An end to scry-buff-teleport?

[VirgilCaine]

The SBT tactic is like skipping to the end of a novel... you miss the story in between.

What everyone seems to leave out of this whole conversation is how easy it is to foil Scrying and to foil Teleport.

Scrying: Wear a disguise or a mask or a full-face helmet. Don't announce your name or title and don't use any identifying markings or insignia. Or you could use magic (Disguise/Alter Self, Wildshape, Invisibility, etc. etc.)

Have minions refer to the organization by name and never reference the leader or individual members name's--excellent for LE groups.

You could come up with all kinds of ways like this to avoid giving away information.

Also theres the time wasted (1 hour casting time+ 24 hours of no scrying on that subject) when the target saves against the spell.

Teleport: BBEGs (and Good Guys) should inhabit ancient temples/castles/fortresses that have been remodeled and fought over a dozen times because they've got Forbiddance spells in place, or places near volcanoes, paint pots, geysers, or Permanenced Control Weather spells or other large scale Permanenced effects or Hallowed/Unhallowed areas...any number of things...all of these things make teleportation more hazardous and don't do anything to trigger Teleport Without Error's clauses.

Not to mention the difficulty of establishing both location AND layout of a place using only a 10' radius of sight.

More active measures including having bodyguards with you at all times, including while sleeping. Have your minions sleep in barracks-style sleeping arrangements.

These sorts of steps make S-B-T much more of a time-waster and a crapshoot and something to only be attempted under the most dire of circumstances.

 

[Lackhand]

Contact Other Plane, Commune, and Divination in various mixtures can help get the name of That Masked Individual.

The arms-race is pretty easy to win, when it comes to bringing Scry into play, because up until the scry goes off, there's not much sign that someone is hunting around.

Counteracting teleport's not a bad idea either, but I like using natural effects more than using Forbiddances from ages past: "You mean this castle is forbiddance'd, too? Man, those magi from ages past had a lot of free time!"

If these sorts of nerfs are going to come up with the kind of frequency that would be necessary to encourage good adventuring, it would be nice if the spells warned the player that this was going to happen in their text. I suggest nerfing Teleport, since it seems to be a bigger problem than Scry, but YMMV, since this is pretty much a choice thing between information/ability.

Especially because, as other posters have pointed out, suspension of disbelief goes twang when organized magic-type badguys don't use the very effective scry/buff/teleport combo on the players, who cannot possibly benefit from all of the clever protective measures.

 

[Kraydak]

Contact Other Plane, Commune, and Divination in various mixtures can help get the name of That Masked Individual.

The arms-race is pretty easy to win, when it comes to bringing Scry into play, because up until the scry goes off, there's not much sign that someone is hunting around.

None of those spells are useful in finding names unless you have a *lot* of xp to burn. You only get yes/nos, and not even that from Divination. Add in the ease of blocking Scrying (Private Sanctum) and SBT only really applies if the DM hates BBEGs with access to spells. I have the same amount of sympathy for such DMs as I have for people who think its unfair that you can't run a modern competative military without at least an answer for air power.

(Yes, leaving your warded areas is dangerous. That said, Nondetection and above all Detect Scrying+emergency teleports suffice)

 

[Lackhand]

Once per week a quasit can use commune to ask six questions. The ability otherwise works as the spell (caster level 12th).

I'm a *little* worried about players using SBT on the bad guys who are incautious in their use of anti-SBT tactics.

I'm a *lot* worried about villains returning the favor.

I suspect that this is in many ways a playstyle thing: I am very much opposed to using very specific spells to cancel a class of effects as a balance for that class of effects being "too good", where "too good" is very very situation dependent.

It kills character concepts to me: every anti-scry measure is going to be Abjuration or Illusion, because that's what breaks divination. Some villains (insane warmage? Vile necromancer?) may not care a whit for divination or illusion. It doesn't seem unreasonable to still want to use them in an adventure as the BBEG without them having a pet thaumaturge.

I suspect seeing Scry/Buff/Teleport-countermeasures as a foil for the strength of the technique correlates strongly with enjoying save or die effects. They're very similar in that they both have a character who is perfectly fine with the proper wards up, completely screwed if any wards are missing (assuming that the DM is a jerk, which relatively little can prevent ).

Nothing wrong with that, but not for me.

 

[Zweischneid]

As for lava, realistically speaking (yeah, big mistake!) lava is virtually as dense as stone. Sure, it's a liquid, but it is still stone, so falling into a lava pool wouldn't mean you sink to the bottom; you'd still be resting on the surface, sinking in only a small amount.

Of course you'd probably also be bursting into flames....

Oh boy, now that's some very flawed physics there.

You know that a materials aggregate state changes depending on temperature? If you heat up metal to be liquid, you'll most certainly sink in it. If you cool down water enough to be solid (i.e. Ice), you'll have a hard impact.

Therefore, if you keep heating stone, it'll get increasingly more fluid meaning that yes, you will sink into it.. as easy as into water if you make it hot enough (lava as we see it is usually rather sluggish because it is already cooling down again).

 

[Lackhand]

Oh boy, now that's some very flawed physics there.

You know that a materials aggregate state changes depending on temperature? If you heat up metal to be liquid, you'll most certainly sink in it. If you cool down water enough to be solid (i.e. Ice), you'll have a hard impact.

Therefore, if you keep heating stone, it'll get increasingly more fluid meaning that yes, you will sink into it.. as easy as into water if you make it hot enough (lava as we see it is usually rather sluggish because it is already cooling down again).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Displacement_(fluid)
SCIENCE: if the weight of a human is less than the density of lava * the amount displaced, the human will float.

Using rough calculations from the internet, the human body seems to have a density of 985 kg per meter cubed (slightly denser after an exhale) -- contrast that with 1000 kg per meter cubed for water at 4 degrees Celsius.

Lava is denser -- much much denser -- than water. Most rocks expand about 10 percent when they melt, and hence most magmas have a density of about 90 percent of the equivalent solid rock (according to encarta) -- and basalt has a density of 3011 kg/m^3, which at 90%, puts it at a nice 2710 kg/m^3.

The human body will sink a distance in the lava sufficient to displace their mass (it would be volume, if they sunk all the way, but they float, so they don't!). If the human weighs (with equipment) 100 kg, then they will sink in a volume sufficient to displace 100 kg of the lava.
That's 100 kg / 2710 (kg/m^3) or .037 m^3; I don't know how much of a person that is, but it's hard to imagine it's much more than above the knees.

(whether one can keep their footing is a question of the viscosity of the lava, and the inflammability of the pants; it's left as an exercise for the reader.)

 

[Jack99]

In my current game, I do the incoming warning thing.

Teleportation is loud. Dimension door (and below) all make a *bamph!* sound. Teleport itself is like a thunderclap. Plane shift is artillery. And gate? Yeah. You'll know. Cities dislike allowing permanent teleport circles within their walls, but if they do allow them, they're closed at night.

Also, teleportation effects can take time. Teleport feels instantaneous to the teleporter, but it takes 3 rounds in the real world. For those three rounds the noise builds -- first a loud hum, then a buzz, then the roll of thunder heralds the incoming traveler.

Cheers, -- N

I am gonna steal that, if you don't mind. Hell, mind all you want, I will steal it anyway , just the fix I was looking for.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Counteracting teleport's not a bad idea either, but I like using natural effects more than using Forbiddances from ages past: "You mean this castle is forbiddance'd, too? Man, those magi from ages past had a lot of free time!"

But that's exactly like choosing to fight a tank with a stone axe. Just because you like more natural strategies doesn't mean it should be a good idea to employ them when your enemies are obviously not limited in that way.

If someone uses magic against you, and you choose not to use magic against them (or to protect yourself), you SHOULD be at a disadvantage, in a world where the magic is available.

If you limit yourself to certain schools of magic and don't shore up that weakness, you SHOULD be vulnerable.

It's like choosing not to boost your Will save. Your Will save, then, will be a weak point, and you SHOULD succumb to spells like charm person. This doesn't make charm person too powerful. It makes it a good tactic to use against creatures who leave themselves open and vulnerable.

In D&D, if a villain has a weakness, the characters SHOULD exploit it. If that weakness is an inability or lack of desire to use the magic at their disposal, the players SHOULD win against it.

Not that it should be as binary as it is now, but charm person SHOULD be effective against people who don't have good Will saves, and S-B-T SHOULD be effective against people who don't try to counteract scrying, buffing, or teleporting. Not a formula for instant success like it is now, but still an advantageous tactic.

 

[Hussar]

Not that it should be as binary as it is now, but charm person SHOULD be effective against people who don't have good Will saves, and S-B-T SHOULD be effective against people who don't try to counteract scrying, buffing, or teleporting. Not a formula for instant success like it is now, but still an advantageous tactic.

Now I'll agree with. It's not that S-B-T is a viable tactic, it's that it's too viable. It's so good that all other tactics are overshone. I could certainly live with the idea of S-B-T being viable.

The trick is, how? How do you make it so that the party or the villain can know exactly where someone is, get ready and then bamf right on top of him, and keep that in line with other tactics? Better instead to not allow teleporting through scrying. You can get close to the target with teleport, but, not right on top.

 

[Kraydak]

Now I'll agree with. It's not that S-B-T is a viable tactic, it's that it's too viable.

It is an only semi-viable tactic that can be countered by a spell of the same level (private sanctum) or a pair of 4th and 5th level spells (detect scrying + an evasive teleport). *IF* people prepare, SBT isn't viable unless used against people you can already crush casually. Given detect scrying's counter scry ability, S-B-T is actively dangerous.