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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9672991" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Depends. Did they still need to avoid being heard? Are there truly no guards who ever look at the vault? Did they not need to consider shifts or timing? Seems to me that they'd need to do at least these three things:1. Thoroughly case the joint, to determine the ideal timing for the heist, and to confirm that it isn't warded against teleportation2. Examine the layout of the building, presumably including guard postings/locations, to make sure they could "teleport in, steal the mcguffin and teleport out" as you say3. Acquire such a powerful spell (presuming something D&D-like, teleport is a 7th-level spell) so that it can be used to evade the physical barriers in the way--all without having ever visited the teleport location, which would be a difficulty...unless they somehow did visit it, at which point they've interacted with all the stuff you've said they weren't supposed to have interacted withAt the very least, points 1 and 2 would seem to be an interaction with those physical and/or watchman barriers between themselves and their prize. As I said above, it's not the boneheaded ultra-direct way--but it's still an interaction because they are consciously dancing around the fight.Above, I gave an example of a "bypass" that required ignorance, but I don't necessarily think that's the case. I could also see one where (for example) the GM forgot that one of the players (say the party Rogue) had already received a carte blanche from the Queen. So the GM prepares a complicated fight and/or chase sequence and/or a need to sneak around etc., but the Rogue spends his token of the Queen's favor to request an immediate audience. The whole foundation of the encounter--the need to attack, evade, flee from, bribe, etc. the guards--has been outright negated, not simply addressed in a way that isn't the maximally straightforward approach. There is, I admit, some interaction here--but it's genuinely in an outright no-sale, "nope, NOTHING happens" kind of way, rather than a "solved by diplomacy instead of violence" or "snuck past rather than ploughed through".Point being, at least to me, a bypassed encounter isn't just "we solved it in a nuanced way". It's "we negated the encounter completely".As a GM, I don't think I would award XP for the party using the carte blanche to negate any possible encounter with the guards. That doesn't seem like an action which results in putting one's abilities to the test, nor one that develops the characters' motives. Perhaps specific contextual details could persuade me differently (e.g. the Rogue is legitimately trying to romance the widowed Queen, so spending this token of affection this way is super meaningful for him), but on its face, without further complicating detail, I don't think I'd award XP for it--and that's pretty tightly linked to it being bypassed. Conversely, sneaking past stuff, bluffing past stuff, navigating sewers, performing a teleport-based heist rather than a B&E heist--all of those things still strike me as earning XP, at least in the way I would expect those actions to play out at most tables (almost regardless of the GM's style.)</blockquote>

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