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[MagicJuggler]

"So not a fortress-destroyer you say?"

Megabeast sets fire to your fortress... it burns down "Game Over"

Except fire can be dealt with very easily, either through water or channeling...teleportation doesn't really have an appreciable counter.

[Neonivek]

Teleporting is such an effective power: if it exists, there should be a watertight explanation why it isn't more common

I think your overthinking things here... Many enemies are going to have powers and abilities that will not offer any reason to as why it isn't more common other then "It isn't"

Why arn't there more enemies that have poison? Why arn't there more enemies with multiple heads? Why arn't there more enemies that fly? Why arn't there more enemies that make civilisations?

The answer is simply not everyone has it... It isn't a naturally occuring phenomina. You can't go over to your grandmother's house eat cookies and find out that you suddenly have the powers of teleportation... In the same way that you can eat a chilli pepper and suddenly breathe fire.

"Except fire can be dealt with very easily, either through water or channeling"

So can teleportation. stop attributing abilities to teleportation as if they go without saying.

I don't remember Nightcrawler ever destroying the free world... and he HAS the exaggerated version of teleportation that stops short of being able to teleport people's bodyparts off.

[MagicJuggler]

Teleporting is such an effective power: if it exists, there should be a watertight explanation why it isn't more common

I think your overthinking things here... Many enemies are going to have powers and abilities that will not offer any reason to as why it isn't more common other then "It isn't"

Why arn't there more enemies that have poison? Why arn't there more enemies with multiple heads? Why arn't there more enemies that fly? Why arn't there more enemies that make civilisations?

The answer is simply not everyone has it... It isn't a naturally occuring phenomina. You can't go over to your grandmother's house eat cookies and find out that you suddenly have the powers of teleportation... In the same way that you can eat a chilli pepper and suddenly breathe fire.

"Except fire can be dealt with very easily, either through water or channeling"

So can teleportation. stop attributing abilities to teleportation as if they go without saying.

I don't remember Nightcrawler ever destroying the free world... and he HAS the exaggerated version of teleportation that stops short of being able to teleport people's bodyparts off.

Stop attributing abilities to teleportation...fine. So let us assume that instead our teleporting assassin has weak stats. That makes it pointless. So why bother putting it in? We do so either to give it strength to take on Dwarfs 1-on-1, or to steal stuff and either way stopping it is theoretically impossible. The dragon's flames can be predicted, channeled, and otherwise dealt with but the teleporting target is capable of evading harm in a manner that cannot be dealt with; there are two extremes of teleportation, one being simply "return to base" (ala Diablo 2) and the other being "Teleport effectively at will" (Xcom Apocalypse) and the more one goes towards the latter extreme, the more broken it becomes. The Apocalypse personal teleporter was beyond broken, giving the player the ability to pause the game, teleport, drop a Vortex Grenade on the spot, then teleport before the explosion went off, the effect being akin to a precision nuke. Granted we're not giving our teleporter Vortex grenades, but it would have to have SOME ability beyond teleportation to be more than a simple pest. Either the thieving (which would be effectively uncounterable, and thus no fun), or the ability to assassinate individual Dwarfs (which again would be no fun, especially if the AI were not balanced to use basic LOS, allowing it to selectively target the easiest targets, i.e. sleeping Dwarfs)

Your Nightcrawler analogy fails on account of him being a superhero and by using false comparisons between the world and a fortress; statistically, a teleporter will not be capable of killing 6-billion people off but will be capable of picking its fights and picking its own battles. Tell me this is a good power equivalent to a dragon whose flames can be stopped by solid construction.

[Neonivek]

Let me see here...

*An Enemy has been spotted in the base*
*Selects guard to attack*
*Enemy is killed*

BAMN the teleporter is dead. What is so hopelessly difficult here?

[zagibu]

Hey, Neonivek, what about a teleporting, invisible, magma-proof tunneler that can also level mountains and make the time tick backwards? Wouldn't be a problem for your dwarves, would it?

Man, if this game was open-source, those things would already exist.

[MagicJuggler]

Let me see here...

*An Enemy has been spotted in the base*
*Selects guard to attack*
*Enemy is killed*

BAMN the teleporter is dead. What is so hopelessly difficult here?

You obviously haven't been reading any of my previous posts...
*An enemy has been spotted*
*Select Guard*
*Enemy teleports away from guard, moves to civilian*
*One wild goose chase later, only the guards, some tantruming, remain.*

[Tormy]

Hey, Neonivek, what about a teleporting, invisible, magma-proof tunneler that can also level mountains and make the time tick backwards? Wouldn't be a problem for your dwarves, would it?

Man, if this game was open-source, those things would already exist.

I smell sarcasm. 
Either way, that would be a fun creature to fight against!   

[Silverionmox]

I think your overthinking things here... Many enemies are going to have powers and abilities that will not offer any reason to as why it isn't more common other then "It isn't"

Why arn't there more enemies that have poison? Why arn't there more enemies with multiple heads? Why arn't there more enemies that fly? Why arn't there more enemies that make civilisations?

The answer is simply not everyone has it... It isn't a naturally occuring phenomina. You can't go over to your grandmother's house eat cookies and find out that you suddenly have the powers of teleportation... In the same way that you can eat a chilli pepper and suddenly breathe fire.

Poison has metabolic costs. No classic mammals or birds have it. Hydras are fearsome enough, and that is counterbalanced with their lack of desire for conquest; all of that fits with its archetype, being an icon of the uncontrollable forces of nature. Flying requires being light, and therefore putting most of your muscle power in your wings. Civilizations require tool manipulation, social structures, brains.. all of the civ creatures are humanoids for a reason.

I agree that it's not needed to explain everything, but even partial explanations help to suspend disbelief and make it easier to have emergent phenomena to challenge the player. DF is trying to use consistent worlds to play in; that means that the dosage of action might not be perfect for entertainment purposes. If the player is bored with a fortress, great: succes is boring, and losing is fun. The answer to that situation is: throw a party, place a statue in your honor, finish your tomb, and move on to the next fortress. Preferable one on the frontier. And the spots with magma are going to run out, sooner or later. Gradually stronger enemies should occur naturally, through your actions and not through a forced game mechanic. Sometimes the goblin hordes are just chillin', or the necromancer is sacking some other fortress. But let's not worry, we'll be able to go on the offensive soon. And then you'll attract the attention of various enemies, some of which might have access to teleporting magic. (But let's not add random superpowers to force that.)

Let me see here...

*An Enemy has been spotted in the base*
*Selects guard to attack*
*Enemy is killed*

BAMN the teleporter is dead. What is so hopelessly difficult here?

Why would the teleporter do that

[Neonivek]

You obviously haven't been reading any of my previous posts...
*An enemy has been spotted*
*Select Guard*
*Enemy teleports away from guard, moves to civilian*
*One wild goose chase later, only the guards, some tantruming, remain.*

Only the Teleporter doesn't teleport away fast enough and dies

BAMN!!!

That was easy

Obviously the Teleporter may do quite some damage but then again his power is Teleportation not Omnipotence.

[MagicJuggler]

You obviously haven't been reading any of my previous posts...
*An enemy has been spotted*
*Select Guard*
*Enemy teleports away from guard, moves to civilian*
*One wild goose chase later, only the guards, some tantruming, remain.*

Only the Teleporter doesn't teleport away fast enough and dies

BAMN!!!

That was easy

Obviously the Teleporter may do quite some damage but then again his power is Teleportation not Omnipotence.

Doesn't teleport fast enough...you mean putting a cooldown in between teleports I assume? Or making teleport take time before it activates...

[Skynet 2.0]

Also, the teleporting could be limited to just a few tiles, so they could get past your defenses, and attack or steal from you, but if you detected them, you would have a chance of stopping them if you acted quickly. Otherwise, they could just teleport into your armory as soon as they appeared on the map, grab your artifact adamantine sword, and teleport out.

[Neonivek]

You obviously haven't been reading any of my previous posts...
*An enemy has been spotted*
*Select Guard*
*Enemy teleports away from guard, moves to civilian*
*One wild goose chase later, only the guards, some tantruming, remain.*

Only the Teleporter doesn't teleport away fast enough and dies

BAMN!!!

That was easy

Obviously the Teleporter may do quite some damage but then again his power is Teleportation not Omnipotence.

Doesn't teleport fast enough...you mean putting a cooldown in between teleports I assume? Or making teleport take time before it activates...

Make it tiring, make it do a number on his body, perhaps he can't teleport while doing actions. You don't have to do cool downs or make teleportation take time (though it works). Maybe the teleporter can only make Portals... Maybe the teleporter teleports himself and everyone within five tiles as well... Maybe the guard snuck up onto the teleporter and landed a nice hit! Heck perhaps the teleporter needs to kill someone before teleporting again.

Tons of ways to do it.

[MMad]

This thread got stuck way too hard on teleportation.

[Tormy]

This thread got stuck way too hard on teleportation.

Well, other threads got stuck on tunnelers/diggers. 

Also, the teleporting could be limited to just a few tiles

Yes, I absolutely agree. Maybe max. 8-10 tiles combined with ~2 teleportations/combat sequence.

[Silverionmox]

Those are quite arbitrary limitations. Try to derive them from the game world. What kind of creatures would have teleportation?