Let's ban Teleport!

[Thanee]

True that - of course they have to catch you first.

That's where the horses come into play.

About Midnight, I do not know the setting very well, but the way it sounds, it would count as one of those settings, where Teleport doesn't sit right. Some more limited sort of long range travel (like fixed portals) are surely convenient, tho.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Piratecat]

It's interesting to note that despite having access to fly, wind walk, plane shift, and up to four or five gates a day, the high-lvl PCs in my game have recently constructed a flying boat to serve as their headquarters. It's turning out to be incredibly fun. Yarrr, matey!

Possible moral: they may not teleport if they have a way to get there that's more enjoyable.

 

[StalkingBlue]

That's where the horses come into play.

At least in my game, yup.

NB: Midnight orcs don't ride. Not horses, anyway: the dumb thingies can't seem to be broken of their terror of them.

About Midnight, I do not know the setting very well, but the way it sounds, it would count as one of those settings, where Teleport doesn't sit right. Some more limited sort of long range travel (like fixed portals) are surely convenient, tho.

Hm, Teleport, Dim Door, portals & co. are unavailable in Midnight (as written) because access to all other planes is cut off, not so much to achieve a distinct flavour I think. Although coming to think, most of the Midnight material seems to be written with very low-key, low-level play in mind. Transport spells wouldn't really fit that niche.

 

[StalkingBlue]

It's interesting to note that despite having access to fly, wind walk, plane shift, and up to four or five gates a day, the high-lvl PCs in my game have recently constructed a flying boat to serve as their headquarters. It's turning out to be incredibly fun. Yarrr, matey!

Possible moral: they may not teleport if they have a way to get there that's more enjoyable.

Nice.

The majority of one high-level group I've played in didn't care for PCs' fun, they were always talking about urgent things to be got done. (Yup, talking. Not necessarily doing them.) The amount of time we could have saved by actually _travelling_ to places instead of sitting around yaddaing for hours and then instant-transporting to them ...

 

[Saeviomagy]

Sure, but that's a bit more creative than just hop to the city, buy whatever you need, and hop back, or not?

Actually, in the first post already, I mentioned that this would lead to more use of otherwise rather rarely used spells.

Anyhow, like some (very few ) people here have realized by now, I do not have any explicit problem, but am just exploring ideas, which might be used in future campaigns.

Bye
Thanee

And in turn I'm trying to explore the problems, and weigh them up with the benefits.

I'm still not seeing high-level puzzles that can be totally solved with a trip to town...

 

[Talon5]

And in turn I'm trying to explore the problems, and weigh them up with the benefits.

I'm still not seeing high-level puzzles that can be totally solved with a trip to town...

Your in a cave, your spell casters are out of spells, your wiz/sorc has 1 scroll- its Teleport. "We need across this giant hole to save the Lady, we have six hours before she plummets to her doom."

Mr Wizard gathers all the money together, Teleports out, buys all the scrolls and wands he can. One of the scrolls is Teleport w/o Error. Bang he's back, the wand of CSW is exhausted healing up the characters, he reads the scroll of Fly.

Without the trip to town the characters would have to use the climbing skills or their jump, maybe they could come up with another plan, something that involved some construction materials and brain power. A thousand situations come to mind, TP makes it easy and very simple.

Besides these are options not a "go through all the books and erase everything with a teleport discription in it."

 

[StalkingBlue]

While it is nice flavour-wise to imagine a 'nice slow world' that has no fast-travel magic available, I'm not sure how you would provide a fun high-level game in it.

Saeviomagy has asked the right question:

What types of high-level challenges are there that not allowing fast-travel magic would make possible, or make more interesting? Two types of high-level scenarios have been mentioned in this thread that I can remember off the top of my head. I can't see how nixing fast travel would be a benefit for running/playing in them.

1. Large-scale power play:
As WizarDru has pointed out, his low-epic party is dealing with nations, curches and rulers. I can't begin to imagine how this should work without having fast-travel magic available. At some point the PCs are going to outgrow their local rulers, and indeed most rulers or powerful PCs on the continent, or planet. How are they going to expand their area of operations without fast travel? In the modern world we board a plane. In a fantasy world, we Wind Walk, Teleport, Transport via Plants.
I can see dropping the bland Teleport for the more flavourful alternatives like Wind Walk, Transport via Plants, Phantom Steed, I can see replacing it by new fancy things like Falling Star (fast-travellling in meteroid form, a Midnight netbook spell AIR). I can see putting all sorts of restrictions on fast-travel magic to make it less prevalent. What I find difficult to imagine is how you would do without having fast-travel magic at all.

2. Dungeon crawls:
We can probably agree that Climbing, Jumping and crawling your way through a dungeon isn't the way to challenge a high-level party. Unless you've banned all the low-level utility spells like Fly, Levitate, Polymorph, Spider Climb and Gaseous Form as well, are not allowing the Druid to Wildshape, and no one can summon things that will carry or tunnel you out of there.
If we want to prevent a party from accessing/leaving a dungeon location too easily or quickly, we can work with the traditional special defences for the location, whether man-made or natural - no need to get rid of the entire set of fast-travel magic to provide a specific challenge for a specific location.


So where is the benefit of nixing fast travel in a high-level game? Can you think of any?

 

[Gez]

Your in a cave, your spell casters are out of spells, your wiz/sorc has 1 scroll- its Teleport. "We need across this giant hole to save the Lady, we have six hours before she plummets to her doom."

Mr Wizard gathers all the money together, Teleports out, buys all the scrolls and wands he can. One of the scrolls is Teleport w/o Error. Bang he's back, the wand of CSW is exhausted healing up the characters, he reads the scroll of Fly.

That would so not work IMC... Buying magical things is always going to be very difficult, except for the most basic things (like potions and scrolls of level 0, 1 or 2 spells). You need to find someone who sells magic stuff, and you need for what's you're looking to be among what he offers. Also, they'll usually prefer exchanges to trade: give another magical item or approximately the same value rather than a bunch of PP and GP.

That's just IMC, but I'm sure, given the number of complaints about the "magic*mart syndrom", I'm not sure I'm the only one with this kind of interpretations of the rules.

 

[Pinotage]

Maybe I'm just dense or it's the type of game I run and play in, but this has never been a problem for me. Scry and Teleport - yeah, right! You need to know who the BBEG is first, and even then, if you jumped the rest of the adventure and teleported in, he'd beat you to a pulp. Problem solved.

Keep teleport. If you run a well designed game, you should not have to attempt to counter it. IMHO.

Pinotage

 

[Thanee]

...without having fast-travel magic at all.

One correction: not fast-travel... instant-travel!

Bye
Thanee