D&D 5E Teleport /fly /misty step the bane of cool dungeon design is RAW in 5E

[Eubani]

These abilities are known factors and if a dungeon is set for characters of a level to access them, then it is of a level to have counters to them.

 

[Ancalagon]

I mean, seriously, do you really picture teleporting paladins? Is that a paladin thing? Port-a-Paladin? All it takes is a 5th level paladin. Heck, 2 out of 3 paladins get it for FREE.

... yeah

So 2-3 sessions ago, the party was chasing a sorcerer who had just - the fiend! - dimension-doored from a 2nd story window to a rooftop across a busy street. So the monk, a new player, makes a huge jump across the street from the window to the other rooftop to give chase! Very kung-fu moment, new player is tickled pink, very happy.

So the paladin player (one much more experienced) goes "that's pretty nice. I *misty step* onto the rooftop".

That was... not such a kung-fu moment.


Misty step is balanced when compared to dimension door. But I think it was a mistake to give short range teleportation at such a low level. The utility is too high.

 

[Stalker0]

Funny I just came back from a session where a party is trying to break into a place and considering teleporation and the like.

A few notes:

1) If its a dungeon the party hasn't been into, teleport has a pretty high chance of failure. My party just did a cool thing where the cleric snuck in to the dungeon past all of these guards to find an object the sorc could use to cast teleport with the "associated object" clause. It was a great scene.

2) High level slots are tight. If you teleport in....unless you are 15th level or higher you can't teleport out again (by using an 8th level slot). So you may face the dungeon, just in reverse

3) The fly spell is actually quite risky. If you suffer a dispel or a prone effect....you flat out fall. And this isn't gentle fall, its take the gravity full on fall.

 

[Mephista]

Why are these abilities considered "banes" of "cool" dungeon design in the first place? Because you get to skip a jump or climb check at the cost of a resource?

I don't get it. Someone complains about a paladin moving to chase after a villain through use of misty step, and complain its not a kung-fu moment. Okay, sure. But paladins aren't kung-fu masters. That's not what they do. And are you asking to split the party up? Are the paladins going to make another roof jump?

Aren't challenges designed to drain character resources? If they fail a roll, you should always do so in a manner that moves the story along, sure, but if you fail a check to by-pass dangerous terrain or climbing, how you moving forwards?

And what happens when the caster is out of spell slots to use these fancy magics on? And will they have anything left for the big fight? Every spell you cast -now- is a spell you can't cast later to save your life.

 

[Ketser]

To be honest, while 1st level shorty range teleportation might be too early, then already at 3rd level you have ton of other spells to deal with a large number of normal obstacles... levitate, spider climb, feather fall and a lot others, many of which have been available at that that spell level for a long time. So in many ways i feel the issue for people is that its a teleportation effect. In many ways the whole discussion feels more like a matter of setting/theme/style, not dungeon design.

And lets be honest, im not here to argue about the latter preferences, the thread is about dungeon design.

As a DM you need to always adapt your dungeons and encounters to your players and their character's abilities. If they have access to a lot of short range teleportation, then make it a part of puzzles and explorations. Instead of "ruining it," they become a part of interesting experience.

I agree with Mephista, a lot of early teleportation is impacted by limited spellcasting resources. Your third level wizard might have no longer any 2nd level spell slots when they get to that obstacle or might lack a necessary spell later. A lot of whining about player characters being too strong or having too many resources is born from just throwing too few encounters and obstacles at them.

 

[Ancalagon]

Why are these abilities considered "banes" of "cool" dungeon design in the first place? Because you get to skip a jump or climb check at the cost of a resource?

Setting: The city of Nimir, Severny Island, Northern Siberia. An ancient temple partially encased in ice.

Having traveled thousands of miles and already faced great dangers, the heroes are deep underground in the temple, where Bhalor, king of the Fomorians and Lord of Death, is sleeping. In front of them, an immense hall - 30 metres wide and over 60 metres long. In the distance, at the limit of their lantern light, on an elevated platform looms an enormous throne.

They are on a balcony overlooking this hall, with stone steps leading to the floor, which is covered in a layer of unnatural mists, 10 feet deep, obscuring the vision. This mist is quiet but... ominous.

Will the heroes manage to use the clues left by the long dead cultist to reconstruct the ritual allowing them to cross the mists safely?

Will they instead run through and try to survive the claws of the ghostly demons hidden within the mists?

Or will they go "lol, this , I cast fly!"

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Why are these abilities considered "banes" of "cool" dungeon design in the first place? Because you get to skip a jump or climb check at the cost of a resource?
[...]
And what happens when the caster is out of spell slots to use these fancy magics on? And will they have anything left for the big fight? Every spell you cast -now- is a spell you can't cast later to save your life.

One of the perpetual issues with 5E is that characters have far too many resources for a typical adventuring day, such that resource expenditure is frequently not a limitation. The real limit on what you can do almost always comes down to the action economy of combat, such that anything you do outside of combat effectively has no meaningful cost (aside from your highest-level spell slots, of which you only ever have one per day).

Misty Step and Fly are (reasonably) balanced when you first get them. Ten levels later, spending a single low-level slot is a non-event, because you weren't going to use all of them anyway.

 

[Hussar]

Why are these abilities considered "banes" of "cool" dungeon design in the first place? Because you get to skip a jump or climb check at the cost of a resource?
/snip

For me, the problem is twofold.

1. The casters simply negate the skill users. What's the point of having a skill monkey character when two or even three of the characters in the party can simply bypass whatever skill check through magic? The monk example is a perfect one. The monk had actually spent character resources to be able to do the wire-fu thing. Very cool. Very in character. Rule of cool and all that.

Then the paladin says, "hold my beer" and teleports to the top of the roof, no checks, no chance of failure, no drama and about as interesting as soda crackers. I mean, do you really picture, in your head, when thinking about paladins, Portapaladins bouncing around the scene? I know in our group, we had a fighter and a paladin, and the pally almost always got into a fight before the fighter. Bonus action teleport, poof, he's in the thick of things. Gee, the fighter can burn his Action Surge for extra movement, but, he's only got that once per short rest. That 8th level paladin has what, 3?, second level spells.

2. On your second point about running out of resources, well, there's a couple of things there. Firstly, the casters get SO MANY resources. Sure, Teleport might be a bit of a bit resource wise, but, the lower level stuff? Not so much. And, secondly, it starts the whole 15 MAD cycle off with a bang. The party is all (or mostly all) casters. It's in all their interests to stop for long rests and get spells back. IME, it's not unusual for 3/4 of the party to be long rest based, which means that 3/4 of the party wants to stop at the same time.

 

[Ancalagon]

To give credit where it's due, that scene is from one of the adventures that came with the Dragon Warriors gaming system, published in the 1980s. I ran a long warhammer 2nd campaign on a pseudo earth setting, and this was the final showdown as the heroes confronted Baylor, the Lord of Death (the campaign was original, but with borrowed bits here and there. At once point I used a real-world tourist guide to Aleppo to run a dungeon under the citadel).

It was a very cool dungeon. And it would have been *ruined* by mobility spells.

 

[Greg Benage]

Why are these abilities considered "banes" of "cool" dungeon design in the first place? Because you get to skip a jump or climb check at the cost of a resource?

Played in an AL adventure at Dragoncon where we're supposed to do a B&E on a townhouse guarded by the bad guys and steal some medical supplies. While the rest of the party waited across the street, my arcane trickster took my buddy's portable hole, slipped down an ally, looked in a window and *poof* he's inside. Load up the portable hole and *poof* he's back outside.

It was cool for me in a superhero-y kind of way, but it might have been fun for the rest of the party to be involved in a heist adventure. At least it was quick.