Blocking scrying and teleport without magic

[Driddle]

Here's a simple way to prevent people from teleporting into your character's demesne:

Rearrange the furniture.

Bwah-hah!
Points for making me snort at work.

 

[Whisper72]

Could it be that someone's DM played a lot of Shadowrun at some point? That used to be the way to block out astral projections in that game.

Yeah, I also played and DM'd Shadowrun in my time... I always hold to the idea 'it is better to steal a good idea then to think up a lousy on oneself'....

 

[Vrecknidj]

Surround a room with planes that are extradimensional. At the very least, it ought to give your DM fits.

Or just sleep inside a Portable Hole.

Dave

 

[Aeric]

I believe another anti ethereal/teleport/scrying measure was a building covered in vines, on the grounds that you couldn't magically get inside or through another creature.

Similarly, you could have a larger building protected by a banyan tree or an aspen stand, or an underground chamber protected by mold.

I'm not sure that would work against teleportation. After all, a building covered in vines (or mold, etc.) is not a living creature, it's just surrounded by living material. Besides, there's got to be some room for other people to enter, otherwise it would be useless as a meeting place. Unless all you're interested in doing is protecting an item, that is.

Now, if you had a druid cast Awaken on the house...or better yet, Stone to Flesh....

 

[Thikket]

I wonder if hanging drapes, ropes or chains would work to prevent teleportation, if they were hung thickly enough. A creature just walking through the room could simply push them aside, but would teleport do the same? Would the spell fail if there was no way for the creature to appear in the room without overlapping some pre-existing object?

I had this idea for a paranoid NPC in one of my games. He hung long paper charms from the ceiling all around his house, so that one could not walk anywhere without brushing by many strands of paper covered in (what the NPC believed to be) ancient protective runes. This was to prevent dimension door instead of teleport; maybe that's the spell you were thinking of, FireLance.

Even that is up for debate, though, as dimension door says:
"If you arrive in a place that is already occupied by a solid body, you and each creature traveling with you take 1d6 points of damage and are shunted to a random open space on a suitable surface within 100 feet of the intended location."

Do these things count as a "solid body"? I would say they do.

You could rule that the same sort of "shunting" in the dimension door text exists with teleport, too. After all, what happens when someone tries to teleport into a room that has had (unbeknownst to the caster) a cave-in, or is otherwise now completely solid?

 

[Warren Okuma]

Allow me to reward you for the completion of your last adventure. Please take this small amount of gold as a token of my appreciation to you. I just admire your work.

 

[Kwitchit]

The ultimate Scry-and-teleport-proof sanctum: a lead-lined box in the ribcage of a Colossal Undead. You can't teleport inside another creature, but the Undead is friendly to its owner, so allows him to occupy its space. It's technically non-magical, but you do need to get the undead somehow.

 

[Slife]

Isn't there some clause about strong natural energy interfering with teleport?

 

[Thikket]

Isn't there some clause about strong natural energy interfering with teleport?

Yeah. VirgilCaine's signature details this, and it's in the spell description; also, see VirgilCaine's post above in this thread for some cool ideas on how to get that working.

In other news, this is still bothering me, and I really gotta know: has the FAQ/sage/Hypersmurf or anyone else addressed the concept of accidentally teleporting into a solid/occupied area? I want to know if the paper-charm trick works. I want to know if it's covered in some esoteric place in the rules.

After all, what happens when someone tries to teleport into a room that has had (unbeknownst to the caster) a cave-in, or is otherwise now completely solid?

 

[Scurvy_Platypus]

In other news, this is still bothering me, and I really gotta know: has the FAQ/sage/Hypersmurf or anyone else addressed the concept of accidentally teleporting into a solid/occupied area? I want to know if the paper-charm trick works. I want to know if it's covered in some esoteric place in the rules.

Well, that sounds like it'd be a "false destination", as far as the Teleport spell is concerned. You'll either wind up in a similar area or the spell fails, if you're lucky and get the Similar Area roll. If not, you get scrambled and suck 10d6 damage and reroll again to see how lucky you are. You've got a 50/50 shot of either gettting bumped to a Similar Area, or sucking another 10d6 of damage again. So, death is certainly a possibility.

Teleport Greater and Teleport Circle appear to have built in "protection" and the spell simply fails if you try and get someplace that you can't/shouldn't Teleport into.
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/teleport.htm
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/teleportGreater.htm
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/teleportationCircle.htm

Then again, I'm not a rules monkey so maybe there's some esoteric interpretation of what I read that I don't get.