Waypoint Style Teleportation

TarkisFlux · Post by **TarkisFlux** » Wed Feb 01, 2012 6:57 am

The teleport changes in the Tomes work well enough, but don't really do it for me. I've been working on a replacement for teleport on the wiki (based on a spell I did years ago), and thought I'd offer it up for scrutiny.

Project goals:

Restrict destinations in order to add a bit of "the journey" back in to higher level games (but not too much). Allow characters to add their own and discover new destinations.
Rework long distance teleport effects so they can fit in at a lower spell level.
Make teleport ambushes require a bit more work and preparation. This is mostly so I don't have to work as hard to justify to myself why I haven't used them against characters (or their family, friends, contacts, support structure, etc.) while they are still becoming a real threat and they can't defend against them.
Restrict teleport escapes a bit, and make them harder to pull off.

I've added a new descriptor to hopefully streamline a few effects, replaced the entire teleport line (including rules for replacing it on creatures who had it innately), and updated a bunch of others to work with the waypoint style. I plan on adding several new effects in a while, but it's entirely useable at present. Here's the project link: Waypoint Style Teleportation.

And here's the intro blurb from the page, in case you wanted to see the general shape of things before you clicked on the link:

Teleportation is a wondrous ability that allows instantaneous and relatively safe transit between two known locations. Unfortunately, its form in Dungeons and Dragons supports narrative elements that we don't much care for. Teleport makes for an amazing last moment escape spell and can rob you of a complete victory over your foes, or them a complete victory over you, with little cost or drama. In combination with scrying, it can become an ambush spell. The ability to travel to any place you've seen means that you can scry a location or enemy, prepare for them, teleport there and deal with them while they're surprised, and then teleport back. And while there are certainly countermeasures for this sort of tactic, they are often unreasonable to apply for every enemy the characters may have or for all of the characters and their friends to have these defenses against their enemies. Aside from that, the ability to find a location remotely and travel there instantly eliminates exploration aspects from stories. In a number of stories and games the journey to a place is half of the entertainment, and it is lost if you can just cast around it.

In many games these issues don't arise, and that's fine. But we feel that there's room for improvement with teleportation style effects, improvements that allow us to retain the narrative elements we like while removing some of the potentially problematic elements.

A large portion of the issues with teleport arise not from the transit itself, but from the ability to select your destination from literally anywhere. So the core changes here will be to remove the ability of teleportion spells to travel to any location, and instead limit the destinations. We do this by creating a new descriptor for teleportation spells and updating the rules for all spells of this type. To address the narrative issues with teleport retreats we will add minor updates to some spells and replace others, eliminating the Teleport line of spells in favor of the new Warp line of spells. The new spells require additional time to use and can be followed relatively easily, so they are much more difficult to use for ambushes or last minute escapes. We will also add a few new offensive, defensive, and simply narrative utility effects that work with these new rules. Lastly, we will also provide conversion information for existing characters and monsters, so that those who could previously teleport all over the battlefield don't lose too much ability.

Comments, criticisms, suggestions, lambasting, and bored silence welcome.

Vebyast · Post by **Vebyast** » Wed Feb 01, 2012 7:34 am

Your link is busted. Spurious quotes. Fixed version here for you to copy: Waypoint Style Teleportation.

I think that the mechanics work; I've used almost identical house rules before with no problems. I haven't read many of the updated or new spells, but Warp and Pursue Warp also seem reasonable.

Personally, I'd add a higher-level Greater Pursue Warp at around eighth level, with no failure chance and a much larger carrying capacity. Right now, warping out is still worth it in many situations - the pursuer has a chance to fail just like you do, and even if he succeeds your warp has eliminated the pursuer's numerical advantages and moved the fight to a (probably pre-prepped) location of your choice. That's the only real issue that popped out of a cursory inspection, though.

Another alternative would be to add a new "Trace Warp" spell that lets you learn the anchor sigil that someone just warped to. This would give the pursuer a few hours to pile in a starfire-style warp point assault while the fleeing party resets his anchor sigil.

[edit: didn't expect you to respond to this post so quickly. for later readers, everything after the bar is an [edit]].

TarkisFlux · Post by **TarkisFlux** » Wed Feb 01, 2012 7:52 am

Thanks. Fixed that.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Wed Feb 01, 2012 8:23 am

One odd idea I had for teleport escapes--

Make the Teleport have an area of effect. Like, you bring everyone within a small radius with you. So if someone can get in close to you when the spell hits, they're coming with you. And you also don't lightly teleport out of a fight, because someone could run in on you. Especially if you gave teleport a two-round casting time.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Wed Feb 01, 2012 7:52 pm

I like this idea. I think that the idea of making the warp spells AoEs is also a great idea, that fits very nicely with the 1d4+3 round delay, although I'd probably change the delay to 1d6 rounds.

The 'pursue warp' idea is a good one too, but I'd change it to detect astral disturbance, which would let you see where teleportation effects have been used (with a caster level check to see how far back), and another check (arcana, planar knowledge, or caster level) to figure out the anchor well enough to use it or scry on it.

BearsAreBrown · Post by **BearsAreBrown** » Wed Feb 01, 2012 8:31 pm

Love the idea. I also like the idea of forced variable AoE on lowest level teleports.

I think the rules for creating a Sigil are unnecessarily complex. However, I do not have a suggested fix so I suck.

TarkisFlux · Post by **TarkisFlux** » Wed Feb 01, 2012 10:26 pm

Vebyast wrote:Personally, I'd add a higher-level Greater Pursue Warp at around eighth level, with no failure chance and a much larger carrying capacity. Right now, warping out is still worth it in many situations - the pursuer has a chance to fail just like you do, and even if he succeeds your warp has eliminated the pursuer's numerical advantages and moved the fight to a (probably pre-prepped) location of your choice. That's the only real issue that popped out of a cursory inspection, though.

I'll kick that around. I'm also considering replacing the default failure chance with an increasing DC caster level check. It doesn't address the capacity concern (which might disappear pending AoE changes), but would that cover the decreasing failure sufficiently well?

Vebyast wrote:Another alternative would be to add a new "Trace Warp" spell that lets you learn the anchor sigil that someone just warped to. This would give the pursuer a few hours to pile in a starfire-style warp point assault while the fleeing party resets his anchor sigil.

Yes, thanks for pointing these out. Stealing them from the psionics line was planned at one point, but then I forgot about them. They'll be added back in eventually, but I don't know that they support the sort of assaults you're suggesting. Any time you give your opponents is time they could be spending tearing down the anchor (if applicable) or teleporting to another location entirely, either of which breaks the assault plan without additional work on the pursuer's part.

Though now that I think about it, I should probably decide if you can scry anchors or not...

CatharzGodfoot wrote:I like this idea. I think that the idea of making the warp spells AoEs is also a great idea, that fits very nicely with the 1d4+3 round delay, although I'd probably change the delay to 1d6 rounds.

I'm not a fan of the flat 1d6 rounds. It has too large a range for my tastes, and I don't want people to actually get it off within a round. If you need a fast escape, you go with the (now lower level because you can pursue it) word of recall.

The AoE thing is interesting. As long as you know how long you have to wait you can try to avoid being clumped together while you wait. And then I could scrap the carrying capacity stuff, and just let it warp whatever fit inside the area.

CatharzGodfoot wrote:The 'pursue warp' idea is a good one too, but I'd change it to detect astral disturbance, which would let you see where teleportation effects have been used (with a caster level check to see how far back), and another check (arcana, planar knowledge, or caster level) to figure out the anchor well enough to use it or scry on it.

Yeah... not doing astral disturbance. I want teleportation effects separate from plane hopping effects, for fluff and potential mechanics reasons. But a bunch of this should fall out of importing the psionic stuff, so consider this coming soon under a different name.

BearsAreBrown wrote:I think the rules for creating a Sigil are unnecessarily complex. However, I do not have a suggested fix so I suck.

I'll see if I can think of anything for that. They were written years ago, and not really updated mechanically when I started compiling and organizing everything else here.

Vebyast · Post by **Vebyast** » Wed Feb 01, 2012 11:58 pm

TarkisFlux wrote:I'll kick that around. I'm also considering replacing the default failure chance with an increasing DC caster level check. It doesn't address the capacity concern (which might disappear pending AoE changes), but would that cover the decreasing failure sufficiently well?

Hmm. That could work, depending on how low the check starts and how fast the difficulty increases. It would increase with time elapsed since the last Warp, I assume?

BearsAreBrown wrote:I think the rules for creating a Sigil are unnecessarily complex. However, I do not have a suggested fix so I suck.

I think that there are a few conceptual requirements for warp points:
[*] You need to be able to learn a warp point without actually going there. You want to be able to do warp point assaults, you want to be able to enter a new city by warping there, and you want to be able to open a dungeon by finding its warp key in an ancient library.
[*] Warp Points need to be modified on strategic timescales. This opens up a pile of race-against-time narratives, starting with "we know their warp key, but they know that we know, and we have two hours to find a caster to lead a warp point assault".
[*] You need to be able to dig in a warp point so that it takes longer to destroy. This gives you more flexibility when you're designing strategic stuff, in that it makes engagements longer.

The existing mechanics for Sigils cover these well. They add a little bit of randomness to make things more fun, and they add the ability to "rekey" a Warp Point so that losing your key produces a race against time rather than a destroyed base. So I think they're pretty good. The timings are up for tweaking, especially for Hardening, but other than that the mechanic seems reasonable.

BearsAreBrown · Post by **BearsAreBrown** » Thu Feb 02, 2012 3:28 am

The timing and silly scaling skill check for success are my only gripes about Sigils.

Why not just make it a spell? Hardness is now solved by caster levels and cities would use rituals to pump up CL's to keep them strong.

TarkisFlux · Post by **TarkisFlux** » Thu Feb 02, 2012 5:16 am

I have a pretty strong preference for it to not be a spell. I want non-caster sages and low-level wage mages to be able to generate, strengthen, and remove anchor sigils.

The timing thing is not going to get changed much. It's there not just for the things Vebyast pointed out, but also to discourage casual "save point" creation or vandalism by high level characters in the setting. I'm thinking about alternate check mechanics though.

BearsAreBrown · Post by **BearsAreBrown** » Thu Feb 02, 2012 5:28 am

TarkisFlux wrote:I want non-caster sages and low-level wage mages to be able to generate, strengthen, and remove anchor sigils.

Why?

My problem with timing isn't that it taking a long time, it's the 15 minutes per skill check mechanic specifically. For example, the spell could have a cast time of 10 minutes per caster level of Sigil created.

TarkisFlux · Post by **TarkisFlux** » Thu Feb 02, 2012 6:27 am

It's mostly a preference thing, but I also don't see a reason to make people spend spell slots on these things. That said, a spell that let you do it faster and without the failure chance of rolling (if you're not taking 10 for some reason) could be added. I'll kick it around.

[edit - grammar fail]

TarkisFlux · Post by **TarkisFlux** » Thu Feb 09, 2012 7:19 am

Vebyast wrote:
TarkisFlux wrote:I'll kick that around. I'm also considering replacing the default failure chance with an increasing DC caster level check. It doesn't address the capacity concern (which might disappear pending AoE changes), but would that cover the decreasing failure sufficiently well?
Hmm. That could work, depending on how low the check starts and how fast the difficulty increases. It would increase with time elapsed since the last Warp, I assume?

Updated pursue warp with a caster level check instead of the flat percentages, and decided to allow retries since the new mechanics don't fluff weird with it. Does that cover your concern sufficiently well?

Also added analyze yeleportation and tweaked word of recall changes to be less MC fiaty. Still kicking around warp AoE, mostly the area part. Turns out writing it such that it's not great for putting holes in walls or other things is somewhat annoying, and I haven't found a way that I'm super happy with just yet. No changes to anchor sigil mechanics yet, but with the divine changes it's probably just a matter of time before I cave and write an arcane spell to supplement the manual creation mechanics.

Meikle641 · Post by **Meikle641** » Thu Feb 16, 2012 5:07 am

Trace Teleport
Clairsentience
Level: Psion/wilder 4
Display: Visual
Manifesting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Area: Spread with a radius of 25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels, centered on you
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: None
Power Resistance: No
Power Points: 7
As detect teleportation, except you can trace the destination of any psionic or magical teleportation made by others within this power’s area within the last minute.
You know the direction and distance the individuals traveled and could teleport to the location yourself if you so desired (and if you know the psionic teleport power), as if you had “seen casually” the location. This power does not grant you any information on the conditions at the other end of the trace beyond the mental coordinates of the location.
Augment: If you spend 2 additional power points, this power’s range increases to Medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./level).

Haven't read all of the replies yet, but 3.5 psionics did already have this way of tracing teleports.

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Thu Feb 16, 2012 6:18 pm

Trace Teleport's effect should be part of Teleport.

You could explain it any way you want, but the end result would be much less of a terror with "Scry n Die" when you risk being tracked back easily.

Also, something like modifying the Alarm and Consecrate spells to block teleportation might come in handy.

ModelCitizen · Post by **ModelCitizen** » Fri Feb 17, 2012 3:01 pm

How would these rules work with outsiders' teleport SLAs? Would they follow Warp rules or Word of Recall rules? On the one hand, it's kinda cool to have a teleport sigil in your basement come with a risk of glabrezu attack. On the other hand, it's also makes sense for demons to warp in on unhallowed ground.

I like these rules a lot more than RAW teleportation but my one suggestion would be to remove the time delay. It's hard enough to get out of a losing fight in D&D as it is.

TarkisFlux · Post by **TarkisFlux** » Fri Feb 17, 2012 6:30 pm

There's a section on the page for dealing with teleport SLAs, which basically boils down to "give them warp and improved DD on the same schedule". The former is to allow them to go wherever they want to, and the latter is to retain previous combat utility (albeit with a newly restricted range). Allowing them to access not just sigils but any anchored location, including hallowed/unhallowed ground, might be a good addition though.

The delay is unlikely to be removed, though it probably will be reduced. I disagree with your assessment that it is difficult to retreat from a losing fight in general, as there are tons of delaying tactics that are applicable when you care and spell changes make it easier to cast in a losing situation. And even if you do fall down, the spell specifically takes objects as creature equivalents, so it will take your unconscious friends and corpses (assuming they're not restrained).

These changes require you plan a bit more ahead, but if that doesn't happen or plans go sideways and you need to get out fast you use word or recall or some other effect instead of warp. And with the level reduction you can get them in wand form now, so availability is less a concern than previously. This is also a somewhat intentional re-allocation of retreat capability.

ModelCitizen · Post by **ModelCitizen** » Sat Feb 18, 2012 11:58 pm

Ahh, ok, I didn't realize only the Warp line had the delay. That seems reasonable.

TarkisFlux · Post by **TarkisFlux** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 7:56 am

Updates -

Changed to an AoE version of warp - 10' radius. Reduced cast time to standard action and delay to 1d3+2 to account for the now much easier ability to hitch a ride. Boosting capacity can now be handled by metamagic to increase the area. Allowed SR (on top of already allowed will saves) to reduce offensive capabilities.

Pursue warp got changed to the same style, and is now centered on the caster, again to discourage offensive use.

Anchor sigils got a divination line, and can be divined as if they were creatures if you know the sigil. The creature thing is a hack to allow scrying on the sigils, as it only targets creatures otherwise. They also now get will save modifiers, as part of the hack.

Lastly, there's a new spell to fill in for BearsAreBrown's concern, create anchor sigil. It lets you create an anchor sigil in half the time and with no checks, at the cost of a 4th level spell slot. I figured I might as well write a spell that I could live with before someone wrote one I couldn't.