Teleport Trap lethality?

[Touc]

My players have discovered the fun of "scry & fry" and are in pursuit of a foe who is a 13th level wizard (they are 12th), a former PC consumed by an evil artifact. He's tired of hiding from their scry and fry, and has the resources for Teleport Trap. Am I right in thinking this is a very lethal spell if someone fails a will save?

For example, BBEG designates a trapped, sealed, lightless coffin (may be a Rules Question as to how this works if multiple people are teleporting and they all can't fit in the coffin, are they shunted to the next open surface, and a Rules Question that if the caster saves but someone else doesn't, does that other person teleport or is the spell thwarted completely?)

Even if a character can find a way out before suffocating, the BBEG can have this coffin in a room filled with water, lava, etc. (a room he seals and fills after permanizing the spell).

This is what BBEGs do, but on the other hand (if part of the group can be trapped that fails saves) not sure I should go so hardcore. Thoughts?

[VRMH]

Adventurers who "scry and fry" but don't bother to scry what they're teleporting into, brought their doom on themselves.
Adventurers who hunt a 13th level Wizard should know they have a very, very dangerous quarry anyway.

Though you probably don't want the PCs to die, given that this would be the end of the adventure. So you might instead have a bumbling minion fail to turn on the water tap, and let the party escape. Humbler, and hopefully wiser.

Or at least more paranoid.

[EWHM]

My take, if your players are using 'scry and fry', the kid gloves are off. You're in full-bore simulationist rules of engagement. This means there's no such thing as a 'dick move' anymore, as long as its not meta.
If your players are used to a gamist/narrativist game contract, explain to them that they're using methods that are implicitly in violation of said contract. If they want to go simulationist, that's fine...in fact I encourage it, but you can't go around genre-savvy expecting the rest of the world to stay within the genre's envelope.

[Pendagast]

what is the gamiest/narrative game contract?

[EWHM]

Typical gamist/narrativist contract includes stuff like this:

If you're captured, you'll be given an opportunity to escape.
If you encounter something that is likely fightable, you can probably handle it (ie. it is scaled according to your level and the desired challenge).
The GM will generally avoid any 'dick moves'.
Basically since the GM controls so much of what you are going to do, the standard implicit contract covers the sharp edges. You disregard the implicit contract at your peril. I'd say about 80% of the present population leans this way (gamist/narrativist). Simulationist was a bigger school of thought in earlier editions.

[Hawktitan]

Both your posts are very well said EWHM.

[EWHM]

In my experience, MOST of the bad feelings between GMs and Players are the result of not communicating and understanding the game contract. This has been true since 1st edition (and before).
If you're a GM, communicate your contract clearly--even if you're the gamist major, narrativist minor sort of GM that the implicit default contract mostly covers. If you're a player, know your GM.
The gamist/narrativist/simulationist model has its faults and areas of incompleteness, but it's the most practical and tractable model for explaining and predicting (and hopefully avoiding) where your GMs and Players are likely to have hard feelings.

[Touc]

There's no kid gloves in this campaign, and the players have optimized. I think if they were being scryed upon and the enemy would teleport in and attack with overwhelming force, they'd later take measures just like this guy is doing.

I'm pretty sure that one of the players will fail the Will save and alone won't have the resources to survive. Not trying to be cruel, but party has had its way with enemies lately and I think has gotten overconfident.

[Sorcerer6491]

Here's how you can do it if you want it to be as effective at preventing intrusion as possible. (This is going way beyond dick move and also likely needs higher level enemy but in case he survives to higher levels here ya go.) Teleport trap directs to demiplane. The demiplane has negative alignment (-2 hp per round) put permanent prismatic sphere on location they land at. Put walls around inside of sphere with symbols of: death, striking, sleep, stunning, slowing, distraction, weakness, and insanity. Add limited magic trait so they can't teleport away. Make outside sphere a maze that leads to gate to material plane with symbol of sealing on it. Disclaimer: this should never be used due to it being damn near impossible to survive but if get rid of symbols and negative trait then add monsters to maze it could be mini dungeon.)

[Ellias Aubec]

Teleport trap to a demiplane doesn't work.

I'd suggest teleport to a room with a nasty creature inside it. Tough enough that the players struggle, but that they can overcome it. Then if they survive and continue to teleport in, increase the lethality of the destination room (tougher monsters, spell traps, more of everything).

[Pizza Lord]

Like most others, using teleport trap is not unfair if the PCs are consistently using scry and fry. How you use it is what you need to worry about.

Having it go straight into a room of lava is not really fair unless they have a chance to know that's likely to happen. An airtight coffin might be okay, since typically only one PC would fit in it, any others would end up in the nearest open space (which might be a gas-filled room the coffin rests in, which means the guy inside isn't dealing with the gas at least). You could also have them find out that he's been buying up silver and lodestones in great bulk from nearby mines (or raiding caravans of them). That might tip one off about the possible uses (though the Knowledge Arcana or Spellcraft check to make this connection might be high). At least they'd have a chance to realize they're about to step into a potential bad spot.

I would probably stick with having it go into a jail cell, cage, or room with magical defenses and guardians. It might even go to a room that looks nearly identical to the area being warded (obviously both rooms would need to be in the warded area), as a decoy with possibly programmed or triggered illusions of the BBEG and minions made to cause a loss of spells and such, along with an alarm spell to let the BBEG know they've arrived.

Nondetection can also be fun to put on things in a room so that people scrying don't see them. For instance, if there's a shielded cage in the room the BBEG guy wants to protect, there's a chance the PCs teleport right into it after scrying the location and thinking they see a nice open space out sight behind a pillar or decorative screen. 12th-level PCs should be able to get out of a cage, but it might slow them down suitably to prevent the surprise ambush (and trying to teleport would just put them back in).

[Claxon]

Honestly, when I GM I have house rules established that extend the protections of lead against scrying to other sufficiently thick material.

Think sheet of lead
1" Thick metal
1' Stone
5' Earth

In this way, castle and fortifications still make sense in world.

In any event, it's appropriate that a wizard would take counter measures against scry and fry.

[Dracovar]

Hawktitan wrote:

Both your posts are very well said EWHM.

I'll second Hawktitan's comment. EWHM's posts were well thought out.

I'd chime in with my own 'implicit understanding' contract with players -it might sound familiar:

"Do unto NPC's and you would have NPC's do unto you"

So - if the party consistently starts using Scry and Fry, they can expect a similar simulationist response from NPC opposition.

I'm ok allowing all sorts of spell abuse, as long as the party realizes my NPC's are now free to use the same tactics against them. Enlightened self interest and a sense of self preservation on the part of my players usually balances things out nicely.

I liked how EWHM described the two contracts. Someone could do a whole blog post on that subject (if they haven't already).

[DM Livgin]

Treat it like any other encounter. Most encounters are not wrote to save or die, no need to make this a death sentence. But I think this is a great place for an epic encounter.

Start with the Teleport trap save. If it is a save for each character it has a chance to split the party, a random split of the party makes the encounter design harder. If they have access to a second teleport, let them split the group with saves so that any help is a round behind (assuming the caster makes the save and decides to recasts the teleport to go save those who failed the save). Maybe it is reasonable to rule that only the caster is the teleporting creature and the other are only 'cargo', that way you get the whole group or no-one. But it would be a shame to design this encounter and not use it after they pass one save. Make it a persistent teleport trap.

Now that all you group (hopefully) will be entering the trap, let's make it an epic encounter (remember they should be fully buffed coming in.).

First: A simple execution to kill weak enemies and to immediately let the players know this is an epic fight. Let drop them 90ft above a pool of acid. With feather fall, this gives them one round to react before they start taking acid immersion damage. If they don't have feather fall enough of them should have tricks to save themselves after only a single round of damage, maybe put a climbable wall beside the pool. We are using acid because it is only 10d6 damage instead of the 20d6 of lava.

Next the monster: Lets put an adult or ancient black dragon in the pool. It is on theme with the acid and the ancient one can dispel magic on anyone trying to fly (a sub-par tactic compared to full attacking) that lets you soft ball the encounter while it looks like you are being very cruel.

Since the teleport trap has a limited range, and the dragon might have offence at being completely isolated, this pool will be somewhere in or close to the wizard's lair. This is only the first encounter of the day.

It is a CR+5+trap encounter, which is somewhere between epic+ and a death sentence depending on the group. Adjust the age of the dragon depending on how prepared they are.

[parrot familiar]

So, the spell says (according to d20pfsrd) "The destination must be an open space on a solid surface."

I think that means no coffin, right? No drop into lava. I mean, we can find a way around the restriction, plenty of horrible things can happen on an open, solid surface. But that does at least require some creativity on the wizard's part.

Also I just noticed the original thread is from 2013. *flutters away*

[DM Livgin]

Hmmm, interesting topic. Shame it is long dead.

[Meirril]

Well, if we're going to have a hypothetical discussion, why not continue it?

Scrying isn't a perfect spell. Any high level caster that worries about it can get around it.

Non-detection is the go to here. Simple, efficient, but not satisfying. Lets try to think of something better.

13th level wizard gives you access to 7th level spells. Simulacrum creates a semi-real duplicate of a creature. If the enemy is using a likeness of the target, a simulacrum of the target should be good enough to fool scry. Especially if the disguise roll in over 20 and the simulacrum uses the caster's name as its own.

This might not really work, since the caster even with non-detection is a valid target of scry and if the caster doesn't pass the DC or the target saves, scry fails. What are the chances that an identical or nearly identical target is scry'ed instead? You might just figure out a random method to see what actually gets scryed.

A more 'classic' kind of method to accomplish this would be to use 'bestow curse' with the curse being 'you appear to divination magic as <this person>'. Bestow Curse says you can have it be anything as long as it isn't more powerful than the examples. Well, this is certainly less powerful, though it might get the target killed. A particularly paranoid caster could curse random people and animals in dozens of villages, towns, forests, and even dungeons. Most beings wouldn't even realize they have been cursed!

This would work even better if the target had access to Mind Blank since they couldn't be the target while under the effect. The lowest level method of getting Mind Blank is if the target is friends with a coven of Hags. Even 3 cr 4 Hags can cast Mind Blank. If the target has access to Simulacrum they could make some fake Hags and have their own coven under their control. Honestly its probably better for the story if its a real coven of Hags.