Planar Travel (Item Power)

This article is about the Item Power called "Planar Travel". For the corresponding spell, see Planar Travel. More details can be found in the article on the Plane Shift unit ability.

Planar Travel
Item Power
Cost	500
Required Spellbooks
Valid Items	Staff Wand Jewelry
Effect
Planar Travel
Availability
Create Artifact Treasure Merchant The Gift

"Planar Travel" is an Item Power derived from Life, and functions as a Planar Travel spell, giving the user the ability to Plane Shift at will. It may be added to Wands, Staves, and Jewelry for Heroes via Create Artifact. The Power has a fairly high Spellbook requirement, and few pre-defined Items possess it, so it will seldom turn up in loot during a campaign.

Effect

Astral travel is a branch of study in Life Magic. This Power is among its most expensive applications: a permanent item enchantment that allows the user to shift freely between Arcanus and Myrror.

Main article: Planar Travel

This Item Power functions as per the Unit Enchantment Spell of this name. You do not need to research or be able to cast Planar Travel. The Item Power is transient: it will dissipate immediately if the Hero ever removes or loses the item. While worn, however, it cannot be dispelled - a serious advantage over the spell.

Heroes carrying a "Planar Travel" item can perform a Plane Shift, at a cost of 0, so long as the action does not violate these two rules:

Group Shifting

Only works if all currently-selected units in a stack have some form of Astral Travel.

Destination Validity

When clicking the "Plane" button, the game will run a check to see whether the destination tile is valid. The destination tile may not contain any enemy units, enemy Towns, or any Encounter zones (including unconquered Nodes). The hero and all his companions must be able to pass through the destination terrain legally; i.e., an Astral/Ground group cannot plane-shift onto Ocean.

Strategy

"Planar Travel" is great both for scouting and on the offense.

Scouting is made easier by "Planar Travel" as the hero can switch back and forth between the two Planes - he can walk across land on one plane (where the other plane has an ocean), then cross back. And of course, shifting planes allows you to reveal the other plane as you go.

Invasions made with the help of "Planar Travel" can be very difficult to stop. You can advance straight into an enemy's empire, possibly even towards his Fortress town, switching to the other Plane to avoid enemy patrols when necessary as you move. Unless there are threats along the route on both Planes, you should be able to advance unhindered.

Planar Travel is an uncommon spell and may not be available to all Life Wizards. The Item Power is more expensive, but it is easier to guarantee its availability, impossible for enemy Wizards to dispel, and a 5 Artificer even has it available from the first turn of play for  250.

Bear in mind, though, that this power will tend to confine the Hero to a solitary existence. Any companion units will need Planar Travel too, and unless the hero is also a Wind Walker, they will need to be fast enough to keep pace with him.

Acquisition

Create Artifact

Main article: Item Crafting

With 5, "Planar Travel" may be added to a Magical Item of your own design through Create Artifact. Making strong Items through this spell is an incredibly expensive and time-consuming process. Some recipes are more expensive than the Spell of Mastery. The proposition is made more reasonable by the Artificer and Runemaster Retorts.

Casting Cost Structure for "Planar Travel"

Base	Runemaster	Artificer	Both
500	375	250	125

Overland

Main article: Magical Items in Treasure

The game data files contain 250 pre-defined Items. Of these, five grant "Planar Travel". This power causes a premade Item to demand that the Wizard have particular Spellbooks in order to appear in a Treasure Hoard, and the requirements are irregular.

There are three different ways by which you can acquire one of these pre-defined Items:

• By winning a difficult Encounter.
• By purchasing it from a Merchant, a random petitioner.
• As result of a Random Event called "The Gift".

It is often better to acquire items in this way, as it means you do not need to spend any time or  Mana to create them. Still, Items found through these means are in no way guaranteed to exactly suit your needs.

The table below lists the pre-defined Items with this power.

Premade Items with "Planar Travel"
	Item	Attributes				Realm Powers		Required Ranks
1350	Planar Staff	2	1	10		Planar Travel					5
1500	The Traveller	1	1			Holy Weapon x3	Planar Travel			5
Merchant Only
	Item	Attributes				Realm Powers		Required Ranks
2300	Wand of the Grey Wizard					Dispel True x2 Power Drain	Magic Immunity Planar Travel	4	5	5
3500	Staff Of Confusion					Confusion x4 Elemental Armor	Destruction Planar Travel	5	4	5
Never Appears
	Item	Attributes				Realm Powers		Required Ranks
2300	Tammas Staff of Negation					Magic Immunity Planar Travel	Power Drain Merging	4	5	5	22