Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Zuj 05-04-07, 10:27 PM	All right, let me give a bit of background: I am in the process of hashing out a new campaign setting to use with my normal gaming group this summer. I've come up with what I feel is a neat concept of a world who's cosmology has been drastically rearranged in the last 100 years. Without getting into too much detail (as I havent completely fleshed it out yet), some manner of magical catastrophe that occurred within the last century caused the world to be severed from the astral plane (as well as most other planes). In the aftermath of this cataclysm only three alternate planes remained: The Fey Realm, the Shadow Plane, and Hell. These are not the final names I have settled on, but they make it easier for you to understand what's left. The main premise is that these three planes are all deeply tied to the material world to the point where one might literally be able to physically walk between them in associated areas. An example might be in the middle of an ancient forest being able to physically cross-over to the fey realm. A few other quick notes about the campaign, as a frame of reference: -clerics and paladins don't exist -shadowcasters from Tome of Magic are present and interact with the Shadow Plane -arcane magic is considered "unnatural" and can have harmful effects to the world around it. It also puts wizards at odds with druids and other nature oriented characters -wizards and sorcerers are generally feared by the common folk due to the magical cataclysm in the not-so-distant past. Most arcane magic is regulated by a nation of elves who have embassies in the human nations Without diving too much more deeply into it, this is where my issue arises: transportative magic, namely spells like teleport or dimension door.A dimension door, which I believe tranports the user through the astral (correct me if I am wrong) also would need some alternate means of functioning. In my opinion, a teleport spell cast by a wizard might allow a party to easily circumvent using these three alternate planes as pathways to get from point A to point B. I want the world to be teeming with danger around every corner, and I want travel to be difficult, challenging and fun for even high level parties! My original solution was just to rule that a lot of this transportative magic simply does not function in this world due to the lack of an astral plane. My friend insists that dropping these spells would severely weaken a wizard character, to the point of making wizards an unattractive playing choice. I can't say I really agree.... is there something I am overlooking here? He knows quite a bit more about higher level magic than I do (though I can confidently say I have a very firm grasp of the rules), and insists that a balance issue would arise if wizards weren't given access to many of these spells. Can I get some thoughts?
LadyAlaria 05-04-07, 11:04 PM	I've house-ruled out almost all forms of teleportation and long-distance travel. No elaborate justification - they just don't exist. Plane Shift exists, but is severely restricted. My reason is simple - I want geography to *matter*. The castle that guards the mountain pass is crucial to the kingdom's security. The isolated village in the deep woods is truly isolated. (I do allow Dimension Door.) What's the effect on the characters? Wizards are ever so slightly less powerful at high levels. Oh, gosh, how unfair! At low levels nothing has changed. At high levels they lose a few spells that are mostly non-combat anyway. Instead of Teleporting away from a losing battle, he'll just have to use his imagination and find another way to expedite his retreat. Stick to your guns. If a player thinks that a wizard who can't teleport isn't worth playing, there are several other classes to choose from.
Neutronium_Dragon 05-04-07, 11:12 PM	In general, getting from point A to point B isn't meant to be a particular challenge by mid to high levels. Even at low levels it usually isn't a particularly *good* challenge (even if it can effectively be one); newer settings like Eberron have generally taken steps to ensure that travel simply becomes an Indiana Jones style "red dotted line on the map" moment rather than trying to ape LotR by making it some elaborate, excruciating ordeal.
armeniantwins 05-04-07, 11:12 PM	I agree it doesn't matter. Post your campaign in Homebrew when you are finished. But I like how you have set things up. Definitely stick to your guns, as LadyAlaria put it.
Neutronium_Dragon 05-04-07, 11:36 PM	To further what I was getting at - getting from place to place isn't a very good challenge, and removing transportation magic will simply make an annoying part of the game all the more annoying (especially as high level characters generally have better things to be doing). There is absolutely no reason why teleportation magic *MUST* be themed as working as an express trip through the astral plane, especially if the setting doesn't have one. So if you don't want an astral plane, it just works some other way. (To be honest, it would be a lot simpler to just have it as "you were there before, you're here now" without trying to "explain" it as passing through anything along the way.)
sabrewolf 05-05-07, 04:25 AM	On the statement of underpowering the wizards and slowing travel: - Far from truth. It can ease things a lot to be able to teleport through some major obstacle, D.door around the battlefield, Blink around and stuff, but lacking any of these wont have that much of an impact... And travel usualy wont have impact unless A) you love dropping random encounters along the road, or B) the group is in a hurry due to some plot-reason. On what to do without the planes: - If even the ethereal is gone, you could make these spells use the Shadow World instead... They´d still work: A) just like before, poof you´re there, just like before the cataclism; or B) just like A but not so safe and sound. Maybe traveling too often through the shadow plane have consequences, or maybe it´s related to long distances.. It could be subdual damage; It could be a Phasing effect, making long-range teleports allways miss by a certain distance or by a certain amount of time (it may takes minutes to hours for them to reappear on the other end); Or long term exposure may start affecting their nature (like staying too long in the shadow world, as per the Manual of the Planes)... That means the spell would still exist if you wanted them, but could reflect some consequences of your lil cataclism as well.... Hope it helps... ;) Take care..
CryoSilver 05-05-07, 04:28 AM	There are still rapid-movement options open; Wind Walk and Shadow Walk are the first 2 to come to mind.
Zuj 05-05-07, 01:06 PM	Thanks for the replies so far; I really appreciate all of your insights. Here is the beginnings of my brainstorming for my campaign world, in case anyone cares to see a little more background. Obviously it is far from fleshed out, but I've jsut been trying to get the most ideas down I possibly can: My setting (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=841229) I know I could use the shadow world for a lot of the astral stuff, and I probably don't need to justify every spell being able to work. My issue is that I want these 3 other planes to play a very large role in the campaign and travelling around, but they don't always have to be a hassle. My thoughts are there would still obviously be some higher level magic (Gate, etc.) that would allow fast travel. However, the idea of the party just teleporting from place to place in a world where civlizations are supposed to be isolated from one another and travel is supposed to be difficult causes cheapens that theme to the world as a whole. My player suggested maybe just makign some of it more random or risky, like caster level checks against certain DC's to teleport somewhere. Failed rolls might cause the destination to be a bit off, or for the person to end up somewhere else entirely (maybe even on one of the other planes). To me, this seems like an okay compromise, but I'm still hesitant to allow them. Thoughts?
RellenMarn 05-05-07, 01:16 PM	I would suggest keeping Dimension Door, or at least replacing it with a verbal only spell that allows a Wiz/Sorc to escape from grapple. Without such a spell any grappled Wizard is basically dead.
Bort333 05-05-07, 02:12 PM	I do something similar in my game. Transportation magic exists, its just VERY expensive. DD is kept its mostly short range, but I have a 1/20 chance of a mishap occuring. Regular Teleport is 1000EXP componet. Good in a pinch, important to move the story along, but not something PC's like to use. Furthermore the failure chances are double. Plane Shift is simple, you have to have actually been on the plane you want to shift to. :P This means at low levels its not much of an option, but at higher levels the party can stumble on planer gates, have accidents with prismatic spells, or even die. I think my restricts have made the world larger, if they want to do something, they have to travel and face the dangers associated, and lose the time. Time is valuable, sure they can go off and kill the dragon and save the gnome village, but in the mean time their home town could be wrecked.
Roxlimn 05-05-07, 02:24 PM	You could say that teleportation only works in certain locations. These locations would be highly prized and guarded jealously by the powers that possess them, as they are a very powerful resource. You could even place these special locations in remote and out of the way places, ensuring that travel is always an interesting prospect.
Cromag 05-05-07, 02:54 PM	rellen hit the biggest spell on the head. dimension door is the wizards counter to grapple, it's mainly used for escape. What I would probably do is leave the short range transport spells in place as nearly instantaneous, but since you want the worlds to matter just have the long range transport spells -automatically- shift you to a path through either the fey or shadow realm with the caster knowing the fastest way to the exit point (in game destination). I'd probably have druid travel spells go through the Fey realms and Arcane go through shadow just as a flavor aspect. I might even give evil creatures with travel spells the option of traveling through the "hell" dimension. There could easily be guardians of the path or other pitfalls that need to be bypassed to complete the spell. if they are forced to exit before finding the destination they end up in a random location somewhere between point A and point B. Knowing that any long distance spell will have its own perils would likely make it more uncommon except in emergencies. If you still don't like it though Privateer press created the game world Iron Kingdoms, which makes teleporting etc. impossible unless you don't mind a demon hitching a ride with you and appearing at your destination and wizards are fine there too. -as an aside note, high level adventurers teleporting doesn't make things less remote or undiscovered, if anything it makes it even more the case. Low level people can't teleport, so they have to still go past the spooky ruins while it's still dangerous to them. high level characters don't discover new places if they teleport everywhere. Nor do they remove the challenges that affect everyday people. This is because *everyday people don't teleport* and as such it doesn't affect the everyday person that RADNCKAOMS the Archmage can teleport, because he's the only one that can. Even today, just because people fly to Europe/Asia/America doesn't change the fact that most people never leave their home continent very often.
Kaligrad 05-05-07, 04:01 PM	What I did in my world is introduce a new magic item that blocks transportational spells. Sort of a specific dimentional lock that only blocks out the astral plane, but has a much, much larger radius. Thus, any one location with this item only allows teleports to arrive half a mile off. You could do something similar, but with the radius extending to a day or two's travel. Also remember that you need to know the visual location of where you set down and scry only works on creatures. Thus, to travel to locations protected by this item, the PC's would need to have been there once before. Try to remember about your campaign's continuity, as well. While travelling from town A to town B almost killed your PC's at level 6, by level 16 they wouldn't bat an eye at the same creatures, and ramping up the CR's of the monsters along the way really makes it feel like a computer game (and the players will start to wonder how anyone manages to survive travel at all). Your best bet is to encourage players to travel to new locations constantly and have the monsters be more powerful along those paths (though doing this constantly has the effect of making it feel like a different sort of computer game). The reason travel becomes so easy after a certain level is that the monsters they would encounter along most paths become easily beatable, and ramping up the difficulty of these creatures causes a loss of continuity. If your campaign is more difficult to traverse than most, simply allow teleport at a higher level. Replace greater teleport with telelport, for instance. Also, I agree that dimension door does not need to be restricted. Simply have it work through the shadow plane and have it not be instantaneous, for instance.
remoray 05-05-07, 06:01 PM	A compromise may be to ban 'instant' teleports, but allow 'permanent' gates. These gates would be owned and operated by organisations that would charge for use.
Zuj 05-05-07, 08:49 PM	A lot of good ideas here; thanks! I think I will leave dimension door as is, and say it goes through the shadow plane. Spells like teleport I will probably increase the failure chance and rule that the caster will need to either have seen the place visually, or ramp up the material component cost or something. If people have more to add, go at it! :)
Eldritch_Lord 05-06-07, 08:19 PM	In one of my older campaigns, I faced the same problem with plot-altering magic. My solution was to change teleport et al so that instead of allowing instantaneous travel, they created a wormhole-type effect. I split these teleportation spells into two categories: the first kind of spell gave access to an Internet-like network of Astral tunnels, where you'd have to find your way through but otherwise faced no difficulties, and the second created your own "private" tunnel which was guarded by an outsider of the appropriate level. While you by no means have to do this for your campaign, splitting teleport into a network version through Shadow, a Dante's Inferno version through Hell, and an Astral Projection-like version through Fey would add a lot of flavor.
CryoSilver 05-06-07, 10:24 PM	Spells like teleport I will probably increase the failure chance and rule that the caster will need to either have seen the place visually, or ramp up the material component cost or something. I think you could add a lot of flavor by making teleport run through the Plane of Shadow as well. Maybe it would only work in areas of extremely bright light, with the requisite light level increasing with distance, since it acts as a "beacon" when you're traveling through the Shadow Plane? Lower light leads to higher failure rates, which might strand you in the Plane of Shaodw or drop you off in the wrong area.
InterSilva 05-06-07, 10:42 PM	In Iron Kingdoms, teleportation magic is allowed, but any magic that summons or teleports something has a 5% chance of summoning and Infernal to the prime material plane. Kinda makes most people leery of using it.
Mystic Lemur 05-07-07, 12:16 AM	Do something like faezress where if you go more than a certain distance you have to make a relatively high spellcraft or Know(arcana) check or have an immediate off-target result. Make teleport give you a disease. Sure you can teleport, IF you don't mind getting Mummy Rot.:P Make it a percentile chance to be possessed by a creature from one of the three planes, but make it temporary. Sure, you can teleport to that town, if you don't mind waking up the next morning lying nekkid in a fountain. Be creative!
CroBob 05-07-07, 12:32 AM	How about just say the transport magic you do allow does not necessitate other planes to function? I never understood why a fourth level spell takes you to the astral plane and then brings you back in a specific spot you want, but you need a higher level spell to stay on that plane at a random location. It's magic. Say that you simply move from one spot to another. Instantaneously. Via magic.
Juzzman 05-07-07, 03:50 AM	I believe that a mixture of the above suggestions would be my choice. Add expensive components to the dimensional spells, and well aa a % change to arrive on any one of the 4 planes (Material, shadow, Fay and hell) The higher the value of the prime component, the higher the chance of arriving on the material, the higher the value of the shadow component, the higher the chance of arriving on the shadow etc etc. Juz
parad0cz 05-07-07, 04:31 AM	This got to me to thinking of my world. I have no Other Dimentions. No Astral, Ethreal, Baator, etc. No bags of holding either, but thats a side effect. Really, there IS other dimentions, but no available till epic... but tahts another story Now then, i do not limit my teleportation, etheralness simply becomes Phasing etc. Trick is to make the spells work like normal as much as possible, and change the fluff. I get around the no dimentions thing a little by using the ol' Shrink method. I experienced the whole 'geography should matter' thing on both sides of the screen. Mountains should matter, locked doors should matter, pit traps should matter, the townguard should matter. Thing is, they matter till they dont. I think most peopel have a misconception about D&D that comes from most people playing low levels. They start and low levels and the campaign ends before they get high enough that the whole game changes. I find the first break point at around level 5-6. When you get the Fly spell, certain things are just not an obstacle anymore. Pit traps, rickty bridges over deep chasms, all thouse nice fantasy staples... well youve outgrown them. That was for the first four levels when you were slumming it. The next break point comes around level 9-10, and its a bigger one. When you are freaking RAISING YOUR DEAD then maybe you are a power in the world that doesnt have to worry so much about random bandits in the forest. And thats ok! Monsters change as you go up, so should obstacles. You outgrew dire weasals ages ago, a freaking locked door isnt going to stop you, no matter if you dont have a rogue. BAsh the sucker down with that Adamatine battle axe! Same with travel magic. By the time your party gets to the good stuff like Teleport, they are already major players in the world. They money they have can wreck the local economy of a good sized city, they can singlehandedly wipe out an entire town and its guard with barely breaking a sweat. By that time, you've had plety of time to subject them to tracking across godsforsaken wastes, sleeping on rocks and eating hardtack, beset upon by bandits and wild animals. By the time i hit level 9 i should have about 50k worth of stuff, and you can bet some of it is going into decent food and sleeping arangement! At the very least my mage is memorizing secure shelter! In other words, they been there, done that. I can understand you want the world to be teaming with danger and thats great, but at a certain point your characters should reach a level that the normal dangers that peril the Beloved Peasent Villiage arent going to be enough. Otherwise its like old Final Fantasy games, where the wandering monsters just happen to get stronger as you progress and when you get into the later towns you wonder how the townspeople would survive all these Behemoths running around... especially since near the first town they were having trouble with that measly Giant... At a certain level it only makes sense for the bigger dangers to be rarer, either having to be sought out, or specifically tracking you. REmember too that even higher level characters cant bamf straight into the bedchamber of the BBEG. They still have to go through the dungeon. So let them teleport to the castle, they've earned that. Make the door shielded and have to be dispelled, something a lower level party could never do. Let them breeze through locked doors, but make them have to fly up a tower with no staircases. Make them have to divine where the treasure room even is, and have to passwall just to get there. They have the power, make em use it up. In otherwords, let the challenges scale to thier power, and let the old stuff drop away. Make the challenges stuff that someone of lower level could never accomplish while simultaniously letting them revel in the fact they are badass. If they are tracking through swamps trying to avoid bandits or wild animals or even eldritch horrors at level 2 and at level 12, well they are just playing the same adventure with numbers increased by a factor of X. Let them recall their old days fondly, of having to stand watch while sleeping in pup tents... from the comfort of thier magical shelter being fed by unseen servents. Why be high powered if it doesnt come with perks?;) If you REALLY REALLY want to have a world where magic that makes travel easy, your going to have to change more than dimetional travel. Fly, Airwalk, WINDwalk... and you reall go tto ask ourself what is gained making them contiuously slog through the forest at that level.
Neutronium_Dragon 05-07-07, 04:42 AM	Following up on the previous post, Monte Cook wrote a good article which addresses the evolution of challenges over the game levels, especially as things progress to high level. Point 2 ("Don't negate, embrace.") is the most relevant here: http://www.montecook.com/arch_dmonly16.html
Dazzer 05-07-07, 09:22 AM	Might I suggest. If you ban Teleport and Dimension door based on the fact that they work by going through the Astral Plane, which no longer exists, that is fine in my opinion, let the players know however, in advance, that they cannot take these spells. However! Suggest Spells along the following lines if they cannot possibly live without fast transport. Shadow Walk PHB - Walk through the plane of shadow to get from A to B Tree Stride PHB - Walk into a tree, walk out of another tree (long distances!) Druid Only If the ether-real plane exists, perhaps a wizard could RESEARCH a new teleport spell (using the rules for researching spells). I would make it 6th level, so the wizard would need to make the following checks. 6000gp, 6 weeks of ingame research time, DC 26 spellcraft check at the end (rolled secretly) (these are minimal amounts!) Assuming he succeeds, he can call it "Names Ethereal Translocation" or whatever, he gets to name it essentially! Since he'd be the first wizard ever to make it, he could name it after himself, and in later campaigns, it could become standard for wizards and it would remain the same spell with the same name! Just my thoughts
Zuj 05-07-07, 01:13 PM	Well, I spent a lot of time last night going over everyone's ideas, and I first want to say thanks to everyone for responding. I think I have come up with a conclusion! In my setting there are ley lines that cover the entire world. I am going to rule that in order to teleport, you must be on a ley line. Then, you can only teleport to ley line nodes (where more than one line meet) that your character is aware of. The more ley lines that meet at a specific node, the easier it will be to teleport there. In my opinion, this does a few things. It gives PC wizards a reason to research and figure out where ley lines are (these will be important for other kinds of magic as well such as magic item creation, etc.) and it allows me to limit PC's from going places that I am not prepared for them to go. As they expand out from their starting levels, the party will be able to travel back to many places they have already been, but NOT to the other side of the world unless I deem it appropriate. Does this seem like a good middle ground? As far as dimension door, I am jsut going to rename it "Shadow Door" and have it go through the shadow plane, with a very marginal percentage chance of something coming through the plane with the wizard. To me, that keeps things interesting and allows wizards to do things like escape form grapples, etc. Do you guys think these are good compromises and adjustments?
northern_bear 05-07-07, 01:20 PM	My original solution was just to rule that a lot of this transportative magic simply does not function in this world due to the lack of an astral plane. My friend insists that dropping these spells would severely weaken a wizard character, to the point of making wizards an unattractive playing choice. I can't say I really agree.... is there something I am overlooking here? Yes. I'd say you are overlooking something. You are overlooking the fact that your friend is a winy munchkin. Wizards are still way powerful. Teleportation is a useful spell for a wizard, but losing it is a very minimal problem. Tell your friend that if he thinks wizards are now so weak, he's welcome to go ahead an play a fighter. Anyway, about your actual problem. I'd say there is absolutely no problem what so ever with banning teleportation style magic. I have done it myself. I have run a game where there was no such thing as teleportation. It wasn't a problem. I also have a high level campagne setting in which teleportation is extremely difficult. In order to use any sort of teleportation, the caster has to suceed on a caster check, exactly as if they were trying to overcome spell resistance. (Its kind of as though the entire universe has spell resistance against teleportation spells). The further the distance travelled, the higher the caster level check had to be. A few hundred feat, not too hard. A kilometer, very hard. Much more than that, virtually impossible.
methridg 05-07-07, 02:14 PM	Why the need to come up with elaborate excuses about why teleport won't work? How about just not allowing the PC to ever get the teleport spell? Just say it doesn't exist. Why does it need to be more complicated than that?
Roxlimn 05-08-07, 11:58 PM	That actually sounds quite good. Nodes where lots of ley lines meet can be centers of civilization or battlegrounds scarred by centuries of war.