and who is to say that those spells weren't derived by some some wizard who developed the teleport spell?
That wizard is Jeremy Crawford (and team), who wrote the rules. the PHB/DMG/MM are not written by in-universe beings.
hahahahaha. no
Jeremy Crawford didn't come up with the teleport spell my dude rofl.
Who did then? (and remember we are talking 5e rules, Gary Gygax or anyone associated with earlier editions is not an acceptable answer).
Oberon!
Found him.
Oberon was credited with many of the spells associated with teleportation and planar travel, such as banishment, blink, dimension door, telekinesis, and teleport, among others.
This was long before Crawford. And this isn't about rules, if you're discussing which wizard created which spells, in-game, that is narrative lore nor rules.
The reason is because in-game most of the spells we know have had their name's reduced to shorthand versions over time, but many of them were originally developed by specific named wizards at some point, and were often named after those people. Melf's Acid Arrow eventually just being Acid Arrow as the memory of the original creator of the spell fades further from the collective consciousness of the spellcasters who learn these spells generation after generation. This has happened many times. With many spells.
Apparently, even with Teleport. Because it was credited to a one Oberon, who specialized in inter-dimensional and teleportation magics and was a pioneer in their arts. Long.... long.... loooong ago.
too bad he doesn't have a D&DBeyond account, he'd talk our ears off about the whole thing.
But, we must interpret his work only by the words he has left, which forces us to reinvent the wheel so to speak.
Melf's acid arrow still exists, the version without Melf, acid arrow appears in the Basic Rules due to the US IP laws dealing with WotC copyrights (I assume, but maybe trademarks?) on proper names.
Melf's acid arrow still exists, the version without Melf, acid arrow appears in the Basic Rules due to the US IP laws dealing with WotC copyrights (I assume, but maybe trademarks?) on proper names.
The concept is the same. There are in-universe origins for many of the spells that exist. Earthen Grasp is another, originally made by Maximillian. There are tons. Spells, generally speaking, have some original creator in-universe. Some entity that figured out and codified that exact brand of magical formula. Then taught it to others, and then it proliferated through the generations and became widespread.
Same is true for Teleport, originally created by an entity known as Oberon.
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I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
I'm all for tangents, but the in-game inventor of Teleport in the Forgotten Realms cannot possibly have relevance to its rule application in the system in general, which is agnostic as to setting. No matter how invested you are in FR lore, the weave, FR cosmology, etc.... it has absolutely nothing with how those spells and abilities function in the system in general, which must also accomodate play in Eberron, Exandria, Ravnica, Theros, and untold number of homebrew campaigns.
Of course, as I'm saying that, I'm realizing I'm also pretty FR-biased for what "ethereal" means and implies in the 5E system, despite not all of the above having the same concept of the Ethereal Plane, so.... I guess take my perspective with a grain of salt.
By the way, looked at the HORIZON WALKER subclass and would say the 11th level Distant Strike feature uses the magic from the 3rd level feature PLANAR WARRIOR ( At 3rd level, you learn to draw on the energy of the multiverse to augment your attacks ) to in effect use a cantrip level teleport to move 10 ft. [ yes, I know there isn't a cantrip level teleport spell, at least one I haven't read about, but it's a way to look at how it would work]
Regardless of the definition of path, the actual question is "How far did he move?"
If you don't care about his actual path, you're not measuring how far he moved, you're measuring how far he was displaced after an interval of time.
Rav extrapolates this to mean something like calculating displacement, but this is a strawman and never something that I've argued. It doesn't follow from my argument either. It's either willful misrepresentation or a woeful lack of understanding.
A strawman you say? Huh. How would you determine displacement? You'd pick two points in time and measure the difference between those two point and ignore how they lead up to this result entirely, just sample 2 points in time and calculate the difference. Yeah? Yeah.
Rav insists that this requires a path through 3d space, but I see nothing in the question that requires it. At moment 1, you're at point A, at moment 2, you're at point B. Distance traveled is the distance between Point A and B. Velocity is unimportant. Path isn't important.
...
You're describing that process here.
You don't care about their path. You don't care how far they're actually moved. You care how far they were displaced. But that isn't the question being discussed. because of course they were displaced 30ft if they teleport 30ft. Everyone can agree on that much. Just like if I fly 60ft up and back down and land on a spot only 30ft from where I started. I was displaced 30ft after flying. But I still flew 60ft. I still moved 60ft. If you measure my actual path.
Only the 3D distance between your locations in space is required to answer the question "How far did he move?"
Simply false. You only need to have two points to calculate displacement, not distance moved. Distance moved requires the totality of their path.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
By the way, looked at the HORIZON WALKER subclass and would say the 11th level Distant Strike feature uses the magic from the 3rd level feature PLANAR WARRIOR ( At 3rd level, you learn to draw on the energy of the multiverse to augment your attacks ) to in effect use a cantrip level teleport to move 10 ft. [ yes, I know there isn't a cantrip level teleport spell, at least one I haven't read about, but it's a way to look at how it would work]
Planar Warrior being magical or not is its own rabbit hole, but we know from the SAC that Distant Strike isn't magical. That said, I just re-read the wording, and its fluff text describes the teleportation as being planar travel.
Ok, what if the magical weave of the plane of existence one exist in is what a person travels though when teleporting?
What if steel wind strike is just running really fast like the Flash, and the force damage comes from all that momentum?
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Regardless of the definition of path, the actual question is "How far did he move?"
If you don't care about his actual path, you're not measuring how far he moved, you're measuring how far he was displaced after an interval of time.
And that interval in time is "one instant". Just as, during a somewhat longer interval in time, you can walk 5 feet and be displaced from your previous position. The "path" between your foot leaving the ground and landing on a different patch of ground is irrelevant. You start at A, and land at B. If you consider the "path" as a series of vectors representing movement and direction, the "final displacement" is the sum of all those vectors over a given time period (say, your turn). This is where you're distracted because you think this is how I measure distance. I don't. Each leg of the journey (each vector) is a smaller slice of the path. If you take a single step of 1 foot length, that's a 1 foot vector that takes some non-instantaneous amount of time. If you teleport 30 feet, that's also a single vector of length and direction that is a component of your journey through space and time. It's a step along the path. The fact that this vector doesn't require you to physically inhabit any of the intervening space is irrelevant. It adds to the distance covered in 3D space.
Rav extrapolates this to mean something like calculating displacement, but this is a strawman and never something that I've argued. It doesn't follow from my argument either. It's either willful misrepresentation or a woeful lack of understanding.
A strawman you say? Huh. How would you determine displacement? You'd pick two points in time and measure the difference between those two point and ignore how they lead up to this result entirely, just sample 2 points in time and calculate the difference. Yeah? Yeah.
And yes, that's exactly why it's a straw man. Because your argument is that it's absurd to calculate displacement over the period of a whole round, and no one ever argued we should do that. What happens when you make your character move? You pick each square they pass through. That's the series of vectors that make up their path. One square to the next. It's just that, with Teleport, the squares don't need to be adjacent to each other. The distance traveled per "step" is the magnitude of the vector between each successive point. The final distance is the scalar sum of all those vectors magnitudes. The displacement over the course of the round is the sum of the vectors, and is a vector itself. But displacement at the end of a round is irrelevant.
Rav insists that this requires a path through 3d space, but I see nothing in the question that requires it. At moment 1, you're at point A, at moment 2, you're at point B. Distance traveled is the distance between Point A and B. Velocity is unimportant. Path isn't important.
...
You're describing that process here.
You don't care about their path. You don't care how far they're actually moved. You care how far they were displaced. But that isn't the question being discussed. because of course they were displaced 30ft if they teleport 30ft. Everyone can agree on that much. Just like if I fly 60ft up and back down and land on a spot only 30ft from where I started. I was displaced 30ft after flying. But I still flew 60ft. I still moved 60ft. If you measure my actual path.
Through 3D space... But when you leave 3D space to instantly travel between Point A and Point B all bets are off. Since we only measure in 3D distance, and all movements are expressed as 3D distance, the "path" you took is the 3D straight line distance between Point A and Point B.
Only the 3D distance between your locations in space is required to answer the question "How far did he move?"
Simply false. You only need to have two points to calculate displacement, not distance moved. Distance moved requires the totality of their path.
Let me reiterate: You have an instantaneous movement between two points. That's a single vector movement from Point A to Point B. The "displacement" here is at a much higher time resolution than taking a single 3 foot stride. Each step you take is a tiny little vector. Each one is a "displacement", and takes some non-zero amount of time. A teleport takes much less time, and the step is larger than your single stride, but it doesn't mean it doesn't count as moving. You start at A and one step later, you're at B. How far did you move? If you take a single stride, it's 3 feet. If you took a teleport, it's 30 feet. And it's really that simple. All your argument is simply shoe-horning a concept into the calculation that is nowhere in the rules.
Ok, what if the magical weave of the plane of existence one exist in is what a person travels though when teleporting?
What if steel wind strike is just running really fast like the Flash, and the force damage comes from all that momentum?
If moving though the weave of magic is like moving at the speed of light, imparting a force stopping momentarily to hit a target would probably hurt quite a bit.
Regardless of the definition of path, the actual question is "How far did he move?"
If you don't care about his actual path, you're not measuring how far he moved, you're measuring how far he was displaced after an interval of time.
And that interval in time is "one instant". Just as, during a somewhat longer interval in time, you can walk 5 feet and be displaced from your previous position. The "path" between your foot leaving the ground and landing on a different patch of ground is irrelevant. You start at A, and land at B. If you consider the "path" as a series of vectors representing movement and direction, the "final displacement" is the sum of all those vectors over a given time period (say, your turn). This is where you're distracted because you think this is how I measure distance. I don't. Each leg of the journey (each vector) is a smaller slice of the path. If you take a single step of 1 foot length, that's a 1 foot vector that takes some non-instantaneous amount of time. If you teleport 30 feet, that's also a single vector of length and direction that is a component of your journey through space and time. It's a step along the path. The fact that this vector doesn't require you to physically inhabit any of the intervening space is irrelevant. It adds to the distance covered in 3D space.
You insist on measuring the path he didn't take. An analogy would be if he walked from A to B. 30ft. But then you insist to measure in the opposite direction all the way around the globe from A to B.
He didn't go that way. He took the much shorter route.
He took the route where A and B had no distance between them.
Rav extrapolates this to mean something like calculating displacement, but this is a strawman and never something that I've argued. It doesn't follow from my argument either. It's either willful misrepresentation or a woeful lack of understanding.
A strawman you say? Huh. How would you determine displacement? You'd pick two points in time and measure the difference between those two point and ignore how they lead up to this result entirely, just sample 2 points in time and calculate the difference. Yeah? Yeah.
And yes, that's exactly why it's a straw man. Because your argument is that it's absurd to calculate displacement over the period of a whole round, and no one ever argued we should do that. What happens when you make your character move? You pick each square they pass through.
I don't do that in games I play nor do I require my players do it in games I run. Not unless there is a specific defined concrete reason to know exactly which squares they pass through one at a time. That just seems tedious.
That's the series of vectors that make up their path. One square to the next.
Nothing requires this in the rules. This is fabricated instructions that maybe you homebrew?
It's just that, with Teleport, the squares don't need to be adjacent to each other.
I mean, sorta. That's pretty accurate description of like Arcane Gate or what have ya.
The distance traveled per "step" is the magnitude of the vector between each successive point. The final distance is the scalar sum of all those vectors magnitudes.
Right, and if you were to run a tape measure through the same path the character took, it'd show 0 ft.
The displacement over the course of the round is the sum of the vectors, and is a vector itself. But displacement at the end of a round is irrelevant.
I think you're having difficulty with the notion of what teleport is. You don't pass through the intervening space with teleport.
Really, try this at home. Take a piece of paper. Draw two Xs on it a few inches apart. Overlap those Xs over one another by folding the paper. Now the shortest path between them is 0 inches. Not the few inches across the paper, but where they touch one another from being folded on top of one another.
You could hop from one of those Xs to the other by traveling 0 ft.
I know! crazy. nothing could actually work like that! That defies the laws of physics!! Yes. Teleportation isn't real. It's fictional and magical and nonsensical. It doesn't work like normal non-magical things work. But, thing is... it doesn't need to nor is it supposed to. Its magic!
Rav insists that this requires a path through 3d space, but I see nothing in the question that requires it. At moment 1, you're at point A, at moment 2, you're at point B. Distance traveled is the distance between Point A and B. Velocity is unimportant. Path isn't important.
...
You're describing that process here.
You don't care about their path. You don't care how far they're actually moved. You care how far they were displaced. But that isn't the question being discussed. because of course they were displaced 30ft if they teleport 30ft. Everyone can agree on that much. Just like if I fly 60ft up and back down and land on a spot only 30ft from where I started. I was displaced 30ft after flying. But I still flew 60ft. I still moved 60ft. If you measure my actual path.
Through 3D space... But when you leave 3D space to instantly travel between Point A and Point B all bets are off. Since we only measure in 3D distance, and all movements are expressed as 3D distance, the "path" you took is the 3D straight line distance between Point A and Point B.
What makes you think teleporting causes you to leave 3d space?
Only the 3D distance between your locations in space is required to answer the question "How far did he move?"
Simply false. You only need to have two points to calculate displacement, not distance moved. Distance moved requires the totality of their path.
Let me reiterate: You have an instantaneous movement between two points.
Teleportation isn't movement, it has no speed and isn't listed as a movement type. See? I can reiterate too.
That's a single vector movement from Point A to Point B.
Isn't movement.
The "displacement" here is at a much higher time resolution than taking a single 3 foot stride. Each step you take is a tiny little vector. Each one is a "displacement", and takes some non-zero amount of time. A teleport takes much less time, and the step is larger than your single stride, but it doesn't mean it doesn't count as moving. You start at A and one step later, you're at B. How far did you move? If you take a single stride, it's 3 feet. If you took a teleport, it's 30 feet.
Fixed. Because if it is teleporting, it is 0 ft.
And it's really that simple.
Truth.
All your argument is simply shoe-horning a concept into the calculation that is nowhere in the rules.
I honestly think we should just do what rules tell us to do. I shoe-horn that concept into everything it is true. I confess. You got me!
Teleporting says you appear at the location, so you do. And... that's it. No extra steps needed. We're done. You were at A then now instead you're at B. You didn't move between them, you just stopped being at one, and are now at the other. Nothing else needs to be said about it because that's all the book indicates is what happens. Fin.
Honestly you might as well be asking how far you moved when you planeshifted. Hint: You didn't.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
Regardless of the definition of path, the actual question is "How far did he move?"
If you don't care about his actual path, you're not measuring how far he moved, you're measuring how far he was displaced after an interval of time.
And that interval in time is "one instant". Just as, during a somewhat longer interval in time, you can walk 5 feet and be displaced from your previous position. The "path" between your foot leaving the ground and landing on a different patch of ground is irrelevant. You start at A, and land at B. If you consider the "path" as a series of vectors representing movement and direction, the "final displacement" is the sum of all those vectors over a given time period (say, your turn). This is where you're distracted because you think this is how I measure distance. I don't. Each leg of the journey (each vector) is a smaller slice of the path. If you take a single step of 1 foot length, that's a 1 foot vector that takes some non-instantaneous amount of time. If you teleport 30 feet, that's also a single vector of length and direction that is a component of your journey through space and time. It's a step along the path. The fact that this vector doesn't require you to physically inhabit any of the intervening space is irrelevant. It adds to the distance covered in 3D space.
You insist on measuring the path he didn't take. An analogy would be if he walked from A to B. 30ft. But then you insist to measure in the opposite direction all the way around the globe from A to B.
Here we go again. Please refer to the rules that say you need to measure the path, instead of just answering the question "how far did he move"? Using plain English, the distance he moved during the teleport is the distance between the place he started and the place he ended the teleport.
He didn't go that way. He took the much shorter route.
Yes, the 30 feet between Point A and Point B.
He took the route where A and B had no distance between them.
There is no such route. Point A and Point B are never co-located in space. There is no route between A and B that has no distance between them. The fact he can travel between A and B without passing through the intervening real space is certainly magical, but at no point in time are A and B the same place.
Rav extrapolates this to mean something like calculating displacement, but this is a strawman and never something that I've argued. It doesn't follow from my argument either. It's either willful misrepresentation or a woeful lack of understanding.
A strawman you say? Huh. How would you determine displacement? You'd pick two points in time and measure the difference between those two point and ignore how they lead up to this result entirely, just sample 2 points in time and calculate the difference. Yeah? Yeah.
And yes, that's exactly why it's a straw man. Because your argument is that it's absurd to calculate displacement over the period of a whole round, and no one ever argued we should do that. What happens when you make your character move? You pick each square they pass through.
I don't do that in games I play nor do I require my players do it in games I run. Not unless there is a specific defined concrete reason to know exactly which squares they pass through one at a time. That just seems tedious.
Oh, so how do you know what path they take? They could run around the globe in reverse for all you know ;) Sheesh. Whether you approximate the path or not, you are choosing how far they go, and on a grid, that means choosing which squares they pass through. Or don't you actually use a path like you claim is necessary ?
That's the series of vectors that make up their path. One square to the next.
Nothing requires this in the rules. This is fabricated instructions that maybe you homebrew?
It's not in the rules. In fact, none of this path nonsense is required by the rules. What I'm describing are the basic elements of how one determines the path. The fact that these things are difficult for you to understand suggests to me that you're struggling with your own argument.
It's just that, with Teleport, the squares don't need to be adjacent to each other.
I mean, sorta. That's pretty accurate description of like Arcane Gate or what have ya.
Reductively, all teleport works the same way (at least, between two points that occur in the same 3D space. Planar travel is weird).
The distance traveled per "step" is the magnitude of the vector between each successive point. The final distance is the scalar sum of all those vectors magnitudes.
Right, and if you were to run a tape measure through the same path the character took, it'd show 0 ft.
Wrong. I know you keep coming back to this, but you've got nothing but bald assertion to back it up.
The displacement over the course of the round is the sum of the vectors, and is a vector itself. But displacement at the end of a round is irrelevant.
I think you're having difficulty with the notion of what teleport is. You don't pass through the intervening space with teleport.
I think you're being obtuse on purpose. You don't need to pass through the intervening 3d Space to have moved from A to B. One moment you're at A, the very next instant you're at B. You have moved from A to B. The only sure thing you know is that the distance between A and B is X feet, and therefore that's how far you moved.
Really, try this at home. Take a piece of paper. Draw two Xs on it a few inches apart. Overlap those Xs over one another by folding the paper. Now the shortest path between them is 0 inches. Not the few inches across the paper, but where they touch one another from being folded on top of one another.
This again. There's no evidence to suggest that teleport happens like this. You made it up out of whole cloth. Just because "wormholes" are a neat sci-fi idea doesn't mean a damn thing for determining the distance between two points. You start at A and you end up at B. They're 30 feet apart. You moved 30 feet. It makes no difference to the calculation if you fell through a wormhole or turned yourself into photons and beamed across the distance and reformed from light into matter again. It doesn't matter if Fairy's turn you into Fairy Dust and sprinkle you with love and make the world go round beneath your feet. The only thing that matters is that you moved 30 feet.
You could hop from one of those Xs to the other by traveling 0 ft.
I know! crazy. nothing could actually work like that! That defies the laws of physics!! Yes. Teleportation isn't real. It's fictional and magical and nonsensical. It doesn't work like normal non-magical things work. But, thing is... it doesn't need to nor is it supposed to. Its magic!
What makes you think teleporting causes you to leave 3d space?
What makes you think it doesn't?
Only the 3D distance between your locations in space is required to answer the question "How far did he move?"
Simply false. You only need to have two points to calculate displacement, not distance moved. Distance moved requires the totality of their path.
Let me reiterate: You have an instantaneous movement between two points.
Teleportation isn't movement, it has no speed and isn't listed as a movement type. See? I can reiterate too.
Nah.. Teleportation isn't a Movement Type as defined in the rules. But plainly you move from A to B with it. So this is more of you arguing in circles because you have nothing.
That's a single vector movement from Point A to Point B.
Isn't movement.
I thought you dropped this dead-end argument days ago. Do we have to go back and cover it again?
The "displacement" here is at a much higher time resolution than taking a single 3 foot stride. Each step you take is a tiny little vector. Each one is a "displacement", and takes some non-zero amount of time. A teleport takes much less time, and the step is larger than your single stride, but it doesn't mean it doesn't count as moving. You start at A and one step later, you're at B. How far did you move? If you take a single stride, it's 3 feet. If you took a teleport, it's 30 feet.
Fixed. Because if it is teleporting, it is 0 ft.
Just saying something over and over again doesn't make it true. You know that, right?
And it's really that simple.
Truth.
All your argument is simply shoe-horning a concept into the calculation that is nowhere in the rules.
I honestly think we should just do what rules tell us to do. I shoe-horn that concept into everything it is true. I confess. You got me!
Ahh, this tactic again. The Gee-Shucks. Please go and find some reference to "path" in the rules and maybe we can talk about it. Otherwise, let's use the plain understanding of the concept of moving.. I suggest that if you've changed locations, you've obviously moved. And regardless of how you got there, you've moved at least the distance between those two points.
Teleporting says you appear at the location, so you do. And... that's it. No extra steps needed. We're done. You were at A then now instead you're at B. You didn't move between them, you just stopped being at one, and are now at the other
Which means you moved, by any normal definition of the word. You are at A, and are now at B. You moved. Most people grasp this by the age of 5... 10 at the latest. Do you have trouble understanding what's happening in Sci-Fi movies? Does Kirk just never leave the transporter pad for you or something?
Nothing else needs to be said about it because that's all the book indicates is what happens. Fin.
The rules rather plainly say that you've changed position. Any suggestion that you didn't move between the two points is completely in your head. No rules say this. In fact there are clear indications that the designers count Teleport as moving (although not a movement type or speed).
On one thing, we agree: Nothing more needs to be said.
Kotath, Star Trek didn't invent the idea of teleportation, nor even popularize it. Djinn were teleporting to China and back in stories told over a thousand years ago. The magic helmet in Wagner's Ring Cycle has teleportation powers.
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
There are a couple of very hot takes in the last couple of posts. For “There is no 'plain English' with respect to teleportation” to be true, D&D would have had to invent teleportation. For a term to “come up in typical day to day discussions often enough” is not only highly subjective and moving the goal posts, but quite a bit different than “no plain English.”
Anyway, if your argument is that “we can’t understand this without a definition” — which it must be if we can’t use common meanings — then you’re extra out of luck, because the rules don’t provide one in this case.
Those words are jargon because they don't exist in natural language, or have a well defined specific use in a technical field.
We aren't talking about that with teleportation though. Again, there is existence in English (however rare it is in everyday conversations), and there is not any specific definition in this niche (D&D).
The spell teleport defines what it means about as well as can be expected.
This spell instantly transports you and up to eight willing creatures of your choice that you can see within range, or a single object that you can see within range, to a destination you select.
So when you cast misty step, that relies on the spell teleport? I don't think so. I'm done here, I've learned that engaging in this type of bad, time wasting argumentation is just annoying.
Here we go again. Please refer to the rules that say you need to measure the path, instead of just answering the question "how far did he move"? Using plain English, the distance he moved during the teleport is the distance between the place he started and the place he ended the teleport.
There is no 'plain English' with respect to teleportation. It is not something people do or talk about day to day since it is a concept that simply does not exist outside of science fiction and raw theory. The traditional science fiction version disassembles the person and reassembles them at the other end. So an energy matrix representing the person does the actual moving. The person themselves ceases to exist at one end on disassembly and is recreated at the other on assembly.
The closest we have to an actual science version recreates the spin of particles at distance, which, if ever successfully extrapolated beyond individual particles, would mean assembling a duplicate at the other end first, then breaking down the original. This has actually been achieved with individual particles, IIRC, but there is currently no known way to go beyond that.
Neither of those involve the person actually moving, though. And that is the closest we get to plain English discussions of teleportation.
You understand what the outcome of teleportation is, don't you? If I say "My character teleports 30 feet to that square", you understand that the character is moved 30 feet away, don't you? The process is irrelevant. You go from here to there. That's all that is necessary to understand "teleportation" in any game or movie, or ancient legend. They disappeared and reappeared some distance away. How far away? There's the answer to the question of how far they moved. No thoughts about wormholes or matter transmission is required to answer the simple question "How far did they move".
This has the added benefit of not needing to understand some sort of special exemption for calculating teleport distances. It's also not vulnerable to giving different answers according to different styles of teleport. The spell Misty Step might imply stepping through the Feywild, or turning into glimmering insubstantial mist and floating through the air and reforming at the new location. Using an arbitrary benchmark of "what path did they take?" gives different answers for different teleport styles. It's unworkable as a game mechanic.
Those words are jargon because they don't exist in natural language, or have a well defined specific use in a technical field.
We aren't talking about that with teleportation though. Again, there is existence in English (however rare it is in everyday conversations), and there is not any specific definition in this niche (D&D).
But we are talking about the technical aspects here. Plain English is defined as communication your audience can understand the first time they read or hear it. Here, the expected audience can be expected to be versed in the technical aspects.
So using plain english, can you describe how far someone moved when they teleported? (Note that the type of teleportation is not known by you or anyone). Can you do this consistently in a manner that is useful in a game?
Kotath, Star Trek didn't invent the idea of teleportation, nor even popularize it. Djinn were teleporting to China and back in stories told over a thousand years ago. The magic helmet in Wagner's Ring Cycle has teleportation powers.
Hmmm... gives a science fiction example (without actually mentioning Star Trek), gets countered with mythological 'magical' examples that do not pretend to involve science or technology.
I am rather certain that neither the magical capabilities of Djinn nor any part of the Ring Cycle (which in turn is derived from the Nibelungenslied) are subjects that come up in typical day to day discussions often enough to affect 'plain English' either.
You claimed teleportation was
a concept that simply does not exist outside of science fiction and raw theory.
You were wrong, and I corrected you, giving two examples of teleportation from what, for their times, were "pop culture".
As for it not being "plain English", Wolf already addressed that. Teleportation is not a "technical" concept though. It's a very simple one -- you disappear from one location and appear in another. Children on the playground have no trouble understanding or describing it.
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
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too bad he doesn't have a D&DBeyond account, he'd talk our ears off about the whole thing.
But, we must interpret his work only by the words he has left, which forces us to reinvent the wheel so to speak.
Melf's acid arrow still exists, the version without Melf, acid arrow appears in the Basic Rules due to the US IP laws dealing with WotC copyrights (I assume, but maybe trademarks?) on proper names.
The concept is the same. There are in-universe origins for many of the spells that exist. Earthen Grasp is another, originally made by Maximillian. There are tons. Spells, generally speaking, have some original creator in-universe. Some entity that figured out and codified that exact brand of magical formula. Then taught it to others, and then it proliferated through the generations and became widespread.
Same is true for Teleport, originally created by an entity known as Oberon.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
I'm all for tangents, but the in-game inventor of Teleport in the Forgotten Realms cannot possibly have relevance to its rule application in the system in general, which is agnostic as to setting. No matter how invested you are in FR lore, the weave, FR cosmology, etc.... it has absolutely nothing with how those spells and abilities function in the system in general, which must also accomodate play in Eberron, Exandria, Ravnica, Theros, and untold number of homebrew campaigns.
Of course, as I'm saying that, I'm realizing I'm also pretty FR-biased for what "ethereal" means and implies in the 5E system, despite not all of the above having the same concept of the Ethereal Plane, so.... I guess take my perspective with a grain of salt.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
By the way, looked at the HORIZON WALKER subclass and would say the 11th level Distant Strike feature uses the magic from the 3rd level feature PLANAR WARRIOR ( At 3rd level, you learn to draw on the energy of the multiverse to augment your attacks ) to in effect use a cantrip level teleport to move 10 ft. [ yes, I know there isn't a cantrip level teleport spell, at least one I haven't read about, but it's a way to look at how it would work]
If you don't care about his actual path, you're not measuring how far he moved, you're measuring how far he was displaced after an interval of time.
A strawman you say? Huh. How would you determine displacement? You'd pick two points in time and measure the difference between those two point and ignore how they lead up to this result entirely, just sample 2 points in time and calculate the difference. Yeah? Yeah.
...
You're describing that process here.
You don't care about their path. You don't care how far they're actually moved. You care how far they were displaced. But that isn't the question being discussed. because of course they were displaced 30ft if they teleport 30ft. Everyone can agree on that much. Just like if I fly 60ft up and back down and land on a spot only 30ft from where I started. I was displaced 30ft after flying. But I still flew 60ft. I still moved 60ft. If you measure my actual path.
Simply false. You only need to have two points to calculate displacement, not distance moved. Distance moved requires the totality of their path.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
Planar Warrior being magical or not is its own rabbit hole, but we know from the SAC that Distant Strike isn't magical. That said, I just re-read the wording, and its fluff text describes the teleportation as being planar travel.
What if steel wind strike is just running really fast like the Flash, and the force damage comes from all that momentum?
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
And that interval in time is "one instant". Just as, during a somewhat longer interval in time, you can walk 5 feet and be displaced from your previous position. The "path" between your foot leaving the ground and landing on a different patch of ground is irrelevant. You start at A, and land at B.
If you consider the "path" as a series of vectors representing movement and direction, the "final displacement" is the sum of all those vectors over a given time period (say, your turn). This is where you're distracted because you think this is how I measure distance. I don't. Each leg of the journey (each vector) is a smaller slice of the path. If you take a single step of 1 foot length, that's a 1 foot vector that takes some non-instantaneous amount of time. If you teleport 30 feet, that's also a single vector of length and direction that is a component of your journey through space and time. It's a step along the path. The fact that this vector doesn't require you to physically inhabit any of the intervening space is irrelevant. It adds to the distance covered in 3D space.
And yes, that's exactly why it's a straw man. Because your argument is that it's absurd to calculate displacement over the period of a whole round, and no one ever argued we should do that.
What happens when you make your character move? You pick each square they pass through. That's the series of vectors that make up their path. One square to the next. It's just that, with Teleport, the squares don't need to be adjacent to each other. The distance traveled per "step" is the magnitude of the vector between each successive point. The final distance is the scalar sum of all those vectors magnitudes. The displacement over the course of the round is the sum of the vectors, and is a vector itself. But displacement at the end of a round is irrelevant.
Through 3D space... But when you leave 3D space to instantly travel between Point A and Point B all bets are off. Since we only measure in 3D distance, and all movements are expressed as 3D distance, the "path" you took is the 3D straight line distance between Point A and Point B.
Let me reiterate: You have an instantaneous movement between two points. That's a single vector movement from Point A to Point B. The "displacement" here is at a much higher time resolution than taking a single 3 foot stride. Each step you take is a tiny little vector. Each one is a "displacement", and takes some non-zero amount of time. A teleport takes much less time, and the step is larger than your single stride, but it doesn't mean it doesn't count as moving. You start at A and one step later, you're at B. How far did you move? If you take a single stride, it's 3 feet. If you took a teleport, it's 30 feet.
And it's really that simple.
All your argument is simply shoe-horning a concept into the calculation that is nowhere in the rules.
If moving though the weave of magic is like moving at the speed of light, imparting a force stopping momentarily to hit a target would probably hurt quite a bit.
You insist on measuring the path he didn't take. An analogy would be if he walked from A to B. 30ft. But then you insist to measure in the opposite direction all the way around the globe from A to B.
He didn't go that way. He took the much shorter route.
He took the route where A and B had no distance between them.
I don't do that in games I play nor do I require my players do it in games I run. Not unless there is a specific defined concrete reason to know exactly which squares they pass through one at a time. That just seems tedious.
Nothing requires this in the rules. This is fabricated instructions that maybe you homebrew?
I mean, sorta. That's pretty accurate description of like Arcane Gate or what have ya.
Right, and if you were to run a tape measure through the same path the character took, it'd show 0 ft.
I think you're having difficulty with the notion of what teleport is. You don't pass through the intervening space with teleport.
Really, try this at home. Take a piece of paper. Draw two Xs on it a few inches apart. Overlap those Xs over one another by folding the paper. Now the shortest path between them is 0 inches. Not the few inches across the paper, but where they touch one another from being folded on top of one another.
You could hop from one of those Xs to the other by traveling 0 ft.
I know! crazy. nothing could actually work like that! That defies the laws of physics!! Yes. Teleportation isn't real. It's fictional and magical and nonsensical. It doesn't work like normal non-magical things work. But, thing is... it doesn't need to nor is it supposed to. Its magic!
What makes you think teleporting causes you to leave 3d space?
Teleportation isn't movement, it has no speed and isn't listed as a movement type. See? I can reiterate too.
Isn't movement.
Fixed. Because if it is teleporting, it is 0 ft.
Truth.
I honestly think we should just do what rules tell us to do. I shoe-horn that concept into everything it is true. I confess. You got me!
Teleporting says you appear at the location, so you do. And... that's it. No extra steps needed. We're done. You were at A then now instead you're at B. You didn't move between them, you just stopped being at one, and are now at the other. Nothing else needs to be said about it because that's all the book indicates is what happens. Fin.
Honestly you might as well be asking how far you moved when you planeshifted. Hint: You didn't.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
Here we go again. Please refer to the rules that say you need to measure the path, instead of just answering the question "how far did he move"? Using plain English, the distance he moved during the teleport is the distance between the place he started and the place he ended the teleport.
Yes, the 30 feet between Point A and Point B.
There is no such route. Point A and Point B are never co-located in space. There is no route between A and B that has no distance between them. The fact he can travel between A and B without passing through the intervening real space is certainly magical, but at no point in time are A and B the same place.
Oh, so how do you know what path they take? They could run around the globe in reverse for all you know ;)
Sheesh. Whether you approximate the path or not, you are choosing how far they go, and on a grid, that means choosing which squares they pass through.
Or don't you actually use a path like you claim is necessary ?
It's not in the rules. In fact, none of this path nonsense is required by the rules. What I'm describing are the basic elements of how one determines the path. The fact that these things are difficult for you to understand suggests to me that you're struggling with your own argument.
Reductively, all teleport works the same way (at least, between two points that occur in the same 3D space. Planar travel is weird).
Wrong. I know you keep coming back to this, but you've got nothing but bald assertion to back it up.
I think you're being obtuse on purpose. You don't need to pass through the intervening 3d Space to have moved from A to B. One moment you're at A, the very next instant you're at B. You have moved from A to B. The only sure thing you know is that the distance between A and B is X feet, and therefore that's how far you moved.
This again. There's no evidence to suggest that teleport happens like this. You made it up out of whole cloth. Just because "wormholes" are a neat sci-fi idea doesn't mean a damn thing for determining the distance between two points. You start at A and you end up at B. They're 30 feet apart. You moved 30 feet. It makes no difference to the calculation if you fell through a wormhole or turned yourself into photons and beamed across the distance and reformed from light into matter again. It doesn't matter if Fairy's turn you into Fairy Dust and sprinkle you with love and make the world go round beneath your feet.
The only thing that matters is that you moved 30 feet.
What makes you think it doesn't?
Nah.. Teleportation isn't a Movement Type as defined in the rules. But plainly you move from A to B with it. So this is more of you arguing in circles because you have nothing.
I thought you dropped this dead-end argument days ago. Do we have to go back and cover it again?
Just saying something over and over again doesn't make it true. You know that, right?
Ahh, this tactic again. The Gee-Shucks. Please go and find some reference to "path" in the rules and maybe we can talk about it. Otherwise, let's use the plain understanding of the concept of moving.. I suggest that if you've changed locations, you've obviously moved. And regardless of how you got there, you've moved at least the distance between those two points.
Which means you moved, by any normal definition of the word. You are at A, and are now at B. You moved.
Most people grasp this by the age of 5... 10 at the latest. Do you have trouble understanding what's happening in Sci-Fi movies? Does Kirk just never leave the transporter pad for you or something?
The rules rather plainly say that you've changed position. Any suggestion that you didn't move between the two points is completely in your head. No rules say this. In fact there are clear indications that the designers count Teleport as moving (although not a movement type or speed).
On one thing, we agree: Nothing more needs to be said.
Kotath, Star Trek didn't invent the idea of teleportation, nor even popularize it. Djinn were teleporting to China and back in stories told over a thousand years ago. The magic helmet in Wagner's Ring Cycle has teleportation powers.
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
There are a couple of very hot takes in the last couple of posts. For “There is no 'plain English' with respect to teleportation” to be true, D&D would have had to invent teleportation. For a term to “come up in typical day to day discussions often enough” is not only highly subjective and moving the goal posts, but quite a bit different than “no plain English.”
Anyway, if your argument is that “we can’t understand this without a definition” — which it must be if we can’t use common meanings — then you’re extra out of luck, because the rules don’t provide one in this case.
Those words are jargon because they don't exist in natural language, or have a well defined specific use in a technical field.
We aren't talking about that with teleportation though. Again, there is existence in English (however rare it is in everyday conversations), and there is not any specific definition in this niche (D&D).
The spell teleport defines what it means about as well as can be expected.
It's instant transportation.
So when you cast misty step, that relies on the spell teleport? I don't think so. I'm done here, I've learned that engaging in this type of bad, time wasting argumentation is just annoying.
You understand what the outcome of teleportation is, don't you? If I say "My character teleports 30 feet to that square", you understand that the character is moved 30 feet away, don't you?
The process is irrelevant. You go from here to there. That's all that is necessary to understand "teleportation" in any game or movie, or ancient legend. They disappeared and reappeared some distance away. How far away? There's the answer to the question of how far they moved. No thoughts about wormholes or matter transmission is required to answer the simple question "How far did they move".
This has the added benefit of not needing to understand some sort of special exemption for calculating teleport distances. It's also not vulnerable to giving different answers according to different styles of teleport. The spell Misty Step might imply stepping through the Feywild, or turning into glimmering insubstantial mist and floating through the air and reforming at the new location. Using an arbitrary benchmark of "what path did they take?" gives different answers for different teleport styles. It's unworkable as a game mechanic.
So using plain english, can you describe how far someone moved when they teleported? (Note that the type of teleportation is not known by you or anyone). Can you do this consistently in a manner that is useful in a game?
You claimed teleportation was
You were wrong, and I corrected you, giving two examples of teleportation from what, for their times, were "pop culture".
As for it not being "plain English", Wolf already addressed that. Teleportation is not a "technical" concept though. It's a very simple one -- you disappear from one location and appear in another. Children on the playground have no trouble understanding or describing it.
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)