Anywhere but here. (with me)

[Kaelaroth]

How can I stop PCs randomly escaping with spells such as dimension door and teleport without employing magics such as antimagic field. I still need them to be able to fight with arcane wrath.
Thanks!

[Green Bean]

Dimensional Anchor

Dimensional Lock

Is this what you're looking for?

[reorith]

if you're into railroading, have them make a check of some kind, and then tell them they failed.

[Kaelaroth]

Dimensional Anchor

Dimensional Lock

Is this what you're looking for?

That kind of thing yeah. Anything else though? Less conventional methods? (I'm not a fan of fudging either)

[13_CBS]

What do you mean by "less conventional"? Like, a dimensional anchor spell cast by a statue, or something entirely different creating a similar effect?

[Duke of URL]

You could always employ counterspelling, but this offers far more chances for the PCs to outwit or outluck you.

[PaladinBoy]

It's not going to stop them the first time, but introducing enemies that are intelligent and/or have powerful allies might convince your players that it's a bad idea to run. For example, the players invade a wizard's castle, leave with one of these spells, then return the next day to find the defenses reorganized and much more prepared than they were the first time. Or the thieves guild that they attack calls on the help of the city guard or an allied guild, so that the players have that much more firepower lined up against them.

As for magic, the two big ones have already been mentioned. Forbiddance is a defensive ward for a building which, in addition to making entry more hazardous, prevents any extradimensional travel in the warded area.

[Reel On, Love]

Beyond dimension-anchering/locking them? It's tough.

The Divert Teleport power does what you're going for, but having a 13th level psion there every fight might get suspicious. You can justify it by making him a Seer, and giving him largely security- and divination-based powers, meaning he's not going to go in and Energy Stun the melee characters to death, he's going to sit to one side--hopefully invisible somehow--and do what he's being paid by his employers to do (which is *not* risk his life fighting a bunch of invaders).

You could take a different approach and base your game for the next while around some kind of severe magical catastrophy that severs the Astral Plane from the Material, causing all teleport-style magics to fail everywhere (with the appropriate effects on travel, trade, etc. for an even moderately magical society). Heck, you could even make it progressively worse, as the elemental planes start to pull away, too (making summoning impossible), and so on. The PCs would have to figure out what's doing this and try to resolve it somehow. Of course, this could very well not fit at all with whatever your game is doing right now. If your PCs are all about being Chaotic Bastard mercenaries that kick people in the nuts and take their stuff, and they're currently in the middle of another plot, it's not gonna work so hot.

A smaller-scale version of the same thing is time-critical and/or unabortable missions mentioned by other people. If you leave, the MacGuffin gets moved/reinforcements are summoned/etc.

[Subotei]

Perhaps give them a ticking clock - something like a prisoner under imminent threat of sacrifice to rescue etc - if they bug out to avoid the encouter they fail their mission.

[PinkysBrain]

Forbiddance works too.

[Fhaolan]

The ticking clock mentioned before is one of the best methods, because it's not an arbitrary restriction on their abilities.

Basically you want something that makes the players second guessing themselve about bugging out. Something that will penalize them for leaving without completing the task.

[Tokiko Mima]

Paralysis, Nauseate, Slow, Cower, or Confuse at least one of them if this is a group of good aligned PCs. This will prevent their retreat, because they will have to leave one or more members behind.

Also, you could equip the foes they face with the same teleportation ability, and make observing where a teleporter is going part of the Spellcraft check, i.e. they *can't* run away, because they'll be followed where ever they go the moment they do.

[Drider]

have a bad guy they "escaped" from pour molten hot lead on the magic-ey person who has teleport via some trigger plate...or maybe a tucker-esque kobold on a high ledge pours it on, allowing a teleportation "mis-hap" or just not allowing it

[BCOVertigo]

Perhaps give them a ticking clock - something like a prisoner under imminent threat of sacrifice to rescue etc - if they bug out to avoid the encouter they fail their mission.

I agree with this, there is no reason to fiat the players into doing what you want. That's stupid and will only anger them / prove how creative you aren't.

The simplest method is the best: If you don't want them to run, remove their desire to run.

[Rachel Lorelei]

Another option would be to, well, talk to them about this. You know, out of character. "Hey, guys? The whole teleporting out thing? It's making running the game a little hard. Could you guys tone it down a little, like save it for if you're dying or something?"

Edit: you do realize that making it so running away always screws them over, all missions are ticking time bombs, and so on is... just as much DM Fiat/Railroading/etc as any of the other suggestions, right?

[Reel On, Love]

Another option would be to, well, talk to them about this. You know, out of character. "Hey, guys? The whole teleporting out thing? It's making running the game a little hard. Could you guys tone it down a little, like save it for if you're dying or something?"

Edit: you do realize that making it so running away always screws them over, all missions are ticking time bombs, and so on is... just as much DM Fiat/Railroading/etc as any of the other suggestions, right?

Oh, come on. A little funneling and the periodic need for other tactics isn't nearly the same thing as "your teleports stop working, period." By that logic everything the DM ever does is railroading, since he decides what the PCs face.

[Saph]

How are they managing to all teleport out at once? Dimension door, teleport, etc., are all touch range spells. That means all the PCs have to be standing next to each other, and then wait for the teleporter's turn.

If all the PCs are free to assemble, and none of them are immobilised/disabled/dying/dead, then why do they need to retreat in the first place? If the fight's dangerous enough to force them to retreat, there'll probably be at least one PC down by the time they do.

- Saph

[Reel On, Love]

How are they managing to all teleport out at once? Dimension door, teleport, etc., are all touch range spells. That means all the PCs have to be standing next to each other, and then wait for the teleporter's turn.

If all the PCs are free to assemble, and none of them are immobilised/disabled/dying/dead, then why do they need to retreat in the first place? If the fight's dangerous enough to force them to retreat, there'll probably be at least one PC down by the time they do.

- Saph

Maybe they're wussies. Or maybe they just spend their spells too fast and so hop on out to wait until they have them back.

[Rachel Lorelei]

Oh, come on. A little funneling and the periodic need for other tactics isn't nearly the same thing as "your teleports stop working, period." By that logic everything the DM ever does is railroading, since he decides what the PCs face.

Well, there's a difference when it comes to options. A little variety is certainly par for the course, but if every mission just happens to preclude the use of a set of spells, well, I start hearing "choo-choo".

[Saph]

Maybe they're wussies. Or maybe they just spend their spells too fast and so hop on out to wait until they have them back.

Yeah, I was thinking that was the other possibility. The 'bungee' style of adventuring (teleport in, kill things, teleport out).

In that case the easiest solution is to make each encounter difficult enough to be a day's worth of encounters on its own. No multiple little encounters, just one big one. So all the teleport really does is get the players to the combat faster.

- Saph

[Corolinth]

The ticking clock is a good one. Another tactic is to start having villains figure out where the PCs like to go to hide out. Think Serenity, when the Operative torches every settlement that Mal holed up in over the past six months.

[Shhalahr Windrider]

I've never understood the "Teleport is a problem" thing. It's like "OMG! They're actually using their ability to teleport to instantly travel where they want?!" Getting in and out of the dungeon is what teleport is for, isn't it?

But if you really think it's a problem, make your PCs come up with a few solutions for you. I'm sure any antagonist with the ability to teleport would appreciate its ability to whisk him away to safety. If they really want/need to defeat this opponent, they'll apply some brainpower to it.

Anyway, as others have mentioned, time marches on when the PCs are gone. Even if there isn't some sort of time bomb—the PCs could take a couple decades working on this adventure if they had to—things are bound to change in the PCs' abscence. Some time these changes are in the PCs' favor, sometimes not. It's particularly nasty when the enemy is capable of setting a trap for when the PCs return or tracking the PCs down afterward. It's all in the NPCs' reactions.

[BCOVertigo]

By that logic everything the DM ever does is railroading, since he decides what the PCs face.

I try to set up npc's as independent nodes that work towards their own ends regardless of what the players do, the players add in their own actions and goals and shape the events that occur. I think this style, as opposed to running the players through a script, is more effective because you don't have to think up ways to put them back on track.

My current campaign for example has an army that is essentially running over the country they are in, if they choose to fight it (which they have) then the army will react appropriately, if they choose to run, the army will probably win and the other npc's goals will unfold unopposed. (I'm being purposefully vague because some of them frequent this board and THEY MUST NOT KNOW THE TRUTH)

[goat]

Send them on a long and dangerous mission to find the High Priests of the God of Fearlessness, who lives in the gaps between the planes. Recently, said God has been getting irritated with the displays of cowardice he's seeing among the adventuring community. If people 'port out of combat unnecessarily there's a percentage chance that he kicks them to a different destination, or swipes something that they're carrying.

Your party's mission is to find the High Priests and convince them (probably though a hideously dangerous quest) that courage, bravery and laughter in the face of death are still strong among the people of the world. Said god has no problem with 'porting outside of (or into) combat, so they can still travel around with the spells, but using it to escape a battle might be a quick way to lose a kidney in transit.

[Kurald Galain]

You can have wild magic zones where teleportation gets wonky (shifting people several meters in a random direction works fine).

You can also have an epic plot about the fabric of the reality getting unravelled because of overusage of dimensional ripping spells. First the PCs do a bunch of teleporting. Then they get followed by some people who wish to keep reality stable, and attack the PCs. Then they get to explain themselves and get to help repairing the world.

[Tormsskull]

Too late to do now, but I always attach expensive material components to the spells that require you to rethink the world too much.

[kjones]

I think that talking to your players is a reasonable idea. Chances are, they're not actively trying to antagonize your game - they just like their mobility. Honestly, having everyone Dimensional Anchor them, or making every dungeon they enter have Forbiddance cast, are good ideas - but only once. Just explain to them that it's annoying to you, and a waste of time for everyone, and they might just be willing to tone it down for the sake of the game.

What I might do, in addition to some of the other clever plot-based ideas here, is give them defend missions. Defending people wouldn't really work, since they can just teleport out with them, but defending a static location, such as a sacred altar or shrine, a town or village, a treasure trove, some nexus of magic - heck, even a castle - would make it so that teleporting out means that their defenses would be overrun.

[PaladinBoy]

Also, I just remembered something. If you choose to have intelligent enemies that change their plans in the 8 hours that the PCs are gone, then the anticipate teleport spells are a useful way for them to set up a trap for the PCs. They're in the Spell Compendium; basically what they do is alert the caster to incoming travelers using teleport and delay their arrival by a round or so. Thus allowing the caster and his friends to set up an ambush.

[ravenkith]

What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

Set up a major caster villain. Give him lots of intelligence.

Put him into play as the leader of a group of raiders: his minions hit the trade caravans going from place to place, looking for expensive material components and lots of gold, and lots of magic items.

Set him up in a deep fortress full of magical traps and horrors. Coat the place in anti teleport stuff to prevent people from getting in. Make sure it's on the villains list of spells to do this.

Every. single. time. they invade his inner sanctum, they get there just in time to watch him teleporting out with 90% of the treasure (so as to set up another base somewhere else).

They'll get the message eventually.

[Leon]

With a Pet Living Teleport, every hit is a random journey