High Level Magic (a bit of a mouthful)

[hbarsquared]

Somewhat reiterating Piratecat's suggestion: make the journey important.

Using the sage idea: perhaps only he knows the proper command word, or has the only key? But first the PCs need to find him.

Or maybe they need to visit several other places scattered around the world in order to gain the information that they need?

The key to high-level abilities is that they always require some previously known information, whether it be a teleport or divination. If the exact location of the mythical city is unknown, make it's discovery a quest unto itself. Divinations are notoriously ambiguous. Require that the PCs visit someone or somplace in order to figure it out.

Just keep in mind the prerequisites for these spells, and the exact effect, and use the specifics themselves to add to your adventures.

 

[gizmo33]

its not just making you walk there, its what happens along the way (or at least thats the idea)... To use a tired old example; the Lord of the Rings would only have been three pages long and a bit naff besides if Gandalf just grabbed Frodo and the ring, then teleported and flew over Mt Doom... Or at least thats my humble opinion... am i making sense?

Much of any sensible story, LotR included, would be inconceivable if the heroes were able to operate with unrestricted information gathering and transportation. I don't script my adventures to the extent that I'm worried about the PCs not meeting the NPC sage for purposes of the story. In fact, the whole idea that players would choose to walk rather than teleport merely for metagaming reasons ("we'll miss the important NPCs that the DM has placed in the area") doesn't suit my style. And if there's something else in the vicinity of the city that they need to find first, then maybe they'll just teleport there and then on to the city? In any case, IMO you won't accomplish the "happenstance encounters" like LotR unless there's some reason not to teleport.

My issue with the meager options for defense against teleportation/divination stems from a feeling that it just doesn't make common sense. I don't know where the idea came from that PCs abilities should be uncontested unless the counter-measures already existed in 1st edition DnD (ex. see invisibility, armor, walls, etc.) That's not the way I read the "don't nerf the PCs abilities" advice because it would contradict so much of what's already in the DnD game.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

On the topic of the mythical city, I wouldn't have the divinations reveal anything more than it apparently exists or once existed. If high level divination spells can give you the city's zip code and the phone number of the mayor, it's no longer mythical. Obviously, you don't want to pull this on the PCs every time, but instead allow the divinations to find other useful information, like the last known location of the sage and his importance, etc. (The sage, naturally, is no longer where he was.)

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

And speaking of LotR, remember that the reason that one of the rings that an army didn't just punch their way into Mordor to destroy the ring was to avoid Sauron's attention. Perhaps magic over a certain level has a chance of getting the BBEG's attention, similar to how it works in Midnight. The players might not be aware of the restriction at first, but a few evolved wraith sorcerers showing up in response might make them want to keep the name of the city out of divinations for a while ...

 

[WizarDru]

In addition, understand that obscurity is a very good defense mechanism. Remember the first rule of high-level spellcasters and organizations that like to stay alive:

If No One Knows Who You Are or Where You Are, They Can't Get You.

In other words, big bad guys tend to wage battles from three levels back. They weave defense upon defense to defend themselves. Divination spells are only as useful as the questions the players have the wherewithall to ask. This isn't to say you make it valueless...just that the players MUST use the spells to get the info, as opposed to using the spells to jump past the part you want.

Another thing to do is review the high-level spells, and look at the specifics. For example, someone above mentioned a password to get to a location. That's fine, except that Find the Path will TELL you the password. BUT, Find the Path only works with locations, not items or people. WHen my players, at 18th level, went to stop the Lich Queen of the Githyanki...they needed to find her phylactery and another item....they used Find the Path to go to the Queen's Library, where it was supposed to be. BUT IT WASN'T. The spell worked, but a simple misdirection given earlier made the question that was asked incorrect. And here's the thing: it was a honest mistake of an NPC who didn't know he was wrong. It wasn't a lie, it was just bad info. Another spell COULD have solved that mistake. And that's fine, too. Find the Path also takes the easiest route...but that isn't always a safe route. You still need to go past the ancient red dragon if there's only one way to go. Knowing he's there doesn't make him easier to bypass.

Lots of the high-level divination and movement spells have achilles heels that you can use to preserve a sense of challenge without stealing away the players abilities. Further, as it's been said...make the players USE those powers. Travel powers getting you down? Make it so the players need to hop all over the place as part of an adventure. Put them in a time restraint. Have them make choices with consequences. Teleporting to Place A means you aren't at place B. And remember that the villains have access to some of that power, too. As a DM, you can cheat a little and basically assume that evil clerics and wizards have been using THEIR off-time to do divinations and preparations of their own.

The most important part is to make sure the players get to use their powers, and that you don't make it seem like you're opposing them. They should be able to use their powers to succeed...and that success feels more meaningful when the villains seem prepared.

 

[TheVoiceOfReason]

Right, gotcha... need to make it work for me (or I work with it, if you prefer) as opposed ot thinking of it as an obstacle...

What I may have done is assume that high level play is just like low level play but with more HD and a better special-effects budget; now I've got a handle on how to handle all this magic flying around...

Cheers a bundle, folks!

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Right, gotcha... need to make it work for me (or I work with it, if you prefer) as opposed ot thinking of it as an obstacle...

What I may have done is assume that high level play is just like low level play but with more HD and a better special-effects budget; now I've got a handle on how to handle all this magic flying around...

Cheers a bundle, folks!

Actually, you do have other options. d20 Modern, Grim Tales, Mutants and Masterminds (to an extent), HERO (to an extent), True20, GURPS (to an extent), most Storyteller games, Silhouette Core, Arcana Evolved (to a lesser extent), Conan the RPG, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, the forthcoming RuneQuest (presumably), Shadowrun, Feng Shui, Spycraft...

Almost no other game completely changes the gameplay experience at high levels.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Almost no other game completely changes the gameplay experience at high levels.

This problem also crops up in MMORPGs.

 

[gizmo33]

If No One Knows Who You Are or Where You Are, They Can't Get You.

So how would you create a "city of mystery" with this technique? Seems to me like you're changing the "City of Mystery" to "Unknown City". I see those as being different.

It's hard to create a sense of drama about a villain (or city, or item) that no one knows exists - especially in the way it's done in many "typical" adventure stories. Sure, there might have been a way to write LotR so that no one ever knew about Sauron or the Ring until the last minute, but I have the feeling that this technique would restrict you to a narrow set of adventure themes all resembling the X-Files. "Here's a box, take it to the place marked on this map. I can't tell you why or who I am. Good luck."

I read the OP to be a situation where the DM wanted an exploration scenario in order to find the city, and was frustrated that the exploration was made trivial by spells. IMO not telling the PCs about the city in the first place does not solve the problem.

Lots of the high-level divination and movement spells have achilles heels that you can use to preserve a sense of challenge without stealing away the players abilities.

I think this is a good point. I'm not sure what sort of divination spells were used in the OP. Spells like Commune are limited by the knowledge of the deity (maybe that sounds uncomfortably to me like DM fiat unless the DM prepares ahead of time.) Commune (in the 3.5 SRD) gives you two degrees of freedom - you get to decide who is contact (deity or agents) and then what they would know. I guess it's worth asking whether the DM in the OP handled the divination spells properly. IMO the DM had plenty of leeway to restrict information give about a "City of Mystery" based on the wording of the spell descriptions.

 

[IceFractal]

Actually, it's not impossible to make high-level PCs trudge around in the snow - it just takes a different technique. At low levels, the journey is often the focus of an adventure - what you do at the destination may be quite simple, like delivering an item or asking advice - but the task of getting there is the tricky part. At high levels, this won't work because 99% of the time, the PCs can skip the "getting there" part. Sure, there's that 1%, but if you used that in every adventure it would hurt verisimilitude.

So, if you want a wilderness exploration adventure for high-level PCs, the wilderness must be the goal of the adventure, not an obstacle in the way. For instance - in your case you mentioned travelling through the far frozen north to get to a city. Now imagine if the setup was a little different:


The city is not too hard to get to, but the reason it remains mostly a mystery is the guardians - extremely lethal golems set up by the previous inhabitants. To get past them you need some kind of weapon that's lethal to them, but what that would be is unknown. However, what is known is that at some point in the past, an army tried to defeat these golems, and that one hero was able to destroy several of the golems with his weapon before the entire army was killed and scattered across the frozen wasteland by a freak tornado. So, nobody knows what the weapon was, but they do have a record that it emanated strong evocation magic.

Presumably by this level the PCs have the spell Arcane Sight, so they have a way to find the weapon. All they have to do is search the many-mile area where the army's remains are scattered for a strong Evocation aura. They can Teleport to the general area, but that won't tell them where the weapon is. And they can't find any info on the weapon, because they don't know the hero's name, what type of weapon it is, or what is was called. Maybe it isn't even a weapon in the strict sense - it could be a wand, or another type of magical item.