[Forked from the Escapist Magazine Interview Thread] What implications does E...

[Neonchameleon]

This entire thread is full of specifics as to why you cannot design an Eladrin home city in exactly the same as a halfling or human one.

You really have to try HARD not to see it. I mentioned several examples that bugged my group already, such as windows and keyholes and city gates and guard towers under thirty feet in the air, arrow slits, etc.

Dude, come on.

And as has been pointed out almost all of those problems can be dealt with with a few seconds of imagination. You have to be either pretending the magical world is exactly like the real one or having people who take no account of magic for those tricks to work. Arrow slits just need shutters (blocks LoE) or someone to be standing by them (can't teleport into an occupied square).

Depending on how organised they were feeling.. Eladrin could position themselves every 25ft between two cities.. and ready actions to teleport.. then in a single 'round' of action, a messenger could teleport (move), drop a message bag into the hands of the next waiting Eladrin (free), who teleports and repeats, and the message bag is in the next city within a single round. Fun!

Depending on how organised they were feeling, and how much they felt like exploiting readied actions humans could do the exact same thing. Setting up a chain at 30' intervals, and using their move actions to run 30' rather than teleport 25' - and by the exact same feature of the rules as written, the messenger bag would be in the next city within a single round. Fun!

The fact Eladrin teleport is entirely irrelevant to how well this works - in fact it just means they need a few more Eladrin because they don't move as far.

Or if you want to think about physics, then you could have a 25' water wheel, and enough Eladrin to teleport up into a ferris-wheel-like carriage, use their potential energy (plus that of their maximum weight allowance) to pull it downwards, and then jump out at the bottom and rejoin the queue. I'd probably have to rule something about how much more exhausting it is to carry stuff/bamf up rather than across.

And after each teleport every Eladrin needs to rest for five minutes. Meanwhile the human hand-cranked wheel is much more reliable and uses far fewer humans.

I also think Eladrin would be better suited to living on coasts. Fishing would be trivial, simply construct a spherical net and teleport into a school of fish, then swim out. Diving would be easy - you would have the extra 25ft depth you could just teleport back up through without worrying about the time taken to swim back up. You could construct your dwellings well above ground level on sturdy piles so that floods just go underneath.

The spherical net/school of fish is dodgy as an intepretation. For that matter I'm not even sure you can teleport into water or the middle of a school. The diving works. And in the real world houses on stilts are a thing anyway.

I think it's fun to think about these things. The same is true for all D&D magic. I'm a big fan of limiting magical resources though, else it can be easy to get carried away.

Oh, it's fun So is playing using the actual restrictions in the game.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Granted, but since 4e's rules don't EVER define any procedure for what constitutes LOS in 3 dimensions we are ALWAYS left with rules interpretation. Its entirely within the letter of the 4e rules for a DM to say that if you can't see the FLOOR of the place you are teleporting, then you can't teleport there and don't have LOS. I think I'd argue against that interpretation in general, but its not inconsistent with the actual rules and procedures of the game.

Someone upthread pointed out- in response to my posts- that if you teleport into the air, you are falling. I'm pretty sure that at least implies that you don't need to see the floor of the space you're teleporting into.

 

[Hussar]

Well, technically, if you teleport into mid air, you can see the "floor" of the square you are teleporting to.

But to be fair, I believe the rules are silent on this point. It's sort of like 3e's summoning rules which got changed in 3.5 to stop tactical whale bombing.

4e otoh, rarely bothers with mechanical solutions to this sort of thing and just leaves it up to the DM.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Someone upthread pointed out- in response to my posts- that if you teleport into the air, you are falling. I'm pretty sure that at least implies that you don't need to see the floor of the space you're teleporting into.

Yeah, and I in fact tend to agree with you, but you could look at it as you need to be able to see at least one corner of the square (IE the 'ground' level) of the spot you teleport to. This would forbid some 'cubes' where you can see the corners at the top but not the bottom ones. Of course you could always teleport 5' higher (assuming that's in range) and just fall 5' (which will have little effect on even the clumsiest 1st level character). So In general the edges of roofs are almost surely accessible. I'd expect that eladrin builders just assume that the roof isn't secure and buildings are constructed accordingly with controlled rooftop ingress. This is pretty much standard even in human cities since cat burglars are far from unknown.

I could see some interesting public architecture though, areas that you can't easily access without Fey Step (a grade could simply be a steep wall 10' or even 20' high, the inhabitants can simply 'step to the top, so it wouldn't really be a problem for them).

Actually the eladrin might well build fortifications with low redoubts just for this purpose. A platform 20' tall with a 5' battlement around it would be fairly secure against non-teleporters, and would offer the defenders easy and quick egress at any point for forays, sallying, escapes, etc. Such redoubts could be built below the walls, and protected by a 10 or 15 foot wide ditch. If they were located near the foot of the walls a postern could give secure access so a group of eladrin could marshal, 'step out from the walls to do their thing and then step back and have relatively safe access to the sally port covered from enemy fire. If the enemy were other eladrin such a structure would be less useful, but it wouldn't particularly compromise the defenses if the enemy 'stepped there.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Following the last post, I figure every eladrin door would have a window, one that you could clearly see and teleport past... along with a thick black piece of felt that could be used to cover the peephole window (privacy, keeping out thieves, etc).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Following the last post, I figure every eladrin door would have a window, one that you could clearly see and teleport past... along with a thick black piece of felt that could be used to cover the peephole window (privacy, keeping out thieves, etc).

That would make sense. Other options would include a door leading to an entryway with another door not visible from the first giving into the interior. Even if someone 'ports through the first door, they're stuck for at least five minutes. The locking mechanisms for each door would naturally be within. In fact the outer door might have no key at all, just a tele-port, then you unlock the inner door with a key in relative security, if you have one. Otherwise you just have to knock, or wait 5 minutes. Naturally some sort of trap or at least alarm placed in the entryway would be sensible.

One might also imagine other cunning artifices. A hidden peephole allowing occupants of a building to 'step out but impossible for an intruder to find (and via lighting and magnification could be effectively one-way). Such a peephole might be used to outflank a potential intruder or unwelcome visitor, gaining a surprise attack.

'Modesty screens' could be placed right behind doorways, blocking the view into the interior of a room, which could be used to prevent surprises, and to funnel hostile eladrin into a trap at the doorway which they might otherwise 'step past. This would be a rather modest security measure, but might be utilized in otherwise low-security settings or as an added layer of security.

 

[Manbearcat]

OMG 5 minute schedule, short range teleport makes Eladrin prisons impossible solved with a Ritual (amongst other means).

For a one time 7000 gold piece (and a single daily surge to extend) investment, any Eladrin city can ward a structure with 1953125 cubic volume of anti-teleport space. That is enough cubic volume for 3500 cells @ 6 * 8 * 8 with ~ 1/3 the cubic volume left for whatever infrastructure they deem is necessary to house (and reform?) any poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor man's Nightcrawler.

I just looked up Evereska online (classic FR Eladrin redoubt). Its population is listed as 21-22000. I'm assuming most Eladrin cities wouldn't have a crime rate warranting lengthy imprisonment for 1/3 of the population. However, since we're bending over backwards to ignore the mechanical requirements of 4e teleport while simultaneously turning the D&D action economy into more than just a metagame construct to facilitate turn by turn play, let us say they lock up 1/3 of their population at any given time. That is 7000 prisoners. No eye-gouging or constant shrouds required.

But let us say that you just want to gouge folks' eyes just because. For maximum eye-gouging efficiency, we could have Fighters with Reaping Strike dealing Eye Gouge On a Miss doing the gouging!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

OMG 5 minute schedule, short range teleport makes Eladrin prisons impossible solved with a Ritual (amongst other means).

For a one time 7000 gold piece (and a single daily surge to extend) investment, any Eladrin city can ward a structure with 1953125 cubic volume of anti-teleport space. That is enough cubic volume for 3500 cells @ 6 * 8 * 8 with ~ 1/3 the cubic volume left for whatever infrastructure they deem is necessary to house (and reform?) any poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor man's Nightcrawler.

I just looked up Evereska online (classic FR Eladrin redoubt). Its population is listed as 21-22000. I'm assuming most Eladrin cities wouldn't have a crime rate warranting lengthy imprisonment for 1/3 of the population. However, since we're bending over backwards to ignore the mechanical requirements of 4e teleport while simultaneously turning the D&D action economy into more than just a metagame construct to facilitate turn by turn play, let us say they lock up 1/3 of their population at any given time. That is 7000 prisoners. No eye-gouging or constant shrouds required.

But let us say that you just want to gouge folks' eyes just because. For maximum eye-gouging efficiency, we could have Fighters with Reaping Strike dealing Eye Gouge On a Miss doing the gouging!

Dude, I'd xp you for that if I could, lol.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Teleport Catcher is an 18th-level ritual. Characters of such high-level aren't common, and even an 18th-level ritual scroll is uncommon and expensive.

You're better off sticking really tough material in front of the bars so the eladrin can't see out. Also no windows.

 

[Manbearcat]

Dude, I'd xp you for that if I could, lol.

Teleport Catcher is an 18th-level ritual. Characters of such high-level aren't common, and even an 18th-level ritual scroll is uncommon and expensive.

You're better off sticking really tough material in front of the bars so the eladrin can't see out. Also no windows.

Well. Given that Eladrin are the Magickey McMagicson race that they are, I would assume (and the canon does) that any place like Evermeet, Evereska, Myth Drannor, or any of the Feywild cities would have 1 or more 21st level + Archmage, fully capable of level 18 (and higher) rituals, haunting their grounds.

I don't believe there are too many assumed mundane Eladrin settlements (those appear to be reserved for their Elf cousins). But if there was a small, mundane Eladrin village, they would likely have a crime rate approaching 0. They may put the small number offenders they have to death or exile. If not, they could just go with the shrouds, the pit cells for the few deserving criminals (Mystical Eladrin as kender kleptomaniacs or just randomly committing petty theft and the like sounds a thousand times more silly than all of the concerns about the setting implications of Fey Step) that they might have, or they may very likely have a hard-line Reaping Strike to the face policy! My guess is they would probably be a pretty severe, serious Vulcan lot.