An end to scry-buff-teleport?

[Imp]

a) I houserule it so you can only teleport to your arcane marks, which introduces some intrigue to scry/buff/teleport;

b) Why not have teleport simply strip your buffs? The power of the magic consumes all other temporary magical effects on your person blah blah etc.

 

[Calico_Jack73]

Way too metagamey. Why should the Astral Plane be required for teleportation? Breaking that through D&Disms is the wrong way to go about it, since it presumes that the D&Disms are compelling to groups (and to new groups, they certainly won't be) and that those D&Disms will never change in subsequent editions (if the Astral is removed from teleportation in 4E, Midnight either needs a new edition or suddenly it's Teleport City).

Because ideally time and space have no meaning on the Astral Plane. You can jump into Astral Space then jump out at any location on the prime with no passage in time. Kinda like hyperspace to realspace.
It may be Metagamey but it is a core concept to the Midnight setting... when the dark god Izrador was cast out of the heavens he separated the prime from ALL the planes. It keeps him imprisoned on the prime (where he makes life hell for the inhabitants) but it also keeps the other gods out. Teleportation, Dimension Door, and Plane Shift simply aren't on the spell lists for spellcasters in that setting.
It won't break in 4e because those spells still won't be available on any spell lists for Midnight spellcasters. If a spell doesn't belong in a particular setting then no amount of metagaming can be used to argue that it should be there. If I want to run a d20 modern game I don't have to allow spells into the game just because they are in the core book. If my setting doesn't have magic, it doesn't have magic.

My core point is that IMHO the setting trumps what is available in the rulebook. If you don't want Teleport, don't have it in your setting. You don't have to explain it if you don't want to . Even if you do explain it, it is your story... do what you want. Don't be constrained by logic.

 

[Xyl]

The problem with Scry-Buff-Teleport isn't that scrying is too powerful, and it isn't that teleportation is too powerful, it's that they're too powerful together. So why not just make it impossible to teleport to a location based on scrying it?

There are a lot of ways that could work. Perhaps you need to have been there yourself, or have a magical token created by someone who's been there. Maybe you need an object that originated in the location you're teleporting to, or a detailed description from someone who's physically been there. Or maybe teleporting requires you to accurately visualize a much larger area than a scrying spell can show you.

Most of those methods mean the DM can control where the players can teleport. If the PCs' mission requires them to teleport to another city a hundred miles away, they can get a token tuned to that city, or talk to someone who's been there, or whatever. If they shouldn't be able to teleport into the BBEG's stronghold, no tokens are available.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

I have never had a group {yet} that does the scry-buff-teleport bit.. but I have two thoughts on the matter..

1> DMs should play thier BBEG's intelligently. I have an encounter/module set up around the 'so you want to kill a dragon' where said dragon has a nasty surprise for any S-B-T PCs... pretty much means instant TPK.. {but this is an encounter based on the idea that taking on a Dragon generally means TPK..}

2> If it is an issue, a couple simple changes 'fix' the issue. My prefered options are:
- Teleport takes time, your buff spells may have expired by the time you arrive
- Scry is noticable by the targets {will save}
- Teleporting characters arrive flat-footed and a new initiative is rolled, as if they have just joined a combat in progress. - arrival by teleport is noticable as it comes with a flash of light and a sound

Combined this means the higher level BBEG's will notice the scry and have time to prepare a response during the moments when the party is vulnerable. They can also ready an action.

I do like the idea of setting specific changes where Arcane Marks or tokens are required to target, as well as the teleportation 'ley lines'. Could make for a more interesting game and explains the evil fortresses out in the middle of nowhere.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Because ideally time and space have no meaning on the Astral Plane. You can jump into Astral Space then jump out at any location on the prime with no passage in time. Kinda like hyperspace to realspace.
It may be Metagamey but it is a core concept to the Midnight setting... when the dark god Izrador was cast out of the heavens he separated the prime from ALL the planes.

Great. It's still stupidly metagamey and is unnecessary to the core idea of the setting, "what if the bad guys won Lord of the Rings." You don't need a D&Dism to make that happen, you just need to say "hey, this is Middle-Earth with the numbers filed off. You don't get teleport, man."

 

[JohnSnow]

Great. It's still stupidly metagamey and is unnecessary to the core idea of the setting, "what if the bad guys won Lord of the Rings." You don't need a D&Dism to make that happen, you just need to say "hey, this is Middle-Earth with the numbers filed off. You don't get teleport, man."

"The Sundering," as they call it in Midnight, is not "stupidly metagamey." It's a key conceit of the setting that when Izrador was banished by the other gods, he cut the Prime material Plane off from the rest of the multiverse. Thus no contacting gods, no gates, no teleport, no ethereal plane, no spirits going to their final rest, and so on. And the only divine magic in the setting belongs to the servants of Izrador himself.

There is a faerie realm of sorts, and "legend holds" that it used to lead to other planes of existence. It allows the possibility of rapid transit but still doesn't allow for teleporting or similar kinds of spells.

I like Middle-Earth just fine, but while Midnight may have started as "Middle-Earth with the numbers filed off," it is a much, much, richer setting than that.

 

[ruleslawyer]

Great. It's still stupidly metagamey and is unnecessary to the core idea of the setting, "what if the bad guys won Lord of the Rings." You don't need a D&Dism to make that happen, you just need to say "hey, this is Middle-Earth with the numbers filed off. You don't get teleport, man."

To second JohnSnow: The Sundering isn't metagamey at all, really. Some of the following are major consequences of the isolation of Aryth from other planes:

1) Outsiders and elementals are all those who remain on the world from before the Sundering and are now trapped on it. This has... er, interesting consequences from the perspective of using summoning spells and from the POV of outsider and elemental encounters in general.

2) No divine magic or divine intervention. The only god is Izrador, and the only divine magic is the legates'.

3) No planar travel, meaning no escape. That is a big, big deal. Teleport is largely incidental to the issue; the bigger one is that the setting is a nightmare that you don't get to abandon merely by going somewhere else.

Midnight isn't performing a "carveout" of the teleport spell; it's creating a setting-specific, well-grounded campaign construct that happens to include a prohibition against teleport as one of its outcomes... almost incidentally, in that case.

 

[Rechan]

2) No divine magic or divine intervention. The only god is Izrador, and the only divine magic is the legates'.

So, no healing or things like Lesser Restoration?

Jeez. That's just brutal on your average campaign. Especially considering the mount of poisonous critters and creatures with ability damaging powers.

 

[ruleslawyer]

Spell lists are somewhat jiggered around in MN, though, in two ways:

a) There is a healer heroic path (heroic paths are a set of benefits you get over 20 levels to substitute for the loss of magic items, kinda like Vow of Poverty). One of that path's SLAs is lesser restoration, IIRC.

b) Certain spells are taken off the divine spell list and redistributed. Specifically, druids are turned into "nature mages" rather than "nature clerics," so certain druid spells (including possibly healing effects) go on the Channeler's (generic spellcaster's) spell list.

 

[Lanefan]

Scry...not a big problem provided there's a chance of being noticed by the scryee, who can then take suitable precautions.

Buff...let's hope there's way fewer buffs in 4e, and those that remain are sensible. If so, no problem here.

Teleport...the quickest way to fix this is to put the risk back in. The party won't like the tactic so much after half of them have been insta-killed by teleporting into solid rock. If they're still willing to take the risk, let them. Oh, and an area that has only been scryed rather than physically viewed should automatically be considered the lowest level of familiarity when it comes to teleport... As for Teleport Without Error (or whatever 3e calls it), easiest fix here is that you can only teleport to a place you have previously physically been.

Lanefan