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Teleport always has a nice little hidden clause in it, what I like to call the 'Volcano Lair' clause.
"Areas of strong physical or magical energy may make teleportation more hazardous or even impossible."
Now, the idea of inside an active volcano, or down near a lot of lava, or something seems clear (at least to me) as being natural energy. But does this mean that our intrepid adventurers might have trouble with floods, incoming tsunami's, hurricanes, droughts , or similar things? Just what construes 'strong natural energy.' Can I not teleport to select locations on the plane of fire?
If I'm a gelugon, does this mean I can't zot around on the frozen hell that is my home because its constantly in blizzard with subzero temperatures? I have greater teleport, but that just means if its hazardous I don't go.
Also, what would classify as the 'strong magical energy,' if it includes anything which might result in a 'strong' return on detect magic, this means anything a 12+ level caster does might make an area dangerous (which seems weird to me).
And my tertiary question. Greater Teleport removes the failure chance, but if the situation would have resulted in hazard or failure, the teleport just doesn't work (you blink out and then back in again), or would greater teleport overcome the difficulties like this? Would interplanetary teleport?
If you guys think this question is more suited for General Discussion then Rules forum, feel free to kick it over there.
You have to read the entire section together.
"You must have some clear idea of the location and layout of the destination. The clearer your mental image, the more likely the teleportation works. Areas of strong physical or magical energy may make teleportation more hazardous or even impossible."
It is referring to your accuracy when teleporting and associated dangers.
As an example you can teleport into an area that is very hot, but it will be dangerous. As for being impossible the general rules for conjuration spells are that you just end up in a place that can support you, so if the place not support you then the spell may just fail.
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Yeah but see that's the thing.
Its the sentence about the energies that indicates teleportation may be hazardous or impossible. Its in the same paragraph, but it stands on itself and has nothing to do with the mental image or the targeting.
The implication seems to be that strong magical or 'physical energy' (still not sure what defines 'physical energy' or 'strong' for that matter) is what 'may make' it more hazardous or impossible. Also, strictly speaking magma can 'support' you since its as dense as rock. But this line seems like it might be intentionally vague.
Just because an area is dangerous doesn't mean we can't teleport into it, not contesting that, its just a question of what an area of 'strong' energy in this case actually represents.
Greater teleport doesn't have a chance for catastrophic failure, the only way it fails is if you have insufficient information on the target, but if the teleportation was rendered 'impossible' based on the 'energies' does that also render greater teleport impossible?
This is all about your GM's interpretation of the clause. Because even if we all agree "yes, teleporting into a blizzard IS difficult", the spell doesn't explain in what way that difficulty is expressed. Is it one more step harder on the failure table? Do you just add 10 to the number rolled for failure? What constitutes difficult vs impossible?
The line was there in 3.5 as well.
I always interpreted it as referring to places of natural or magical "radiation." Such as the faerzress of the Forgotten Realms Underdark, or the blightburn of the Black Desert in Orv.