D&D 5E Teleport: Never been to location, but in possession of an object

[Fanaelialae]

In such a universe, Marco Polo would have brought back cobblestone from China instead of silk. "Look, now China is only a six-second incantation away!" The implication of widely available high magic are plentiful.



Yes. If the world has few high level spellcasters, as in "their powers are unheard of", there would be no defence against teleporting a greater invisible thief into the Treasury. The culprit could steal the king's treasury, of course. Fort Knox has no defence against teleportation, because we deem 15th level spellcasters rare enough to discount their existence... In such a context, I'd do what logic dictates and have no countermeasures. In such a world, a 13th level spellcasters should have other problems than robbing a king. That's the goal of a 5th level Robin Hood. A 13th level wizard should concern himself to rob the Sultan of the City of Brass of its magical items and a 18th level one should try to steal Memnon's place from him.

If playing in a world where high level magic is common enough so it makes sense to defend against, then yes, it leads to a Tippyverse. But those can be immense fun by virtue of being logical.

Yeah, in a high magic setting there are so many potential moves and countermoves that defense is going to be a high priority.

Just imagine a high level assassin with access to invisibility. Without some wards against intrusion and/or see invisibility, such a character could spy and murder practically anyone with impunity. Just kill and vanish.

Moreover, you don't even need a spy in the room if you can scry, making a spell like Private Sanctum (which also blocks teleportation) basically a necessity for conducting any non-public business of state. Sure someone might notice the scrying, but what can they do about it without access to magic?

If both sides have access to magic then defending against invasive magic is entirely feasible, albeit time consuming. That pretty much guarantees a safe and steady income for casters, which incentivizes casters towards providing services rather than banditry. Sure, you won't necessarily have the resources to ward every local merchant's shop, but you can ward the important places like the throne room and treasury. Robbing a few lower end merchants using teleport is like a high level character going into a goblin warren. The outcome is likely predictable, but the rewards aren't likely to impress anyone.

If the bad guys are the primary users of high magic (maybe a setting where magic has a corruptive influence) then the bad guys are almost certainly in charge. Which would mean that they'd have the resources to defend themselves against magical intrusion.