Scrying and teleport in A Gathering of Winds.

[Callum]

So, when the PCs arrive in Diamond Lake and discover that Allustan is missing, with a black dragon after him, their immediate response is to prepare scrying and teleport in order to find him and go to help him. Now, I don't like stopping the players from using their characters' abilities, but it seems a shame that they'll miss out all the fun of returning to the whispering cairn and discovering the active portal, not to mention all the earlier parts of Icosiol's tomb (I'm pretty sure they'll teleport out again). Of course, the spells may fail (about 50/50 for scrying, assuming Allustan is allowed to make his normal save, but only 6% for teleport after that), but even so, they may just wait a day and try again. There's nothing in the adventure that suggests ways of handling this approach, yet it seems that it would be a fairly standard one for PCs of this level. So I'd like your opinions on this, if you'd be so kind.

Should I decide that something about Icosiol's tomb or the tempest globe prevents scrying from working?

If not, should Allustan receive his normal save against scrying?

Finally, do you have any other suggestions as to how to handle this situation?

[Dennis Harry]

My suggestion would be to rule that the portal to lead to a pocket dimension which blocks scrying and (obviously) teleportation.

What I plan on doing (when I get to this point) is having the Faceless One still in Diamond Lake and posing as Allustan (taking the Facles One can assume identity ideas that Spacelard came up with). He will lead them into an ambush by Ilthane at the Whispering Cairn and they will have to battle both of them.

Being the curious group they are, I am sure they will enter the Cairn and see that the wall which was once blocked is now open and a portal is sitting there beckoning them to explore :-)
(I may even leave an item that was clearly Allustan's next to the portal so they can deduce that the real Allustan is in there).

[Callum]

Dennis, I like your ideas! I wish I'd had them before starting AGoW.

Looking more into my initial questions, I've actually come up with an answer myself. Scrying only allows viewing "10 feet in all directions of the subject", and the tempest globe is 20 feet across - so all they'll see is the inside of the globe, all blue light and lightning, with Allustan floating immobile in the middle. That'll probably be enough to put them off teleporting there - and even if it doesn't, the teleport spell description says that "Areas of strong physical or magical energy may make teleportation more hazardous or even impossible" - and I think the tempest globe counts as an area of strong magical energy, which would make teleporting there impossible.

[Crust]

Perhaps Allustan has nondection cast upon himself to ward against meddlesome spellcasters looking for him through scrying. Either you or the casting PC will have to succeed on a caster level check to beat Allustan's nondetection, but that might be a standard spell for Allustan to cast before beginning an adventure.

[TheWhiteknife]

Callum wrote:

Dennis, I like your ideas! I wish I'd had them before starting AGoW.

Looking more into my initial questions, I've actually come up with an answer myself. Scrying only allows viewing "10 feet in all directions of the subject", and the tempest globe is 20 feet across - so all they'll see is the inside of the globe, all blue light and lightning, with Allustan floating immobile in the middle. That'll probably be enough to put them off teleporting there - and even if it doesn't, the teleport spell description says that "Areas of strong physical or magical energy may make teleportation more hazardous or even impossible" - and I think the tempest globe counts as an area of strong magical energy, which would make teleporting there impossible.

Yeah this would work. I wouldnt teleport into that.