Teleportation: mind the mishap chance

[schneefink]

After five sessions of our new D&D campaign, I still really love playing a swordfighter :) A warblade's maneuvers give me just enough special abilities to keep things interesting, and unlike spells I can recover them easily. (Similar to spells though, I can never prepare enough of them.)

Things we have learned: be very. very. careful. with teleportation. Two weeks ago we accidentally ended up in space, and last week in a secret cave deep underground. Fortunately we were careful enough only to teleport when our sorceress had a second one left for emergencies! So we thought it would be fine. Except when we ended up in space, we realized that Teleport has a vocal component and that's a bit difficult in a vacuum… Fortunately our archivist had a gasmask with her, handwaving the physics here but whatever. She wants to do more space exploration in the future, that will be fun.

Next time we had a gasmask prepared, and did more research on the target area to minimize the mishap chance, and then we still ended up in a cave with an anti-teleportation circle ^^ The smart thing to do would have been to destroy the circle and leave immediately, but we were too curious we were concerned that it might be a prison and we would let something else escape, so we explored. We found an underground storeroom guarded by a powerful construct centipede that at first we thought we could handle but that was a mistake. We did have an opportunity to flee, but got distracted by potential loot were too curious and optimistic, and then almost all died and only survived because the owner of the storeroom was merciful and let us go after erasing our memories.

Some of the party realized that someone tampered with our memories however and the next question is what we'll do about it… (There are some ways we could find out what happened with some luck, but I hope we won't because we really don't stand a chance right now.)

And then on Sunday I played in a one-shot and got to introduce my flatmate DD to D&D! It was also LK's first experience as a DM, and he did a good job. A classic adventure in a mine with a conspiracy and captives etc. etc., fun. It was a bit unfortunate that DD decided to play a fighter and there weren't a lot of combat encounters (also because like all new DMs LK drastically underestimated how much time things would take) so she felt like she had little to do at times, but she still had fun and we're almost definitely going to do that again. I played a rogue, that was fun too. A high elf noble: aristocrat by day, rogue by night :D
It was my first experience with 5e (plus some homebrew elements), not bad and I could see some advantages especially for beginners, but I'm just very used to 3.5 already.

Comments

[shadaras]

I love the maneuver system -- I played a swordsage for a while, years ago, and it was one of the most fun characters I'd ever played in 3.5.

I'm glad you're having fun! Those teleportation shenanigans sound great. :)

[schneefink]

Swordsages are cool too! And so versatile. Fortunately my DM is nice and said I could learn some maneuvers from other schools (specifically I learned three Desert Wind maneuvers, and there are some from Shadow Hand that I'm eyeing for when I have enough time and money.)

In our last long campaign I was the arcane caster of the party and I decided not to take Teleport (didn't seem necessary at the time, there were airships etc.) and instead waited for Greater Teleport, so we're not at all used to having to be careful with teleportation xD Maybe we'll become more careful and choose alternative travel methods - but then sometimes there's time pressure to get to places...

(Btw I added more game tales from last weekend to the post after you commented so quickly, there was so much I forgot an entire day ^^ )

[shadaras]

That's very good of your DM. :) Desert Wind and Shadow Hand were my favorite schools; it's a lot of fun doing mobility-based shenanigans.

Aha, yeah. Airships are fantastic! So many travel options with them.

(Very cool! It all sounds like a lot of fun.)

[schneefink]

Yess mobility is very convenient :) Did you play a straight swordsage, or did you multiclass? At what level?
What do you play currently?

[shadaras]

Shit, this was like, 8-10 years ago? I think we got to like level 5? I played straight swordsage -- I've never really done multiclassing.

I'm not playing any D&D games right now. I'm in a Pathfinder game where I'm playing a Slayer, and we just reached level 6 so I get two attacks, and it's very exciting.

When I've played D&D lately it's been 5e, and the last character I actually played was a half-elven oath of the ancients paladin (we got to level 10), who was the Charisma character and had a lot of buffs as part of their aura. I also statted a githyanki bard for a game that was supposed to happen this summer before scheduling fell apart, starting at like level 10, who was going to be a fighty-bard with a greatsword.

[schneefink]

A bard with a greatsword sounds like a lot of fun! I hope you get to play them one day :)

[shadaras]

I do too! I realised after I built him that he was very anime, because he's a twinky cultural rebel with a giant magic sword. :)

[schneefink]

That is very anime! You know what that means, of course: he needs a theme song. (Also, sparkles.)

[shadaras]

Well, he is a bard; they can do both those things! :)

[schneefink]

Practically what they are made for xD

[goodbyebird]

You're all having so much fun! And getting to do one-shots with friends \o/

and then almost all died and only survived because the owner of the storeroom was merciful and let us go after erasing our memories.

Good DM move right there 👌

[schneefink]

We are :D

Yeah, a TPK there would have been really disappointing and not very satisfying, so we're very lucky it didn't come to that and our DM found a way out for us :)
(There was also foreshadowing that "when the time has come" that guy and his constructs will return to the world to do ~something, probably including mages, so we'll almost certainly see them again...)