Anticipate Teleport: Where Do They Go?

[the Jester]

If I have an anticipate teleportation spell (or the greater version of same) up and someone tries to teleport next to me, their arrival is delayed.

Where are they while this is happening? Does time pass for them? If they have spells up, does the duration continue to run? Can they cast spells while "delayed"?

A few examples of when this might be important:

*My enemy casts true strike and then a swift teleport to jump in all in my face, but is delayed 3 rounds by my GAT. Does he still get to use his +20 bonus from true strike?

*I'm delayed, but want to buff up. Can I get 3 rounds of buffing in?

*My GAT tells me that someone's trying to teleport up on me. What if I cast an antimagic shell where they will appear?

Thanks- I feel I need to have a good handle on this spell, as it's becoming a staple in my epic game!

 

[Victim]

My thought was that delayed creatures are in stasis and probably don't even know they've been Anticipated until they pop back.

 

[shilsen]

My thought was that delayed creatures are in stasis and probably don't even know they've been Anticipated until they pop back.

Same here.

 

[Sejs]

It's a bit buried, but some of the hows and whys of teleportation are mentioned in the book - teleportation is instantaneous travel thru the astral plane. So if they're delayed via Anticipate Teleport, that's where they are. Chilling on the astral, waiting to clear customs.

On the astral, spell duration continues to elapse as normal, so his True Strike would time out, but on the other hand any spells cast there benefit from the Quicken Spell feat (still to the limit of one quickened spell per round). So if you're facing a particularly savvy opponent, you might delay him three rounds only to find out he's now sporting 6 new buffs when he arrives thanks to the nature of the plane you made him wait on.

So, to your points:

1) Nope, his True Strike has lapsed. Sorry, Charlie.

2) Yup. 6 rounds, actually. Neat, huh?

3) Where they were originally teleporting to. AMF wasn't in effect when the teleport was cast, thus is can't stop it from completing now. Likewise, the delay from GAT was triggered when the teleport occured, casting AMF on round two (and thus suppressing your GAT) won't curtail the delay it imposed before it was suppressed.

All in all, Anticipate Teleportation is a damn fine spell. Any mage worth his salt should invest in it, similar to Detect Scrying. It's the equivalent of knowing both you and your enemy have guns, so you invest in bulletproof vest. It doesn't make you invulnerable to bullets, but it goes a long way in helping to keep you alive.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

*My enemy casts true strike and then a swift teleport to jump in all in my face, but is delayed 3 rounds by my GAT. Does he still get to use his +20 bonus from true strike?

*I'm delayed, but want to buff up. Can I get 3 rounds of buffing in?

It is easiest to just assume time does not pass for those in transit. Any other option will generate immense headaches for no useful purpose.

*My GAT tells me that someone's trying to teleport up on me. What if I cast an antimagic shell where they will appear?

Whatever normally happens when you attempt to teleport into a location that is illegal because of anti-magic or any other reason.

 

[Dracorat]

Actually, Antimagic doesn't extend from the Prime Material to the Astral Plane, so they will arrive just fine and then find themselves in an Antimagic Field.

 

[kerbarian]

It's a bit buried, but some of the hows and whys of teleportation are mentioned in the book - teleportation is instantaneous travel thru the astral plane. So if they're delayed via Anticipate Teleport, that's where they are. Chilling on the astral, waiting to clear customs.

On the astral, spell duration continues to elapse as normal, so his True Strike would time out, but on the other hand any spells cast there benefit from the Quicken Spell feat (still to the limit of one quickened spell per round). So if you're facing a particularly savvy opponent, you might delay him three rounds only to find out he's now sporting 6 new buffs when he arrives thanks to the nature of the plane you made him wait on.

Anticipate teleportation says "The teleporting creature does not perceive this delay." So there's definitely no opportunity to buff, and I'd also say that spell durations wouldn't continue to run out -- time just doesn't pass for the teleporting creature. However, you may be right that the creature is on the astral plane in the meantime, in some sort of stasis. The other possibility is that anticipate teleportation stops the teleport in the "return from astral to material" phase, so the teleporting creature could be stuck in between planes or some other wacky thing.

 

[Hypersmurf]

The other possibility is that anticipate teleportation stops the teleport in the "return from astral to material" phase, so the teleporting creature could be stuck in between planes or some other wacky thing.

Stuck in the transporter buffer.

-Hyp.

 

[Sejs]

Stuck in the transporter buffer.

-Hyp.

So does that mean there might be some faint chance they show up with a goatee and a slight case of moral inversion to go with it?

 

[Nail]

However, you may be right that the creature is on the astral plane in the meantime, in some sort of stasis.

No.

The delayed creature(s) are NOT in stasis. Time just flows slower (much, much slower) for them than it does for everyone else on the plane in question. They are still on the Astral plane for only "an instant", just as with a normal teleport spell. They notice no change in time while in transit, any more than those outside a Time Stop notice a change when that spell is cast.

Remember, time is just a dimension. It can be stretched or shrunk in any number of ways, just as length, width, and height can be.