Weird magic question: Telefragging?

[HuManBing]

I was just thinking about the "telefragging" mechanism from computer games, and wondering if it could apply to D&D. Briefly stated, this states that if character A teleports into a space currently occupied by character B, then instantaneous death occurs. In some games, like Doom and Quake, character B dies and character A survives. In other games, both characters die.

I was wondering about this for D&D. The teleport spell deals with locations, usually like a dungeon room or a study, and builds off the caster's familiarity with that. But how about combat casting of teleport to place a target inside another target to cause instantaneous death? Would an unscrupulous wizard be able to teleport an orc (within his field of vision) directly into the braincase of a rampaging green dragon, thus killing both of them?

The original teleport required that one of the people transported needs to be the caster. If you keep this caveat in place, then combat teleporting (telefragging) loses some of its attractiveness. A wizard could certainly try to kill an enemy by teleporting into it, literally, but such a process would almost certainly prove lethal to the caster itself...

...

...Unless the caster was a lich! Liches are infamous for not caring particularly much about their mortal shells. They use magic jar-type spells all the time, possessing and controlling lesser beings. Perhaps they could possess a hapless individual and then telefrag an enemy, retreating to its undead body when done. Or in a pinch it could telefrag using its undead body and then wait to regenerate (or possess) another body.

What do you all think?

[Rotipher of the FoS]

I recall a GenCon panel discussion where the issue of Teleporting things into (or directly above) other things came up. The designers' decision on the issue -- after lengthy debate at TSR over how to allow it, without destroying game balance -- was to dodge the whole issue, by ruling that D&D Teleport effects (magical or psionic) simply don't work that way.

What's balanced in video games doesn't always work in RPGs. It's like how a monster's CR is not the same thing as its EL for the purpose of running it as a PC: a reasonable power in an all-combat game can become vastly overpowered in a game where long-term planning and creativity are more vital.

[Jester of the FoS]

If you have a teleport mishap and teleport inside something you die. Simple as that. The other creature... likely dies as well.
But I would rule teleporting inside a moving creature would be nigh impossible.

[Korumil]

I would refer you to Complete Arcane PrC the Blood Mage, with their "Bloodwalk" ability. It works similar to the Shadow Walk spell except they may use any creature of medium or larger that has blood. At their option they may choose to either exit harmlessly or leave in a bloody explosive burst dealing 10d6. Take this as you will but I believe one would have to be intimately familiar with the insides of that specific monster to teleport successfully.

[ScS of the Fraternity]

There is a psionic power called Baleful Teleport, which dealt something like 9d6 damage. I'd say that seems to be the best compromise - no telefraging without a specific spell or ability.

[HuManBing]

I started thinking about this question halfway through my Torts final exam, and on further consideration, I think it would probably be unfair to let it be an assured kill. Instead, where you're teleporting yourself into an enemy (or another enemy into another enemy) I think the following factors have to apply:

1. Higher level than Greater Teleport for H and smaller targets, say Level 8, if you yourself are doing the telefragging.

The justification for this is that normal Teleport just gets you to within a rough vicinity. The average enemy is of a size that an average Teleport could easily miss, so you'd need something like Greater Teleport (L7) to pinpoint an enemy. You might even want to raise the size requirements for this. Perhaps anything smaller than a size G monster needs Greater Teleport, and anything larger is normal T.

So Telefrag, using self (and assuming whatever damage you'll suffer) is an L8 spell.

2. If you are telefragging using another object - say, telefragging a mouse into a dragon - then the spell is Level 9.

The justification for this is Teleport Other is already an L7 spell, and Greater Teleport is L7. We've already established that Telefrag is L8. Getting somebody else to do the dirty work (interplanar insertion, etc.) is justification to make it L9.

3. Instead of instant-death, make it an xdy damage attack to both parties involved.

Assume the spell mechanics tries to impose the mover into the target, and "bounces" them out in case of overlap. Both suffer extreme damage as a result of a momentary planar contiguity (also known as "being halfway through something else"). The size differential also imposes an additional amount of damage per size category of difference, against the smaller creature. (Teleporting a mouse into a dragon could cause some damage to the dragon but will almost certainly be fatal to the mouse.)

Balancing the damage itself is tricky. It would be easier if D&D tied your hit points directly to your mass, but of course that assumes that D&D designers are physicists instead of frustrated troubadours. I think the average Level 9 wizard spell does roundabout 80-100 hp of damage. (This is based off Power Word, Kill which kills any creature with fewer than 100 hp instantly, and also off Meteor Swarm which does 24d6 hp damage, or roughly 84 hp damage on average (24 x 3.5).

I'd lean towards closer to Power Word, Kill - because that specifically targets the life force of the creature rather than any body part, and higher than Meteor Swarm because that spell is intended inflict its damage to multiple targets. With Telefrag, you're just aiming to planarily insert one creature into another creature and hope that vital organs get disrupted enough to make a difference. Maybe a base level of 30d6 would work for average 105 hp damage.

Both things suffer this damage, but you adjust how much they suffer based on size. For each size category of difference, add a certain dice roll of damage for the smaller creature (who's really being squeezed) and subtract it for the larger creature (who's not). Maybe 2d8 or so, so the average size category difference would result in about 9 hp's margin. Or 2d12 would make for 13 hp's margin on average.

For good measure you could argue that certain creatures that are immune to critical hits (because they don't have organs) also take half damage or none at all. I could imagine this spell having much less effect on a stone golem than it might have on a stone giant, for example.

So say a human valiantly tries to sacrifice himself to Telefrag an Adult red dragon (CR 15, average 253 hp, size H) in a last ditch attempt to save his party. (Bearing in mind that the fair GM would balance the Dragon's CR of 15 against the party's CR of about 15, as the wizard would have to be at least L15 to even hope to cast a level 8 spell - haha! ...God I'm such a pedant...)

He casts Telefrag, a L8 spell, to physically insert herself into the creature in an attempt to disrupt its organs enough to kill it. He has a tough challenge ahead of him.

He'll do 30d6 damage, or on average 105 hp damage, and then the dragon is two size categories larger than him so it takes 2d8(x2) less (average 18 hp), and he takes 2d8(x2) more. On average the dragon will take about 87 hit points. The wizard is likely to take 123 hit points.

This will probably not kill the dragon (though it will do a lot of damage) and it will probably kill the wizard, assuming he's not from Faerun and his name doesn't partially rhyme with "Westminster". The canny wizard might save this spell to use after they cast a magic jar or something similar...

Of course, as mentioned above, a lich will probably spam this spell a lot, especially if it has plenty of undead servitors it can repossess at any time.

The problem I see is allowing "Telefrag Other". That would allow the caster to do a colossal amount of damage. Assuming a L20 wizard to have 6 L9 spell slots, that means the average wizard could pretty much kill or grievously wound 12 Mansized enemies per day, no questions asked. (Each casting would injure or kill two potential enemies.) Granted, a single Meteor Storm spell could arguably do comparable damage (and does not adjust down if you're casting against a larger opponent, unlike Telefrag).

That's all for now.

I'm really looking forward to my Contracts final exam, where I'll use my spare time to contemplate the question of casting Silence on an arrowhead and launching that at an enemy spellcaster.

[MatthiasStormcrow]

I dunno, my first instinct with Telefragging is to point to Dimension Door, which has mechanics for "shunting" you to the nearest open space, and you're the only one who takes damage in the process. After all, I'd assume with the spell you'd usually be teleporting at/into something you can see, so it's really more like Dimension Door than Teleport in that respect.

However, if you want to add Telefrag as an option for a high level spell it seems not unreasonable to me; maybe even a bit underpowered, considering the damage you can do with other spells of a similiar level and not kill yourself. Still, it might be a fun last-resort option in some campaigns.

Can I ask where you got Teleport Other as a 7th level spell from? The SRD lists Greater Teleport and Teleport Object (which specifically says it doesn't work on other people.) And I'm too lazy to dig out my spell compendium...not even sure where it is at the moment. But anyways, the way to make Telefrag Other work and be somewhat balanced is to give the person you're teleporting a save to avoid being teleported if they don't want to be. Once they fail that save, of course, both they and the person they're about to telefrag are screwed. It's pretty powerful, but as level 9 spells go it's not outrageous, compared to stuff like Implosion or Wail of the Banshee.

And as far as the silenced arrowhead thing goes...I thought everyone used that trick? Well, it totally works. Just don't miss with that arrow, you arcane archer wannabe.

[Jester of the FoS]

I'm not too worried about the "instant kill" factor as there are plenty of spells that already do that (power word: kill, slay living, enevation, etc).

But since it's a spell dealing with another person I'd say it'd be a save vs spell or die/take damage. Likely a reflex save to jump out of the way. It would also apply spell resistance which would not prevent the spell from going off (you'd still vanish) but might cancel out the re-appearing.

It does make teleport object more deadly.

However... the rules no longer say anything about teleporting into an object and mishaps just do damage. I would rule that since there's no rules for two objects ocupying the same space it cannot be done. You teleport but are instead shunted to the etherial plane or it counts as an automatic mishap.

[HuManBing]

Can I ask where you got Teleport Other as a 7th level spell from? The SRD lists Greater Teleport and Teleport Object (which specifically says it doesn't work on other people.)

Sorry, you're quite right. It should be Teleport Object that I was referencing, not Teleport Other.

I had made the mistake of referring to Teleport Without Error, too, which is a 2nd ed. spell. :/

[DeepShadow of FoS]

Don't most of the lesser teleport spells require that the teleporting target of the spell be willing? I mean, it's not even a saving throw; if you don't want to go, you don't.

Therefore, if someone is willing to sacrifice their own life to slay the green dragon, I'd be inclined to let them.

That being said, I wouldn't require that someone be intimately familiar with the internals of a monster in order to make the spell work. After all, not being familiar just increases the chance of a mishap, and IMNSHO the surety of dying trumps all the possible mishaps...except in RL, where you can become fused with the target and become a Broken One...wait a sec....

On a related note, I've allowed a technique I call "tele-jumping" IMC, wherein a person makes contact with the spellcaster at the moment of teleportation and makes the trip with him. The wording of the spell suggests that the spell can include such unintentional targets. Of course, it often requires a readied action and a barehanded touch attack to time things right, and when successful it sometimes only means that one character follows the fleeing villain into his vile sanctuary and promptly dies/gets captured without the help of the other PC's.