It finally happened: Party can Teleport

[Rel]

We are currently playing our first game to reach the mid-to-upper levels since starting 3E. The party Wizard has now reached 9th level and will soon have the ability to Teleport (he just needs the time to scribe it into his spellbook). The group has been travelling through a very hostile mountain range looking for a legendary lost city.

They've now come across the idea of "Teleport Camping". The notion is that they will travel through the mountains by day, continuing their quest. In the evening they will Teleport home to a friendly town and stay at the inn and then Teleport back in the morning.

I don't really have a problem with this because it is going to use up a fair few high level spell slots to pull it off. But I was looking for some ideas for tricks I could pull on them if this starts making things seem too "ho-hum". Let's hear the ideas from the resident RBDM crowd.

 

[Dirt]

If you want to be particularly nasty, have the inn burn down and put the town under seige...better yet, have the inn burning down when they teleport in.

OR...

someone tracking the group through the wilderness learns of their nightly ritual and plans an ambush in the very spot to which they'll teleport to in the morning...

 

[Henry]

Dead magic zones

Ambushes from enemies with Divine divinatory magic

Enemies who see the powerful party leave might alter the location severely (in the mountains, a rockslide would suffice), leading to a "false destination" reading, and getting the party out of their hair for a while.

One thing I love about Arcana Unearthed is Monte's rules on Teleporting. In a nutshell, you teleport like Star Wars does hyperjumps; you have to teleport on well-known ley lines, or work out the coordinates yourself, otherwise you run the much higher risk of scrambling or even killing yourself. It could take a MONTH to work out a 99% safe teleport route.

 

[diaglo]

how many teleports can he cast?

what about the restriction of casting taking up slots?


casting spells in the same X hour time slot count against your total..blah, blah, blah.

so if he casts in the morning and then in the evening the second day he doesn't have slots available the next morning and so on.. if he can even cast 2 fifth lvl spells.

 

[Arnwyn]

It depends on how you want to define the "familiarity" part of the teleport description.

IMO (and therefore, IMC), teleporting back to the middle of nowhere to continue their travelling would rate no more than a familiarity of "seen casually", and more likely "viewed once" (see the SRD)... especially in relatively featureless mountain terrain. ("Uh... we teleport back to that rock that looks like Joe's face?". Yeah, right you do.)

 

[MerakSpielman]

No reason to thwart it, IMHO. If they want to waste 5th level spell slots twice a day on something as mundane as finding a place to spend the night, let them. If he doesn't want to spend those slots on 5th level assault spells, so be it.If they don't have any random encounters, they don't get xp or loot from those encounters.

Don't let the players get a cool new ability and then go and nerf it behind their back. That's like when they turn 5th level and you overhear them talking about how Fireball is going to be so cool and useful, so you come up with the next adventure being against creatures with Fire Immunity. Lame. This is a perfectly legitimate use of Teleport.

DMs often get nervous when the players get abilities that could potentially "ruin" the plot. Don't be. Often, use of such spells signals the turning point of the campaign from the characters participating in stories of your creation or creating stories themselves - and your role could undergo a subtle shift from running the game to refereeing the game.

 

[silentspace]

Use the teleport chart!

Teleporting home should be fairly safe (very familiar), but what would a spot you've only stopped at for a moment be? You could house-rule that it is 'seen once'. You have to stop for a certain amount of time to familiarize yourself with it (an hour?) before it is 'seen casually'. And even longer (four hours?) if you want it to be 'studied carefully'.

Also, if the spot they are teleporting to is wilderness area, and they go to a 'similar area', they might not even notice it! Hijinkx ensue

 

[Schmoe]

We are currently playing our first game to reach the mid-to-upper levels since starting 3E. The party Wizard has now reached 9th level and will soon have the ability to Teleport (he just needs the time to scribe it into his spellbook). The group has been travelling through a very hostile mountain range looking for a legendary lost city.

They've now come across the idea of "Teleport Camping". The notion is that they will travel through the mountains by day, continuing their quest. In the evening they will Teleport home to a friendly town and stay at the inn and then Teleport back in the morning.

I don't really have a problem with this because it is going to use up a fair few high level spell slots to pull it off. But I was looking for some ideas for tricks I could pull on them if this starts making things seem too "ho-hum". Let's hear the ideas from the resident RBDM crowd.

If I were DM, I wouldn't have a problem with it at all. There are some inherent difficulties with what they want to do.

1. Obviously, this requires two high-level spell slots each day. Not insignificant.

2. There is a chance for a mishap. It shouldn't be possible to have "carefully studied" an area until someone has taken the time (a day or so) to carefully map out and memorize an area. So, while they may very well have "carefully studied" the inn, going back will be considerably more risky.

3. The Teleport spell itself indicates that the spell may not work in proximity to areas of strong physical or magical strength. This gives you leeway to rule out teleport travel to any number of areas. I would use this option sparingly, though, otherwise it could begin to feel as though you are intentionally nullifying teleport.

4. Enervation. If the mage is hit by an Enervation spell, he looses 1d4 of his highest-level spell slots. Guess which spell might be in that slot. In fact, any level-draining undead would accomplish the same thing.

 

[Storminator]

Teleporting is an exciting adventure all by itself. If you're teleporting twice a day, you'll soon be having all sorts of mishaps, misses, and thematically similar locales.

Our party teleports all over the place. Our bard won't let anyone teleport without her, because the chance for a great story coming out of the mistakes are so great. We've teleported into Drow temples, the palace of the Shade prince, the ocean (70 miles from Waterdeep is ... deep water!), and the planar prison of an elder god.

Go ahead, teleport all the time! What could possibly go wrong?

PS

 

[Henry]

moving to plots and places & Rat-bastardly Brainstorming, BTW...