Teleport & Inertia

[andargor]

Quick reference to similar threads with many of the same arguments:

http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=7184
http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=50449

Bottom line: it's magic. Forget inertia.

Andargor

 

[Piratecat]

Actually, I'd argue for keeping inertia and momentum. If you don't, you can't have cool traps like the endless pit (fall into a 10' pit, get teleported to the ceiling, rinse and repeat until you're going at maximum velocity. . . at which point the teleport fails to the tune of 20d6 falling damage. The fun part of the trap is getting the person free before the teleport gives out.

I'll take whatever option lets me keep doing this.

 

[Scion]

I remember a trap that used that principle.

It was a vertical tunnel, completely dark magically, with a teleportation trap at the bottom. You would fall in somehow, hit the bottom, and the trap would trigger just a moment afterwards. Teleporting you to the top of the tunnel to fall down again and trigger the trap.

No need to keep momentum at that point.

Plus I definately think that coming out equilibriated to your new environment is supported more by the rules really, sortof like how you cant summon creatures to a surface that wont support them. Not exactly the same thing, but close!

 

[Fieari]

To each his own. My group more or less uses Bagpuss's method of keeping relative inertia through teleport. Additionally, the statement "It's magic, physics don't apply" doesn't tend to fly in my group, since my group contains two physics majors, and we find working out how things work to be fun. Our assumption is that the laws of physics apply except when the text explicitly says it don't. And sometimes we modify the text slightlt to make physics fit better.

That's just the way we are. To each his own.

 

[tomBitonti]

Forget inertia!

Most folks expectation is that if you teleport to the top of a mountain, you
show up with no relative motion to the mountain, and no sudden chill to
compensate the added potential energy. Or, assuming you are on a spinning
globe, that teleporting from the equator to the north pole doesn't zing you
off at a thousand miles an hour; if instead to the exact opposite side of the
planet, doesn't fling you tangentially at about two thousand miles an hour.

My sense is that the spell does its best to put you in the most natural frame
of reference at the target.

That being said, there are problems. What happens if you are in motion in
the initial frame? Teleport, if able to compensate for other motions, could
easily compensate for your own, but should it? What happens if you teleport
from one ship to another passing by and moving in the opposite direction?
What if you miss and end up ten feet off the side of the ship?

A neat solution would be for the spell to transport you between frames,
that is, from your current frame to the <<frame>> that you memorized.
Of course, you still have to decide what to do when the frame is an unfamiliar
one. Would you allow the choice an unfamiliar frame that included a motion?
(I teleport this brick to that edge of the enemy troops, with, say,
2,000 miles/hour of motion towards the troops. )

 

[Hypersmurf]

Most folks expectation is that if you teleport to the top of a mountain, you
show up with no relative motion to the mountain, and no sudden chill to
compensate the added potential energy. Or, assuming you are on a spinning
globe, that teleporting from the equator to the north pole doesn't zing you
off at a thousand miles an hour; if instead to the exact opposite side of the
planet, doesn't fling you tangentially at about two thousand miles an hour.

There could be a bit of fun involved in making it a complex Knowledge (Physics) check to compensate for that sort of thing.

I have a mental image of a party fading out in a teleport, with the wizard suddenly crying out "No, I meant carry the three!" just as they vanish completely...

-Hyp.

 

[rrealm]

I think you should keep the inertia and momentum and allow the caster to make a spellcraft check to slow down/stop if he wants to. If he wasn't the one to cast the teleport spell, as in the case of the teleporting falling trap, he doesn't get the chance and is at the mercy of the trap. Same goes for if a caster cast it on a differnet willing/unwilling target. If the caster doesn't want you to have the momentum, he makes a spellcraft check, otherwise you keep it. As for the rotation of the earth, I wouldn't factor that in at all.

 

[Caliban]

I would say that the default is that you maintain zero speed relative to the surface you teleport to.


However, nothing stops you from creating a teleport trap that does force you to keep your speed.

 

[Pax]

For traps, I prefer ones like that described above: you fall 500' (taking an entire round), hit the ground & take damage ... and are immediately teleported 500' straight up, to begin falling all over again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

... et cetera, et cetera, et cetera; ad infinitum, ad absurdum. Nasty, innit?

 

[Tetsubo]

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.

I like this idea Bagpuss, I think I will go with it. My thanks.