Do you house rule teleport?

[ackron]

In talking with some fellow DMs over the past few weeks, I have discovered (to my surprise) that most of them have some kind of house rule for teleport, either banning it outright, or changing it in some respect. Do you have a special rule for teleport in your campaign?

 

[Sammael]

Yup.

Teleport
Conjuration (Teleportation) [Planar, Astral]
Level: Sor/Wiz 5, Travel 5
Components: V
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Personal and touch
Target: You and touched objects or other touched willing creatures
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: None and Will negates (object)
Spell Resistance: No and Yes (object)

This spell instantly transports you to a designated destination, which may be as distant as 100 miles per caster level. Interplanar travel is not possible. You can bring along objects as long as their weight doesn’t exceed your maximum load. You may also bring one additional willing Medium or smaller creature (carrying gear or objects up to its maximum load) or its equivalent (see below) per three caster levels. A Large creature counts as two Medium creatures, a Huge creature counts as two Large creatures, and so forth. All creatures to be transported must be in contact with one another, and at least one of those creatures must be in contact with you. As with all spells where the range is personal and the target is you, you need not make a saving throw, nor is spell resistance applicable to you. Only objects held or in use (attended) by another person receive saving throws and spell resistance.

You must have some clear idea of the location and layout of the destination. The clearer your mental image, the more likely the teleportation works. Areas of strong physical or magical energy may make teleportation more hazardous or even impossible.

You must mentally plot a path to your destination through the Astral Plane. In order to successfully plot the course and teleport to it, you must make a Spellcraft check. The base DC of this check is 25, modified as follows (additional circumstance modifiers may apply):

• Heighten Spell feat is applied: -5 for each level beyond 5th
• You can currently view the destination (either normally or magically): -10
• You increase the casting time to
o 1 full round: -5
o 1 minute: -10
o 10 minutes: -15
o 1 hour: -20
o 1 day: -25
o 1 tenday: -30
o 1 month: -35
o 1 year: -40
• The destination’s familiarity is
o very familiar: +0
o studied carefully: +5
o seen casually: +15
o viewed once: +25
o description: +40

If the casting time is prolonged beyond 1 hour, the caster needs a fairly quiet, comfortable, and well-lit place in which to concentrate. Any place suitable for preparing spells is fine. The caster works for 8 hours each day. He cannot rush the process by working longer each day. The days need not be consecutive, and the caster can use the rest of his time as he sees fit.

If you have 5 or more ranks in Knowledge (The Planes), you get a +2 synergy bonus on this Spellcraft check.

Very familiar is a place you have been very often and where you feel at home.

Studied carefully is a place you know well, either because you have been there often, or because you have purposefully spent several hours remembering details about it, possibly viewing it using magical means.

Seen casually is a place you have visited or viewed magically once or twice for at least an hour.

Viewed once is a place you have briefly seen once, possibly using magic.

Description is a place whose location and appearance you know through someone else’s description, perhaps even from a precise map.

If you fail the check by 5 or less, you appear in a random place which is 1d10 x 1d10% of the original distance away from the place you wanted to travel to.

If you fail the check by 6-10, you appear in an area similar to the one you wanted to travel to, though it can be anywhere on the same plane of existance.

If you fail the check by 11-20, you and everyone travelling with you got scrambled and take 1d10 points of damage, plus an additional 1d10 points of damage for each additional creature travelling (roll separate damage for each traveller). You go nowhere, and the spell is wasted.
If you fail the check by 21 or more, you and everyone travelling with you end up embedded in a solid object in a random location. Unless you are somehow able to act in these circumstances, you die instantly.

Teleport, Greater
Conjuration (Teleportation) [Planar, Astral]
Level: Sor/Wiz 7, Travel 7

This spell functions like teleport, except that there is no range limit and the base DC of the Spellcraft check is 15 (Heighten Spell further reduces the DC by -5 for each level beyond 7th).

 

[Crothian]

Yes, but not in any way that I can answer the poll. Instead of changing how it works, I've resticted access to it and most instant movement spells. IMC there is a god of travel and only he can grant divine casters these ttypes of spells. Arcane casters much be part of the Guide (wayfarers from Complete Arcane) or suffer penaties like fines and eventually having their teleport spells fail or just take them elsewhere.

 

[Shieldhaven]

In my campaign, you can teleport from anywhere to any place with a magic item called a teleport beacon. There is, however, no chance of failure. It is therefore useful as an escape spell and a long-distance travel spell, but it pretty much takes care of any danger of PCs teleporting into the BBEG's lair as he sleeps.

Haven

 

[CRGreathouse]

Teleporting, in my game, takes 5 rounds (20% miss chance round 1, 50% round 2, (gone) round 3, 50% miss chance round 4 (new place), 20% miss chance round 5), although the casting time's still just a standard action.

 

[Liquidsabre]

Nope, no change. Though I've been quite fond of another DM's flavor-addition of loud claps of air imploding and exploding upon use of the spell (taking the surrounding air with you and adding the globe of air to where you arrive), making it impossible to use the spell for stealthy purposes. So if characters want to sneak up on foes they've got to hoof it.

 

[Laman Stahros]

You know, I've heard of people having problems with spell with regards to the Scry - Buff - Teleport tactic, but my players didn't try it. So, I asked them why not. "But, if we do that, we miss out on all the XPs and treasure from the rest of the baddies!" What could I say to that? No, I don't house rule teleport at all, why should I?

 

[Ibram]

I dont use the standard teleport... instead I replace it with some variant spells.

they use the following rules:

1) some random time passes, anywhere from a few rounds to days or weeks (depending on the spell and the distance travled)

2) there is a chance that the creature being teleported will take damage of some kind

3) there is a somewhat small chance that a hostile spirit (daemon) will manifest when a teleport spell is used

4) there is a chance that the target is erased from existance (perhapse devoured by daemons or perhapse just time shifted so far off base that they can no longer influence the situation... but more then likely they were just telported into deep space)

5) they all require the target to be willing

6) they require something of the target (a lock of hair or some such thing)

7) they are blocked by dense substances or large amounts of matter (like lead plated walls or the bottom of a dungeon)

 

[Magus Coeruleus]

My players can't access it directly yet, but I've established that teleportation requires a material component called "swiftstone." 50gp worth per person teleported is required for the spell, and the material cannot be purchased just anywhere. In fact, one mission the group went on was to find and purchase some for a higher level NPC friend. I do rule, however, that the Teleport can be cast without the component, in which case it functions exactly like Dimension Door instead. I've done that sort of thing with another spell and generally like the idea of expensive components for spells that otherwise might be used more often that I'd like for my campaign, but where the absence of the component still at least allows a lesser version of the spell to function.

Also, I haven't changed the failure chances for Teleport, but I define each category much more conservatively. In particular, I consider magical viewing a poor substitute for actually having been somewhere, such that you could never be considered to have "studied carefully" by magical means. Studying carefully via magic is required to get about as much of a connection as having visited once or twice in person.

 

[Fieari]

I just made it so that all long distance teleports "resolve" at the next midnight. So Scry - Buff - Teleports can be prepared for. Once midnight passes, the bbeg can relax, and so can players. Nothing is going to pop in and start slaughtering them unprepared unless they come in by foot.

Tactical teleports work as normal.