D&D 5E Low Level Teleportation

[Coroc]

I hate that teleportation and flying is not purely optional. Combat abilities like misty step or so could have been handled differently also while achieving the same result.

 

[TwoSix]

I wonder if making the teleport an upgrade of the Dash action would be feasible. Something like "When you take the Dash action, you may choose to teleport as any part of your movement during this turn, as long as you have line of sight to where the movement ends." That would prevent a lot of "ready my action to dodge the fireball" shenanigans, as readying a Dash doesn't do anything. (Technically, Dash doesn't make you move, it simply increases your speed. You can either move or take an action as a readied action, but not both.)

You'd want to give something like Rogue's Cunning Action to the hypothetical teleport class, to allow Dash as a bonus action. A rogue dip would be too tempting otherwise.

This could make for an actual real use for the Charger feat!

 

[Lanefan]

One wrench I'd probably throw in, were something like this to ever arise in my game, is some sort of risk of failure if such an ability was used in the heat of combat or under other extreme duress. Combat is chaotic: it's hard to tell where every participant will be at all times and-or whether you'll be engaged or not when you try to teleport.

Might go something like this: you have to pre-declare that you'll be teleporting before the start of the round and give a general idea as to your destination, then when your init. comes up and you try to do it there'd be a roll (with ease or difficulty determined by circumstance at the time, sometimes it'd be auto-success and - more rarely - auto-fail) to see if anything's now occupying your intended destination, with failure on the roll indicating your teleport failed and you stay where you are.

An example: your intention is to teleport behind a foe and backstrike/sneak-attack. When your init. comes up you roll for success as it's always possible your target stepped backward just at the wrong moment and occupied your arrival point.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I

One wrench I'd probably throw in, were something like this to ever arise in my game, is some sort of risk of failure if such an ability was used in the heat of combat or under other extreme duress. Combat is chaotic: it's hard to tell where every participant will be at all times and-or whether you'll be engaged or not when you try to teleport.

Might go something like this: you have to pre-declare that you'll be teleporting before the start of the round and give a general idea as to your destination, then when your init. comes up and you try to do it there'd be a roll (with ease or difficulty determined by circumstance at the time, sometimes it'd be auto-success and - more rarely - auto-fail) to see if anything's now occupying your intended destination, with failure on the roll indicating your teleport failed and you stay where you are.

An example: your intention is to teleport behind a foe and backstrike/sneak-attack. When your init. comes up you roll for success as it's always possible your target stepped backward just at the wrong moment and occupied your arrival point.

i really do not like mechanics like this. The game pretty much never does this sort of thing, and I would rather keep it that way.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Might go something like this: you have to pre-declare that you'll be teleporting before the start of the round and give a general idea as to your destination, then when your init. comes up and you try to do it there'd be a roll (with ease or difficulty determined by circumstance at the time, sometimes it'd be auto-success and - more rarely - auto-fail) to see if anything's now occupying your intended destination, with failure on the roll indicating your teleport failed and you stay where you are.

Not in 5E. At most, use a simple success-failure skill check here, just like if the character had tried to run across a narrow beam or climb a swinging rope ladder or whatever. There is no reason to add a whole new pre-declaration step to the round structure for this one particular type of movement when we don't use it for any other type of movement -- or any action at all.

 

[Stormonu]

In combat teleportation isn’t much of a problem. It’s the out-of-combat usage that gets to be problemati, and that’s something 4E could never grasp with the likes of Eladrin.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

In combat teleportation isn’t much of a problem. It’s the out-of-combat usage that gets to be problemati, and that’s something 4E could never grasp with the likes of Eladrin.

Care to elaborate? I never experienced any issues with Eladrin.

 

[Stormonu]

Things like teleporting to the other sides of locked doors, prison cells, cavern chasms and otherwise reaching areas that trivialize travel issues or create problems for the DM by accessing areas that may have been considered “off-limits”. Flight introduces similar issues, but teleportation compounds it as it can also bypass physical barriers.

 

[Lanefan]

i really do not like mechanics like this. The game pretty much never does this sort of thing, and I would rather keep it that way.

Fair enough, but I don't like guaranteed successes where such wouldn't make sense, so how else would you remove the guarantee?

 

[Lanefan]

Things like teleporting to the other sides of locked doors, prison cells, cavern chasms and otherwise reaching areas that trivialize travel issues or create problems for the DM by accessing areas that may have been considered “off-limits”. Flight introduces similar issues, but teleportation compounds it as it can also bypass physical barriers.

What's being proposed here seems to require line of sight. Yes there'd be some cases where it would bypass barriers (e.g. barred cells where you can see inside, or portcullises (portculli?), or narrow chasms where you can see across) but you wouldn't be able to use it to blip through a wall or door so some of those issues go away.

A corner case that'd need a ruling would be where you can see your target arrival point but there's an invisible barrier such as a wall of force in the way. (personally I'd allow it unless the invisible barrier was actually at your intended arrival point, in which case things could get messy )

Another corner case that'd inevitably arise would be what happens if someone tries to arrive on a moving surface e.g. the deck of a ship, the back of a horse or other large animal, or the branch of a tree swaying in the wind. (personally I'd advise that the PC would know this is risky then if they still want to try it, they're at risk)

EDIT TO ADD: another consideration is whether the teleporter can carry someone else. If yes then breaking people out of jail becomes a triviality; that alone would be enough to make me rule no.