Hopefully someone can help me make sense of this... My sorcerer just got level 5 spells, so I wanted to try out teleport. On my first cast, the spell failed. I thought maybe I tried to go to far, so I shortened the distance and it still failed. Just for experimentation purposes, I tried to teleport one square right in front of me, with no doors, walls, or any sort of barrier, and it still failed... Am I missing something? The manual simply says it costs 5 SP + 3 gems and doesn't mention failing.

To add to my original post, Acid Rain (also level 5) failed as well when I just tried it in combat.

Certain maps simply disallow the Teleport spell; if you try to cast it there, the spell will fail every time. If you want the spell to work, try using it on a different map.

Note that Etherealize may work on maps that Teleport does not, and that spell can come in handy in the first two games where the walls are thin.

(Incidentally, different games in the series may differ in terms of which areas are Teleport allowed; it works most places in MM4 (and is mandatory in that game), but will usually fail in MM5, for example.)

Edit: Also, some spells only work outdoors, and Acid Rain might be one of them. Try getting into an outdoor fight and casting it there.

Thanks for the info! I had suspected that, but I thought for sure teleport would work anywhere outdoors. I first tried it in Dusk and it failed with every cast in the town, so that makes sense. Weirdly though it didn't work outside Dusk either (Outdoors E-4). Today I used it in C-2 with no problems.

When I used Acid Rain, I was outdoors so I have no idea why that failed... I was in E-4 or D-4 if I remember correctly. I just tried again in a different outdoor area and it seems to be working.

Would having your gender reversed have anything to do with spells failing? I realized my entire party had their genders flipped at some point and I somehow didn't notice. I first tried teleport and acid rain before restoring everyone back to normal. Man this game has so much the manual doesn't tell you!