D&D 5E (2014) Restricting Planar Travel by Spell?

[generic]

So, in passing conversation with other DMs, I realized that I'm one of the few who likes using setting rules and house rules that make it impossible to travel to other planes by mere spell (other than gate). Rather, in many of my games, it requires a true journey, perhaps even a small adventure, to travel to a different plane.

My question is, do you see any disadvantages to my approach? How do you handle planar travel by spell?

If you primarily play, rather than DM, would this annoy you?

Note: I allow all monsters, enemies, and NPCs to exploit plane shift as much as they want, and spells like etherealness and astral projection, oh, and gate are not off the table for PCs in my campaigns (again, most, not all of them).

 

[SkidAce]

I like using spells to let the players get to "transitive" planes, then a little journey to where they get off. Then a small bit of travel to the exact spot on the plane.

 

[Iry]

I think your game will be less dangerous as a result. Alternative planes are some of the most dangerous places around, since you can justify some pretty extreme environmental conditions and bizarre physics with less explanation than might be needed in the prime material plane.

Requiring a bunch of travel every time the party tries to go to a previously visited plane will mostly discourage them from doing so unless the plot demands it. And if the plot demands it, then the journey was already going to be exactly as dangerous as you design it to be - whether that danger is spent in apparent travel or not.

 

[Bacon Bits]

Historically, I found that Plane Shift's tuned key requirement made the spell only useful when the DM really wished it. The whole d100 miles accuracy thing similarly discouraged use as a travel spell. It's still explicitly inaccurate without a circle, but not quite so arbitrarily. The fact that now it's only available at 7th level instead of 5th means it's just not available like it used to be, either. It looks like they removed the "prime material is free" rule, too.