What are the best spells for long-distance travel?

[jgsugden]

A pair of plane shift can be used to travel great distances as a poor man's greater teleport. You may end up being off by a few hundred miles, but if the distance to be travelled is many thousands of miles, it can be a real short cut. Plus, it is available to parties at 9th level and greater teleport is not available until 13th or 14th level.

If my sorcerer has a choice between greater teleport and plane shift, I'll choose plane shift. It can be used as a weapon and it can be used to cross planes. Greater Teleport may be more accurate and use less spells per day, but it does not come close to the versatility of plane shift.

 

[Endur]

Note that many of these travel spells allow for random encounters along the way. Ever encounter an Air Elemental while Wind Walking?

Teleport, Gate, etc. being instantaneous reduce the possibility of random encounters.

 

[nameless]

My personal favorite for Sor/Wiz travel is the combination of Summon Monster VII and Control Weather. Summon Monster VII will get you some pretty beefy combat monsters in the case that you need to fight, or will get you a Djinn that can pretty much take care of all travel needs. First it can create food and water, then it can cast Wind Walk on half a dozen people. Wind Walk grants a 600ft. movement rate and gaseous form, and with Control Weather, you can control the winds to push you in the proper direction even faster. Hurricane-force winds can add over a hundred miles per hour (up to 174 mph) easily topping 200 mph for 20 hours. 4000 miles with complete discretion and pinpoint accuracy sounds like a pretty good deal to me, and neither spell slot will be wasted in the event that transport is not required that day.

As far as I'm concerned, no air elemental would waylay a Wind Walker, because the Wind Walker is moving too quickly to be caught by the elemental. Spotting distance also hinders an aerial encounter. But if a DM decides that an air elemental can spot you and catch you, I guess you'll just have to let it take a few potshots against your DR 10/magic and move on. At level 13+, it's no big deal to take a few hits from an air elemental, even an elder one.

 

[Nail]

My personal favorite for Sor/Wiz travel is the combination of Summon Monster VII and Control Weather.

Good idea with the Summon Monster VII, but the Control Weather wouldn't work. The area covered is too small (2 mi radius), it doesn't move with you, and I'd argue the speeds of Wind Walk and the hurricane force winds are not cumulative.

....and come on; yer not gonna argue that being transported by hurricane-force winds will give you "pin-point accuracy". No one would buy that.

 

[Endur]

I guess a lot depends on how the GM views the interaction of the Wind Walk spell and Air Elementals. In order to move with Wind Walk, you tranform into Gaseous Form and then get blown by a 60 mph wind.

The Air Elemental should easily spot the characters, as it will obviously notice a 60 mph wind.

One issue is which is more powerful, the elemental or the 60 mph wind. If the elemental can control the 60 mph wind, the PCs could have problems. On the other hand, if the 60mph wind blows the elementals out of the way, it would be an extra protection for the PCs.

Since the characters are in gasous form, it seems obvious that an Air Elemental in Whirlwind form could blow the characters around with no saving throw (i.e. PCs automatically fail saves vs. whirlwind and take damage for the full duration of the whirlwind, unless they leave gaseous form).

All in all, I think the most dangerous thing you could toss at someone who is in gaseous form would be some sort of wind attack that scattered the various gaseous parts of the body all over the place.

As far as I'm concerned, no air elemental would waylay a Wind Walker, because the Wind Walker is moving too quickly to be caught by the elemental. Spotting distance also hinders an aerial encounter. But if a DM decides that an air elemental can spot you and catch you, I guess you'll just have to let it take a few potshots against your DR 10/magic and move on. At level 13+, it's no big deal to take a few hits from an air elemental, even an elder one.