Teleportation

[Eldritch_Lord]

If the teleport spell only worked to bring you within 5 miles of your target destination all the time (rather than randomly) then it is a much better spell. You don't have the problems of scry-buff-teleport, and it actually works with the flavour text you have there. Also, if the spell is only designed to bring you close to your destination, you can use it for escape, to cut down travel time, while strongholds still make sense. Plus, linked portals and gates still have a purpose as well.

It doesn't even have to be 5 miles--3e teleport's off-target distance is [1d10*1d10]% of the distance traveled in a random direction, so if you roll badly you could end up going several hundred miles in the wrong direction.

The problem with scry-and-fry isn't the teleport accuracy, really, it's the fact that scrying a place for a while counts as "studying it carefully." If you change it to make all divination count as "seen once" regardless of repeated viewings, that gives you a 25% chance to be off-target or damaged, up from 5%, and that's just making a single tweak to the 3e rules. For a more significant change you could, for instance, change the on-target chance to 100% for going to your home base or somewhere within line of sight, 70% for somewhere you've carefully studied in person, 40% for something seen casually once or twice in person, 10% for something viewed through divination, and 0% for somewhere you've just heard of, and scry-and-fry suddenly isn't really a dominant strategy anymore.

Sure, but linked portals work very well for that. You don't need the teleport spell to do those things.

Not if you want to visit a city you haven't been to before, travel somewhere in the wilderness to meet in a neutral location, show up outside of a city instead of in a designated portal area, or more. I realize you're really set on linked portals as a solution, but there are many things you just can't do if you're restricted to specific locations.

I hear that, but unless you are part of the OSR, you are pretty much out of luck. You might get a few side-supplements but it isn't the consensus among players and DM's in the new school that higher level games involve power and statecraft. That's all I want to do though.

It's a matter of individual group playstyle, not edition. I just finished up a game last semester with my college group, who learned D&D with 3e, where our party was trying to overthrow an archmage who'd conquered two continents; we started off as conscripted mercenaries in one of the two remaining free cities and ended up in control of a continent after ruthlessly overthrowing the archmage's puppet governments politely asking the other cities to join us. We controlled a local capitol, two port cities, a mining city, a handful of smaller towns with good agricultural resources, a mage tower, and more. I was actually the only combat-capable party member, as everyone else was a utility build of one variety or another, and we played Logistics & Dragons for a good 7 levels or so, one important facet of which was that we were able to coordinate our towns against a three-pronged attack by the enemy precisely because we were able to do things like move resources and people between cities and 'port into our enemies paths in the forests, up in the sky, and under the sea to delay and harass them.

Not everyone likes that degree of strategic play, nor do I expect them to, but it's a playstyle that's just as viable in 3e as it was in AD&D. I would posit that the playstyle of high levels being just another dungeon crawl where the DM has to fiat in "solutions" to a bunch of "problems" because they let the PCs do things besides 'port between pre-established adventure sites or affect the world on a large scale is just as unviable in 3e as it was in AD&D, but if you want to tweak the game to make that work you're welcome to do so, it's just not my cup of tea.

Yeah, but each of those options is more fun than teleport, plus proves that we don't need something as powerful and game-breaking as teleport to do the same job.

Each of those options also doesn't fulfill the same function teleport does. I'm not arguing that teleport is a low-level ability at all, I'm arguing that there's an obvious progression from walking around cliffs to throwing ropes over cliffs to levitating up cliffs to flying over cliffs to teleporting past them. Teleportation isn't this sudden problem spell that invalidates challenges, it's the continuation of a trend of "zooming out" as you level; you go from worrying about avoiding that pile of rubble as you charge an orc, to avoiding that stone wall as you charge a group of orcs, to avoiding that rocky cliff as you flyby attack that warband of orcs, to avoiding that mountain as you launch an attack on that orc army, to avoiding that mountain range as you stave off the attacks of the Avatar of Gruumsh. Teleport is no more game- or story-breaking than any other magical mobility, it's just a question of which sorts of stories they mess with and what context they fit into.

That solution really bothers me. Basically, it means that there is no reason to learn the cool spells because the DM is just going to make it impossible to use them. If you are going to make a spell available, don't make it so overpowered that it breaks the game unless there is an anti-spell that shuts it down.

That's why I like linked portals. You have cool teleportation, and you have no need for anti-teleport wards for evil lairs to make sense.

Are swords overpowered because a DM needs plate armor to protect enemies from them? Is fire damage overpowered to the point that lots of creatures have fire resistance or immunity?

Two points. First, spells tend to be at the same levels as their counters plus or minus a level for a reason (charm person and protection from evil, fireball and protection from energy, and so on, all the way up to imprisonment and freedom). D&D is a game of counters, between needing certain weapons to bypass certain DR to needing certain spells to remove certain conditions and on. You (and your enemies) need counters for common abilities, counters for counters, and so on, and determining what resources to use is part of the game. Teleport shouldn't be a one-size-fits-all solution any more than sneak attack or fireball. Yes, if your DM puts all of Mordor under a dimensional lock he's being a bit of a jerk, but expecting NPCs not to use commonly-available countermeasures to commonly-available and relatively widely-known abilities isn't really fair.

Secondly, NPCs aren't all-knowing and all-wealthy (or at least shouldn't be, or your DM is, again, not being fair). Warding against teleportation costs money, or minions, or time, or some other resource, and if a villain is paranoid enough to forbiddance all of Mordor it probably means he doesn't have the time or cash to churn out all his +1 hobbit-bane short swords or equip a few bazillion hobgoblins to siege Minas Tirith. Anti-teleportation spells are either finite in direction or extremely expensive per unit volume, like many other wards, and if an enemy devotes all of his resources to defense his offense will suffer.

Linked portals aren't low magic. They just don't have the problems of the teleport spell. Nobody is trying to make a low magic game here.

That wasn't a shot at your beloved linked portals, it was a counterpoint to those who think LotR and Conan should be playable as-is at high levels.

 

[ferratus]

Both.

For in-game time, if a party has to spend 4 months travelling up to the arctic for a two-week adventure, then spend 4 months coming back again, this causes various issues to arise:

Sure, but nobody is saying that you should ban instantaneous travel. We just don't want a spell that allows you to transport anywhere, instantly.

How often do you have a time sensitive mission where you have to teleport hundreds of miles away, in the middle of nowhere so that you can't contact someone with a message spell (to start the other half of the teleport link), to a place you have never been before, and you absolutely need to teleport back the next day?

It stretches plausibility I have to say.

I'm well aware of this, but wandering monsters and random encounters are (in theory) a fact of life and it seems jarring to mysteriously not have any such during a multi-month journey; also I've yet to see any party enter any town without getting into some sort of trouble...and there might be a lot of towns to go through en route...

Flying avoids most wandering monsters, or towns, as does travelling by ship. But really, why is it a problem now when it wasn't a problem earlier?

Teleport *should* only be a single-person spell, plus what said person can physically carry. Planeshift is the one that can take a bunch of people and has in my experience been the bigger headache - I ended up having to put some limits on Planeshift but have never felt the need to do so with Teleport. Again, I have to bang 1e's drum here; as it got Teleport right.

Planeshift doesn't work as a spell at all. What's the point of having a hell dimension if fiends can be summoned to the prime material without a by your leave? Gates guarded by angels or about to be opened by cultists only please.

Also,when I talk about teleport as an exit strategy from a no-win situation, I'm only referring to the caster. The rest of the party have to rely on the caster to somehow get them out and-or revive them from death*.

The same applies to scry-buff-teleport: if the caster's the only one who can go, the strategy becomes rather (literally!) self-limited.

Eh, ironskin + most likely energy resistance + readied save or die spell + teleport in and out = scry buff teleport anyway.

 

[Manbearcat]

Should teleport be 1st level? 3rd level? 5th level? 9th level? A far as I can tell, the answer to that question depends entirely on the level at which you're happy for overland travel not to matter in your game anymore.

Or harrowing pursuit evasion/narrow escapes, anxiety-inducing navigation of treacherous terrain or extreme environments, or cloak and dagger travel via subterfuge, stealth and uncanny wits through a city in which you are wanted or a target (of the guard, local thieves guild, or worse). And on and on.

There should be a collection of spells by level 13 whereby you can narrow the scope of the game to "wake up, have breakfast, collect loot and infamy Fedex package from doorstep, take a nap until afternoon tea."

 

[Elf Witch]

If you have to have been there in person already anyway, then why not just have linked portals? It also leads to ramifications in the wider campaign world. For example people would start banning mages from setting foot in castles or walled cities for security reasons, because he can sneak in with teleportation and assassinate the king.



I'm well aware I can ban a problematic spell, I'm just letting you know why teleport is problematic, and how it can be done better. Why is a broken spell necessarily better than one that you come up with yourself?



i) If the mass spells are in the DM's hands, then there is no reason not to put them in the PHB spell list instead of teleport. Let's make a specific spell that is an avoid-TPK spell at 5th level that doesn't have teleport's problems.

ii) Why does contingency need to be higher level than teleport? It is less useful than teleport, so why isn't it less powerful? Gamist thinking no doubt.

iii) If linked portals work just fine, why do I have to ban the teleport spell? Why not just have the teleport spell work that way from now on? One works just fine, the other has problems, so it seems a no brainer.

Then they also need to ban rogues and monks who can sneak in and kill the King. But I don't need teleport I will just dominate one of personal guards and have him do it or I will cast improved invisibility on assassin and let him do it.

There are dozens of ways to get int the castle and kill the King with using teleport.

A King worth his salt should pay to have anti teleport, anti scrying and other protections up as well.This is not rocket science in a world where magic exists the powerful will find ways to use it to protect themselves.

It is only a problematic spells for some people not everyone has problems with it. Something some people tend to forget.

I would not want mass spells like that available in the PHB mass gaseous form could cause a lot of headaches and I can see the forums now with the cries of how the rogue is now having his niche steeped on because the wizard has taken away his ability to be the sneaky one and now everyone can sneak around. I can hear the cries of frustrated DMs of the party just uses mass gaseous form avoids all the encounters I have planned for them and off they go straight to the boss fight.

 

[Elf Witch]

You can cast word of recall again, naturally, just as you'd have to cast teleport again. Or you could have hidden a teleportation circle to return to outside the dungeon.

The problem with teleport is that it is an instant surprise attack, at full strength, directly against any powerful enemy. It is a problem because it makes other forms of transport obsolete. It is a problem because it allows you to leave whenever you are losing, instead of thinking your way out of a jam.

Linked portals plus a few "expiditious retreat" spells work well with none of those problems.

Now, if there is no way to land at a specific desired point problem [URL=http://www.enworld.org/forum/usertag.php?do=list&action=hash&hash=1]#1 [/URL] disappears. Having people land within 5 miles of their desired destination works and removes scry-buff-teleport as a tactic. Nobody has offered a solution to problem [URL=http://www.enworld.org/forum/usertag.php?do=list&action=hash&hash=2]#2 [/URL] . Problem 3 is touted as a feature rather than a bug, but I frankly don't see any difference between that and returning to full hp between encounters or a night of rest.



I know I can just ban it, but that doesn't stop teleport from having problems, and yes Lanefan, even in 1e. (Though it has less problems than the 3e/PF version.). Why not choose the teleport that doesn't have the problems?

I would have far more issue with wizards and sorcerers making a teleportion circle or portal outside of every damn campsite they make just in case. I would find that far more broken than the 3E teleport with error.

The problem with teleport is DMs who don't know how to counter it or DMs who don't have the backbone to just say no this is not allowed in my game. If the only tactics a party uses is scry and teleport eventually the evil guys who have access to the same tools will figure out a counter. An easy counter would be to set up some illusion magic hiding the real threat the party teleports in and bam it is not what they were expecting.

Sometimes there is no thinking yourself out of a jam your butt is being handed to you on a silver platter and the entire party is about to die.

As a DM I have found teleport really useful as a way to frame and shape encounters.

A lpt of people including myself have offered ways to tweak teleport you just have your mind made up and don't want the spell in the game.

Tjhat is fine for your table but again I have to ask for those of us who want some form in the game why is that such an issue for you. Why is is it a problem for you to just take it out of your game. Why should it matter if in my game we use the spell?

 

[ferratus]

It doesn't even have to be 5 miles--3e teleport's off-target distance is [1d10*1d10]% of the distance traveled in a random direction, so if you roll badly you could end up going several hundred miles in the wrong direction. {snip bit that deals with how to improve the odds of failure}

I like something that is always inexact better. Being unable to teleport where you want 25% of the time, still allows you to teleport where you aren't wanted 75% of the time. If you can only land in a vaguely close area to where you actually want to go, you have all the utility of teleport with much fewer problems. Not all of the problems are solved mind you, but the scry-buff-teleport problem is.

Or we could simply make teleportation limited, at least until say 16th level or so.

Not if you want to visit a city you haven't been to before, travel somewhere in the wilderness to meet in a neutral location, show up outside of a city instead of in a designated portal area, or more. I realize you're really set on linked portals as a solution, but there are many things you just can't do if you're restricted to specific locations.

Yes, but we both know those are all rare situations that have multiple solutions outside of giving players to teleport instantly anywhere.

Not everyone likes that degree of strategic play, nor do I expect them to, but it's a playstyle that's just as viable in 3e as it was in AD&D.

Sure its viable, it just isn't expected, nor does it seem to happen very often.

Each of those options also doesn't fulfill the same function teleport does. I'm not arguing that teleport is a low-level ability at all, I'm arguing that there's an obvious progression from walking around cliffs to throwing ropes over cliffs to levitating up cliffs to flying over cliffs to teleporting past them. Teleportation isn't this sudden problem spell that invalidates challenges, it's the continuation of a trend of "zooming out" as you level;

Sure, and I could see a place for teleport anywhere anytime as a godlike power, as a 9th level spell or epic spell. As a 5th level spell, no. When mages are casting 5th level spells, its time to ride griffons.

Two points. First, spells tend to be at the same levels as their counters plus or minus a level for a reason (charm person and protection from evil, fireball and protection from energy, and so on, all the way up to imprisonment and freedom). D&D is a game of counters, between needing certain weapons to bypass certain DR to needing certain spells to remove certain conditions and on. You (and your enemies) need counters for common abilities, counters for counters, and so on, and determining what resources to use is part of the game.

I certainly don't like the idea that the only counter to wizard spells is other wizard spells. That's what we have with teleport. Instead of building a stronghold meant to keep men out, the only way I can keep a wizard out is to hire another wizard. D&D has a lot of that. A wizard can block a swordsman's best attack with ironskin, but a fighter can't block a 1st level magic missile with a shield.

Secondly, NPCs aren't all-knowing and all-wealthy (or at least shouldn't be, or your DM is, again, not being fair).

DM's are often petty creatures, and sometimes they need to shut down certain mid-level spells so that the adventure is coherent at all. That's why the wheels pretty much fall of the bus in 3e & earlier editions around 12th-14th level. Heck, that's why characters of that level (or higher) were pretty much equated with overpowered munchkins in the 2e days of my youth.

 

[Elf Witch]

In the case of D&D teleport, I would have though that it is trivially easy for any GM who is familiar with it from a past edition to "invent" it again! Just cut-and-paste.

There's not even a balance question. Should teleport be 1st level? 3rd level? 5th level? 9th level? A far as I can tell, the answer to that question depends entirely on the level at which you're happy for overland travel not to matter in your game anymore.

But what if a DM is not familiar with it? Wouldn't it be nice to have an option in the DMG on how to use these kind of spells? With examples on how to make them fit want more high magic easy travel use a less restrictive teleport want something more dangerous then one with added risk.

 

[ferratus]

I would have far more issue with wizards and sorcerers making a teleportion circle or portal outside of every damn campsite they make just in case. I would find that far more broken than the 3E teleport with error.

Why? How can travel to one specific place be more broken than simply being able to teleport anywhere?

 

[ferratus]

Then they also need to ban rogues and monks who can sneak in and kill the King. But I don't need teleport I will just dominate one of personal guards and have him do it or I will cast improved invisibility on assassin and let him do it.

Both easier to thwart than a teleporting mage with a save or die spell.

A King worth his salt should pay to have anti teleport, anti scrying and other protections up as well.This is not rocket science in a world where magic exists the powerful will find ways to use it to protect themselves.

Yes I know, the only way to counter a wizard is with another wizard. It doesn't matter that thousands upon thousands of gold pieces were spent creating a bastion. If it isn't enchanted, then there is no way to keep out a mid-level wizard.

I really, really, dislike the attitude among D&D players that magic users not only have to be powerful and mysterious, but have to be more powerful than other classes in every way by the time they reach mid levels. Pah. Magic is the unreliable tools of the craven and weak, that can't stand up to honest steel.

I would not want mass spells like that available in the PHB mass gaseous form could cause a lot of headaches and I can see the forums now with the cries of how the rogue is now having his niche steeped on because the wizard has taken away his ability to be the sneaky one and now everyone can sneak around. I can hear the cries of frustrated DMs of the party just uses mass gaseous form avoids all the encounters I have planned for them and off they go straight to the boss fight.

Which teleport (and other magics) already do, and for which gaseous form causes less problems than teleport. For example, a deep dungeon with a labyrinth keeps away those players with gaseous form, because they will run out of rounds before they arrive at the big bad.

 

[Elf Witch]

Why? How can travel to one specific place be more broken than simply being able to teleport anywhere?

Because you saying that wizards and sorcerers should take the time every night that they camp to set up a portal.


I have always felt that certain spells belong in the DMG scry, teleport, raise dead are some examples. Let the DM have the tools to pick if they want this in their game at all and give them the tools to decide how powerful they want it to be.


In some games I have banned spells, modified them change the level of them. I have done the same with races and classes. Not everything fits every campaign style.