Teleportation

[Croesus]

Some good ideas already mentioned. One idea I always liked was that the caster could teleport anywhere within line of sight, or to a location he had arcane marked previously. There would be limits on how many marked locations he could have at any one time. And scrying was not considered "line of sight".

 

[Argyle King]

Sounds reasonable.

If the rationale for the failure chance is to stop PCs teleporting to unfamiliar places, then why not just follow Dausuul's approach and impose a hard limit: no teleporting to unfamiliar places.

Personally, I dislike that for many of the same reasons why I dislike how some have said attacks of opportunity should be handled. I remember a thread a while back in which AoO were being discussed, and the subject of whether or not not having them would make ranged weapons superior to melee came up. There were those who advocated the idea that ranged attacks should simply be impossible if you are threatened by an enemy.

I dislike that and I dislike being told something like teleporting somewhere unfamiliar is impossible because I feel as though it removes an element of risk-versus-reward which I find enjoyable and which I also feel is an important element of many adventure stories. Just like there may be times when I tempt fate by firing my bow at the troll in my face because I really need my fire arrow to strike home, there may also be times when the party has been battered and beaten by the troll, and their only hope of survival is for me to call upon my years of arcane training to hopefully get them somewhere safe -even if we don't know where that somewhere is.

That being said, I am ok with the requirements concerning teleportation being somehow tied to skill. I am also ok with teleportation and similar thaumatology being far far less common than it currently is in D&D. While they are not teleportation spells, I would also prefer that spells which allow walking through walls and things of that nature be far less common than they currently are.

 

[pemerton]

Personally, I dislike that for many of the same reasons why I dislike how some have said attacks of opportunity should be handled.

<sip>

Just like there may be times when I tempt fate by firing my bow at the troll in my face because I really need my fire arrow to strike home, there may also be times when the party has been battered and beaten by the troll, and their only hope of survival is for me to call upon my years of arcane training to hopefully get them somewhere safe -even if we don't know where that somewhere is.

That might be something better handled by a Fate Point or similar mechanic - ie spend some other, limited, "Get Out of Jail" resrouce in order to augment the teleport beyond its usual capacities (I gather than Mutants & Masterminds uses a mechanic a bit like that).

I just don't see how a percentage chance of instant death on teleportation really enhances the play experience - it seems to just increase swinginess (either you really win, or you really lose). And once you reduce the penalty (eg in Rolemaster, rather than instant death, it is "fail to teleport and be stunned") then teleportation starts to become overpowered again.

 

[Argyle King]

That might be something better handled by a Fate Point or similar mechanic - ie spend some other, limited, "Get Out of Jail" resrouce in order to augment the teleport beyond its usual capacities (I gather than Mutants & Masterminds uses a mechanic a bit like that).

I just don't see how a percentage chance of instant death on teleportation really enhances the play experience - it seems to just increase swinginess (either you really win, or you really lose). And once you reduce the penalty (eg in Rolemaster, rather than instant death, it is "fail to teleport and be stunned") then teleportation starts to become overpowered again.

I find the possibility of trying something to be more exciting and more game-enhancing than the game simply saying "bzzzzzt! wrong answer." Though, this is something which highly depends upon how the rest of the world works. I am more inclined to accept more limitations on things if the game as a whole is built in a way such that the game world makes sense to me -even considering magic, dragons, and elves (this touches upon my recent comments in a different thread.) If the game world is instead built in a manner which is consistent with some of the problems I have with the current edition of D&D then I find a blanket statement of no to be a worse option than a statement of "yes, but it's risky."

 

[Argyle King]

I suppose what I was trying to say was this:

If the limitations seem natural to the game world and seem like they are organic to how things work, I'm on board. If -on the other hand- the limitations come across more as being artificial limitations in a manner more consistent with how I cannot jump in certain video games because jumping was not programmed into the game, I'm not happy with that as a rpg experience.

I was also trying to say that I much prefer having the freedom to weigh risk versus reward and attempt an action -even if doing so is suicidal- than having the freedom to make that choice taken away from me.

 

[pemerton]

If the game world is instead built in a manner which is consistent with some of the problems I have with the current edition of D&D then I find a blanket statement of no to be a worse option than a statement of "yes, but it's risky."

"Yes, but it's risky" gives me a very Tunnels & Trolls vibe - lighthearted, with high PC turnover and wackiness as the default.

But I get the impression you're seeing "Yes, but it's risky" in a more serious sort of fashion. Does D&D support that level of seriousness? I think it can at the "overview" level - serious characters, serious plot and themes, etc - but I'm not sure at the level of action resolution. Hit points already make it not that serious, I feel.

Serious "Yes, but it's risky" teleportation would seem to me to fit better in gritty combat with crits, for example - then staying to face the troll is taking the same sort of risk (it might get a good crit) as choosing to teleport out (you might end up underground). And the whole play of the game is built around this sort of grittiness.

Does that make any sense?

 

[Elf Witch]

First I think teleport should be a DM optional spell. I feel this way about several spells.

One of the issue is scry it is to easy to abuse. I liked the mechanic in 3.0 where you had to put ranks in scry to be any good at it. I also think that you should not be able to scry on someone or someplace that you have no familiarity with. I also think that there should be some rule of having something that belongs to the person to allow the connection.

I like how teleport works in the Dragonriders of Pern to go between you have to have a clear picture in your mind of your destination screw this up and you could end up anywhere or worse end up in wall.

So some kind of danger should be there if if all it is is being off course by 100s of miles.

Also the more people you are teleporting the harder it should be.

Teleport without error should not be a spell to be able to teleport without error you should have to have some some kind of device or portal or circle.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

I like the idea of making it a ritual with a significant cast time, several hours at least. Yes, you can SBT, but if the opposition is stronger than you thought then you're stranded in hostile territory.

I also like the idea of having a one-use teleport circle that can be cast on a location then used at any time, as a line of retreat.

I also like to require that either the starting point or destination is a well-known location.

 

[Argyle King]

"Yes, but it's risky" gives me a very Tunnels & Trolls vibe - lighthearted, with high PC turnover and wackiness as the default.

But I get the impression you're seeing "Yes, but it's risky" in a more serious sort of fashion. Does D&D support that level of seriousness? I think it can at the "overview" level - serious characters, serious plot and themes, etc - but I'm not sure at the level of action resolution. Hit points already make it not that serious, I feel.

Serious "Yes, but it's risky" teleportation would seem to me to fit better in gritty combat with crits, for example - then staying to face the troll is taking the same sort of risk (it might get a good crit) as choosing to teleport out (you might end up underground). And the whole play of the game is built around this sort of grittiness.

Does that make any sense?

It does make sense, and -as I participate in more of these discussions- I start to see more and more reasons why I feel as though I am outside of the target audience for D&D 5th Edition. Now I'm only left to wonder if my tastes have changed over the years or if I was playing a game which was ill suited to my tastes (and enjoying it) because I was not aware there was another way of handling things at the time.

I bolded your comment about hit points because -now that I have some experience with how other games handle HP- I find myself unhappy with how HP works out in D&D. "Unhappy" is perhaps too strong of a word. Elsewhere, in a different thread, I once made the comment that HP is one of those things which I do not really notice as long as I'm only playing D&D. However, when I come back to it from playing a different game -with a different method fresh in my head- it bugs me.

 

[howandwhy99]

A Gate is an awesome thing. It does funky stuff with the layout of surrounding environments and populations. I like permanent magical features like the Gate spell, but the consequences of such really do need to be nailed down well to get the full effect of how powerful they are for any magic system, regardless of the campaign setting.

Teleportation is similar to a Gate, but instantaneous. It is super-powerful. If everyone could teleport "at will" we should definitely drop the Movement abilities. Such expense for "movement" would then be a rare spell for unusual situations at best.

Limitations on teleport depend on the play style and campaign:

• For a high power, world spanning game, then teleport should be daily or less and without any further cost. It should also likely only be limited by planetary scales or whatever the campaign calls for.
  
• For a low level dungeon crawl the teleport is a "get out of jail free" card. Before you had to crawl back out and the infamously short workdays barely broke the surface. With teleport to safety and back in, the game's difficulty changes for everyone.
  
• For adventure path games a teleport can skip over meaningless trips between each chapter. But they can also skip over meaningful quests to the top of a proverbial mountain simply because such is in sight.
  
• For sandbox games a teleport can quickly take one outside of the sandbox and end the session there and then. Too often and too cheap and the game leads to undeveloped (and unentangled) locations routinely.

I like teleport costing more than simply a daily spell slot. I like that it would be limited in terms of miles. And in respect to the early version I like that it is unreliable. If you have more reliable methods you go with them first. If teleport can really harm you just by bad luck, then important travel will often be taken by other means (like heading to a combat). The last thing anyone wants is to arrive hip deep in stone in the evil vizier's assassin barracks. (rat bastardry is great, random certain death not so much).

1e was not limited by distance, but to locations the caster had already visited or heard about. IOW, if the DM told you about it, he better have something ready if you decide snap you fingers and go there.

It was also limited by weight, so like a Gate there is only so much that can pass through at one time.

Also, there was a table of mis-teleporting depending on the degree one knew the location. "High" could deliver you a number of feet above ground depending on the roll. "Low" could do the same into the ground below, so there was a chance for instant burials, if you'd never seen the place.

One major point to note: Both Teleportation & Gate presumed they were cast to a location upon a solid surface. I kind of prefer the option not to do so, but then "Forced Teleportation" of another is basically a Touch of Death spell or even Imprisonment. Teleportation Circle is even worse, if the caster is prepared for where they're all going. Taking such things into account for balancing the magic system is every bit as important as including flavorful details like the odds of having to saw your friend out of a tree.