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Message: <blockquote data-quote="triqui" data-source="post: 5512889" data-attributes="member: 57948">As I said, so what? Sauron wasn't able to do nothing at that range, other than sending minions. Gandalf start to cast Teleport without error. Sauron notice it. Sauron sends Nazguls. 6 seconds later, Gandalf has cast the spell, and Frodo is sent into the lava, with his "protection from elements" on. End of a wonderful story <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f641.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":(" title="Frown    :("  data-smilie="3"data-shortname=":(" />Which leaves us to "the only way to avoid magic completelly overshadowing story, is through the use of more magic". Specifically, hand weaving magic.Even if you cant "shortcut" it to Mordor, spells like "mass flight" or "mass teleport" to Gondor would render useless 85% of the books. And the only way to avoid it, is avoiding magic enterelly. That's why, in fictions, Magic does not really play a large factor with "plotbusting" spells that D&D do have (such as teleport, scry, detect alignment, etc). We don't know if Gandalf is unable to cast "D&D pre 4e" style magic, or if he is theoritecally able, but can't do due to plot design (ie: Sauron's will). In any case, the story itself does not have magic. Becouse if it does have, then the story loses steam. Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli awesomeness would be dwarfed completelly. There would be no adventuring through Moria, no skirmishes near Lorien, no diplomacy with Rohirrim. Just an Arcane Gate from Rivendel to Gondor.So do I. Chapter 3, 7 and 10 aren't writen. They don't need to happen as I wrote them (actually, I never write it before hand). But that does not mean you should be able to jump from 1 to 19. You can solve (or fail) chapter 3 as you wish. But you (the players) should *build* a chapter 3, not just skipping it. I remember a game with a murderer. We were investigating who killed a countess inside his chariot. There were a lot of betrayal, diplomacy and investigation involved. However, our druid just Speak with animal, asked the horse in the charriot, and the count was caught. Quite anticlimatic. Yes, there are ways to make those spells not work. But what's the point to have them, if you have to hand-weave to counter them? When you start needing to give every single hidden spy/traitor a talisman of non-detection, a headband to avoid mind-probing ESP, and "nystul auras" to avoid such magic items being detected, then you have flawed magic system. Sames goes when every single assasin in the world needs some magic way to avoid magic ressurection, or is fired from his guild: Anyone worth killing, has enough money to pay for raise dead. Anyone worth poisoning, can pay for a Neutralize Poison.Remember once too, (I was DM) that players were doing a "run" against a pirate ship to find the spot where a sunken city lied. The players choose to cast some Clairvoyance on the pirate ship, then teleport into it, and sunken it, and teleport back. I really wasn't able to avoid it, other than adding the pirate unreasonable countermeasures that they, story wise, shouldn't have. So there you go, anti-climatic sunk of the pirate vessel, and half of the story shortcut. Where did it end? When the drow wizard, who was paying the pirate, did the same to players unsuspecting ship. And next day, when they were in a beach, nearly defenseless, the wizard cast scry-teleport, and killed most of them. Magic is like nuclear weapons. If it's allowed, then everything is built around it. There's no point to buy ships, tanks, airplanes.... Once the nukes start flying, only the nukes matter. And that's quite sad.Back to the OP, I have seen few, or none, fiction where magic is omnipressent, everything is done with magic, and all problems are solved with spells. Gandalf still needs to go to Gondor *walking*,  and needs to learn about the ring, *reading in a library*</blockquote>

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