Teleport - I need a variant

[der_kluge]

I'm currently writing up my house rules (see the house rules thread), and I was trying to figure out a variant for the Teleport (And Teleport without error) spell.

I'm not currently DM'ing, but some day I plan on taking over the reigns once our current DM steps down, and when that happens, I want to run a kind of exploration campaign, where the PCs strike out as explorers to investigate unknown lands.

My premise is that the party will start at about 11th level, and will be aboard a ship full of cartographers, sages, laborers, etc. Once the ship lands on a distant shore, the ship and its crew are attacked by a pair of dragons - and everyone is slain - except the party who has come on shore as a boarding party.

At this point, the party will be stranded by themselves, with no supplies, on an unknown, hostile shore.

But, the problem is the teleport spell. If the wizard has this spel, he could just say, "I teleport the party back to town", and my campaign is done.

I can't reduce the weight affected, because then the wizard would say "I cast polymorph other on everyone to reduce them to 10 lbs, and then I teleport the party back to town".

Would it be enough to say something like, it allows the wizard to teleport 1 mile per level, or 10 miles per level. Once the party lands on the shore, they'll be thousands of miles from home, so that should suffice.

Anyone else have any variations?

 

[kreynolds]

Minerals in the soil that interfere with teleportation spells? Not unlike what's often encountered in the underdark. Basically, it makes teleportation beyond a 1 mile range unreliable.

 

[Crothian]

Instead of making an alternate spell, I limited it's availibility. The only wizards and sorecerers who can get the spell have to part of the Wayfarer's Guide, the prestige class and organization in T&B.

 

[officeronin]

a solution

You could say that the new continent is a new plane. After all, the PCs shouldn't really know what's going on, or that the world is round, etc. They'll just be happy they didn't fall off the edge of the world.

Or, you could run it with lower level PCs...

OfficeRonin

 

[der_kluge]

As sure as I limit the availability, someone will take that PrC and then have it! I think I'll just stick with a range limit, and then probably no one will take it anyway.

 

[Plane Sailing]

If it is a specific new campaign, you could just eliminate teleport and the similar long range transportation spells.

Just tell everyone up front that they are not available in this campaign.

Another possibility is to require a rare and costly material component for teleports... but they will always manage to get hold of that, so I'd just go with barring it completely.

Tuck it in with other campaign-specific rule changes and it will be fine. End of problem.

 

[perivas]

Would it be enough to say something like, it allows the wizard to teleport 1 mile per level, or 10 miles per level. Once the party lands on the shore, they'll be thousands of miles from home, so that should suffice.

I like your variation very much. I always find teleport to be quite annoying in terms of planning "into the unknown" campaigns. But then again, supposedly, 11th level characters should start to care about other types of campaigns and less dungeoneering. But, that's just my opinion.

 

[der_kluge]

The major thrust of the campaign world is to explore the unknown, so theoretically, all adventurers worth their salt would be eager to get the opportunity to explore the vast reaches of the world. The great explorers, likewise would also be looking to hire high level adventurers because they know when the sh*t hits the fan, they'd rather be surrounded by a party of 11th level adventurers, say, rather than 5th level adventurers.

Yea, I think I'm going to go with the 10 miles per level teleport.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

It may be a little late if you've already made up your mind but you could adopt the second edition spell Pattern Transport as a replacement for teleport.

As I recall, it seemed to have been based upon the spells that the wizards in Raymond Feists' Riftwar Saga used to get around.

I think it was third level (but wouldn't be misplaced at 4th) and worked like teleport without error. . . but only if there was an identical pattern to receive the characters. Consequently, one can teleport back to home by having a transportable pattern on a rug or something but one can't teleport to somewhere one hasn't been because there's no pattern there. And, one can't teleport anywhere without a pattern.

There was also a risk with transportable patterns because transportation generated heat and the pattern had to make a saving throw every time it was used or be destroyed. (Many patterns were naturally made out of stone and placed in wizards' manses and those didn't run the same risk (but obviously weren't transportable).

If you did choose to use this, you could start out with a few DM fiats:

1. The wizard had not yet established his own tower, mansion, or whatever and consequently has no personal pattern to transport back to.

2. The exploration guild that they were a part of used an incredibly complex pattern and the wizard didn't have time to memorize it (and consequently can't duplicate it with arcane mark or some such method).

3. The exploration did have a tile pattern inlaid on the deck of the ship in the captain's quarters. This pattern enabled transportation to the exploration guild's headquarters. Unfortunately, the ship sank and/or was broken up on the rocks and that pattern is now destroyed.

4. The ship did have some temporary patterns as well. These were carried on rugs and may even have been embroidered on cloaks (those would most likely be one use patterns though since the cloak would be unlikely to make the saving throw). Unfortunately, these patterns were rather simple affairs and were only for transport back to the ship (another pattern inlaid on the deck). Too bad the ship is now destroyed. . . .

 

[der_kluge]

That's actually a pretty cool idea -

In fact, I could even have them explore an ancient dungeon, and they're surrounded by trolls and umber hulks that they've managed to hold off for a day, but now the situation seems helpless, but the last room of the dungeon has - what's this, a strange teleportation pattern? I wonder where it leads?


I like that.
In fact, I like it a lot.

Thanks!