In sufficiently high-level D&D campaigns, teleportation can become a drag. Not to mention the scry & teleport combo. It's rather hard to have both exploration and reliable immediate transportation available.

The Forgotten Realms hava a rather extensive portal system, especially Underdark (obviously inspired by the Gummi Bears). Does anyone have similar solutions that enable groups to travel around magically while not being totally random-access?

I'm thinking about one travel point for a specific area, possibly still only accessible by spells with the same power level of teleport. A decent in-game justification for those magical bus stations would be nice to have.

The World Stone

Back in the depths of time when man was but the product of the dreaming Gods, there was nothing. No ground, no sky, no animals and creation had not been started. The Gods of this void decided that this was not good and made plans for creation. They needed an anchor on which to build, so that the ever encroaching void would not snuff out their creations. For this purpose they used the World Stone, a mighty monolith of black basalt. From this stable foundation the world took shape and was anchored, so that permenance graced the Gods creations. To help them expand their creation, the Gods needed way points from which to hang new areas of creation. For this purpose they removed parts of the World Stone, placing them far away from the centre of creation embodied by the World Stone and worked around those splinters in an ever widening circle around the original anchor. These beacons in the void alllowed the Gods to travel quickly between them, allowing creation to continue swiftly.

Eventually, the world was made, as were all the animals and creatures and plants that made it up. The Gods were pleased with their work and the veneration the new races gave them. The World Stone and it's children proving to be the anchor that they required.

The Monoliths

The slivers of the World Stone that are scattered around the world are known as monoliths and have figured in worship rites, sites of settlement and many have been lost to man in the wilds. However, those knowing the correct rites can use the monolith to travel to the site of the World Stone and from there travel to any of the monoliths. These rites involve invoking the Gods and imbuing the monoliths with magic (enchant weapon spell or commune/augury?). Then those touching the monolith are taken to the World Stone where they are confronted with a dizzying array of destinations to choose from and as few have studied this stone, it is very difficult to use it properly to find the destination you want (as well as possibly containing big bad beasties and stuff).

People needed an easier way to travel to the monoliths. So some bright spark decided to chip a bit of a monolith off and ran off with it. He then discovered that the same rites carried out on the sliver cut from the monolith would take him back to the monolith that he cut it from. Soon, a small network of arcanists had slivers from all kind of monoliths from around the world, meaning that they did not need to risk travel to the World Stone before getting to their eventual destination.

Black Rocks  

Travel around the monoliths and to the World Stone are achieved by utilising these small slivers of basalt. They can turn up anywhere and possession of one (or more) can be a great boon, as they allow travel to climes far away. They detect as magical. You can only travel to the monolith that the Black Stone was cut from.

Personally, I love the deadly scry-teleport combo.

In one of my last campaigns- the party was being scryed upon (and taunted constantly by) their arcane enemy. But they could never find him. So their enemy was constantly leaving behind little deathtraps and programmed illusions of himself taunting them. And sending assassins, etc.

So finally they managed to seize one of the assassins, and figured out who it was. Then they let him go, but secretly they were tracking via scry. As soon as he reported back to the big boss, they teleported the entire party in on top of the bad guy en masse. It was a pretty cool plan.

Instead of teleporting, summon mounts that travel really frickin' fast. The party can still get places, but they have to know where it is instead of just have an idea of how it looks. It's also much harder to sneak up on someone with a fast running mount. Finally, it is much faster than foot, but much slower than teleport. This lets you describe scenery, interject encounters, or whatever you want to do to enhance the feeling that the players live in a world, not just a bunch of scenes they bounce between.

I mostly despise teleporting, unless it's an Amber game.

The teleportation in Amber has loads of flavor tied to it, and usually is a cooperative effort instead of just "I disappear in New York and reappear in L.A." Much better that way IMO, and harder to abuse.

Nobilis features a battered apartment building that's literally located on the 43rd street of every city in the world. If you know where to look for it, you might (for example) step through the front entrance in London, walk quickly through the twisting hallways, and leave through the back door in Tokyo. It's customary to leave a little something for the old landlady whenever you use the house as a shortcut, though, just so that you'll stay on her good side.

Consider that one yoinked for my next campaign! Thanks Ms. Borgstrom.

Most cities in the world don't have a "43rd street"...

Also, wasn't that the idea of Callahans Crosstime Saloon?

Quote from: SosthenesMost cities in the world don't have a "43rd street"...

Also, wasn't that the idea of Callahans Crosstime Saloon?

There are similarities. It's been a while since I've read the book, but if I remember correctly, Callahan's place either travelled around or reached across space in some strange fashion, but usually had an entrance at Long Island.

As for the streets, well, that depends on how you count them. Besides, in the setting every city has more streets than most mortals know, since the Cityback connects them all.

(Also, the ubiquitous 43rd street itself is a Chancel, so it won't appear on maps any more than Atlantis or Camelot do...)

Quote from: SosthenesAlso, wasn't that the idea of Callahans Crosstime Saloon?

Also, in limited fashion, the nature of the door in "Howl's Moving Castle".  A single door in the castle opened out of four different buildings in different parts of the world.

!i!

Counter-scrying and teleporting measures are built into the game already.

Scrying:

If a creature passes its will save, the scrying attempt fails. If you don't know the creature (or at least have secondhand information), the scrying attempt fails. It's unclear in the text of the spell, but it seems like scrying must be directed at a creature, not just a location. Spell resistance applies too.

Spells such as Nondetection and Mind Blank prevent scrying. Nondetection is a 3rd level wizard spell, Mind Blank is 8th level. If you want to hide a hostage or ally, have the villain use Sequester (Wiz 7), which will render them comatose _and_ difficult to detect.

Hallucinatory Terrain, Mirage Arcana and Screen, (4th, 5th level and 7th level Wizard spells respectively) can both break up the scrying-teleport combo. A character who has seen an illusion of an area during scrying should count as being unfamiliar with it.

A Prismatic Sphere will prevent divination spells from getting close to the villain.

Don't overlook darkness or spells that obscure sight, especially if the darkness is of a kind that the villain can ignore (through blindsight, darkvision, etc.)

Teleport:

Forbiddance (Cleric 6) and Dimensional Lock (Wiz just block anyone from teleporting into an area. Extend Spell and Create Wondrous Item can be helpful in making this a permanent thing.

If they can't scry a creature in an area, it becomes harder to teleport in and zap them, so use the scrying prevention stuff I mentioned above.

Make the area the villain is in dangerous, so that they can't just 'port in. One good thing to try is to use Symbols of... Villains can give their flunkies the password so that they don't get zapped, but anyone who pops into the room is getting all sorts of nastiness dropped on them. Symbol of Spell Loss (Wiz 5) is particularly good, because it doesn't have a material component, at least as it's printed in the Spell Compendium.

Enemies with resistance or immunity to a dangerous element or energy should consider lairs filled with that element. There's no reason for a guy who's immune to acid not to live in a pond filled with acid - anyone who tries to pop in and zap him is getting a dunk. Lava is particularly good because immersion deals 20d6 fire damage per round, and fire immunity is one of the most common immunities. You either force PCs to blow spells buffing to avoid taking damage from the environment, or else take advantage of them jumping in blind.

Spellwise, you can rig areas with battlefield control spells like Repel Metal (Druid , Reverse Gravity (Wiz , Web (Wiz 2), Solid Fog (Wiz 4). High level casters should Craft Contingent Spell or cast Contingency Teleports or Words of Recall (Clr 6) with the trigger (immediately [or one round, etc.] after someone teleports in within X feet of me). The PCs pop in, the bad guy pops out, repeat. Bonus points if the villain leads the PCs to believe he's teleporting to one spot, fakes them out by going to another, and the location the PCs hop to is a death trap of some sort.

Hope those help.

Well, thanks, Pseudo, but I'm actually not very concerned about the scry+teleport. I'm using some Book of Eldritch Might spells that have some nice consequences in this regard (trapping teleports, sending fireballs through scrying sensors etc.). And with my current campaign, it's even better, as much of this takes place in the Underdark, where the magical subspace fluctuations put a stop to it...

No, I'm more concerned about making teleport a bit more granular. If I had some points in space that were natural "attractors" of teleport-like spells, I would solve two problems: First, teleports don't get you precisely where you want them, making them less tactical, and secondly, you could arrive at places you haven't seen more easily.
This argument was actually started by our main wizard player, so it's not like the DM is oppressing his people.

Ley lines are a bit too new-agey for this and I don't want to retcon magical druid circles into the game. The mechanics really don't matter, I've got a reasonable picture of those already, but the in-game justification could use some work. As the current game is set in the Forgotten Realms (no matter how much I despise that setting), I'll probably patch something together using the portal system the world is riddle width...

Oh, sorry, I thought you wanted a mechanical way, not an IC justification for it.

If it's set in FR, just rely on the FR default explanation "A mighty wizard did it". Maybe the wizard wanted to prevent the local drow from zipping around, and so banned all conjuration [teleportation] spells. The drow can't undo the effect, but they have managed to undermine it in certain areas, which leave little bubbles that can be 'ported between. Or maybe the drow did it to prevent people from zapping in, but left pathways they could use to get around in spite of that.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineOr maybe the drow did it to prevent people from zapping in, but left heavily gaurded pathways they could use to get around in spite of that.

That's better.