D&D 5E Preventing Teleportation

I would think a powerful cabal of wizards could easily get their hands on a ritual and/or high level cleric, if you wanted them to use/include those spells for their defenses. Followers of the god of magic/knowledge? The god of protection/defense? The god of the hearth & home? There must be numerous possibilities, in world, to get clerical protections on your wizard headquarters...if you want them...and for any spell option the "cast on the same space once per day for year makes it permanent" precedent has already been set.

And THEN, if all else fails, there's DM say so. Your players really shouldn't/can't make a fuss about this...coming in or going out.
 

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Aside from spells, are there any materials (that could be built into the walls) which block teleportation?

Whatever you want to say there is... Unicorns still teleport, right? Powdered unicorn horn seems a no-brainer.

Someone mentioned earlier Gorgon blood? Sure. Basilisk blood/scales/eyes? Medusa viper venom? Anything that "turns to stone" for some sympathetic magic-flavored "stopping you in your tracks"...rebounds -perhaps forcibly/damage causing- you to outside the building.

Go old school and say some paper thin sheets or shards of lead (also useful for blocking divinations ;)) throughout the stone blocks it.

Gold trim? What appears to be decorative inlay silver scrolling around the doors and windows is really "mystical patterns" that prevent intrusion, whether "normal" teleportations (dimension doors, misty steps, the whole suite) or inter-planar travel/beings.

Anything you want can be justified as a "magical material" that works...as you see fit.
 


Hiya!

I'm with a few others here... just make it up and be done with it. If your "problem player" starts to get all huffy, calmly look him in the eye and say; "Really? You want to play by RAW only? Are you sure? I mean, we can, but that means I use all rules logically available for the bad guys too...".

I've actually done that once, about 15 or so years ago when I was 'breaking in' a new player. He decided, "Yes! By the rules so there are no surprises!" (or something to that effect). I could see the look of bemused...terror?... on the faces of some of my other long-term players. Anyway, the next session had a TPK within the first hour. When the 'problem player' started to get all indignant on how I "cheated" or "wasn't fair", I told him he was the one who decided to go balls-to-the-walls RAW. I then happily told him how and what the bad guys did, and why. Basically, after the PC's destroyed a large, valuable resource/operation, they paid a cleric to cast Spell X and Y. Then paid a [specific Race/Class/Magic-Item combo] NPC to follow and gather physical 'evidence' from them (bits of hair, clothing, jewelry, coin they spent, etc). Next, the bad guys simply used Special Ability Q, with Magic Item T, so that they could get Effect Z. Ergo... TPK with virtually ZERO chance of player character survival.

I "reset" the campaign to the previous day. The problem player sheepishly said, I kid you not, "Ok. I get it now. Lets just play what's fun over whats in the rules." (or something pretty close to that). I've never had a problem with that player since. :)

Y'see...that player of question in your group doesn't quite "get" the scope of the DM's powers and responsibilities. Personally I attribute this to 3.x/4.x/PF as far as "D&D" is concerned, but that's a for a different debate. He's seeing it from his perspective, where he doesn't have all the info on who the bad guys are, what they can do, or what they want to do; he's thinking along the line of "Well, I don't know where he's hiding, so he shouldn't know where I'm hiding", and "He doesn't know I have Magic Item B, so he can't have anything to counter it", and so forth. He's ignorant of just what the NPC actually has and is capable of. This sort of mentality is taken to the side of him basically treating and thinking of the DM as "just another player who runs the monsters". He needs to be 'woken up' to the fact that the DM is not just another player; the DM has a vastly different "job" than the players, and, thus, he has vastly different tools at his disposal... and one of those tools is the provision to just "make $#!^ up" if it would be cool and fun for the campaign.

^_^

Paul L. Ming
 

Okay, I hate all of this silly' edition wars' nonsense, but with 1e the DM had a lot more freedom. We had books players weren't even supposed to read, and when we said something didn't work it didn't work.
 


Many of which don't exist in 5E. I searched a OCR of the rulebook for Teleport to make the above list. I didn't check the Elemental Evil Players Companion...
If your ruling as DM is that these spells don't exist in your game, and that a society of wizards only has access to the same common knowledge spells available to players (i.e. the spells in the PHB), the power to you. It's your game.

If, however, you decide that a group that has been studying magic together for years maybe has access to magicks beyond the knowledge and resources of the PCs, then I don't see why ANYTHING is off the table.
 

Think I would use a variation of the Lair Regional Effects, this is a "fortress of a powerful cabal of wizards". Things like: no Teleport within 5 miles of the fortress - fortress is a beacon for undead, they roan the lands around the fortress - thunderstorms rage around the fortress.

You don't have to explain why, it is a bleed off of the magic that is being performed within the fortress; spells, sacrifices, potions being dump in toilets, etc. they are impacting the area around it.
 
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Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum would be the obvious way to go. 4th level slot for a 24 hour duration, 100 feet radius. Can cast it at a higher level for +100ft per slot level above 4th.

And if it's cast at the same location every day for a year, it becomes permanent. So a magical order could easily have several versions of it around their stronghold, without having to cast any new spells every day.
 

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