no sense as a response to a proposal to eliminate teleport.

It seems like the goal is more to prevent PCs from bypassing all the initial encounters to scry-and-die the big bad. Which seems like a legitimate concern. Anti-teleport magic works, I suppose, but that's shifting your world towards high-magic, which maybe isn't your preference.

I wouldn't include Dimension Door in the list, though, as that form of teleport is tactical and not plot-busting.

Do keep in mind the OP really rather made it seem like the travel itself wouldn't just be skipped if they banned teleport. If it were skipped that might actually be preferred to teleporting. You're offering me HOW many days to scribe scrolls, spellbook pages, or craft magic items? Two weeks?! Okay no need to skip this wagon ride. Just hope the people who don't have scribing or crafting to do are fine with it.

[Doctor Awkward]

This is just a hypothetical question, not something I'm planning to do in a game, but the more I think about it, the more it seems like a good idea: banning teleport and any other spell or effect that lets you teleport. So no dimension door, teleportation circle, gate, plane shift, etc. Planar travel would be by fixed, naturally-occurring portals only.

The advantages I see are: it gives players a reason to buy those cool vehicles they keep printing. It prevents scry-and-fry tactics, at least in their classical incarnation. You don't have to keep giving your villains weirdstones. Most of all, though, it means you don't lose "the long journey" as a trope in high-level play. Getting from point A to point B is a classic source of adventure, and it's something you can't do any more once you have access to teleport - imagine Lord of the Rings if Gandalf could just teleport the ring to Mordor. (Of course, there are a lot of wizard abilities that would have made LotR very different...)

Am I missing something? (I've been known to do that.) Are there consequences to banning teleport I'm not seeing?

Well forgive me if I am mistaken, but from the tone of your post it sounds like your biggest concern is players skipping right to the boss monster with the use of "Scry-and-Die", leaning more against the the transportation portion of the tactic rather than the information gathering (The 'die' more than the 'scry', so to speak).


Well, you can take two approaches:

~THE FLUFF APPROACH~

The most straight forward method of moderating the use of teleport effects in your games is coming up with some kind of effect in your games that interferes with your world's connection to the other various planes. All conjuration (teleportation) effects function by having the character in question pass through the Astral Plane to reach his destination instantaneously.

Off the top of my head there are two "officially" printed effects I can recall that do this. In Elder Evils, the Seal of Binding manifestation tied to Pandorym disrupts the world's connection to the other planes. All conjuration effects of the calling, summoning, and teleportation subschools are impeded, requiring a Spellcraft check to succeed at first. It escalates to summoned creatures not returning home when the spell ends, instead running around no longer being under the casters control, and teleportation effects all suffering a 20% chance of a mishap, regardless of familiarity with destination. It culminates with the effects simply ceasing to function. It has other nasty effects on divine spellcasters as well, such as interfering with commune, and other things that contact extraplanar beings, to eventually outright stopping them from regaining spells(!)

The second was in the Quicksilver Hourglass epic level adventure printed in issue #123 of Dungeon Magazine. The adventure takes place in a pocket dimension called a "timevoid" in which time flows differently than normal, and is likewise completely cut off from the rest of the D&D Cosmology (explicitly the Astral, Ethereal, and Shadow Planes). The list of spells that cease to function inside the Hourglass is astral projection, blink, dimension door, dimensional anchor, ethereal jaunt, etherealness, greater shadow conjuration, greater teleport, Leomund's secret chest, project image, shades, shadow conjuration, shadow evocation, shadow walk, teleport, and teleportation circle. Summoning and calling spells also do not work unless the caster is targeting something already inside the dungeon. Any spells that involve travel in or out also automatically fail (plane shift, dismissal, banishment, etc.)

The advantages of this approach include:
-Awesome memorable story hooks, obviously.
-It provides an incentive for creative players to get more invested in the game as they have to find ways to play around the limitations now imposed on them.

Disadvantages include
-It flat-out hoses a number of different builds, such as shadow-pouncing (which may range from 'irrelevant' to 'good thing' depending on your group), summoning focused builds, such as things that include malconvoker (which, again, is much less of a headache for the DM, and it's not like any ever complained about a wizard or druids lack of options), and if you are in Pathfinder, Summoner (...okay, I'm sure someone somewhere would consider this a disadvantage)
-At high level play, this does not prevent players from simply using the Wish spell (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/wish.htm) to traverse long distances. One listed function of that spell is to simply move one target creature per caster level from any place on a plane to any other place on that plane regardless of local conditions. This effect does not involve any form of planar travel, and is indeed explicitly listed as functioning inside the Quicksilver Hourglass adventure.


~THE MECHANICAL APPROACH~

Pretty much this is simply hardbanning the use of spells such as teleport, greater teleport, teleportation circle, and any other effect that interferes with the "Road to Adventure" aspect of D&D as you see fit.

The only real advantage to this method is that has far less of an unintentional effect on the builds of the players.

Disadvantages include:
-As was already mentioned in this thread; players making use of alternate methods of overland travel to skip your journey anyway (like flight).
-Without explaining to your players up front why you are doing this, it feels a little arbitrary. Players with extensive knowledge of the D&D Cosmology might wonder if there is some greater purpose behind it, and start pressing in a direction you didn't really plan for.
-Even with and up front explanation, it might feel a bit railroad-y to players that rather enjoy teleporting about from place to place for whatever reason.

That's more of a personal issue that can probably be easily avoided by just explaining the game up front. "Hey guys, I'm gonna do a game where these effects don't exist. Let me know if you are interested." If they ask why, just tell them why.

[Troacctid]

I don't think dimension door is overpowered. 4th level seems like a fair spell level for that effect. Psionic dimension door might be overpowered with its extra augmentations.

In 5e, the 5th level teleport spell is teleportation circle, and it can only teleport you to permanent teleportation circles, which are found in major cities and other key locations, and you have to know a circle's sigil sequence in order to teleport to it. Teleport is a 7th level spell, and there is no greater teleport.

[Mehangel]

I dont know if you are familiar with the Youtube series: Tales From My D&D Campaign, but the GM Demonac does in my opinion a really good job at limiting teleportation without outright banning it. What he does is enforces a costly material component (Eldritch Eyes) which can only be recovered from creatures with the Aberration creature type.

[Jack_Simth]

Phantom Steed also makes overland journeys fairly moot. It is difficult to think of a monster that could reasonably interact with players if they're travelling at 480 feet per round (almost 60 mph) (with double moves, although technically there is no reason for the horse not to full run as a construct, bringing it up to 120 mph).Something to keep in mind: The result of a Phantom Steed (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/phantomSteed.htm) spell is never called out as a construct. The closest it comes to specifying a type (or any other stats beyond HP, speed, dex, ACm, carrying capacity, combat interactions, and a few special abilities) is calling it a "quasi-real, horselike creature". It might be a construct. It also might be treated exactly like a horse except where otherwise noted - in which case, there is a problem with riding it at a run for more than a minute, or even with riding it at a Hustle for more than an hour. What it is, exactly, will vary from table to table.

Largely irrelevant, though; the base move of 100, though, at caster level 5 (when your basic Wizard first gets it), means that you're going to be leaving most critters behind just at a walk, a trot (hustle) will get most the rest behind (200 feet per round), and a one-minute Gallop (Run) will be getting you either 400 or 500 feet each round, putting you out of catch-up speed of pretty much anything short of a dragon in flight.

[Zombimode]

Am I missing something? (I've been known to do that.) Are there consequences to banning teleport I'm not seeing?

Well, some people really like Teleportation. For me it defines high magic. And wizardry in general. In CRPGs the likelihood of me playing a mage increases dramatically when teleportation spells are available.

[Luccan]

Banning it is potentially bad for when your players need or "need" to teleport. There are plenty of situations where it could be necessary or convenient to teleport, due to time. It's also really cool for the high level party to appear suddenly in a flash of light in front of the enemy keep. If you want to avoid scry-and-die, you might want to think of some fluff reason or use those mechanical work-arounds. Alternately, move some of the spells that make that easy up to higher levels. Fixed teleportation points could be really interesting, but why can't a near epic level wizard shift planes when they can summon powerful demons and celestials from their own planes?

[Jack_Simth]

The advantages I see are: it gives players a reason to buy those cool vehicles they keep printing. It prevents scry-and-fry tactics, at least in their classical incarnation. You don't have to keep giving your villains weirdstones. Most of all, though, it means you don't lose "the long journey" as a trope in high-level play. Getting from point A to point B is a classic source of adventure, and it's something you can't do any more once you have access to teleport - imagine Lord of the Rings if Gandalf could just teleport the ring to Mordor. (Of course, there are a lot of wizard abilities that would have made LotR very different...)

Am I missing something? (I've been known to do that.) Are there consequences to banning teleport I'm not seeing?
Consequences you're not seeing:
Sometimes, the party really does need to retreat that quickly.
If it's not possible at all, you can't use it either without getting dirty looks from the party.

For the result you want, you really only need to get rid of long-range precision outbound teleportation. Plane Shift doesn't remove any of the things you want - ending up 5d100 miles off course in a random direction prevents Scry & Fry quite nicely, and you'll still have a long journey at the end (with the added bonus that you won't necessarily know where you'll be when you do). Word of Recall can't take you to the enemy's sanctum, just retreats you. Dimension Door really only gets the party past a handful of obstacles. Gemjump and Refuge have a prerequisite of being able to get a physical object there in the first place. And so on.

So to get what you want with minimal changes:
1) Dump the Planar Travel function of Gate (The Calling function is as fine as it ever was).
2) Modify Teleport and similar spells to have a similar off-target arrival as Plane Shift.
3) Modify Greater Teleport, Greater Plane Shift, and similar spells to have a similar off-target arrival as Shadow Walk.
4) Modify Teleportation Circle to require it operates in pairs - a specific receiver must be constructed at the arrival location, which must be paired with a specific sending circle. AKA, you must already have access to the target area.

Short-range teleportation (Such as Dimension Door) doesn't impact what you want, so you can leave that alone. Spells that take you back to a pre-defined location (Refuge, Word of Recall, and similar) don't impact what you want, so you can leave those alone too. Spells that require you get an object to the target location (Gemjump, Refuge, and similar) require you already be able to get there (or at least, an agent there), so you don't need to mess with those. Things that have an off-target component already (Plane Shift, Shadow Walk) don't much affect what you want, so you can leave those alone as well.

Plus, of course, if you leave some things in... you can use it offensively as plot-points and still get what you want. A Wizard teleported in and kidnapped the princess! How? Well, he prepared two rogue stones for Gemjump, Charmed the princess's maid into carrying one of them around on a piece of jewelry, cast Greater Scrying on the maid until she was with the princess, invoked the first Gemjump to get to the pair, cast a few spells to disable the princess (Deep Slumber, perhaps), grabbed her, and used the second Gemjump to get out. Clever players can also arrange this sort of thing, of course, but the arrangement becomes an adventure in itself and it's still not as effective as 'standard' scry & fry (think about it: You need to 1) figure out a proxy who gets close enough to your target, 2) find a way to observe the proxy without arousing suspicion, 3) find a way to get the proxy to do what you want, then 4) wait for the proxy to come in range - the first will take at least some investigation, the second is problematic due to it being possible to notice scrying sensors, the third means you need access to the proxy, and the fourth means you are going to have problems using your minute/level or rounds/level buffs before jumping in, as you've no idea how long the proxy will be in contact with the target).

[Darth Ultron]

Am I missing something? (I've been known to do that.) Are there consequences to banning teleport I'm not seeing?

I think it works better to just adjust the teleportation subschool a bit:

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)
You can only teleport a number of miles equal to your caster level. (When teleporting through the use of a racial ability, the distance is limited to a number of miles equal to your total HD.)

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.
If the caster does not have a full hour of study on a location, the chance of the teleportation success is only 20%, plus one percent per caster level.



My house rules fix the problems with by-the-book teleportation, but still leave it useful. Also, adding feats, spells, magic items, and such to alter and change things too.

As others have said, if you ban teleportation...you need to ban all travel spells too.

[Ualaa]

Whether you use Spheres of Power or not, the 'Advanced Magic System' is an interesting section similar to the idea of this thread.

Their basic idea is that most magic is basic.
But the things in the 'Advanced' section, while not necessarily more powerful, are game changing.

If you look at Lord of the Rings, the Wheel of Time, Mistborn or the like, most of the not-in-the-advance section could be used fine with those settings.
But most/some of the options in 'Advanced Magic' drastically alter how a given setting plays.



Some of the 'Advanced Magic' includes:

Anti-Magic Aura
Astral Travel
Atonement
Creation of Undead
Dimensional Lock
Dominate
Permanent shapechange
Possession
Raise Dead/Resurrection
Reverse Gravity
Scry
Summoning via rituals/circles
Teleport/Greater Teleport/Planeshift
Trap the Soul
True Seeing

[Ualaa]

The fact that no one actually wants to spend several sessions traveling through a bland field or similar fighting random encounters? If players wanted to teleport directly to a place it's because the journey between wasn't expected to be interesting or valuable. For an example of this feeling play through early gen pokemon without repels in the caves of infinite zoobat, or the ocean with an infinite supply of really bland jellyfish.

Traveling between 'There' and 'Here' took six weeks.
Along the way, the only noteworthy encounters were...

Play a few things out.

It doesn't have to take six sessions of play to have the characters travel overland for six weeks.
Whether that's through the wilderness, or along a patrolled highway in highly civilized lands.

Just my take, anyway.
Your setting may be different.

[Bucky]

There's no reason why Teleport interference needs to also interfere with Summoning; you can instead change how Summoning works in the setting. For example, it might make a imperfect temporary copy of the 'summoned' creature that ceases to exist at the end of the spell.

[Klara Meison]

This is just a hypothetical question, not something I'm planning to do in a game, but the more I think about it, the more it seems like a good idea: banning teleport and any other spell or effect that lets you teleport. So no dimension door, teleportation circle, gate, plane shift, etc. Planar travel would be by fixed, naturally-occurring portals only.

The advantages I see are: it gives players a reason to buy those cool vehicles they keep printing. It prevents scry-and-fry tactics, at least in their classical incarnation. You don't have to keep giving your villains weirdstones. Most of all, though, it means you don't lose "the long journey" as a trope in high-level play. Getting from point A to point B is a classic source of adventure, and it's something you can't do any more once you have access to teleport - imagine Lord of the Rings if Gandalf could just teleport the ring to Mordor. (Of course, there are a lot of wizard abilities that would have made LotR very different...)

Am I missing something? (I've been known to do that.) Are there consequences to banning teleport I'm not seeing?

"Long journey" is a low-level trope, in my opinion. What is it you want to show your players on that journey? If they can use Teleport, they are what, level 9 minimum? At that point animals, robbers and other such obstacles aren't even a threat anymore, and your party will get tired wiping their blood off their shoes quite fast. In my opinion, growing higher in level should mean something-at level 10 you shouldn't be fighting random groups of bandits, you should be fighting entire armies. Is your adventure set in the higher circles of Hell(or a similar location) where CR 10-11 encounters are all over the place? Then you can probably justify making Teleport less effective. Just insure that your Wizard can teleport on the material plane and still feel like a badass Wizard.

As for scrying, it's blocked by a "thin sheet of lead" or 1 foot of stone. It's like the easiest spell to block in the whole book.

[ace rooster]

Teleport has a 'DM says no' clause written into it.


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

A dragon will create an area of strong magical energy just by snoring, and anybody worried about scry and die will know the limits of teleportation. Heck, it even gives the evil overlord a reason to build their fort in an active volcano.

If the goal is to force the PCs to travel on foot, there are better ways of achieving it. A heavy maguffin that cannot be teleported (and also cannot be teleported near) can grant the same effect temporarily.

[Waker]

My preference for teleport are the fixed-point approach. Teleporting works through the leyline flows and you come out where paths intersect. Sometimes it's a city or a special location. Interplanar travel in done via portals to specific places. Short range teleport like Dimension Door or "savepoint" spells like Word of Recall work as normal.
And rather than narrate every hour of a trip, I do use fast travel descriptions for those on foot.

[Cosi]

I would be very careful about removing teleport. In my mind, it's basically the poster child for player agency. It allows strategic agency, because you can travel to whichever cities you want to. It allows tactical agency, because you can skip encounters that aren't engaging.


Planar travel would be by fixed, naturally-occurring portals only.

If those are at all common, they will have a dramatic effect on the setting. If there are permanent portals to the Elemental Plane of Fire lying around, that's going cause some dramatic shifts in industry in a way that teleport never did.


The advantages I see are: it gives players a reason to buy those cool vehicles they keep printing.

teleport isn't the reason I'm dropping money on vehicles. The reason I'm not dropping money on vehicles is because I could spend that money on better magical gear. You want people to buy airships? Use a better magic item system.


It prevents scry-and-fry tactics, at least in their classical incarnation.

Scry-and-Die isn't really a result of teleport, and you can't really fix it by removing teleport. Scry-and-Die happens because the paradigm of D&D (very powerful short term buffs, relatively weak area defenses) make being on the attack much more appealing than being on the defense. If you want to fix Scry-and-Die, make it a worse idea to attack people in their fortresses.


If you look at Lord of the Rings, the Wheel of Time, Mistborn or the like, most of the not-in-the-advance section could be used fine with those settings.
But most/some of the options in 'Advanced Magic' drastically alter how a given setting plays.

What the balls? Wheel of Time is basically a magic Lensman Arms Race, and the entire plot of Mistborn is that a high level caster figured out an infinite loop and conquered the world. How the hell are either of those your go to examples for "settings that work best with limited magic"?


Reverse Gravity

The rest of the list is stuff that is bad to remove for various reasons (e.g. you really need raise dead at mid-to-high levels), but at least they're things people generally ask to nerf. But what do you have against reverse gravity? Is there some sweet reverse gravity abuse I've never heard about?


Teleport has a 'DM says no' clause written into it.

Please don't do that. There are plenty of ways to beat teleport (illusions, information control, strong defenses), which don't rely on saying "ha ha, that doesn't work".


And rather than narrate every hour of a trip, I do use fast travel descriptions for those on foot.

If you let people fast travel, why would you ban teleport?

[Dragonexx]

There have been various homebrew rules to prevent scry and die tactics. Take this rule.


Dungeons: By the Gods, Why?

Alright, we know that you love dungeons. We love them too, despite the fact that we’re pretty sure there is no good reason for the silly things. The average D&D game world is frankly incapable of the technology or manpower needed to build vast underground complexes. I mean, look at our own world history: aside from a single underground city in Turkey and a couple of pyramids and tombs, the ancient world took a pass on underground life. Even the old excuse of "Wizards can magic it up and they do it because it's defensible" is a bit lame, considering that we are talking about a world with teleport and burrowing and ethereal travel; being underground is actually a liability since it's harder to escape and people can drop the roof onto you, not to mention the incredible costs involved in doing it even if magic is available.

So here is what we suggest: dungeons have an actual magical purpose. By putting anything behind at least 40’ of solid, continuous material (like solid walls of dirt, stone, ice, or whatever, but not a forest of trees or rooms of furniture), the area is immune to unlimited-range or "longer than Long Range" spells like scry and transportation magic like teleport, greater teleport, the travel version of gate, and other effects. You can use these magics inside a dungeon, but you are also stopped by a 40’ solid, continuous material in a Line of Effect; this means you can use these effects inside a dungeon to bypass doors and walls, but entering and leaving the dungeon is a problem, and parts of the dungeon that have more than 30’ of material in the way between your position and the target of your effect will be effectively isolated from your position.

In summary, in a best-case scenario, you can transport yourself to a dungeon, then bust in the entrance and enter the dungeon, then transport yourself to the place you want to be inside the dungeon. In a worse-case scenario, the dungeon designer will have built the dungeon in such a way that only someone aware of the layout can take full advantage of unlimited range or transportation spells like teleports and scry, or even that most or all areas of the dungeon are inaccessible to these effects.

Of course, there are exceptions. The idea of permanent portals, gates, or teleport circles are just too common in DnD and too fun to just abandon. Permanent effects will continue to regardless of materials in the way, and will be the premier way to enter and leave dungeons, as well as the best way to move inside a dungeon.

By incorporating these changes in your DnD world, you are ensuring that players actually explore rooms in your dungeons that you have painstakingly built, you avoid all the problems with Scry-and-Die tactics, and you'll find that players actually care about dungeon geography. It also adds a bit to suspension of disbelief in your setting, which is only good for a cooperative storytelling game.

Also, the problem with things like airships and so forth is that they typically become available some time after other more convenient abilites have come online. Not just teleportation effects, but things like overland flight, phantom steed, and so forth. Airships and other vehicles seriously need to be made available at level 1.

[Pex]

This is just a hypothetical question, not something I'm planning to do in a game, but the more I think about it, the more it seems like a good idea: banning teleport and any other spell or effect that lets you teleport. So no dimension door, teleportation circle, gate, plane shift, etc. Planar travel would be by fixed, naturally-occurring portals only.

The advantages I see are: it gives players a reason to buy those cool vehicles they keep printing. It prevents scry-and-fry tactics, at least in their classical incarnation. You don't have to keep giving your villains weirdstones. Most of all, though, it means you don't lose "the long journey" as a trope in high-level play. Getting from point A to point B is a classic source of adventure, and it's something you can't do any more once you have access to teleport - imagine Lord of the Rings if Gandalf could just teleport the ring to Mordor. (Of course, there are a lot of wizard abilities that would have made LotR very different...)

Am I missing something? (I've been known to do that.) Are there consequences to banning teleport I'm not seeing?

But that's parcel to having Teleport. By the time you're high enough level to have Teleport regularly getting to where the adventure takes place isn't as important anymore. Characters are wealthy enough not to worry about minutiae of food and lodging. They're not guarding caravans anymore. If there are always bandits or wandering killing monsters or evil creatures on the road how does any trade happen at all? It's fun to read about an epic journey. Playing one is not the same experience. The important thing is the adventure. Fharlangan be praised, but the game's point at these levels is the destination not the journey. What difference does it make between as DM say "After three weeks travel you arrive home" and the wizard just teleports everyone back? The party finished the adventure, goes home, and nothing happened in between. You might say something does happen. Possible, but why all the time? At 12th level of play random encounters that have nothing to do with anything of the Plot but happen just because you're traveling down a road become a waste of real world play time. This is different from random encounters that might happen in a particular area the party is in because the Plot is happening in that area.

[Vaz]

Banning teleport is creating a flying simulator, or a walking simulator worst case scenario if the party doesn't have ready access to long duration flight. What purpose does the extra time spent walking serve?

It also raises doubts about verisimilitude, as in, why are there only level appropriate threats now? Sure, it's easy enough to handwaive that the party of 4-5 heavily armed inidividuals dripping in magical items are going to be more than a match for even the thickest of Orc bandits, and so they don't attack but that doesn't answer the point as to why CR9+ monsters are frequently wandering the countryside whereas they weren't before.

The odd occasion, of where you get set upon by the head of the local thieves guild as he comes to investigate who has been ruffing up his heavies extorting money might happen. The odd hydra pushed out of its swamp thanks to an adult black dragon which has now settled in its former den, but then that serves as the typical entree to a dungeon that can otherwise be served by a Barman, and that's assuming that the parties Knowledge guru points out the strangeness for a Hydra wandering open roads and countrysides, and may need it spoonfeeding to them.

What is served by them walking/flying, when teleporting won't do. It's not as though they're not already "teleporting" because of the whole "one, two, skip a few" attitude to downtime that D&D games have.

In RPG's, it may or may not be fitting. Skyrim doesn't have teleportation, but Elder Scrolls Online has Waypoints which can teleport you between the network. One has teleportation, the other doesn't. Skyrim has Fast Travel if you wish to use it. Either from the map, or via Cart. They achieve the same, fade to black, arrive at destination.

[Malroth]

Probably the biggest drawback of teleport bans is the fact that the DM looses the best, most reliable method to make a Villian into a reoccurring threat.

[Yahzi]

How often do the bad guys use scry-and-die against the players?

My proposed fix: in addition to seriously enforcing the dangerous rolls that come with teleport, subjects of the spell are Dazed for 3 full rounds.

Would that make a significant difference?

[ryu]

How often do the bad guys use scry-and-die against the players?

My proposed fix: in addition to seriously enforcing the dangerous rolls that come with teleport, subjects of the spell are Dazed for 3 full rounds.

Would that make a significant difference?

Well for one people start picking up daze immunity, and for two everyone having daze immunity means celerity becomes even more meta defining.

[Vogie]

I dont know if you are familiar with the Youtube series: Tales From My D&D Campaign, but the GM Demonac does in my opinion a really good job at limiting teleportation without outright banning it. What he does is enforces a costly material component (Eldritch Eyes) which can only be recovered from creatures with the Aberration creature type.

This would be my solution to a certain extent. My pick would be making it easy for players to backtrack, lookback or travel between cities, teleporting to places that they know, while making it possible but costly to teleport and scry to skip ahead of the plot.

My choice would be a Melange-style rare spice for going forward, and some sort of physical token to move backward, whether that be enchanted Writs of Passage (non-consumable scrolls attuned to a certain location), City Keys, Hearthstones, Sling Rings, you name it. The reason it should be something physical to go back to a previous location is so the players can lose them/have them stolen as a potential McGuffin in your back pocket.

[ryu]

This would be my solution to a certain extent. My pick would be making it easy for players to backtrack, lookback or travel between cities, teleporting to places that they know, while making it possible but costly to teleport and scry to skip ahead of the plot.

My choice would be a Melange-style rare spice for going forward, and some sort of physical token to move backward, whether that be enchanted Writs of Passage (non-consumable scrolls attuned to a certain location), City Keys, Hearthstones, Sling Rings, you name it. The reason it should be something physical to go back to a previous location is so the players can lose them/have them stolen as a potential McGuffin in your back pocket.

If you start trying to steal the PCs things you begin a different kind of arms race than the normal combat one. I warn you right now that crafty PCs are willing to go to some pretty disturbing lengths to keep their stuff from being stolen.

[Waker]

If you let people fast travel, why would you ban teleport?
Mostly so they can't completely bypass what could still have challenged them or finding plot hooks/setting flavor. An invading army could provide an obstacle, since they could very well have magical or mundane flight, encouraging the party to sneak around. NPCs will have to ramble madly in the streets about the unknown creature stalking travelers in the forest, since teleporting adventurers would never discover it otherwise.
Those are just quick examples, but basically teleporting removes options to engage the party. Everything has to happen where the party is going to, no where in between. Narrative-size it functions like fast travel 100% of the time, but if they are walking/flying/whatever, the DM can at least describe the scenery. Plus traveling gives the players downtime for crafting.

[ryu]

Mostly so they can't completely bypass what could still have challenged them or finding plot hooks/setting flavor. An invading army could provide an obstacle, since they could very well have magical or mundane flight, encouraging the party to sneak around. NPCs will have to ramble madly in the streets about the unknown creature stalking travelers in the forest, since teleporting adventurers would never discover it otherwise.
Those are just quick examples, but basically teleporting removes options to engage the party. Everything has to happen where the party is going to, no where in between. Narrative-size it functions like fast travel 100% of the time, but if they are walking/flying/whatever, the DM can at least describe the scenery. Plus traveling gives the players downtime for crafting.

I mean what? Do your worlds not have entire organizations dedicated to informing murder-hobos of loot opportunities, while channeling same into the goals of society? Murder-hobos are at once the wealthiest people, and the people most likely to get dangerous work done, and you expect the world not to be built around that?

[Waker]

I mean what? Do your worlds not have entire organizations dedicated to informing murder-hobos of loot opportunities, while channeling same into the goals of society? Murder-hobos are at once the wealthiest people, and the people most likely to get dangerous work done, and you expect the world not to be built around that?

Nope, I'm one of those mean DMs who doesn't repeatedly tell the party they are the center of the universe. I sometime even make things happen offscreen.

[Vaz]

Mostly so they can't completely bypass what could still have challenged them or finding plot hooks/setting flavor. An invading army could provide an obstacle, since they could very well have magical or mundane flight, encouraging the party to sneak around. NPCs will have to ramble madly in the streets about the unknown creature stalking travelers in the forest, since teleporting adventurers would never discover it otherwise.
Those are just quick examples, but basically teleporting removes options to engage the party. Everything has to happen where the party is going to, no where in between. Narrative-size it functions like fast travel 100% of the time, but if they are walking/flying/whatever, the DM can at least describe the scenery. Plus traveling gives the players downtime for crafting.

Your examples don't make any sense. Where was this army when they were lower level? Where were these monsters when they were lower level? Have the miraculously appeared over night now that the party is conveniently high enough level to fight them?

[ryu]

Nope, I'm one of those mean DMs who doesn't repeatedly tell the party they are the center of the universe. I sometime even make things happen offscreen.

Oh the party isn't the center of the universe. Adventurers in general are. All the hundreds of thousands of murderous insane people that exist on a given planet. You know those guys? The ones detailed as existing in specific numbers at specific level ranges at towns of given sizes?

[Flickerdart]

My solution to teleport is having interesting things, and then the players go to the interesting things. If the random obstacles along the way are more interesting than the things, then the adventure would be about the obstacles, and they wouldn't need to go anywhere. Thus, the obstacles must be less interesting. Doing less interesting things while you could be doing more interesting things is a waste of time.

[Vogie]

If you start trying to steal the PCs things you begin a different kind of arms race than the normal combat one. I warn you right now that crafty PCs are willing to go to some pretty disturbing lengths to keep their stuff from being stolen.

Right, so this would be something you don't tell them about in advance and only do once... or not do at all, this campaign, but keep the rule in place for the next campaign.


Mostly so they can't completely bypass what could still have challenged them or finding plot hooks/setting flavor. An invading army could provide an obstacle, since they could very well have magical or mundane flight, encouraging the party to sneak around. NPCs will have to ramble madly in the streets about the unknown creature stalking travelers in the forest, since teleporting adventurers would never discover it otherwise.
Those are just quick examples, but basically teleporting removes options to engage the party. Everything has to happen where the party is going to, no where in between. Narrative-size it functions like fast travel 100% of the time, but if they are walking/flying/whatever, the DM can at least describe the scenery. Plus traveling gives the players downtime for crafting.

I mean, you could also refluff the PC's teleportation to include this type of interactions as well. Using the "teleportation" used in the Harry Dresden or His Dark Materials books, where "Teleportation" includes some interaction with another dimension, which contains its own horrors.

That may be as simple as removing Teleport & Dimension Door, but allowing Gate, but it'd be more interesting if you build in a reason that they PCs may not want to use the abilities. Meaningful choices make the game interesting.


Your examples don't make any sense. Where was this army when they were lower level? Where were these monsters when they were lower level? Have the miraculously appeared over night now that the party is conveniently high enough level to fight them?

Your rebuttals don't make sense, unless your entire campaign is just the party walking back and forth on the same path (Ultimate Sisyphus Adventures). The invaders hadn't landed yet, the party went through a different part of the forest or now they went a NEW direction, or, Odin Forbid, the party did something that changed the environment somehow.

http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/68/bc/07/68bc07ff80829afe9453a2bfe6187b87.jpg

One of the many points of the game is to place the PCs against threats, and another is to have them react to their environment. That becomes less useful if they can skip the threats at leisure, and avoid the environment entirely.

Hence the OP.

[asnys]

I really didn't expect this much response! Maybe I should have... It has, at the least, caused me to think more deeply about the question, and clarify in my own mind my specific issues with teleport. Specifically:


I may be the only person on the planet interested in this, but I keep trying to find some way to make a mercantile trading game work in D&D. Teleport isn't the only reason that doesn't work - it's not even in the top five reasons - but it is definitely a reason.
The sensawundah of weird and interesting scenery that people will skip over if they just port past it, and the general atmosphere and feel of travel.
The opportunity to introduce plot hooks on the road as you pass through towns - not random encounters.


As several people have pointed out, tactical teleportation, at ranges of a few hundred feet or less, isn't really an issue with any of the above, so strike dimension door and its cousins from the potential ban list.


It's not NECESSARY to ban fly, of course, but it causes the same lack of interaction as teleport, albeit on a lesser scale. One way to cancel the fly non-interaction is to make the skies interactive as well -- either some crazy homebrew sky world or make them dangerous to fly in.

I don't have a problem with fly and its cousins. Fly keeps you from having to fuss with random encounters with bandits and random woodland critters, and that's fine with me. But you're presumably going to land to sleep, or at least to resupply, which means you still have the opportunity for on-the-road interactions.


Do keep in mind the OP really rather made it seem like the travel itself wouldn't just be skipped if they banned teleport. If it were skipped that might actually be preferred to teleporting. You're offering me HOW many days to scribe scrolls, spellbook pages, or craft magic items? Two weeks?! Okay no need to skip this wagon ride. Just hope the people who don't have scribing or crafting to do are fine with it.

What I have in mind is: once you're high level, you're flying, or you're moving around with an army, or your otherwise someone who is not going to be dealing with random wilderness encounters. Any encounter you run into is plot-relevant, not random. For the actual travel, there would be a few paragraphs of description to establish the sense of time passing and the nature of the terrain being passed through, but that would be the limit of it.

And non-magic types should really have uses for their downtime as well, but that's a separate issue.


Consequences you're not seeing:
Sometimes, the party really does need to retreat that quickly.
If it's not possible at all, you can't use it either without getting dirty looks from the party.

How do you stop the badguys from following you? I mean, assuming that NPCs are allowed to manifest teleport trace.



As for scrying, it's blocked by a "thin sheet of lead" or 1 foot of stone. It's like the easiest spell to block in the whole book.

That's not in the SRD...



If those are at all common, they will have a dramatic effect on the setting. If there are permanent portals to the Elemental Plane of Fire lying around, that's going cause some dramatic shifts in industry in a way that teleport never did.

That sounds like an advantage to this approach, not a disadvantage.

[Troacctid]

That's not in the SRD...
It's buried in the rules for the scrying subschool. http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/spellDescriptions.htm#scrying

[asnys]

It's buried in the rules for the scrying subschool. http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/spellDescriptions.htm#scrying

Good to know, thanks.

[Dragonexx]

One of the many points of the game is to place the PCs against threats, and another is to have them react to their environment. That becomes less useful if they can skip the threats at leisure, and avoid the environment entirely.


I really didn't expect this much response! Maybe I should have... It has, at the least, caused me to think more deeply about the question, and clarify in my own mind my specific issues with teleport. Specifically:

I may be the only person on the planet interested in this, but I keep trying to find some way to make a mercantile trading game work in D&D. Teleport isn't the only reason that doesn't work - it's not even in the top five reasons - but it is definitely a reason.
The sensawundah of weird and interesting scenery that people will skip over if they just port past it, and the general atmosphere and feel of travel.
The opportunity to introduce plot hooks on the road as you pass through towns - not random encounters.



As several people have pointed out, tactical teleportation, at ranges of a few hundred feet or less, isn't really an issue with any of the above, so strike dimension door and its cousins from the potential ban list.

This sounds more like the problems is your failings as a GM not a problem with teleport. There's plenty of opportunity to have those sorts of traveling adventures at low levels. Additionally, if you want players to interact with interesting environments and do things like fight the invading army instead of avoiding it, then give them a reason to do that.

[Shackel]

This sounds more like the problems is your failings as a GM not a problem with teleport. There's plenty of opportunity to have those sorts of traveling adventures at low levels. Additionally, if you want players to interact with interesting environments and do things like fight the invading army instead of avoiding it, then give them a reason to do that.

I don't think it's a failing of a DM at all to not want to deal with teleport. Teleport is a spell that completely and irrevocably twists the game around it. Every adventure now must include reasons why teleport works here, but not there, how to get the players anywhere between point A and B without making hooks obvious, and differing methods to keep the story fresh and tied together when the entire world is now a flowchart from quest to quest, boss to boss.

I can't think of too many spells of the top of my head that has as much of an effect as teleport on the entire game world as a whole that aren't another method of teleportation.

[Mordaedil]

There are plenty of reasons why teleport wouldn't break your merchantile setup in the game, teleporting is relatively an expensive endevour for average NPC's, and if they are transporting cargo requiring the cost of a teleportation spell, well, they aren't likely to hire adventurers or can't afford to hire these adventurers anyway.

You want an adventure involving a travel between two cities where the players simply can't teleport themselves and the cargo to and fro' the city? Have it be inside a huge dead magic zone, so the players can get to the border of that with a teleport, but they now have to travel the remaining distance on foot and worst of all (best of all) you can make magic inaccessible except for tiny pockets which makes combat a more interesting fare where the casters rush to the nearest "bubble" to cast their spells and it becomes a bit of a struggle for the bubbles as they pop after someone casts a certain number of spell-levels from them.

Suddenly things are going to get very tense.

[Mutazoia]

This is why I prefer the "old-school" approach...

1. Just because a spell is listed in the book, doesn't mean it magically pops into your spellbook as soon as you hit the appropirate level. In previous (pre 3.X) editions, you had to find the spell and then roll to see if you could actually learn it. If you failed you had to wait for your next level to try again.

2. Spell components! 3.x nerfed this requirement and latter editions have followed along like lemmings. You get a lot more selective with a spell, if it's going to cost you some super rare component that you had to adventure and/or shell out an arm and a leg (and maybe a spleen)'s worth of gold for.

You don't have to ban spells, just make them hard to aquire, and expensive enough to cast that your players will only want to use them in an emergency.

[ZamielVanWeber]

This is why I prefer the "old-school" approach...

1. Just because a spell is listed in the book, doesn't mean it magically pops into your spellbook as soon as you hit the appropirate level. In previous (pre 3.X) editions, you had to find the spell and then roll to see if you could actually learn it. If you failed you had to wait for your next level to try again.
Sorcerer gets around this, as does a cleric with the travel domain. Psionic Artificer makes a joke of it too. Randomly nwrfing wizards by making the game harder hardly seems like the best solution for most tables.


2. Spell components! 3.x nerfed this requirement and latter editions have followed along like lemmings. You get a lot more selective with a spell, if it's going to cost you some super rare component that you had to adventure and/or shell out an arm and a leg (and maybe a spleen)'s worth of gold for.
Was it not God the Giant who said something about making something more complex as a balancing factor is bad?


You don't have to ban spells, just make them hard to aquire, and expensive enough to cast that your players will only want to use them in an emergency.
Or they will just use the spells they have to utterly break the game. Starting an arms race with PCS is not a good solution for the average table since there are many of them and one of you.

[Mr Adventurer]

In games where we haven't been able to teleport, our medium-level method of travel of choice has been Wind Walk. Can't teleport? Fine. We'll just scud along at 60mph, two hundred feet up in the air, disguised as clouds. That's still not an encounter-rich environment...

[Mr Adventurer]

Mostly so they can't completely bypass what could still have challenged them or finding plot hooks/setting flavor.

This isn't an argument against Teleport. This is an argument against, like, 80% of the core classes' spell lists.

[Coidzor]

One of the many points of the game is to place the PCs against threats, and another is to have them react to their environment. That becomes less useful if they can skip the threats at leisure, and avoid the environment entirely.

Really, what's new to react to in the environment that they haven't already encountered and mastered? 9th level is towards the tail end of Red Hand of Doom, the best example of an anti-army campaign in its generation and apparently the generations prior. At the point where Teleport becomes an option, it's certainly helpful but does not obviate the plot, certainly not on its own or even combined with scrying. You'd have to dedicate enough thought to how to dismantle the enemy army without getting pounced on by its leaders that it'd be a feat unto itself rather than the facerolling that is feared.

Non-sentient natural phenomena fall away anyway as one levels and gains the tools to deal with them instead of being like the protagonists of a Man vs. Nature plot. And sapient natural phenomena, while potentially interesting, is the kind of genius loci that's hard to deal with or is the kind of fey and druidic magic that'll present issues with just trying to teleport to it or scry on it anyway.


I really didn't expect this much response! Maybe I should have... It has, at the least, caused me to think more deeply about the question, and clarify in my own mind my specific issues with teleport. Specifically:


I may be the only person on the planet interested in this, but I keep trying to find some way to make a mercantile trading game work in D&D. Teleport isn't the only reason that doesn't work - it's not even in the top five reasons - but it is definitely a reason.
The sensawundah of weird and interesting scenery that people will skip over if they just port past it, and the general atmosphere and feel of travel.
The opportunity to introduce plot hooks on the road as you pass through towns - not random encounters.


Are you sure you wouldn't be happier just playing with a level cap? E6 and E8 are both fine options.

[Psyren]

This sounds more like the problems is your failings as a GM not a problem with teleport. There's plenty of opportunity to have those sorts of traveling adventures at low levels. Additionally, if you want players to interact with interesting environments and do things like fight the invading army instead of avoiding it, then give them a reason to do that.

While I agree with your underlying point, there's really no need to be this dismissive about it. Even some extremely experienced GMs like Rich Burlew dislike teleport (for the heroes (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VillainTeleportation), anyway.) Wanting to place limits on such a powerful ability, even in an otherwise high-magic campaign, does not make you a bad or failed GM.

[asnys]

There are plenty of reasons why teleport wouldn't break your merchantile setup in the game, teleporting is relatively an expensive endevour for average NPC's, and if they are transporting cargo requiring the cost of a teleportation spell, well, they aren't likely to hire adventurers or can't afford to hire these adventurers anyway.

What I have in mind is a game where the PCs are, themselves, a merchanting company, buying low and selling high. If you can just teleport yourself with your cargo to your destination, that a) eliminates 80% of the gameplay, and b) in the long run, it destroys the game itself, because once enough permanent teleportation circles are set up, there isn't going to be a difference in price between two regions anymore.

And before anyone says it, I know there are much bigger problems with this game concept than teleport. Like the fact that nobody wants to play Spreadsheet: The Gaming, and that D&D economics is nonsensical, and that a caster able to cast teleport can also cast things like wall of iron that break a mercantile game in more direct ways.


In games where we haven't been able to teleport, our medium-level method of travel of choice has been Wind Walk. Can't teleport? Fine. We'll just scud along at 60mph, two hundred feet up in the air, disguised as clouds. That's still not an encounter-rich environment...

Fine with me. Random encounters aren't the point.


Are you sure you wouldn't be happier just playing with a level cap? E6 and E8 are both fine options.

I've thought about it. But as I mentioned in the OP, this is all hypothetical anyway. I don't have a gaming group at the moment, nor am I going to have the time for one at any point in at least the next few months.

[Cozzer]

I agree with Coidzor: if you don't use a variant such as E6 or E8 (or even E10 with a few restriction on 5th level spells, like I did), the things you have to ban will become more and more as the party levels up (or simply as they meet higher level NPCs).

Low-to-mid level D&D is actually pretty good for playing a mid-fantasy (neither low nor high) game, if you exclude a couple of things like Teleport or resurrections.

Personally, I restricted Teleport so that it worked only inside circles, and could only teleport you to other such circles. Each mage had a limited amount of circles it could keep active at a given time. This created a lot of interesting situations, with characters (and villains!) having to choose where to put their circles for maximum strategic gains, or trying to guess where enemy teleport circles are to destroy them and prevent them easy access to a location. This way, Teleport becomes an easy way for characters to travel instantly between safe zones but can't be used, for example, to teleport in the middle of the enemy's mansion.

[ryu]

Hell commoners could break the mercantile prices without even taking chicken infested. Item handoffs are a free action that can be taken out of turn. Get enough commoners together and pay them to stand in a line for a period of time performing a service, and any hand-portable object travels between cities immediately. You could accomplish much the same thing with one commoner and a line of horses if you want to just buy them the one time instead of paying an ongoing price. Reanimate dead ones to save on buying new ones.

[Waker]

This isn't an argument against Teleport. This is an argument against, like, 80% of the core classes' spell lists.

I am aware of the power of spells. My choice of words could have been better. Avoid perhaps. With teleport effects, anything not at the destination or point of origin simply doesn't exist to the party.

[asnys]

Hell commoners could break the mercantile prices without even taking chicken infested. Item handoffs are a free action that can be taken out of turn. Get enough commoners together and pay them to stand in a line for a period of time performing a service, and any hand-portable object travels between cities immediately. You could accomplish much the same thing with one commoner and a line of horses if you want to just buy them the one time instead of paying an ongoing price. Reanimate dead ones to save on buying new ones.

Yes, but unlike teleport, that's an easy fix, because nobody would reasonably believe you should be able to do that. It's like the "turn a ladder into two ten foot poles and make money" trick: yes, by RAW it works, but any player who would seriously insist they should be allowed to do that is a player who probably shouldn't be at your table.

[ryu]

Yes, but unlike teleport, that's an easy fix, because nobody would reasonably believe you should be able to do that. It's like the "turn a ladder into two ten foot poles and make money" trick: yes, by RAW it works, but any player who would seriously insist they should be allowed to do that is a player who probably shouldn't be at your table.

I've done crazier things that were undoubtably intended as possible before. For example have you heard of the potable hole? No that's not misspelled.

[awa]

you would need 1000+ commoners to trade an object only a mile away. Considering all the limitations a giant line of commoners would entail in regards to set up and maintenance i don't think this Raw trick is very effective even if a dm allowed it.

[asnys]

I've done crazier things that were undoubtably intended as possible before. For example have you heard of the potable hole? No that's not misspelled.

No, I haven't. Care to elaborate?

[Jack_Simth]

How do you stop the badguys from following you? I mean, assuming that NPCs are allowed to manifest teleport trace.Lots of ways.

The first is the recognition that most bad guys won't be keeping a suitable character "on hand" (one minute limit on the power, so the Psion has to be in that range) to both trace the teleport (a Psion/Wilder 4 power) and follow (a Nomad-5 power; it's only the tracer who's "seen casually" the location for purposes of teleportation, so it must be the tracer who teleports). How many of your bosses / minibosses are (or have handy) a 9th level or better Psion(Nomad) with two specific powers? It happening a few times makes sense... but most the time, you'll be dealing with Clerics, Wizards, Sorcerers, Dragons, Outsiders, and whatnot. Yes, there will be some psions or wilders in the mix, but they aren't going to be the majority in most campaigns.

Sure, some enemies might have the ability to follow... but if you're teleporting to retreat, you're going to a place that's friendly to you. If I, say, set up a room some where with a few Symbol spells on the walls... the poor sap following me has to make a few saves vs. lose on arrival. Likewise, if I double-teleport, then the person following will need to manifest the trace again before falling out of range of whatever spot I happened to teleport again from (because there's nothing like teleporting to a spot in open air 1,000 feet up over an active volcano). If they don't follow... well, that's one of the goals of a retreat. If they do... trap.

Another is to 'close the door' after you teleport. Suppose I get, say, a manual reset falling block trap in a room. I Forbiddance the entire room (and maybe surrounding ones), except for the spot where the falling block trap puts the rock. After I port in, I take a five-foot step to get out from under, and a move action to press the button to trigger the trap. There is now a solid block of matter in the only spot in a decent range where someone might be able to follow me. Opposing teleport fails due to 'no valid space'. Alternately, a magic device trap of Dimensional Lock (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/dimensionalLock.htm) can have the same effect with a lower action cost (but a higher setup cost): I arrive, the trap goes off, nobody follows for a fortnight.

There's probably more, but that's just what comes to mind in five minutes of thinking about it.

[ryu]

you would need 1000+ commoners to trade an object only a mile away. Considering all the limitations a giant line of commoners would entail in regards to set up and maintenance i don't think this Raw trick is very effective even if a dm allowed it.

And a thousand commoners actually isn't even expensive. Seriously. That's ten gold for an entire day of instantaneous item movement of one mile. Say you've two villages ten miles apart. Do you expect me to believe you wouldn't make more than 100G profit in an entire day trading between them?

[Flickerdart]

Yes, but unlike teleport, that's an easy fix, because nobody would reasonably believe you should be able to do that. It's like the "turn a ladder into two ten foot poles and make money" trick: yes, by RAW it works, but any player who would seriously insist they should be allowed to do that is a player who probably shouldn't be at your table.

That specific implementation is obviously broken. But variations are very plausible. Consider, for example, a line of specially trained and dominated Hill Giants with Far Shot. Each such Hill Giant can fling a 50-pound package 1200 feet every 6 seconds, and catch such a package with a trivial Reflex save.

So you can distribute reasonably durable goods between cities at cannonball speed. With 4.4 giants necessary per mile, a modest population of 2400 giants can cover the vast distance between Paris and Berlin. This is much more efficient than the regular postal service. Working 8 hour days, our giants can push 24,000 pounds of goods daily. Anyone attempting to interfere with this setup would not only have to fight the giants, but also risk being hit in the face with a 50-pound brick.

If you want a medieval game, play E6. Trying to spot-ban things that ruin your perfect fantasy will lead to even wackier solutions.

[ryu]

Build small 1 space stronghold in a portable hole (or enveloping pit).
Put everfull larder in stronghold.
Give the stronghold space the gentle repose property (in Stronghold builder) to make the entire room a huge magical fridge/food storage room.

Mount it in the ceiling (or just tilt it).

Have a constuct minion (or add an unseen servant to the stronghold) whose job is to open and close the door of the larder every round.

Each time this is done, the food (preferably non-squishy foodstuff, like jerky or dried fruits) drops out of the larder into the food storage room. Enough food will be generated to feed thousands of people.

Carry potable hole around. At meal times, open the hole and just have the unseen servant carry the food to the people. Or just mount the portable hole to the ceiling and have all the stored food rain down.

Buy a decanter of endless water for water needs.

I didn't invent the above trick, but I've done it. Food is officially a solved problem in D&D and you don't even need custom items to solve it cheaply.

[asnys]

That specific implementation is obviously broken. But variations are very plausible. Consider, for example, a line of specially trained and dominated Hill Giants with Far Shot. Each such Hill Giant can fling a 50-pound package 1200 feet every 6 seconds, and catch such a package with a trivial Reflex save.

Honestly, that would be cool enough that, if I was DMing, I'd be inclined to allow it. Unless you use Tippy-style tricks like hundreds of ice assassins, finding and employing that many Hill Giants is a campaign in itself. And it sets up future adventures as well: if they're dominated, then all it takes is some joker with dispel magic and an opposition to slavery to start poking holes in your shipping network. If they're free-willed employees, then you have all the problems that come with employing thousands of hill giants. Shipping cargo by throwing it is a little silly-looking, aesthetically speaking, but other than that, this seems like a great plan.

I'm not trying to turn 3.5E into a medieval fantasy game. I've lurked here long enough to know that, to do that, you need to implement so many house rules that you might as well write a whole new game. I'm trying to get 3.5E to do what I want it to do. I'm not sure that can be done, at least outside of E6, but since I'm not planning to actually run this any time soon, I can live with that.



I didn't invent the above trick, but I've done it. Food is officially a solved problem in D&D and you don't even need custom items to solve it cheaply.

Or just use a self-resetting spell trap of create food and water. Sure, it only lasts 24 hours, but that's not a big deal when you have so flipping much of it. This would fall under the same category as wizards using wall of iron to break the economy.

[ryu]

Honestly, that would be cool enough that, if I was DMing, I'd be inclined to allow it. Unless you use Tippy-style tricks like hundreds of ice assassins, finding and employing that many Hill Giants is a campaign in itself. And it sets up future adventures as well: if they're dominated, then all it takes is some joker with dispel magic and an opposition to slavery to start poking holes in your shipping network. If they're free-willed employees, then you have all the problems that come with employing thousands of hill giants. Shipping cargo by throwing it is a little silly-looking, aesthetically speaking, but other than that, this seems like a great plan.

I'm not trying to turn 3.5E into a medieval fantasy game. I've lurked here long enough to know that, to do that, you need to implement so many house rules that you might as well write a whole new game. I'm trying to get 3.5E to do what I want it to do. I'm not sure that can be done, at least outside of E6, but since I'm not planning to actually run this any time soon, I can live with that.



Or just use a self-resetting spell trap of create food and water. Sure, it only lasts 24 hours, but that's not a big deal when you have so flipping much of it. This would fall under the same category as wizards using wall of iron to break the economy.

Oh no. The difference is self reseting traps are custom. This is literally just using officially existing items and effects for, individually, precisely the purpose they were intended for.

[asnys]

Oh no. The difference is self reseting traps are custom. This is literally just using officially existing items and effects for, individually, precisely the purpose they were intended for.

Boon traps are in Dungeonscape. Either way, though, as a practical matter it falls under Known Problem #3: Magic Means Post-Scarcity. Which I'm not sure is actually a solvable problem, but in any case is outside the scope of this thread.

[Mr Adventurer]

I am aware of the power of spells. My choice of words could have been better. Avoid perhaps. With teleport effects, anything not at the destination or point of origin simply doesn't exist to the party.

I don't understand. They don't see it necessarily, sure (though actually they still might) - but you're saying you only bother to model stuff that's in your PC's LoS, or...?

[awa]

And a thousand commoners actually isn't even expensive. Seriously. That's ten gold for an entire day of instantaneous item movement of one mile. Say you've two villages ten miles apart. Do you expect me to believe you wouldn't make more than 100G profit in an entire day trading between them?

a untrained person costs 1 silver a day so that's 100 gold to transport 1 mile and 1000 for 10 miles assuming you have a perfectly straight line

The laborers also don’t teleport so your day of work also requires you to pay for them to walk 10 mile their and walk home at the end of the day as your commoners are not constructs they need to take breaks for food rest and bath room etc. In the grand scheme of things it’s probably cheaper just to get 1 guy with a horse and cart to carry your stuff.

so even if your dm does let you do it its still effective only in niche scenarios

[Cosi]

My proposed fix: in addition to seriously enforcing the dangerous rolls that come with teleport, subjects of the spell are Dazed for 3 full rounds.

Doesn't do anything to strategic mobility.

Solves teleport assassinations (provided you don't let people pick up immunities), but the incentive that created them is still there. Having your buffs up is much better than not having them up, and people will do whatever possible to attack people without buff while they do have them.


Those are just quick examples, but basically teleporting removes options to engage the party.

Yes, and this is a good thing! The players should be able to skip encounters that don't interest them, because the point of the game is to be interesting. If I wanted to have a series of encounters someone else designed for me, I'd play Skyrim.


My solution to teleport is having interesting things, and then the players go to the interesting things. If the random obstacles along the way are more interesting than the things, then the adventure would be about the obstacles, and they wouldn't need to go anywhere. Thus, the obstacles must be less interesting. Doing less interesting things while you could be doing more interesting things is a waste of time.

Yes, exactly.


That sounds like an advantage to this approach, not a disadvantage.

That's an advantage to having portals lying around (though if you don't want a magical post-scarcity society, I don't think you actually want them), but doing that is orthagonal to teleport.


Or they will just use the spells they have to utterly break the game. Starting an arms race with PCS is not a good solution for the average table since there are many of them and one of you.

This is true. A DM arms race is not one the players can win, but it is also not one they are likely to back down from.


While I agree with your underlying point, there's really no need to be this dismissive about it. Even some extremely experienced GMs like Rich Burlew dislike teleport (for the heroes (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VillainTeleportation), anyway.) Wanting to place limits on such a powerful ability, even in an otherwise high-magic campaign, does not make you a bad or failed GM.

Forcing the players to interact with the story when you want, where you want, and how you want is the definition of bad DMing.

And Rich's story would be much improved if the PCs had teleport. The current arc (fighting giants from a zeppelin) is filler that doesn't advance the plot, and it exists because he won't let the Order use teleport.


What I have in mind is a game where the PCs are, themselves, a merchanting company, buying low and selling high. If you can just teleport yourself with your cargo to your destination, that a) eliminates 80% of the gameplay, and b) in the long run, it destroys the game itself, because once enough permanent teleportation circles are set up, there isn't going to be a difference in price between two regions anymore.

teleport only solve trade if you're trading things that have very high value/volume ratio. If you want people to not rely on teleport, just have them trade in grain, or weapons, or livestock, or alcohol, or any number of other bulk commodities.

And I think setting up a network of teleportation circles is basically the perfect finale to a campaign about working as a merchant company. It's an arc that's only available if you're 17th level or higher, and at that point doing something on an epic scale that ends the campaign seems like exactly what you'd like to be doing.

[ryu]

a untrained person costs 1 silver a day so that's 100 gold to transport 1 mile and 1000 for 10 miles assuming you have a perfectly straight line

The laborers also don’t teleport so your day of work also requires you to pay for them to walk 10 mile their and walk home at the end of the day as your commoners are not constructs they need to take breaks for food rest and bath room etc. In the grand scheme of things it’s probably cheaper just to get 1 guy with a horse and cart to carry your stuff.

so even if your dm does let you do it its still effective only in niche scenarios

Oh they don't START as constructs, but animating them as undead and using command undead solves that problem handily.

[Waker]

Ok, now that I'm actually on a computer and not just a phone, I can try to respond a bit more in-depth to these.

I don't understand. They don't see it necessarily, sure (though actually they still might) - but you're saying you only bother to model stuff that's in your PC's LoS, or...?
My post by itself was a bit vague, but I made earlier comments that go with it. Basically what I was saying is that if the party's main method of transportation is teleporting, any and all plothooks, events of interest or hell even just flavor for the campaign have to happen only
in the places where the party is teleporting to. They have no opportunity to stumble upon a previously unearthed temple or find signs of a demonic presence or whatever. Everything has to be hand fed to them via NPCs hiring them to investigate spooky ruins or coincidentally overhearing the ravings of a madman. There is no discovery for the game and a lot of things that the party could see/overcome just become flat-out impossible. If the DM wants the party privy to a piece of information or to fight a certain kind of monster, they need to resort to increasingly repetitive or convoluted explanations for why the party finds it where it does.
Furthermore it doesn't really help the players connect with a setting. Once you can teleport freely, at least in my view, a lot of your surroundings just become unimportant. In a game a friend ran some years back, the setting was similar to Jim Butcher's Cinder Spire series, wherein the world was covered in a dangerous fog, cities were suspended above it and travel was done by airship. At first you really had to take note of the surroundings, the mists were dangerous and you really had to care about your ship. But once teleporting became an option, our vision was restricted solely to the cities. Despite everything, you could now pretty much forget that the world was covered in a dangerous fog inhabited by monsters, because you never saw it.
The short of it is that teleporting removes options that a DM has for telling a story. D&D is cooperative storytelling and unrestricted teleporting cuts down on the DMs ability to do his job.


Yes, and this is a good thing! The players should be able to skip encounters that don't interest them, because the point of the game is to be interesting. If I wanted to have a series of encounters someone else designed for me, I'd play Skyrim.
If you are talking about random encounters, that's fine. I agree with you on that. However I think in the years that I've DMed, I've only used a random encounter table maybe one or twice. I'm struggling to think of times where the party was just attacked by bandits or something that had nothing to do with anything.

[Coidzor]

teleport only solve trade if you're trading things that have very high value/volume ratio. If you want people to not rely on teleport, just have them trade in grain, or weapons, or livestock, or alcohol, or any number of other bulk commodities.

And I think setting up a network of teleportation circles is basically the perfect finale to a campaign about working as a merchant company. It's an arc that's only available if you're 17th level or higher, and at that point doing something on an epic scale that ends the campaign seems like exactly what you'd like to be doing.

Yep anything that can't be shipped in meaningful quantities after combining teleportation with Shrink Item and Druids that can become Elephants.

[Flickerdart]

Furthermore it doesn't really help the players connect with a setting.
If your players went 9 levels without connecting with the setting, something is wrong.

If you started the game at or above level 9, you should have built a setting suitable for those levels.

[Shackel]

Or they will just use the spells they have to utterly break the game. Starting an arms race with PCS is not a good solution for the average table since there are many of them and one of you.

You know, I don't think most players are as spiteful as these forums or as these forums make PCs out to be. Unless there are some OOC problems, most players aren't going to look at a well-explained reason why a spell is banned and then go trying to wreck the game with a tantrum in an arms race doomed to fail when a DM can just say "no."


Are you sure you wouldn't be happier just playing with a level cap? E6 and E8 are both fine options.

Why should they play with a level cap? It's this one spell that either removes or wraps an entire aspect of the game solely around it. This is an actual question: how many other spells completely warp a game to the extent Teleport and its similar strategic mobility(Plane Shift) spells do? And with using it simply as written, at its base, without any extra optimization required?

[ryu]

You know, I don't think most players are as spiteful as these forums or as these forums make PCs out to be. Unless there are some OOC problems, most players aren't going to look at a well-explained reason why a spell is banned and then go trying to wreck the game with a tantrum in an arms race doomed to fail when a DM can just say "no."



Why should they play with a level cap? It's this one spell that either removes or wraps an entire aspect of the game solely around it. This is an actual question: how many other spells completely warp a game to the extent Teleport and its similar strategic mobility(Plane Shift) spells do? And with using it simply as written, at its base, without any extra optimization required?

Literally most of them? The cleric spell list is better than modern medicine from low levels and then far surpasses it, early level wizard and druid spells make the actual environment you choose to build your settlement in completely irrelevant short of the monster list, mid level singlehandedly gets you access to more and better fortification abilities for such than we have NOW, manual labor markets simply cease all relevancy in the wake of simply creating and commanding undead... Should I keep going? All of these things warp society on a grand scale just for existing.

[Shackel]

Literally most of them? The cleric spell list is better than modern medicine from low levels and then far surpasses it, early level wizard and druid spells make the actual environment you choose to build your settlement in completely irrelevant short of the monster list, mid level singlehandedly gets you access to more and better fortification abilities for such than we have NOW, manual labor markets simply cease all relevancy in the wake of simply creating and commanding undead... Should I keep going? All of these things warp society on a grand scale just for existing.

Alright, beyond that being not what I was talking about at all, disease/poison is not a major part of the game or factor in many stories, nor is building settlements, or fortifications, or labor...

I'm referring to the warping of the game. An aspect of the game. The entirety of discovery, a major aspect, now twisted entirely around teleportation and strategic mobility. I'm talking from a game perspective, the players' perspective, the DM's perspective: what spells completely change the game in the same way teleport does? Only perhaps raise dead comes to mind due to assassination and mystery plots, along with player death but, well, would you look at that, it's another commonly targeted spell for changes and bans.

[ryu]

Alright, beyond that being not what I was talking about at all, disease/poison is not a major part of the game or factor in many stories, nor is building settlements, or fortifications, or labor...

I'm referring to the warping of the game. An aspect of the game. The entirety of discovery, a major aspect, now twisted entirely around teleportation and strategic mobility. I'm talking from a game perspective, the players' perspective, the DM's perspective: what spells completely change the game in the same way teleport does? Only perhaps raise dead comes to mind due to assassination and mystery plots, along with player death but, well, would you look at that, it's another commonly targeted spell for changes and bans.

You consider literally rendering the baseline setting impossible, sharply contrasting the unique power of player characters, and the total annihilation of hospitals, food markets, farms, trade caravans, and smiths as concepts not a complete warping of the game? Really?

[Cosi]

If you are talking about random encounters, that's fine. I agree with you on that. However I think in the years that I've DMed, I've only used a random encounter table maybe one or twice. I'm struggling to think of times where the party was just attacked by bandits or something that had nothing to do with anything.

If players don't want to engage with the story you're trying to tell, you are trying to tell a bad story. If players want to engage with the story you're trying to tell, they won't skip it even if you give them teleport. The solution to people trying to skip encounters is to write better encounters, not to force them not to.


Yep anything that can't be shipped in meaningful quantities after combining teleportation with Shrink Item and Druids that can become Elephants.

I will admit that I forgot about shrink item. That said, I'm not sure it's that important.

First, it only shrinks non-magic items. If you're hiring people who can cast teleport, you probably aren't hiring them to transport non-magic items.

Second, it only shrinks items. You can't use it to move creatures.

Third, it only targets an item. That's not great for anything other than raw materials.


I'm referring to the warping of the game. An aspect of the game. The entirety of discovery, a major aspect, now twisted entirely around teleportation and strategic mobility.

What? teleport doesn't interact with discover at all. It takes you to places you already know about.


I'm talking from a game perspective, the players' perspective, the DM's perspective: what spells completely change the game in the same way teleport does? Only perhaps raise dead comes to mind due to assassination and mystery plots, along with player death but, well, would you look at that, it's another commonly targeted spell for changes and bans.

charm person changes social interaction. Various Divinations change information gathering. The entire point of leveling up is change. If you want to play a game without teleport, play E8.

[137beth]

The fact that no one actually wants to spend several sessions traveling through a bland field or similar fighting random encounters? If players wanted to teleport directly to a place it's because the journey between wasn't expected to be interesting or valuable. For an example of this feeling play through early gen pokemon without repels in the caves of infinite zoobat, or the ocean with an infinite supply of really bland jellyfish.

Or, for that matter, without the ability to run (since running isn't in gen 1 pokemon).

Travel is tedious. When you're low-level, the challenges you face in travel are as dangerous or more than those at the location you are going to. But when you're high level, there's not much point spending time in the travel scenes.

[Shackel]

You consider literally rendering the baseline setting impossible, sharply contrasting the unique power of player characters, and the total annihilation of hospitals, food markets, farms, trade caravans, and smiths as concepts not a complete warping of the game? Really?

At this point I'm beginning to consider that you're just arguing in bad faith and purposefully trying to attack a completely different point. That has nothing to do with the player's perspective, and they require detail and/or optimization that is rarely needed in a world. If you want to have a Tippyverse these are things to look at, but they still do not have anything to do with the design of an adventure or DMs.

Once again. What spells beyond teleport and the revival series(since I've recalled that one) completely change the design of adventures around them? If you're going to stick to your strawmen rather than have any kind of constructive conversation, then you might as well not answer at all.



What? teleport doesn't interact with discover at all. It takes you to places you already know about.

Uh, are you sure about that? The former is completely incorrect because if you just go from point A to point B, you cannot see or discover anything in between. The latter is incorrect because you can go anywhere you've seen once. Ever. The spell even identifies scrying as a way to find a location, so it's not a far jump to just use that, as well. Once again, thus to have any adventure, travel, discovery, what have you, the DM has to start throwing out major excuses as to why they cannot just scry the target location they need to go, and then jump to it.

And not every adventure can be a full journey into the unknown. In fact, if you're in a larger scale that has traveling in it, like a country or even the space between a few cities, leveling up in that location means you've probably seen a number of places once or twice between your starting level and 9.


charm person changes social interaction. Various Divinations change information gathering. The entire point of leveling up is change. If you want to play a game without teleport, play E8.

I object to charm person, if only because the use of charm does have its own pros and cons compared to pure Diplomacy. It's another path of travel and certainly changes things up, but it is not hard in the least to have a reason in any given situation why just charming a person isn't a great idea. I mean, sure, if they're completely alone, you'll never meet them again, have no moral qualms, they have no one they can complain too and you're not breaking any laws(looking at you, Lawful folk)... yeah, sure, spam Charm Person all you want, but that's not completely throwing out the diplomacy or social aspect of the game beyond corner cases like Teleport does.

Mind going into detail about the Divinations, though? I can see perhaps how Scrying changes the game a little, but without its companion Teleport, information gathering is not as major as social aspects, death, or discovery.

[Waker]

Once again. What spells beyond teleport and the revival series(since I've recalled that one) completely change the design of adventures around them? If you're going to stick to your strawmen rather than have any kind of constructive conversation, then you might as well not answer at all.
Yeah, I'm with you on that. The majority of responses I've gotten against banning teleport are "travel is boring" and "your story is boring."

[Dragonexx]

Why is that a bad thing? As people have pointed out, past the low levels, there's not much need to bother with actual traveling. If you want the players to encounter an interesting environment or place, then make that the destination to teleport to. As players get more powerful, they should be able to have more effect and influence on how things play out in the world. Being able to travel about easily is one of those reasons.

The one thing teleport shouldn't be able to do is bypass dungeons. The game is called Dungeons and Dragons, thus, both of those things should be viable at all levels of play.

There are some built in restrictions to teleport (the high energy/magic rule, although that makes teleport into a mother may I (http://mearls.livejournal.com/80639.html) ability). There's also things like screen, dimensional lock, or the homebrew 40 feet solid rule.

[ryu]

Why is that a bad thing? As people have pointed out, past the low levels, there's not much need to bother with actual traveling. If you want the players to encounter an interesting environment or place, then make that the destination to teleport to. As players get more powerful, they should be able to have more effect and influence on how things play out in the world. Being able to travel about easily is one of those reasons.

The one thing teleport shouldn't be able to do is bypass dungeons. The game is called Dungeons and Dragons, thus, both of those things should be viable at all levels of play.

There are some built in restrictions to teleport (the high energy/magic rule, although that makes teleport into a mother may I (http://mearls.livejournal.com/80639.html) ability). There's also things like screen, dimensional lock, or the homebrew 40 feet solid rule.

Weirdstones. They provide anti teleportation fortification over a fairly wide area. That's how you deal with dungeons. Granted it also means particularly large dungeons just aren't a smart idea, but that was always the case.

[Psyren]

Weirdstones. They provide anti teleportation fortification over a fairly wide area. That's how you deal with dungeons. Granted it also means particularly large dungeons just aren't a smart idea, but that was always the case.

You can also just use the "strong physical or magical energy" clause. Put the dungeon behind a waterfall or inside a volcano, or put a giant factory in there, or chain up a cosmic horror or elemental lord in the basement, and teleportation gets screwed with - no artifact needed. Better still, unlike a weirdstone it doesn't actually have to shut off teleportation, so if the party is desperate and the choice is port out or TPK, they can try to roll the dice and see what happens. Whereupon the GM can do all kinds of interesting things to keep the plot moving while ending up with consequences less severe than a wipe would be.

[Waker]

Why is that a bad thing? As people have pointed out, past the low levels, there's not much need to bother with actual traveling. If you want the players to encounter an interesting environment or place, then make that the destination to teleport to. As players get more powerful, they should be able to have more effect and influence on how things play out in the world. Being able to travel about easily is one of those reasons.
Once the party has the means to teleport somewhere, the entire narrative approach for a DM becomes sharply limited.

Say the party is traveling by boat and they get hit by a storm. And when they are blown way off course, they stumble upon a previously undiscovered island. Was it always there, did a deity create it or is it a creature so massive, it has jungles growing on it like moss.
Unfortunately the party has access to teleport now. So they never got on a boat. I guess you could have them see a malnourished sailor at the docks talking about a new island.

As the party is trekking through the woods, they come across signs of something wrong with nature. Trees dripping with blood instead of sap, normally docile animals attacking the party and each other and a sense of dread seems to permeate the air.
Or at least that's what this traveling merchant was telling me about.

And so on. The point I've made and that has been ignored repeatedly is that if the only way that the party can find out about information is for the town drunk to show up with a fishing pole complete with a plot hook, I'm gonna find it annoying.
And yes, travel is so boring. That's why I advocate fast traveling. It's almost like I said...

And rather than narrate every hour of a trip, I do use fast travel descriptions for those on foot. Oh wow, I did say something about skipping boring travel in which nothing happened. Literally in my first post for this thread. But if I allow fast traveling, isn't that identical to teleporting? While they have similarities, the big difference is that if I think it would be interesting to introduce a new element to the world, whether a new location or opposition, I can simply say "On the fourth day of travel..." When they teleport everything of any relevance must happen where they teleport regardless of how nonsensical it may be. Otherwise I have to resort to the cliche of having an NPC spoonfeed them what happened.


If players don't want to engage with the story you're trying to tell, you are trying to tell a bad story. If players want to engage with the story you're trying to tell, they won't skip it even if you give them teleport. The solution to people trying to skip encounters is to write better encounters, not to force them not to.
How do you know whether the encounters are boring if you've already skipped them. Once again, I'm not talking about random encounters. Short of me saying "Hey guys, get on this boat and you can discover an island full of mystery and danger" how is the party gonna know that teleporting would preclude them from finding a plot hook?

In a game a friend ran some years back, the setting was similar to Jim Butcher's Cinder Spire series, wherein the world was covered in a dangerous fog, cities were suspended above it and travel was done by airship. At first you really had to take note of the surroundings, the mists were dangerous and you really had to care about your ship. But once teleporting became an option, our vision was restricted solely to the cities. Despite everything, you could now pretty much forget that the world was covered in a dangerous fog inhabited by monsters, because you never saw it.
That's from a post I made earlier talking about how teleporting changed a game I was in. Was the party and myself bored with the game? I don't think so because we continued playing for months after we could teleport. Then why did we do so? Because in-character it made no sense to not teleport. It didn't matter that as a player I enjoyed flying on an airship, fighting monsters and in general screwing around. Because if my character could instantaneously travel from city to city vs flying for several weeks, why wouldn't I? Unless I specifically make all of my characters thrill-seeking monster hunters, then teleporting trumps walking once it is a thing, even if teleporting itself is a really boring narrative device.


What? teleport doesn't interact with discover at all. It takes you to places you already know about.
Teleporting precludes a major element of discovery. Sure, you can only go to places you know about, but the world isn't a static place. If an army of demons invaded, a plague broke out or disco made a comeback, you have two ways for the party with teleport to find out. Have it literally happen in front of them or an NPC told them.

[Dragonexx]

Once the party has the means to teleport somewhere, the entire narrative approach for a DM becomes sharply limited.

Say the party is traveling by boat and they get hit by a storm. And when they are blown way off course, they stumble upon a previously undiscovered island. Was it always there, did a deity create it or is it a creature so massive, it has jungles growing on it like moss.
Unfortunately the party has access to teleport now. So they never got on a boat. I guess you could have them see a malnourished sailor at the docks talking about a new island.

As the party is trekking through the woods, they come across signs of something wrong with nature. Trees dripping with blood instead of sap, normally docile animals attacking the party and each other and a sense of dread seems to permeate the air.
Or at least that's what this traveling merchant was telling me about.

And these can all be done at lower levels or just give them a quest hook to actually there.

Or if you really have to do something like this, then plane shift. It has a built in inaccuracy (5-500 miles).

[Coidzor]

I will admit that I forgot about shrink item. That said, I'm not sure it's that important.

First, it only shrinks non-magic items. If you're hiring people who can cast teleport, you probably aren't hiring them to transport non-magic items.

Second, it only shrinks items. You can't use it to move creatures.

Third, it only targets an item. That's not great for anything other than raw materials.

It turns 18 cubic feet into 0.0045 cubic feet or 7.776 cubic inches, and weighs 1/4000th of what it once did, that's quite a reduction in weight.

It also can turn fire itself along with burning wood into a shrunk item form. A container should be within the bounds, but that is one of the things about Shrink Item that's most likely to differ between games.

CL 9

Shrink Item: 2*CL cubic feet. 18 cubic feet.
Makes items 1/4,000th the weight.

Large Quadruped: multiply value for Strength Score by x3
Lift as much as double maximum load off the ground.

27 Str = 3120 max load
6240 lift off the ground

Bull's Strength +4 Str

31 Str = 13,800 max load
27,600 lift off ground

27,600 * 4000 = 110,400,000 pounds = 55,200 tons

Cargo hold of a sailing vessel, per Pathfinder is about 150 or 50 tons maximum.

The large quadruped plus Bull's Strength covers 13.5 tons by itself.


That carrying capacity means that the elephant could lift 1,840,000 bags of holding type IV off the ground as long as they weren't nested.

In core the best forms for carrying capacity between being Large and strong before 15th level an Huge Animal forms become available are the following:

Brown Bear Large, Quadruped, 27 Str
Polar Bear Large, Quadruped, 27 Str
Dire Boar Large, Quadruped, 27 Str
Dire Tiger Large, Quadruped, 27 Str

[Telok]

Once again. What spells beyond teleport and the revival series(since I've recalled that one) completely change the design of adventures around them? If you're going to stick to your strawmen rather than have any kind of constructive conversation, then you might as well not answer at all.

Travel : Teleport, Phantom Steed
Mystery : Contact Other Plane, Scrying
Disease/Curse : Cure Disease, Break Enchantment
Castles : Rock to Mud, Disintegrate
Murder : Raise Dead, Speak with Dead
Money : Planar Binding/Ally, Fabricate

[Shackel]

Travel : Teleport, Phantom Steed
Mystery : Contact Other Plane, Scrying
Disease/Curse : Cure Disease, Break Enchantment
Castles : Rock to Mud, Disintegrate
Murder : Raise Dead, Speak with Dead
Money : Planar Binding/Ally, Fabricate

Phantom Steed still allows for the aspect of travel in of itself, which means players can still discover, be stopped in some manner or otherwise have anything able to happen between places.

Contact Other Plane is like Charm Person in that it has a time or place. The Wizard needs to have an Int of 22-24 to avoid the not-so-small chance of not being able to spellcast for up to five weeks. It also has the rather easy DM check of whether or not these people will even know or not(and the less of a chance that can happen, the more likely you can lose spellcasting for a month).

Scrying does lessen the need for information-gathering, but does it in a way so that it's relatively unlikely that you would have had another way to reach that point in particular. It's something you simply couldn't do much at all.

Castles are not a major aspect akin to discovery, death or diplomacy.

Talked on Raise Dead, Speak With Dead is reduced to only what they know, in "brief, cryptic" responses and they get a Will save if their alignment was different than yours.

Shattering WBL entirely, forced wishes, etc. is usually when you start entering the realm of optimization or candle of invocation abuse. It's something that requires a direct desire to break something in the first place and isn't the only purpose of the spell. You get teleport, you use it exactly as it wants you to, and now the entire game becomes twisted around it unless you have an army with you.

[Cosi]

The one thing teleport shouldn't be able to do is bypass dungeons. The game is called Dungeons and Dragons, thus, both of those things should be viable at all levels of play.

teleport doesn't let you bypass dungeons. It lets you go to an arbitrary point in the dungeon, which is only a bypass if the point of the dungeon is "go to this room" rather than something more dynamic like "explore the dungeon". Or you can use dungeons that are more complicated than a cave (e.g. an series of rooms in different planes linked by gate).


You can also just use the "strong physical or magical energy" clause.

"Here's a thing that exists in the game with the explicit mechanical effect of doing exactly what you want."
"No, that's not good enough. You have to arbitrarily modify PC abilities, or you're doing it wrong."


Once the party has the means to teleport somewhere, the entire narrative approach for a DM becomes sharply limited.

Sure, in the sense that if PCs have abilities you can't write plots that require them to not have those abilities. That's not a flaw in teleport, that's a flaw in the concept of advancement.


Unfortunately the party has access to teleport now. So they never got on a boat. I guess you could have them see a malnourished sailor at the docks talking about a new island.

Or you could expect them to interact with the world and search for adventures that interest them. So instead of "here's this island, explore it now" or even "here's a guy telling you about an island, go explore it", you say "so what do you want to do to advance your goals?". Then the PCs explore a world with a variety of plot hooks and interact with things they enjoy, which is exactly why you play a TTRPG instead of Skyrim or WoW.


And so on. The point I've made and that has been ignored repeatedly is that if the only way that the party can find out about information is for the town drunk to show up with a fishing pole complete with a plot hook, I'm gonna find it annoying.

Or they can look for information, because they are engaged by the setting and want to explore it.


When they teleport everything of any relevance must happen where they teleport regardless of how nonsensical it may be. Otherwise I have to resort to the cliche of having an NPC spoonfeed them what happened.

No, everything has to be relevant to the PC's interests. If PCs have goals, connections, or desires, they'll seek out hooks involving those things. If the PCs want to discover the ancient magics that allowed the NotRomans to create their flying cities, they'll try and find out how to do that even if they have teleport.


Sure, you can only go to places you know about, but the world isn't a static place. If an army of demons invaded, a plague broke out or disco made a comeback, you have two ways for the party with teleport to find out. Have it literally happen in front of them or an NPC told them.

If an army of demons invaded, why do I care? Why should I follow that lead instead of traveling to the Athas and fighting the Dragon Kings? Or defeat the Ethergaunts as they attempt to escape their extra-planar prison and conquer the world? Or battle the agents of the World Born Dead? Or any of a thousand other possible plot hooks?


*snip*

I'm not really sure how that's responsive to my points.

[Coidzor]

I'm not really sure how that's responsive to my points.

You don't see how the fact that it can clearly accommodate multiple materials as counting as a single object for the purpose of Shrink Item opens up more possibilities than just bulk amounts of raw materials like you asserted? :smallconfused: Well, OK then.

[Quertus]

To answer the literal question of the thread, my signature character would
need to pick a new contingency
need to find some way to contribute as a tier 1 wizard without overshadowing the party fighter / monk / sorcerer who only took toughness x999 / etc
want to investigate the change to magic that bars teleport, far more than he cares about whatever adventure you're pitching
want to invent a whole line of spells that would allow travel under this changed magic mechanic oh, wait, he already has.
want to "fix" magic to allow for regular teleport to work.


To answer the question the way most people are talking it, well, first off, you have to realize that most settings do not correctly reflect the fact that resurrection / teleportation / create food and water / etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc exist to begin with. Given that, why should they change because you remove something?

But, if someone like me were in your game, who cares about the subtle points of consistency... Hmmm... Would summon spells still work? What do druids default to if not? What replaces the now non-functional spells in the various cleric domain lists? Are the conjurer / nomad classes even worth taking / what of theirs still works? The prestige class based around teleport trace is right out... but what others might be more subtly affected? What of creatures that exist on multiple planes at once? Ethereal filtchers are probably right out. Can the gods still send down avatars? What magical items are affected? Can the world still support bag of tricks or portable hole? Can artifacts overcome the defect that prevents teleportation? The answers to these questions depends upon the mechanics of how you ban most teleport effects.

Honestly, the list of changes you'd need to make to a game as complex as 3e is so large, I'd recommend just using another system, like Warhammer Fantasy, for your fantasy trade simulator.

Oh, and still nobody's gonna want to buy all the cool vehicles in a game where a) they can buy magic items instead, and b) WBL is a thing.

Actually, who's gonna care about being traders in a game where WBL is a thing? :smallconfused:

[Klara Meison]

I think that you are arguing over nothing. One side likes various high-level effects except teleport, and is basically saying that while they want advancement, they disagree at what point in that advancement PCs should accquire teleportation. Other side says that teleportation only blocks a limited number of plot hooks, and is mostly irrelevant in a more player goal-oriented campaign, where party has already been hooked on the plot through one of the low-level literary devices (e.g. bleeding forest, new island), and is currently exploring the ways to achieve their goals, whatever those might be. Unless you for some reason require more hooks at that point, all those examples aren't really going to serve the plot. (e.g. if The Evil Army Of Demons invades out of the blue, how is it serving the plot about the Magical Crystals of the Ancient Wizard? And if they are related, it doesn't really matter how PCs hear about it. I personally prefer newspapers as information delivery mechanism.)

If party knows that they need to find a magical island of whatever that can only be found by traveling the sea on a boat, they are going to get on the boat. Because they want the island. Because they need it for %reasons%.