Teleportation and Magical Travel in Acteos

I've always seen Dimension Door, Teleport, and similar spells to be a little too powerful for my liking.  One of my goals in Acteos is to rein in their power while still providing magical travel as a viable option for higher level characters.

What I've done is restrict Dimension Door-like travel to locations the caster can perceive.  Of course, you can still teleport to the other side of the wall if you cast other spells that allow you to perceive what's there.  So the capability is still there, the caster just has to work a little harder for it.  Long-range teleport is handled by a network of teleportation patterns, which restrict the use of teleportation to specific locations, which I'll talk about in a bit.  I've also folded both Dimension Door and Teleport into one 4th-level spell available to all mages that handles both modes of teleportation.

Below I present such changes as a Magic-User or Cleric spell, ready to drop into your existing Swords & Wizardry (or other OSR) game.

Teleportation Patterns

Across the lands of Acteos exists a vast network of magical teleportation patterns.  These patterns are large, intricate works of art that have been put into place to exist as a focal point for Teleport spells.  Each pattern is unique to its location, and mages make great pilgrimages across the land to visit these patterns and study them.  This network exists largely among the churches and temples of the various religions of the world.

To learn a pattern, a mage must visit the location and spend 1d6 days studying it.  The mage copies down the details of the pattern into his spellbook, making notes about the colors, shapes, smells, etc of the pattern and its surroundings.  After which, the mage may then use this location as a target for long range Teleport spells, given he meets the requirements detailed in the Teleport spell.  Mages who are not yet able to cast the Teleport spell may still make such pilgrimages to study and document teleportation patterns, but will be unable to use these details without knowing the spell or obtaining a spell scroll.

Teleportation outside of the pattern network is possible, but extremely dangerous and unlikely to succeed, resulting more often in death than reaching the desired destination.

Teleport

Spell Level: Magic-User 4, (Cleric 4, per Referee)

Cast Time: 1 action or 1 turn

Range: Touch

Duration: Instantaneous

Used as a short-range teleport, the caster can instantly transport himself, an object, or another person, with perfect accuracy to the stated location, as long as it is within 360 feet of the caster and he is able to fully perceive the location.  Creatures targeted by this spell may make a saving throw to negate the effects if they are unwilling recipients.

Used as a long-range teleport, the caster can transport himself and up to 1 additional person per caster level across great distances instantly.  Doing so requires that the targets are either touching the caster or another target (for example, holding hands in a circle), and that they are present at a teleportation pattern that the caster has studied.    The spell takes 1 turn to cast, during which the caster studies the teleportation pattern of the destination from his spellbook (see Teleportation and Magical Travel, earlier in this chapter).  Once the caster has spent 1 turn getting his bearings straight on both the current location and the destination, the caster and all targets are instantly transported to the location of the destination pattern.

If the caster tries to perform a short or long-range teleport to either a location he cannot perceive or to a long-range destination that is not a learned teleportation pattern, the spell only has a 25% chance of success.  Failure means the teleport sends the travelers elsewhere, often resulting in death, at the Referee’s discretion.