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{{Underbar|Fourth level teleportation spells?|Yes, fourth level teleportation spells. The arcane spell has the greatest versatility, but requires one round to cast, has a 4+ round delay even after casting is complete, and only takes you to specific locations. It's a teleportation spell that you can't use to take you exactly where you need to go without DM fiat or significant planning. It's a teleportation spell that you can't use to immediately skip out of a fight when things turn bad, and it's possible people might get stuck behind. And on top of all that, it's a teleport spell that offers a substantial chance to break or cancel. It's less a combat utility spell, and more a "hey, let's go to that town over there" plot utility spell.
The divine spells are less limited in terms of casting, but have a more restricted set of destinations. Players have very little influence over the available destinations with these spells, so lowering their level is a reasonable trade off. The immediate effect but limited destination divine spells work as a nice alternative to the more flexible, but slower to use arcane versions. They are superior means of transit when you need to escape immediately, or when you need to go to one of the destinations they can bring you.
The inclusion of [[Pursue Warp (3.5e Spell)|''pursue warp'']] also means that even a successful retreat via teleport might only be a scene shift, as your enemies can follow you more easily than previously. Placing these sorts of restricted transportation spells a level after you get tactical flight is completely reasonable, and potentially balanced to an even lower level than listed here. If you do decide you want to lower the levels a bit more, understand that you are reducing the level at which you can still expect "now fight your way out" to be a meaningful plot element.}}
→General Rules
==General Rules==
A large portion of the issues with teleport arise not from the transit itself, but from the ability to select your destination from literally anywhere. So the core changes here will be to remove the ability of teleportion spells to travel to any location, and instead limit the destinations. We do this by creating a new descriptor for teleportation spells and updating the rules for all spells of this type. To address the narrative issues with teleport retreats we will add minor updates to update some spells and replace others, eliminating the ''Teleport'' line of spells entirely in favor of the new ''Warp'' line of spells. The new spells require additional time to use and can be followed relatively easily, so they are much more difficult to use for ambushes or last minute escapes. We will also add a few new offensive, defensive, and simply narrative utility effects that work with these new rules. Lastly, we will also provide conversion information for existing characters and monsters, so that those who could previously teleport all over the battlefield don't lose too much ability.
===[Teleportation] Descriptor===
Creating an anchor sigil is a simple ritual; knowledge of an arcane [Teleportation] spell is not required to create these sigils, but knowledge of such a spell automatically confers knowledge of the ritual. The process requires a gemstone of semiprecious or greater value to serve as a focus that is not expended. Making an anchor sigil requires four successful DC 20 knowledge (arcana) checks to set the sigil. The first check is made 15 minutes after beginning the ritual, with another check every 15 minutes until you have reached four successes. Anchor sigils are unique, as much a product of location as creator, and some special or magically unique areas may require more difficult checks, a greater number of successful checks, allow a set number of failures before the process must be restarted, or be entirely unanchorable. Many areas deep underground are in this last category.
Anchor sigils may also be strengthened, becoming more difficult and time consuming to remove. Each additional layer of strengthening requires two additional successful checks, each at a DC equal to the previous DC to create or strengthen the sigil +2. Anchor sigils can be strengthened in this fashion up to 10 additional times. The strength of an anchor sigil is obvious to anyone viewing it with ''[[SRD:Detect Magic|detect magic]]''. Strengthening is generally performed on public anchors to make them resistant to pranksters removing them, since a sigil strengthened 10 times requires almost two hours to remove. It is less common on private sigils.
If an anchor sigil is ever removed, it can be remade on the same location using the standard creation above. Remade sigils are generally similar but not identical to the old sigil, and thus cannot be reached without knowledge of the updated sigil. Someone attempting to recreate the old sigil can do so, but must have a copy of the original sigil available for reference. This adds a +5 penalty to the DC for the initial re-creation of the anchor sigil, but this DC penalty does not apply to later strengthening attempts.
Thus anyone in possession of a sigil's representation can attempt to determine its location via [[SRD:Locate Creature|''locate creature'']] and view what is occurring at the sigil with [[SRD:Scrying|''scrying'']] or similar abilities. Anchor sigils resist these divination attempts, however, and have a will save bonus equal to 5, +1 per level of strengthening.
===Spell UpdatesSpells===
====Replaced Spells====
! Spell Name !! Spell Level !! Description !! Replaces
|-
| [[Warp (3.5e Spell)|Warp]] || Sorcerer/Wizard 4, <br />Travel 5 || {{#show:Warp (3.5e Spell)|?Summary}} || [[SRD:Teleport|Teleport]], <br />[[SRD:Teleport Object|Teleport Object]]
|-
| [[Greater Warp (3.5e Spell)|Greater Warp]] || Sorcerer/Wizard 6, <br />Travel 7 || {{#show:Greater Warp (3.5e Spell)|?Summary}} || [[SRD:Greater Teleport|Greater Teleport]], <br />[[SRD:Teleport Object|Teleport Object]]
|-
| [[Warp Circle (3.5e Spell)|Warp Circle]] || Rune 9, <br />Sorcerer/Wizard 9 || {{#show:Warp Circle (3.5e Spell)|?Summary}} || [[SRD:Teleportation Circle|Teleportation Circle]]
|}
| [[SRD:Word of Recall|Word of Recall]] || Cleric 4, Druid 6 || This spell gains the [Teleportation] descriptor. You do not need to designate a sanctuary when you prepare the spell. Instead, when you cast ''word of recall'' you may target a divinely anchored location (as indicated in the [[SRD:Hallow|hallowed]] and [[SRD:Unhallow|unhallowed]] changes above) that you are aware of. You need not have created the anchor yourself, but it must belong to a compatible faith. As a result of this limitation, clerics may not use the anchored locations of their deity's enemies, and clerics and druids generally can not use the hallowed areas of each other.
|}
====New Spells====Lastly, we present a few new spells to take advantage of these rules and add some interesting options into the mix.
{| class="zebra d20" style="text-align:left; width:100%;"
|-
| [[Analyze Teleportation (3.5e Spell)|Analyze Teleportation]] || {{#show:Analyze Teleportation (3.5e Spell)|?Level}} || {{#show:Analyze Teleportation (3.5e Spell)|?Summary}}
|-| [[Create Anchor Sigil (3.5e Spell)|Create Anchor Sigil]] || {{#show:Create Anchor Sigil (3.5e Spell)|?Level}} || {{#show:Create Anchor Sigil (3.5e Spell)|?Summary}}
|-
| [[Improved Dimension Door (3.5e Spell)|Improved Dimension Door]] || {{#show:Improved Dimension Door (3.5e Spell)|?Level}} || {{#show:Improved Dimension Door (3.5e Spell)|?Summary}}
| [[Pursue Warp (3.5e Spell)|Pursue Warp]] || {{#show:Pursue Warp (3.5e Spell)|?Level}} || {{#show:Pursue Warp (3.5e Spell)|?Summary}}
|}
{{Underbar|Fourth level teleportation spells?|Yes, fourth level teleportation spells. The arcane spell has the greatest versatility, but has a 3+ round delay even after casting is complete and only takes you to specific prepared locations. It's a teleportation spell that you can't use to take you exactly where you need to go without DM fiat or significant planning. It's a teleportation spell that you can't use to immediately skip out of a fight when things turn bad, and it's possible people might get stuck behind. And on top of all that, it's a teleport spell that offers a substantial chance to break or cancel. It's less a combat utility spell, and more a "hey, let's go to that town over there" plot utility spell.
The divine spells are less limited in terms of casting, but have an even more restricted set of destinations. Players have very little influence over the available destinations with these spells, so lowering their level is a reasonable trade off. With their immediate effect, they work as a nice alternative to the more flexible, but slower to use, arcane versions. They are superior means of transit when you need to escape immediately, or when you need to go to one of the few destinations they can bring you.
The inclusion of [[Pursue Warp (3.5e Spell)|''pursue warp'']] also means that even a successful retreat via one of these teleport spells might only be a scene shift, as your enemies can follow you more easily than previously. Placing these sorts of restricted transportation spells a level after you get tactical flight is completely reasonable, and potentially balanced to an even lower level than listed here. If you do decide you want to lower the levels a bit more, understand that you are reducing the level at which you can still expect "now fight your way out" to be a meaningful plot element.}}
===Other Conversions===
[[Category:User]]
[[Category:Transformational Variant Rule]]
{{Navboxes}}
