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A high level Paladin is not going to let mid level evil linger because it is 5 levels below her. "Oh no, I won't clear out the demon spawn in the swamp lands, the PCs need to do that to get some levels". What?!
A Paladin is sort of a special case in terms of motivations (most high level characters are not LG and devoted to making the world a better place) and rather lacks Teleport, making this example weird.
I mean, for most non-Paladins there's a certain amount of 'doing what is best for me and the people I care about' which tends to involve conserving resources to some degree.
Also, there are plenty of threats that you need a high level Paladin for. Threats that can do things like end the world. Why is the Paladin not focused on those bigger threats?
High level creatures do dominate, with teleport it is incredibly hard to justify why they have not cleared out all of the adventure encounters from level 5-12. With teleport it is worth your time and effort. Without teleport it generally is not. Without teleport there is a niche for level 5-12 people to get their hands dirty.
It isn't worth your time and effort even with teleport. You still have to find out about the issue, spend hours doing the actual killing of creatures (including walking between groups of creatures), and burn at least the teleport spell slots.
It's actually sorta resource intensive, and leaves whatever you care about undefended (or at least less defended) while you do it. It's not that nobody would ever do this, but it's gonna be super rare.
And, of course, of the corebook Classes, this is pretty much only an option for Wizards and a few Sorcerers (those who have Teleport spells), which drops the number of people who can do it precipitously, and given the usual lack of interest in violence most Wizards have, that makes the number who would do this even smaller. Even including all Classes who ever get Greater Teleport (which is what you really need to do this, since Teleport only takes you to places you've been before), that's only Wizards, Witches, and spontaneous casters (many of whom won't have it), and a few Clerics who can do it once a day at most. That list also almost exclusively contains Classes who, like Wizards, are not mostly inclined to looking for fights.
Which, again, doesn't mean nobody will do this, but makes it even rarer.
Teleport leaves a world without mid level adventures.
It really doesn't unless all high level characters decide to devote themselves to killing minor threats rather than actually doing whatever their job is, and invest a lot of resources into doing so.
That is exactly divination (plus some teleport)."I wish to be right next to whoever did this right now." is not divination.
No. Teleporting to an unknown destination is still just Conjuration. It's a conjuration effect we lack a spell for, but it isn't divination.
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Easiest way is being able to teleport to specific places (teleport circles), including circles you create yourself with chalk and stuff.I strongly disagree with this. One of the most basic, straightforward, and completely unintrusive uses of teleport is "I teleport to that landmark we can see on the horizon". Literally a case of spending a spell slot to avoid hours of overland travel. Yes, we can hand-wave the travel OOC, but at such high levels it feels right to be able to literally hand-wave the travel IC. It keeps system mastery for overland travel low, since it's completely intuitive that teleportation is the way to travel quickly between point A and point B.
It is also one of the reasons why the adventure path developers need to be pulling constantly from their arse ad hoc "reasons" to explain why the PC can't simply teleport to Mount Doom and throw the friggin ring.
So there's that.
They do? I've run and played several APs to completion and I've never seen these ad hoc reasons you speak of. Usually, in fact, by about adventure 5 the author is handwaving overland travel as assuming the PCs teleport or wind walk or something.
Sometimes, there are reasons the PC party can't just zip around the actual adventure location, but not always. Usually it's more a matter of not knowing exactly what, who or where their goal is.
Easiest way is being able to teleport to specific places (teleport circles), including circles you create yourself with chalk and stuff.I strongly disagree with this. One of the most basic, straightforward, and completely unintrusive uses of teleport is "I teleport to that landmark we can see on the horizon". Literally a case of spending a spell slot to avoid hours of overland travel. Yes, we can hand-wave the travel OOC, but at such high levels it feels right to be able to literally hand-wave the travel IC. It keeps system mastery for overland travel low, since it's completely intuitive that teleportation is the way to travel quickly between point A and point B.
It is also one of the reasons why the adventure path developers need to be pulling constantly from their arse ad hoc "reasons" to explain why the PC can't simply teleport to Mount Doom and throw the friggin ring.
So there's that.
They do? I've run and played several APs to completion and I've never seen these ad hoc reasons you speak of. Usually, in fact, by about adventure 5 the author is handwaving overland travel as assuming the PCs teleport or wind walk or something.
Sometimes, there are reasons the PC party can't just zip around the actual adventure location, but not always. Usually it's more a matter of not knowing exactly what, who or where their goal is.
Fast answer, just from the last AP I GMed and I have it fresh in memory, so I don't need to go and check:
The one I GMed before that, Iron Gods, also had this small commentary in the last Dungeon, Silver Mountain:
That's the two I have more fresh in my memory, because they are the last 2 I played.
If I remember well, Karzaug's den in Rise of Runelords, Xin's castle in Shattered Star, or the final dungeon in Reign of Winter, were also non-accesible via teleport, but would need to check to be able to quote.
The adventures don't really care about the travel. They handwave how you arrive to the land where the adventure is, be it via teleport, or hiring a ship and spending time. It's not going from Hobbitton to Bree what they care about. It's teleporting right into Mount Doom with the ring at hand what they water-proof the adventure for.
With or without teleport the high-level characters implicitly allied with the mid-level characters they're killing are going to chase down the high-level murderers and take them out, as well as possibly starting all out war.
And the LAST time that happened, Queen Abrogail got most vexed and we got a couple adventure paths out of it.
Also, as an example of blocking scry-and-fry
Edit: good call Cpt Morgan. I added a spoiler to my own post.
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All you need is a cabal of 10 evil level 15 wizards and you can suppress the entire world's population of good adventuring parties in the area of level 10.
Aside from all the other issues people have pointed out, I want to point out that 15th level evil wizards are preeeeetty likely to betray each other. They may get greedy and want more power for themselves, or they might just get paranoid that one of their peers is gonna try.
The closest we have probably seen to your scenario was Thassilon. Spoilers for Rise of the Runelords.
Evil doesn't always play nice with other evil, and high magic tends to shoot itself in the foot eventually.
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PCs tend to have really bad options to block scry-and-fry though.With or without teleport the high-level characters implicitly allied with the mid-level characters they're killing are going to chase down the high-level murderers and take them out, as well as possibly starting all out war.And the LAST time that happened, Queen Abrogail got most vexed and we got a couple adventure paths out of it.
Also, as an example of blocking scry-and-fry ** spoiler omitted **
Edit: good call Cpt Morgan. I added a spoiler to my own post.
Yeah, but the whole point is that they don't tend to have high level people targeting them. At least, not until they themselves are high level and have made enough noise toe draw the BBEG's attention. The BBEG is going to be busy conquering the world, or dealing with other high level threats. Which include both high level heroes who want to see the villain fail because Good, and other high level villains who have incompatible ambitions and want to eliminate the competition.