Let's ban Teleport!

[Thanee]

First post updated.

Bye
Thanee

 

[BlackSilver]

[/QUOTE]I am sorry to those of you that I have pissed off by my lack of proper writing skills, by my lacking in getting a clear thought down such as Dru here.

Thanee great thread. Like the thoughts that your inspiring here, and the ideas that come from things like this as well as the poison thread, but I find myself expending to much energy defending my poor writing skills.

Have fun, be at peace, and find forgiveness in yourself before you expect it from others. Talon5- Out.[/QUOTE]

Talon5,

You seem to have taken some offense yourself to what others have said, and you seem to lack confidence in yourself. You also seem to be a kind person.

I hope you will join the Poison thread I started, and I hope you too can find peace in yourself.

Came back to edit this- but I am not sure how to? Can someone let me know how that is done?

 

[Thanee]

Yeah, just remove the slash ( / ) in the first QUOTE tag. The slash indicates the "end" tag, the "begin" tag is written without that.

Bye
Thanee

 

[BlackSilver]

Yeah, just remove the slash ( / ) in the first QUOTE tag. The slash indicates the "end" tag, the "begin" tag is written without that.

Bye
Thanee

Thank you

 

[ashockney]

Amen!

See thread on "I hate math!" for detailed comments on the subject.

I agree completely.

Also see, the EQ RPG version of Teleport. I like it better.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Saeviomancy, you have 1700 posts here over two years. How is it that you aren't being polite? Please, have fun conversations without subtle insults.

I apologise. It truely wasn't intended to be an insult. Homer's looking for an anchor. He sees Bart. He envisions Bart as an anchor. Bart says "think harder Homer" and Homer realises that Bart is not the solution that he originally saw. He then goes on to use (I think) the W from the outside of the monorail.

I was trying to point out that "a big hole" isn't the winning scenario here.

 

[Corlon]

Once your heroes get high enough that they can destroy moderate size towns, I think they deserve (if they decide to use one of the valuable spell slots on it) to teleport places. Sure it can get annoying when they just teleport to replenish items, but there can always be battles and adventure hooks (as well as teleports to the wrong place ) right around the corner.

In my campaign I banned (at least the lower level) plane shifting spells. This makes it more difficult to travel through the infinite planes, and makes it an adventure in itself finding portals or other means of transportation through them.

 

[schnee]

The presence of magic is going to make any solution possible, and relatively easy. The question becomes one of opportunity cost, an issue often forgotten.

NOTE: High-level PCs either have lots of cash, or lots of powerful items...sometimes both. Remember that the PCs are in an arms race, of sorts, with the BBEG and his forces. Fighting powerful outsiders? You'd better be prepared.

High-level D&D is about tough choices: do I use that Teleport now? Will I need it later? Is this worth spending my sacrifice on, or using my last Fly spell? Will I need this scroll, potion, or wand later? Do I have enough hit points, or should I heal? Should I activate a death ward now, or wait ten minutes? Should I use my +5 sword, or get out the anarchic +3 keen one, instead? In a game with insta-death saves, a single round can be the difference between life and death. Opportunity cost matters.

I just wanted to thank you for that wonderful, wonderful post.

I'm a new DM who's running a group of (gulp) 14th level characters, and I'm running up against these kinds of issues. The game's scope changed dramatically from what I've played as (9th level tops) and it's less to do with how many dice you're throwing and more to do with bringing entirely different mechanics in to play.

You've given me a lot to think about.

 

[jgbrowning]

My problem wasn't that players would use Buff-Scry-Teleport; it was that I couldn't think of any good reason why my BBEG's wouldn't. Why would the BBEG wait for the PC's to get equipped & ready? Better to hide, wait for them to go home, rest, split up around the city as they run errands -- and then send in commando teams to take them out one by one.

Powerful PCs have powerful enemies, you know.

Of course, the PCs were aware this might happen, so they took all kinds of counter-measures. There were items & spells to prevent scrying, throw off divinations, block Teleports, etc. It was an arms race - and both sides committed a lot of resources to it. It was fun -- the first time.

If Teleport the way it is works for your campaign, fine. Piratecat's story hour is a great example of where it works, but I've often wanted to run campaigns where the PCs didn't have to worry about being ambushed at any time (we aren't playing Paranoia: The Dragon Age). I'm thought of a few ways to help make the PCs feel safe at home - without committing a big chunk of resources to it. I don't necessarily use all of them in the same campaign.

I want to stress, I don't do this to handicap my players or because I can't think of ways to challenge Teleporters. My players have asked for it so they can sleep at night & relax at home.

They know if they don't I won't cut them an inch of slack.

Mac Callum

This is the post that comes closest to my take on the subject. Teleport is fun when used without restrictions for a short while, but eventually every player I've ever had has gotten damn tired of not being able to step out of their armor for a second.

My heroes are always going up against NPCs with more money, more resources, and more power than them because it's more exciting and fun to take on a bigger threat than an even threat. This means that teleport is almost always more of a negative than a positive for my players. I don't think my standard "enemy is more powerful" trope is that unusual.

joe b.

 

[A'koss]

In our case dropping Teleport (and flight-based magic) was largely a setting decision. We wanted to slow things down a bit in high level play and "ground" everyone a little in a sense. One of the themes our campaign stresses is that PCs still need to rely on others, even at the highest levels, and that they cannot do everything themselves. The best tradesmen are always commoners, you still require a mount or a ship if you want to travel and if you want to spy on someone you have to have someone actually there doing the spying.

In 3e, high level PCs are entirely self-sufficient demigods who rarely need anyone or any service outside their group. They can do too many things with spells and skills, do too much too quickly and can accomplish too much from the comfort of their own homes.

Then there is the valid points raised by Mac Callum and jgbrowing whereby these spells create a style of gaming that is paranoia if you play your enemies intelligently. Arguably, life is far more dangerous for a 20th level character than a 10th level one and that has never really sat well with our group.

Just my 2 bits.

A'koss.