Is a moving ship a destination or an object?

[Ambrus]

Heh. This is getting rather theoretical. MerakSpielman would seem to be correct in that scrying doesn't actually provide the "clear idea of the location" that is required by the spell to function properly. But as KarinsDad indicates, the spell description indicates that scrying is the singular exception to requiring the knowledge of the exact location.

So what does this mean for someone who wants to teleport to a moving vehicle? Even if familiar with the layout of the ship, he couldn't really be aware of its exact location unless he can see it with his own eyes or can somehow cast teleport while simultaneously scrying it.

So if he did cast teleport while scrying someone on the ship he would be considered to have "viewed once" his destination (since it's only in the location he's aiming for in the one moment he casts the spell) even if he'd been scrying the ship for much longer beforehand.

“Viewed once” is a place that you have seen once, possibly using magic.

If he delays at all (even a few rounds) then the destination becomes a "false destination" because the ship is no longer in the same position it was when he last saw it (the layout and the location no longer match).

“False destination” is a place that does not truly exist or if you are teleporting to an otherwise familiar location that no longer exists as such or has been so completely altered as to no longer be familiar to you.

Does this train of thought make sense?

 

[Tzarevitch]

Some people may recognize where this question is coming from. My players are considering trying to teleport to a moving merchant ship whose current location eludes them. They've also been considering using find the path to track it down. Now I'm stuck trying to figure out if either idea would work. Can the deck of a ship be a viable destination for teleportation by itself if it keeps moving through unfamilar areas? Usually it's possible to teleport into a building, but what if that "building" is mobile? Would find the path work on a moving ship? Is the ship a destination or an object? I want to be fair to my players but I don't want to ignore the rules either. Any help or advice would be appreciated.

This came up in my game when PCs sought to teleport to an airship (zeppelin) from another airship. Here is the solution I used.

A ship is an object not a place. Technically a building is also an object not a place. Both of these objects occupy a certain space at a certain time (its location). The difference is that the building cannot move, therefore for all intents and purposes the object is the same as its location. A ship moves therefore you cannot use the shorthand of claiming that the object is the same as its location.

Teleport takes you to the location you specify which may or may not correspond to the location the ship actually occupies. The way I handle this in my campaign is that you can safely teleport to a moving vehicle if you can see it realtime (either through your own eyes or some sort of scry sensor). Otherwise you will have a very high probability of error.

Tzarevitch

 

[Saeviomagy]

My thoughts:

Note - these involve the use of logic gained in previous editions, so it may be a bit flimsy.

In the 2nd ed psionics handbook, there was a specific writeup of the teleportation power which said something along the lines of
"Unlike the teleport spell, this power is targeted at a physical location. If you want to teleport inside the gypsy's caravan, and the caravan has moved since you last saw it, the power will leave you a couple of feet above ground level where you last saw the caravan".

Which I guess would seem to infer that the teleport spell does otherwise.

Apart from that - the spell description says
"“False destination” is a place that does not truly exist or if you are teleporting to an otherwise familiar location that no longer exists as such or has been so completely altered as to no longer be familiar to you."

Now - the metric for false destination is "if I just dumped the PC's at that location, would they recognise it?"

Oh, and because there is no other definition of the term that we can use sensibly: "location" is a place where story can occur. So "onboard the good ship honeybee" is just fine - the ship's current coordinates in space are irrelevant to the fact that the good ship honeybee is somewhere that story can occur. "at a specific point in the atlantic ocean" is just fine too.

In short - just let them teleport. Although I'd be specific about
a) where I'd put the anti-magic item

and

b) where on the ship they intend to teleport to

If they try teleporting to within the field of the anti-magic item, I'd say you're fair to say that classifies as a false destination - the place doesn't exist as far as the teleport is concerned.