Teleport and lice


Rules Questions


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I was having a philosophical conversation with a Venture Captain about the uses of the teleport spell. By RAW it says that any additional creature, medium or smaller creature or its equivalent, counts against your limit of creatures teleported. Fleas and lice are creatures and there is the wording "or smaller" to consider.

1) If the caster cannot choose leave the fleas behind then each flea, louse, skin mite, or any other external parasite counts as a "medium or smaller" creature that is touching the caster. The consequence would be that infesting a spellcaster would guarantee that he can never use teleport as they would not have enough "creatures" capacity.

2) However, if the caster can choose to not take the fleas, etc. with him, it makes the teleport spell a 100% successful dis-infesting spell, and since nearly every adventurer has at least one form of beneficial parasite (skin mites) it means that teleporting would leave a faint outline of all the infesting creatures. I suppose that what the spellcaft check is for, noticing that faint outline if vermin would mean it was a teleport spell, not and invisibility spell. :)

Now the term "or equivalent" may also apply. The standard rule of 2:1 being 1 large creature counts as 2 medium, if applied to diminutive and fine creature sizes would mean that each group of up to 16 fleas or lice, would count as 1 medium creature in the teleport limit.

This was actually a devolvement of a discussion about teleporting with a tiny familiar. While neither of us could find the rule, we both though that a tiny familiar carried by a wizard would not count against the teleport limits. But that couldn't be resolved with the wordging in the teleport spell.


I don't think that those necessarily count as creatures; ordinary plants don't. But if they do then there's no reason the caster would be forced to take them.


In game terms, they are an infestation, not creatures. Unless you can tell me what is the CR of a single flea.

Even if it was a swarm, it would still count as a single creature for many purposes, just with the swarm subtype.


What Adjoint said. They are considered an infestation, just like if you had a tapeworm or if a slaad had laid eggs inside you.

Also, what avr said, not all living things are considered 'creatures' per-say for spell effects and sometimes, even when they are for one effect, they aren't for others.


I know this wouldn't work but I just had the image of things going the other way.

wouldn't an angry mob of villagers be a swarm?
then a wizard could teleport angry mob somewhere with it only counting as one creature. :p


My point is that PF doesn't have a definition of what is a creature and what is not. So standard English definition rules. Anything living is a creature. At least everything that has a brain.

However, as the last part of my post indicated, that all was a devolvement of a more important question. Does a tiny familiar (like a bird or rat) on the shoulder of it's master count as an additional creature for the purposes of teleport? Both of thought it didn't, but couldn't cite any rule that specifically says that.


Adjoint wrote:

In game terms, they are an infestation, not creatures. Unless you can tell me what is the CR of a single flea.

Even if it was a swarm, it would still count as a single creature for many purposes, just with the swarm subtype.

So are you implying that if you happend to have a familiar that is "CR -", i.e. no CR. Then it doesn't count as a creature?


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mjmeans wrote:
My point is that PF doesn't have a definition of what is a creature and what is not. So standard English definition rules. Anything living is a creature. At least everything that has a brain.

It does, actually:

Getting Started wrote:
Creature: A creature is an active participant in the story or world. This includes PCs, NPCs, and monsters.

Note that this even covers things that aren't creatures at all by "standard English definition rules", such as undead or animated objects.

It kicks the can a bit to "what's an active participant", but that's what GMs are for. If a GM wants to rule that paramecia or gut flora are creatures and have teleport be fatal due to the loss of necessary internal bacteria, they're welcome to do so (Rule 0), but their players aren't likely to take it well (Rule -1).

The most commonly accepted upon definition of "creature" I've come across is anything that's has stats (explicit or implicit) like a creature. This could mean anything with a Bestiary entry (e.g., a dire tiger), a race (e.g., a human), a one-off stat block in the published/homebrewed material (e.g., "That Which Smacks Loudly At Movies, see page 231"), or rules dictating that one of the previous things ought to be assumed or constructed (e.g., "Treat this phenomenon as [insert creature stuff and/or exceptions here]."). All of these things fall under the category of PC, NPC, or monster (which is really just another word for NPC).

Most GMs would not rule that a louse is a creature in most circumstances, including teleport, though in particular cases they might--maybe you really, really want to acid splash that louse who's been pissing you off, or maybe an awakened louse is hanging out on your head and spying on you for its master. A bacteria is even less likely to be considered a creature in a given circumstance. (Who wants to roll a few *illion saving throws for this area debuff spell?)

Regarding familiars, you're gonna get some table variation. Generally, I allow anything that a PC has stuffed in a container they're carrying as part of that creature, but it's a bit ad hoc.


LordKailas wrote:

wouldn't an angry mob of villagers be a swarm?

then a wizard could teleport angry mob somewhere with it only counting as one creature. :p

I know you know this, but just for someone else's benefit if they read this later:

A swarm ignores affects that target a specific number of more creatures or even an individual creature (like teleport) so they wouldn't be valid unless it was an effect that teleported them all, like a teleportation circle that they moves into. Same thing with a mob in most cases.

Like Adjoint mentioned, they count as a single creature for 'many purposes' and such a situation falls into the similarly mentioned area of some creatures not counting as 'creatures' or valid targets even though there is clear indication that they are creatures or even normally would be affected (ie. the components that make up a mob). It all falls to the purpose and specificity of the spell. In this case, lice, tapeworms, crabs, etc. will not count against your teleport limit, but neither can you just leave them behind when you go.

There have been many topics about teleporting out of your clothes or gear or leaving things behind voluntarily, and similar to this topic, it hinges on how people view the words 'you may' and 'objects' in the case of the spell (as opposed to how they work in other spells or abilities).


I think the way I'm going to rule in my games is that since the "objects" sentence comes first in the teleport spell description, that it takes precedence. Anything the caster wears or carries are objects, even if they are other creatures, and they come along automaticaly as long as the total weight doesn't exceed the character's carrying capacity. Ruling that even carried creatures are obects is much the same as considering that a square is also quadrilateral, but a quandrilaterial is not necessarily a square. So creatures are obects for the purposes of teleport carrying capacity. This nicely resolves all ambiguities. This will alsl means that a character with green slime on his head cannot just teleport out from under it, or use teleport to rid himself of an infestation. I will rule that "additional creatures" referrs to other, non-carried creatures that the the caster chooses, by willfully touching them, to include, along with anything they wear or carry. It also means that an animal companion hostelling in the armor special ability would also not count against the creature limit, which I think is correct in any interpretation.

I realize that this opens the door for a party, all of which have muleback chords and such, to potentially allow many more 'creatures' to be teleported; but I think that is okay.


Even with muleback cords, I'd like to see this totem pole of PCs from a practical standpoint. : )


Blaphers beat me to pointing out the fatal consequences of losing gut bacteria.

Of course it doesn't work that way in Pathfinder, but I'll keep the idea of bacteria-excluding teleportation kicking around the back of my head to use for something later. :)


It could be an horrible curse effect when failing a craft item check that include teleport in the prerequisites.


Old school thinking. I like it! Mwahahahaha....


Cool, so demons can pick up a party member and planeshift away. No save even. Handy.

*yoink*


toastedamphibian wrote:

Cool, so demons can pick up a party member and planeshift away. No save even. Handy.

*yoink*

Thankfully teleport requires willing creatures (probably the lice don't want to resist, if they even counted for checking) and plane shift specifically requires a will save unless they are willing (and only one creature is transported away if unwilling).

Though if they can be touched while unconscious or sleeping, they count as willing.

Dark Archive

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I like to rationalize that sort of thing as that the spellcaster using the spell (in this case teleport) didn't actually create the spell, and only controls the aspects that the spell specifically says he does, and that the spell doesn't generally do more than it has to, within the limitations of 'stuff that's necessary' for it's intended function.

The caster is using a 'product' that works how it works, and doesn't really micro-manage minutiae like which gut bacteria, internal parasites, ingested poisons, etc. get to come along for the ride, some of which he might even understand (as his knowledge of the human(oid) micro-biome and which parts of it he can or cannot live without could be zilch).

As I see it, teleport is 'intended' to transport a person and their gear from point A to point B. It's not intended as a free delousing spell *and* it's not intended to effectively murder anyone who uses it by purging them of their gut bacteria (and all sorts of other beneficial / symbiotic microlife) if they use it.

Maybe when the spell was first being designed / researched, earlier versions of it proved dangerous or even fatal to the casters, as it did this very thing (or teleported you into rocks, or failed to maintain your relative velocity to the planet you were on, or all sorts of other persnickety details), but by the 'modern' age, the spell's been fine-tuned for thousands of years, at least, and this sort of thing is no longer a problem (and modern-day spellcasters treat spells as black boxes, that only work as sold to them, and don't 'hack' them and try to make them do other things, barring such simple 'hacks' as using metamagic to change some very basic parameters).

Other, even more common, teleport questions involve teleporting out of grapples (or even if swallowed whole!), teleporting away from attached creatures like weasels or stirges or ticks-of-unusual-size, teleporting out of handcuffs (do they come with, or drop to the ground where you vanished from) or even larger items of confinement (such as a 'wizard jail' where they lock the prisoners in suits of full plate armor, to restrict spellcasting). Ditto teleporting out from being bound by nets or tanglefoot bags or lassos, or teleporting a weapon stuck in your body (like a harpoon or porcupine quill) free, or even teleporting away from something like alcohol in your bloodstream (instant sobriety!) or tattoo inks under your skin (no more lifetime of regret for that drunken decision!) or a STD (no more lifetime of regret for *that* drunken decision...) or other disease or cancerous growth or cursed item or whatever. (Or 'offensively' teleporting someone away from their peg-leg, Hand of Vecna or artificial heart pump or whatever.)

When the rules don't cover such corner cases, we have GMs. Hopefully most will come up with a reasonable and consistent ruling that the player in question can at least accept, if not necessarily like. :)

Liberty's Edge

Forget lice... what about all the symbiotic bacteria in your digestive track? Or the fact that the mitochondria in human cells are themselves 'living creatures' with their own separate DNA?

You teleport once and BAM suddenly you are no longer able to generate cellular energy from food and fall over dead.

Or maybe this is all very silly.


Pizza Lord wrote:
toastedamphibian wrote:

Cool, so demons can pick up a party member and planeshift away. No save even. Handy.

*yoink*

Thankfully teleport requires willing creatures (probably the lice don't want to resist, if they even counted for checking) and plane shift specifically requires a will save unless they are willing (and only one creature is transported away if unwilling).

Though if they can be touched while unconscious or sleeping, they count as willing.

Buuut, we are not treating them as creatures, but as OBJECTS. Objects need not be willing and only get saves if the person holding them wants them to.


toastedamphibian wrote:
Pizza Lord wrote:
toastedamphibian wrote:

Cool, so demons can pick up a party member and planeshift away. No save even. Handy.

*yoink*

Thankfully teleport requires willing creatures (probably the lice don't want to resist, if they even counted for checking) and plane shift specifically requires a will save unless they are willing (and only one creature is transported away if unwilling).

Though if they can be touched while unconscious or sleeping, they count as willing.

Buuut, we are not treating them as creatures, but as OBJECTS. Objects need not be willing and only get saves if the person holding them wants them to.

Buuut, aren't they considered intelligent, animated objects... and thus attended, so they would get a save? Like if you tried to planeshift away that animated broom that keeps filling your bathtub to over-flowing and can't be stopped?

*Yes I know this is silly :)


Animated broom is a creature. These creatures are objects. They are objects that are intelligent, but they are not "Intelligent Objects". Those have Ego scores.


toastedamphibian wrote:
Animated broom is a creature. These creatures are objects. They are objects that are intelligent, but they are not "Intelligent Objects". Those have Ego scores.

so you can do it, you just have to mentally abuse the creatures that are objects so that they don't have egos any more.....


The game has a tendency to become more or less granular as things matter. Things like lice or intestinal flora just don't matter when it's time to fight a minotaur, so they're disregarded.

Lice don't provide cover. Gut bacteria don't need swarm rules. They just don't exist in the simulation. Not until something specifically makes them matter.

The easiest way to view all of this is to just recognize the game zooms in and out to more and less detail as required, and accept that teleport does what it does as the level of resolution it talks about. Given there are no creature sizes for "microscopic" or "smaller than a grain of rice", even if such creatures exist, they can safely be disregarded.


Anguish wrote:
Lice don't provide cover.

Lice would provide soft cover if your Fine PC had lice between them and their Fine target....

I do see your point.

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