Monday, February 8, 2010

To Teleport or not to Teleport…

While ‘Teleport’ is a fantastic spell, it’s not a perfectly safe one.

Bodush can teleport five medium sized people 1500 miles per use of the spell.
He has only seen Estaban’s mansion once and therefore has a drastically reduced chance of finding it.

The Party currently consists of:

1) Bodush.
2) Eolar.
3) Thesis.
4) Durin.
5) Hawkmoon.
6) Mara’ch.
7) Ragnar.
8) Roly.
9) Meldo. (Large = 2 medium characters)
10) 1 x Riding horse. (Large = 2 medium characters)
11) 4 x Sailors.
12) 2 x Hamsters.
13) 7 x children.

A grand total of 25 for the purpose of Teleport!

This means that Bodush would have to make 11 trips (11 castings).
Unfortunately he can only cast the spell 7 times per day…

In addition, his chance of being successful first time is only 76%. (A failure chance of 1 in 4!)
This means he’ll probably have to cast the spell at least 13 times. (Unlucky for some?)

Of the 1 in 4 failure chance, the Party will end up off target for about half of these.
That’ll probably put you all in the water…
Fully armoured and heavily encumbered! (And Thesis all out of ‘Water walk’ potions.)

Sure, Bodush can simply cast ‘Teleport’ again, unfortunately everyone teleported must be touching each other.
(Tough luck to anyone who failed their swim role…)

Lastly there is about a 1 in 22 chance per use of the spell going badly wrong.
Everyone teleporting gets ‘Scrambled’ and takes 1d10 damage…

Not too bad you think?

That’s not all. At that point the teleport spell tries to continue but rather than a simple re-roll to see what happens, the chances of success collapse to a very poor chance of success.

Total success: None!
Off target: about 1 in 10!
More scrambling: about 4 in 5!

Worse, every time you’re scrambled the process repeats.
The likelihood is that everyone will take about 30 points of damage!

Not much you think?

It’s enough to kill the Sailors, the Hamster-men, the children and possibly Meldo and the horse!

Feel like risking it now?

(Curse Dag for making me read up on some more spellcasting rules!!!)

6 comments:

Joebroesel said...

Well, you can't rely on arcane spellcasters, can you? Somehow it seems to Eolar they are just like children playing with magic :)

Eolar considers using plane shift to get the party there. Since plane shifts are a bit inaccurate I can get us within 5-500 miles of the target (5d100) so well within windwalking distance. So the proposed mode of travel would be:

1. Cast water walk on all subjects (since 5-500miles around an island is most likely water)
Depending on ground we arrive on,
2A: cast wind walk on subjects to travel onwards
or
2B: travel there the old fashioned way (e.g. arrive closely to island)

Direction is no problem since I forgot I can find the best direction to target by magic (Find the Path).

So the only problem is to find a nice, cosy and save plane to use as stop-over and to deal with unforseen landing locations (e.g. volcanoes (pretty low probability I would guess), in nasty trees :), within a horde of giants, etc). Most of them should be no problem to survive for 1 round as long as we keep on holding hands! I also would require a few trips but this could be the mode of travel for people who think teleport is a bit too unsave ;-)

RoboGeek said...

But, Sven, I want to go back to Cyclops Island. I want to kill some giants. I want to get some XP and go up a level. And, I want some magic treasure (unless you are willing to always make stuff for people).

Maybe Eolar and his happy band ought to plane-shift and the rest of us can have a fun session fighting, playing and getting treasure.

See you there!

Joebroesel said...

I know Assif, but Eolar and Bodush really want to get back to Shalala to drop of the diamonds as quickly as possible.
And the problem here: How do you get to the other island again if Eolar doesn't want to? :) Swim? Why should Eolar wind-walk to the other island if he could get back immediately by using another spell?

And how can Thesis justify killing the giants in cold blood? Isn't he good? He doesn't know the giants are evil.......

RoboGeek said...

These comments just prove you have missed the point Sven.

Hedzor said...

And also, why would you think that Thesis is good?
:)

Joebroesel said...

Ok, without wanting to start a fight here (off-game) I think it just proves that we are talking about different things. We are back to the old meta-gaming vs. gaming argument and I get the point very well, I just don't agree with it. I could also say that you don't get mine ;-)

You are talking about what Assif wants to do to advance his gaming character XP-wise, I'm talking about what Eolar has to do in-game within the frame that is given. It results directly from the different playing styles.
I also want to be "fighting, playing and getting treasure.", I just try to combine that with playing a character and following a storyline from the viewpoint of my character.

But don't worry, the problem is already solved in-game.