It might have been a better book?
Philisitine. 
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youtube.com/watch?v=1yqVD0swvWU
:mrgreen:
With travel so trivial, that means the gameworld will also have to be changed rather drastically. Far from always preferable.
That's very much the way I feel about teleportation too. You pretty much state my preferred solution too -- make effects like this ritual only. It doesn't really restrict the magi from doing dramatic magic, it just keeps it from being casual.
Very well stated. We're playing a game, so there's no right or wrong power level to operate at. It's determined by the sort of stories we want to tell. The sort I'm (usually) interested in preclude casually teleporting to Paris for breakfast, Constantinople for a fish lunch, and then to Tuscany for a boar and wine dinner.
The rule on ArM5 pg 168 seems pretty clear to me. They use the wording of responsible because it covers all magical effects not just spells. So supernatural abilities and creature powers don't warp the user no matter how powerful. (unless the effects are continuous but that's a different rule.)
The chart on the same page does use the Cast by Subject wording. Additionally the rules say that even if a spell is specifically made for someone else it still won't warp the caster as a powerful effect if it effects them.
Well, if by "better" you mean "shorter, then agreed! I certainly would haven't have gotten lost half way thru book 2 the first time I tried to read it. (Who?... wait, I thought he died... what the...?)
The problem is that it's easier for most Game Masters (most humans) to think of "challenges" in terms of physical challenges (like "distance") and martial forces (like "defenses"), rather than social or psychological obstacles. It's easy to get in and kill the baron - it's harder to get the baron to actually* change his mind and retract his last command. It's easy to teleport and drop the ring in the lava - it's harder to keep the sorcerer's attention elsewhere so he shifts his magical defenses while you do that.
(* I said "actually" - not to change it for him.)
There is a RP game (which I will mention!) called "Amber (diceless)".* In that game, characters can have all the wealth and combat ability and lordship they want - they're effectively immortal. They have all the books and knowledge and gems and weapons and castles and soldiers (and worlds) they can use. And that does them very little good, because the main characters, the Pc's and NPC's, all have power greater than mere "armies". (And stop me if any of this starts to sound familiar...) The main characters operate in a (mostly secret) society that is above and beyond mortal understanding. They alter reality with a thought, travel across boundaries casually, into different worlds, where different rules can apply, and come back with treasure unknown in the mundane world. They know they are above mundanes and see them largely as tools, but occasionally have a soft spot as well. They tolerate but never completely trust the others within their society. They know there is only 1 thing that is important, and that is their own pursuit of "real power". (Any of this sound familiar? Bueller?...)
(* recommended, but only if you've read all 10(?) of Zelazney's books in that series - but those are also recommended. Oh, and there are no dice involved with the game. But it works. That's a diff discussion.)
And it works because "challenge" isn't (usually) premised physical obstacles and goals, but on social and psychological ones. It doesn't matter that you're just "tough", because no mortal is "tough enough" and every peer is as tough (or tougher!). To succeed, you have to be clever.
As a SG, you don't need to limit teleportation. You just need to create situations where it doesn't matter.
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Ah, but you missed the part that occured 1,000 years before.
Sauron: "Now, where did I put the ring in which I invested so much of my power ... oh, wait, since I did I am an Arcane Connection to it !"
Poof (Sauron teleports to ring. Gollum dies. Sauron teleports back home).
Now I shall conquer all of Middle Earth !
My.. you folks have been busy!
To answer some of the questions:
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There are no players. This is for a not-yet-completed campaign idea for a PbP game where the magi will start out between 25-35 years old.
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The reason Iām slowing teleportation down has been stated by others quite well. It removes lots of aspects of the medieval world. It removes potential for story ideas. It removes the color of the world. Since itās PbP, Iāll be skimming over travel logs anyways but I still want them to camp in the woods once in awhile.
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Iām not uncomfortable with the level of powerā¦ Iām uncomfortable with giving that level of power to the PCās adversaries on Day One. And I don't like the "casual" nature of one spell being used for a hundred different results. So I'm just making it a hundred spells.
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The setting is Harn. A distant, frontier island that has only been a Tribunal for about 100 years. There are only three covenants on it, they are separated by large distances and very isolated from the other Tribunals. I want to keep that feeling of isolation. I donāt care if the magi jump from Harn covenant to Harn covenant and, due to the danger, I expect them to learn to do so quickly. But I donāt want the Head Quaesitor, five thousand miles away, to decide to swing by this distant island to sample the cuisine on a whim. The purpose of putting it on the island is to make it a wild, unexplored frontier land. Itās a unique setting with lots of history, ruins, unexplored landsā¦ flitting about on a momentās notice irritates me. So sue me.
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I have no issues with teleportation other than the ability of it to be so easily achieved with unlimited results with just one spell. So Iāve simply made it require a season of work to get access to each location. No big deal, I think. Lab texts for other versions of the spell will work just fine when designing a new location.
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The Ritual part doesnāt work because I have a secret society using enchanted items (w/ Leap) to travel to secret cult places. And I like the idea so I donāt want to discard it.
This has evolved into an discussion about something else. So let me clear things upā¦
-Leap of Homecoming is going to be changed.
-People who donāt like that should not apply to play in the game.
Better? 
Now, is there anything unforeseen by making my change to the spell? I've been with Ars since around 1990 and own 1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th editions... but I've never actually played it. And I definitely haven't run it. So I'm concerned that there is something I'm not aware of.
Houseruling is fine, especially for "custom environments" like you plan. Whatever works best for the story you have in mind - and if AC teleport is a dealbreaker, then stifle it!
[quote] Now, is there anything unforeseen by making my change to the spell? I've been with Ars since around 1990 and own 1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th editions... but I've never actually played it. And I definitely haven't run it. So I'm concerned that there is something I'm not aware of. [/quote] The main thing is that Character Advancement is based on seasons, not "adventures" or mere "action". So slower-developing and -moving stories - not "dull" but with more time passing between scenes - is the way to go.Otherwise, Players can get frustrated at their character never improving (much). A lot of "and now a season/year/half-decade" passes" - that kind of stuff.
re power during CharGen, it matters less how old they are than what Hermetic Age they have - that is, how long it has been after Gauntlet. This is the measure of Hermetic power, of "Character Level", if you will.
Whether a Player decides that their mage is 5 or 18 when apprenticed is a self-governing mechanism, with Longevity Rituals looming sooner than later for those with more years of "experience" under their beltss. 15 xp/yr in Mundane (or so) Abilities is worth it to some, not to others - but Hermetic Age is where the (rough) measure of a mage lies. 8)
As a rough guide, I usually allow "a few" years of detailed (season-by-season) Chargen unless something specific is going on. This lets the characters get in the lab and use their Arts and fill in those gaps, with some of the little spell effects or items they want (and often need!). More rounded characters in general.
Even for "new" magi, fresh into their own Spring Covenant, I often let them take 1 year in their Parens' covenant (maybe w/ a lab bonus, maybe not). 1 season of inventing a spell, 1 season for a lesser enchantment, 1 season copying some text(s), and 1 season on a "potion" or maybe on their own to Study or for more labwork, as they please - this rounds the Characters out and gives new Players a better sense and appreciation of how it all works before play actually starts.
Let us know how it works out!
Thanks for the tips. No unforeseen issues with the rule change?
I'm planning on giving the characters 2 years to start without any distractions. Apprentice age will be 10, Gauntlet 25, so they can choose to be 0-9 years post-gauntlet. I may increase it to 0-15yrs not sure yet. I've designed it to be fairly initiative-driven with only about 2-3 "adventures" per decade and not all of those requiring Magi. If the characters want to initiate their own adventures, that's cool and expected of them. There are events happening that can sweep them up if they choose to get involved but nothing too rail-roady.
One thing I have been considering is not doing the usual Spring Covenant thing... adding them to an existing covenant in far Winter or something. I really want the "new covenant" thing to be present but have seen the concept falter too many times. The reason behind the two years bump is to simply skip over any construction, finding resources etc. The nice thing about PbP is that most players online are advanced players. If it was my TT group, I'd definitely start them in an established covenant. But I'm pretty comfortable with the current focus.
Ah, that clears up some things. I suggest you leave some open doors for the players. After all, building the story should be a Troupe effort.
a) Harn is at the Antipodes, to cross the lines you need a Ritual, or maybe a single portal.
b) Isolationist Tribunal limits the number of magi allowed.
c) Anyway, nobody cares about that far-away land.
Those, or something similar will give you what you want without changing the system.
Alternatively, there could be a single Leap of Homecoming, but you would need to stay a season at the destination to master it (shades of Tsurani Great Ones).
As it stands, you are forcing every magus to have strong ReCo (35 requires ReCo23, about 10 of each is 2 years of reading summae). I suggest lowering the base level at least for some magical nexii (ReCo25 Personal is easy to reach while still leaving Warping for ReCo30 Touch). That'd still leave a few days of travel from the nearest nexus for your camping pleasure while allowing lab rats to participate without losing a season.
I see no problem with requiring a spell per location. Although at this point, the arcane connection is redundant, except for inventing the spell: forcing the players to keep it just creates more annoying Housekeeping.
Exar's actually got some good solutions to the super-power Leap of Homecoming in his saga:
1.) If you're Leaping to a thing, rather than to a very familiar place (your lab, for example), you need a finesse roll.
Botch it, and you end up inside a person, a wall, a small rabit or, recently for two characters IMS, a cursed swamp which could have killed them.
So using is a risk, and so is used less often for that reason.
2.) Run stories where you have to hunt for unfamiliar things. We needed to find a lost girl, so we had to find an Arcane Connection to her, so we had to search her father's palace, and had to travel to a convent etc.
3.) Jumping to an AC is like opening a box of chocolates: you never know what you're going to get. You're blind into a situation, and that can be dangerous. Once again, used less often for the reason that Exar might see overuse as violating the Arcane Limit of the Big Hungry Dragon.
4.) Run stories that have you travelling to new places to which you would not have an AC. IMS (and this is for 100 year-old magi) we have to travel much of the length of Novogord. So far, we are three days into the journey, and we've had all sorts of near-death highjinks. Mythic Europe is a big place, so a good SG can take advantage of that by requiring travel to places where the magi have never been.
For example, someone has been kidnapped and taken to a house outside a town two weeks east of where you are. How are you Leap of Homecoming there?
5.) Arcane Limit of the Big Hungry Dragon. There can be all sorts of plausible reasons why ACs might not work. Perhaps there's a Divine version of an Aegis or some other supernatural effect that's blocking magical travel. Perhaps all ACs have been somehow cut. Perhaps the SG really wants to run a travel story, and stopping him means running into the Arcane Limit of the Big Hungry Dragon who eats magi who try to styme the SG's stories by cheap tricks.
The last suggestion I might have as a more reasonable nerfing of the spell is a more litteral interpretation of the description: Leap to a place to which you have an arcane connection, that is, an arcane connection intrinsic to yourself. Not a hair taken from an enemy. Not a chip of wood from a floorboard. Not a rock from a beach... YOU must be the connection.
That means your sanctum, your birthplace, your childhood home etc... places to which you have a real story connection.
That makes the spell less powerful and more flavourful at the same time! Requiring specific spells just seems pedantic to me.
Kilgs, I think your solution is an elegant one if you want to reduce the power of teleportation. However, I would beware of two things.
The first is the use of Muto Vim. Be ready when your players grumble because they are not able to change spell X, that takes them to location X', into spell Y, that takes them into location Y', by using a single Muto Vim spell of approximately the same level (thus getting one location for the price of one spell, and infinite locations for the price of two). I think this can be elegantly solved by saying that you only need one leap of homecoming, but you need the "mystical coordinates" of a place (rather than an arcane connection) to teleport there -- and researching them takes a season.
The second is more serious. In our saga, we never reduced the power of teleportation because, except for the occasional "escape home from the grave, unforeseen danger" situation, it very rarely gets used. Why? A first reason is that magical flight allows you to travel great distances in relatively short time -- a about a thousand miles/day -- and it's generally lower level, usable by others without warping etc. etc. More importantly, in our saga, most magi stay at home most of the time, and use scrying and Opening the Intangible Tunnel to lend grogs the occasional assistance they may need. When they do travel, it's because they want to experience the situation firsthand (a Quest for a Mystery initiation, or simply a night of passion with a mundane princess) rather than to obtain results (kill the dragon, get the vis etc.). Even if you removed teleportation entirely, it would not affect much the fact that a wizard with arcane connections to mundane minions in a bunch of places is -- for most practical purposes -- effectively capable of "being" there.
I've never liked the whole teleport inside of something else for ArM for two reasons.
First Rego is about moving something from one natural state to another. Fusing a mage into a wall just doesn't sound natural IMO. Not that botches shouldn't result in effects that are outside of hermetic magic on occasion, it just shouldn't be a common or expected outcome.
Second making a botch equal instant death is a little two hand of god for me. Botches should be dangerous and even damaging, maybe leaving you only a few steps away from death if you roll enough zero's. Most importantly the should further stories not end them.
I do like the idea of ending up in an unexpected and dangerous place with a botch. Like that cursed swamp. Really bad botches could result in other interesting yet potentially fatal locations. Like the middle of the ocean, x number of feet in the air, buried in sand, (perfectly natural people get buried in sand all the time) or inside a whales stomach. (perfectly natural people get swallowed by whales all the time)
Tend to agree, yet in genre there are often hazards assumed with teleporting, if not "lethal" ones. Adding such hazards, at one level or another, is not an unreasonable limiter. (The real problem is that Players are often far less wise than their characters would be.)
Different spells have all kinds of caveats - magic does not have to be "rational", even if the rules of a certain RPG try to be, or players want it to be.
Your characters can escape from the grave?! That is serious... (wait, am I reading that right?) 
(forgive the tangent)
At 40 mph (not unreasonable imo with extra magnitudes for extra speed) for 24 hours, a bunch of other problems arise. Cold, storms, hitting birds, seeing thru bad weather - "flying" is only the largest part of the puzzle. Also just "seeing" with a 40 mph wind in your eyes for hour after hour. And concentrating for that long - just staying awake while navigating.
And speaking of navigating, "getting lost" is another major problem. No GPS (not w/o Intellego AC effects), no maps worth a damn, no highways to follow or city lights at night (or even "cities", for the most part). You have coastlines, you have rivers, you have the rare major population or agrarian center (and they all look the same), you have (broadly located) mountain ranges - and you have the sun and stars. Those are your best bet, and then are useful only w/ a high Area Lore score and/or a lot of care (i.e. "frequent landing and asking directions and "Where the hell am I, and how do I get to ____?!")
Then add the occasional magical creature that sees anything flying as a threat or pizza delivery, and "flying" becomes a far less attractive solution, if not a less practical alternative.
That, and at these magnitudes (and this applies to Leap as well!) it's often hard to have a spell that moves "everyone" with reliability. So you're stuck with leaving behind companions and grogs, if not other magi - or at least your more bulky equipment and loot. It may be only mundane silver, but even that can get stretched depending how much you start leaving behind every time.
I'm not saying that there are not ways around it all, but it's not "just that easy". Without house-rule limitations, Leaping is, hands down, the preferable mode of travel.
I'm not sure why you'd need extra magnitudes. If you are propelled by winds, it's a gale force wind. With "extreme weather" guidelines you could easily travel twice as fast. Hurricane force winds are those blowing at 73+ mph.
Why cold?
You see a storm, you stop and seek shelter. Onestly, it's really the same when you are walking.
Oh, come on.
See above. If the weather is so bad you have a hard time seeing, just stop and rest. Or, even better, just climb above the clouds.
If the wind is carrying you, it's not in your eyes. If you are using some other means of transportation, there are many ways to stop the air from "hitting you".
Why need the effect by a spell with Concentration duration?
which are quite easy...
says who?
good ol' roman roads instead!
This I -- sort of -- agree with. Though in the dark, even a few small fires will show a long way, miles and miles.
That's plenty! Honestly, navigation while flying is much easier than navigation while walking.
Nah, that's an exaggeration. Of course, if you have no clue of where the fabled city of Nazzgarat is located, reaching it by flight or walk is hard. But if you have some clue, or even just an arcane connection to it (which you would need to teleport there)... almost trivial.
"The occasional magical creature that sees anything flying as pizza delivery" will probably see anything on the ground as pizza delivery too. If it sees you as a threat, and you just try to keep your distance, it will keep its distance too. Honestly, this is a point in favour of flying. If the Storyguide wants to include an encounter with said magical creature, he can. If he does not, I do not think anyone will blame him for lack of realism. Using this as an example of the dangers of flight is about as reasonable as using "the secret cult that sees teleportation as a threat to their chthonic god" as a danger of using teleportation.
For all I said above, our troupe found it a much more attractive solution than teleportation, unless you want to go to some place which you could not otherwise reach, or you want to move truly istantly. Remember, for teleportation you need arcane connections; you need high level spells that are likely to warp everyone but the caster; and you have a more limited ability to scout the area.
There are many, many ways by which you can achieve movement by flight, even of just companions and grogs, at lower magnitudes than through teleportation.
From my own saga experience, this is completely false.
I completely disagree.
Ezzelino for form purpose, could you avoid doing this kind of long post? just answering a block for Cuchulain's block could be OK; but splitting it render his' and your's post unreadable 
Hmm, I'm sorry you had trouble reading through it -- personally, I tend to prefer line-to-line answers to paragraph-to-paragraph ones. It does tend to make the post longer, but it also makes it easier to match quote and answer. I'll try to avoid it in the future though.
(EK -
What e said. If there are many diff points being individually addressed, that is the least confusing approach. Long as it is, I prefer it.)
ezzelino... really?
Okay...
Oh, with that spell perhaps not. There are maybe 20 ways to "fly" in Ars, and most start at a base of "just getting off the ground".
You've never ridden a motorcycle (without a jacket), clearly. Nor been on a mountain ridge with any wind whipping around you. Hypothermia can hit with moderately strong winds and 75 F/24 C degree days. Add some elevation and temperatures plummet fast. Wind multiplies the effects. Worse for humans accustomed to truly warm climates, like the Med. Cold.
Storms can arise much faster than most think, especially when "in the air". Often very hard to tell the diff between a cloud bank and a storm front. And then you're stuck... where, and for how many days?
Again, I didn't imply any of these were dealbreakers, just that they had to be taken into consideration re your "1000 miles/day" estimate.
Ah, so now we're not just stopping for storms, but also for rain, fog, any clouds, and at night. 1000 miles/day is dropping fast...
In a wind tunnel, perhaps. In an actual "hurricane force wind", yes, it's in your eyes. Wind is a chaotic, fluid, highly unpredictable thing, not like the straight lines drawn in children's books.
Perhaps steam-punk goggles. Hey, if it coulda worked for da Vinci, it's good 200+ years before. 
Who said anything about a spell? Try staying alert for 12 hours on a drive in a comfy car with cruise control? Try that without the protection of the car (or the concern for a crash) and then get back to me.
Hrmmm, well, let's see...
Let's call it Base 2*, +4 AC = Lvl 10 (Lvl 20 if Base 4). That's probably too big to spont except for specialists/senior magi, and even then it's needed too many times/day for accurate navigation - lots of sponts = botches, and that'd be bad when traveling (not to mention actually flying). So not so easy that it doesn't have to be formulaic.
And that's only if the mage has been to the destination before, and if they grabbed an AC which is still valid.
(* Might easily be Base 4, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt)
You are joking, right? (No, I guess not...)
(This is worth a new topic: See viewtopic.php?f=4&t=7527 )
For those few that are intact, maybe. Of course, that also means the mage is flying low enough to see the road, and to tell the diff between that and other trails, and so in turn can be easily seen by any and all on that road - if that's not a concern (invis/etc), then np.
Unless there are... (what are those things called again?...the big things that are all over Europe?...) trees. Or... um... hills - yeah, those too.
I think most aviators would disagree.
You claim that none of these are very hard to overcome - and with some, perhaps most, I agree. But you don't mention that any are taken into consideration in your saga, either, that any of your players ever did "overcome" them, where flying is "a much more attractive solution". If none of those problems exist, I can see why. 
Good gaming!