Removing some spells from your game

[Nightfall]

Bag,

I think though the issue there is people don't want easy deaths. With the removal of fly and teleporting, distance is less of a factor. That's really almost apples and oranges almost.

Al,

Agreed but then you and I both like the system because it's easy for high magic AND low magic as well.

 

[Li Shenron]

Banning the aforementioned Transmutations changes the game totally, in a way that scrapping the Evocations don't. Getting rid of Teleport means that the campaign scope has to really zero in on one area of the world (unless you can be bothered with 180 days of random encounter rolls...) and Fly significantly changes the way mid and high level PCs can deal with encounters and difficult landscapes (not to mention land-based non-ranged monsters). Your game, your changes- but these two spells are among the most significant in terms of overall game-impact at high level.

Sorry that I disagree with your opinion.

Size-altering spells, polymorphing spells and fly spells are generally transmutations (while teleport spells are conjurations under 3.5), but the Transmutation school has so many spells that removing those won't screw the school up.

For size-altering and polymorphing spells, instead of removing them completely, have you [the original poster] considered about restricting their use to objects (non-living, non-sentient) only? I think your troubles are with PCs changing form or size, but those spells still have usefulness even if allowed with objects, and those use are generally more creative than simply buffing up your friends.

Fly spells won't break the game if forbidden completely. If what you dislike is flying combat, which is also difficult to run, no problem in banning them. After all, it rarely happens to fight midair in famous adventures/movies, and when it happens (see Dragonball) it usually becomes very repetitive.

Teleport spells are a classic addition to D&D. However, you won't be the first to ban them. There are great opportunities if you try so.
1) you get rid of many munchkin tactics
2) you are not compelled to have creatures with these spell - such as many outsiders - always vanish one round before defeated (which they should do if not stupid)
3) you will still need to travel even at high-level

Especially the last one is the most important IMHO. Think about LotR and how many months it takes the characters to travel through middle earth... it makes a campaign more interesting (many things can happen during the trip, you can't just skip a continent and reach the villain's chamber a second after buffing yourself up) and more realistic. It gives the opportunity to say that it takes years and not days for a character to go up a level, and it gives a lot of downtime for crafting items or to consider spent in training. You don't have to run the whole trip, the characters may take a month to reach destination but the DM can simply say "you travel one month and reach the town of bla bla...".

 

[Varianor Abroad]

Teleport spells are a classic addition to D&D. However, you won't be the first to ban them. There are great opportunities if you try so.
1) you get rid of many munchkin tactics
2) you are not compelled to have creatures with these spell - such as many outsiders - always vanish one round before defeated (which they should do if not stupid)
3) you will still need to travel even at high-level

Take out anything you like. It's your game. Transmutations won't kill it.

I've done the Teleport removal in prior games. One variant that becomes key in terms of high-level strategy is providing Teleport at fixed locations. You can't just cast it in the dungeon. If they are few and far between, they become places to travel to and targets in a war. It's a nice change.

But if it just bugs you, take it out. Watch out for player whines about demons still having Dim Door and T-port by just cutting out some of those encounters.

 

[Al]

Fly spells won't break the game if forbidden completely

True. Few spells break the game completely. What scrapping fly does do is make encounters against land-based non-ranged monsters much tougher...high CR giant vermin are *really* tough without flight.

3) you will still need to travel even at high-level

Whilst not being able to have a 'get out' plan is inconvenient (for PC mortality as well as recurring villains), it's this which is a major pain. Forcing the PCs to travel for months just to go to a site is a nuisance, unless you just say 'hohum, six months pass, and you arrive at X'. In the movies that's possible. If you opt to count rations, roll encounters, make them pass through places on the way- i.e. make the trip realistic, then it can bog down gameplay a lot. It also removes a lot of suspension of disbelief in thwarting BBEG plans (as in...BBEG has six months to prepare his nefarious scheme)

 

[Li Shenron]

Forcing the PCs to travel for months just to go to a site is a nuisance, unless you just say 'hohum, six months pass, and you arrive at X'. In the movies that's possible. If you opt to count rations, roll encounters, make them pass through places on the way- i.e. make the trip realistic, then it can bog down gameplay a lot. It also removes a lot of suspension of disbelief in thwarting BBEG plans (as in...BBEG has six months to prepare his nefarious scheme)

Why should it be possible in a movie/book but not in a RPG? Do you really have to keep track of everything?

 

[MerakSpielman]

I think his point is if you're ignoring the tedium of travel, and just saying, "OK, six weeks later you get to the Capital of Ishtar," then why not just allow teleports? What's the point of requiring the characters to participate in long, overland voyages and then skipping over that part as though it didn't happen?

 

[ruleslawyer]

Gameworld consistency, I think.

IMC, teleport is 7th level, and greater teleport 9th level, because I don't want PCs or NPCs to have cheap and cheerful methods of traveling all over the world. Why? A few reasons:

1) Trade and Communication: In a realistic game world assuming at least a few high-level spellcasters, small-package trade is likely to be done by teleportation, as are sensitive communications. I like having messengers and at least SOME risk to communication and package trade IMC, and thus don't want even 9th-level casters able to bypass limitations on these with ease. In the halcyon days of 1e, it was easier to justify a lack of common teleporting in-game (fewer high-level characters, greater teleport risk), but in 3e, which assumes balanced gaming through at least the first 20 levels, it's harder to assume that the high-level casters aren't out there and perfectly capable of running their own messaging and delivery services. A bit too "fantasy as technology" for me.

2) Other magical transportation methods: Plainly speaking, teleport simply eclipses other travel spells, even higher-level ones. It's flat-out more useful than plane shift, shadow walk, and even astral projection unless you actually intend to go off-plane. I prefer these travel methods to teleport for "flavor" reasons, and feel like their viability needs to be encouraged.

3) Delaying the buff-scry-teleport tactic a few levels. Enough said.

4) Making wizards rechargeable batteries. A ubiquitous tactic in my campaigns in the past (1e, 2e, and 3e) has been for wizards to dump all of their spells, leaving a single teleport without error (greater teleport) in reserve, and then to teleport home with their fellow party members for re-preparation and healing, then back to the dungeon. Sure, you can put barriers on the ability to teleport, but the designers themselves say that this is bad adventure design. Why not just make using this tactic hurt a bit?

 

[Voadam]

I think his point is if you're ignoring the tedium of travel, and just saying, "OK, six weeks later you get to the Capital of Ishtar," then why not just allow teleports? What's the point of requiring the characters to participate in long, overland voyages and then skipping over that part as though it didn't happen?

Even if you don't roleplay it out, the time and logistics still have to happen. Teleport is instant. In actual traveling choices of routes can cause effects whether a party chooses to sail around a long peninsula or land and cross over the mountains to get to a particular spot.

D&D normally takes place at breakneck speed going from 1st to 20th in a year or two in 3e/3.5. Forcing travel times slows down things so that more time passes in the PCs' adventures.

Also some places will be a lot more inaccessible if there is no teleport.