Basically, most D&D settings are rather hard to manage after mid levels because everyone gains access to teleportation. SO...this is what I would ask you guys.
Would you play in a setting where the astral plane didn't exist?
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Basically, most D&D settings are rather hard to manage after mid levels because everyone gains access to teleportation. SO...this is what I would ask you guys.
Would you play in a setting where the astral plane didn't exist?
Sure. I would also play in one without long-range teleportation spells-- to the best of my knowledge, the Astral Plane is not, actually, involved with teleporation magic.
However, I'm not sure banning teleports is the best way to go. At mid-to-high levels where the magic becomes easily available, the PCs are, by almost any definition, in the top 1% of power in the world. Now, that doesn't mean that there's not plenty of challenges left with the other members of the 1%, but they're probably dealing with dangers of world-shaking proportion. Having the ability to quickly criss-cross such a grand stage can be quite useful, cutting down on boring cross-country treks where nothing really threatens you.
The Astral Plane is the space between the planes. When a character moves through an interplanar portal or projects her spirit to a different plane of existence, she travels through the Astral Plane. Even spells that allow instantaneous movement across a plane briefly touch the Astral Plane.Quote:
the Astral Plane is not, actually, involved with teleportation magic.
Long distance teleportation is perfectly fine by me, because it forces you to roll for error. What irks me is short-distance teleportation to reach, say, 30 feet in front of you. When those 30 feet are a magical puzzle you are normally expected to solve.
Take the Through space alone feat from RealmsofChaos's Xenothurgy system. You can teleport by moving purely in space, not going to other planes.
In my campaigns, teleport and the like travel via the far realms. And it isn't subjectively instant either.
Why not, it would make for a different game, but that's ok.
Keep in mind, though, a few things:
1. The higher up you go, the less common someone of your power level is. (Trying to do away with that fact will break the game world far more than teleportation could ever hope to.) Thus, higher-level adventurers need a larger "territory" to adventure at their level, so they need some way of getting around faster.
2. It's really only "travelling encounters" that are bypassed by teleportation and similar means. Anything relevant to the actual goal location will still usually be usable, as long as you create some way of preventing them from teleporting too close to their goal.
3. A small costly material component to teleport spells could do wonders for discouraging unnecessary teleportation while still not preventing teleportation when they really need it. So could other costs for teleport spells (perhaps teleportation exhausts the caster and prevents them from doing anything else for a few hours, or takes multiple spells.)
The solution that I usually houserule is that except for Abrupt Jaunt, the minimum error of any sort of inter/outer planar travel is half a mile.
This way, you can still get instantly onto a distant continent, but you can't operate within a dungeon or within a castle (which is usually an exploit).
One way around this is to start using a different mindset for your puzzles. Heck, start creating puzzles on a grand scheme. Take a leaf out of Fullmetal Alchemist's book, and turn an entire country into a magical array that the characters have to teleport around. Instead of making something impassable, put it in plain sight but require the players to do something to "turn it on".Quote:
Originally Posted by Phosphate
I mean, yeah, it's a given that teleport makes certain puzzles useless. Just change the nature of the puzzles. Okay, not that this is easy, but still...
(Alternately, hack teleportation. When you teleport, you can narrow down your location as much as you want. However, the more you narrow it down, the more prone to error the teleport is. Want to get to a really specific location 30 feet away? Well, the initial distance DC isn't bad, but getting that specific spot makes it tough. You could also require something like line of sight to the teleport location, like in 4E.)
One idea for a "walking around" adventure is to have some kind of dead magic zone over a large part of the territory that the PCs want to enter. I really do recommend having a plot-related reason for this though so that it doesn't feel like a stealth ban on teleportation. For example, you could have the evil overlord erect a series of evil telephone poles that knock out teleportation magic for about a 100-mile-radius around his fortress. You can teleport up to the border of his domain but you have to walk (or fly, or burrow) into it. The players can spend time knocking down the poles to re-enable their teleportation magic as they go, so they can have access to all of their magic as they're leaving.
High-level puzzles have to be tailored to the party's abilities. I've also found that I can just dream up impossible situations (rescuing a hostage from a fast-moving airship) and the players will have fun spending half an hour coming up with a plan to apply their abilities to the problem. This even works at low levels, and at higher levels I just throw in complications and higher stakes (casters with wands of dispel magic and now you have to do it during a lightning storm, for example). Getting your mind out of the dungeon helps a lot, at high levels players are dealing with potentially explosive political situations and saving kingdoms or planets.
Alternately, you impose magical restrictions in a way that makes sense (conjuration and evocation don't work in this part of the dungeon, transmutation and necromancy don't work in this part of the dungeon, but there's an emitter you can break to fix that and that's the puzzle).
There's also the fact you could rule a certain effect or material stops transportation, hell make it a lower level dimensional anchor type effect that stops teliportation only then use wounderus architecture or even permanency to have it enforced in places that can afford and need it, it's only one small house rule and if you make it available to the PCs they'll still get their short range hops in some places but others with disallow transportation all together, at least of the via the astral. Shadow walking could be viewed as different and is even more easily disrupted same with the ability to step between trees or fires.Quote:
Originally Posted by Phosphate
It would let you teleport in to some places but not others state a failed attempt to teleport to a sealed area is an automatic error that fits and you have a way of stopping it, sure it's GM flait but as long as you let your PCs use it if they want/need it's balanced they can't warp the the BBGE throne room unless he lets they and he can't teleport on to them if they take precautions.
With the effect done by magic there might be ways to get round said teleportation locks but even then that can be a puzzle or challenge in it's own right just as they didn't get the "right" answer doesn't mean the solved it. Latrial thinking has it's place in puzzles The Gordian Knot wasn't slowly unpicked but severed the knot was still undone. You don't want to turn your DnD games it to an exercise in adventure game logic when it comes to puzzles, like the point and click games of my youth do you?
Makes sense. Another good approach is to make it easy to disrupt an incoming teleport.Quote:
Originally Posted by Phosphate
There are plenty of fantasy (and some sci-fi) worlds that have teleportation, and have ways to prevent it from being totally broken. So there's plenty of places to get inspiration from.