11-29-2011, 07:48 AM | #1 |
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Canada
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Teleport-walking?
I'm talking about extremely short range, line-of-sight only teleportation performed as a Move action with no special skill checks or chance of being turned inside out, stunned, or accidentally teleported to the Himalayas - Teleportation that is able to be used as a regular, reliable movement mode that covers ground no faster than regular old walking or jogging, not as a long-range rapid transport, nor as a fortification-bypassing intrusion power.
What's the point of this sort of teleportation? After all, it seems to be stripping out all the "Fun" bits, for both the player (teleporting over and around all your GM's carefully placed puzzles and problems) and for the GM (chance to have the player teleport right into a situation they could have seen coming if they'd bothered walking, or waiting for the inevitable critical failure and a chance to cackle maniacally). I've got a character in a D&D game with the ability to teleport 4 yards as a move action, at will, indefinitely (with all her magic items - without them she goes 1 yard per port). And having seen it in play for months, I can identify some benefits. 1) Pure Style. Being able to sneer at NPCs about how the petty bonds of time and space are beneath you is perfect for some characters; this is a source of endless entertainment for myself. Even if I'm really only bip-ing around a few yards at a time, it gives my gnome something amusingly trivial to be snooty about. 2) As good as short duration flight for bypassing some hazards or obstacles, without bypassing the entire fun of the adventure. Most GMs can forgive you for skipping over pits, traps, and up to the tops of short walls. Most GMs can't forgive you for teleporting into the heart of the supervillains/evil-high-priests/whatevers lair and skipping the rest of the adventure. Planning adventures around having a teleporter in the party takes special work - the teleport-walker mostly avoids that problem for the GM. NB: A teleport-walker may be able to skip through some barriers - a barred gate doesn't block line of sight, glass doors or doors with windows may also count depending on the GM and/or exactly which limitations are on your power. But generally these are the kinds of barriers that pcs could eventually open on their own - splitting up the party so the teleporter can get mugged on the other side of the barrier while trying to find a way to open it is usually a GM-friendly tactic. 3) Opening up interesting, but mostly modest, combat tactics. It's good for penetrating an enemies front line, but is unlikely to get into their actual back ranks or completely out of reach of the front line fighters (if they're willing to retreat or abandon the front line....) It might bypass some Wait actions, chances to be Tripped/Armed Inderdicted, etc. but it's not going to deal with every Wait action, and unless the entire party can do it, you'll have to be very careful not to get yourself too isolated or you'll give the enemy a chance to shoot you in the back. So I'm trying to price this out in GURPS, but I need help with some (almost all) of the modifiers. The base is clearly Warp.
Optional, and interesting to contemplate, is something to allow a "teleport step" - as in a 1-yard step that can be used for "Step and" actions, or in Retreating, or so-forth. Even more speculatively, for higher "speed" teleport-walking, that might go to 2-yards and so forth, following the same progression as regular Move.
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11-29-2011, 08:13 AM | #2 |
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: The former Chochenyo territory
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Re: Teleport-walking?
This might actually be simpler to build as Flight with an enhancement Doesn't Traverse Space (maybe +100%) and limitations to slow it down (-?%) and a harsh variant of Requires Surface from Powers p.50 (instead of every 5 seconds on any surface, make it every second and a surface you can stand on; I'd call it -60%).
Even if you don't want to build it as Flight, might be a nice cost comparison to a Warp build.
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11-29-2011, 08:16 AM | #3 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: The ASS of the world, mainly Valencia, Spain (Europe)
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Re: Teleport-walking?
You can get Teleport down to a free action, with max penalties. You still get your normal maneuver, including move if your maneuver allows it, so it counting as a step is probably a -5% nuisance effect, and counting as full move ought to be around double that.
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11-29-2011, 08:31 AM | #4 | |
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
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Re: Teleport-walking?
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11-29-2011, 08:32 AM | #5 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Vermont, USA
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Re: Teleport-walking?
Quote:
You won't need it for Warp, but interestingly RPK also uses Nuisance Effect in Psionic Powers (pp. 36, 40) to reduce range further than the maximum ×1/10 for Reduced Range. He prices a further halving of range at -10% just like Reduced Range would if it kept going. |
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11-29-2011, 08:49 AM | #6 |
Join Date: Jan 2006
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Re: Teleport-walking?
I know building it RAW is a lot of fun, but eyeballing it my gut says somewhere around 10-20 pts. As you said, most of the game breaking is gone.
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11-29-2011, 08:53 AM | #7 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Seattle, WA
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Re: Teleport-walking?
Warp (Cannot Exceed Basic Move, -2%;Cosmic, No Roll Required, +100%; Extra Carrying Capacity, Extra-Heavy, +50%; Gyroscopic, +10%; Limited Extra Time, None, -50%; Limited Range, 10 yards, -50%; No Second-Hand Viewing, -20%; Reliable 7, +35%; Temporary Disadvantage, Reduce Move by 1 yard per yard teleported, -28%) [140 or 59 with multiplicative modifiers]
Limited Extra Time, None is based on Limited Range, 10 yards. No Second-Hand Viewing is vaguely based on Accessibility. Cannot Exceed Basic Move is priced negligibly, because it's easy enough to get around, and you already have the range limit. Temporary Disadvantage is calculated the same way as GURPS Powers suggests calculating Costs Fatigue for Variable attacks (p. 101). The maximum Move loss is 10, so the average loss is 5.5. The value is -5% per Move 1 lost, so that's -28%.
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11-29-2011, 08:55 AM | #8 | |
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Re: Teleport-walking?
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11-29-2011, 08:57 AM | #9 |
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: Land of the Britons
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Re: Teleport-walking?
Isn't there a "where I could logically get to" limitation/enhancement in Horror for Warp that replaces skill penalties with tools/effort required to get there. For your purposes this will mostly be no modifier, unless you're jumping to the tops of walls or through small holes in doors or through closed (but easily openable) gates etc. I cant recall the exact mechanics and costs as I'm AFB atm, but it might be worth looking at.
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11-29-2011, 09:00 AM | #10 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Vermont, USA
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Re: Teleport-walking?
It's important to remember that Warp does not require a Concentrate maneuver. Warp is a free action that requires an IQ-10 success roll, but preparation can give you a compensating bonus. If you are not allowed to prepare beforehand, I'd call that Can't Prepare, -10%. Combine that with Reliable or Cosmic, No Die Roll Required for whatever level of reliability you want.
Only being able to use it during movement maneuvers, but having it use up your movement, I'd call Accessibility, movement maneuvers, -10%; Temporary Disadvantage, Basic Move -5, Taboo Trait (Basic Move), -25% (I'd leave it at that for a grab-and-go pre-build ability, but adjust the disadvantage level as necessary if you're building for a particular character). Quote:
If you can only teleport to places that you could get to by normal movement, this is Accessibility, Only places you could walk/climb to, given time, -20% (GURPS Horror, p. 20) or RPK's Must Traverse Distance, -30%. The former allows you to get to places that would usually require opening locked doors, etc., while the latter is for just regular movement. Last edited by munin; 11-29-2011 at 09:04 AM. |
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Tags |
ghostly movement, powers, teleportation, warp |
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