Teleportation

Version 0.33: This article is up to date for the latest stable release of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup.

Teleportation is the act of moving from one place to another instantaneously. Teleports differ from blinks in two main ways: teleports can send you to any valid location on the floor, while blinks are limited to visible locations. And blinks are instantaneous, while many teleports take some time to kick in.

Sources

There are several ways to teleport in Crawl:

• Reading a scroll of teleportation.
• Stepping on a teleport trap.
• You occasionally teleport while wandering in the Abyss.

A few methods will try to teleport you next to monsters:

• The teleport effect from sourceless malevolence (i.e an explore-based teleport trap).
• Being randomly teleported by the Teleportitis mutation.
• Wyrmholes' Sojourning Bolt
• Unwielding a distortion branded weapon.

You can instead teleport monsters by casting Teleport Other or the Dispersal spell.

Useful Info

Tele Status

Scrolls of teleport, Teleport Other, and Sojourning Bolt give the Tele status. This status has a delay before it teleports you:

Circumstance	Duration
Normal	3-5 turns
In the Realm of Zot or when carrying the Orb	8-14 turns
In the Abyss (even when carrying the Orb)	8-19 turns

All other teleports are instantaneous, though the player does not have as much control with them.

Location

Teleports send you to any random location on the floor, with the following conditions:

• You must be able to step on the tile. E.g. you can't be sent into lava if you don't have flight (temporary or not). You can't be teleported into an occupied or solid tile, either.
• You cannot be teleported into a dangerous cloud.
• You cannot be teleported into vaults with the "no tele into" flag. This includes some, but not all, runed door and transporter vaults. Notably, the Hall of Blades in Elf:2 does allow teleport inside.

Other than those restrictions, it can bring you to any random tile, including the one you were on originally ("Your surroundings flicker for a moment.").

Like blinking, teleports leave a cloud of translocational energy behind; these clouds have no effect (beyond stopping other clouds from existing on their tile).

Preventing Teleport

If the player has the Tele status, then they can either use a potion of cancellation or read another scroll of teleport to end it. A Quicksilver Bolt (including from the wand of quicksilver) will also end the Tele status.

The -Tele (from Dimension Anchor) and Stuck (from miscasting Translocations) statuses both prevent teleportation. These statuses can be removed by quaffing a potion of cancellation. -Tele may also be obtained via certain artefacts or by playing a Formicid; having these won't stop shifts in the Abyss.

Strategy

Non-hostile teleport

The teleport scroll is a useful escape tool. More likely than not, you'll be sent far away from your current location. You should generally try to teleport early into a fight, for a couple of reasons:

• It takes a few turns for the scroll to activate.
• There is no guarantee that you'll be transported to a safe location - you could be teleported directly into another dangerous area, or you can teleport to the same tile you were currently on.
• You teleport after you finish whatever action you were doing, but before monsters get to move. Therefore, when teleporting, monsters at your teleport destination will get a turn to attack you before you can react, making tele at low HP even more dangerous. This could theoretically cause instant death, although the chance of this is miniscule at full HP.

Also, in floors with large and dangerous vaults (e.g., Elf:2 or Zot:5), a teleport is likely to bring you inside them. Teleporting is also less effective in tiny floors like the Hells for a similar reason.

The teleport trap can be used in a similar fashion to the scroll, although traps are far less accessible and have no delay. You can also get a monster to step on a trap.

Hostile teleport

Hostile teleports (sourceless malevolence, teleportitis, wyrmholes), on the other hand, can be extremely dangerous, often getting you into situations that are difficult to retreat from. Monsters still get a chance to move before you can react. There's no way to prevent sourceless malevolence other than wearing a -Tele item, but teleportitis can be cured by potions of mutation, and wyrmholes' status can be removed by reading a scroll of teleport.

History

• Prior to 0.28, monsters could cast Teleport Self.
• Prior to 0.27, non-player ghost monsters could cast Teleport Other.
• Prior to 0.26, the *Tele intrinsic could be obtained from a ring of teleportation, acting like teleportitis.
• Prior to 0.25, suffering a Translocations miscast effect could teleport the player, and being hit by a distortion weapon could too.
• Prior to 0.17, teleport destination could be controlled with teleport control. Also, 20% of Abyss teleports had a delay of only 3-5 turns.
• Prior to 0.13, the teleport control status effect did not delay teleports.
• Prior to 0.9, players had access to Teleport Self.