My Fix to Scry-Buff-Teleport

[maggot]

I hate adventures being solved by the combination of scry-buff-teleport. I hate having every villian protected by an anti-scry field or an anti-teleport field. And the party hates being slaughtered when an enemy scries them and teleports in.

Still teleport should be usable to flee and to get somewhere you can see like a dimension door.

So here is my solution:

Whenever you teleport anywhere you don't have line of effect to or is beyond long range, you take 1 full round to appear. During this appearance time, you can do nothing. Those at the other end hear and see you coming and can prepare, or flee, or whatever. They can also try to dispel the teleportation with countermagic (greater dispelling or whatever). Otherwise, creatures at the destination cannot affect the incoming teleporters. Creatures at the source of the teleportion cannot affect the teleporters in any way including dispeling.

So my questions are:
1) Is this enough to deter buff-scry-teleport?
2) Should I up the appearance time to say 1d4+1 rounds?
3) Should I allow the people on the destination end to affect the incoming teleporters with actions other than dispelling? (This could be really nasty.)

 

[Phaedrus]

I lean toward 1d4 or 1d4+1. Does 1 round advance notice really buy that much time?

The argument against doing this is that it is a specific rule change to counter a specific strategy. If you adopt this principle, you could be making a LOT of rule changes.

I like the change for flavor reasons. You've just dislocated yourself and it should take a moment to get your bearings, shake off the disorientation, plant your feet, focus your attention, etc.

 

[Nifft]

IMC:

1) Teleport magic makes noise. Dimension Door is just a loud "Bamf!" while Teleport causes a sonic boom.

2) If you can't see the area that you're 'porting into, it has to be a very large, open space -- at least a 100 ft. cube of basically emptyness.

3) Teleport is not instantaneous. It takes 3 rounds. You disappear on your action, and appear 3 rounds later. Unfortunately, the loud sound of the spell starts building at your destination -- so everyone has 3 rounds to prep for an incoming traveler. "Prep for" may be replaced with "Teleport away from".

4) You can't Teleport more than 100 miles, and you can't Greater Teleport more than 100 miles/level.

5) Many cities are warded by Hallow, which in turn supports a basically permanent Zone of Respite (from the Manual of the Planes).

-- N

 

[Nightfall]

If you hate anti-stuff, then I suggest you also get rid of any abjurations because they are anti hurting stuff usually. My point is if the party doesn't like being scried on, deal with it.

 

[Staffan]

I am considering only allowing Teleportation to certain places in the setting. These places would likely be well-guarded if known, and people would definitely not build a bedroom on one of these places.

Dimension Door would be an exception, on account of short range. Word of Recall basically creates a teleportation site only available to the caster.

 

[Trainz]

I am considering only allowing Teleportation to certain places in the setting. These places would likely be well-guarded if known, and people would definitely not build a bedroom on one of these places.

Dimension Door would be an exception, on account of short range. Word of Recall basically creates a teleportation site only available to the caster.

IMC, we used to have quite the detterent for over-use of teleport spells. It was a house-rule.

Every time you teleported, the caster rolled a d20. If a 1 came up, one magic item on one of the teleportees was premanently drained by the magical currents of the astral plane (not scrolls or potions, their magic was too "faint" to be noticed by the astral plane).

It worked. We only used teleport as a last resort thing. We got items sucked twice, and learned the lesson. We don't use that house rule anymore, but I might re-instate (sp?) it.

Oh... and hi Staffan !

 

[Inez Hull]

A couple of ideas we had to counteract the B-S-T dilemma:

1) Teleportation dispels all other magics, making B-S-T into S-T

2) Teleportation can only be made to an area previously marked by the caster's Arcane Mark. Areas such as a Wizards school etc. where there will be much magical transport open to all casters able to use teleportation, are marked with a pattern that covers all Arcane Marks possible - much like Raymond Feist's Tsurani wizards.

 

[Coredump]

I did not have a problem with BST in 3.0. I think DM's are being too lenient in how familiar scry makes a location. In my mind, this is *not* a house rule.

Scry says you can "see and hear a creature"; it does *not* say you can see all of the surronding area. Now, assuming you can see 'some' of the area/room/whatever, it still wouldn't be a whole lot. So, just how well does that let you 'study' the area?

Teleport talks about
Studied Carefully: equates to 'been there often' or 'other means'. But these other means would have to be the equivalent of being there often. I really don't see how you could get that much familiarity from scrying.

Seen Casually: This is a place that you have seen *more* than once, but are not familiar with. If you scry on some one 3 times, and they are in the same basic area, to me that is the same 'view' each time, and would constitute 1 'viewing'. I would let Scrying provide this level, but it would take several scry's over the course of many days to get this familiar with an area.

Viewed Once: Now, this is where (IMO) most scrying should leave you. And if you are *really* strict about reading the Scry spell description, maybe even not here (again, it only menitons seeing/hearing the creature, not the surroundings.)


Without several scrys, over many days, you are left at Viewed Once, which provides a 25% chance of messing up. This has been enough to dissuade players from trying this. In my experience, it isn't BST that is the probem, it is the assumption that scry allows you to easily 'study' a place well enough to teleport there.

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[maddman75]

IMC it's restrained by MAD. If the PCs do it, so will the DM. So no one does it.

 

[Storminator]

I did not have a problem with BST in 3.0. I think DM's are being too lenient in how familiar scry makes a location. In my mind, this is *not* a house rule.
[SNIP]

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I quite agree with this. I do allow scrying to see an area, but only if the scried upon moves. If you scry me, and I get up and walk all around my room, you get a good view of the room. Of course, everyone knows this, so if you scry someone, they sit perfectly still and cast Dispel Magic.

Our most successful BSTs have involved slipping a ringer into our enemy's ranks, and scrying our pal repeatedly. This is especially necessary with the new Will save, as BBEG types routinely make that save.

PS