Porting of the Tele kind

[Piratecat]

Now, how did they manage to access the Astral Realm with the Gate spell when it failed for the Teleportation spell?

Teleport is a 5th lv spell. Gate is a 9th lvl spell. That trumped the anti-teleportation "radiation" produced by all those miles of stone over their head.

 

[Telperion]

Teleport is a 5th lv spell. Gate is a 9th lvl spell. That trumped the anti-teleportation "radiation" produced by all those miles of stone over their head.

Okay, that explains it . Not that I really know all that much about the Underdark, but one DM threw me in there and told me not to use Conjuration spells or else.

 

[evileeyore]

another very easy way to limit 'Teleporting home to rest' is a time limit. If the party has no repite, then they won't be leaving to rest eslewhere.

Doesn't stop them from jumping out to pick up supplies, but there are other ways around that.

 

[Zappo]

I haven't had any problem. First of all, teleport only gets you to places you've already visited, so just send the PCs to a far enough isolated unknown place and you have your trip all over again. Secondly, it can fail and get you in very wrong places. A PC of mine ended up in a river of lava this way. Another ended up in a "similar place" - he didn't get into danger, and he was scried and recovered shortly after, but he was quite freaked out; he expected a crowded wizard academy and found himself in an almost identical empty tower; he thought that the academy was attacked or something. You can't use it twice a day to rest, otherwise you will have a really bad problem sooner or later. Simply put, it's far too unreliable to be used extensively.

Once the PCs get teleport without error, well they are quite high level, you'd better just switch the focus of the adventure away from travelling. That's a very good thing, because travelling at such high levels is very boring without teleport. There are no wandering monsters or bandits on the road that are powerful enough to be anything more than a speedbump for the PCs. Teleport is a nice plot device to skip all the bandit assaults, goblin attacks, occasional monster, whatever. 15th level PCs have already had more than enough of that.

Last week my 19th lvl group got around this quite elegantly; they returned to the surface by gating to an outer plane and then gating back to the surface. Sneaky logistics!

...must...have...story...hour...update...

 

[jerichothebard]

I haven't found it to be a real problem. It does mean that you'll have less roadside encounters when going to a familiar locale - but think of it this way. For the bad guys, that's a good thing! Even as we speak, bandits are praying for their adventuring group nemeses to get teleport, because then the bandits will be able to prey on the highways unopposed. . .

It could be worse. In my campaign world, teleporting from the deep underdark is usually impossible. Last week my 19th lvl group got around this quite elegantly; they returned to the surface by gating to an outer plane and then gating back to the surface. Sneaky logistics!

Yes, and this is the same group that wind-walked their way through how many encounters? I do seem to recall you saying in your SH thread that you wound up with an awful lot of wasted prep time due to that move...

That sounds a little like a problem for me as a DM...

 

[not_me]

Thanks all.

I don't want to truly limit their use of Teleport, the main concern for this particular campaign is the lack of resources as they begin the adventure, and I don't wish them to be able to pop elsewhere in the land to grab what they need (be it magic, special material components, what have you) and then pop back.

Or, maybe I should instead look at that as an eventuality and simply plan accordingly (ie, if they will do that, then I can stock the areas they go into with less and they can go buy it elsewhere or whatnot).

Curiously, they ARE going sort of deep down, so maybe the depth/underdark thing will provide for enough fixing of that once deep into the adventure.

Thanks for the experiences... this will be a pretty high level group, and will be the first high-level group I've tried to run.

 

[Numion]

Here is a question for the "experienced" DMs out there, when running your high-level campaign.

Have you found Teleport a problem, specifically in terms of a) running the campaign in a certain area and having the characters pop-off to go get something elsewhere and then return (items not available where they are)

This did happen. My group tended to pop into Waterdeep for shopping. I really didn't consider this a bad thing. Teleport is annoying in the sense that it allows players to instantly follow thru on their wrong conclusions as the "where the adventure is". In lower levels there's usually time to nudge the in the right direction, but with TP it's just *poof*, and they're hundreds of miles away from your prepared adventure. Which can kinda be fun sometimes, if you're up for wingin' it

or b) if you are running a dungeony crawl do the characters pop-off to rest somewhere before popping back in.

Yeah, this is a given. Again, not really a problem. A bigger problem would be that if they used divinations and the shortcircuited the dungeon directly to their objective. I've got dumb / nice players, because they never do this.

Come to think of it, I don't do it either as a player. I guess I'm "in it" for other reasons.

 

[BSF]

Thanks all.
Or, maybe I should instead look at that as an eventuality and simply plan accordingly (ie, if they will do that, then I can stock the areas they go into with less and they can go buy it elsewhere or whatnot).

Don't just plan on it as an eventuality. Find a way to make it a requirement. Perhaps they need something very esoteric and very specific to complete the quest. Without Teleport, a group would have had to do a ton of very specific research, or they would have to hike back hundreds of miles through monster infested wilderness to get what they need.

This helps establish the fact that part of the reason they are heroes and must do this particular task because a lesser group couldn't hope to achieve it in time. There is absolutely nothing wrong with building an adventurer around the premise that _only_ high level adventurers can succeed because of the skills/spells that they have. It works for the monsters we through at groups right? Why not make it a non-combat solution that only a high-level party can do?

 

[Piratecat]

Yes, and this is the same group that wind-walked their way through how many encounters? I do seem to recall you saying in your SH thread that you wound up with an awful lot of wasted prep time due to that move...

That sounds a little like a problem for me as a DM...

Exactly the reverse, actually. It was damn smart of them. I wouldn't exactly consider the players outthinking me to be a problem.

Anyways, I'll just recycle those encounters into a totally different scene at some point in the future. No harm done.

 

[Eldragon]

I recenty decided to have all Instant travel spells (and Wind-Walk) to limit the spell to 1 addition creature aside from the caster. The obvious exception being teleportation circle and gate. I feel that 9th level is a little too soon for casters to start having the ability to teleport all over the continent. The mentality of the Party Fortress in waterdeep and Scry-buff-teleport-kill scenario gets old fast. Once all the spells are used up, retreat to the party fortress (that is protected with forbiddance).

The group breathed a sigh of relief as well. The party was a little sick of worrying about getting bushwhacked by enemies using the same scry-teleport assassination tactics on them. a TPK is very easy if the NPCs use these same tactics on the PCs. The last campaign eventually ground to a near-halt because of all the continent hopping. The situtation/setting did not allow me as a DM to come up with a teleportation limiting artifact/aura.