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  1. - Top - End - #1
    Titan in the Playground
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    Default Trimming Teleportation by Orders of Magnitude?

    I tend to run games at lower levels, so I'm not a connoisseur of Teleportation by any means. But when it came up in a wilderness campaign, I had to do some readjusting of plans, since the party was suddenly no longer quite so isolated. One hundred miles per caster level opened up a lot of terrain, including access to the largest cities on the continent.

    Would it matter much if Teleportation was trimmed to ten miles per CL, or even one mile? Would this change the dynamics of mid-level campaigns, or would it not have much effect?

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    Last edited by Palanan; 2014-09-01 at 02:18 PM.

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    sleepyphoenixx's Avatar

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    Default Re: Trimming Teleportation by Orders of Magnitude?

    Depends on the campaign. If it includes multiple journey back and forth across the continent, teleport is obviously going to be huge. If the campaign is limited to a single city no one will care about the range.

    Wilderness adventures are still possible even with teleport though. You can't teleport to somewhere if you don't know where it is, after all. So you'll still have to slog through miles of inhospitable jungle to get to the lost temple of whoever, you're just spared the pain of carrying your loot back the same way.
    Once you get to Greater Teleport and its "only need a good description" clause it is not unreasonable to assume that most places of interest to your players are warded against high level adventurers just popping in.

    The only thing that long range teleportation negates is stupid "travel from x to y and roll daily for random encounters" stuff, assuming you've been to y already.
    Last edited by sleepyphoenixx; 2014-09-01 at 02:29 PM.

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    Default Re: Trimming Teleportation by Orders of Magnitude?

    Quote Originally Posted by Palanan View Post
    Would it matter much if Teleportation was trimmed to ten miles per CL, or even one mile? Would this change the dynamics of mid-level campaigns, or would it not have much effect?
    That depends a lot on what your game world is like and where they are in it. Teleportation with a minimum range of 900 miles means the characters are pretty much past the point where you can limit what they're allowed to buy based on town size, since they are almost always within teleportation range of a city big enough to buy about anything they want. It also takes travel time (as well as the random encounters frequently associated with travel) out of the equation for the most part. It also makes some other things, such as worrying about whether you have enough food and water to survive the trek to the evil temple, how to transport all your loot back to town before someone else comes along and takes it, etc. Although a lot of those sorts of challenges are gone by that level anyway.

    It's hard to say what lowering it to a minimum of 90 miles would do. Do you find your players are frequently more than 90 but less than 900 miles from civilization?

    Lowering it to 1 mile/CL is going to mean a lot of people probably don't take it. It's not much use for utility at that point. You can't go far enough with it to be worth the spell slot. It's best use at that range is probably to escape from a fight you're losing.

    Really, whether lowering the range will help you is going to depend on what exactly the players were doing with teleport that caused you problems.
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    Default Re: Trimming Teleportation by Orders of Magnitude?

    Quote Originally Posted by sleepyphoenixx View Post
    The only thing that long range teleportation negates is stupid "travel from x to y and roll daily for random encounters" stuff, assuming you've been to y already.
    Yeah, I heard some hack writer actually wrote a whole book series about such adventures. The guy's called J.R. Tolkien and his books were super boring. All the heroes did was slog through meaningless random encounters with almost no loot just to cover the range of a Teleport spell. Their wizard was even forced to use Phantom Steed to backtrack a whole bunch of times. That's like the opposite of dnd.
    Last edited by Slipperychicken; 2014-09-01 at 03:14 PM.

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    sleepyphoenixx's Avatar

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    Default Re: Trimming Teleportation by Orders of Magnitude?

    Quote Originally Posted by Slipperychicken View Post
    Yeah, I heard some hack writer actually wrote a whole book series about such adventures. The guy's called J.R. Tolkien and his books were super boring. All the heroes did was slog through meaningless random encounters with almost no loot just to cover the range of a Teleport spell. Their wizard was even forced to use Phantom Steed to backtrack a whole bunch of times.
    Surprisingly some things that are fun and interesting in books or movies are really boring and repetitive in PnP gaming. Like overpowered DMPCs, railroading, repetitive encounters and silly asspulls. Who would've thought?

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    Default Re: Trimming Teleportation by Orders of Magnitude?

    If all they're using it for is to jump from one city to another then I don't see the issue. The wilderness is pretty dull.

    On the other hand, most people who are worried about them porting into (or out of) the dungeon are simply not as familiar with the Teleport spell as they should be, particularly this clause:

    "Areas of strong physical or magical energy may make teleportation more hazardous or even impossible."

    Most dungeons or BBEG strongholds have some kind of power source that can mess with teleportation easily. Even the ones that don't, can simply be constructed near a waterfall, volcano, beach, faultline, windy canyon or anywhere else that fits the definition of "physical energy." Hell, even bright sunlight in an open field could count.

    Once you get into "more hazardous or even impossible," the DM has free rein. It could mean adjusting the percentages on the target table. It could mean simply bumping them off target even if they'd have otherwise made it. They could make it to the dungeon but land in the middle of a dangerous encounter you've prepared. You could even shunt them forwards or backwards in time. It could mean failing the teleport entirely and forcing them to walk. Because "hazardous" is within your discretion and failure is an option, the sky is the limit.
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    OrcBarbarianGirl

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    Default Re: Trimming Teleportation by Orders of Magnitude?

    By the time your players have access to Teleportation, they are powerful enough that trudging through the woods everywhere is no longer interesting. Seriously, there isn't a lot of story potential in the Justice League trying to figure out a bus schedule to get to a fight. If you can't cope with your party ascending through the tiers of power like that, learn to E6.
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