What's the most interesting thing a teleportation mage could possibly do?

[SangoProduction]

I'm talking about a hypothetical mage with a theme of "teleportation." Just ideas, no hard mechanics.

I'm looking for things that are more interesting than just teleporting an enemy 100000 feet in the air, or simply opening 2 portals, one above and one below. I mean...yes, that was fun and interesting, but it's become cliche.

So, perhaps "partial teleportation"...which is effectively just disintegration, but with a much more gruesome kill animation. It's nice.

It'd also be able to justify a portal that you stand in half way so that you are flanking from the entrance and exit.

A teleportation cage, where, effectively walking to one wall spits you out on the opposing side of the cage.

Blinking in and out of reality is also pretty classic.

Have to admit, using a portal as a shield does sound pretty bad ass. Especially if you can get it to actually poke back at the attacker.


Any other ideas?

[sreservoir]

Set up a series of teleportation circles between major cities, with attendant consequences for trade and war?

[Batcathat]

Create portals in various potentially useful environments (in lava, under water, maybe on some other planes if possible) and use it to dump lava/water/whatever on top of enemies when needed, maybe?

Also, with enough precision the mage might be able to teleport poison or drugs straight into people's bodies.

[The Random NPC]

Create portals in various potentially useful environments (in lava, under water, maybe on some other planes if possible) and use it to dump lava/water/whatever on top of enemies when needed, maybe?

Also, with enough precision the mage might be able to teleport poison or drugs straight into people's bodies.

If you can get that precise, you can skip the poison and just add air where it shouldn't be.

[Batcathat]

If you can get that precise, you can skip the poison and just add air where it shouldn't be.

True. And if used to assassinate someone, even magic should have a hard time proving it's murder.

There's probably all sorts of odd ways to murder and torture if you're capable of teleporting stuff into someone. "Bam! Now there's a bowling ball in your belly!"

[Kayblis]

A couple ideas, mostly just cool-looking.
First, imagine a martial character that specializes in punching through small portals he creates - hit blind spots, weak points and unbalance your enemies by creating localized portals on the ground beleath them. It's like a better version of Blood Wind, possibly striking with surprise.
Second, concentration portals. Create multiple portals that all link into a single exit, and stream different things to each input portal to shoot a concentrated mixed blast from the output. For example, create five input portals and have either minions or the environment fire bolts of lightning, acid and fire through each, then have all of those linked to a single output to create a laser. You can even combine it with more permanent portals from other suggestions, like having a portal linked to the bottom of the ocean and use water pressure to punch through things.

[AvatarVecna]

Teleporting can, to a degree, allow you to flank with yourself. You're not in two places at once, but if you can teleport between attacks and "circle" around somebody, it's similar to flanking in the fluff.

[Crake]

I actually had a character in spheres of power that was based on this idea. Paired with levels in rogue and 1 level in shadowdancer for hide in plain sight. The character was a ghost, everywhere and nowhere, her go-to "insta-kill" was opening a gate underneath her opponent and sending them quite literally to hell, but it was a fairly rare occurrence that she actually did that. More often than not it was that she was learning about things, using her ability to get anywhere, and be completely unseen and unheard in the process to learn secrets that could bring down nations, in many ways acting as a nuclear deterrent, because if you got on her radar, she could just make you disappear.

[Segev]

Is teleportation all they can do, or just their primary schtick? If they have some other magics, disguising a minion as somebody else and then swapping the minion with the person they look like via instant-switch teleportation comes to mind.

Instant-switching their own tanks, dangerous allies into the back line of squishy enemies while pulling the important protectee (or even the protector) from there to the midst of your own kill zone is also effective.

Switch a statue of your target with the target for fake petrifaction.

Make a statue by teleporting the stone that’s not part of it away, or by teleporting the stone making it up out of a larger block.

A nasty version: switch the target with only the stone inside the block that matches his exact shape. Now it looks like he’s been petrified, but he’s really been entombed in stone (and likely is dying very soon thereafter of suffocation).

Set up a portal to breathable air in your own or another’s wind pipe to enable breathing in hostile environments.

Set up a portal to the ground below to walk in the air.

“Decapitate” somebody alive by setting up a portal that connects their neck to the rest of their body but whose entrances can be moved independently.

Swap outfits quickly.

Annoy (or help) others by swapping their outfits quickly. Good for donning or doffing armor!

Replace people’s weapons with joke items.

Dry off fast by teleporting water off yourself.

Be Officer Jenny or Nurse Joy.

[Aracor]

Psionics has some ideas. Baleful teleport - teleport bits out (d6 damage per level). Decerebrate - teleport out a chunk of brain and turn them into a vegetable.

For that matter, why not teleport their heart out of their chest? Teleport someone into another person's space so they both take damage and possibly be stunned and/or fall down as their very forms seem mixed together for a moment until the magic successfully splits them apart again?

[Quertus]

Wow, you've already got a lot. I may not be adding much, but here's what I remember of what I've done / seen done in RPGs I've played/run:

Swap places (friendly tank)

Swap places (misc utility)

Swap places (foe)

Defensive teleport (aka "flash step")

Summon wall

Summon friends

Summon not so friendlies

Summon "needful things" (med kit, air, etc)

Teleport enemies

Teleport enemy weapons

Teleport enemy clothes

Summon water / cages / poison / lava onto enemies

Summon water / cages / poison / lava into enemies

Summon knockout gas (super useful & nonlethal)

"Stop hitting yourself" (teleport attacks back to attackers / to others)

Fake flight (via microteleports)

Terminal velocity (portal above & before)

Reverse terminal velocity (reverse direction portals, up to up)

Very selective teleport (just remove radiation, for example)

Cure poison/disease

Wall of portal (use gate for defense)

Wall of self sacrifice (use gate to defend other, but, due to placement limitations on the specific power, take the attack yourself)

"Let there be light"

Spacial folding (basically your portal cage)

Spacial folding blade (monofilament weaponry)

"Hammer space"

Location dissociation (basically incorporeal)

Teleport enemies / weapons / McGuffins into the future

EDIT: I personally especially love the aesthetic of a character "absorbing" an opponent's melee weapon, and redirecting it out their own hands/mouth - particularly if the portal is "one way"; ie, they cannot withdraw their weapon without the teleporter's consent.

[noob]

Teleport everything in a single point then see the game slow down due to the complexity of the results of this action?
Reposition the planes of the great wheel to make it be a great duck?

[SangoProduction]

Is teleportation all they can do, or just their primary schtick?

It's the "majority" of what they can do.

[unseenmage]

...

Have to admit, using a portal as a shield does sound pretty bad ass. Especially if you can get it to actually poke back at the attacker.


Any other ideas?
Invisible a pair of Ring Gates then item combining rules to put it on your shield.

Many invisible Ring Gates Sovereign Glue ed all over your full plate.

[SangoProduction]

Invisible a pair of Ring Gates then item combining rules to put it on your shield.

Many invisible Ring Gates Sovereign Glue ed all over your full plate.

Now this guy's thinking with portals.

[Crichton]

Invisible a pair of Ring Gates then item combining rules to put it on your shield.

Many invisible Ring Gates Sovereign Glue ed all over your full plate.

The invisible part is a nice touch, but what about a ring gate the same diameter as your shield, with the other paired one in orbit above you, pointed out at space? You could call your shield the Shield of Stars, or the Galaxy Shield or something, since it'd always look like a field of stars

[the_tick_rules]

what's the prestige class that specifically specializes in throwing people into the sky? Master of the unseen hand? It's telekinesis based not teleportation but details. How about something like teleporting alchemical fire into someone's blood? The old they are only immune to fire on the outside thing?

[Particle_Man]

Is Mass Teleportation part of the shtick?

You could teleport a village of friendlies out of the path of The Evil Invading Army.

You could (perhaps with a few well-placed illusions) keep teleporting The Evil Invading Army back a week (month) or so. "Gosh, General G'zarhk, this enemy is much further away than we thought, and it looks like we can't scavenge much food from this countryside - I guess it was picked clean by those retreating from us!"

You could replace the entire underdark with something from the elemental plane of earth.

A gate to the positive energy plane is basically free healing, if you are careful. Also Undead-B-Gone. Maybe a place to teleport a lich's indestructible phylactery.

Even staying within the material plane, if you teleport clouds, wind, rain, etc. to and fro places, you might cause or reduce droughts, etc.

Teleport Ruined Ancient Atlantis (or its equivalent) to somewhere above in a flat empty above ground place, to explore/loot without having to breathe water?

[SangoProduction]

Is Mass Teleportation part of the shtick?

Teleportation theme. Anything goes within that.

Would be somewhat terrifying for someone to just put a portal at the bottom of the town's lake, dumping it someplace else, and then uses it to leave the town without water. Letting the water pressure handle all the hassle of shuffling the material into the portal.

If your portals were only permeable by solids, then placing the entrance to your secret lair at the bottom of a lake of [hazardous / difficult to navigate for other people material] could be fun. Of...of course you could probably just teleport directly to the lair, and not leave a gaping wound open for your enemies to find. But where's the fun in that?

[rel]

a few that haven't been covered:

steal someones gear
teleport yourself into someones space damaging them
teleport to the past
respawn after dying by teleporting back from the outer plane you end up on
create rain by teleporting water into the sky or wind by teleporting areas of air creating a vacuum

and an honorary mention goes to the terrible but awesomely named epic spell: Nailed to the Sky. Beam your enemy into geostationary orbit procure a telescope and show off your collection of enemies to your friends.

[unseenmage]

Being in two places at once via Acorn of Far Travel.

Wear a miniaturized Planar Ring Gate as a body piercing so you're on two planes at the same time.

Somehow conjure a Well of Many Worlds beneath your enemies as just the worst pit trap.

Tear holes in reality that effectively Teleport other planar terrain to your location via the Precipitate Breach spells.

Spam Energy Transformation Fields with basic Teleport or Plane Shift in them.

Something I actually use, Craft Contingent Spell Plane Shift or Teleport on an animated object kept on my person. When triggered the animated object can take me with it when it transports saving my own Contingency for better spells.

[daremetoidareyo]

Go ethereal, dive underground and then swap places with the baddy and laugh as they die of shunting damage