Warforged Fighter (Eldrich Knight) 5/Druid (Circle of the Land) 5.
They're just about to finish a significant quest arc, and I need them to get from the Great Crag (Droaam) to Arcanix (Aundair) quickly. That's a journey of around 600 miles as the crow flies. Their next few arcs will also require them to travel long distances (from Arcanix to Flamekeep, then to the Mournland), and traveling by road or rail takes a long time. Currently the party don't have a lot of high-speed travel options (no Teleport, Transport via Plants, vehicles, etc).
As their quest reward, I had an idea for giving them access to a secret fast-travel network through Khyber. This would allow them to travel between major centres around the continent in hours/days, although with some risk. However I feel a Helm of Teleportation would also be a suitable party reward for their level.
As fellow DMs, which of the two do you think would be a better reward? Personally I think the fast-travel network is more interesting from a world building/flavour perspective, but means slowing the plot down as they leap from node to node (random encounters/challenges etc). However the Helm would potentially trivialise the scale of their journey, although with risks of its own.
Do not give them a helm of teleportation it is a massively overpowered magic item that basically gives the party a get out of jail free card to any situation, put them in a dungeon they are not meant to be able to rest in, they teleport out, long rest and teleport back in again. Tell them they need to get to the top of a tower, they teleport up and avoid all your encounters, do what needs to be done and teleport out again. Even if the teleport misses with 3 teleports a day they can try again and the odds are they will succeed.
You will think giving them this helm is interesting but from experience they will just teleport around any issues, I made the mistake of giving it to a party once, reach a ravine who's bridge has collapsed, party teleport over, give them a room full of traps they have to work their way thorough, party teleport to the next room. Teleportation suddenly becomes really cheap, I once watched a party use it 6 times over the space of 4 hours in game time, they waited until just before dawn to start using, zipped through the first 3 rooms, rolled to regain 3 charges at dawn and then zipped through the next 3.
Another time they teleported in, attacked the bbeg, teleported out, then teleported in to a different part of the room to carry on attacking. Yes they can have issues with teleport but the odds are tiny compared to the rewards.
At level 10 give them access to the network allows you to control where and how they can get to places.
Thanks Scarloc. it does sound like you've had a bad run with the Helm. It also echoes a lot of the other concerns I've seen on this site about this item on this site. In general I trust my players to not abuse an item like this too much, but there's always the option of them proving me wrong.
I was also considering homebrewing the Helm to make it both more and less powerful. One the one hand, I would reduce the number of charges (to 1 or maybe 2, if I'm feeling generous), and add another ability to "project" an image of the wearer to a location like a limited Scry (similar to a Project image spell from Pathfinder). The idea behind this is that it's a reward from the Daughters of Sora Kell, so adding a slightly creepy ability seems fitting.
Even nerfed it is a very powerful spell, if you think about it teleport is a 7th level spell, which means a wizard doesn't get access to it until level 13, and only gets to use it once per long rest (if it is the spell they choose to prepare) even giving them one use per day it means your party get access to a free 7th level spell 3 levels before they would normally and it doesn't use up one of your parties spell slots.
If you are going to give it to them for the purpose you intend then I would suggest you have it recharge much much slower, make it one use and then work out on average how long they need to spend in each area, maybe they can teleport once a week, or once every 4 days. That means it allows them to move around the world as you wish.
Alternatively, you are trying to solve a problem here that isn't really a problem, You can have them find a wizard NPC with the Teleport Other Spell (a spell I made up in my game for this purpose) it is a ritual spell that a wizard can use to teleport up to 8 other people to any other location in the same plane. The caster does not travel with them. Or at that level I handwave the travel aspects, moving around the world at level 10 should still be tricky, allow them options and then skip the several days of travel, or roll an encounter per 3-4 days travel and describe the land they see as they move through it. I tend to do that, just a few mins description of each day, and get the party to rotate who makes the nights perception role (one or 2 depending on if they set watch in shifts). Alternatively have them get passage on an airship as passengers, or describe a train journey to them, lots of ability to have some fun in the confined area of a train as they foil an assassination, or solve a murder.
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I'm currently running a homebrew campaign set in Eberron. The party has just leveled to 10th, and consists of:
They're just about to finish a significant quest arc, and I need them to get from the Great Crag (Droaam) to Arcanix (Aundair) quickly. That's a journey of around 600 miles as the crow flies. Their next few arcs will also require them to travel long distances (from Arcanix to Flamekeep, then to the Mournland), and traveling by road or rail takes a long time. Currently the party don't have a lot of high-speed travel options (no Teleport, Transport via Plants, vehicles, etc).
As their quest reward, I had an idea for giving them access to a secret fast-travel network through Khyber. This would allow them to travel between major centres around the continent in hours/days, although with some risk. However I feel a Helm of Teleportation would also be a suitable party reward for their level.
As fellow DMs, which of the two do you think would be a better reward? Personally I think the fast-travel network is more interesting from a world building/flavour perspective, but means slowing the plot down as they leap from node to node (random encounters/challenges etc). However the Helm would potentially trivialise the scale of their journey, although with risks of its own.
Do not give them a helm of teleportation it is a massively overpowered magic item that basically gives the party a get out of jail free card to any situation, put them in a dungeon they are not meant to be able to rest in, they teleport out, long rest and teleport back in again. Tell them they need to get to the top of a tower, they teleport up and avoid all your encounters, do what needs to be done and teleport out again. Even if the teleport misses with 3 teleports a day they can try again and the odds are they will succeed.
You will think giving them this helm is interesting but from experience they will just teleport around any issues, I made the mistake of giving it to a party once, reach a ravine who's bridge has collapsed, party teleport over, give them a room full of traps they have to work their way thorough, party teleport to the next room. Teleportation suddenly becomes really cheap, I once watched a party use it 6 times over the space of 4 hours in game time, they waited until just before dawn to start using, zipped through the first 3 rooms, rolled to regain 3 charges at dawn and then zipped through the next 3.
Another time they teleported in, attacked the bbeg, teleported out, then teleported in to a different part of the room to carry on attacking. Yes they can have issues with teleport but the odds are tiny compared to the rewards.
At level 10 give them access to the network allows you to control where and how they can get to places.
Thanks Scarloc. it does sound like you've had a bad run with the Helm. It also echoes a lot of the other concerns I've seen on this site about this item on this site. In general I trust my players to not abuse an item like this too much, but there's always the option of them proving me wrong.
I was also considering homebrewing the Helm to make it both more and less powerful. One the one hand, I would reduce the number of charges (to 1 or maybe 2, if I'm feeling generous), and add another ability to "project" an image of the wearer to a location like a limited Scry (similar to a Project image spell from Pathfinder). The idea behind this is that it's a reward from the Daughters of Sora Kell, so adding a slightly creepy ability seems fitting.
Even nerfed it is a very powerful spell, if you think about it teleport is a 7th level spell, which means a wizard doesn't get access to it until level 13, and only gets to use it once per long rest (if it is the spell they choose to prepare) even giving them one use per day it means your party get access to a free 7th level spell 3 levels before they would normally and it doesn't use up one of your parties spell slots.
If you are going to give it to them for the purpose you intend then I would suggest you have it recharge much much slower, make it one use and then work out on average how long they need to spend in each area, maybe they can teleport once a week, or once every 4 days. That means it allows them to move around the world as you wish.
Alternatively, you are trying to solve a problem here that isn't really a problem, You can have them find a wizard NPC with the Teleport Other Spell (a spell I made up in my game for this purpose) it is a ritual spell that a wizard can use to teleport up to 8 other people to any other location in the same plane. The caster does not travel with them. Or at that level I handwave the travel aspects, moving around the world at level 10 should still be tricky, allow them options and then skip the several days of travel, or roll an encounter per 3-4 days travel and describe the land they see as they move through it. I tend to do that, just a few mins description of each day, and get the party to rotate who makes the nights perception role (one or 2 depending on if they set watch in shifts). Alternatively have them get passage on an airship as passengers, or describe a train journey to them, lots of ability to have some fun in the confined area of a train as they foil an assassination, or solve a murder.