the Jester
Legend
Pre-4e, I have always kept to the 1e rule that teleportation must take you to a flat surface (unless you land low or high, of course!).
Warlocks and Forced Teleportation
- Thread starter Kalthanis
- Start date
dude teleporting people mid air has been around since 4.0 came out. there isn't anything wrong with it. It is not "agressive"
Especially for fey locks. Why wouldn't you use the power like that. If I as a feylock have my pact boon go off, and I want to teleport 3 squares up to a different floor for whatever reason, I don't see why I can't if I can see my destination.
That is why teleportation is separate from the other 3. If I teleport you 5 squares from the cliff you shouldn't be getting a save to magically hang on. You have nothing to hang on to. As far as I understand only a few classes can do this, so its not op.
I have never had a DM disagree with it the whole time I have been playing. What monsters do you know that can teleport me?
Especially for fey locks. Why wouldn't you use the power like that. If I as a feylock have my pact boon go off, and I want to teleport 3 squares up to a different floor for whatever reason, I don't see why I can't if I can see my destination.
That is why teleportation is separate from the other 3. If I teleport you 5 squares from the cliff you shouldn't be getting a save to magically hang on. You have nothing to hang on to. As far as I understand only a few classes can do this, so its not op.
I have never had a DM disagree with it the whole time I have been playing. What monsters do you know that can teleport me?
The biggest reason is because that it seems to go against the spirit of what the powers were designed to do. I don't think anyone can honestly say that they believe that it was the intention of the design of teleport powers to give a free d10 of damage per 2 squares you teleport an enemy.
Allowing vertical teleportation frequently gives more damage dice than that which is actually listed for the power. Do you really think that this is what's intended?
In my example, I stated I'd only let them teleport to 1 square off a cliff and allow them a saving throw as an exception to the rule that they had to be teleported on a flat surface. I don't believe teleportation should just be vastly more powerful than pushes and slides (hence I wouldn't allow vertical teleportation), but I don't want to be worse than pushes and slides either (hence I allow an exception to the solid ground rule).
Having only a tiny number of classes that get a big damage bonus arbitrarily due to an exploitation of an effect isn't a defense against something being OP, it's more like a proof. If everyone could do it, then there wouldn't be a huge advantage or disadvantage between classes. It would still be cheesy, and still against what I believe was the intention, but at least it would be balanced and therefor not OP in comparison to other classes. Allowing a small number of classes the ability to exploit a certain effect gives them a huge advantage over other classes that do the same job (moving enemies) through other mechanisms (pushes and slides). That is why is is OP.
That might be true, though I don't know any DM that would allow this. DMs are different. Some DMs are more restrictive than me and don't even allow legitimate use of abilities that are explicitly allowed by rules. Some DMs will allow things that are completely broken and are completely contrary to the rules. Experiences will vary.
However, back in the AD&D days, I remember people getting away with using Create Water to "create water on the monster's brain and instantly killing it". I remember people using Enlarge Person to enlarge an enemy, but not their armor, and squeeze them to death. So many classic spells have been abused so much that in 3.0 and 3.5, the list of exceptions to cover what you couldn't do are often longer than what you can do.
This is one of the reasons to have a DM, to judge what appears to be the intention of powers rather than allowing players to twist the intent of spells to make them far greater in power than was intended. I think vertical teleportation falls (no pun intended) in to this realm.
By default? I don't think there are any in the Monster Manuals. Potentially? I think the "creating monsters" section of the DM's Toolbox chapter in the Dungeon Master's Guide is the closest I can come to answering that question. If players insist on abusing a mechanic like that? They might run into a lot more.
A teleport is made to be better than a push or slide. That is why there are separate rules for them. It is meant to be better. The whole point of the teleport is to have less restrictions. If I am playing a fey lock then I am not doing lots of damage anyway. What I am doing is my job. Take the enemy out of the fight. Make him go prone, make it easier for my party to hit him.
We aren't talking about mass teleporting all of your enemies into oblivion here. We are talking about 1 bad guy. And if its a boss, it might not even hit in the first place.
It isn't a "big" damage bonus. Most of the powers state what I have to do after I teleport someone.
Lets really talk about this. There is only 1 spell that teleports a bad guy in the PHB. That is the Will of the Feywild. It says teleport the creature 5 sqaures and it makes an attack against an adjacent creature of your choice. You can argue whether if makes you teleport the creature beside another or not. We can say, yes, you have to have another creature around.
Even if not, this is 1 spell. The next one is Arrangement of Disorder. A level 29 warlock power. Burst, you teleport target within the burst, and you and your allies within the burst. So, yes, you can fling someone off a cliff with this. Why not? It is a level 29 power. Who doesn't fly at level 29?
So what are we really talking about here? 2 powers? Does it really matter?
We aren't talking about mass teleporting all of your enemies into oblivion here. We are talking about 1 bad guy. And if its a boss, it might not even hit in the first place.
It isn't a "big" damage bonus. Most of the powers state what I have to do after I teleport someone.
Lets really talk about this. There is only 1 spell that teleports a bad guy in the PHB. That is the Will of the Feywild. It says teleport the creature 5 sqaures and it makes an attack against an adjacent creature of your choice. You can argue whether if makes you teleport the creature beside another or not. We can say, yes, you have to have another creature around.
Even if not, this is 1 spell. The next one is Arrangement of Disorder. A level 29 warlock power. Burst, you teleport target within the burst, and you and your allies within the burst. So, yes, you can fling someone off a cliff with this. Why not? It is a level 29 power. Who doesn't fly at level 29?
So what are we really talking about here? 2 powers? Does it really matter?
Ryujin
Legend
There are an aweful lot more powers that involve teleporting an enemy than just those two. Sometimes I think that Swrodmages do it with every second attack if you include the ones where he teleports next to the enemy that he's just sent off a cliff, for a true Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner moment.
hvg3akaek
First Post
Ah, but it is made to be personal, too
Go look at my first post in this thread. The rules are all written assuming you are teleporting yourself.
hvg3akaek
First Post
+1d10 per 10ft drop isn't "big"? It is very easy to double the damage, and not hard to go over and beyond that!
With a quick look through the PHB alone, I also found:
Summons of Khirad
Maelstrom of Chaos
Dark Transport
Elemental Maw
Six in the PHB. More, definitely, when you look at other books. And, yes, it does matter. If one or two classes (warlock / wizard) can get auto-kills, whereas others cannot, isn't that the defenintion of unbalanced?
On Puget Sound
First Post
My teleporting fluff (that justifies the rules crunch - or rather the lack of *CRUNCH!!*):
From the moment an Eladrin child is born, its parents are faced with a challenge that dwarfs anything a human mom or dad has to deal with: a teleporting baby. Eladrin babies are never where you left them. Some wealthy families use magical Toddler Anchors, but many Fey child development specialists believe unfettered experimentation with teleporting is essential to a child's maturation.
Why, then, do so many eladrin survive these dangerous years? Because of an interesting property of teleporting. Any attempt to teleport one's self or others fails unless the arrival point will support the subject's weight. How this process works, how the magic "knows" whether a teleport is safe, was not understood until the gnomish artificer and optician Bauschenlomb observed a teleport through time dilation goggles.
As it turns out, teleporting does not happen all at once, but from the bottom up and very rapidly. The subject disappears and appears in tiny layers like skin scrapings, starting with the soles of his or her shoes (assuming the subject is right side up and has shoes) and progressing to the top of the head in less than an eyeblink. As each layer disappears from the origin point, it appears at the destination point stacked on the preceding layer.
This goes fine...unless the first layer has fallen, sunk or otherwise moved out of place by even a hair's breadth. If any layer cannot stack on and adhere to the previous one, the teleportation effect stops. The subject feels nothing, and even if barefoot rarely suffers as much a foot rash, the amount of tissue lost is so slight.
The teleport will also fail if the destination space is dangerous enough to instantly destroy the first layer of deposited matter, such as lava or strong acid.
A sufficiently strong wind (hurricane force) might theoretically also move the layers fast enough to prevent teleportation, though this has not been observed.
From the moment an Eladrin child is born, its parents are faced with a challenge that dwarfs anything a human mom or dad has to deal with: a teleporting baby. Eladrin babies are never where you left them. Some wealthy families use magical Toddler Anchors, but many Fey child development specialists believe unfettered experimentation with teleporting is essential to a child's maturation.
Why, then, do so many eladrin survive these dangerous years? Because of an interesting property of teleporting. Any attempt to teleport one's self or others fails unless the arrival point will support the subject's weight. How this process works, how the magic "knows" whether a teleport is safe, was not understood until the gnomish artificer and optician Bauschenlomb observed a teleport through time dilation goggles.
As it turns out, teleporting does not happen all at once, but from the bottom up and very rapidly. The subject disappears and appears in tiny layers like skin scrapings, starting with the soles of his or her shoes (assuming the subject is right side up and has shoes) and progressing to the top of the head in less than an eyeblink. As each layer disappears from the origin point, it appears at the destination point stacked on the preceding layer.
This goes fine...unless the first layer has fallen, sunk or otherwise moved out of place by even a hair's breadth. If any layer cannot stack on and adhere to the previous one, the teleportation effect stops. The subject feels nothing, and even if barefoot rarely suffers as much a foot rash, the amount of tissue lost is so slight.
The teleport will also fail if the destination space is dangerous enough to instantly destroy the first layer of deposited matter, such as lava or strong acid.
A sufficiently strong wind (hurricane force) might theoretically also move the layers fast enough to prevent teleportation, though this has not been observed.
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Some teleport powers that (could) teleport others (enemies) explicitly tell you, that you HAVE to teleport them to a square that can support their weight (or something similar).
Naturally, any other teleporting powers that (could) teleport others (enemies) lacking this statement CAN teleport them into the air.
Of course, DM can always forbid it if he deems it too strong, but that would be a house rule.
Naturally, any other teleporting powers that (could) teleport others (enemies) lacking this statement CAN teleport them into the air.
Of course, DM can always forbid it if he deems it too strong, but that would be a house rule.
Balesir
Adventurer
There is a huge discussion on this on the WotC boards, and the summary is this:
Rules as Written say that teleport vertically, with no save, is the normal situation (unless the power concerned says otherwise).
Rules as Intended is debatable, but the comments in a sidebar in the Draconomicon suggest that it is intended, but that DMs are advised to teleport PCs only just over the edges of cliffs and so to allow a "catch hold" saving throw.
A careful look at the powers that allow teleporting another shows that none of them are obviously overpowered compared to non-Paragon Path powers of the same level (PP powers come as an indivisible 'set', so should be considered as a 'package' rather than exclusively against other powers of the same level). I'm not going to recap the wads of examples given over there, but check it out for yourself - compare Twist in Space to Winter's Wrath, Elemental Maw to Prismatic Spray, and so on and so on. If you have a DDI sub the Compendium is very handy for this.
I say all this as a DM who originally had the same kneejerk reaction folk here did - it must be abusive, right? When I looked closer I found, actually, no, not really. So I allow it.
Yep - take a good, hard look at those powers alongside others at the same level. Calc out some average damages on a hit. Remember that any power - from a Melee Basic Attack up - does damage with no save if it hits. Look at how many of those powers teleport on a miss. Consider that fall damage gets no bonus damage and does not maximise on a Crit. Consider that headroom and/or cliffs to drop enemies is situational. And, finally, consider that even Bull Rush can be lethal if you put a vast cliff into the encounter - which is exactly why the DMG strongly suggests you don't do that. The DMG 'falls' table is calibrated so that an un-bloodied character should seldom be dead or dying after a fall - that is what stops 'insta-kill', not the saving throw or any other restriction.
As regards the original post: the thing that leaps out at me is where did an item that adds 4 squares to all teleports come from? I have seen items add to personal teleports, but all teleports seems overpowered for reasons of the capabilities of teleport itself. Do you have an item name?
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