[Un] .. sometimes you better do not teleport ..

[Arralen]

We all know those horror stories about teleporting from a dire situation into an instant death. Yet, there are some instances where you really shouldn't think about teleporting .. .

There I was, happily trundling along Barrow Downs and Weathertop to level 21, carrying a _Tele and 2 ?Tele and really thinking not much 'bout it. Until 2 things happend .. at first, I got bored and curios and turned the outer "dungeon wall" into mud. Then I hit one of those teleporting trees, and it teleported away. Far away .. and then "vanished from view".
What?!?
.. and only then it dawned to me that I was on level 21 of Amon Sűl, 4 levels above the ground - and teleporting out of the confined space of the tower isn't really advisable unless you're at least a floater ... .


By the way, as while I was at the inconvenient thing called "thinking" I started to wonder where I actually was, as it is at the end of the third age (Bilbo set out in 2941) so this couldn't really be

Weathertop
The name among Men for Amon Sűl, the southernmost of the Weather Hills in Eriador, on which had stood the Tower of Amon Sűl during the early Third Age.

Most of the fortifications on the Weather Hills dated from the time of Argeleb I (III 1349 - III 1356) and only stood for a few decades before they were thrown down by the forces of Angmar. The Tower of Amon Sűl on Weathertop, though, was much older, and had held one of the palantíri of the North-kingdom since the days of Arnor's foundation.
Encyclopedia of Arda: Weathertop

[Bandobras]

Originally Posted by Arralen

Until 2 things happend .. at first, I got bored and curios and turned the outer "dungeon wall" into mud.

Wow, I didn't know you can even do that. And, yes, towers can be boring. They are/will be shorter in 0.6.3.

Originally Posted by Arralen

Then I hit one of those teleporting trees, and it teleported away. Far away .. and then "vanished from view".
What?!?

Heh. It actually didn't drop all 4 stories to the ground, but only 1 level lower. Probably the levels don't sit exactly accurately one on another, or the wind presses you to the walls, or something. Oh, yes in Weathertop the stories aren't even of the same shape, so jumping out of the window you would definitely fall through a roof of some of the lower floors.

OTOH, the teleportation spell is limited by the confined space of the tower and can't take you outside the tower, so your fears where unfounded. If you don't jump out of self-made windows, you should be safe. On the completely other hand though, monsters teleporting out of the tower (with treasures stolen from you or picked up) are bad news. But it's the same magic as the vault teleportation magic. If you want Teleport Other to move monsters out of the vault, you have to let them flee towers outwards and then downwards (unless they fly or climb). With semi-persistent dungeons in 0.6.3, perhaps you would even be able to find them on the already visited lower level.

Originally Posted by Arralen

.. and only then it dawned to me that I was on level 21 of Amon Sûl, 4 levels above the ground - and teleporting out of the confined space of the tower isn't really advisable unless you're at least a floater ... .

Yes, IIRC a floater can walk out of the tower and hunt those bats or climbing kinds of orcs, or whatever lives in the air and nearby ruins of neighboring towers (probably not in Weathertop, though, due to bad winds, lack of nearby mountains and buldings, etc. I don't remember which tower is more likely to have monsters outside, but there is at least one).

Originally Posted by Arralen

By the way, as while I was at the inconvenient thing called "thinking" I started to wonder where I actually was, as it is at the end of the third age

Let's say, the tower was half-broken, half burried in rubble and the hill on which it stood was itself full of tunnels, which you can enter at the bottom of the hill, climb up to the remnants of the tower itself and then a bit higher up the buried stories and at last one or two levels of not buried, but broken stumps of stories (which is actually an idea of how to make the tower less boring, buy adding flavor to its stages, via dungeon stage descriptions (slightly hinted at already) and dungeon configuration definitions for the stages, which also imply monster distribution, etc.). In 0.6.3 the tower should be shorter, so the more believable.