Teleport & Inertia

[Tetsubo]

If a caster is in motion when they cast Teleport, is that inertia preserved? This won't have much effect in a fantasy setting as few modes of transportation achieve high rates of speed. But in a modern fantasy setting with trains, planes, blimps and cars this might be a factor. Any thoughts?

 

[Ferret]

I would say that it would take a tablre and some Spellcraft checks (a bit like the accuracy of getting to your destination) to explain how well you can stop/slow or speed up. Perhaps a percentile and a fudge factor for the spell craft to stop or speed up.

So say on a 10% you increase sepp by a factor of 5, and a spellcraft check result of 30 can reverse that by taking 4 off or adding up to 4.

 

[Scion]

I'd say that for ease of use and going with magic in general your inertial frames essentially match whichever area you are in at the time. Which would mean, if you are falling and then teleport to the ground then you are fine on the ground, no extra movement. If you are on the ground and teleport to a plane then you are fine, no lack of movement.

No relative motion or relative inertial frames, everything is simply fine for where you are going to go.

An example of this would be in the book, 'jumper'. Great book

 

[frankthedm]

I would say you keep whatever inertia and direction you have when you teleport. No muss, no fuss, just a possible mess

 

[RangerWickett]

If you keep inertia, though, this causes a problem when teleporting north or south. Since the ground closer to the equator spins faster than the ground closer to the poles, if you teleport from say, Ecuador to New York, you'll appear traveling at a relative speed of . . . well, I'm not that good at math, but it'll be significant.

 

[Scion]

No muss, no fuss, just a possible mess

A muss is a mess

 

[Bagpuss]

How about you velocity is matched relative to whatever surface you were closest to at the time.

So you teleport from a train, you are nearest the floor of the train and your velocity in relation to the floor of the train is zero, so when you land on the earth, which is also spinning and moving through space your velocity is matched to it so, you don't flying across the room.

Same if you teleport north or south. Or from a plane that is in a nose dive.

But say you are falling the nearest surface is either the ground, or a wall/cliff face you are flying past. So when you teleport to the ground, you either hit it at the same velocity. Or end up flying horizontally across it at high speed.

So as long as you are stationary relative to a surface when you cast it you are fine. But if you are falling or running, you maintain that velocity.

No need to calculate the spin of the earth or the speed of the train, and you will probably have already figured out the falling damage in the other cases. That's what I would do, seems simple, doesn't make the spell over complicated, and doesn't nerf it too much either.

 

[Pax]

Guys ... please let me remind you of this one, simple thing ... IT'S BLOODY MAGIC ... not an excercise in physics.

Drop the worry about inertia. Inertia is science. Teleport is magic. Science and magic really don't tend to mix well (it's possible, but one or the other always has to be ready to give ground, in order to make the combination work).

 

[Vrecknidj]

How about this?

If the caster wants to preserve his speed, he makes a Spellcraft check and the DM sets the DC, otherwise, when teleportation sends you to a place your speed is zero, but locally relative (so if you teleport onto a big ship at sea, you don't go tumbling off the deck, and if you teleport from the ship to a warehouse somewhere, you don't go sliding into the walls).

Dave

 

[Liquidsabre]

We had the sorcerer in our game the other night, who was lying prone beneath a dragon at the time, when he cast a silent dimension door. He asked if he could DD somewhere and be standing up. Our DM atm wasn't quite sure what to say lol. The DD description says determine the distance, angle, and such for the spell. He just wanted to know if he could specify angle as well.