11
\$\begingroup\$

Can you teleport within an area warded by Forbiddance? It's already been established you can teleport out of it, but not whether, once inside, you can teleport from one part of it to another.

You create a ward against magical travel that protects up to 40,000 square feet of floor space to a height of 30 feet above the floor. For the duration, creatures can't teleport into the area or use portals, such as those created by the gate spell, to enter the area. The spell proofs the area against planar travel, and therefore prevents creatures from accessing the area by way of the Astral Plane, Ethereal Plane, Feywild, Shadowfell, or the plane shift spell.

The phrasing uses both phrases, "into" and "enter". If you teleport from one area to another, you are going into an area, and if you enter an area that would only block teleportation from outside.

As such, I'm not sure whether the spell could be used, say, to ward a battleground so that the enemy couldn't teleport around within said area easily, or used within a mage's private area to prevent an enemy teleporting around smashing things.

So, can I teleport within an area warded by Forbiddance?

Improve this question
\$\endgroup\$

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
8
\$\begingroup\$

You can teleport from one place within the warded area to another within the warded area

Since, as you point out, the text of the spell only says you can't teleport from outside to inside, nothing stops you RAW from teleporting from one place within the warded area to another place within the warded area.

Just quoting again from forbiddance (PHB, pg. 243):

For the duration, creatures can't teleport into the area or use portals, such as those created by the gate spell, to enter the area.

I'd also say that teleporting whilst already within the area would also be RAI (Rules as Intended) since the intention of the spell seems to be to keep people out of the area, not to annoy those already within the area.

Improve this answer
\$\endgroup\$
6
  • 3
    \$\begingroup\$ Arguably however, using spells such as gate causes you to "leave" the area and re-enter it at another point, which would be against RAW. I think it depends on how you view teleportation as working? \$\endgroup\$
    – Fifth_H0r5eman
    Aug 15, 2018 at 15:55
  • \$\begingroup\$ Yeah, I know in 3.5 teleportation was explicitly by the ethereal plane, and so would probably be blocked since you hopped into another plane and came back in. Not sure if that would apply here. \$\endgroup\$
    – Nepene Nep
    Aug 15, 2018 at 16:13
  • 3
    \$\begingroup\$ The exact mechanism of teleportation in 5th edition is left unspecified. In particular, teleportation is never described as involving traveling to another plane and back. \$\endgroup\$
    – Ryan C. Thompson
    Aug 15, 2018 at 16:25
  • 2
    \$\begingroup\$ One of the many reasons I don't play with a specific DM was that he ruled that it blocked all teleportations, both in and out of my own tower sanctum. \$\endgroup\$
    – Slagmoth
    Aug 15, 2018 at 16:51
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ @NepeneNep The wording of Forbiddance kind of implies that that's not how it works (it blocks teleportation, and it also blocks entry from other planes). This does raise the question of what happens if you try to transit through the ethereal plane (say, by casting Blink) while inside the forbidden area. Would you get stuck? \$\endgroup\$
    – Mark Wells
    Aug 15, 2018 at 19:15

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .