Rebalancing the Scales

[MGuy]

Well with the tangent that I'm starting to go on because of the rants from Pathfinder Lowdown I am now want to hear any ideas/house rules/etc that people use to limit casters/spells. This is excluding the stuff from Tome (I've already seen it) no book based limitations on spells (such as core only spells), feat/ability limitations based on book are fine. To avoid confusion please include why suggested limitations might work out and/or give examples.

I threw out a few random suggests while rage posting in PF Lowdown. I'll think them over in a bit but its just a list for now feel free to pick it apart.

You can't summon more than one or a number limited HD creature(s), Scrying is made too expensive to be practical, requires a specific component garnered from a high CR creature/god, Save or suck spells must be done at close range and take longer to cast, get rid of wish/time stop/miracle, eighty billion other things you can short change casters on including always limiting a wizards to specialties, making it more expensive to create/use multiple magic items.

[Spaghetti Western]

"Scrying is made too expensive to be practical, requires a specific component garnered from a high CR creature/god"

I would guess that if you asked rpg lay people about what wizards can do, looking into a crystal ball would be one of the more common ones. Wouldn't this be similar to taking away the Witch's broom?

I would go more in the direction of attaching a risk to scrying that intelligent/powerful beings would use. There should be nothing wrong with a wizard checking out what the orc war camp is doing but looking in on another wizard or demon should come with considerable risk

[violence in the media]

I don't think making Scry more expensive will do the trick, as that just promotes saving it for the people you really want to hit with a Scry-and-Die. If you're going to tinker with Scry, you need to somehow shift its function away from acting as CCTV.

[RandomCasualty2]

I don't see the big deal with scry... I mean it doesn't actively do anything. It's only really problematic with teleport, which is an easily solution (just remove it).

Shadowrun mages can't teleport, and honestly it's probably okay if D&D mages can't either. Just let them only travel between established portals.

[Emerald]

I saw one set of scrying houserules that would let the scry-ee take over the sensor with spells or a Spellcraft check (assuming you could find him, because there were penalties to do so based on the target's location) and you were much more vulnerable to mental effects/attacks while scrying. I think it achieves what Spaghetti Western was saying, that scrying on mooks should be trivial but that looking in on someone important should be harder.

[ubernoob]

Core Demons and Devils can teleport too.

[MGuy]

Or dangerous in the case of mental attacks. So it would be like opening a two way connection between you and the victim so if the victim is competent enough they can look back through the connection or even cast mental spells through it.

[violence in the media]

Or dangerous in the case of mental attacks. So it would be like opening a two way connection between you and the victim so if the victim is competent enough they can look back through the connection or even cast mental spells through it.

If it's a two way connection, then presumably you could cast spells through it as well. Congratulations, you've just saved yourself the effort of having to teleport all the way over there to ruin someone's day.

[MGuy]

I wouldn't go as far as to say you can cast any spell through it. Though certainly the opposite can be true. Someone can cast spells through it at you but you can't do the opposite.

[violence in the media]

I wouldn't go as far as to say you can cast any spell through it. Though certainly the opposite can be true. Someone can cast spells through it at you but you can't do the opposite.

Is there any logical basis to that? Or are you relying on it being logical on the basis that that's the way you rewrote the spell to function?

Even still, you're only rendering a certain class of creature dangerous to scry upon. Namely, anything with the capacity to cast spells that might worry you back through the connection.

[MGuy]

*shrugs* I haven't gotten it down to a science. I only posted them half an hour or so ago out of rage. I was just flinging suggestions out the window. I just provided these so that people have something to munch on before some real ideas start coming in.

[ubernoob]

*shrugs* I haven't gotten it down to a science. I only posted them half an hour or so ago out of rage. I was just flinging suggestions out the window. I just provided these so that people have something to munch on before some real ideas start coming in.

Have you considered thinking, then posting? It's generally a better way.

[Kobajagrande]

So what is the problem with scrying? If its teleporting, well... Just say you don't get enough details of a location from scrying. You see the guy you're peeping on, and see what he's doing, but the surroundings are fuzzy and vague, so you have an idea what environment he's in but not enough details to teleport there.

[MGuy]

I don't have a problem with scrying existing just want to limit in sort of like what you just described. I Also like the idea of making it dangerous to do against reasonably challenging AND able villains.

[Spaghetti Western]

I don't see the big deal with scry... I mean it doesn't actively do anything. It's only really problematic with teleport, which is an easily solution (just remove it).

Shadowrun mages can't teleport, and honestly it's probably okay if D&D mages can't either. Just let them only travel between established portals.

This could have some possibility. How about teleport requires the creation of a portal which can be as easy as just drawing a circle with chalk and saying abbra cadbra doesn't matter. The point being it goes from being a spell of take me where ever I want to go to take me (and my friends if they can get to it in time) to where I was. Basically a rip off of Star Gate without the need for major construction.

Additionally smart or scrying NPC's could foil escape plans by removing said portals without PC knowledge.

Demons and the like would also have to conform generally being able to return to established "safe houses"

[Manxome]

To throw out another option, Myst uses one-way teleportation devices that don't require any device at the destination, but the teleporter only goes to the location in which it was originally created, it doesn't function if you're "too close" (within the same world) to that destination, you can't take it with you when you use it, and it becomes inoperative if the destination is radically altered. So you have to visit the destination at least once by mundane means, and it's difficult to prevent your enemies from following you (though there are protocols that solve that if you're willing to do enough preparation).

There are lots of restrictions you can put on teleportation. You can even have different kinds that have different restrictions if you want, keeping in mind that people will use more than one.

But I was recently reminded in watching Sanctuary that unrestricted teleportation is amazingly broken.

[RandomCasualty2]

This could have some possibility. How about teleport requires the creation of a portal which can be as easy as just drawing a circle with chalk and saying abbra cadbra doesn't matter. The point being it goes from being a spell of take me where ever I want to go to take me (and my friends if they can get to it in time) to where I was. Basically a rip off of Star Gate without the need for major construction.

Well it's probably okay to have spells that can draw a portal anywhere to take you to a permanent portal. But you really never want to create new destination portals without considerable cost.

And the reason is this:

If you're invading a city, fortress or whatever, you want it possible to go in, disable the portals to prevent reinforcements and then kill the people inside. You never want it to be where attacking a high level outpost is just never ending waves of teleporting reinforcements. In the name of story consistency, you may also want to put some kind of daily transit cap on portals, further limiting reinforcement capability and still giving merchants a reason to bring their heavy caravans the long way around (thus giving bandits reason to exist).

Pretty much you want teleportation to only impact your world slightly, otherwise it ends up making low level play nonsensical.

[Lich-Loved]

In my campaigns, characters can only teleport to either a place they can see with the unaided eye ("to yonder forest's edge") or to a place they have physically visited (or had their familiar visit). So, characters can scry anywhere or use any other form of remote sight, but can't teleport there without having been there and "marking" the location for use by teleport (takes about 60 seconds for the wizard type to mark/memorize the location in sufficient detail). I then allow a teleport without error to any "marked" location. If characters want to teleport to a place they passed through without marking it ("that forest clearing we were at last week") because it suddenly becomes important to be there in a hurry, I use the regular teleport rules for missing the target, typically with the "viewed casually" or similar modifier.

My players came up with this to prevent scry and die tactics from being in the game when I told them that the tactic was available for their use if they felt it was a fair to use against them. This compromise seemed to provide the proper degree of restriction while still allowing both scrying and teleport in the game.

[Fuchs]

I don't see the big deal with scry... I mean it doesn't actively do anything. It's only really problematic with teleport, which is an easily solution (just remove it).

Shadowrun mages can't teleport, and honestly it's probably okay if D&D mages can't either. Just let them only travel between established portals.

That's how we do it - teleport is generally not available. Permanent Portals are, and short range teleports like Dimension Doors.

[MGuy]

Ok so far we have: Scry should be a bit more dangerous against dangerous enemies.

Teleportation should either be replaced with portals or only return you to places you've been.

I like both ideas to be quite honest as I don't want to get rid of teleportaion altogether and portals are a staple in fantasy. I think that portals should be harder to place then simply teleporting. I think there're rules on portals and portal usage in forgotten realms. I'll probably skim over them later.

[violence in the media]

Ok so far we have: Scry should be a bit more dangerous against dangerous enemies.

We don't have any of this. You have been the only one endorsing this idea. Well, other than maybe Emerald.

I still say that you're just further increasing the divide between those that can thwart scrying and those that cannot in some misguided attempt to "balance" the spellcaster.

Think further about this, if my wizard is under the effects of a Mind Blank spell, which should thwart anything you could reasonably justify tossing back through a Scry-link, am I now back to the point of being able to scry unimpeded? If so, you've only increased the cost of scry by the price of a scroll of Mind Blank, you haven't eliminated its utility at all.

[virgil]

I was under the impression that the whole scry and teleport system, and its flaws, are symptoms of the real issue in the system: preparation wins.

[MGuy]

-VitM: Considering that Mind Blank is a considerably higher level spell and you'd have to use it each time you scryed on the villain and that he can scry back on you through your attempt it seems like you'd have to do a sufficient amount of extra work to scry safely which still follows under my "make it cost more" idea. Additionally see Emerald's post to see I'm not the only one who likes the idea. In either case I'm not looking to eliminate the utility. If I wanted to I'd say scrying doesn't exist.

[violence in the media]

-VitM: Considering that Mind Blank is a considerably higher level spell and you'd have to use it each time you scryed on the villain and that he can scry back on you through your attempt it seems like you'd have to do a sufficient amount of extra work to scry safely which still follows under my "make it cost more" idea. Additionally see Emerald's post to see I'm not the only one who likes the idea. In either case I'm not looking to eliminate the utility. If I wanted to I'd say scrying doesn't exist.

A scroll of Mind Blank costs 3,000 gp. And it specifically makes you immune to scrying and mind-affecting anything, so how does he scry back on you through your connection? Also, how many times do you need to scry on him before you just pop in and kill him, as virgileso pointed out with the preparation trumps all comment? If you can't pop in and kill him, what are you actually hoping that scry does? Are you really using it in the hopes of uncovering valuable information? What are the chances of that happening versus catching the BBEG in the loo, or sleeping, or eating breakfast? Or is it simply supposed to function as a plot-advancement device? If scry, then reveal nefarious scheme?

Also, I saw Emerald's post and noted it. Did you read what I wrote?

[MGuy]

Finding out where the BBEG is. Maybe scry in on an important conversation. Getting the lay out of mentioned BBEG's hideout. There are any number of advantages peering in on your enemies can help with and anyone even remotely familiar with tactics will tell you so. Now as for the mind blank blocking scrying the idea is that the "scry back feature" is unblockable by mind blank. They would in a sense be looking back through YOUR connection not they themselves using scry.

Yes I did note what you wrote and you skipped over Emerald's post relating to spaghetti.