Portals & Mythals

I would love to play an Elvin wizard specialized in the creation of portals and protective magic’s for buildings/communities (aka Mythals).

Is it going to be possible to learn the right combination of skills/spells to enable the creation of portals and items similar to Mythals from Forgotten Realms?

I think it would be fun to specialize in such skills and a great possible money earner. Especially from charging for the use of portals.

Mythals would be an interesting type of protective device which would act very differently from magical traps that could be used to protect a building. A Mythal could be used to bar teleportation magic, trigger an alarm when particular types of creatures (or those without a special token) enter the area of effect. Bolster the morale of the defenders or any other number of effects.

That's a very interesting character concept. I'm not familiar enough with the PFRPG rules to know if there's anything like that in the lore, but I hope you're able to realize those goals in PFO :)

this comes with a debated issue. Fast travel .

It seems to be very hard to balance travel time in open pvp games .especially those who feature territorial control.

people like to travel fast because it is convenient for everyday activities. you do not want to travel for 40 minutes to clear a dungeon that takes an hour .It is a legitimate concern, people have jobs and time is an issue for most

On the other hand , too much ,easy fast travel , makes the world feel smaller .If you can open a portal easily , you could move troops from around your empire to a border region in minutes.border is no longer a remote secluded area if you can port 500 guys in 5 minutes time .

money cost for spell reagents is NOT a solution .darkfall had a costly component, teleport rune.This had the opposite effect to the problems i described .Few would use the rune to get to the dungeon and they would prefer to walk instead of paying extra . Everyone and his mom had 5 of them ready to port in the "border" regions if the enemy moved there in force .essentially solving nothing .the casual player had to walk and waste his time , the guilds could move troops in no time anyway.

best solution is (for me that is) some kind of portal chambers network scattered around the map (like ultima online moonstones i think) , that you can use with a small fee. the entrance and exit should be guarded to avoid ganking and camping of the area. The portal network would thus be able to be used by anyone , but at the same time anyone can scout the stones for intelligence ,so if you move a large force through the system you lose the element of surprise .guilds would fight over the "control" of the portal system having skirmish squads or scouts at those key points .

The mythal idea is, in my opinion, a great idea.

Of course I don't think it makes sense that all players be able to created something of the scope of what Elminster ultimately organized, well not without incredible investment and risk to achieve it anyways, but it's an idea that can be implemented at all kinds of levels of power.

Oh wait, "levels" don't exist in PFO. So...let's say at all kinds of degrees of power. (this last comment was sarcastic, and yes I do need to point that out)

In relation to the creation of portals I agree that it would be to have some random portals scattered around the place for anyone to use for a small fee. However, since this is mostly a sand-box type game, it would be cool if we as players could invest the time and resources into creating portals. Naturally this would raise a lot of issues as to whether a player community wants a portal, which could raise issues around security and access.

I would also imagine that players would only be able to create portals after serious investment of time (possibly 1-2 RL years) to learn the right skills, and have the necessary resources to build and link two portals.

In relation to Mythals thay're the natural devlopment of going from warding single structures to wards small area of effects. Both would require serious investment in the right skills.

I could see the most likely source for the creation of Portals & Mythals being thru a co-operative magical/knowledge guild like the Seventh Veil.

Once a few key players know how to create them, then they could become a very real source of contention in and around communities.

@Ravening, I'll be expecting to see an Application from you soon :)

@ Nihimon: It does, but at such great expense that it is rather impractical, since, massive, easy to use teleportation networks would be as big a problem for a GM as they would for an MMO. Also, very, very powerful characters would be required to spend a great deal of time and a vast fortune making one.

Which I don't think is such a terrible idea to translate into the PFO at all. A group could marshal great resources creating one, which could also grant them great prestige and a very useful tool.

Insorrow: Mass teleportation would be a bit out of the flavor of the River Kingdoms, but that might be a workable solution. Would we be able to settle for the more thematically workable "train track fast travel routes" you can fast travel through, dropping you off at "safe place" by assuming you walked/rode there without incident?

I -think- this is what was hinted at in "Time Is the Fire In Which We Burn" on the blog, but I may be in error.

@Ravening, I'll be expecting to see an Application from you soon :)

Will do boss :)

I would point out while we know little about fast travel, we do know 2 things about it.

1. It is not instantaneous
2. It is not 100% safe.

Typically, a long-distance journey would start by setting your map to the lowest magnification and fast traveling to the settlement nearest your final destination, then zooming in and fast traveling in a series of hops towards the closest defined point that you're aware of near your destination, and then walking the rest of the way if need be.

During fast travel you may be ambushed (see our previous dev blog to read about hideouts and how ambushes are triggered). If you're ambushed, you'll drop out of fast travel and will have to take control of your character and navigate to a place of safety where you can initiate fast travel again. You won't be able to enter fast travel while you're engaged in combat, or for a while after you've engaged in combat.

Now what the mechanism for fast travel will be, I have no idea, but instantaneous safe travel between settlements, completely negating ambushes etc... sounds very problematic for balance, trading industry etc...

by assuming you walked/rode there without incident?

That is what I'm gathering they don't do. Based on the description of hideouts and ambushes, my interpretation, is that fast travel takes at least a minute or so. Alerting any hideouts along the path, and giving them a bit of time to decide whether to trigger.

Hideouts have a "threat radius" that determines how they interact with their surroundings: when a character using fast travel enters the threat radius of a hideout, the characters in the hideout can trigger an ambush—the targets drop out of fast travel in the vicinity of the hideout, and the bandits may be able to overtake them and engage them in melee combat before they can exit the area and re-enter fast travel.

Now the speed of fast travel, could be any number of things. Traveling from the far side of the world to the close side could be anywhere from 30 seconds with 15 seconds for the hideouts to decide, to only slightly faster than walking.

The mechanism itself, could be anything from a portal, to teleportation, to riding on a dire donkey, to dire bat airlines, but the thing is whatever the mechanism, it does have to be interuptable. Whether a teleport/portal jammer exists in hideouts, a horse/mule tripper, or catapulted nets that shoot down bats.

I think I remember Ryan saying that Fast Travel was travel at 5 times the normal rate. I don't have time right now to look for the link.

I wonder how likely it would be if one of the spells was teleport of some kind. I’m guessing it could be part of the Wizard/Sorcerer archtype (or whoever receives it in PFRPG).

Of course it wouldn’t work like the spell in PFPRG, I was thinking at established locations, similar to the druid stones in EQ.

There would obviously have to be limitations. Only who is in your group can go with you, and no siege engines (so no quick attacks on structures).

I’m thinking the spell would be far into the skill tree (high tier), and also would raise very slowly, so there is no “I’m just going to bop over to this skill tree to pick up a few teleport locations”. It would take some real time to actually take the skill and even a lot more time to get any of worthwhile locations.

I’m sure I’ll have others tell me why this would not be a good idea, but I don’t know, I just always loved being able to port where I needed to in EQ (played a Druid). :)

I wonder how likely it would be if one of the spells was teleport of some kind. I’m guessing it could be part of the Wizard/Sorcerer archtype (or whoever receives it in PFRPG).

Of course it wouldn’t work like the spell in PFPRG, I was thinking at established locations, similar to the druid stones in EQ.

There would obviously have to be limitations. Only who is in your group can go with you, and no siege engines (so no quick attacks on structures).

I’m thinking the spell would be far into the skill tree (high tier), and also would raise very slowly, so there is no “I’m just going to bop over to this skill tree to pick up a few teleport locations”. It would take some real time to actually take the skill and even a lot more time to get any of worthwhile locations.

I’m sure I’ll have others tell me why this would not be a good idea, but I don’t know, I just always loved being able to port where I needed to in EQ (played a Druid). :)

I believe, at least from what i gather from the intent, transporting resources themselves is also supposed to be a task that does have some risk. which is why at least from what I gather, the do not intend to offer any kind of absolute safe travel. it isn't just siege engines, but resources as well that should not have a guaranteed instant to get from A to B. If there is a 100% risk free transfer, then at that point, there becomes little to no variation in the market. A flat universal market forms, the entire purpose of protection contracts becomes nul and void. (IE why hire someone to safely transport goods, if you can walk there safely once empty handed, save the warp point, then jump back and forth with the goods.

I have no problem with "Fast" travel, the issue is risk free travel that pretty quickly becomes problematic for a game of this category.

Yes, I completely agree, Onishi.

The transportation of resources would of course would be included in the ‘not able to teleport’, as well, I just forgot to include it.

The teleport spell(s) would only basically be transportation for characters, and whatever you could carry on you.

Of course that will eliminate the danger of traveling back home (or a safe area) if you’ve gone far out from home, but as I said, to attain the ability would be very difficult and time consuming to attain, so not everyone would be able to do it.

Yes, I completely agree, Onishi.

The transportation of resources would of course would be included in the ‘not able to teleport’, as well, I just forgot to include it.

The teleport spell(s) would only basically be transportation for characters, and whatever you could carry on you.

Of course that will eliminate the danger of traveling back home (or a safe area) if you’ve gone far out from home, but as I said, to attain the ability would be very difficult and time consuming to attain, so not everyone would be able to do it.

Well depending on whether there is a cost, that is still an issue unless it is also expensive. If we are talking free or even low cost instant travel, 500 trips carrying 30 LBs of goods to sell with guaranteed safety, sure beats 3 1 hour trips through danger, carrying 1000 LBs each. Same issue with equiped items, as equipment is the most lucrative resource.

Another way to make it worth without allowing it to perturb the markets is to give it a significant cost to use.

Personally, I'd love to see a Teleport spell that could transport me to any location I can Scry upon. There should be a significant cost that doubles for each multiple of a standard weight limit.

For example:

Weight - Cost
250 - 250
500 - 500
750 - 1,000
1,000 - 2,000
1,250 - 4,000

That sounds like a very nice ability in being able to scry and teleport to that location. However, I wonder if that is too powerful. Even if the teleport skill is buried deep in the skill tree, raises slowly and with the cost you suggested compared to weight carried (which I like).

But I can just see that being too flexible on where you can go. I mean you could potentially teleport your group within the walls of an enemy stronghold. I guess it would depend on where you can scry, and how easily it can be defended against.

Thinking further on the idea, what I was envisioning was something along the lines of a beacon system. You would actually need to ‘be’ at the location to set up a beacon. As you slowly raise (and yes, it should be slow) your teleport skill tier, you are able to get more beacons, maybe with a limit of 5?

I’m guessing one would permanently be set up at your guild hall, or wherever you call home. And you can set up more at other locations in the world, but remember that things can change at those locations, so you’d need to be wary on teleporting to them on a whim. If a location becomes a problem, you can cancel that beacon and set it up somewhere else.

But again, you would always need to ‘be’ at the location to set a beacon.

I'm hoping for something along the lines of the PFRPG Teleport spell. The "feel" of the spell, not necessarily the mechanics.

I really hope that PFO is able to balance things like this effectively enough so that we can have the spirit of these kinds of spells without their presence breaking other systems.

I'm hoping for something along the lines of the PFRPG Teleport spell. The "feel" of the spell, not necessarily the mechanics.

I really hope that PFO is able to balance things like this effectively enough so that we can have the spirit of these kinds of spells without their presence breaking other systems.

I suppose the biggest factor in this debate, is what we expect the normal cost to transmit goods will be, at least IMO teleport should be at least 4x what one would expect to pay an escort party for the convinience factor plus the total mitigation of risk. Now of course throwing numbers out is imposible without any estimate of what the currency rate would be.

But factoring in that at least in my opinion, your typical escort party would likely be a group of at least 4 people (as it is pretty safe to assume bandits won't be alone), worth their time to spend, say 30 minutes on the low end for traveling, and those escorts are also putting themselves at risk for the full value of the items (IE the collateral money in a protection contract), I imagine escorts themselves as being notably expensive, by that margain, teleport has to be HUGELY expensive.

Of course then we have to second guess the concept further, as putting teleport out of budget for transport, will likely also put it out of budget for most practical use, which will very probably make it's most likely use, military operations. Whether or not that is desired, I have no idea.

We need sky and/or land trains would be cool The Golden Flask Express.
that way bandits have something to attack and we have something to defend.

What would it look like old steam trains or something better like huge iron golems pulling in methodical steady steps along rails.
Maybe sails and magic wind production or just teams of oxen.
Teleportation is not really viable for many bulk goods wood iron and the like, I would see it more for High value goods like magic items gems rare metals like adamentium and mithral so if you stack Bags of Holding Shrink Item spells Ant Haul spells with Portable Holes you have investment costs way above Some guy with a 35gp wagon 400 gp for two heavy horses so business wise you get cheap and slow heavy defense needed with lots of cargo(just add wagons) Too highly expensive near certain delivery in short order but limited cargo room.
I think the market will balance it out right quick Bulk takes the low road and Value takes the high road.

I see a lot of people that focus on the transportation of commodities ,while the "problem" with teleportation spells is the fast movement of troops

As i mentioned earlier ,i expect none to use teleport for everyday pve ,crafting , mining ,moving goods.I do expect however something like 1,2,3 go on ventrilo and 500 guys in plate along with their 100mage friends
porting outside your city walls ready to say hello. cost is NOT a balancing factor

I see a lot of people that focus on the transportation of commodities ,while the "problem" with teleportation spells is the fast movement of troops

As i mentioned earlier ,i expect none to use teleport for everyday pve ,crafting , mining ,moving goods.I do expect however something like 1,2,3 go on ventrilo and 500 guys in plate along with their 100mage friends
porting outside your city walls ready to say hello. cost is NOT a balancing factor

Both are problems, and the general issue is either one being fixed, raises issues with the other. IE built permanant portals like Ravening was mentioning, are barely an issue at all for war, fairly simple systems could force someone to at the worse be able to port to their nearest allied settlement, as finding out about a portal in your own back yard wouldn't be too difficult. However it is a nightmare for resources, as allies in a city that specializes in wood + a city with a specialization with metal, would have instant easy accesss to eachother, no need to ever have a protection contract of any kind between the 2. Of course solving the trading issue via cost, would also greatly hinder most other purposes, and the only group that would likely be unconcerned of the cost, is war.

I'm not really seeing the problem caused by 500 warriors and 100 mages suddenly appearing outside my gates. There's not really much of a benefit to teleporting there rather than just walking there, given that they'll likely be able to disguise their movements or go completely unnoticed. This is actually one of the reasons I strongly support having to move large armies, or at least having to move siege equipment, both of which should move significantly more slowly than player characters.

Now, if we're talking about teleporting inside my gates, that's another story. But that's where my obligation to establish Dimensional Locks comes into play.

If the creation of portals was allowed by PC’s then perhaps the most version of a portal (i.e what you first learn to create) only operates once every 10 minutes. That way it can’t be used to transport an army, but could still be a valuable short-cut even if you have to wait your turn. Perhaps with greater skill in portal crafting the time the portal needs to recharge/cooldown drops.

There could also be a distance factor involved. Or even a distance over cooldown time trade off. So you could have a portal that can be used anytime you want. However, it only works over a relatively short distance. Or a portal that works over large distances with a long cooldown time. Another option is for portal users to develop skills/spells to reduce cooldown times.

having a fee at the permanent portal network would ease the problem with transporting commodities .you can use the fast travel and pay a fee in gold , or not use it and pay a fee in personal time .in terms of risk , you can take the fast route that most certainly bandits will scout or the long route that might go unnoticed

moving troops is an issue mostly when you deal with powerhouse alliances .lets say an alliance of guilds owns 3 forts. woodfort ironfort and stonefort. another coalition tries to besiege their settlements .( i expect a siege timer ,preparation time etc) they all start the siege event at the same time and it will go live on e.g saturday night .

- offenders attack stonefort , defenders port to stonefort.
- midfight a group of offenders assaults ironfort.defenders now port 100 men to ironfort that were previously inside stonefort .
- offenders leave a skirmish group in ironfort to trick defenders.they move back to stonefort to a fast assault.
- at the same time a roaming raid group hits woodfort ,defenders take 20 men from ironfort to woodfort just in case it gets serious
-etc

This is not exactly how i would like fighting .people teleporting around.
I think the idea of ravening about implementing cooldowns based on character skill and distance is a solid one and could be expanded

How about a Peace Bond effecting those who travel by portal being unable to use weapons or spells for the first minuet or two apone arrival would really put a damper on fighting if the landing area is set up as a Kill Zone for the defenders?
With npc guards and a general city wide alarm to go the the Portal for PCs the Attackers could find themselves in a stone grand hall lined with arrow slits and a massive gate that is closed quickly to them.
The defenders shut down the Portal and proceed to pick apart the enemy with arrows and spells.

Personally I see invading a kingdom as just acting like normal travelers and traders till your forces have built up in the town or city and then flash mob on the castle or tower or what ever target is best.

I can't think or an easy way to defend against such an attack as towns and citys live by trade and need the influx of people.
Only if you are forced to wear colors/uniforms or your head tag says your affiliation to a town or city could this tactic be spotted.

Perhaps using such tactics hold an alignment Penalty or Reputation damaging effect. Or you get stuck with a head tag like Sad Sacker of Northfork as a warning to town guards that you might be a an enemy and should be dealt with.

If my character (or guild) manage to create a portal, we would use it as a way to generate income, by charging those who use it a fee.

The trade off of distance of travel over cooldown times would more be in relation to the skill of the creator of the portal. If someone invests the time to become a master portal creator, then the portals should naturally have a longer range and lower cooldown time.

I'm guessing it would take serious resources, time and training to be able to get to the point where even a basic portal could be created.

Creating a portal and retaining control of a portal will probably be two very challenging things.