Teleportation

[Lanefan]

So what does teleport as a spell (where you simply travel wherever you want in the world in a single round) add to a setting that a more restrictive linked portal (which links two places together) lacks? What does it give that is worth its inherent problems?

Well, first off don't use the 3e version; use the 1e version instead, with attendant risks etc. and limitations on what you can take with you.

Also, you can't go "anywhere in the world": you can only go to somewhere you know about in - I think - any edition of the game. I have no real issue with teleporting back to town from an adventure, but I don't like teleporting from town back into said adventure.

What does teleport add?
- the ability for at least the caster to get out of bad situations in a hurry. Party's in a no-win situation? Bail out, round up a rescue group, and go back in - travelling conventionally - to recover the bodies (I've seen this done)
- the ability for the caster to get back to home base fast, from anywhere
- the ability to cut out long stretches of boring play during travel

Linked portals between cities - or even within cities - are great too; as long as the PCs can't just go around building them wherever they like. (one earthquake-prone city in my game has several pairs of linked portals within it, taking the place of bridges across a wide river as said bridges keep falling down during quakes...)

Lan-"teleports are also great for adventurers who simply want a vacation on a sunny beach somewhere"-efan

 

[mlund]

Teleport was a spell I learned to hate in 3E after using it as a player. It broke the world for me. Mundane transportation and travel restrictions were obsolete for characters. Between Fabricate and Teleport I turned a global economy on its head and all the solutions we could come up with were horribly contrived to patch an obvious game defect.

4E handled Teleport much better. I have no problem with short, no-cost hops (like fey step), and even distances measured in football fields that have limited daily uses (like dimension door). However, the idea of grabbing your allies and anything that's not nailed down up to a weight limit and jumping half-way across the world with a snap of your fingers is just bad.

Long-distance teleportation should always been held tightly under lock-and-key unless you're running some crazy magi-tek setting where its taken for granted.

Limited-use portals, rituals, and targets all work wonders for these problems. Portal A to Portal B once per day? Doable. Consumable artifact-type focus for an hour-long ritual that can take you anywhere if you have a piece of the soil? Doable. Special destination rune that you can recall to but it leaves you exhausted? I can do that too.

*SNAP* We're in Waterdeep, time to sell all this junk and heal up. - No way.
*SNAP* We're in the Dragon's lair, buffed to the nines, time to kill. - Not happening.

- Marty Lund

 

[Elf Witch]

I don't know Pern, but it seems you are describing teleport in a more defensive way. Couldn't linked portals work for summoning heroes to key strategic positions? Why give the heroes the ability to teleport offensively? What is the gain for the story? Because it brings up the huge story and setting problem as to why people bother with defensive strongholds at all.



I don't recall either situation, no, but I could stand to be corrected. The point is, that Gandalf didn't simply teleport Frodo to Mt. Doom and have him drop the ring in so they could be back to the shire in time for tea. So we didn't miss all of the sights and events of the Lord of the Rings. The problem with teleportation is that you don't have a reason to take a flaming chariot, a Griffon, or a Lord of Horses. You miss the journey because you just handwave everyone to the dungeon. If the DM wants to do that, he can simply say "after many miles, you reach the "temple of naughty baddies". Otherwise, it is an immersive breaking handwave from one fight set-piece to another, and contributes to the problem of going nova, teleporting out, buffing up again.

Linked portals are an elegant solution that doesn't require.

1) The DM putting anti-teleport wards on everything.
2) Screwing over the players (sometimes randomly) for daring to use a spell that they invested character resources and spell slots in.

Which pretty much every other suggestion on this thread requires. We have a solution, it pretty much works for all high-fantasy games (and doesn't intrude on low fantasy ones unlike the teleport spell). I'm afraid I just cannot see the downside to linked portals that makes people want to reach for that spell again.



The feather fall spell simulates that much better. For one thing, once they land, they land.

In Pern the dragons and riders teleport to be able to get to the area to stop thread from hitting the ground and devouring every living thing. It is an integral part of the story.

I have played in DnD games where teleporting was a major part of the adventure.

I know people always bring up teleport as an example of how LORT would not be the same if they had the ability to teleport well along with that is the argument of why didn't Gandulf just get the eagles to fly them in.

There is always a way to use story to make something make sense. They didn't teleport because Sauron has anti teleport magic or it is a chaos magic zone spells act wonky and dangerous.

I would rather have teleport be one of those spells that is in the DM control to decide if it fits in his game and what kind it is. Give the DM several choice of teleport spells to choose to put in his game.

 

[bouncyhead]

For my current campaign, the setting has no teleport or dimension door spell, with the knowledge lost in the mists of time. There are static gates and discovering their locations is a major plot-point, since certain dungeon areas are only accessible through them. These areas have been sealed for good reason, as my adventurers are currently discovering.

I'm finding the lack of teleportation (plus the restriction of item creation and restriction to core only) is keeping the whole process more balanced at levels 12+.

Also, the search for personal teleportation by the forces of nastiness (founded on investigation of Abundant Step) serves as another plot-point/threat.

So far so good.

 

[Elf Witch]

If Teleport is ported from 3e with all its attendant problems, then yes I'll have to ban it to suit my game.

However, I don't really see anything that is gained for ANY campaign that requires magical transport by having a spell rather than a linked portal ritual. No matter how high magic your campaign, linked portals serve the job rather nicely, and don't have any of the setting problems, going nova problems, or need to nerf the spell with anti-teleport wards or random punishment every session problems.

So what does teleport as a spell (where you simply travel wherever you want in the world in a single round) add to a setting that a more restrictive linked portal (which links two places together) lacks? What does it give that is worth its inherent problems?

Being able to teleport can allow you to get away from a TPK. It can also allow you to teleport to get help if your party is dying from poison or has been leveled drained and is facing a permanent level loss if you can't get to someone who can help you.

It can allow travel around the world. Sometimes the point is not the trip but the destination.

Portals only work if they have already been established.

In the game we played in we would teleport all over the planet stopping demon gates from opening. The DM used the mechanic that if you failed your roll you teleported in an 100 mile area which lead to some interesting adventures.

There is a place for it in the game which is why I would rather see it banned by individual DMs then taken out by the game designers.

 

[Minigiant]

I think teleport is more of a level issue.

3E's teleport was too easy but the more important feature was too low level. I have no problem with high level archmages and popes of the Traveler Deity to be teleporting around parties and granting minor missions that are beneath them to their minor friends. But Joe Gritwand and Harry the Scarred should not be popping their parties all around to any place at ease until they have two dozen levels.

Grit level teleports (1st-5th)
4E Fey/Misty Steps (teleport self a couple feet)

Heroic level teleports (6th-10th)
Arcane Gate (create 2 short duration linked portal with LOS)
Linked Portal (Create a portal to another teleportation portal)

Superheroic level teleports (1ith-15th)
Dimension Door (teleport self and a couple allies up to ~500-600 feet)
Plane Shift (teleport to another plane far from your destination)
Teleport with higher mishap chance (teleport self and couple friends a couple hundred feet))


Paragon level teleports (16st-20th)
Greater Teleport with mishap chance (teleport self and couple friends anywhere on the plane)
Gate
True Teleportation Portal

Epic level teleports (21th+)
Teleport without Error (teleport self and couple friends anywhere... anywhere)

 

[Stormonu]

Well, first off don't use the 3e version; use the 1e version instead, with attendant risks etc. and limitations on what you can take with you.

Also, you can't go "anywhere in the world": you can only go to somewhere you know about in - I think - any edition of the game. I have no real issue with teleporting back to town from an adventure, but I don't like teleporting from town back into said adventure.

What does teleport add?
- the ability for at least the caster to get out of bad situations in a hurry. Party's in a no-win situation? Bail out, round up a rescue group, and go back in - travelling conventionally - to recover the bodies (I've seen this done)
- the ability for the caster to get back to home base fast, from anywhere
- the ability to cut out long stretches of boring play during travel

Linked portals between cities - or even within cities - are great too; as long as the PCs can't just go around building them wherever they like. (one earthquake-prone city in my game has several pairs of linked portals within it, taking the place of bridges across a wide river as said bridges keep falling down during quakes...)

Lan-"teleports are also great for adventurers who simply want a vacation on a sunny beach somewhere"-efan

Agreed. Another limitation of ONLY using linked portals is those portals most likely would fall under enemy control or at the least someone's control (such as sometimes happens in the Stargate series) whereas with a teleport, you don't have to risk venturing into enemy territory just to use one ... and when you're already running from the enemy, that's a great boon.

I, personally, do not want to use battlefield teleportation like in 4E; it just doesn't fit in my personal campaign world (though I expect to see it in the game, I plan on disallowing it for games based on my homebrew campaign world). I'm primarily interested in what was mentioned as defensive teleportation - useful for handwaving already-travelled roads without having to pack the supplies and funds for a 30-day trip.

I do think I'm going to incorporate the "can't pass the threshold" idea mentioned earlier in my own Pathfinder games; you can teleport to the front door of the (occupied) dungeon or king's castle, but not into it's depths or the king's banquet hall without an open or implied invitation.

 

[pemerton]

In a campaign where you want to have different settings (far north, desert, jungle, temperate, etc.) and don't feel like spending ages of in-game time in travel, teleport or similar is the answer.

<snip>

Having these available for city-to-city travel (at significant cost, of course) really helps at mid-high level: the players can get on with it, and the DM doesn't have to run weeks of overland or sea travel - again.

I'm not sure if your focus is on ingame time, or on real time spent resolving travel at the table.

If the second, then there are other ways to handle it besides teleport. For example, you just handwave the travel and narrate the passage of time in about as many sentences as you would use to narrate the teleport.

Overall, I think teleportation needs to be in the game based on the fiction it is derived from.

What fiction is that?

Classical fantasy is full of mysterious wanderers (gods, fairies, etc) who appear and disappear mysteriously. But there's not a hell of a lot of teleportation in it, is there.

EDIT: I see that you have Pern in mind.

 

[Stormonu]

What fiction is that?

Classical fantasy is full of mysterious wanderers (gods, fairies, etc) who appear and disappear mysteriously. But there's not a hell of a lot of teleportation in it, is there.

EDIT: I see that you have Pern in mind.

Besides Pern, I am trying to think of other places I've seen it or read it, and anyone who wants to chime in, I'd appreciate. I'm having a much harder time recollecting actual occurrences in movies or books prior or contemporary to early D&D.

Harry Potter series (yeah, late to the genre, but used quite dramatically)
Hawk the Slayer (70's movie)
Dragonslayer (80's movie)
Excalibur (80's movie)
Aladdin from 1001 Arabian Nights
7th Voyage of Sinbad (50's movie - the genie teleports several times)

I've not read the books, but what about teleportation in Terry Pratchet's series, Moorcock's Elric series and the Shannara series? Anyone know/remember if teleporation is used in those stories?

Demons (Such as in Faust), Angels and elves seem to have a particular knack for some sort of teleportation. There are several stories where they use these abilities to transport the heroes of the story from place to place.

I'm rumbling through older fables and myths in my mind, but while the idea of a wizard (or another character with a magical item) who mystically transports himself from place to place seems natural (I'm assuming some sort of teleport), I can't nail down any specific story by name.

 

[pemerton]

Excalibur (80's movie)

I know this movie pretty well. Where is this teleportation (as opposed to Merlin mysteriously coming and going)?

7th Voyage of Sinbad (50's movie - the genie teleports several times)

<snip>

Demons (Such as in Faust), Angels and elves seem to have a particular knack for some sort of teleportation. There are several stories where they use these abilities to transport the heroes of the story from place to place.

I'm rumbling through older fables and myths in my mind, but while the idea of a wizard (or another character with a magical item) who mystically transports himself from place to place seems natural (I'm assuming some sort of teleport), I can't nail down any specific story by name.

I agree that the mysterious arrivals and disappearances of genies, angels, devils, faeries etc are the closest thing to widespread teleportation in classic fantasy.

The question is, does D&D-style teleportation evoke that feel, or sit at odds with it? I tend to think that linked portals are a nice compromise between classic D&D and a fantasy feel. (Short-distance teleport, like 4e eladrin and warlocks, is a different matter - it's closer to classic D&D blink dogs, and can raise issues about flavour and tactics but not about ingame travel and metagame scene-framing.)