Travel Domain Minus Teleportation

[AintThatASeamus]

I have been running a D&D 3.5 game for the past few months, in which I banned the entire Teleportation sub-school of magic. However, something I didn't think of at the time was the impact such a change would have on the Travel cleric domain.

Dimension Door, Teleport, and Greater Teleport all appear on the Travel domain spell list. And after looking over the spell lists, there don't seem to be any especially appropriate spells at equivalent levels to replace them with.

Can anyone offer some suggestions for spells that can help fill the gap in the Travel domain left by the absence of teleportation?

[Johanas]

Well as the Travel Domain Promotes Travel, in theory it could restrict it too. You could replace Dimension Door with Dimensional Anchor, and Teleport with Hold Person. Or Plane Shift. Or Wall of Stone. Depends if you want to support Travel, or allow the PC the power to Restrict it too.

[Random832]

Overland Flight, maybe?

What was your reason for banning it? Flavor reasons? One idea would be to - instead of removing it entirely, give Travel domain clerics exclusive access to teleportation spells.

[HamsterOfTheGod]

I have been running a D&D 3.5 game for the past few months, in which I banned the entire Teleportation sub-school of magic. However, something I didn't think of at the time was the impact such a change would have on the Travel cleric domain.

Dimension Door, Teleport, and Greater Teleport all appear on the Travel domain spell list. And after looking over the spell lists, there don't seem to be any especially appropriate spells at equivalent levels to replace them with.

Can anyone offer some suggestions for spells that can help fill the gap in the Travel domain left by the absence of teleportation?

Perhaps the following
Dim Door -> Phantom Steed
Teleport -> Shadow Walk or Wind Walk
Greater Teleport -> Cloudwalkers (Massed Air Walk)

[Johanas]

Or, looking at the Druid list, a few spells to replace Teleport....Tree Stride, Control Winds (if it's a sailing campaign) or Freedom of Movement. Which is a level lower, and admittedly a little redundant with the domain power, but great for any allies.

[Sinfire Titan]

Or take a leaf out of Complete Champion, and replace the entire domain with Travel Devotion (which is a really good feat considering what you give up).

[AintThatASeamus]

What was your reason for banning it? Flavor reasons? One idea would be to - instead of removing it entirely, give Travel domain clerics exclusive access to teleportation spells.

It is purely for flavour reasons. The game is taking place during a war, and I wanted travel to take time, so that choosing to go somewhere results in consequences while the PCs are gone.

I also wanted to avoid having enemies and allies popping in and out at will, and to remove a crutch that I had depended on in the past to allow recurring villains to escape (not that I haven't been equally as cheap using invisibility and flying mounts).

Giving anyone even an exclusive ability to teleport still allows for there to be employable NPCs, and potentially scrolls and other magic items that the PCs and villains both could use, and thus doesn't really keep with the atmosphere I'm aiming for.

Well as the Travel Domain Promotes Travel, in theory it could restrict it too. You could replace Dimension Door with Dimensional Anchor, and Teleport with Hold Person. Or Plane Shift. Or Wall of Stone. Depends if you want to support Travel, or allow the PC the power to Restrict it too.

I don't much care for the idea of the Travel domain preventing travel. And even then, Dimensional Anchor doesn't have much utility in a world without teleportation.

And the sub-school includes both Plane Shift and Tree Stride, so I can't use those either.

Or take a leaf out of Complete Champion, and replace the entire domain with Travel Devotion (which is a really good feat considering what you give up).

I don't really want to get rid of the domain as a whole. But Travel Devotion does provide an interesting alternative to the current domain ability, and if I replace it than I can use Johanas' idea of Freedom of Movement as the 4th-level spell.

[Johanas]

God I love those Devotion Feats! My wife was reading the Trickery Domain the other day, and Yells "Kage Bushin no Jutsu!" Apparently she was inspired to roll a straight-class ninja with the Trickery Devotion feat. And be Naruto, or something. I'm just glad she games with me, at this point.

[Kylarra]

Dim. Door -> Locate creature
Teleport -> Overland Flight
Greater Teleport -> Ethereal Jaunt

[Sinfire Titan]

God I love those Devotion Feats! My wife was reading the Trickery Domain the other day, and Yells "Kage Bushin no Jutsu!" Apparently she was inspired to roll a straight-class ninja with the Trickery Devotion feat. And be Naruto, or something. I'm just glad she games with me, at this point.

They nerfed it. It no longer duplicates usable equipment. Prior to that nerf, the feat was a 15th level, nearly at-will version of Astral Projection in that all of your duplicated equipment would have separate charges.

[hewhosaysfish]

And the sub-school includes both Plane Shift and Tree Stride, so I can't use those either.

There's no need to get hung up on the fact that Plane Shift is in the Teleportation subschool. Leave it in.

I can see why, given your stated reasons (lengthy travel times), you might not want to include Tree Stride. However, Plane Shift leaves the user(s) anywhere between 5 and 500 miles away from their intended destination (perhaps oddly, they can never land precisely at their intended destination) so you don't have to worry about people using two Plane Shifts to replicate a Teleport.

If you leave in Plane Shift then you leave in the option of visiting other planes... but without the Teleport spell anyone using Plane Shift will have to be prepared for the fact that when they return to the Material Plane they may face a 500 mile walk home.
Doesn't that sound like exactly the sort of difficult choice you want to make people make? (None of this applies to Greater Plane Shift of course. Ditch that.)

Sure there's still the possibility of a villain Plane Shifting his way out of trouble... But you admit yourself that you can whisk your recurring NPCs out of harm's reach without teleportation if necessary. If it bothers you that much, make Dimensional Anchor and Dimensional Lock each one level lower, since without teleportation they are now more limited in scope.