Let's ban Teleport!

[hong]

As I have explained a lot, if they had teleportation magic available, they could have used it to go back home (but not before Sauron was eliminated, because it was clear that in Tolkien's house-rules, the use of powerful spells is detected by other spellcasters), but not to move to Orodruin. Not possible. Not at all.

1. Gandalf's knowledge of the Mount Doom of now was most certainly imperfect. Volcanoes are mutable places, strongholds of evil are as well. Not having a clear mental picture of what the destination was, he risked misshap or other teleportation errors.
2. Places with strong physical energies can make teleportations hazardous or impossible. A volcano qualifies as a place with strong physical energies. So, not only was teleportation impossible or hazardous because Gandalf's familiarity with the place was insufficient, but it was even more "hazardous or impossible" because there's lot of hot fiery lava and other telluric manifestations.
3. Places with strong magical energies can also make teleportations hazardous or impossible. The mystical birth-place of the most potent ring artifact, only place where it can be destroyed, and just beside the fortress of what could be approximated to a Demon Prince in D&D terms, happens to genuinely qualifies as a place with strong magical energies.

There's no less than three factors that would make a teleportation right before the pit a very bad idea, or something impossible to do.

... of course, you could just ban teleport, and save having to come up with these handwaves in the first place.

 

[Li Shenron]

I also considered to add a hefty price to Teleport, but I think it's better to just remove it altogether, or at least push it to very high levels.

It depends if you play high-levels campaigns

Pushing it higher level just delays the problem, although it gives the benefit that you can suppose that even less people in the world have this ability. But if you think that it can spoil a specific adventure or campaign, it can still spoil it.

If the problem is the chance of completely rendering a story plot broken in a specific case, I think it is acceptable to tell the players "let's not use teleport in this adventure/campaign", and you can do the same for scrying for example.
This could be a problem with D&D, that perhaps it has some spells with this potential too early in the game. Clearly, high-level characters are purposefully designed to be that powerful, but if it doesn't fit, it doesn't fit...

If the problem is instead in the flavor of making mundane travel useless, maybe a cost would be more useful, since it won't ban the chance completely but it would restrict it only to when it is strictly necessary. You could also consider an XP cost if gp doesn't seem enough.

 

[Li Shenron]

Or better... in any case, if it's a pure matter of style, you can ban whatever you want and it won't make the game less fun

Besides, banning teleportation IMHO would have only a limited affect in how the game evolves. This is of course my opinion only, but teleporting is not as necessary as it seems, unless you specifically want to make it so...

 

[hong]

IMC I nerfed teleport in the manner alluded to by others, by limiting the possible destinations to a small number of places.

Now the party is 14th level, and to be honest, I'm finding it to be a bit limiting. Sure, it dramatically cuts down on the chances of buff/scry/teleport instakills, and it also allows journey-as-adventure sessions. But sometimes, when we're on one side of the continent and we want to be on the other, teleport is a huge convenience factor. Sometimes you already have a quest in mind, and playing out the journey to get there isn't what anyone really wants. We could just fast forward to the interesting bits, but that's lacking somewhat; and really, it's just de facto teleporting anyway.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

IMC I nerfed teleport in the manner alluded to by others, by limiting the possible destinations to a small number of places.

Now the party is 14th level, and to be honest, I'm finding it to be a bit limiting. Sure, it dramatically cuts down on the chances of buff/scry/teleport instakills, and it also allows journey-as-adventure sessions. But sometimes, when we're on one side of the continent and we want to be on the other, teleport is a huge convenience factor. Sometimes you already have a quest in mind, and playing out the journey to get there isn't what anyone really wants. We could just fast forward to the interesting bits, but that's lacking somewhat; and really, it's just de facto teleporting anyway.

But time passes during those two month long overland travelling sessions. Give the room a DM needs to introduce new devolpments or adventure hook events into the game...."when you get back from your long journey you notice something different about the town..."

 

[Staffan]

Perhaps that's because the underdark really is quite unsuitable for high level parties.

Given the kind of stuff that lives in the underdark (Aboleths, beholders, mind flayers, etc.), it's clearly not intended to be stuff you stroll through at 3rd level.

 

[hong]

But time passes during those two month long overland travelling sessions. Give the room a DM needs to introduce new devolpments or adventure hook events into the game...."when you get back from your long journey you notice something different about the town..."

I find I'm rarely at a loss to introduce new story elements or adventure hooks. We've been going for long enough that there are plenty of old enemies who want to get them; NPCs who want them to do something; loose ends to be tidied up; etc. I don't really need 2 months of travelling time for that purpose.

 

[WizarDru]

I find I'm rarely at a loss to introduce new story elements or adventure hooks. We've been going for long enough that there are plenty of old enemies who want to get them; NPCs who want them to do something; loose ends to be tidied up; etc. I don't really need 2 months of travelling time for that purpose.

Believe me, at 23rd level, Teleport ends up being an essential, not a rampant power-grab. My players are major figures in world politics, now, like it or not. Churches look to one of them for doctrine and guidance, two elven nations looks to two other party members, while every living mage is aware of the party's wizard, and many view him as the most powerful (some would say dangerous) man on the planet. The druid only just recently contested for the leadership of his kinds, and the rogue is known across the planes as the most cunning and evasive thief of recent memory. They have made enemies of ancient liches, demi-gods, demon princes and whole nations. They have made allies of ancient dragons, benevolent dieties and creatures from out of the space-time continuum.

At that level of power, teleport seems downright homey. PCs teleport back and forth between nexus points of adventure. Stopping over at the port-city of Gradsul was fun, the first couple of times...but now, when demons threaten to tear a city apart, they go there and deal with the problem. In fact, in one recent adventure, the party was split across the continent: one heads to the elven kingdom to question the queen about what she knows; another travels 500 miles to the south to instruct his followers on the construction of the new mage's guild; another travels to his home city to check on family and investigate ancient lore; another travels to the world tree to confer with it; another heads to Sigil, to purchase goods the group will need; and still another travels through the dream realm to consult his goddess. Several teleport spells later, and they're all together, again.

Villians plots proceed apace, with or without several months of empty transit time. In fact, with teleport in place, plots and developments move much faster. The bad-guys need to be monitored, if they are to be stopped. They need to be found, and they need to hunted. How involved you want to make the process is up to you, of course. But transit time merely for it's own sake seems to be the same handwave as just teleporting was in the first place, after a certain point.

 

[Talon5]

P.S. Reduce Person doesn't work on horses.

Reduce- was wrong about the number of times he would have to memorize it. Its "one creature or object of up to 10 cu. ft/caster level," for the example character that would be 10 persons, so one casting would get all his friends.

The description says "-diminution of creature or object," which tells me that horses are indeed in that catagory.

Started to post then realized something- Reduce Person isn't a spell? No, wait it is, its a 3.5e spell. We play 3.0e, I didn't say that and your a 3.5e gamer, there in lies our misunderstanding regarding that point. Aplogies- I should have mentioned that.

 

[hong]

Believe me, at 23rd level, Teleport ends up being an essential, not a rampant power-grab.

Now come on, you're making an ex post facto handwave just as much as Flexor is, only in the opposite direction. While teleport may be nice to have, there's nothing about it that's intrinsically necessary for a high-level game. Exalted, for example, doesn't have any long-range teleportation AFAIK, and still manages to be OTT fantasy.

What you have done is to integrate the benefits of teleport into your campaign, so that it makes sense for high-level characters to use it constantly. But there are many ways a campaign can develop; not everyone wants their 23rd level PC to be a political player or regional powerbroker. The concept of a lone character wandering the earth can fit a high-level guy just as well as a low-level one; they just tend to face bigger challenges, in the time-honoured D&D way of scaling encounters. Nor does every challenge have to be met straight away. If an army is amassing on the border, or the demilich is plotting to blow up the world, then it doesn't really make much difference whether the PCs take it on now or in 2 months' time, in terms of potential for gameplay. Both situations can make for a good game, and it all comes down to which one is more to your taste.