Anticipate Teleport [3.5]

[Malicte]

Complete Arcane contains a pair of spells called Anticipate Teleport and Great Anticipate Teleport. Both of them have very long durations (hours/level and 24 hours, respectively), and can thus be kept up all day long. They effectively delay anyone who wants to teleport into the area around the spell's target for either 1 or 3 rounds. It also warns the caster that someone is attempting to teleport in. Thus, you have time to prepare for whatever might be attempting to get the jump on you. However, the Teleport caster is unaware of this delay. Herein lies a question which my gaming group has been trying to puzzle out. Where is the teleporter during the duration of Anticipate Teleport?

Teleportation effects use the Astral Plane, as per the SRD:

A teleportation spell transports one or more creatures or objects a great distance. The most powerful of these spells can cross planar boundaries. Unlike summoning spells, the transportation is (unless otherwise noted) one-way and not dispellable.

Teleportation is instantaneous travel through the Astral Plane. Anything that blocks astral travel also blocks teleportation.

Thus, one would expect the target to be somewhere on the Astral Plane when this spell is in effect, as they experience no delay in their instantaneous travel. However, that would imply that the target is unable to act and unaware of its surroundings for the duration of Anticipate Teleport, and actually in a location in the Astral. If it is possible to determine where on the Astral Plane a teleporter is during his teleport spell, one could use Anticipate Teleport as a handy way of ending encounters. Simply leave the Greater version up, and when a teleporter is incoming, hop to the Astral Plane and sever their silver cord. But, how to determine where, or even if that is where the target goes? Does the teleporter simply cease to be?

If they really are on the Astral, this raises more (though perhaps less immediately applicable) questions. The Astral Plane is timeless. Timeless planes have the following traits:

Timeless

On planes with this trait, time still passes, but the effects of time are diminished. How the timeless trait can affect certain activities or conditions such as hunger, thirst, aging, the effects of poison, and healing varies from plane to plane.

The danger of a timeless plane is that once one leaves such a plane for one where time flows normally, conditions such as hunger and aging do occur retroactively.

If the teleporter spends 3 rounds on the Astral Plane, do those 3 rounds catch up to them when they leave? Are they in effect 18 seconds older? Could a resetting magical trap of some sort of forced teleportation combined with an item of continuous Anticipate Teleport age an enemy to death?

Can anybody tell me where in the heck the delayed Teleport caster GOES during the duration of Anticipate Teleport?

[Jack_Simth]

Basically everything you ask here is unspecified in the rules as written, so ask your DM. It's not specified they're on the astral plane.

The one bit that is at least partially addressed, though:
The silver cord: Only shows up when you're on the astral by way of Astral Projection, and doesn't otherwise show up. Plane Shifting to the Astral doesn't leave you with that vulnerability.

[Yahzi]

Where is the teleporter during the duration of Anticipate Teleport?

The same place the rest of the world is during a Time Stop.

[Doc Roc]

They live in GM Discretion Land.

[Myrmex]

Maybe the spell just creates a sort of extended field around you on the Astral Plane which impedes the teleporter's progression?

[Signmaker]

Also of note: what happens if you yourself want to teleport? Are you subjected to your own delay effect?

Edit: If 5 months is enough to be thread necro, feel free to lock. My mistake if so.

[pasko77]

The simplest solution is:
this is a premonition. You actually know 3 rounds BEFORE the teleport spell is cast.

[hewhosaysfish]

The simplest solution is:
this is a premonition. You actually know 3 rounds BEFORE the teleport spell is cast.

That is not simple.
Imagine two PCs on opposite sides of a room. One of them has Anticipate Teleport up. The other has Dimension Door prepared. He Dimension Doors across the room. You are the DM. What do you say?

[Tyndmyr]

He spends the requisite rounds in transit. He's unaware of this time passing, because for him, it isn't. For the rest of the world, it is.

He isn't anywhere in those three rounds, because the rules have removed him from his point of casting, and have not yet placed him at his destination.

[pasko77]

That is not simple.
Imagine two PCs on opposite sides of a room. One of them has Anticipate Teleport up. The other has Dimension Door prepared. He Dimension Doors across the room. You are the DM. What do you say?

"Oh snap!"

[2xMachina]

You Teleport Through Time!

[Lysander]

You could rule that the spell doesn't delay the person in the astral plane for 18 seconds, but that it holds them in stasis in some timeless demiplane created by the spell.

[Lapak]

You could rule that the spell doesn't delay the person in the astral plane for 18 seconds, but that it holds them in stasis in some timeless demiplane created by the spell.

This. It's like intercepting a transporter beam from Star Trek and putting it into a computer loop for a few seconds.

The incoming magic (carrying the teleporting mage and baggage from the Astral Plane) gets caught in a field of enchantment that surrounds the caster with Anticipate Teleport up, and held there for the duration of the delay.

...

Which suggests that an Epic application of this idea might be to permanently capture an incoming teleport and suspend it in a magical field indefinitely. Dispelling the field erases the people caught in the teleport, but leaving it in place traps them forever.

I think I've just given myself a new plot hook when something needs absolutely critical needs to be inaccessible to my players until they figure out how to unwrap it.