Teleport Idea

[Mage of Spellford]

Hey All,

I was reading over some of my old journals from my old 3.5 campaign and I noticed how the spell teleport really didn't fit. The ability to instantly travel great distances at virtually no cost is a modern convenience that imo does not fit easily into the game.

I also read over some notes from an old Traveller game. In traveller they use the jump mechanic where regardless of distance the time taken for the jump takes approx 1 week.

I wondered if that could be applied to D&D. Imagine if the teleport spell (regardless of distance travelled) took approx 12 hours say 12+1d3 hours. The spell could still be used for travelling distances or escapes but this would preclude its use as a tactical tool removing the scry-buff-teleport problem.

Just an idea from an idle mind

MarkK

 

[SkidAce]

Not a bad solution....the only question I as a player would have is where was I during the 12 hours?

 

[Piratecat]

If I was a bad guy being hunted by PCs, I'd spent a week or two teleporting twice a day. I'd be removed from existence for the duration.

If you want to remove scry-buff-teleport, just have it take 1d4 minutes.

 

[Ramaster]

If I was a bad guy being hunted by PCs, I'd spent a week or two teleporting twice a day. I'd be removed from existence for the duration.

If you want to remove scry-buff-teleport, just have it take 1d4 minutes.

Well, this is quite true.

I like the idea of having the bad guy/s "hiding in hyperspace" to avoid capture, that could be a plot point.

There are ways to correct this, however.

Teleporting grants one negative level that goes away after 24 hours, but stacks with itself (and the duration gets reset after every "jump" for all negative levels).

Teleporting gives you the Sickened condition for 24 hours.

Teleport has a cool down time of 24 hours.

The time you are on "hyperspace" is spent on an unpredictable, sometimes very dangerous place.

I am digging this idea.

 

[Piratecat]

Thing is, it's really easy to slip into a rabbit hole where you're over-designing and making a ton of house rules in order to solve a relatively minor problem. I'll argue that simplicity is best here; don't make a rule that involves tracking or looking stuff up.

Unless you love that sort of thing, of course.

 

[Ramaster]

Thing is, it's really easy to slip into a rabbit hole where you're over-designing and making a ton of house rules in order to solve a relatively minor problem. I'll argue that simplicity is best here; don't make a rule that involves tracking or looking stuff up.

Unless you love that sort of thing, of course.

I wouldn't say that Teleport is a relatively minor problem (if the PCs use it frequently, it really changes the way the DM has to design the campaign) nor would I call adding the line: "This spell has a cool down time of 24 hours" overdesigning, but I see your point and I agree that some fixes can overcomplicate things. I don't think that this is the case though.

 

[Piratecat]

That wasn't meant as a personal shot; my apologies if that's how it came across. My point is that there's lots of ripple effects on the default assumptions within D&D, and they get bigger the more the spell is changed.

For instance, let's say there's a 24 hour cool down on the spell. What happens if you have two wizards in the party? Are you okay knowing that no spontaneous caster (like a sorcerer) would spend a precious spell-slot on teleport? What happens when the party is too large to move with just one teleport? And it definitely doesn't stop scry-buff-teleport ambushes; it just makes it harder to escape from them. And heck, if you have plane shift or teleport without error, you can still get in and get out. This restriction feels a little (okay, a lot) meta-gamey to me.

The concept of "hyperspace" being a dangerous place is also a little problematic. Usually when heroes teleport, you have them focused on the plot and gleefully charging forward to accomplish something. Every teleport then becomes a distracting side adventure or a hand-waved "everything's fine," and that latter one defeats the purpose of the restriction. And hey, D&D characters love danger. My group would probably be teleporting constantly just to explore the aether.

(I like the idea of sickened for X number of minutes, though. I can see coming out of a teleport and puking up your guts.)

Like anyone, I like to ask myself "what do I want to accomplish with a rules change?" Then I find the simplest solution with the fewest ramifications to the fiction, the world, and other rules. And of course, there's a big difference between building a world around a teleport cooldown (which is kind of cool) and instituting one when the PCs hit higher levels.

I may be biased, though. I love both teleport and divination spells. They consistently only make my games better.

 

[Storminator]

One of my favorite game sessions ever we (at ~18th level) Buff-Scry-Teleported in on the BBEG's henchmen (all around 18th level) and wrecked them. Since our buffs were still up, we teleported into his magic minion factory. Where the BBEG was waiting for us, cast Time Stop, buffed himself, fought back, plane shifted us, we plane shifted back, we teleported away, he teleported after us, we teleported away, he teleported after us, we teleported into a Red Wizard enclave, he teleported after us, while we bought a teleport scroll for 50000 platinum he unleashed his artifact making a 1 mile radius wild magic zone, we teleported away, botched the roll, ended up in the Queen of Cormyr's throne room, he teleported after us, we teleported away using a Wish spell, and he stayed behind and wrecked all of Cormyr's nobility, for which we were blamed for decades.

Yup, you have to redesign your games for teleport - and you should. Make your PCs NEED to teleport or they fail miserably.

PS

 

[Piratecat]

...wow, that's amazing. That's the same way to handle divination, incidentally. Make them need divination or they fail.

One of my favorite game sessions involved us in the middle of performing a ritual, thinking that the bad guys couldn't find us, when they buffed and teleported in in two separate groups with the best they had to offer. They time stopped, we time stopped, and then we got very lucky and proceeded to wreck them. I think we lost three party members in that fight, every single one of whom had been jolted back to life in mere seconds by the spell revivify. It was spectacular. And we even got to leave one bad guy alive to teleport back home and spread the word.

 

[darjr]

I do love the idea of a 'mis-jump' for teleportation.
[MENTION=305]Storminator[/MENTION] I think something like what you described could happen with delays in 'hyperspace' for jumping.

Verner Vinge invented the idea of a Bobble that created a sphere and anything inside was cut off from the universe, and didn't experience time. Eventually it would 'pop' and the folks inside would see the future as if they instantly time traveled to the future. In one sequence there was a spaceship combat using bobbles as shields around ships, and to the universes view it took decades, but only a few seconds to the combatants as they tried to time their Bobbles creation and popping times to get a tactical advantage.