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Hell, tectonic plates are constantly moving. Try to teleport from North America to Europe and that 0.2 cm/year spreading rate is really going to screw up your chances.
Hell, tectonic plates are constantly moving. Try to teleport from North America to Europe and that 0.2 cm/year spreading rate is really going to screw up your chances.
I think any reasonable person could see that that amount of movement isn't enough to cause problems, but the rules specifically call out that ship movements speeds ARE enough to cause problems, thus it isn't a stretch that being on a ship could cause problems with teleports to the shore.
Personally, I think all teleport locations are relative to the planet's frame of reference, not the caster, thus hitting any object that is moving relative to the planet is a problem, but going from a moving object to one that is stationary relative to the planet would not be a problem.
Interplanetary teleport only exists because of a new claim that "planes" are "other planets", as I recall. Prior to that, yes, it was completely obvious that greater teleport could go anywhere within the material plane. No range limit does not mean "range limit of 1AU or so".
Diego: I think you have a really interesting point there about the frames of reference, but I am not sure it is entirely correct. Imagine, if you will, an object in a geosynchronous orbit around a planet. It's stationary within the planet's frame of reference...
Furthermore, imagine if you will two identical ships, facing the same way, close enough to each other that they have matching vectors and are affected the same way by wind and currents. If we accept the "frame of reference" model, then you should be able to teleport back and forth between these freely, delay or no delay, because their relative locations aren't changing. If you use the one you're on as your frame of reference, the other isn't moving.
Actually, it is worse than that. If you are on any kind of moving vehicle, ship, carriage, etc. then you are moving relative to the rest of the planet. That means that the 6 second limit appilies to any and all attempt teleport from a ship to shore, because the ship is moving relative to the frame of reference of the shore.
As for the whole, you scry a person, not a location. Yes, Scry is on a person, but you can also see everything within 10 feet of the person you are scrying. You you can see the area immediately around the person. You can watch them for 1 minute per level, and the censor follows the target around. That means you could easily have observed a significant amount of the location, even though the spell is cast on a person.
The way I see it is that if the destination isn't moving, you're good to go. If the destination is moving, then there is a smaller time limit. TO me, the destination is what matters in terms of stationary. I'm okay with it as a GM and player because it adds a sense of urgency to teleportation, which can enhance a story. For example, trying to get to the lich's floating fortress, but you have a limited window once you scry it to get to it. Also makes for an interesting way for PCs to protect their own HQ, by having it move (boat, airship, floating castle).Anything beyond that (like frame of reference or moving planet or tectonic shift) is too much verisimilitude that makes the game less fun.
And if teleporting to a moving object cause issues qualifies as "verisimilitude getting in the way", then don't do it. Simple as that.
Atarlost does bring up a good point. If you needed some sort of magical-equivalent to GPS coordinates, teleporting to a false destination would be more likely to drop you within X miles of your intended target, rather than a similar-looking place in the complete opposite direction.
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From a game theory perspective, it's an absolute game changer. It's necessary for us all to do away with the archaic description "...such as scrying." and let the world remain a much larger place for the time being.
Imagine if we all woke up tomorrow, and there was an app on our smartphones that allowed us to find anyone, anywhere, no matter what. It would change everything, and there would be no putting that genie back in the bottle. That's what we're dealing with here; an instant app for finding anyone, and teleporting into their bedchambers. It's worse than Star Trek, where at least ...actually I don't know why people in ST aren't just teleported all over the place all the time...oh, there's no ransom money, right.
I say being able to see 10' around a specific person you're scrying doesn't count as "having seen once" for the purposes of teleportation. Now, adventurers will need to research, travel and (gasp!) hire high-level rogues to do some scouting and trap-disabling in order to get them into the bad guy's lair.
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I was always a fan of the 3.5 Anticipate teleportation line of spells. They were low enough level that you didn't need a high level caster around to make teleporting risky and offered a significant enough advantage that scry and fry could become fry and die if you tried it against a group with the spells up.
Combine that with the first edition gorgon's blood and other such tricks or teleport trap and teleport redirection spells and teleportation remained a potentially useful tactic but not one that needed to have dramatic world-changing implications.
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The teleport spell specifically references scrying under viewed once.
It even hyperlinks to the scrying spell.
This is all on the PRD Here
I would also definitively trust the PRD over any other online resource for Pathfinder.
I do not understand why this is even a question.
It is very, very clear. Now it can be house ruled however you want, but unless the text of teleport is changed the RAW allow for "Scrying" the spell to give you a location you can teleport to as if viewed once.
Please show me a PRD or Errata entry to disprove this if I am wrong.
To address a point that I am sure will be brought up James Jacobs does work for Paizo, however he is NOT a rules developer he is in charge of setting and world building as the creative director if I remember correctly, and also he himself has said he does NOT make rules calls on these boards.
The thread "Ask James Jacobs" even states that he would appreciate if people would not ask for hard rules decisions and all his answers there are just his opinion and not necessarily RAW. He even often refers people to the rules forum and the FAQ button
This is not in any way a bash at Mr. Jacobs as he seems from his posts to be a fine individual, with which I personally have no problems. His creativity is also not in doubt as he does produce quality material, so please understand I am just parsing rules text and not trying to attack anyone.
The teleport spell specifically references scrying under viewed once.
It even hyperlinks to the scrying spell.
This is all on the PRD Here
I would also definitively trust the PRD over any other online resource for Pathfinder.
I do not understand why this is even a question.
It is very, very clear.
This thread will probably answer the "why" question. This is about asking for the rules to be changed, not to be clarified. As you say, there is no real question that the rules offer scrying as a way to teleport with the "viewed once" condition.
I don't necessarily oppose a nerf, but you can tell that from the number of people posting on this thread asking to delete a rules sentence they don't like that a nerf request is the actual topic here.
This thread will probably answer the "why" question. This is about asking for the rules to be changed, not to be clarified. As you say, there is no real question that the rules offer scrying as a way to teleport with the "viewed once" condition.
I don't necessarily oppose a nerf, but you can tell that from the number of people posting on this thread asking to delete a rules sentence they don't like that a nerf request is the actual topic here.
Ah, my apologies.
It seemed to me from what some other posters had posted such as:
Scry & Fry." Can we clarify what is meant by '“Viewed once” is a place that you have seen once, possibly using magic such as scrying."?
James Jacobs has said it doesn't work like many people think it does, and while I agree with his RAI, the RAW seems to differ.
Can we get a FAQ on this?
That they felt like this was unclear.
Then this thread should be in suggestions should it not if the rules are clear, but people want them changed, correct?
Edit: Also, I do not see what is a FAQ about this?
If it is "Can scrying let you teleport?" then by RAW yes it can, and honestly claiming James Jacobs as a rules source is misleading enough I find it almost purposely obfuscative.
As I said in my last post he is very cool, but his posts on this forum represent his house rules and play-style/opinions not RAW or even RAI.
Do people use "scry and fry" that often?
I've never had a huge problem with it. I consider scry and fry to be like drop ships in a sci fi movie with space marines or teleporters in Star Trek. It's a known tactic that everyone with the means counters or uses to their advantage.
Usually BBEGs have scrying counters up in their most important locations. They will often use a patsy to set up the PCs if they attempt to scry and fry. Or they will scry and fry the PCs, which causes the PCs to prepare anti-scrying measures.
I always looked at scry and fry as an arms race factor. Then again I always modify the spell lists of the enemy and have all major enemies work together as a coordinated group rather than leave them in their respective areas waiting for a party to show up and kill them piecemeal.
I think viewed once using scry is an acceptable way to teleport to a location. It doesn't mean they will be in an area that allows PCs to win easily. They may very well end up in a very bad area at a disadvantage. "Scry and fry" can work both ways. I don't see a need to change it.
It is very, very clear. Now it can be house ruled however you want, but unless the text of teleport is changed the RAW allow for "Scrying" the spell to give you a location you can teleport to as if viewed once.
Only if you satisfy the criteria, "You must have some clear idea of the location and layout of the destination."
If I scry on the evil wizard and see he is in some kind of cave, that I do not automatically know where the cave is so can't teleport there. On the other hand, if he's clearly at the top of his evil wizard tower, and the tower is marked accurately on my map, scrying is probably sufficient to teleport there (with a 76% success rate), even if I've never been there myself.
I would have to agree with the opinion that the rules (both RAW and RAI)support the ability to Scry and Fry. I dont like it and can see why others want to infer some hidden ruling because they dont like it... but the description is pretty clear. It would take a re-wording of teleport... not a clarification.
I personally have never had to deal with this DM'ing any of my groups. Im guessing my casters are just to nice to pull such stunts. If it did come up I would house rule that you had to have actually been to a location before you could teleport there. But thats all it would be. A House rule.
Teleporting to a location viewed once by Scrying works by RAW, for me it also works by RAI and my own games as well. Heck one of the most memorable Teleports (and events in a game overall) I've ever had was from using Detect Scrying to view the person Scrying our party, grabbing my companions while saying in character "trust me" and the 3 of us teleported and dropped in on our scrier much to his surprise. My Loremaster has had Detect Scrying on his daily long term buffs for many, many levels just to make scrying him and his party hazardous for anyone trying to gain info or use scry and fry tactics against us.
I'd say that's the best way to handle scry and fry. By the time the party has access to it, their stronger enemies should have access to similar capabilities and methods of defending against them. Sure, it works fine against low-level mooks, but those aren't supposed to be a huge challenge anyway. Heck, most big bads would be happy to learn the party wasted several upper-level spells to scry-and-fry a group of disposable minions.
It is very, very clear. Now it can be house ruled however you want, but unless the text of teleport is changed the RAW allow for "Scrying" the spell to give you a location you can teleport to as if viewed once.Only if you satisfy the criteria, "You must have some clear idea of the location and layout of the destination."
If I scry on the evil wizard and see he is in some kind of cave, that I do not automatically know where the cave is so can't teleport there. On the other hand, if he's clearly at the top of his evil wizard tower, and the tower is marked accurately on my map, scrying is probably sufficient to teleport there (with a 76% success rate), even if I've never been there myself.
The sentence "You must have some clear idea of the location and layout of the destination." is before and is defined by the categories listed almost immediately after.
As I said in my post Teleport specifically hyperlinks to Scrying under the viewed once category, and I personally cannot see any parsing that would deny that specific reference.
You can house rule that you need some specific information from Scrying to teleport but that is what it is in my opinion and reading of the spell, a house rule.
Spell text is Here.
I do not understand why this is even a question.
It is very, very clear. Now it can be house ruled however you want, but unless the text of teleport is changed the RAW allow for "Scrying" the spell to give you a location you can teleport to as if viewed once.
It's a question because many, many people think it is, and would like it clarified. It may be "very, very clear" to you, but not to others. It has come up a lot, thus it is truly a "Frequently Asked Question" even if many are sure they know they answer.
And, even if the RAW is "very, very clear" the Devs have used the FAQ to errata rules also. Some things were vestiges from 3.5 that were not intended to be brought over into PF. Thus that line may be a typo.
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The sentence "You must have some clear idea of the location and layout of the destination." is before and is defined by the categories listed almost immediately after.
As I said in my post Teleport specifically hyperlinks to Scrying under the viewed once category, and I personally cannot see any parsing that would deny that specific reference.
I've given you the parsing for my interpretation. There is no evidence for that sentence being 'defined' by another bit of text further down the page.
It is strongly implied that it may be possible to teleport to a location that you have only scryed upon. This does not mean that scrying automatically guarantees that teleportation is possible. Similarly, if you are brought to a place blindfolded and you study it carefully, but never learn the location, you can't teleport there. These categories do not override the "You MUST have some clear idea of the location AND layout of the destination" clause any more than they override the "Areas of strong physical or magical energy may make teleportation more hazardous or even impossible" clause which comes inbetween, or the material components, or anything else.
You can house-rule away the 'location' RAW if you want but I don't think it's a very good house-rule.
Greater Teleport was shut down on the interplanetary thing to make travel to other worlds an epic thing, instead of a 'yawn, we're on Ashiton/The moon/etc today? okay.) It also stops fiends from teleporting willy-nilly all over the solar system to get away from PC's...or go a-conquering.
Remember, those succubi on the moon have to FLY to Golarion to grab people. or use the portal that opened in that module.
==Aelyrinth
Greater Teleport was shut down on the interplanetary thing to make travel to other worlds an epic thing, instead of a 'yawn, we're on Ashiton/The moon/etc today? okay.) It also stops fiends from teleporting willy-nilly all over the solar system to get away from PC's...or go a-conquering.
Remember, those succubi on the moon have to FLY to Golarion to grab people. or use the portal that opened in that module.
If you seriously want to restrict normal teleports, just introduce a 'lived-line'...the 4th dimensional track of the caster's life. He can teleport anywhere he's seen based off that 'lived-line', but if he goes outside it, he doesn't have a point of reference and can't go there.
So, he may scry into a location he knows WHERE it is, and the scrying reveals a precise layout of a room. Great, he's seen it once, he knows its in Buckingham, and he can go there.
If it's a room in anywhere, and he doesn't have a frame of reference, his lived-line doesn't let him teleport anywhere.
==Aelyrinth
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The teleport spell rules contain proof the relative or absolute location of the destination is not necessary to a successful teleport.
"False destination" is a place that does not truly exist or if you are teleporting to an otherwise familiar location that no longer exists as such or has been so completely altered as to no longer be familiar to you.Similar Area: You wind up in an area that's visually or thematically similar to the target area. Generally, you appear in the closest similar place within ttange. If no such area exists within the spell's range, the spell simply fails instead.If you teleport to a familiar location that has been altered you have a 65% chance of winding up in a similar location if one exists. You do not know the location of this similar location.
Suppose you have as a location a very familiar room, the only distinctive features of which are a set of unique tapestries. If the tapestries are removed the room becomes a false destination. If they are set up in the same configuration in another room of approximately the same dimensions it becomes a similar area. If both locations are within teleport range you have a 65% chance of winding up in the room to which the tapestries have been moved and a 0% chance of winding up in the room from which they have been removed. The chance of arriving safely at the location of the tapestries is only 11% lower than the chance of arriving safely in a room viewed once. This gap is smaller than the gap between seen casually and seen once. Considering that similar area rules are intended for locations that are merely similar rather than deliberately arranged by moving furnishings between functionally identical rooms it's plain that relative location has next to no influence on teleport and visual appearance (or appearance to other senses) are if not the sole means of defining a location for Teleport very close thereto.
Interesting argument, but you haven't considered teh second aprt of the similar area target:
Similar Area: You wind up in an area that's visually or thematically similar to the target area. Generally, you appear in the closest similar place within range. If no such area exists within the spell's range, the spell simply fails instead.
Thematically ....
A library is thematically similar to any other library, even if the visual aspects are completely different.The cabin of a ship captain with nautical charts on the table can be thematically similar to another captains cabin, or to a mapmaker room, or to a bedroom with a balcony on he sea.
Trying to teleport into a cell with your friend chained to a wall can get you into a different cell, or a in a galley near the bench of the slave rowers.
Trying to teleport to the city of Daggerford while saying that you are going to Daggerfall and getting the similar area result can get you to Daggerfall.
Trying to teleport to "That copse of trees that I see there" and getting "similar area" can teleport you to the forest on the other side of the desert before you.
(both happened)
It is not simply a question of visuals. The theme part say that the connection is more complicated.
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From a game theory perspective, it's an absolute game changer. It's necessary for us all to do away with the archaic description "...such as scrying." and let the world remain a much larger place for the time being.
Imagine if we all woke up tomorrow, and there was an app on our smartphones that allowed us to find anyone, anywhere, no matter what. It would change everything, and there would be no putting that genie back in the bottle. That's what we're dealing with here; an instant app for finding anyone, and teleporting into their bedchambers. It's worse than Star Trek, where at least ...actually I don't know why people in ST aren't just teleported all over the place all the time...oh, there's no ransom money, right.
I say being able to see 10' around a specific person you're scrying doesn't count as "having seen once" for the purposes of teleportation. Now, adventurers will need to research, travel and (gasp!) hire high-level rogues to do some scouting and trap-disabling in order to get them into the bad guy's lair.
First film (unless I am mistaken) a few people die in a teleporter accident.
New Generation: Riker is accidentally cloned by a teleporter malfunction.There are a few other instances of teleporter accidents in the shows, I think. And you need to locate the destination with the ship sensors.
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How is it "necessary", given that we've got 30ish years of people playing D&D where scrying was good enough to teleport, and it's been survivable so far? There's lots of defenses, like dimensional lock, teleport trap, as well as things like mind blank.
Second edition AD&D teleport, the chance to a low result were: 100 for a very familiar areas, 93-100 for a Viewed once area.
Any low result means the instant death of the wizard if the the area in which is solid.
A 8% chance of instant death of the caster and party was a deterrent strong enough to avoid "scry and fry" tactics [and the reason why the Mirror of mental prowess was worth so much]. Those tactics are a product of 3.0 and successive versions of the game, so less than 15 years old.
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By the time scry&fry is a real threat, paying for Forbiddance isn't a big deal for your base. And that's without even being creative about it.
Your actual usable spaces are covered by Forbiddance, as well as illusions to all look like the non usable spaces.
Non usable spaces are NOT covered by forbiddance, but are all trapped/alarmed rooms that look exactly the same.
So teleporting based on this scry either fails or dumps PCs at a similar location, which happens to be prepared for them...
Forbiddance has some "little" drawback if all the members of your group don't share the caster alignment.
You can avoid that if you set a password. Then you have to share that password with all the people that enter the location, included cooks, manservants, potty boys and so on. As any security consultant can explain to you, if you widely share your password it is granted that it will leak.Currently the existing spells that protect against teleportation have large drawbacks that limit reliable use.
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I think I will implement both Kirth and Diego's fixes. They look good.
The Moonscar, I believe?
==Aelryinth
There are succubi on the moon? What module was this please?
No, I think it was just that some succubi were mooning people. Different.
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There are succubi on the moon? What module was this please?Greater Teleport was shut down on the interplanetary thing to make travel to other worlds an epic thing, instead of a 'yawn, we're on Ashiton/The moon/etc today? okay.) It also stops fiends from teleporting willy-nilly all over the solar system to get away from PC's...or go a-conquering.
Remember, those succubi on the moon have to FLY to Golarion to grab people. or use the portal that opened in that module.
==Aelyrinth
You never saw that SF great "Amazon Women on the Moon"?!?
The teleport-low-kills-you just meant you used teleport without error (now called "greater teleport"). Which was available even in 1e. And we've been doing just fine for decades with lots of people taking it for granted that scrying a location let you teleport there. Possibly not very safely, but hey, that's why you wait until 14th level.
But there's a huge difference in power level there. Greater TP is a 7th lvl spell, you need to be 13th or 14th level, which is actually quite high IRL gaming. TP is only a 5th level spell, this comes in pretty often.
Still, even a big difference back in earlier eds.
And even then " If you attempt to teleport with insufficient information (or with misleading information), you disappear and simply reappear in your original location.".
I think I will implement both Kirth and Diego's fixes. They look good.
Not bad, but I'd still prefer an official fix.
The rules open up the possibility of using "scrying" to have viewed the location but does not fulfill the requirements for teleportation. If you have seen Buckingham palace, and used scrying to identify someone was in the dining room of Buckingham palance, then scrying would let you teleport someone into the dining room of Buckingham palace. If you don't scry, you can only teleport them to outside Buckingham balance, which you have seen. If you scry, but have never visited Buckingham palace, then you need some way to determine the location of what you are seeing. If you say, "There's a tapestry there of two black adders consuming some haggis," and someone says, "Ah, that's Tantagel Castle," then casting the spell yields the False Destination result.
This is how I imagine it. You CAN possibly use Scry to T-port in. You do NOT automatically know where the guy is you're scrying.
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The rules open up the possibility of using "scrying" to have viewed the location but does not fulfill the requirements for teleportation. If you have seen Buckingham palace, and used scrying to identify someone was in the dining room of Buckingham palance, then scrying would let you teleport someone into the dining room of Buckingham palace. If you don't scry, you can only teleport them to outside Buckingham balance, which you have seen. If you scry, but have never visited Buckingham palace, then you need some way to determine the location of what you are seeing. If you say, "There's a tapestry there of two black adders consuming some haggis," and someone says, "Ah, that's Tantagel Castle," then casting the spell yields the False Destination result.This is how I imagine it. You CAN possibly use Scry to T-port in. You do NOT automatically know where the guy is you're scrying.
I'm tempted to use that myself. Describe some of the surroundings, and if the party can identify the location from what they pick up (a view out of a window behind the person they're scrying on might be enough if they notice a landmark, for example) they can use it. Leaves it nicely in the GM's hands how obvious they want to make the location, depending on whether or not they want to allow a teleport there.
Why do you need one so badly? We hardly ever had "official fixes" back in the day, and we managed to get by quite nicely, in fact judging from this board, better than today.I think I will implement both Kirth and Diego's fixes. They look good.Not bad, but I'd still prefer an official fix.
Each game and each region played by different rules back in the old days. And there was no "interwebz'. Thus, newbs would have to be led astray by real people, not random posters on MB, many of whom don't even play the way they claim the game can be played.
Over on the other thread, jlighter posted that "Newer player, had been reading the boards looking for ways ..." so indeed, people read the threads and find these potential abuses and try to play them.
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Pretty much. If the villain is smart, they will ward their lair with Disjunction traps, contingent on unauthorized teleporters. Throw in 20+ traps of enervation, contingent on the disjuction trap going off (and the PCs just got their death wards dispelled, so...)
And of course, there are an awful lot of abjurations that prevent scrying that any smart villain can get hold of. Even if they can't cast spells themselves, magic items exist for a reason.
Scry and Die doesn't work in most games. Not because of a rule against it, as it is clearly built into the rules, but because it is really, really easy to counter. Somewhat ironically, it is easier for the villains to counter it than the PCs, since
a)the villain's base-of-operation can be warded more heavily than the mobile party
b)The BBEG(s) is usually a higher level than the PCs, and can overcome their abjurations (e.g., nondetection) more easily than they can overcome the BBEG's abjurations. At least until the PCs are high enough to have mind blank continuously, which isn't until high levels. And of course, the BBEG gets there first.
Or use a moving fortress(as mentioned before)
Or live in a pocket dimension(not on the material plane)Divination
Divination spells enable you to learn secrets long forgotten, predict the future, find hidden things, and foil deceptive spells.
Many divination spells have cone-shaped areas. These move with you and extend in the direction you choose. The cone defines the area that you can sweep each round. If you study the same area for multiple rounds, you can often gain additional information, as noted in the descriptive text for the spell.
Subschools
Scrying: a scrying spell creates an invisible magical sensor that sends you information. Unless noted otherwise, the sensor has the same powers of sensory acuity that you possess. This level of acuity includes any spells or effects that target you, but not spells or effects that emanate from you. The sensor, however, is treated as a separate, independent sensory organ of yours, and thus functions normally even if you have been blinded or deafened, or otherwise suffered sensory impairment.
A creature can notice the sensor by making a Perception check with a DC 20 + the spell level. The sensor can be dispelled as if it were an active spell.
Lead sheeting or magical protection blocks a scrying spell, and you sense that the spell is blocked.
Or make good use of lead so that your fortress(or at least the parts you care about) is immune to scrying
There are plenty of ways within the current rules to prevent scry and fry.
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My two cents as to why there's no FAQ needed but rather some simple reading of the spell Teleport:
From the spell in all cases: You must have some clear idea of the location and layout of the destination. That's two requirements, that the caster know where he's going and what it looks like. You cannot have one without the other. Scrying gives a layout, no dispute. But notice Teleport states "Viewed Once" can be achieved "possibly using magic such as scrying." Scrying "possibly" can give a hint as to the location in addition to layout, but possible indicates that it's not an assurance.
For example, the target is in a cave. Layout is observed but location is unknown. The target moves around enough and the scryer recognizes the sigil of House Abbas (Knowledge Nobility), which owns a gold mine outside of the town of Wistran (Knowledge Geography).
Caster believes he's correct and casts teleport, having a clear idea as to location (through study and knowledge) and layout (having observed the cave). It is possible his knowledge is wrong (the sigil was there but only because House Abbas traded with the dwarves of Murkstone.) If so, he is teleporting to a "False Destination" having visualized the wrong layout with the wrong location.