# An end to scry-buff-teleport?



## Hairfoot (Nov 6, 2007)

Well, _wish _ is gone, to the delight of some and disappointment of others.

Do you think this is going to set a trend for spells which allow players to skip the hard work of adventuring?

One particular dislike of mine is the scry-buff-teleport method of dealing with adventure goals.  I think that negotiating the journey, infiltrating the evil fortress and escaping intact are part and parcel of an exciting adventure, and I'd like to see it become the norm, rather than a chore only for low-level PCs without the right spells.

Wishful thinking on my part?


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## Baby Samurai (Nov 6, 2007)

Yeah, my players totally broke/ruined/made un-fun etc an encounter by using _clairvoyant sense_, then mass buffs (_anti-plant shell_, _barkskin _ etc), followed by _burrowing_ to reach the encounter…LAME.

It wasn't clever or fun for anyone; it was just a big, boring, foregone conclusion/anti-climax.

So I'm totally with ya!


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## Treebore (Nov 6, 2007)

I'm actually more for coming up with and using more defensive magics so such spells don't mean a "run over the BBEG" session.

Of course there are already a lot of spells in the books that do that. I guess maybe what is really needed is DMing classes on how to set up BBEG defenses.

I think it would also be good to re use an old idea in a very official capacity. HAve lead, gorgons blood, etc... be useable on a large scale to make buildings and fortifications immune, or at least highly resistant, to scry, teleport, etc...


Note: BBEG=Big Bad Evil Guy/Girl


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Nov 6, 2007)

I think the simple Scry-Buff-Teleport attack routine should probably be avoided.

But I also think it is okay that Scrying and Teleport can be used to circumvent certain things. It is important thought, that there is sufficient time left to explore the game without them available. 

I think the tiers of play (Heroic, Paragon, Epic) is there to mark the differences.

Heroic characters wander the wilderness, infiltrate the castle, and fight their way to the throne room. 
Paragon heroes divine the location of the castle, teleport there, _find the path_ through the castles defenses and dimension door through the throne rooms admantine walls.
Epic level heroes divine the correct plane, scry the devil overlord to find out about his plans, walk ethreally through the castle to eventually reach his throne room. 

If you prefer Heroic play, you should ensure that your campaign is done within that time, or you slow down advancement. If you hate Heroic play, start at Paragon. If you're a Planescape fan, maybe you should concentrate on Epic Level play.
If you like it all, just play through levels 1 to 30, and notice the changes to the feel of the game as the tier changes...


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Nov 6, 2007)

Treebore said:
			
		

> I'm actually more for coming up with and using more defensive magics so such spells don't mean a "run over the BBEG" session.
> 
> Of course there are already a lot of spells in the books that do that. I guess maybe what is really needed is DMing classes on how to set up BBEG defenses.
> 
> ...



I think there shouldn't be only magical "antidotes" to spells. There should be more or less natural limitations that anybody could use (at least if he is spending some money). 

Massive amounts of iron or lead in the walls block scrying.
Impossible to teleport into a private home/building without the consent of the owner.
A circle of mithral redirects any nearby teleportation effect to it (but also helps for targeting the circle itself)

A magician should be (very) helpful in countering such magic, but he shouldn't be the only option.


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## Cbas_10 (Nov 6, 2007)

Hairfoot said:
			
		

> Well, _wish _ is gone, to the delight of some and disappointment of others.
> 
> Do you think this is going to set a trend for spells which allow players to skip the hard work of adventuring?
> 
> ...




I'm not sure I agree with you.  As characters become more powerful, the challenges they face evolve as well.  Foes become more cunning, storylines might nullify the benefit of such things, and all that.  That and adventure design can easily become less "straight-forward" as PCs increase in level and DMs have more options to use as challenges.  Maybe the PCs have to search the fortress to find out who the BBEG even is in the first place...what if there is an old cliche of the BBEG being back at [home base] masquerading as an ally... etc etc etc.


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## Baby Samurai (Nov 6, 2007)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
			
		

> I think there shouldn't be only magical "antidotes" to spells.




Exactly, I'm through having arms races with players.


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## Kunimatyu (Nov 6, 2007)

Magical arms races are lame. I want to see fewer magical problems that require magical solutions, both on the battlefield and off.


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## IceFractal (Nov 6, 2007)

I'm with Mustrum_Ridcully on this - while trekking through the wilderness can be an adventure in itself, different styles of adventures are appropriate for different levels of characters.

Heroic level characters - yes, they should do things the hard way.  Forge their way through the woods to the castle, sneak into the castle in a wagon of hay, fight their way through the defenders, search for secret passages if the doors are too sturdy, and so forth.

Paragon level characters can take some shortcuts - they've earned them.  It's hardly out of character for a Paragon character to Teleport to the castle (although not directly into the throne room) - getting there is no longer the challenge, dealing with what you find there is.  Likewise, in the castle, they can bypass the first lines of defense the easy way (invisibility, knock, etc), until they reach the inner areas which are better protected.  They still shouldn't be going straight to the BBEG, but it's not unreasonable that the BBEG be taking some precautions to prevent them.  

Epic level characters _can_ go straight to the BBEG, and if the BBEG doesn't have defenses against that kind of assault then they deserve to die.  At Epic levels, walls are not a challenge, distance is not a challenge, normal guards and orc hordes are not a challenge.  The challenge is Epic foes and multiplanar events.


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## Monkey Boy (Nov 6, 2007)

IceFractal said:
			
		

> Epic level characters _can_ go straight to the BBEG, and if the BBEG doesn't have defenses against that kind of assault then they deserve to die.  At Epic levels, walls are not a challenge, distance is not a challenge, normal guards and orc hordes are not a challenge.  The challenge is Epic foes and multiplanar events.




You realise Epic level is 1/3rd of the game right? If Epic in 4E is the equivalent of Epic 3E then I think I'll pass on level 21-30. That would be a shame. I'm hoping Epic 4E isn't as gonzo as Epic 3E.


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## Baby Samurai (Nov 6, 2007)

Monkey Boy said:
			
		

> I'm hoping Epic 4E isn't as gonzo as Epic 3E.




Yeah, making Escape Artist checks to get through_ walls of force_, and Balance checks to kick back on clouds…


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## Uzzy (Nov 6, 2007)

I just prevented PC's teleporting to areas they hadn't been before (with the exception of large cities, which had Teleportation 'Nodes' set up outside the walls, allowing mages to Teleport there). Add in a few clever uses of defensive magics, such as False Image, and you can cut out such simple tactics. 

That way, you can play your BBEG as clever villians, while not removing access to quite useful spells for the PC's. If they come up with something that outsmarts the BBEG, then good for them!


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Nov 6, 2007)

Monkey Boy said:
			
		

> You realise Epic level is 1/3rd of the game right? If Epic in 4E is the equivalent of Epic 3E then I think I'll pass on level 21-30. That would be a shame. I



How much of the upper levels of 3rd edition did you use? How much of AD&D? 
How many Shadowrun characters reached (if you ever played it) beyond 200 or more karma point?

The question is - what's the point of high levels if the feeling never really changes? A 15th level character is a real badass and might have his share of caravan guarding, wilderness travel, fortress storming and murder mysteries? How can you add more, without repeating yourself. How do you keep it interesting to continue playing the same character? If you don't neccessarily want it (for various reasons, one of them because you don't like the changes high level play brings to you), you start a new campaign. If you like, it you can continue advancing and are guaranteed a few new twists.



> 'm hoping Epic 4E isn't as gonzo as Epic 3E.



I certainly hope it works better at providing a sensible set of rules that is still well-balanced, and still offers enough ideas to build an adventure (and a setting that can contain such an adventure) around it. I never played the Epic Level rules for 3rd edition, but I did not like what I saw. And I also couldn't see myself playing it to level 30 in a regular play...


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## Calico_Jack73 (Nov 6, 2007)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
			
		

> I think there shouldn't be only magical "antidotes" to spells. There should be more or less natural limitations that anybody could use (at least if he is spending some money).
> 
> Massive amounts of iron or lead in the walls block scrying.
> Impossible to teleport into a private home/building without the consent of the owner.
> ...




Totally agree... I'd like to see some of the "folk" remedies like in the series "Supernatural".

1) A salt line along the doorways and windows prevents ghosts and possessing entities from entering a dwelling.
2) An iron pentegram can imprison extra-planar creatures (I loved the use of railroad tracks to contain the gateway to hell... shows how something could be created on a large scale).


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## Nebulous (Nov 6, 2007)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
			
		

> I certainly hope it works better at providing a sensible set of rules that is still well-balanced, and still offers enough ideas to build an adventure (and a setting that can contain such an adventure) around it. I never played the Epic Level rules for 3rd edition, but I did not like what I saw. And I also couldn't see myself playing it to level 30 in a regular play...




I didn't play it either, even though i was gullible enough to buy the book.  After a read through, i pretty much despised it.  Not at all what i wanted (or expected) out of god-like adventuring.  It was just the same ol' crap with bigger numbers.  Oh, joy. 

Epic level play i feel can use a book unto itself, but it should be a campaign supplement/ adventure.


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## Wormwood (Nov 6, 2007)

Baby Samurai said:
			
		

> Exactly, I'm through having arms races with players.




Well put.


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## humble minion (Nov 6, 2007)

Buff-scry-teleport is going to be a tough tactic to kill.

Agree that it can short-circuit a lot of fun stuff, and that it leads to all sorts of setting issues that can be problematic, but simply put, in the absence of any relatively simple defense, it's a common-sense tactic for a PC to use.  And getting rid of it is harder than you'd think.

Getting rid of the 'scry' bit really stomps on divination, as well as dumping one of the classic fantasy tropes that's been in everything from from the Palantir in LotR to crystal balls in Disney movies.  Getting rid of, or nerfing the 'teleport' phase would be hard to do - you do want there to be _some_ instantaneous magical transportation available.

The 'buff' phase is the most likely to be cut down.  I don't think that anyone likes doing all the maths that layered buff spells involve in 3e, and it seems the prevailing wisdom at WotC is that casters can't possibly be having fun unless they're making something go boom every round.  But removing ALL buff spells and effects from the game is obvious overkill,and in any case, a similar effect (concentrated surprise assault on scattered opponent who is not prepared for combat) can be attained without any buff spells at all by timing your scry-teleport attack for when your target is asleep or idly perusing his spellbook with his robe around his ankles in Castle BlackStormBlood's privy.

Simply saying 'get rid of b-s-t' is easy.  Making it happen from a rule perspective without mutilating too many other things is harder.  It's simply a very logical tactic for smart individuals to use in a world when scrying, teleporting, and buff magic is a reality.  Perhaps an automatic round of dazedness or stun after a teleport?


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## Kid Charlemagne (Nov 6, 2007)

It's not that tough - reduce the buffing (3.5 already largely did this); extend the casting time on teleport to 10 minutes or an hour - by the time you finish the spell, your target may have moved.  Make anti-teleport spells easy and cheap to cast, make it easier to protect a domicile from scrying.


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## heirodule (Nov 6, 2007)

There will be a new spell 

Scrybufport.



Or replace teleport with shadow walk. More flavorful.


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## lukelightning (Nov 6, 2007)

One solution is to stop relying on the BBEG trope.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Nov 6, 2007)

lukelightning said:
			
		

> One solution is to stop relying on the BBEG trope.



Doesn't change that much. 
Any kind of enemy is vulnerable to Scry-Buff-Teleport (including the PCs). If you put in opposition that has a change to beat the PCs, Scry-Buff-Teleport remains the best tactic, even if it is not automatically an "circumvent the plot leading to the BBEG" tactic now. 

Besides, there will always be areas that are more important to the enemy, as well as people who are more important for the enemies plans than others. There might be a small subset of adventures and plots that don't require them, but do you want to limit yourself to just them?


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## Aust Diamondew (Nov 6, 2007)

Kid Charlemagne said:
			
		

> It's not that tough - reduce the buffing (3.5 already largely did this); extend the casting time on teleport to 10 minutes or an hour - by the time you finish the spell, your target may have moved.  Make anti-teleport spells easy and cheap to cast, make it easier to protect a domicile from scrying.



I think your suggestions to the teleport spell are the best idea, increased casting time, and possibly some sort of indication in the area you are about to teleport to that someone is teleporting in (perhaps the air becomes filled with static for 1 minute before you are about to arrive, there is a loud noice or a strong smell in the air).


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## RangerWickett (Nov 6, 2007)

LukeLightning, some solutions aren't worth taking.

Make teleportation harder to do. You can teleport short distances at heroic level. At paragon level you can travel to some place distant if you have the proper ritual, or have an item with a specific magical link to it, but teleporting should be momentous, and getting the necessary components to perform the spell would be an adventure in itself. At epic level, though, sure, you can go zipping around the multiverse, planeshopping in an instant.

Of course, the bad guys have powers to disrupt teleportation. Try to jump into the bad guy's lair, and you'll end up shunted to hell, or in a planar trap.


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## Mathew_Freeman (Nov 6, 2007)

lukelightning said:
			
		

> One solution is to stop relying on the BBEG trope.




One thing that occours to me is to cease the idea that killing the leader of a group automatically destroys the whole group.

How about an Orc Horde with a group in charge? How about the BBEG has clones ready? Or the organisers of the conspiracy never meet face-to-face, but run events from several different cities. Killing one will only make the others more paranoid, and the internal promotions will throw up a replacement within a day or so. Much more interesting, surely.


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## Henry (Nov 6, 2007)

It's never bothered be, because the players use it on the bad guys, the bad guys use it on them, etc. Eventually, they came up with solutions to the problem, and they know the bad guys use similar solutions. Occasionally a bad guy WILL be foiled by this trap, if he's a stupid type, and they feel good then they catch one with his pants down in this way. But to me, it's the same as an enemy that doesn't guard his spellcasters in a fight, or a dragon living in a one-room cave with his horde piled under him, or a bad guy who sends minions who know too much at the PCs - it's a combination of good and bad tactics that make life interesting for the PCs, and thereby the players.

I'll never forget the first time one of the gamers in the group found out how HARD it is to totally guard against scrying for a whole group of people or hideout, because other than forbiddance there aren't any real permanent solutions that don't cost an arm and a leg. He was quite happy when he used the trick on enemies to good effect. He also learned that transporting an artifact the size of a VW beetle from a remote jungle is really difficult, too. It gave him and the rest a challenge to overcome that they really enjoyed in the end.


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## Lord Zardoz (Nov 6, 2007)

The only real problem in the Scry-Buff-Teleport tactic from a DM standpoint is that the Teleport spell is too powerful.  As I suggested in another thread, if the spell took something like a full day to cast, left those who used it stunned or Nauseated for 10 minutes, and made a noise similar to a jet engine landing, it would not be as easy to abuse.

Even as it is right now, there are plenty of ways to get around the Teleport problem.  First among them would be residing in a pocket dimension.  I cannot recall, but I do not think Teleport or Scry can work across dimensions.  Another would be to create a spell / magic item that redirects any teleport to a location of the owners choosing.  Preferably inside an active volcano.  Or just use your own contingency spell to trigger a spell to deal with either the Scrying or the Teleport.  Darkness 15 feet radius, an Illusion to give false information.  A teleport to trigger when someone teleports into your presence.  Plenty of ways to handle it.

There is nothing wrong with taking the point of view of the Evil Overlord List.   If something is a known issue, come up with some arbitrary ways to get around it.

END COMMUNICATION


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## JDJblatherings (Nov 6, 2007)

My players tried "scry-buff-teleport' to raid a dead dragons treasure chamber, on the 40th level of the dungeon we were playing in, they were in the 10-12 level range.  They scried...sure enough dead dragon,  treasure still there, they buffed ,they telported...they had to deal with a ghost dragon on he 40th level of the dungeon.  I couldn't imagine they let themeselves into that situation but they did becasue they thought they had fooled the game and the DM with the scry-buff-teleport scheme. Half of them survived.

They were much much more careful after that point about where and when they teleported.


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## Mercule (Nov 6, 2007)

I just wish my players would occasionally use scry-buff-port.  Even direct DM advice and NPCs doing it to them don't get them to do it.

I get complaints that a specialist can't ditch the divination school and buffs are cast only once or twice a level -- even in the teens.  Occasionally they port near-blindly -- of course that ends poorly.

That said, I can sympathize that it shouldn't be quite as effective as it can be.


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## lukelightning (Nov 6, 2007)

JDJblatherings said:
			
		

> My players tried "scry-buff-teleport' to raid a dead dragons treasure chamber, on the 40th level of the dungeon we were playing in, they were in the 10-12 level range.  They scried...sure enough dead dragon,




In 3e, RAW you can only scry on creatures.... dead things are objects, not creatures, so scrying on a dead dragon won't work.

Unless, of course, the dead dragon is really an _undead dragon_, which in my experience is normally what you encounter when you think it's just a dragon carcass.


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## JDJblatherings (Nov 6, 2007)

lukelightning said:
			
		

> In 3e, RAW you can only scry on creatures.... dead things are objects, not creatures, so scrying on a dead dragon won't work.
> 
> Unless, of course, the dead dragon is really an _undead dragon_, which in my experience is normally what you encounter when you think it's just a dragon carcass.





They could have been usign another spell that let them scout out the area. "Scrying" allows a save anyay so...the specific situation depends on the target blowing a save.

and yes the players let greed win out over experience and good sense. they were in a dungeon called "The Black Pit of the Dark Masters", they knew it was a meetign place, ritual center and lab space for a host of very powerful Necromancers, with more then one lich so they really weren't thinkign straight when they went for the treasure hoard of the "dead" dragon.


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## A'koss (Nov 6, 2007)

My biggest problem with S-B-T is the impact it can have on a setting. To be able to pop in over an area, wreak all kinds of havoc, then pop out again mere seconds later... The king might be safe in his spell-proof throne room, but the rest of his kingdom is not. Not his crops, not his towns and so on. 

Most small problems that LL adventurers would take care of (small humaniod incursions, etc) could easily be dealt with by HLers in a matter of minutes. Before breakfast. It makes waging wars with conventional armies far less viable, they're simply too vulnerable to these kinds of attacks. Only on a smaller, skirmish scale, where you don't have HLers on either side, it's okay. As I've always said about wars in 3e - You get your HLers win the war... _then_ send in the army.

If you just curbed _powerful divinations_ and _long distance instaneous travel_, you can reign in the majority of the damage HL beings can inflict on a setting. 

You can only react to problems if you know about them and you would have to rely on conventional spy networks, informants and such (good way to employ those LL adventurers, 'eh?) for information on potential threats. That takes time. And if you actually have to cross the intervening distance between Points A & B, you're going to be much more choosey about which problems are worth your attention. You can't just take 2.5 minutes out of your morning to deal with an orc problem on the borderlands of the kingdom. Reigning in these two elements makes lower level adventurers all the more valuable. And now you'll have flying mounts becoming the travel mode of choice for HLers, and I think that is much more interesting at the end of the day...


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## Calico_Jack73 (Nov 6, 2007)

humble minion said:
			
		

> Getting rid of, or nerfing the 'teleport' phase would be hard to do - you do want there to be _some_ instantaneous magical transportation available.




All you really have to do is play in the *Midnight* setting and your problems are solved.  A setting that is cut off from the Astral Plane stomps on the "Scry-Buff-Teleport" tactic.


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## Henry (Nov 6, 2007)

A'koss said:
			
		

> If you just curbed _powerful divinations_ and _long distance instaneous travel_, you can reign in the majority of the damage HL beings can inflict on a setting.
> 
> You can only react to problems if you know about them and you would have to rely on conventional spy networks, informants and such (good way to employ those LL adventurers, 'eh?) for information on potential threats. That takes time. And if you actually have to cross the intervening distance between Points A & B, you're going to be much more choosey about which problems are worth your attention. You can't just take 2.5 minutes out of your morning to deal with an orc problem on the borderlands of the kingdom. Reigning in these two elements makes lower level adventurers all the more valuable. And now you'll have flying mounts becoming the travel mode of choice for HLers, and I think that is much more interesting at the end of the day...




On the downside, it cuts out a wealth of adventure opportunities by doing so, and means that adventures will follow a similar format all the time, as you said the players will be reactive all the time instead of proactive.  To me, it's like saying that you can only conduct a war with rifles instead of missiles and bombs, or only using fire-and-forgets when you have smart missiles at your disposal. (By "disposal", I mean that the game used to have them, and now no longer does, effectively trying to put the toothpaste back into the tube.)

That said, it could go either way - 4E could have cut out Scrys and teleports, or reduced their effectiveness. I'm not sure which side of "fun" it falls on. How many players hate Scry/Teleport, I wonder?


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Nov 6, 2007)

Calico_Jack73 said:
			
		

> All you really have to do is play in the *Midnight* setting and your problems are solved.  A setting that is cut off from the Astral Plane stomps on the "Scry-Buff-Teleport" tactic.



_Way_ too metagamey. Why should the Astral Plane be required for teleportation? Breaking that through D&Disms is the wrong way to go about it, since it presumes that the D&Disms are compelling to groups (and to new groups, they certainly won't be) and that those D&Disms will never change in subsequent editions (if the Astral is removed from teleportation in 4E, Midnight either needs a new edition or suddenly it's Teleport City).


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## RigaMortus2 (Nov 6, 2007)

I don't think they should remove the option, but I do think Scry needs to be reworked a little bit.


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## Stalker0 (Nov 6, 2007)

For teleport, just make it 10+ min or an hour to cast. Done. It still lets high level adventurers cut out the wilderness trek if they want, but its nowhere near as efficient as now.

For scry, do what Arcana Evolved did. In AE, scry works like normal, except there are natural things that increase the scry DC. Being next to a large amount of iron, a large heat source, even a high disguise check can increase the scrying difficulty. And lastly, every failed attempt increases the DC (until you succeed). So if you fail to scry on someone a few times, that's it, your just not going to see him.

I really like that method.

And as for buffs, 4e's encounter model may have already taken care of much of that. If powers are more encounter based now, then there are probably fewer long term buffs, so you can't increase your power to the hilt right before a teleport.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Nov 6, 2007)

I think the best solution goes along these ways:
1) Set a reasonable level at when Teleport or Scry becomes available. it should be a level where the campaign probably has gone through most "standard scenarioes" that wouldn't work without these spells.
2) Don't make Scry or Teleport too useful. There should be inherent limitations. Teleport doesn't need to teleport you anywhere to be useful, and it doesn't have to be 100 % instantaneous either. 
I think the casting time is fine, because it is a great get-away spell this way, and I do not think that games can be hurt by that. At least your evil spellcasters have a chance of escaping certain death if the PCs arrive and overpower their defenses. But the arrival might have some drawbacks (being 1d4+1 rounds later than the teleport start, the teleported people being disoriented for a short time). The destination might be limited to certain teleport markings (another use for Arcane Mark?).


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## Pyrex (Nov 6, 2007)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
			
		

> A circle of mithral redirects any nearby teleportation effect to it (but also helps for targeting the circle itself)




That's a really interesting idea.  

*ponders*

Just how wide an area should a mithral circle protect, and just how "magnetic" should it be within that radius?

I'd expect that the radius would be a function of the amount of Mithral used and it's "magneticness" would be represented by a Spellcraft check against a DC set by the Craft check used to create the circle.

Anyone who _wanted_ to land in the circle would subtract, say, half the DC from their percentile "on-target" roll...


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## Henry (Nov 6, 2007)

Monte Cook in Arcana Unearthed incorporated the concept of "teleportation ley lines." There were certain paths criss-crossing the earth that teleports worked to.  If your destination was somewhere along that path, then you were good to go. If your destination were outside of that lattice, then you had to travel there with more conventional means. So, Major cities with guardposts, etc. might have been intentionally built across a "ley line" to facilitate travel, while an evil stronghold might be intentionally built in a location remote to those lines. For fun, you can say that magical fluctuations alter the lattice; in 400 years' time, what was a strong line might have faded, forcing longer travel times. An  evil stronghold might suddenly now be right on a strong ley line that just formed, causing interesting times. That's one thought.


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## Nifft (Nov 6, 2007)

An idea someone else came up with, but which I'll probably be stealing for my next setting, is the idea that teleportation magic only functions at certain times of day. So you can teleport "out" at any time, but you will always appear at your destination at dawn, noon or dusk (depending on the type of magic used).

Departures aren't a problem; it's arrivals which need regulation. 

Cheers, -- N


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## RangerWickett (Nov 6, 2007)

First of all, I again suggest the term 'scrysassinate.'

Second, in the War of the Burning Sky campaign saga, teleporting deals fire damage due to setting stuff. Basically the Astral Plane is temporarily suffused with fire energy. This keeps teleportation from really screwing up the more traditional style of epic medieval warfare we were going for.

Teleportation is safer at night, particularly at midnight.


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## Stoat (Nov 6, 2007)

Teleportation Sickness:

Upon arrival at their destination, all subjects of a teleport effect are dazed, fatigued, nauseated, or stunned (pick one) for 2d4 rounds (or longer if you wish).  With this rule, teleport remains a viable method of long-term travel and permits for ready escapes, but popping into a guarded area is a dangerous gambit.


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## zoroaster100 (Nov 6, 2007)

I hope the get rid of or vastly push up in levels abilities that circumvent traditional fantasy adventure.  Sure, the archmage might zip around the world (by himself) at very high level, but I want the base line rules of the game to require parties at least through 15th level to use mundane means of transportation like walking, with the possibility of flight only for characters that specialize and focus their resources to get that ability.  Teleport should only factor in for epic levels.


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## Gundark (Nov 6, 2007)

I have read lots of people that have stated something along the lines of "prevent spell/buff x by have the NPC do y". The problem wiith this line of thinking is: Why have the spell to begin with if you're just going to block it anyways?

why have scry and teleport if the BBEG is going to have stuff in place to cancel it anyways?
As a player I find it annoying to have really cool spell X, but I can't use it when it counts because the crafty DM has put all these defenses for the BBEG in place.


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## Rechan (Nov 6, 2007)

I've never DMed/Played in a game past 9th level, and so this has never been an issue for me. But...

Couldn't this whole thing be circumvented by the DM simply looking at the players and saying "Guys, look. I know you can do this by the RAW, but that is seriously cheesy. If you want to "Win" at D&D, go ahead. But I just think that jumping the BBEG in his toilet isn't very exciting for anyone. It isn't heroic and it isn't climactic."

Much like the Spiked-chain wielding swashbuckler/fighter/rogue, it's legal, but it totally breaks the game on another level. As a DM, I think it's completely legit to simply ask your players to not do something. You don't tell them not to do it, but being up front about your dislike of said tactic and being polite about requesting doing something else is a fair course of action to me.


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## A'koss (Nov 6, 2007)

Henry said:
			
		

> On the downside, it cuts out a wealth of adventure opportunities by doing so, and means that adventures will follow a similar format all the time, as you said the players will be reactive all the time instead of proactive.



How so? However you glean the information on a threat (through divination or spies), adventurers are almost always _reacting_ to a threat. I'm not sure how it would keep from being more proactive other than limiting the ease with which you can engage threats - and that's a very, _very_ good thing for the campaign IMO. 

Take away the powerful divinations and you really help with taking away one the easy shortcuts through an adventure. Further, it keeps those "detective" skills valuable at high levels and makes it easier to design adventures. It's also easier to keep the PCs thinking and on their toes.  

From a campaign perspective, I find that taking those two abilities away actually very _liberating_. You can have (relatively) numerous high level beings in the campaign and not worry that the setting is going to break under their weight. They can't glean what is going on in the world on a whim and they can't get to trouble spots across the country with a 6 second spell. That keeps them focused on dealing with (primarily) with the big problems because that's all they'll have time to deal with. Many will be rooted to a city/domiain under their protection because should they leave it for an extended period, it could become a target to their enemies.

As a DM, you can handwave overland travel time if you want to avoid having to play it out, and you can use that portal the legion of Orcus worshippers were opening to springboard adventures into the Abyss or what-have-you. Personally, I see it as a win-win for the game.



> To me, it's like saying that you can only conduct a war with rifles instead of missiles and bombs, or only using fire-and-forgets when you have smart missiles at your disposal. (By "disposal", I mean that the game used to have them, and now no longer does, effectively trying to put the toothpaste back into the tube.)



One of the largest complaints we see is the all-seeing, all-knowing plot device wizards who can just pop in to save the day any time they choose. Yeah, it's taking away toys they had in the past but I think it's well worth it - whether you simply retcon it as always being this way or have some FR-style event to alter how magic works.


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## Gundark (Nov 6, 2007)

Stoat said:
			
		

> Teleportation Sickness:
> 
> Upon arrival at their destination, all subjects of a teleport effect are dazed, fatigued, nauseated, or stunned (pick one) for 2d4 rounds (or longer if you wish).  With this rule, teleport remains a viable method of long-term travel and permits for ready escapes, but popping into a guarded area is a dangerous gambit.




I like this idea...good fix


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## XCorvis (Nov 6, 2007)

RigaMortus2 said:
			
		

> I don't think they should remove the option, but I do think Scry needs to be reworked a little bit.




Me too. I think divinations in general need to be removed from the spell lists. It's OK to still have them, but they need to be special and have more DM control over their use and access. I don't want my players to have access to the Scry spell, but if my 25th level party picks up a Crystal Ball that allows scrying, I think that'd be reasonable. (Especially because they wouldn't get the ball unless I wanted them to.)

If they leave in "scrysassinate," I hope there's a section in the DMG about dealing with it.

Here's a simple fix I saw on the WotC boards a while ago: 40' of earth blocks teleportation and scrying spells. It's really just an extension of the 1" of lead/2' of wood blocking rules. This gives a natural block to those spells, and explains the existence of dungeons, all in one shot.


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## lukelightning (Nov 6, 2007)

Scry, buff, teleport? Is this the D&D version of "Marry, 'fornicate', Kill?"


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## Kahuna Burger (Nov 6, 2007)

The Astral Caravan power for psions is interesting in this context. It's like Plane Shift, but a journey. While at some level it might take TOO long (continued enhancement to eventually take it down to a day with a dedicated Nomad would be nice) but it gives a much nicer (imo) feel to plane hopping. A similar feel to long distance teleporting, where you entered an intermediate plane and walked to your destination would be nice. 

I also like the idea of both teleportation sickness and a sense of incoming teleports - not both at once, but one or the other, or a possible tradeoff (a rushed teleport leaves you sick, a normal one has a gradual exit and entrance.)


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## Henry (Nov 6, 2007)

A'koss said:
			
		

> As a DM, you can handwave overland travel time if you want to avoid having to play it out, and you can use that portal the legion of Orcus worshippers were opening to springboard adventures into the Abyss or what-have-you. Personally, I see it as a win-win for the game.




This is kind of the opposite problem to the whole "mystical vs. nonmystical warrior" debate going on in another thread - it's taking something away to avoid plot problems, as opposed to adding something in to enhance player options and fun. From my perspective, there are as many adventure springboards to teleport as written as there are to limiting teleports -- Simultaneous objectives, teleport diversions, physically impassible locations, and enemy intelligence-gathering, to name a few.



> One of the largest complaints we see is the all-seeing, all-knowing plot device wizards who can just pop in to save the day any time they choose. Yeah, it's taking away toys they had in the past but I think it's well worth it - whether you simply retcon it as always being this way or have some FR-style event to alter how magic works.




Will the players enjoy it, though? (I'm reminded of the note on the last podcast about players grumbling when broken stuff is taken away.) Some players will; other players will be annoyed that magic can bend physics, create matter from nothing, rearrange terrain, but it can't move people from one place to another in an instant - and worse, knowing that the rules used to, but don't anymore.


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## BryonD (Nov 6, 2007)

Henry said:
			
		

> Monte Cook in Arcana Unearthed incorporated the concept of "teleportation ley lines." There were certain paths criss-crossing the earth that teleports worked to.  If your destination was somewhere along that path, then you were good to go. If your destination were outside of that lattice, then you had to travel there with more conventional means. So, Major cities with guardposts, etc. might have been intentionally built across a "ley line" to facilitate travel, while an evil stronghold might be intentionally built in a location remote to those lines. For fun, you can say that magical fluctuations alter the lattice; in 400 years' time, what was a strong line might have faded, forcing longer travel times. An  evil stronghold might suddenly now be right on a strong ley line that just formed, causing interesting times. That's one thought.



I like this idea.  But I would not want to see it in the core rules.  It is more a setting specific thing.


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## Remathilis (Nov 6, 2007)

I found making PCs stunned the first round after a teleport fixes the BST problem. Sure, they have the drop of the baddie and are buffed, but they effectively lose initiative that first round...

Note, that 6 sec delay usually doesn't effect travellers or retreats, just teleports inside combat...


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## Nifft (Nov 6, 2007)

Kahuna Burger said:
			
		

> I also like the idea of both teleportation sickness and a sense of incoming teleports - not both at once, but one or the other, or a possible tradeoff (a rushed teleport leaves you sick, a normal one has a gradual exit and entrance.)



 In my current game, I do the incoming warning thing.

Teleportation is loud. _Dimension door_ (and below) all make a *bamph!* sound. _Teleport_ itself is like a thunderclap. _Plane shift_ is artillery. And _gate_? Yeah. You'll know. Cities dislike allowing permanent _teleport circles_ within their walls, but if they do allow them, they're closed at night.

Also, teleportation effects can take time. Teleport feels instantaneous to the teleporter, but it takes 3 rounds in the real world. For those three rounds the noise builds -- first a loud hum, then a buzz, then the roll of thunder heralds the incoming traveler.

Cheers, -- N


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Nov 6, 2007)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
			
		

> I think the casting time is fine, because it is a great get-away spell this way, and I do not think that games can be hurt by that. At least your evil spellcasters have a chance of escaping certain death if the PCs arrive and overpower their defenses. But the arrival might have some drawbacks (being 1d4+1 rounds later than the teleport start, the teleported people being disoriented for a short time). The destination might be limited to certain teleport markings (another use for Arcane Mark?).



Make two different teleport spells, one a rapid escape spell that can only go to a few specific locations (ley lines, prepared sites, the site of their birth, whatever), and one that takes a long time to cast and is a lot more flexible.


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## Rechan (Nov 6, 2007)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:
			
		

> Make two different teleport spells, one a rapid escape spell that can only go to a few specific locations (ley lines, prepared sites, the site of their birth, whatever), and one that takes a long time to cast and is a lot more flexible.



Or, instead of Teleport, use Dimensional Door.


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## Treebore (Nov 6, 2007)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
			
		

> I think there shouldn't be only magical "antidotes" to spells. There should be more or less natural limitations that anybody could use (at least if he is spending some money).
> 
> Massive amounts of iron or lead in the walls block scrying.
> Impossible to teleport into a private home/building without the consent of the owner.
> ...





I agree, thats why I mentioned Gorgons blood, etc...


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## Treebore (Nov 6, 2007)

Gundark said:
			
		

> I have read lots of people that have stated something along the lines of "prevent spell/buff x by have the NPC do y". The problem wiith this line of thinking is: Why have the spell to begin with if you're just going to block it anyways?
> 
> why have scry and teleport if the BBEG is going to have stuff in place to cancel it anyways?
> As a player I find it annoying to have really cool spell X, but I can't use it when it counts because the crafty DM has put all these defenses for the BBEG in place.





Why? You said it yourself. The BBEG is crafty, not stupid. He knows the threats to him just as well as anyone, so if he has the means to overcome/negate those threats, then he will.

As for teleports, the answer seems obvious to me. They only work as "circles". So you can only teleport from one circle to another. Circles can have magical names, so if a circle exists already, and you can "Identify" its name, or be given it, you incorporate it into your teleport spell to go there.

Thats what low level teleporting should do. Only the higher level teleport should make "free teleporting" possible, but still very dangerous.

Plane travel should also be required to go through "portals", that have an obvious and very visible effect, so that anyone knows something is happening, and its likely bad.

Plus mundane methods, as several previous posters have mentioned should be effective against a lot fo things too.

The only reason you have an "arms race" is to be able to do things no one can counter. If enough people can counter it then it isn't the "killer" spell, or spell combo anymore.

Take nuclear missiles as an example. We can't do anything against the explosion itself, but we can do plenty against the missile carrying the bomb or bombs.

Now imagine if teleportation becomes viable, and it is being worked on, how would you stop the teleportation of nuclear bombs into governmental seats of power? It would be nice to think that you can make buildings safe by lining them with lead.

However, that bomb teleported outside your window is still going to kill you.

So with teleport circles a party may not be able to go inside of a building, but they can still get to the outside of it easy enough, and then go inside and kill/capture their target.

So spells really need to be looked at as weapons, and counters need to be researched, discovered, and used. The solutions can be "hi tech" spells, but its a mystical world. So there is no Law of Physics saying lead, salt, gorgons blood, etc... cannot work as well.


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## Treebore (Nov 6, 2007)

Stoat said:
			
		

> Teleportation Sickness:
> 
> Upon arrival at their destination, all subjects of a teleport effect are dazed, fatigued, nauseated, or stunned (pick one) for 2d4 rounds (or longer if you wish).  With this rule, teleport remains a viable method of long-term travel and permits for ready escapes, but popping into a guarded area is a dangerous gambit.





Thats what I would do for the higher level "free teleporting" idea. IT would also be very effective for the current teleport system.

As for scrying, its something thats a reality, even in todays world. So its best to just come up with ways that it can be countered, even by the "commoner".

Mind Blank is the ultimate Scrying defense, but spells and mundane ways to counter it also need to be available. Again, lead, maybe standing between two mirrors facing each other, and other rather simplistic ways that can invoke mystical forces that counter, resist, or increase the difficulty of scrying to work.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Nov 6, 2007)

Kahuna Burger said:
			
		

> The Astral Caravan power for psions is interesting in this context. It's like Plane Shift, but a journey. While at some level it might take TOO long (continued enhancement to eventually take it down to a day with a dedicated Nomad would be nice) but it gives a much nicer (imo) feel to plane hopping. A similar feel to long distance teleporting, where you entered an intermediate plane and walked to your destination would be nice.



Isn't that Shadow Walk?


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## Imp (Nov 6, 2007)

a) I houserule it so you can only teleport to your _arcane marks_, which introduces some intrigue to scry/buff/teleport;

b) Why not have _teleport_ simply strip your buffs?  The power of the magic consumes all other temporary magical effects on your person blah blah etc.


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## Calico_Jack73 (Nov 6, 2007)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:
			
		

> _Way_ too metagamey. Why should the Astral Plane be required for teleportation? Breaking that through D&Disms is the wrong way to go about it, since it presumes that the D&Disms are compelling to groups (and to new groups, they certainly won't be) and that those D&Disms will never change in subsequent editions (if the Astral is removed from teleportation in 4E, Midnight either needs a new edition or suddenly it's Teleport City).




Because ideally time and space have no meaning on the Astral Plane.  You can jump into Astral Space then jump out at any location on the prime with no passage in time.  Kinda like hyperspace to realspace.  
It may be Metagamey but it is a core concept to the Midnight setting... when the dark god Izrador was cast out of the heavens he separated the prime from ALL the planes.  It keeps him imprisoned on the prime (where he makes life hell for the inhabitants) but it also keeps the other gods out.  Teleportation, Dimension Door, and Plane Shift simply aren't on the spell lists for spellcasters in that setting.
It won't break in 4e because those spells still won't be available on any spell lists for Midnight spellcasters.  If a spell doesn't belong in a particular setting then no amount of metagaming can be used to argue that it should be there.  If I want to run a d20 modern game I don't have to allow spells into the game just because they are in the core book.  If my setting doesn't have magic, it doesn't have magic.   

My core point is that IMHO the setting trumps what is available in the rulebook.  If you don't want Teleport, don't have it in your setting.  You don't have to explain it if you don't want to .  Even if you do explain it, it is your story... do what you want.  Don't be constrained by logic.


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## Xyl (Nov 6, 2007)

The problem with Scry-Buff-Teleport isn't that scrying is too powerful, and it isn't that teleportation is too powerful, it's that they're too powerful together. So why not just make it impossible to teleport to a location based on scrying it?

There are a lot of ways that could work. Perhaps you need to have been there yourself, or have a magical token created by someone who's been there. Maybe you need an object that originated in the location you're teleporting to, or a detailed description from someone who's physically been there. Or maybe teleporting requires you to accurately visualize a much larger area than a scrying spell can show you.

Most of those methods mean the DM can control where the players can teleport. If the PCs' mission requires them to teleport to another city a hundred miles away, they can get a token tuned to that city, or talk to someone who's been there, or whatever. If they shouldn't be able to teleport into the BBEG's stronghold, no tokens are available.


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## Primitive Screwhead (Nov 7, 2007)

I have never had a group {yet} that does the scry-buff-teleport bit.. but I have two thoughts on the matter..

1> DMs should play thier BBEG's intelligently. I have an encounter/module set up around the 'so you want to kill a dragon' where said dragon has a nasty surprise for any S-B-T PCs... pretty much means instant TPK.. {but this is an encounter based on the idea that taking on a Dragon generally means TPK..}

2> If it is an issue, a couple simple changes 'fix' the issue. My prefered options are:
- Teleport takes time, your buff spells may have expired by the time you arrive
- Scry is noticable by the targets {will save}
- Teleporting characters arrive flat-footed and a new initiative is rolled, as if they have just joined a combat in progress. - arrival by teleport is noticable as it comes with a flash of light and a sound

Combined this means the higher level BBEG's will notice the scry and have time to prepare a response during the moments when the party is vulnerable. They can also ready an action.

I do like the idea of setting specific changes where Arcane Marks or tokens are required to target, as well as the teleportation 'ley lines'. Could make for a more interesting game and explains the evil fortresses out in the middle of nowhere.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Nov 7, 2007)

Calico_Jack73 said:
			
		

> Because ideally time and space have no meaning on the Astral Plane.  You can jump into Astral Space then jump out at any location on the prime with no passage in time.  Kinda like hyperspace to realspace.
> It may be Metagamey but it is a core concept to the Midnight setting... when the dark god Izrador was cast out of the heavens he separated the prime from ALL the planes.



Great. It's still stupidly metagamey and is unnecessary to the core idea of the setting, "what if the bad guys won Lord of the Rings." You don't need a D&Dism to make that happen, you just need to say "hey, this is Middle-Earth with the numbers filed off. You don't get _teleport_, man."


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## JohnSnow (Nov 7, 2007)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:
			
		

> Great. It's still stupidly metagamey and is unnecessary to the core idea of the setting, "what if the bad guys won Lord of the Rings." You don't need a D&Dism to make that happen, you just need to say "hey, this is Middle-Earth with the numbers filed off. You don't get _teleport_, man."




"The Sundering," as they call it in _Midnight_, is not "stupidly metagamey." It's a key conceit of the setting that when Izrador was banished by the other gods, he cut the Prime material Plane off from the rest of the multiverse. Thus no contacting gods, no gates, no teleport, no ethereal plane, no spirits going to their final rest, and so on. And the only divine magic in the setting belongs to the servants of Izrador himself.

There is a faerie realm of sorts, and "legend holds" that it used to lead to other planes of existence. It allows the possibility of rapid transit but still doesn't allow for teleporting or similar kinds of spells.

I like Middle-Earth just fine, but while _Midnight_ may have started as "Middle-Earth with the numbers filed off," it is a much, much, richer setting than that.


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## ruleslawyer (Nov 7, 2007)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:
			
		

> Great. It's still stupidly metagamey and is unnecessary to the core idea of the setting, "what if the bad guys won Lord of the Rings." You don't need a D&Dism to make that happen, you just need to say "hey, this is Middle-Earth with the numbers filed off. You don't get _teleport_, man."



To second JohnSnow: The Sundering isn't metagamey at all, really. Some of the following are major consequences of the isolation of Aryth from other planes:

1) Outsiders and elementals are all those who remain on the world from before the Sundering and are now trapped on it. This has... er, interesting consequences from the perspective of using summoning spells and from the POV of outsider and elemental encounters in general.

2) No divine magic or divine intervention. The only god is Izrador, and the only divine magic is the legates'.

3) No planar travel, meaning no escape. That is a big, big deal. Teleport is largely incidental to the issue; the bigger one is that the setting is a nightmare that you don't get to abandon merely by going somewhere else.

Midnight isn't performing a "carveout" of the teleport spell; it's creating a setting-specific, well-grounded campaign construct that _happens_ to include a prohibition against teleport as one of its outcomes... almost incidentally, in that case.


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## Rechan (Nov 7, 2007)

ruleslawyer said:
			
		

> 2) No divine magic or divine intervention. The only god is Izrador, and the only divine magic is the legates'.



So, no healing or things like Lesser Restoration? 

Jeez. That's just brutal on your average campaign. Especially considering the mount of poisonous critters and creatures with ability damaging powers.


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## ruleslawyer (Nov 7, 2007)

Spell lists are somewhat jiggered around in MN, though, in two ways:

a) There is a healer heroic path (heroic paths are a set of benefits you get over 20 levels to substitute for the loss of magic items, kinda like Vow of Poverty). One of that path's SLAs is lesser restoration, IIRC.

b) Certain spells are taken off the divine spell list and redistributed. Specifically, druids are turned into "nature mages" rather than "nature clerics," so certain druid spells (including possibly healing effects) go on the Channeler's (generic spellcaster's) spell list.


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## Lanefan (Nov 7, 2007)

Scry...not a big problem provided there's a chance of being noticed by the scryee, who can then take suitable precautions.

Buff...let's hope there's way fewer buffs in 4e, and those that remain are sensible.  If so, no problem here.

Teleport...the quickest way to fix this is to *put the risk back in*.  The party won't like the tactic so much after half of them have been insta-killed by teleporting into solid rock.  If they're still willing to take the risk, let them.  Oh, and an area that has only been scryed rather than physically viewed should automatically be considered the lowest level of familiarity when it comes to teleport...  As for Teleport Without Error (or whatever 3e calls it), easiest fix here is that you can only teleport to a place you have previously physically been.

Lanefan


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## ruleslawyer (Nov 7, 2007)

Teleport "random risk of death": Please no.

As to actually limiting teleportation and/or scrying in general: I have no real problem with scrying. The fact that the DC is set by the target's Will defense seems enough of a balancing issue to me; basically, a target of substantially greater power than the caster will be highly resistant to scrying attempts. 

As to teleport: I've never really liked this spell. It feels far more sci-fi or superheroic in feel than particularly "fantasy-ish": Something like ethereal jaunt, shadow walk, or astral projection seems much more in line for a fast travel spell than teleport.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Nov 7, 2007)

ruleslawyer said:
			
		

> Midnight isn't performing a "carveout" of the teleport spell; it's creating a setting-specific, well-grounded campaign construct that _happens_ to include a prohibition against teleport as one of its outcomes... almost incidentally, in that case.



By defining it purely in D&Disms. It's a waste of column inches, since it doesn't make any difference in play. Just say that stuff isn't available in the setting and move on. Defining Midnight in terms of how it's different from the World of Greyhawk is fan wankery at its worst.

If the actual goal is to provide a setting where the bad guys won the War of the Rings, do it and move on. Discussing "well, this plane isn't in this setting" and "that plane isn't in this setting, and here's the awesome rationale why" is useful only if you intend for your primary audience to be readers, not players.

It doesn't improve play at the table. It's a waste of time in a _game_ book.


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## ruleslawyer (Nov 7, 2007)

You did *read* JohnSnow's and my posts, right?


			
				JohnSnow said:
			
		

> "The Sundering," as they call it in Midnight, is not "stupidly metagamey." It's a key conceit of the setting that when Izrador was banished by the other gods, he cut the Prime material Plane off from the rest of the multiverse. Thus no contacting gods, no gates, no teleport, no ethereal plane, no spirits going to their final rest, and so on. And the only divine magic in the setting belongs to the servants of Izrador himself.



This is a really, really important part of the setting, and one of the major things that sets it apart from other worlds, including "Middle Earth under the reign of Morgoth" or "Middle Earth if Sauron won." The conceit of the Sundering is that there are no planar connections. None. That means no afterlife, no friendly god or gods or celestials or elementals, and no escape. Teleport is an _incidental_ consequence of said ban that is consistent with how teleport works in 3e anyway. The Sundering doesn't exist to explain the teleport ban.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Nov 7, 2007)

Did you read _mine_?

NONE OF THAT IMPROVES THE ACTUAL GAME. It would be more concise just to say none of those things exist in the setting and move on. The cosmological reasons why are best saved for message board posts. In Midnight, the player characters concerns are "how the hell do I not get pinched by the not-Ring Wraiths" and "how can I make this craphole a marginally better place than when I found it," not "gee, how come I can't go to Sigil and smoke a bowl with the Lady of Pain?"

This is the same sort of wankery that made so many of the later oWoD books all but useless: They were intended to be cool reading for the people who didn't actually intend to use the game books as anything other than textbooks for imaginary worlds.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Nov 7, 2007)

Treebore said:
			
		

> Again, lead, maybe standing between two mirrors facing each other.



I definitely like this as a Scrying Counter.


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## epochrpg (Nov 7, 2007)

Baby Samurai said:
			
		

> Yeah, making Escape Artist checks to get through_ walls of force_, and Balance checks to kick back on clouds…




Bugs Bunny: Epic D&D Character....


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## Calico_Jack73 (Nov 7, 2007)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:
			
		

> This is the same sort of wankery that made so many of the later oWoD books all but useless: They were intended to be cool reading for the people who didn't actually intend to use the game books as anything other than textbooks for imaginary worlds.




Actually I personally love running/playing games in Midnight setting and if you head over to http://www.againsttheshadow.org/  you'll meet a bunch of other people who feel like I do.

Some of your past responses have a tinge of "Trolling" to them so this will be my last reply to you on this subject.  It seems that you are just trying to stir up the Midnight fans.  :\


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## Psion (Nov 7, 2007)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:
			
		

> Did you read _mine_?
> 
> NONE OF THAT IMPROVES THE ACTUAL GAME.




**FOR YOU**



> It would be more concise just to say none of those things exist in the setting and move on. The cosmological reasons why are best saved for message board posts.




So, were you to take a quiz similar to the one that I took to arrive at the gamer assessment in my signature, you wouldn't come up with one that lists "story-teller" first like mine.

But for some of us, the story reasons that drive the mechanics are a primal consideration.


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## BryonD (Nov 7, 2007)

Psion said:
			
		

> But for some of us, the story reasons that drive the mechanics are a primal consideration.



Amen


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## Rel (Nov 7, 2007)

HEY.  Quit harshing my mellow!  My mellow has had more than it's share of harshing today already!


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## billd91 (Nov 7, 2007)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:
			
		

> By defining it purely in D&Disms. It's a waste of column inches, since it doesn't make any difference in play. Just say that stuff isn't available in the setting and move on. Defining Midnight in terms of how it's different from the World of Greyhawk is fan wankery at its worst.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> It doesn't improve play at the table. It's a waste of time in a _game_ book.




I don't play Midnight but it's not a waste of time at all, particularly for a game based on the d20 engine which can normally be expected to have a lot of D&D-isms in it. Having a logical rationale is important and help define the distinction between Midnight and out-of-the-box D&D.


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## TarionzCousin (Nov 7, 2007)

Rel said:
			
		

> HEY.  Quit harshing my mellow!  My mellow has had more than it's share of harshing today already!



Dude, maybe you should go smoke a bowl with the Lady of Pain.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Nov 7, 2007)

Calico_Jack73 said:
			
		

> Some of your past responses have a tinge of "Trolling" to them so this will be my last reply to you on this subject.



If everyone who disagrees with you is a troll, you must be up to your eyeballs in them in real life.  :\ 



			
				Psion said:
			
		

> So, were you to take a quiz similar to the one that I took to arrive at the gamer assessment in my signature, you wouldn't come up with one that lists "story-teller" first like mine.



Actually, no, I _am_ big into the storytelling. I just can't imagine a scenario in which the desperate battle for survival against the Shadow from the North pauses for a discussion of the cosmological implications of his exile in the mortal realm. Now, if my player characters were a noble band of refugee cosmologists, maybe, but I just can't picture my players preferring that route over more standard sorts of heroes. Maybe I'm wrong, but I suspect for the vast majority of actual games, it simply doesn't come up.



			
				billd91 said:
			
		

> I don't play Midnight but it's not a waste of time at all, particularly for a game based on the d20 engine which can normally be expected to have a lot of D&D-isms in it.



Why? Why is a setting where there's no teleportation and little divine magic available required to spend inches explaining why? Either a group buys into the setting and wants to play there, or they don't.



			
				billd91 said:
			
		

> Having a logical rationale is important and help define the distinction between Midnight and out-of-the-box D&D.



Does Dragonlance need a long discussion in the rule books about where the heck the halflings are to "help define the distinction between Krynn and out-of-the-box D&D?" I suspect most Dragonlance-aphiles would say no. "They're not there, have a kender, move on."


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## JohnSnow (Nov 7, 2007)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:
			
		

> Actually, no, I _am_ big into the storytelling. I just can't imagine a scenario in which the desperate battle for survival against the Shadow from the North pauses for a discussion of the cosmological implications of his exile in the mortal realm. Now, if my player characters were a noble band of refugee cosmologists, maybe, but I just can't picture my players preferring that route over more standard sorts of heroes. Maybe I'm wrong, but I suspect for the vast majority of actual games, it simply doesn't come up.
> 
> 
> Why? Why is a setting where there's no teleportation and little divine magic available required to spend inches explaining why? Either a group buys into the setting and wants to play there, or they don't.




Simple. Because there are records in the world of what life was like before the Sundering. People in the setting are aware that this sort of thing used to be possible. They've even got old gods that just don't answer prayers anymore.

There's even an implication that one "big story" to tell in the setting is to undo the Sundering or moderate its effects some how. For instance, the Witch Queen (who's an _8,000 year-old_ elf) might be capable of being elevated to divine status - giving Aeryth a goddess to counterpoint the dark god. Or maybe an epic adventure to bring a couple more outsiders down to counterbalance Izzy's evil. Or maybe you could restore access to the Ethereal plane. All of these things are put there as potential plothooks for a DM.

The book also goes into a fair amount of detail explaining the differences between _Midnight_ and a typical D&D setting because it's targeted at _people who are used to standard D&D._ Any setting book does that. They have to explain the ways in which the setting deviates from the Core Rules. _Midnight_ introduces new classes, a new method for casting magic, and lots of other new rules. But it still uses the D&D spell list. Not all of it, but the D&D spell list is key to the game. They disallowed certain spells that didn't fit the setting and they gave an in-setting rationale for that decision. Choosing that in-setting rationale led to some other implications, and the resulting flavor makes for a very compelling setting. I have no problem with a design process that goes:

1) We want a setting like Middle-Earth if Sauron won. 
2) That means we need a dark god on "earth" and no way for other gods to interfere.
3) We also want to disallow certain D&Disms, like planar travel and teleport.
4) There's a lot of problematic spells on the Cleric list.
5) Hey, what if the dark god was cast down to the Prime and sundered it from the other planes as his revenge, cutting it off from the other gods in the process? 
6) That would mean no cleric spells and no spells that rely on the other planes.
7) Hey, that would mean spirits are stuck on the Prime.
8) etc.

And I have a feeling that that's how the setting evolved to what it is.




			
				Whizbang Dustyboots said:
			
		

> Does Dragonlance need a long discussion in the rule books about where the heck the halflings are to "help define the distinction between Krynn and out-of-the-box D&D?" I suspect most Dragonlance-aphiles would say no. "They're not there, have a kender, move on."




No, but when it WAS the case, it used to have a LONG discussion about what happened to the gods and why there were no clerics in the setting. And don't even get me started on the different orders of High Sorcery.

That's because when you change races, people go "eh." When you restrict the available classes or change fundamental rules systems (like magic), you have to explain why. Like defiling magic in _Dark Sun_, for example.

I get the impression that you don't like _Midnight._ Fine. But that's no reason to trash it for reasons that make perfect sense to people who do.


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## I'm A Banana (Nov 7, 2007)

Whizbang said:
			
		

> This is the same sort of wankery that made so many of the later oWoD books all but useless: They were intended to be cool reading for the people who didn't actually intend to use the game books as anything other than textbooks for imaginary worlds.




To clarify, WBDB is making a _functional_ argument. What is the function at the table of all this setting porn? The same thing as if I said "it doesn't exist."

Of course, the setting porn does give inspiration for other things to do with the game, ideas for plots and stories and challenges and adventures within the world. But on a functional level, for day-to-day gaming, where the rubber meets the road, is essentially the same: you can't teleport. The WHY might be interesting, but it's not as important for this thread as the fact that you just CAN'T DO IT. Thus making this option functionally the same as simply disallowing it.

Which is still, IMO, a bit of a cop-out.

S-B-T is a valid tactic, and it should remain a valid tactic. I'm all for introducing complications to it (long casting time or teleport-sickness, removal of most if not all buffs, making so you can only teleport to where you've placed your arcane mark, etc.), but getting rid of it entirely is baby-with-the-bathwater kind of behavior.


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## JohnSnow (Nov 7, 2007)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> *S-B-T is a valid tactic, and it should remain a valid tactic.* I'm all for introducing complications to it (long casting time or teleport-sickness, removal of most if not all buffs, making so you can only teleport to where you've placed your arcane mark, etc.), but getting rid of it entirely is baby-with-the-bathwater kind of behavior.




Just to play Devil's Advocate here, *why?* Why is something that only exists because the players are metagaming the D&D magic system something that should remain a valid tactic?

It wasn't a valid tactic in 1e. Or 2e. It's not a frequently used tactic in any particular setting (game or novel) that I can think of. It's applying modern military tactics to a D&D setting. The only place the "teleport in with guns blazing" strategy is used extensively is in the _Wheel of Time_ and even there it has limits.

I get that scrying is moderately cool. I get that teleporting is something that wizards do in many settings.

What I want someone to explain to me is why this stupid, gamist tactic should remain an option. What's the least bit "cool" about it?


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## FickleGM (Nov 7, 2007)

JohnSnow said:
			
		

> Just to play Devil's Advocate here, *why?* Why is something that only exists because the players are metagaming the D&D magic system something that should remain a valid tactic?
> 
> It wasn't a valid tactic in 1e. Or 2e. It's not a frequently used tactic in any particular setting (game or novel) that I can think of. It's applying modern military tactics to a D&D setting. The only place the "teleport in with guns blazing" strategy is used extensively is in the _Wheel of Time_ and even there it has limits.
> 
> ...



 Up until the second to the last sentence, you may have had an argument.  At that point, you called the tactic "stupid".  Interesting.

For the record, I dislike S-B-T.  I just don't know how calling it "stupid" can help the debate.


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## I'm A Banana (Nov 7, 2007)

> Just to play Devil's Advocate here, why? Why is something that only exists because the players are metagaming the D&D magic system something that should remain a valid tactic?




The idea that it's "metagame" is pretty absurd to me.

That's like saying gold pieces are metagame.

Those spells exist in the world of the PC's. They behave in that world as the PHB states they behave. None of it relies on out-of-character knowledge or tactics that aren't evident from the very nature of these spell effects (which are known quantities to the PC's, and, presumably, to the villains they face). You don't need to stop thinking of these things as actual game-world effects in the slightest in order to use these tactics.

No, S-B-T is what any rational spellcaster in the setting would do. Because it's smart. If these spells have existed for hundreds of years, it's a known quantity and a known threat. It's a stupid villain that ignores this potentiality, and lets the PC's achieve an easy victory.

And *that's* why S-B-T is not a cure-all. The bad guys should be just as aware of this tactic as the PC's. After all, the principles of these spells are known and they exist in the game world. Characters know the principles of these spells (at the very least, the spellcasters themselves know them). It doesn't rely on any knowledge the character doesn't have. It's not gamist, it's not metagame, it's distinctly _in-character tactics_.

I'm all for 4e throwing a wrench or two into the system, but S-B-T is a valid in-character tactic. Just like spending 10 gold on a longsword is a valid in-character tactic.


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## JohnSnow (Nov 7, 2007)

FickleGM said:
			
		

> Up until the second to the last sentence, you may have had an argument.  At that point, you called the tactic "stupid".  Interesting.
> 
> For the record, I dislike S-B-T.  I just don't know how calling it "stupid" can help the debate.




I'm sorry if my calling it stupid stifles debate, but quite honestly I think it's lame. And I'd love for someone to explain to me what's cool about it. Is it the theory that the PCs have "beaten the system?"

I just don't get it.


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## FickleGM (Nov 7, 2007)

JohnSnow said:
			
		

> I'm sorry if my calling it stupid stifles debate, but quite honestly I think it's lame. And I'd love for someone to explain to me what's cool about it. Is it the theory that the PCs have "beaten the system?"
> 
> I just don't get it.



 Kamikaze Midget does an okay job of explaining why it isn't stupid.  It isn't to my taste, since it seems too "high magic" for me.  Some people like high magic and the feel of this tactic is reasonable to them.

Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't...


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## JohnSnow (Nov 7, 2007)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> The idea that it's "metagame" is pretty absurd to me.
> 
> That's like saying gold pieces are metagame.
> 
> ...




What's the counter? Seriously. How do you counter this spell? Ward against it? Now every single important character must have a spellcaster to ward him at all times against this tactic. By its very nature, the tactic calls for an absurdly high-magic setting.

The magic system was invented for a GAME. The spells have limitations (or don't) based on their assumed use _in the game_. If WotC had foreseen the Scry-Buff-Teleport combo, they would have written the spells differently. The players are trying to use loopholes in the game rules to circumvent the story. That's metagaming.

Your argument that "the characters are aware of the reality" is like trying to rationalize the D&D wealth-by-level rules to create a functioning economy. It's like PCs deliberately taking a 200 foot fall or going swimming in lava because they technically, by the RAW, have the hit point reserve to survive. At that point, they're metagaming a loophole in the game rules. In my opinion, it's the same with this spell combo.

I'm convinced that the teleport spell was intended as a travel spell to allow high-level PCs to circumvent boring treks through the wilderness - not as a "drop in your assault team on the bad guy" spell. I submit that if WotC had conceived of this problem in advance, they would have written some of the spells differently. And if it's being used that way, then one or more of the spells in question probably need to be rewritten to disable that functionality.

(As an aside, per-encounter balancing by itself goes a long way towards fixing this problem - since the PCs have no ability to "go nova" in an encounter).


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Nov 7, 2007)

JohnSnow said:
			
		

> I get the impression that you don't like _Midnight._ Fine. But that's no reason to trash it for reasons that make perfect sense to people who do.



 

I don't get where you think that at all.

Surely there are disagreements on the Midnight board. Do all those people who disagree with something in the book hate the setting and "trash" it by bringing it up?

And KM makes a good argument for why the rationale is worth having in a Midnight book, although I submit it doesn't belong in the core book, but in a supplement that is specifically about the ancient past or about the cosmology of the setting in general, so that the (I'd submit) minority of people who would use this can buy into it without the (I'd submit) majority who won't having it taking up space that could be used on something that's more likely to be used in more games.


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## FickleGM (Nov 7, 2007)

JohnSnow said:
			
		

> What's the counter? Seriously. How do you counter this spell? Ward against it? Now every single important character must have a spellcaster to ward him at all times against this tactic. By its very nature, the tactic calls for an absurdly high-magic setting.
> 
> The magic system was invented for a GAME. The spells have limitations (or don't) based on their assumed use _in the game_. If WotC had foreseen the Scry-Buff-Teleport combo, they would have written the spells differently. The players are trying to use loopholes in the game rules to circumvent the story. That's metagaming.
> 
> ...



 Pre-emptive S-B-T by the BBEG and his/her minions?  That's another reason that I don't particularly care for it.  It isn't easy to counter...at least I haven't found an easy way.


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## JohnSnow (Nov 7, 2007)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:
			
		

> I don't get where you think that at all.
> 
> Surely there are disagreements on the Midnight board. Do all those people who disagree with something in the book hate the setting and "trash" it by bringing it up?
> 
> And KM makes a good argument for why the rationale is worth having in a Midnight book, although I submit it doesn't belong in the core book, but in a supplement that is specifically about the ancient past or about the cosmology of the setting in general, so that the (I'd submit) minority of people who would use this can buy into it without the (I'd submit) majority who won't having it taking up space that could be used on something that's more likely to be used in more games.




Let's see, did you or did you not use the terms:

"stupidly metagamey"
"Fan-wankery at its worst"
"the not-Ring Wraiths"
"Middle-Earth with the numbers filed off"

Something about all those phrases implied to me you have a negative view of the setting. Maybe I was wrong.

As far as putting it in a supplement book, they never knew they'd get one when they first wrote it. The book is a Campaign Setting Book - not strictly a game book. It may be that having discussions of the cosmological implications is too "fluffy" for you, but it seems that the vast percentage of people who play in the setting have never complained about it. Many seem to enjoy it. And, since the setting got a Second Edition that left the Sundering and all its cosmological fluff in, I'm going to go out on a limb that it was well-received.

On the other hand, this is way off-topic to the core discussion.


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## Odhanan (Nov 7, 2007)

JohnSnow said:
			
		

> "The Sundering," as they call it in _Midnight_, is not "stupidly metagamey." It's a key conceit of the setting that when Izrador was banished by the other gods, he cut the Prime material Plane off from the rest of the multiverse. Thus no contacting gods, no gates, no teleport, no ethereal plane, no spirits going to their final rest, and so on. And the only divine magic in the setting belongs to the servants of Izrador himself.



I think that the whole thing feels metagamey too. Actually, that's the main reason why I never liked Midnight. It's a setting that feels built to trap the PCs in it. It's designed with the "I'm tired of PCs teleporting!" whiny DMs in mind, and I'm just not one of those.


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## JohnSnow (Nov 7, 2007)

Odhanan said:
			
		

> I think that the whole thing feels metagamey too. Actually, that's the main reason why I never liked Midnight. It's a setting that feels built to trap the PCs in it. It's designed with the "I'm tired of PCs teleporting!" whiny DMs in mind, and I'm just not one of those.




Which is why Iron Heroes held no appeal for you, right? 

If you don't mjnd the S-B-T combo, please tell me how you keep it from breaking your plots. Why is it not a lame tactic? I am actually more interested in discussing that than the pros and cons of _Midnight._


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Nov 7, 2007)

JohnSnow said:
			
		

> Let's see, did you or did you not use the terms:
> 
> "stupidly metagamey"
> "Fan-wankery at its worst"
> ...



I can like a book and still find certain (unnecessary) things added to it to be stupid or wankery.

And Midnight's initial hook _is_ the bad guys winning War of the Rings. Obviously, as a setting, it's evolved into a lot more than that, but it's not a mistake or a dig to say it's Middle-Earth with Sauron in charge.



> As far as putting it in a supplement book, they never knew they'd get one when they first wrote it. The book is a Campaign Setting Book - not strictly a game book.



The book did get a second edition with a lot of revisions to the text, based on the success of the line. At that point, cosmology was clearly something that could have gone into its own supplement.



> It may be that having discussions of the cosmological implications is too "fluffy" for you, but it seems that the vast percentage of people who play in the setting have never complained about it. Many seem to enjoy it.



And Britney Spears sells millions of records. Taste isn't a matter for a democratic vote. 

Heck, I'm told there are people who dislike _gnomes_, and despite being many in number, they're still clearly wrong!


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## robertliguori (Nov 7, 2007)

One point to consider:
You can't balance something by looking at its average case.  You need to look at the upmost limits of what it can do, because when it's used in a system, it will be used optimally.

Take the teleport capacity of any number of exemplar outsiders.  Wimpy little CR 2 and 4 archons have Greater Teleport.  At will.

"Aha," the developers said, "but it's balanced, see?  They can only take along 50 pounds of gear, and no other creatures!"

"Great." said the players.  "Heard of these neat things called bags of holding?  You can schlep an entire party into one of the bigger ones, have the wizard's planar familiar zap us to a secluded location a day's travel or so from where we want to be, and then walk the rest of the way, for anyplace in the world not covered with Forbiddance or Hallow.  And this is at level 7."

There exist counters to conditions like Stunned or Dazed; inflicting them on your way through a teleport simply means that warforged wizards will rule the day.

Really, the problem with teleport is that at the core, beating through the defenses of a castle or dungeon is not an ideal strategy.  There's really no way around the fact that if a dungeon is meant to challenge the PCs and use up their resources, then the smart thing to do is not to play the dungeon's game.  Finding out when your opponent is weak and then circumventing his defenes to strike when you are strong is a really good strategy; it doesn't matter so much if it's Scry or Commune, or whether or not Invisibility and Wind Walk are combined to produce the effect of a Teleport.  If the characters are seeking goals beyond glory and the experience of dungeon-crawling, then they will often come up to solutions to problems totally at odds with the traditional dungeon-crawling experience.  I view this as a good thing, myself.  On the other hand, I have played characters that have strip-mined the Tomb of Horrors.  I'm probably not totally representative of the D&D gamer population.


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## Odhanan (Nov 7, 2007)

JohnSnow said:
			
		

> Which is why Iron Heroes held no appeal for you, right?
> 
> If you don't mjnd the S-B-T combo, please tell me how you keep it from breaking your plots. Why is it not a lame tactic? I am actually more interested in discussing that than the pros and cons of _Midnight._



I'm interested in IH for other reasons than controlling players, yes. IH does not limit the players. It basically centers the characters' coolness on the characters themselves, not their gear. It is indeed very different in nature.

To tell you the truth the S-B-T combo might have come up in my games what. One, two times since 3E came out? That's why I don't think it's a problem. There's nothing wrong with PCs wiping out a lair of bad guys. There's nothing wrong with PCs winning.

That becomes a potential problem if it happens *all the time*. The fun of the game gets affected, because it becomes boring for everyone involved. That includes the players using the tactic themselves. If a player used that all the time, I'd talk about it outside the game first by saying "Is the systematic use of this tactic still fun for you? I'm getting bored of it". Fortunately, the players of my last two campaigns wouldn't need that kind of talk, because they would think about stuff like that before I would bring it up. 

For short, I think the S-B-T combo is problematic in theory, when you talk about it in a vacuum. It hasn't ever been an issue in my games.


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## Treebore (Nov 7, 2007)

Your right, it isn't easy to counter scry/buff/teleport.

However, getting rid fo them is just the whimpy way out, and takes away big "cool" factors for the players.

So the solution I would support is to come up with magical and non magical ways to make them easier to handle.

So a lot fo the ideas put forth in this thread should be expounded upon and put to use.

Lets, see:

Gorgons blood in the mortar of the building blocks scrying.

Salt lines across doorways/along walls stop certain creatures, like ghosts.

Lead, blocks scrying and/or teleport

That "hoop" idea that reroutes teleports ending nearby to end within the hoop.

Lower level teleports require fixed departure and arrival points, IE circles.

Higher level teleports can be free of fixed destinations, but makes you nauseous for 2d4 rounds.

What other ideas or spells?

Lets make this thread useful.


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## Varianor Abroad (Nov 7, 2007)

This whole thread seems to have missed the combat example that had the wizard doing a short-range teleport in battle. I think we can assume that at least a dim door variant is in use. Whether the entire Spell Combo Arms Race of Scry-Buff-Teleport remains is of course unknown. And subject to random postings from Wizards that will illuminate and confuzzle until we get the books in our hands.


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## Primitive Screwhead (Nov 7, 2007)

Treebore said:
			
		

> Your right, it isn't easy to counter scry/buff/teleport.




If I may add to that sentence '...predesigned in the RAW.'

The biggest issue I see with the S-B-T tactic handed to smart characters/players is that there is no counter handed out to the GM. This leads to a number of inexperienced GMs and most written modules never taking the tactic into account..

 Which leads to many peoples opinions that the tactic is broken.

The answers are to alter the tactic itself {as shown upthread mutliple times} or implement an easy counter. The easiest counter is to design a spell that is often tied to a {Un}Hallow with the effect of shunting arriving teleporting characters to a specific spot.

Now there is a simple and effective counter, most mid to high level lairs will have one..and the high level characters can get close to the enemy before having to drudge through the mundane adventuring stuff.

 The options for the design of the counters are virtually limitless.. perhaps an area is protected from scrying, perhaps scry spells are redirected into a programmed illusion, perhaps the teleport triggers a dispel magic on the arriving characters... lots of interesting, custom counters!


[sidetrek]regarding the Midnight setting. Its shorter to give a story reasoning like the 'Sundering' then listing every potential implication. This allows GM's to extrapolate the settings mechanics instead of having to refer to a huge list of 'doesnt work here' items.

I prefer a game world to have a history, and expect that history will be included in the Campaign Setting book. Makes it easier to handle the fictional reality 
[/sidetrek]

regarding 4e and S-B-T, I thought I saw something early on about changes to the buff line of effects... no real crunch tho


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Nov 7, 2007)

Primitive Screwhead said:
			
		

> If I may add to that sentence '...predesigned in the RAW.'
> 
> The biggest issue I see with the S-B-T tactic handed to smart characters/players is that there is no counter handed out to the GM. This leads to a number of inexperienced GMs and most written modules never taking the tactic into account..
> 
> Which leads to many peoples opinions that the tactic is broken.



Arguably, by the RAW, it is. Certainly by the time 3.5 rolled around, it should have been addressed, either by limitations being added to _teleport_ or by at least a discussion of the issue in the DMG.

I don't dislike the tactic myself -- I think it's just smart play by the players -- but I also agree that not every D&D campaign needs to turn into The Authority eventually.


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## Hella_Tellah (Nov 7, 2007)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:
			
		

> I don't dislike the tactic myself -- I think it's just smart play by the players -- but I also agree that not every D&D campaign needs to turn into The Authority eventually.




I loves me some Authority.

Like anything else in the game, Scry-Buff-Teleport is only a problem if it's unfun.  If the players and DM like using that strategy, they can keep it, and run Medieval Authority d20.  If the group as a whole decides it's not fun to do that anymore, they aren't trapped into using that strategy.  The Wizard might announce that he's interested in studying the plants that dot the road on the way to the Arch-Fiend's tower, so this time they'll skip the _teleport_ and hoof it.

It becomes a problem when the Wizard wants to use that strategy, because it's a good one, and the rest of the party stares off longingly into space, stacking their dice up and waiting for their turn to have fun.  Then the DM needs to railroad a bit.  4th Edition doesn't need to remove Scry-Buff-Teleport as an option, but it does need a set of tools for DMs to disrupt it when necessary that don't feel too railroad-y.


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## Stoat (Nov 7, 2007)

The last high-level game I DM'd was specifically designed around the assumption that the PC's _would_ S-B-T.

The party ran between 19th and 21st level, and ended one game session battling a tricked-out Arcanaloth.  The combat ended with the party shoving the beastie through a Prismatic Wall.  Given his saves and SR, the 'loth was mostly unharmed, but when hit the Violet wall, his luck ran out.  He was "sent to another plane" -- specifcally the Astral.  Of course, with his spell-like abilities, he  was able to teleport himself to safety from there.

The next session went as you'd expect.  The PC's used Scry and some other divinations to find the 'lolth. He was in a small, luxurious bedchamber in the city of Jangling Hiter.   They buffed, plane shifted, teleported and waxed the baddie all in about 10 minutes of game time.  They had accomplished what they came to do, and they could have called it a day and gone home.

But there was a single door in the room, and they had to know what was on the other side. . .

Which is to say that at a certain point "find the BBEG and cap him" can stop being the alpha and omega of adventure design.  Players should be encouraged to ask, Why is the BBEG here?  What weird experiments is he pursuing?  Should we destroy his powerful lieutenants?  Where is his treasure vault?  

What happens after the BBEG drops can be an adventure in itself.


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## JohnSnow (Nov 7, 2007)

<----Still waiting for someone to explain why this tactic is in any way "cool."

Cuz the only justification I've heard so far is that it's "okay for the players to win."

Well, duh. But to me this tactic is about players trying to "beat" the game. It's the D&D equivalent of a cheat code.

But in reality, the DM is all powerful. You can't "beat" the game, unless the DM _lets you._ The game should be about playing, not winning.

So someone explain to me: what does the availability of this tactic ADD to the game?


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## Hella_Tellah (Nov 7, 2007)

JohnSnow said:
			
		

> <----Still waiting for someone to explain why this tactic is in any way "cool."
> 
> Cuz the only justification I've heard so far is that it's "okay for the players to win."
> 
> ...




Why is tromping through the forest, following tracks to find the enemy encampment cool?  I don't know, but people play Rangers because they think that's cool.

I think teleporting anywhere I like and accomplishing the mission with the ultimate in stealth is cool; that's why I like Hiro Nakamura from Heroes, the comic book The Authority, etc.  I like the idea of the villain coming back to his inner sanctum wearing his evil satin robe, carrying an evil glass of chardoney, preparing to turn in for en evil evening of evil repose, only to find the hero of the tale sitting in his evil armchair, waiting for him, catching him off guard.

I don't know why I think that's awesome, but I do.


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## Odhanan (Nov 8, 2007)

> Well, duh. But to me this tactic is about players trying to "beat" the game. It's the D&D equivalent of a cheat code.
> 
> But in reality, the DM is all powerful. You can't "beat" the game, unless the DM lets you. The game should be about playing, not winning.




You just countered your own rebuttal here. It's not a "cheat code" because there is no way to beat the game without the GM's approval. So what does it "add" to the game? The same thing as casting _fireball_ while _invisible_, _time stopping_ to throw _swarms_ at the BBEG, making maneuvers to stick your sword in the dragon's throat or what-have-you... an option for the players to feel like they've done some smart play (cf. Whiz's post).

Honestly, any type of tactic like this gets really old, really fast. If a player wants to use it all the time and makes the game boring for everyone involved, why isn't anyone pointing it out?


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## JohnSnow (Nov 8, 2007)

Hella_Tellah said:
			
		

> Why is tromping through the forest, following tracks to find the enemy encampment cool?  I don't know, but people play Rangers because they think that's cool.
> 
> I think teleporting anywhere I like and accomplishing the mission with the ultimate in stealth is cool; that's why I like Hiro Nakamura from Heroes, the comic book The Authority, etc.  I like the idea of the villain coming back to his inner sanctum wearing his evil satin robe, carrying an evil glass of chardoney, preparing to turn in for en evil evening of evil repose, only to find the hero of the tale sitting in his evil armchair, waiting for him, catching him off guard.
> 
> I don't know why I think that's awesome, but I do.




Okay. The surprise factor of that scene I get. And it is cool. But I've seen it in James Bond movies...and _he_ doesn't have teleport.

I guess heroes as assassins just isn't that heroic to me.

For the record, I have a solution that I use for this problem...you can't violate a threshold uninvited. That solves it for me - no magical entry unless you're invited in. Of course, that's a circumventable limitation, but the circumvention makes for an interesting story in itself.


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## FourthBear (Nov 8, 2007)

JohnSnow said:
			
		

> <----Still waiting for someone to explain why this tactic is in any way "cool."
> 
> Cuz the only justification I've heard so far is that it's "okay for the players to win."




I tend to dislike Scry-Buff-Teleport, but one of my major objections isn't the *PCs* abusing it.  It's trying to justify why the NPC villains don't abuse the hell out of it.  You can always try to justify your villains spending all of their days in a small area (every time I've worked out the  actual area covered by the wards in the game I've thought they're actually damn small) magically warded against Scrying or Teleportation.  But what about the PCs?  Are they expected to spend their days huddled behind such wards?  Why don't the bad guys Scry-Buff-Teleport right back?  In most campaigns and adventure paths, the bad guys have ample access to magical teleporation (heck, teleporting outsiders practically infest the Paizo Adventure Paths).  I find it hard to justify why the forces of evil don't abuse the hell out of it.  And if the DM provides handy, portable protections against such things, why doesn't everyone have them?  And if everyone does have them, why did we bother with this whole furshlinger arms race to begin with?

IMO, Teleport is the major culprit here.  Scrying is found throughout fantasy literature (although I can't recall it ever being quite a reliable as the D&D version).  D&D style Teleport Without Error, not so much.  Outside of the old sit-com Bewitched and similar comedy fantasy shows, I can't think of many fantasy novels where the characters can casually teleport without error precisely to any spot on the globe they can think of.   You can have instant distance transportation very easily without having long distance tactical teleportation.  Just use portals/gates.  Or have teleportation only work into prepared areas.


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## JohnSnow (Nov 8, 2007)

Odhanan said:
			
		

> You just countered your own rebuttal here. It's not a "cheat code" because there is no way to beat the game without the GM's approval. So what does it "add" to the game? The same thing as casting _fireball_ while _invisible_, _time stopping_ to throw _swarms_ at the BBEG, making maneuvers to stick your sword in the dragon's throat or what-have-you... an option for the players to feel like they've done some smart play (cf. Whiz's post).
> 
> Honestly, any type of tactic like this gets really old, really fast. If a player wants to use it all the time and makes the game boring for everyone involved, why isn't anyone pointing it out?




So essentially, you agree it's the kind of thing that gets really old, really fast. However, by the rules as written, with no counter, it's a no-brainer tactic. Without the rules being changed, everyone SHOULD be doing this.

And curiously, under what theory is using a no-brainer tactic "smart play?"


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## JohnSnow (Nov 8, 2007)

FourthBear said:
			
		

> I tend to dislike Scry-Buff-Teleport, but one of my major objections isn't the *PCs* abusing it.  It's trying to justify why the NPC villains don't abuse the hell out of it.  You can always try to justify your villains spending all of their days in a small area (every time I've worked out the  actual area covered by the wards in the game I've thought they're actually damn small) magically warded against Scrying or Teleportation.  But what about the PCs?  Are they expected to spend their days huddled behind such wards?  Why don't the bad guys Scry-Buff-Teleport right back?  In most campaigns and adventure paths, the bad guys have ample access to magical teleporation (heck, teleporting outsiders practically infest the Paizo Adventure Paths).  I find it hard to justify why the forces of evil don't abuse the hell out of it.  And if the DM provides handy, portable protections against such things, why doesn't everyone have them?  And if everyone does have them, why did why bother with this whole furshlinger arms race to begin with?




Thank you. That's my point exactly. Either it's common, or it's rare.

What's happened here is that some gamers have stumbled across a loophole in the game rules. The DM doesn't exploit the loophole against them because, simply put, a good DM doesn't do that.

The players exploit the loophole and think they're being clever. But they'd scream bloody murder if the DM did it back. For instance:

*The PCs are out of spells. They've just cleaned out the Caves of Despair and obtained the artifact they need to confront the evil dark lord Sythas.*

PC: "Okay, after we rest and recover, we should be able to ambush Sythas and destroy him."

*Sythas appears in a flash of teleportation energy*

Sythas: "I was waiting for this moment. Now you are weak. DIE FOOLS, DIE!"

*TPK*

Yeah. That's fun. And why doesn't it happen? Because the DM's not trying to screw the players. By contrast, when they do it, they're, what, playing smart?

Sorry I don't buy it. Next time someone tries to scry the BBEG in my game, he finger of deaths them. That'll end that tactic for good.


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## Odhanan (Nov 8, 2007)

JohnSnow said:
			
		

> So essentially, you agree it's the kind of thing that gets really old, really fast.




How often did it come up in your games since 2000, JS? 



> However, by the rules as written, with no counter, it's a no-brainer tactic. Without the rules being changed, everyone SHOULD be doing this.




Anyone who acts like a computer and does not care for the actual entertainment the game provides? Maybe (I'm sure there are more effective ways to "wipe out the map" though).

Thankfully I don't play D&D with AIs. I play it with real people.


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## FourthBear (Nov 8, 2007)

Odhanan said:
			
		

> Anyone who acts like a computer and does not care for the actual entertainment the game provides? Maybe (I'm sure there are more effective ways to "wipe out the map" though).
> 
> Thankfully I don't play D&D with AIs. I play it with real people.




I play with real people as well, but the real people I play with like to think that they're using all of their resources to their best effect and their enemies are doing likewise.  If characters (either PCs or NPCs) aren't using obvious tactics because it would spoil the entertainment value, the problem almost certainly lies with rules that provide those obvious entertainment spoiling tactics.  Scry-Buff-Teleport isn't smart or clever, it's just common sense.  If people like the arms race where you've got to have certain wards and defenses to play the game at high level, that's one thing.  But having those abilities and just not using them to their best effect because you'd be acting like a "computer"?  I wouldn't enjoy that since it would spoil the air of verisimilitude and suspension of disbelief.  It's like in science fiction when they don't use the special widget they invented in the last book to solve a problem.


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## Odhanan (Nov 8, 2007)

How many times did S-B-T _actually_ show up in your games?


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## FourthBear (Nov 8, 2007)

Odhanan said:
			
		

> How many times did S-B-T _actually_ show up in your games?




Most of my games haven't been at high enough level for Teleport without Error, which is the biggie.  In those relevant games I've DMed it occurred about five times by PCs successfully.  There were a fair number of failures because I decided that villains would indeed be skulking behind wards, but it seemed silly to have *all* of them doing so. Three or four times the villains were intelligent and struck in the same way, resulting in every case in a near Total Party Kill (I fudged in two cases).  It's very effective.  In my latest campaigns, I house-ruled teleport to be only between teleportation circles, which has worked very well.  Thanks for asking!


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## Odhanan (Nov 8, 2007)

Now, did your players enjoy the game less because they, or the villains, were able to do such a thing?


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## FourthBear (Nov 8, 2007)

Odhanan said:
			
		

> Now, did your players enjoy the game less because they, or the villains, were able to do such a thing?




My players expressed their feeling that such tactics felt like cheating, but they were used because they were so effective.  After the house-ruling of teleportation, they expressed their feelings that they were enjoying the high level game more since it required less suspension of disbelief.  So, yes, they did enjoy the game less with Scry-Buff-Teleport than without.

Do you players express that they would enjoy the game less without Scry-Buff-Teleport?  If 4e eliminated it, would you house-rule it back in?


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## Odhanan (Nov 8, 2007)

FourthBear said:
			
		

> My players expressed their feeling that such tactics felt like cheating, but they were used because they were so effective.  After the house-ruling of teleportation, they expressed their feelings that they were enjoying the high level game more since it required less suspension of disbelief.  So, yes, they did enjoy the game less with Scry-Buff-Teleport than without.




Okay. We're reaching my point here. I'm asking these questions because that's what actually matters. If an issue comes up in the game _consistently_, then the participants of the game just talk about it. They find a solution to the problem. If everyone feels that just not using the combo is the solution, let's just not use it. If the DM just house-rules this or that to eliminate the issue, that works just as well.

Point is, these are people just playing the game. Issue shows up... talk about it... solve the problem. Which is something I would do as well if S-B-T became a problem at my game table, but it never became one. So far.

My real point is twofold: 1/ you know an issue really is an issue when it shows up consistently at your game table and lessens the enjoyment of the participants of the game because of its repeated occurrence. 2/ The participants of the game just fix the problem, one way or another. 

The fact of the matter is, I don't think it's any use to anyone to talk about an "issue" in the rules without talking about its actual occurrence in games and how it creates a problem at a particular game table. That was my real point, in answer to the "if we go by the RAW" argument, in fact.



> Do you players express that they would enjoy the game less without Scry-Buff-Teleport?  If 4e eliminated it, would you house-rule it back in?




Do they express that they would enjoy the game less without S-B-T? No. If 4E eliminated it, would I house-rule it back in? Not really, no. Thanks for asking!


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## Lanefan (Nov 8, 2007)

S-B-T didn't show up in my games nearly as often as T-B-T - make good some ground into the dungeon, then teleport (or planeshift) out; rest, get re-buffed by retired PCs and lackeys hanging around the party's home base, then teleport (or planeshift) back in and keep going.  Fun the first time.  Bloody annoying the hundredth time.  Will fix for next campaign...planeshift is getting a bi-ig makeover.

That said, I did use a full S-B-T against the party once...said home base got laid waste after most of the key PCs had been lured into the field on a fake mission.  Those that stayed home never knew what hit 'em - the attack came in the middle of the night and some died before even waking up.  By the time the PCs in the field realized they'd been had and could get back home, their lovely castle had been turned into Swiss cheese along with  quite a few of the occupants...

Lane-"that'll teach 'em about messin' with the Githi!"-fan


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## Nifft (Nov 8, 2007)

Odhanan said:
			
		

> How many times did S-B-T _actually_ show up in your games?



 IMC, even with the restrictions I put in place, it showed up almost immediately after _teleport_. It's just too good a tactic to ignore.

And it went both ways. The PCs teleported into the evil temple; the BBEGs teleported to the PCs' hideout with all the demons they could summon. It got a bit boring. Now everyone goes around with a _mind blank_ up so the window is less open, but I'm sure there's a way around that too.

I won't be sad to see this tactic go.

Cheers, -- N


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## Hussar (Nov 8, 2007)

Lots of things don't show up all the time but are problematic when they do.  

How often did you see aerial combat in your games?  I almost never did.  Yet, I can look at D&D's aerial combat rules and see pretty clearly that there has to be a better way to do it.

How often did you have ship to ship combat in your games?  I had quite a bit but, that's because I ran a naval based campaign - something of an outlier to start with.  Didn't take long to realize that the Arms and Equipment Guide rules for vehicle combat are worth a pot of piss when dealing with ships.

Heck, there's all sorts of things that I haven't personally seen in my games.  Does that mean that everything that doesn't crop up should never be changed?  Couldn't it possibly be that changing elements might make them more likely to be used?  If we had decent ship to ship combat rules, or rules for small scale battlefields (say up to 50 combatants), we would likely see them in the game.

"It's not a problem since it doesn't come up" is not a reason not to fix something that should be fixed.


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## ruleslawyer (Nov 8, 2007)

Besides, it does come up; I had to deal with some variation of teleporting-surprise-attack on a near constant basis once my 2e game hit 14th level and PCs got teleport without error. Then came the sudden retcon to "everyone [or where] worth attacking has a defense against teleport." And so on. It got to the point where combats were endless series of near-instantaneous surgical strikes rather than involving any real subterfuge, investigation, or even having to wade through the second-in-commands to get to the top-shelf villains. Now, of course, one can design around this, but I really believe that one shouldn't need to. It cuts down on adventure design options; it doesn't broaden them IME.

Note that one of the big problems with SBT is that anyone who doesn't have mind blank or the like is much, MUCH less powerful as an enemy that someone who does, meaning that it's the same attack or the same defense, all the time. The PCs were able to take on great wyrm dragons and the like, in part because they didn't have weirdstones or mind blank; the problem is slightly lessened in 3e relative to 2e, since now practically everyone can have mind blank via items, but it's still the single-boring-defense problem.


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## Fieari (Nov 8, 2007)

The way I solved the problem was by making teleport no longer something I, as a DM, needed to disable, but rather to make teleporting REQUIRED for the game.  In a sense, I still had a "dungeon", but the rooms were each a continent away, and the connections weren't hallways, they were clues.  Minions to be interrogated.  Foreign coins popping up in strange places.  That sort of thing.  My players were restricted not by location, but by <i>knowledge</i>, and occasionally fear, when I would make it clear that a particular group was prepared against them.  Rarely was dimensional lock needed.  Once or twice I used lead.


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## Lurks-no-More (Nov 8, 2007)

Odhanan said:
			
		

> How many times did S-B-T _actually_ show up in your games?



After the party wizard learned Greater Teleport, _all the time_. And why not? It's a brilliantly useful tactic; it just gives the DM ulcers and turns the game into five-minute forays out of warded lairs.


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## Hussar (Nov 8, 2007)

RulesLawyer said:
			
		

> Now, of course, one can design around this, but I really believe that one shouldn't need to. It cuts down on adventure design options; it doesn't broaden them IME.




This is an excellent point that bears repeating.

S-B-T is something that either needs to be worked around (limiting adventure design) or it has to be wholly embraced (as Fieri points out) which is also design limiting.

I agree with the idea that high level adventures should be different from low level.  That's fine.  But, does that mean that every high level adventure should rely on the same elements?


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## FourthBear (Nov 8, 2007)

There's a parallel in the way I feel about S-B-T to the way I feel about Save or Die.  Both can be fine as interesting, defining characteristics of particular scenarios, enemies, artifacts and such.  But by putting them on the list of common high level PC, NPC and monster abilities, they aren't special conditions or situations.  They become every day tactical choices that lead to the high level D&D game changing away from the kind of fantasy I'd prefer to see.  In a full campaign, the idea of a teleportation based "dungeon" sounds great.  Having darn near every adventure past 13th level become a series of teleports, teleport based ambushes, and having to often "teleport-proof" locations, bleah.  It's like Star Trek and all those planets and situations with convenient atmospheres and energy fields that interfere with the transporter.  It feels like frequent contrivances to get around techno-magical abilities that short circuit numerous types of encounters and exploration.


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## olshanski (Nov 8, 2007)

JohnSnow said:
			
		

> It's like PCs deliberately taking a 200 foot fall or going swimming in lava because they technically, by the RAW, have the hit point reserve to survive. At that point, they're metagaming a loophole in the game rules. In my opinion, it's the same with this spell combo.



Clearly the physics of the D&D world are not the same as the physics of the real world.
When a 100 foot fall is not fatal on a consistent basis for a sizable amount of the population, then it is entirely resonable for characters in that world to willingly jump off of 100 foot tall cliffs.

When the absolute worst injury that you can suffer and still live can be completely healed with about 5 days of bedrest, then horrible injuries are not as crippling as they are in the real world.  In the real world, a sword impaled through a leg would easily take a 2 months or more to heal, and might be permanently crippling... the the world of D&D, no sword wound is going to take more than a few days to heal.

If your characters are playing as if they exist in the physics of the real world, then those characters are meta-gaming, and not playing true to the world of their experience, the world of D&D.

A 15th level fighter that refuses to jump down a 100 foot tall cliff is metagaming as much as the character that attempts to mine saltpeter and sulpher to make gunpowder.


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## Hussar (Nov 8, 2007)

> If your characters are playing as if they exist in the physics of the real world, then those characters are meta-gaming, and not playing true to the world of their experience, the world of D&D.




That's a valid point of view.  And it's shared by some.  But, there are a number of gamers who think that the game mechanics actually don't describe the physics of the game world, any more than Hollywood movies do.  They are convenient shortcuts for the game, not a treatise on simulation of reality.

You can take it too far really.  The rules contain nothing about needing sleep.  Do we then take it to mean that no person in a D&D world ever sleeps?  That no D&D person ever gets lice?  That I can eat iron rations 3 times a day forever and never die, despite things like scurvy?  Where do you stop?  At what point do you say, "The rules of the game describe only game mechanics, not the physics of the world"?

To be truly a simulation of reality, RPG books would have to be considerably thicker. IMHO.


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## Treebore (Nov 8, 2007)

Fieari said:
			
		

> The way I solved the problem was by making teleport no longer something I, as a DM, needed to disable, but rather to make teleporting REQUIRED for the game.  In a sense, I still had a "dungeon", but the rooms were each a continent away, and the connections weren't hallways, they were clues.  Minions to be interrogated.  Foreign coins popping up in strange places.  That sort of thing.  My players were restricted not by location, but by <i>knowledge</i>, and occasionally fear, when I would make it clear that a particular group was prepared against them.  Rarely was dimensional lock needed.  Once or twice I used lead.





Thats a exellent strategy. High level "dungeon creators" would definitely do something like that.


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## JohnSnow (Nov 8, 2007)

olshanski said:
			
		

> Clearly the physics of the D&D world are not the same as the physics of the real world.
> When a 100 foot fall is not fatal on a consistent basis for a sizable amount of the population, then it is entirely resonable for characters in that world to willingly jump off of 100 foot tall cliffs.
> 
> When the absolute worst injury that you can suffer and still live can be completely healed with about 5 days of bedrest, then horrible injuries are not as crippling as they are in the real world.  In the real world, a sword impaled through a leg would easily take a 2 months or more to heal, and might be permanently crippling... the the world of D&D, no sword wound is going to take more than a few days to heal.
> ...




   

Sorry, but that's one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard.

It's in fact so ridiculous that I can't take it seriously. Anybody who brings this attitude to a game is basing their character's perception of in-game reality on the fact that they (the players) are playing a game.

That IS metagaming, pure and simple. And if you won't take my word for it, I'll borrow a definition:



			
				Wikipedia said:
			
		

> In role-playing games, a player is metagaming when they use knowledge that is not available to their character in order to change the way they play their character (usually to give them an advantage within the game), such as *knowledge of the mathematical nature of character statistics. *


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## WizarDru (Nov 8, 2007)

While at first I found the tactic disconcerting, I eventually realized (particularly after following Piratecat's story hour) that requiring its use was a far better tactic than simply ruling it didn't work.  I'd rather grant my players the ability to do a thing rather than remove it arbitrarily.  I certainly don't fault anyone for saying 'this is too much' and removing or limiting it...but that's not my approach.  There are/were several tactics I used.

BBEG's often work through obfuscation and lies.  In my current Shackled City game, the players have virtually no idea who the Cagewrights actually ARE.  Scrying them requires at least some idea of who they're targeting, when they're in a place where they CAN be scanned.  Piratecat once used a brilliant job of trickery when he had an evil NPC give the name of a good NPC nearby to the party as his identity.  When they tried to scry on him later by name, they got the wrong guy.  Frequently they encountered bodies possessed or animated by the bad guys that made finding the real BBEG much harder.

I made the various threats the players handled at later levels (and all the way to 28th level) spread out and requiring things like Teleport to function.  Some BBEGs had Teleport abilities of their own, too...in one case the players gave up when they found that knowing where the BBEG was NOW didn't mean he'd stay for more than 6 seconds after they arrived.  After a quick game of teleport hop-scotch, they ran out of the ability to trace him using the B-S-T method.  They found another way and found it very satisfying when they outwitted him.

Having villains who are coordinated enough to try and split the party across a continent or mutiple planes is not unknown.  Sending players to fight the BBEG on his own demi-plane, where he controls the ability to teleport has happened.  But on other occasions, BST has worked exceptionally well.  Bounty hunters have been found.  Kidnappers have been stopped.  Evil doers found in their lairs and shown that they can't hide from justice.  

All of this, of course, makes the blatant assumption that BST's effectiveness is absolute.  It is not.  The players have successfully used it, but that didn't make the assault on a demon lord any easier.  It got them safely into fighting position...but that doesn't make it an easy fight.  Catching the evil wizard Boris unawares may be possible (though with some buffs reaching 24 hour durations at later levels, it's unlikely to find a totally unbuffed BBEG), but catching the ultraloth or ancient red dragon with his pants down?  Much less likely.

Personally, I don't think that B-S-T needs to be removed, but it wouldn't hurt to implement some of the spells that have been introduced in the various supplements afterwards that blunt it's edge slightly.  Stuff like teleport alarms or teleport shunts that don't prevent the spell from being effective, but do change the certainty of it's effectiveness never hurt.

And of course, you have things like the lead lining defense and this little ditty from Teleport: "_You must have some clear idea of the location and layout of the destination. The clearer your mental image, the more likely the teleportation works. Areas of strong physical or magical energy may make teleportation more hazardous or even impossible._"

There are ways right in the RAW of 3.5 to stop the B-S-T tactic if the DM so desires.


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## Rel (Nov 9, 2007)

I tried to make it clear earlier that the snarky, insulting posts were not going to be tolerated.  I'm going to try one more time.  Think REALLY carefully before you post next time because any further violations are going to be dealt with severely.


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## robertliguori (Nov 9, 2007)

JohnSnow said:
			
		

> Sorry, but that's one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard.
> 
> It's in fact so ridiculous that I can't take it seriously. Anybody who brings this attitude to a game is basing their character's perception of in-game reality on the fact that they (the players) are playing a game.




Well... no.  They're basing their character's perceptions based on the rules of the game universe.  The rules of the game (and thus, the universe) are quite explicit; people can reach a certain level of achievement and physical prowess which enables them to survive quick dips in lava through sheer toughness.  (That's what having 300+ hp means.)  One can learn this by observing barbarians doing this, without ever knowing how much damage immersion in lava actually deals.  One can simply ignore the ways the rules work in favor of making the D&D universe more similar to ours.  However, at the extreme high levels, characters cease to resemble normal humans in their limitations in more or less every way.

D&D past about level 5 ceases to resemble what we know as reality.  Accept this, or play Iron Heroes instead.


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## Shortman McLeod (Nov 9, 2007)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
			
		

> If you're a Planescape fan, maybe you should concentrate on Epic Level play




Of course, 2e Planescape assumed characters of low level were regularly hopping around on the planes.  There are 1st level Planescape modules, after all . . .


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## JohnSnow (Nov 9, 2007)

robertliguori said:
			
		

> Well... no.  They're basing their character's perceptions based on the rules of the game universe.  The rules of the game (and thus, the universe) are quite explicit; people can reach a certain level of achievement and physical prowess which enables them to survive quick dips in lava through sheer toughness.  (That's what having 300+ hp means.)  One can learn this by observing barbarians doing this, without ever knowing how much damage immersion in lava actually deals.  One can simply ignore the ways the rules work in favor of making the D&D universe more similar to ours.  However, at the extreme high levels, characters cease to resemble normal humans in their limitations in more or less every way.
> 
> D&D past about level 5 ceases to resemble what we know as reality.  Accept this, or play Iron Heroes instead.




Sorry, I beg to disagree. The game rules are not intended to remove the character from reality. And they never have been. And to back myself up, I quote from an EARLY source...

(Pardon the verbose prose...I didn't write it).



> *Hit Points*
> 
> It is quite unreasonable to assume that as a character gains levels of ability in his or her class that a corresponding gain in actual ability to sustain physical damage takes place. It is preposterous to state such an assumption, for if we are to assume that a man is killed by a sword thrust which does 4 hit points of damage, we must similarly assume that a hero could, on the average, withstand five such thrusts befor being slain! Why then the increas in hit points? Because these reflect both the actual physical ability of the character to withstand damage - as indicated by constitution bonuses - and a commensurat increase in such areas as skill in combat and similar life-or-death situations, the "sixth sense" which warns the individual of some otherwise unforeseen events, sheer luck, and the fantastic provisions of magical protections and/or divine protection. Therefore, constitution affects both actual ability to withstand physical punishment hit points (physique) and the immeasurable areas which involve the sixth sense and luck (fitness).
> 
> ...




Clearly the game rules were NOT intended to divorce the characters entirely from reality. If you think so, you ARE metagaming. Without magical protection, people can't go for a swim in lava, whatever the statistics on the character sheet say.

However, I'm willing to admit that's what the game has become to some people. Play your own way I guess.


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## Hussar (Nov 9, 2007)

[quote&D past about level 5 ceases to resemble what we know as reality. Accept this, or play Iron Heroes instead.[/quote]

But, only for the PC's.  For the rest of the world, it's assumed that physics work as usual.  Either that or no one in the world ever breaks a bone.  Ever.  If you have a one eyed pirate in your game, you're breaking the rules.  Any maimed character or creature is breaking the rules since there is nothing in the game that causes permanent maiming.

Etc. Etc.


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## JohnSnow (Nov 9, 2007)

Hussar said:
			
		

> But, only for the PC's.  For the rest of the world, it's assumed that physics work as usual.  Either that or no one in the world ever breaks a bone.  Ever.  If you have a one eyed pirate in your game, you're breaking the rules.  Any maimed character or creature is breaking the rules since there is nothing in the game that causes permanent maiming.
> 
> Etc. Etc.




Gygax addressed that as well, by the way.


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## Al'Kelhar (Nov 9, 2007)

Treebore said:
			
		

> ...
> So a lot of the ideas put forth in this thread should be expounded upon and put to use.
> 
> Lets, see:
> ...




In my campaign:

_Teleport_ and _greater teleport_ have a location stone as a spell component.  A location stone is a gemstone of at least 500gp value (for _teleport_) or 1000gp value (for _greater teleport_) which has had the _teleport target_ spell cast on it.

_Teleport target_ is a Sor/Wiz 3, Travel 3 spell which "ties" a gemstone to a physical location.  It has a 1 hour casting time.  Any interruption of the caster during that 1 hour causes the spell to fail.

When you cast a _teleport_ or _greater teleport_ spell, you don't get to choose the location _per se_ - you get teleported to the location to which the location stone used as the spell component is tied.

If you use a location stone that you have created, there is no risk of a mishap.  If you use a location stone that someone else has created, you roll on the mishap chart.

So if you want to teleport into the BBEG's lair - you have to have already been there, and stayed immobile in one spot for at least 1 whole hour.  Or you have to have acquired a location stone tied to somewhere in the BBEG's lair by someone else (which involves a chance of mishap, and who knows exactly what location the location stone is _actually_ tied to?  An iron cage suspended above a lake of boiling lava, perhaps?).

And what happens if your wizard dies and the BBEG or his minions gets hold of all the location stones in his spell component pouch?...

_Teleport_ retains its 100 mile/level range, but in addition it is a Personal spell, i.e. only the caster can teleport.  _Greater teleport_ has a target of "You and 1 creature per 3 levels", with Large creatures counting as 2 creatures, Huge creatures as 4, etc.  That is, to teleport your whole party, you have to use _greater teleport_.

All creatures with "_greater teleport_ (self plus 50 pounds of objects only)" as a spell-like ability instead have "_dimension door_ (self plus 50 pounds of objects only)". They can still hop around in the local area as much as they want, but can't exactly travel long distances.

Finally, all creatures teleported by _teleport_ and _greater teleport_ are dazed for 1 round at the end of their journey.

In short, _teleport_ and _greater teleport_ have become good ways for the wizard or the party to run back to their base of operations when things go wrong, but they can't be used offensively as the end part of the S-B-T routine.

I've put in place similar limitations on the cleric and druid Conjuration (teleport) spells, and so far the scheme is working like a charm.

Cheers, Al'Kelhar


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## I'm A Banana (Nov 9, 2007)

> What's the counter? Seriously. How do you counter this spell? Ward against it? Now every single important character must have a spellcaster to ward him at all times against this tactic. By its very nature, the tactic calls for an absurdly high-magic setting.




Welcome to mid-high level D&D. Glad you could join us. We'll be serving punch from an extradimensional space.

You ward against it by using the same high-level magic your enemies are using: antimagic fields, illusions, mind blanks, etc. If you don't use it, it's like refusing to use a gun against people armed with heavy artillery: you will be crushed by superior technology. 

Yes, that's limiting. Yes, it demands a certain style. No, that style should not be invalidated by 4e. Yes, 4e should allow people to go around that style more easily than they can now.



> The magic system was invented for a GAME. The spells have limitations (or don't) based on their assumed use in the game. If WotC had foreseen the Scry-Buff-Teleport combo, they would have written the spells differently. The players are trying to use loopholes in the game rules to circumvent the story. That's metagaming.




The characters are making descisions based on what the characters are aware of. Bill the Wizard knows he can use his crystal ball to see things, use his teleport spell to go there, and use his arcane knowledge of the body and soul of creatures to prepare them for battle.

That's making an in-character decision. JUST LIKE spending 10 gp on a longsword is a decision made by the characters who are aware of what a longsword can do.



> Your argument that "the characters are aware of the reality" is like trying to rationalize the D&D wealth-by-level rules to create a functioning economy. It's like PCs deliberately taking a 200 foot fall or going swimming in lava because they technically, by the RAW, have the hit point reserve to survive. At that point, they're metagaming a loophole in the game rules. In my opinion, it's the same with this spell combo.




It's not metagaming. The fighter who can swim in lava has survived the full brunt of a dragon's wrath and emerged okay. They also know the dragon's wrath is more potent than any inert puddle of melted rock. They take a look at that pool, knowing the things that have happened to them, and they know "I think I can swim that..."

It's not using any out-of-character knowledge or game rules knowledge. It's knowledge based on the nature of the universe the character inhabits. 



> I'm convinced that the teleport spell was intended as a travel spell to allow high-level PCs to circumvent boring treks through the wilderness - not as a "drop in your assault team on the bad guy" spell. I submit that if WotC had conceived of this problem in advance, they would have written some of the spells differently. And if it's being used that way, then one or more of the spells in question probably need to be rewritten to disable that functionality.
> 
> (As an aside, per-encounter balancing by itself goes a long way towards fixing this problem - since the PCs have no ability to "go nova" in an encounter).




I'm sure atomic energy was intended as a cheap, easily available fuel source, an alternate to oil - not as a "blow up Japan" bomb. I submit that if the scientists who unlocked Atomic energy had conceived of this problem in advance, they would have never published their findings. And if it's being used that way, then the science probably needs to be covered up to disable it's functionality.

None of that requires me to have any "outside knowledge." Intentions, whatever. That has been the way the fantasy world has worked, and that should continue to be a valid strategy in the next fantasy world (though I would not regret it if it was a LESS advantageous strategy). 



> Sorry, but that's one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard.
> 
> It's in fact so ridiculous that I can't take it seriously. Anybody who brings this attitude to a game is basing their character's perception of in-game reality on the fact that they (the players) are playing a game.
> 
> That IS metagaming, pure and simple. And if you won't take my word for it, I'll borrow a definition:




It's not knowledge of mathematical character statistics. It's the fighter going "Hmm...the Terrasque stomped on my head and I'm pretty okay, still....yeah, I might be able to survive a dip in the lava!"

The character himself, comparing his own experiences, knows his tolerance for difficulty (and knows that it has only increased as he has endured more). 

It's okay if you're not comfortable with that level of power in the game, but it's blatantly false to call it "metagame."


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## JohnSnow (Nov 9, 2007)

Please can the snarky comments with your "welcome to mid-high level D&D" cracks. Thanks.

I'll admit I have different esthetic sensibilities than some people. In my campaigns, the fighter didn't survive the Tarrasque stomping on his head. He didn't "endure the full brunt of the red dragon's fiery breath."

Hit points are an abstraction. They are not merely a measure of the character's ability to endure physical injury. A character who needs to cross a river of lava might be able to survive (with some hit point loss) but he most certainly didn't SWIM it. Similarly, if a d20 Modern character puts a gun to his head and pulls the trigger, he's DEAD or dying. Period. As they say, sometimes a dagger to the eye is a dagger to the eye.

That's in my world. And, as I noted by quoting the 1st Edition _Dungeon Masters Guide_, it's perfectly consistent with longtime perceptions of D&D. Gygax himself called it "unreasonable" and "preposterous." I said it was "ridiculous" and I stand by that for the same reasons Gary did. I wasn't trying to bait anybody, but I can't make the "increasing physical injury capacity" opinion make sense in my head.

But play your game your way. If I have to houserule mine to get the game I want, I have no problem doing that. I'd rather not have to deliberately avoid an ambush tactic like S-B-T. People always seem to forget that the DM chooses NOT to do that BACK.

Do your PCs walk around with all those protections you mentioned up at all times? How would they feel if the BBEG dropped in on them when they were helpless or spent from a hard fight?

What's good for the goose and all that...


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## Hussar (Nov 9, 2007)

> It's not knowledge of mathematical character statistics. It's the fighter going "Hmm...the Terrasque stomped on my head and I'm pretty okay, still....yeah, I might be able to survive a dip in the lava!"




Wow, I've had to repeat myself in three different threads now.

HP's are abstract.  The fighter never had the Terasque step on his head.  We know that because he got hit and didn't die.  He got smacked around, but, none of the attacks were lethal.  High hit points doesn't mean that you stand with your chest out Superman style bouncing bullets from the mini-gun.  It means that you are just that much luckier/faster/whatever getting out of the way of stuff that would kill you outright.

The fighter who jumps off the cliff, the fighter who walks on lava, never actually does that.  We know that because he survives.  You are placing the narative ahead of the mechanics.  The mechanics say that he crossed the lava, or fell off the cliff and survived.  It's now up to you to justify that - maybe there were cool spots in the lava, maybe he hit shrubs on the way down.

But, "I swan dive off this cliff because I have enough hp's to survive it" is about as metagaming as you can get.

Just as a question though KM.  Using S-B-T against the party means TPK's most of the time.  It's just too easy to kill the party.  So, DM's don't use it.  It's a tactical nuke, like Disjunction or Sunder.  Instead of simply adding in more bandaids to fix the problem, why not fix the original issue?  Scry is useful.  There's nothing wrong with it.  Buffing is useful, there's nothing wrong with it.  Teleport is useful, there's nothing wrong with it.

The problem is in the combination.  So, block the combo somehow and poof, problem solved.  Now, you have all three options being used, but, the trifecta suddenly doesn't make your game turn into a strange sort of Star Trek Assassins.


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## Ahglock (Nov 9, 2007)

JohnSnow said:
			
		

> But play your game your way. If I have to houserule mine to get the game I want, I have no problem doing that. I'd rather not have to deliberately avoid an ambush tactic like S-B-T. People always seem to forget that the DM chooses NOT to do that BACK.
> 
> Do your PCs walk around with all those protections you mentioned up at all times? How would they feel if the BBEG dropped in on them when they were helpless or spent from a hard fight?
> 
> What's good for the goose and all that...




My PCs do defend against it.  Non detection items are crafted fairly early, and a permanent false vision item is fairly common with the powerful and wealthy in my world, and in this case the PCs.  

I can see in some campaign the PCs not defending against it purely because there isn't a large overarching campaign its just a series of unrelated adventures.  So there isn't any pissed off bad guys, they are all dead.  Mr. Big isn't bemoaning how you disrupted his plans because by the time he'd be doing that he is alraedy dead and the adventure is over.  

I haven't had much problem with SBT but I kept a lot of the 2e spells that dealt with it.  SBT ends up being another way of saying yes I'll leap right into your trap.  

In a new edition assuming these spells are in the defenses should be in as well.  When it comes to spells as defenses the defense should be lower or the same level than the spell it defends against.  The higher level spells can be defenses with nasty twists.  Also have mundane methods of dealing with scrying and teleport.


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## robertliguori (Nov 9, 2007)

*Hussar* and *JohnSnow*: Again, so?  We can posit that hp represent the ability to selectively edit reality to make lethal effects into less-lethal effects, but we're not changing the fact that certain things still happen.  If I make a succesful melee attack against someone, I have caused an injury (as demonstrated by the fact that injury poisons on the weapon would trigger).  The tarrasque-fighting warrior avoided the brunt of the claw attack, yes, but if he got hit, he got hit.

Likewise, if this warrior were to later be immersed in lava, he would survive for a few rounds.  Now, one can come up with a contrivance to explain how this can be that involves changing the way the world works (or shunting functionality given from hit points to various defensive attributes).  Or, one can note that as the hero has more hit points than a T-51B main battle tank, and that there are no real-world and very few fictional people who have more hit points than a T-51B MBT, one's perceptions of what the hero can do should shift.  A character with 300+ hp can swim in lava according to the standard D&D rules, full-stop.  If you find this unreasonable, you find either the D&D rules for lava, hit points, or high-level characters all unreasonable.  This is not a problem; however, to tie things back to the original thread topic, introducing effects that are automatically lethal to everyone and within the realm of the PCs to engineer _will_ cause problems in play as every smart PC and their brother starts throwing Transmute Rock to Lava at otherwise-invulnerable enemies.


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## Hussar (Nov 9, 2007)

The problem is, you've decided that the player is immersed in lava.  You've dictated the outcome of the event before rolling the dice.  That's not what happens.  Someone who gets immersed in lava dies.  The high level fighter simply cannot immerse himself in lava without performing a coup de gras on himself.  Instead, the fighter steps lightly and quickly over the crust of the lava and gets to the other side of the lava river.  

That's what the dice have said has happened.

Look at it this way.  If I'm using a greataxe, my maximum damage is 36 points (ignoring Str and other bonuses for the moment.  So, I walk up to Opponent A and crit and roll max damage.  36 points.  Opponent A has 12 hp.  I lop off his head in a spray of Quentin Terantino blood splatter.  Fantastic.

Later, I engage Opponent B, roll the crit and max damage.  Again, this is absolutely the best I can hit something.  Unfortunately for me, Opponent B has 200 hp.  Now, my absolute best hit leaves a big bruise, some dented armor and maybe a trickle of blood.

At no point do I get to determine the outcome of my action before the dice are rolled and, even after the dice are rolled, the outcome depends more on the target than on me.  It doesn't matter that I rolled exactly the same rolls for both attacks.  Identical actions on my part resulted in completely different effects.

I'm not saying that swimming in lava is lethal.  I'm saying that, at a certain level, swimming in lava doesn't exist as an option for you.  ((cue Matrix theme music))


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## HeavenShallBurn (Nov 9, 2007)

This is starting to get out of hand but I just have to point this out



			
				SRD said:
			
		

> Lava or magma deals 2d6 points of damage per round of exposure, *except in the case of total immersion (such as when a character falls into the crater of an active volcano), which deals 20d6 points of damage per round.*
> 
> Damage from magma continues for 1d3 rounds after exposure ceases, but *this additional damage is only half of that dealt during actual contact (that is, 1d6 or 10d6 points per round).*
> 
> An immunity or resistance to fire serves as an immunity to lava or magma. However, a creature immune to fire might still drown if completely immersed in lava.




It's actually Hussar and JohnSnow who are altering the effect based on their perceptions of what seems more realistic to them.  Quite clearly total immersion in lava is exactly that total immersion, if that seems too out there for your versimilitude fine.  But explicitly the damage is a result of being submerged in lava and IS survivable for characters with high enough hit points.


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## WizarDru (Nov 9, 2007)

Hussar said:
			
		

> I'm not saying that swimming in lava is lethal.  I'm saying that, at a certain level, swimming in lava doesn't exist as an option for you.




Well, that's _your_ interpretation, sure.  Hit points are an abstraction, after all.  But I think here you're conflating your personal sense of what is acceptable suspension of disbelief and assuming the rules back that up.  If I read correctly, you are saying that swimming in lava *is* lethal...and since the rules say that your character doesn't automatically die from doing it, that you clearly aren't _really_ swimming in lava, because that's crazy-talk...so when you make your save or take a small amount of damage, it's because you never actually touched the lava or found a cool spot or what have you.  The 3.x PHB doesn't really make that kind of distinction (while the AD&D book may, I haven't played that game in nearly 20 years, so it doesn't really resonate with me).



			
				PHB said:
			
		

> Hit points mean two things in the game world: the ability to take physical punishment and keep going, and the ability to turn a serious blow into a less serious one.




To wit: it's perfectly valid for you to assume the second definition...but others may choose to use the former.  Some folks will choose that Conan is just skilled at side-stepping a sword, turning a killing blow into a grazing one.  Others may feel that Conan simply has toughened his body through rigorous combat to become impervious to pain and hardened to damage.  _Both_ are valid interpetations, afaict.  This is why, in fact, we have things like poisons that do CON damage to kill you, instead of hit points.  It avoids the abstraction of hit points entirely.


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## Rel (Nov 9, 2007)

There is a suppliment that is coming out soon that will vastly simplify this lava issue.  It's compatible with all editions of D&D including 4th.


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## Henry (Nov 9, 2007)

WizarDru said:
			
		

> This is why, in fact, we have things like poisons that do CON damage to kill you, instead of hit points.  It avoids the abstraction of hit points entirely.




This is why I think that hazards in general should do CON damage, myself. Falling? CON. Lava? CON. Rock slide? CON. Steamroller or Robo-tree-cutter driven by a Goblin? Hit points.  After all, if poison is supposed to screw up your immune system and resilience to bounce back from injury, then how much more would a 100 foot fall, or having your legs immersed in lava do the same thing?


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## lukelightning (Nov 9, 2007)

Henry said:
			
		

> This is why I think that hazards in general should do CON damage, myself.




So a zombie falling off a 100 foot cliff is unharmed?

As for lava, realistically speaking (yeah, big mistake!) lava is virtually as dense as stone. Sure, it's a liquid, but it is still stone, so falling into a lava pool wouldn't mean you sink to the bottom; you'd still be resting on the surface, sinking in only a small amount.

Of course you'd probably also be bursting into flames....


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## Rel (Nov 9, 2007)

lukelightning said:
			
		

> So a zombie falling off a 100 foot cliff is unharmed?
> 
> As for lava, realistically speaking (yeah, big mistake!) lava is virtually as dense as stone. Sure, it's a liquid, but it is still stone, so falling into a lava pool wouldn't mean you sink to the bottom; you'd still be resting on the surface, sinking in only a small amount.
> 
> Of course you'd probably also be bursting into flames....




PROBABLY?!


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## Henry (Nov 9, 2007)

lukelightning said:
			
		

> So a zombie falling off a 100 foot cliff is unharmed?




That can be fixed...  I'd move it to STR damage for undead, myself, since they don't have CONS - or leave it in, since they don't depend on internal organs and intact bones and ligaments to get around, anyway... Forcing people to systematically hack them apart to stop them.


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## BryonD (Nov 9, 2007)

Henry said:
			
		

> This is why I think that hazards in general should do CON damage, myself. Falling? CON. Lava? CON. Rock slide? CON. Steamroller or Robo-tree-cutter driven by a Goblin? Hit points.  After all, if poison is supposed to screw up your immune system and resilience to bounce back from injury, then how much more would a 100 foot fall, or having your legs immersed in lava do the same thing?



My house rule is that falling still does 1d6 - 20d6.  But all 1s are CON damage.  
Seems to get a nice balance for me.


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## Nebulous (Nov 9, 2007)

BryonD said:
			
		

> My house rule is that falling still does 1d6 - 20d6.  But all 1s are CON damage.
> Seems to get a nice balance for me.




That's pretty good.  and the corresponding loss of CON equals the usual amount of hp loss on top of the d6 damage rolled?


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## Calico_Jack73 (Nov 9, 2007)

JohnSnow said:
			
		

> Okay. The surprise factor of that scene I get. And it is cool. But I've seen it in James Bond movies...and _he_ doesn't have teleport.




That's because half of the fun of the Bond movie is seeing him accomplish the following prior to the "Throne Room" confrontation:

1) Drive a submarine car to a remote uncharted island.
2) Deactivate/Decoy permimeter defenses.
3) Incapacitate some inept guards with a judo chop to the neck.
4) Get captured by a larger force of inept guards.
5) Escape from a horribly elaborate death trap.
6) Sneak into the throne room.
7) Make a martini at the BBEG's wet bar.
8) Confront the BBEG.

The SBT tactic is like skipping to the end of a novel... you miss the story in between.


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## Piratecat (Nov 9, 2007)

Rel said:
			
		

> PROBABLY?!



Frankly, what we really need is some kind of d20 rules about lava.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Nov 9, 2007)

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Frankly, what we really need is some kind of d20 rules about lava.



Only if the lava lamp is a wondrous item.


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## Primitive Screwhead (Nov 9, 2007)

Rel said:
			
		

> There is a suppliment that is coming out soon that will vastly simplify this lava issue.  It's compatible with all editions of D&D including 4th.




Joke or serious?    
{or in other words, link/news post?}


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## Plane Sailing (Nov 9, 2007)

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Frankly, what we really need is some kind of d20 rules about lava.




Well, it could provide a much needed distinction between AA and Pahoehoe for starters, and the basaltic vs igneous division seems like a foolish one to ignore. The big question to my mind is whether they would make pyroclastic clouds underpowered.


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## I'm A Banana (Nov 10, 2007)

> Please can the snarky comments with your "welcome to mid-high level D&D" cracks. Thanks.




Then I'd expect the same about the superfluous smileys and "most rediculous comments I've ever heard!"

What's good for the goose and all that.   



> I'll admit I have different esthetic sensibilities than some people. In my campaigns, the fighter didn't survive the Tarrasque stomping on his head. He didn't "endure the full brunt of the red dragon's fiery breath."
> 
> Hit points are an abstraction. They are not merely a measure of the character's ability to endure physical injury. A character who needs to cross a river of lava might be able to survive (with some hit point loss) but he most certainly didn't SWIM it. Similarly, if a d20 Modern character puts a gun to his head and pulls the trigger, he's DEAD or dying. Period. As they say, sometimes a dagger to the eye is a dagger to the eye.




There was more than a little hyperbole in the example I gave. It would be more accurate to how HP's are generally represented to say that if the fighter can turn the blow from a 30' tall lizard into a mere graze, he can probably avoid the worst of the lava damage, too.

Same in-character knowledge, different way of wording it. 

I accept that your style is different than the style that D&D has encouraged in all of it's editions, but something you don't agree with isn't automatically "metagame." It could be flawed for a number of reasons, but treating statistics as character knowledge isn't one of the flaws.



> That's in my world. And, as I noted by quoting the 1st Edition Dungeon Masters Guide, it's perfectly consistent with longtime perceptions of D&D. Gygax himself called it "unreasonable" and "preposterous." I said it was "ridiculous" and I stand by that for the same reasons Gary did. I wasn't trying to bait anybody, but I can't make the "increasing physical injury capacity" opinion make sense in my head.




If you're not trying to bait people, you could try not calling them unreasonable, preposterous, or ridiculous. Such insults are hardly unobtrusive. 

You could also try using a criticism that actually applies. Not "metagame." 



> But play your game your way. If I have to houserule mine to get the game I want, I have no problem doing that. I'd rather not have to deliberately avoid an ambush tactic like S-B-T. People always seem to forget that the DM chooses NOT to do that BACK.
> 
> Do your PCs walk around with all those protections you mentioned up at all times? How would they feel if the BBEG dropped in on them when they were helpless or spent from a hard fight?
> 
> What's good for the goose and all that...




I didn't reveal at all how I play D&D. I just said that 4e should continue to have this strategy be a viable one. And I've said several times that I wouldn't mind in the slightest if it wasn't *as* viable (several of the limitations proposed in this thread, from lead and gorgon's blood and mythril circles to increased casting times to lightening up on the buffs are entirely decent). Because, in my mind, a game like D&D should never say "NO." 

Individual DM's? Sure. The game itself making it more "interesting"? Absolutely. Removing the strategy entirely because some DM's can't be bothered to work around it? Lazy, limiting, and narrowminded, IMO.


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## JohnSnow (Nov 10, 2007)

But to me, metagaming is precisely what it is when the player decides to ignore the obvious reality that lava causes people to burst into flames, because he knows that lava does 20d6 damage and his character has 200 hit points.

That's basing a character decision on "player knowledge" of the game mechanic relationship between the number of hit points the character has and the damage dice of lava.

Now, if _the character_ had fallen into lava before and survived (or witnessed others doing the same), then the character would have a reasonable basis for the decision. Without that experience, the player is metagaming. I really have a hard time understanding how you can interpret it any other way.

The falling mechanic is a little different. I can accept that if Bob the fighter fell 100 feet and survived, he might have a reasonable expectation of doing so in the future. But again, if the player starts comparing "damage codes," he's metagaming.

Does the character know that "a sword does 1d8 damage (+ bonuses)?" No. He knows that when he was a novice fighter, a single thrust from a sword could kill him, but that now he's much better at turning aside those thrusts. The character is most assuredly NOT aware that he has "58 hit points," or whatever, because he doesn't know what a "hit point" is. The player does.

And if the player makes decisions for the character based on comparing "damage codes" that the character doesn't know about, the player is metagaming. The character knows that a greatsword can inflict more damage than a longsword, or that an arrow is less likely to hit a vital target than a rapier, but is far more lethal when it does. The character knows all of this, but terms like 1d6, 2d6, 18-20 x2, x3 and the rest of the game statistics don't mean anything to him. A wizard isn't aware that his 4d6 fireball has the same "damage code" as a critical hit from a greatsword, or a sneak attack by a 5th-level rogue wielding a short sword or rapier.

Using that knowledge is using knowledge of relative game statistics to make decisions. I honestly don't understand how you can say that is NOT metagaming.

As you can tell from the passage I quoted, "preposterous" and "unreasonable" aren't terms I made up. They were in the 1e DMG under the discussion of what hit points represent. I think if we're going to discuss what hit points are supposed to represent in D&D, it's germain to quote what D&D's creator had to say on the subject. And frankly, I think calling it "ridiculous" (which I feel it is) is less inflammatory than what was said _in the DMG._ To anyone who thinks D&D characters are heroic, but still human, suggesting that they can sustain the same amount of _real physical injury_ as several full grown elephants IS ridiculous (i.e. just not reasonable). That's how I view D&D characters - amazingly skilled, blessed, resilient and lucky, but still human for all of that. And I approach the discussion from that basis.

However, I concede that what is "self-evident" to one person might be regarded as an insult by someone who views the characters differently. However, would you agree that the notion that a normal human could be pierced by 20 arrows and survive is "unreasonable," "preposterous," and "ridiculous?"

I concede you may not agree that high-level D&D characters are "normal humans," but if that's the case, we've gone around in circles because we come at the discussion from totally different viewpoints.

I'm willing to accept that a character can sustain more physical damage than a normal human, but my SoD on the ability to sustain real physical injury breaks down before we get to 30 hit points. However, the game still works for me because I see hit points as a narrative abstraction that covers a lot more than just one's ability to sustain physical harm.

Moving on to keep this on topic (S-B-T)...



			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> I just said that 4e should continue to have this strategy be a viable one. And I've said several times that I wouldn't mind in the slightest if it wasn't *as* viable (several of the limitations proposed in this thread, from lead and gorgon's blood and mythril circles to increased casting times to lightening up on the buffs are entirely decent). Because, in my mind, a game like D&D should never say "NO."
> 
> Individual DM's? Sure. The game itself making it more "interesting"? Absolutely. Removing the strategy entirely because some DM's can't be bothered to work around it? Lazy, limiting, and narrowminded, IMO.




If the majority feels the tactic needs to be nerfed or removed entirely, then it should. There's no reason the game should contain anything that the vast majority of its player base changes. "It was in 3e" is a bad reason to keep something in the game. But more importantly, the question is: does this tactic make the game more fun for the majority of gamers?

Based on what I've heard, I'd guess the answer to the last question is "no." I think most people would rather see it removed, just like they'd like to see the 15-minute adventuring day problem gotten rid of. However, if it works for someone's game, they can houserule it "in" as easy as those "lazy, limited, and narrowminded" DMs can houserule it "out."

And if most groups would rather not have to deal with it, then that's how it should be handled. However, I admit I might be wrong on whether people would rather see it removed or left in. And if the majority wants it kept, I have no problem houseruling it out.

That does beg an interesting question though. With 4e stripping out the ability to "go nova" in a single encounter, has it become less of a "no-brainer" strategy than it was before? If the advantage is minor, I imagine the tactic won't get used much.


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## I'm A Banana (Nov 10, 2007)

> But to me, metagaming is precisely what it is when the player decides to ignore the obvious reality that lava causes people to burst into flames, because he knows that lava does 20d6 damage and his character has 200 hit points.




Comparative knowledge. Dealing an average of about 70 points of damage, the character has seen other things do comparable damage in different ways. Say he's taken full damage from a Red Great Wyrm's breath weapon and lived to tell the tale. The sages say that a Great Red Wyrm's breath is hotter than any volcano. He's taken it full unawares (failed his save) and lived to tell the tale. 

He knows he can handle a slight skip across the magma (or whatever).  



> Now, if the character had fallen into lava before and survived (or witnessed others doing the same), then the character would have a reasonable basis for the decision. Without that experience, the player is metagaming. I really have a hard time understanding how you can interpret it any other way.




The character does have an awareness of the capacity for destruction inherent in lava, in falling, and in anything that has ever struck him ever. Compared to a red dragon's breath, lava is a warm bath. Compared to both, a goblin warrior's morningstar isn't a threat (even held against his head, the fighter is immensely more skilled and faster than that warrior, and his skull's probably hardier, too). If he survived one, he can survive the other.

Of course, just like in real life, this comparative knowledge is flawed: perhaps the DM rolled low for the red dragon's breath attack, perhaps he'll roll high for lava damage. Nothing is assured. But this is fully in-character knowledge: red dragon breath burns hotter than lava. 

He has many ways for accessing this knowledge (my favorite is in-character research), but the CHARACTER can have this knowledge. I assume that people who spend the amount of time plundering dangerous ancient ruins for gold that 20th level characters have spent will certainly have a working awareness of the comparative lethality of common dungeon hazards (such as lava). 



> The falling mechanic is a little different. I can accept that if Bob the fighter fell 100 feet and survived, he might have a reasonable expectation of doing so in the future. But again, if the player starts comparing "damage codes," he's metagaming.




I don't have to get bitten by anything to know that I have a better chance of surviving a grass snake bite than a black mamba bite, and I don't need to catch rabies to know that an animal foaming at the mouth might have rabies. I can know that because it's knowledge that I can acquire that exists in the world. Similarly, in D&D, dangers like lava and great wyrm red dragons can very easily be known quantities to those characters who have an avid interest in them (and with the existence of adventuring bards, who trace the accounts, and wizards, who study the world's physics, it is quite likely that the more common adventuring hazards ARE well documented -- perhaps not great wyrm red dragons, but almost certainly falling). 

I don't have to endure a hardship to be able to guess if I can survive it. I can compare it to other hardships I've experienced. Thus, this wonderful comparative mind of mine can estimate risk (something that adventurers would probably be very adept at). Knowing the effects of lava, and knowing the effects of gravity, and knowing the effects of dragon breath, would allow a character to have a reasonable chance to estimate the chances of their survival in a fall, into lava, after being knocked over by dragon breath. It might also be able to tell them how well they might be able to survive a wizard's fireball.



> Using that knowledge is using knowledge of relative game statistics to make decisions. I honestly don't understand how you can say that is NOT metagaming.




Because the effect of damage is an in-character effect that can be measured by the greybeards and adventurers of the setting, related to the next generation, and generally learned like human culture has learned to deal with any trouble it experiences. I don't need to know the FORT DC of the common cold vs. the FORT DC of AIDS, or have experienced either, to know that one is more likely to kill me than the other. 

Similarly, a fighter who is aware of the swath of destruction wrought by a great wyrm red dragon whose breath he has survived, and who is aware of the swath of destruction wrought by a volcano whose magma he has not presently survived, can compare the two and arrive at a reasonable estimation of his survival odds, *completely in character*.

And there's nothing metagame whatsoever about any of that. GOLD PIECES are more metagame than this. 



> That's how I view D&D characters - amazingly skilled, blessed, resilient and lucky, but still human for all of that. And I approach the discussion from that basis.




It might assist things if you REMOVE this particular bias. Don't assume that you have the only valid operational definition of D&D characters. Things will go smoother. 



> But more importantly, the question is: does this tactic make the game more fun for the majority of gamers?
> 
> Based on what I've heard, I'd guess the answer to the last question is "no."




But the answer to that isn't "get rid of it." It's "make the tactic more fun." There's a huge continuum between what 3.5 has now and "nothing" that is being ignored in the rush to find a solution to a problem that some DM's have. That problem deserves a solution, but "nix it" is a lazy solution that completely lacks imagination.



> That does beg an interesting question though. With 4e stripping out the ability to "go nova" in a single encounter, has it become less of a "no-brainer" strategy than it was before? If the advantage is minor, I imagine the tactic won't get used much.




I think it won't be a problem because:

#1: 4e won't have much in the way of buffs. 
#2: How scrying works will probably change
#3: How teleporting works will probably change.

This will at the very least refine and limit the tactic.


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## Lanefan (Nov 10, 2007)

Hussar said:
			
		

> The fighter who jumps off the cliff, the fighter who walks on lava, never actually does that.  We know that because he survives.  You are placing the narative ahead of the mechanics.  The mechanics say that he crossed the lava, or fell off the cliff and survived.  It's now up to you to justify that - maybe there were cool spots in the lava, maybe he hit shrubs on the way down.



Except he *does* do that, leaving the DM in a position of having to justify the unjustifyable.  When put in that position, common sense should trump mechanics outright.

Some damage is almost un-quantifyable by hit points.  On the odd occasion I've actually said to a player, in effect, "I don't care *how* many hit points you have, realistically this isn't something anybody could survive".  One such example came in the 1e module "Pharoah" (I3) where a PC stepped out of the opening (thinking it an illusion) across from the boat with the Gem in the bow, and fell 10,000 very non-illusionary feet onto the top of a pyramid.  Someone asked me how much damage *was* taken, so just for the hell of it I picked up my dice bag, tipped it out (about 50 dice of all sizes), and started counting.  The PC finished at -126 h.p.

Swimming in lava would be another such example, though here a high-h.p. PC might survive a round or two while the armour melted.

Lanefan


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## I'm A Banana (Nov 10, 2007)

> "I don't care *how* many hit points you have, realistically this isn't something anybody could survive".




Surviving the unsurvivable is what adventurers and PC's do on a _daily basis_.

You just recognize a different upper limit than D&D. Which is fine, but that doesn't mean that the epic hero who can grit his teeth and swim through magma isn't a valid character. Mythic characters throughout history have done weirder and more impossible things, and those myths are part of the inspiration for D&D, too.


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## Primitive Screwhead (Nov 10, 2007)

Random thought..

 if the issue is the 200+hp fighter putting the DM in the quandry of narrating the 'swim' across lava... why not simply rule that any attack that deals more that 10 {base} dice of damage affects the characters equipment as well?

Somehow I doubt few characters would then choose to take a dip into a lava bath {'cept maybe a VoP Monk...but them guys/gals are _special_  }

{10 chosen because most non-epic spells cap at 10 dice of damage... and there-for would not qualify for this effect}

Alternatively, change the Mass Damage rule to have a scaling Fort Save, making it mean something at the higher levels.

I also like the "Nat 1's apply to CON" rule...and the 'Clobbered' Variant from the DMG 

Yup, I am typing too much.. back to your regularly schedules disagreement!


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## Hussar (Nov 10, 2007)

I could certainly live with new falling rules and rules for "obviously things that should kill you" sort of events.

OTOH, does this really come up all that often?  How often are people swimming in lava?  Heck, how often do you see a character deliberately swimming in lava?


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## Rel (Nov 10, 2007)

Hussar said:
			
		

> How often are people swimming in lava?  Heck, how often do you see a character deliberately swimming in lava?




Under the new ruleset, I think it will be less often than currently.


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## Rel (Nov 10, 2007)

Primitive Screwhead said:
			
		

> Joke or serious?
> {or in other words, link/news post?}




I'm serious but also bound by a very tight NDA.


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## Primitive Screwhead (Nov 10, 2007)

Sign me up a a playtest/proof-reader then 

-- or.. I could just wait


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## shilsen (Nov 10, 2007)

Lanefan said:
			
		

> Except he *does* do that, leaving the DM in a position of having to justify the unjustifyable.  When put in that position, common sense should trump mechanics outright.




Maybe I'm a cynic, but I generally find that common sense is neither common, very often not sensible, and usually translates to mean 'what I believe' more than anything objective. And I think that what is reasonable and common sense in the game world very often differs drastically from that in our world. For example, it's common sense that someone with no magical aid would be unable to fire five arrows in six seconds and hit a target a quarter of a mile away, but a high enough level character in the D&D world can do that. High level characters in D&D are akin to the most powerful of mythic heroes and to superheroes, and they can and do break the laws of our normal reality on a daily basis.


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## VirgilCaine (Nov 11, 2007)

Calico_Jack73 said:
			
		

> The SBT tactic is like skipping to the end of a novel... you miss the story in between.




What everyone seems to leave out of this whole conversation is how _easy_ it is to foil Scrying and to foil Teleport.

Scrying: Wear a disguise or a mask or a full-face helmet. Don't announce your name or title and don't use any identifying markings or insignia. Or you could use magic (Disguise/Alter Self, Wildshape, Invisibility, etc. etc.) 

Have minions refer to the organization by name and never reference the leader or individual members name's--excellent for LE groups.

You could come up with all kinds of ways like this to avoid giving away information.

Also theres the time wasted (1 hour casting time+ 24 hours of no scrying on that subject) when the target saves against the spell. 

Teleport: BBEGs (and Good Guys) should inhabit ancient temples/castles/fortresses that have been remodeled and fought over a dozen times because they've got Forbiddance spells in place, or places near volcanoes, paint pots, geysers, or Permanenced Control Weather spells or other large scale Permanenced effects or Hallowed/Unhallowed areas...any number of things...all of these things make teleportation more hazardous and don't do anything to trigger Teleport Without Error's clauses. 

Not to mention the difficulty of establishing both location AND layout of a place using only a 10' radius of sight. 

More active measures including having bodyguards with you at all times, including while sleeping. Have your minions sleep in barracks-style sleeping arrangements. 

These sorts of steps make S-B-T much more of a time-waster and a crapshoot and something to only be attempted under the most dire of circumstances.


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## Lackhand (Nov 11, 2007)

_Contact Other Plane_, _Commune_, and _Divination_ in various mixtures can help get the name of That Masked Individual.

The arms-race is pretty easy to win, when it comes to bringing Scry into play, because up until the scry goes off, there's not much sign that someone is hunting around.

Counteracting teleport's not a bad idea either, but I like using natural effects more than using _Forbiddance_s from ages past: "You mean _this_ castle is forbiddance'd, too? Man, those magi from ages past had a lot of free time!"

If these sorts of nerfs are going to come up with the kind of frequency that would be necessary to encourage good adventuring, it would be nice if the spells warned the player that this was going to happen in their text. I suggest nerfing Teleport, since it seems to be a bigger problem than Scry, but YMMV, since this is pretty much a choice thing between information/ability.

Especially because, as other posters have pointed out, suspension of disbelief goes _twang_ when organized magic-type badguys don't use the very effective scry/buff/teleport combo on the players, who cannot possibly benefit from all of the clever protective measures.


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## Kraydak (Nov 11, 2007)

Lackhand said:
			
		

> _Contact Other Plane_, _Commune_, and _Divination_ in various mixtures can help get the name of That Masked Individual.
> 
> The arms-race is pretty easy to win, when it comes to bringing Scry into play, because up until the scry goes off, there's not much sign that someone is hunting around.




None of those spells are useful in finding names unless you have a *lot* of xp to burn.  You only get yes/nos, and not even that from _Divination_.  Add in the ease of blocking Scrying (_Private Sanctum_) and SBT only really applies if the DM hates BBEGs with access to spells.  I have the same amount of sympathy for such DMs as I have for people who think its unfair that you can't run a modern competative military without at least an answer for air power.

(Yes, leaving your warded areas is dangerous.  That said, _Nondetection_ and above all _Detect Scrying_+emergency teleports suffice)


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## Lackhand (Nov 11, 2007)

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/demon.htm#quasit said:
			
		

> Once per week a quasit can use commune to ask six questions. The ability otherwise works as the spell (caster level 12th).




I'm a *little* worried about players using SBT on the bad guys who are incautious in their use of anti-SBT tactics.

I'm a *lot* worried about villains returning the favor.

I suspect that this is in many ways a playstyle thing: I am very much opposed to using very specific spells to cancel a class of effects as a balance for that class of effects being "too good", where "too good" is very very situation dependent.   

It kills character concepts to me: every anti-scry measure is going to be Abjuration or Illusion, because that's what breaks divination. Some villains (insane warmage? Vile necromancer?) may not care a whit for divination or illusion. It doesn't seem unreasonable to still want to use them in an adventure as the BBEG without them having a pet thaumaturge.

I suspect seeing Scry/Buff/Teleport-countermeasures as a foil for the strength of the technique correlates strongly with enjoying save or die effects. They're very similar in that they both have a character who is perfectly fine with the proper wards up, completely screwed if any wards are missing (assuming that the DM is a jerk, which relatively little can prevent    ).

Nothing wrong with that, but not for me.


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## Zweischneid (Nov 11, 2007)

lukelightning said:
			
		

> As for lava, realistically speaking (yeah, big mistake!) lava is virtually as dense as stone. Sure, it's a liquid, but it is still stone, so falling into a lava pool wouldn't mean you sink to the bottom; you'd still be resting on the surface, sinking in only a small amount.
> 
> Of course you'd probably also be bursting into flames....




Oh boy, now that's some very flawed physics there. 

You know that a materials aggregate state changes depending on temperature? If you heat up metal to be liquid, you'll most certainly sink in it. If you cool down water enough to be solid (i.e. Ice), you'll have a hard impact. 

Therefore, if you keep heating stone, it'll get increasingly more fluid meaning that yes, you will sink into it.. as easy as into water if you make it hot enough (lava as we see it is usually rather sluggish because it is already cooling down again).


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## Lackhand (Nov 11, 2007)

Zweischneid said:
			
		

> Oh boy, now that's some very flawed physics there.
> 
> You know that a materials aggregate state changes depending on temperature? If you heat up metal to be liquid, you'll most certainly sink in it. If you cool down water enough to be solid (i.e. Ice), you'll have a hard impact.
> 
> Therefore, if you keep heating stone, it'll get increasingly more fluid meaning that yes, you will sink into it.. as easy as into water if you make it hot enough (lava as we see it is usually rather sluggish because it is already cooling down again).




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Displacement_(fluid)
SCIENCE: if the weight of a human is less than the density of lava * the amount displaced, the human will float.

Using rough calculations from the internet, the human body seems to have a density of 985 kg per meter cubed (slightly denser after an exhale) -- contrast that with 1000 kg per meter cubed for water at 4 degrees Celsius.

Lava is denser -- much much denser -- than water. Most rocks expand about 10 percent when they melt, and hence most magmas have a density of about 90 percent of the equivalent solid rock (according to encarta) -- and basalt has a density of 3011 kg/m^3, which at 90%, puts it at a nice 2710 kg/m^3.

The human body will sink a distance in the lava sufficient to displace their mass (it would be volume, if they sunk all the way, but they float, so they don't!). If the human weighs (with equipment) 100 kg, then they will sink in a volume sufficient to displace 100 kg of the lava.
That's 100 kg / 2710 (kg/m^3) or .037 m^3; I don't know how much of a person that is, but it's hard to imagine it's much more than above the knees.

(whether one can keep their footing is a question of the viscosity of the lava, and the inflammability of the pants; it's left as an exercise for the reader.)


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## Jack99 (Nov 11, 2007)

Nifft said:
			
		

> In my current game, I do the incoming warning thing.
> 
> Teleportation is loud. _Dimension door_ (and below) all make a *bamph!* sound. _Teleport_ itself is like a thunderclap. _Plane shift_ is artillery. And _gate_? Yeah. You'll know. Cities dislike allowing permanent _teleport circles_ within their walls, but if they do allow them, they're closed at night.
> 
> ...




I am gonna steal that, if you don't mind. Hell, mind all you want, I will steal it anyway   , just the fix I was looking for.


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## I'm A Banana (Nov 12, 2007)

> Counteracting teleport's not a bad idea either, but I like using natural effects more than using Forbiddances from ages past: "You mean this castle is forbiddance'd, too? Man, those magi from ages past had a lot of free time!"




But that's exactly like choosing to fight a tank with a stone axe. Just because you like more natural strategies doesn't mean it should be a good idea to employ them when your enemies are obviously not limited in that way.

If someone uses magic against you, and you choose not to use magic against them (or to protect yourself), you SHOULD be at a disadvantage, in a world where the magic is available. 

If you limit yourself to certain schools of magic and don't shore up that weakness, you SHOULD be vulnerable. 

It's like choosing not to boost your Will save. Your Will save, then, will be a weak point, and you SHOULD succumb to spells like _charm person_. This doesn't make _charm person_ too powerful. It makes it a good tactic to use against creatures who leave themselves open and vulnerable.

In D&D, if a villain has a weakness, the characters SHOULD exploit it. If that weakness is an inability or lack of desire to use the magic at their disposal, the players SHOULD win against it.

Not that it should be as binary as it is now, but charm person SHOULD be effective against people who don't have good Will saves, and S-B-T SHOULD be effective against people who don't try to counteract scrying, buffing, or teleporting. Not a formula for instant success like it is now, but still an advantageous tactic.


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## Hussar (Nov 12, 2007)

> Not that it should be as binary as it is now, but charm person SHOULD be effective against people who don't have good Will saves, and S-B-T SHOULD be effective against people who don't try to counteract scrying, buffing, or teleporting. Not a formula for instant success like it is now, but still an advantageous tactic.




Now I'll agree with.  It's not that S-B-T is a viable tactic, it's that it's too viable.  It's so good that all other tactics are overshone.  I could certainly live with the idea of S-B-T being viable.  

The trick is, how?  How do you make it so that the party or the villain can know exactly where someone is, get ready and then bamf right on top of him, and keep that in line with other tactics?  Better instead to not allow teleporting through scrying.  You can get close to the target with teleport, but, not right on top.


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## Kraydak (Nov 12, 2007)

Hussar said:
			
		

> Now I'll agree with.  It's not that S-B-T is a viable tactic, it's that it's too viable.




It is an only semi-viable tactic that can be countered by a spell of the same level (private sanctum) or a pair of 4th and 5th level spells (detect scrying + an evasive teleport).  *IF* people prepare, SBT isn't viable unless used against people you can already crush casually.  Given detect scrying's counter scry ability, S-B-T is actively dangerous.


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## Hussar (Nov 12, 2007)

Kraydak said:
			
		

> It is an only semi-viable tactic that can be countered by a spell of the same level (private sanctum) or a pair of 4th and 5th level spells (detect scrying + an evasive teleport).  *IF* people prepare, SBT isn't viable unless used against people you can already crush casually.  Given detect scrying's counter scry ability, S-B-T is actively dangerous.




That's only true if you are chasing wizards.  Or those with access to wizards.

How many demons or devils can cast any of those spells you list?  How about giants?  Or an advanced basilisk?

It's not that easy to counter, unless the DM starts playing silly buggers and has EVERY adventure include counters.  In which case, why bother having it in the first place if it's going to be countered every time?


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## I'm A Banana (Nov 12, 2007)

> The trick is, how? How do you make it so that the party or the villain can know exactly where someone is, get ready and then bamf right on top of him, and keep that in line with other tactics? Better instead to not allow teleporting through scrying. You can get close to the target with teleport, but, not right on top.




A few of the options mentioned in this thread are pretty good ideas (mythril circles to re-direct it, gorgon's blood to prevent it, the multiple strategies against it). 

The idea is to give creatures without access to wizard magic the ability to prevent, redirect, and otherwise mess with teleports through other means. Make Private Sanctum something that any character can mimic (though perhaps spending more time, gold, and effort than a Wizard spell could do), and you've largely eradicated the problem.


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## VirgilCaine (Nov 12, 2007)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> The idea is to give *creatures without access to wizard magic* the ability to prevent, redirect, and otherwise mess with teleports through other means. Make Private Sanctum something that any character can mimic (though perhaps spending more time, gold, and effort than a Wizard spell could do), and you've largely eradicated the problem.




Forbiddance, Hallow, and Unhallow are all Cleric spells. Druids also get Hallow and Unhallow. Dimensional Anchor is a Cleric spell. 

Check my sig for a non-magical way to make SBTers cry. I define natural energy as geologic or meteorological in origin, but you could also define it as living things--plants and animals. Rain forests and jungles would be bad places to try and teleport into.

Also, again, tell me how you can localize someone's location from a 10' radius of sight around them.


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## AllisterH (Nov 12, 2007)

VirgilCaine said:
			
		

> Forbiddance, Hallow, and Unhallow are all Cleric spells. Druids also get Hallow and Unhallow. Dimensional Anchor is a Cleric spell.
> 
> .




Er, what people mention "creatures without access to wizardly magic" the default assumption includes clerical magic.


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## VirgilCaine (Nov 12, 2007)

AllisterH said:
			
		

> Er, what people mention "creatures without access to wizardly magic" the default assumption includes clerical magic.




That's not what he _said_.


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## Kraydak (Nov 12, 2007)

AllisterH said:
			
		

> Er, what people mention "creatures without access to wizardly magic" the default assumption includes clerical magic.




If you try to run as a BBEG w/o magic at high levels, you deserve to get splattered.  If you aren't a BBEG, who cares (enough to SBT you, at least)?

(Mind, noticing a Scry sensor *really* should be a spot check rather than an int check... and *remember* that that check exists.  If the scryer is part of the buffing crew, it'll give the scryee time to prepare or flee)


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## Hussar (Nov 12, 2007)

Kraydak said:
			
		

> If you try to run as a BBEG w/o magic at high levels, you deserve to get splattered.  If you aren't a BBEG, who cares (enough to SBT you, at least)?
> 
> (Mind, noticing a Scry sensor *really* should be a spot check rather than an int check... and *remember* that that check exists.  If the scryer is part of the buffing crew, it'll give the scryee time to prepare or flee)




So, I should NEVER use demons or devils as BBEG?  Cos, last time I checked, they don't have access by RAW to either wizard or clerical magic.  Or, I should be constrained every time I want to use a demon or devil to automatically include a high level cleric/wizard side kick?

Never mind creatures like the Tarrasque.  Or any of the really big critter monsters like Abyssal advanced basilisks.  Or the fact that vermin go up to CR 20.  Or... or ... or.  I should be forced by the rules to ONLY use high level casters as BBEG's.  Ummm, no thanks.


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## Kraydak (Nov 13, 2007)

Hussar said:
			
		

> So, I should NEVER use demons or devils as BBEG?  Cos, last time I checked, they don't have access by RAW to either wizard or clerical magic.  Or, I should be constrained every time I want to use a demon or devil to automatically include a high level cleric/wizard side kick?




SBT against people with greater teleport is only interesting if you are really generous with the surprise round (and given that the teleportees don't know where they are landing exactly, I'm not sure why you would).  You port in, buffed.  They port out and return a few tens of minutes later.  End result: *you* are down a bunch of spell slots.



> Never mind creatures like the Tarrasque.  Or any of the really big critter monsters like Abyssal advanced basilisks.  Or the fact that vermin go up to CR 20.  Or... or ... or.  I should be forced by the rules to ONLY use high level casters as BBEG's.  Ummm, no thanks.




*blink*
If the PCs *want* to scry on and jump an abyssal basilisk, more power to them.  The creature has an int of *3*.  You could just as easily Ropetrick-Buff-Exit Ropetrick.  Or Fly.  Heck, the basilisk has no protection against _levitate_, a simple second level spell.  If you are going to complain about the vulnerability of vermin to SBT, the threat of _Fly_ is far greater.  SBT a late arriving spell combo which can only beaten by magic.  Flight and Greater invis are lower level and easier to pull off.  SBT isn't unique.

And no, you certainly aren't forced to use only high level casters as BBEGs.  I never said you were.  I said you were forced to use people with or with access to people with magic.  A lvl 18 fighter BBEG needs magic support.  Duh.  If your lvl 18 fighter BBEG doesn't bother recruiting magical support, he deserves what he has coming (namely a rapid realization that he never qualified for BBEGdom).


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## VirgilCaine (Nov 13, 2007)

Kraydak said:
			
		

> If you try to run as a BBEG w/o magic at high levels, you deserve to get splattered.  If you aren't a BBEG, who cares (enough to SBT you, at least)?
> 
> (Mind, noticing a Scry sensor *really* should be a spot check rather than an int check... and *remember* that that check exists.  If the scryer is part of the buffing crew, it'll give the scryee time to prepare or flee)




In 3.5e, Scrying doesn't create a sensor. You can't notice it, you get a Will save.

This, howeve, raises the question of if you know you failed a will save.


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## Kraydak (Nov 13, 2007)

VirgilCaine said:
			
		

> In 3.5e, Scrying doesn't create a sensor. You can't notice it, you get a Will save.
> 
> This, howeve, raises the question of if you know you failed a will save.




PHB p.173, under *Divination*.  Note further that _Scrying_ has Effect:magical sensor.

(The rules are quite well hidden, I will admit)


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## VirgilCaine (Nov 13, 2007)

Kraydak said:
			
		

> PHB p.173, under *Divination*.  Note further that _Scrying_ has Effect:magical sensor.
> 
> (The rules are quite well hidden, I will admit)




Whaaat? That's a ridiculous layout decision! That only applies to, what, Scrying and Greater Scrying? Put it in the spell description of Scrying and you're covered!

But more importantly, LEAD SHEETING BLOCKS SCRYING!11!ONEone

Whee! There's your answer, folks!

This was added in 3.5, as I just checked my 3.0 PHB and it wasn't there.


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## Kraydak (Nov 13, 2007)

VirgilCaine said:
			
		

> Whaaat? That's a ridiculous layout decision! That only applies to, what, Scrying and Greater Scrying? Put it in the spell description of Scrying and you're covered!
> 
> But more importantly, LEAD SHEETING BLOCKS SCRYING!11!ONEone
> 
> ...




Note that the lead sheeting comment isn't entirely clear... _Arcane Eye_ is also a (scrying) spell, and lead sheeting doesn't *seem* to apply.


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## VirgilCaine (Nov 13, 2007)

Kraydak said:
			
		

> Note that the lead sheeting comment isn't entirely clear... _Arcane Eye_ is also a (scrying) spell, and lead sheeting doesn't *seem* to apply.




How _could_ it apply? I don't think you can create it through walls and all it does is see normally, IIRC.


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## VirgilCaine (Nov 13, 2007)

Double tap.


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## Ahglock (Nov 13, 2007)

VirgilCaine said:
			
		

> Whaaat? That's a ridiculous layout decision! That only applies to, what, Scrying and Greater Scrying? Put it in the spell description of Scrying and you're covered!
> 
> But more importantly, LEAD SHEETING BLOCKS SCRYING!11!ONEone
> 
> ...




Um damn I don't know how I missed that.  I had kept that rule from 2e, just didn't know it was official.


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## VirgilCaine (Nov 13, 2007)

Ahglock said:
			
		

> Um damn I don't know how I missed that.  I had kept that rule from 2e, just didn't know it was official.




Not hard to miss at all--it's in the magic chapter and it's a single line in a section that's not much bigger than in the previous edition. Many people (like myself) were probably too occupied figuring out the new weapon damage scaling table and square horses to notice.


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## Baby Samurai (Nov 13, 2007)

VirgilCaine said:
			
		

> and square horses to notice.




Well, they're Kobe horses, so they're fat.


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## Hussar (Nov 13, 2007)

Ummm... Blink blink, blink.  Crap.  LOL.  Thanks for that.  I never noticed that one before.


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## The Shaman (Dec 6, 2010)

Mathew_Freeman said:


> One thing that occours to me is to cease the idea that killing the leader of a group automatically destroys the whole group.



Did you ever play _Squad Leader_?


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## Dausuul (Dec 6, 2010)

Clearly I should not have watched all those episodes of "The Walking Dead" last night. Now I'm worried this thread is gonna bite me.


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## The Shaman (Dec 6, 2010)

*_facepalm_*

Okay, it's like this - that *Matthew_Freeman* post was quoted in another thread in another forum, so I followed the link and replied to it . . . and never noticed I changed forums, _and decades_, in the process.

Please pardon the interruption. Nothing to see here. You can go about your business. Move along. Move along.


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## jonesy (Dec 6, 2010)

The Shaman said:


> Okay, it's like this - that *Matthew_Freeman* post was quoted in another thread in another forum, so I followed the link and replied to it . . . and never noticed I changed forums, _and decades_, in the process.



Sadly I must spread some exp around before giving it to you.


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