Other's have covered using the modifiers for magic, which works I guess, but I have a different idea. Let's say that instead of Teleport 2W2, he had Run Fast 2W2, with augments up to 10W2. Would you let the character run all day and get really far with it?
Two ways to look at this:
First, it sounds like a contest to me. Can I get from A to B in X hours?
That's pretty simple, right? You come up with a resistance, and then roll to
see if he did it. If he didn't, well then you can say it was because he got
tired, or for magic maybe he drew the attention of his diety for abusing a
feat so or something, or whatever reason you want to use to explain the
failure.
Second, if it's not a contest situation then...what are you worried for? That is, just narrate, "Using his teleport ability at intervals, Ragnar is able to cross the distance in relatively short time, and reaches his destination. Now what?" People will recognize this as the Automatic Success rule (not a fudge).
That is, either there's some time pressure involved, and it's a contest, or there's not, and we don't have to worry about precisely how far the ability can get him in what time.
As always, I caveat this with noting that some people play in such a way as to try to make ability ratings mean hard and fast things about travel rates and such, and this, of course, won't work for them. But it works for the more drama-based method of RPG-resolution.
BTW, I'm personally really fond of "magical exhaustion" contests. I love waiting for a player to use several magic abilities in a short period of time and then following up the last use with a contest to see if their magic sputters out, or otherwise catastrophically fails. "Hmm, Major Defeat...looks like all your magic abilities will be at -50% for a while until he can repair the damage to his soul there."
I think that lots of things are dramatic when made into contests that some people think are rather mundane. It's a matter of taste. But the point is to use that as your guide in determining when to roll for something, and when it's "something no self-respecting hero would fail at." Meaning, if it's an interesting question, make it a contest, and let the mechanics give you an answer. Do you think that magic could wear a guy out using it over and over to teleport around? Then have them roll to see if they get tired out. And then smile in glee when they try to teleport with that -50%, get another major failure, and you get to narrate, "Well, it seems that you've managed to teleport your arm into the wall of the castle."
Expectations are, of course, important. So my advice is to discuss the contest before hand, and get the player's buy-in on what the potential ramifications are. "If you use that all day to travel, that'd be tiring, no? So if you do that, how about we have a contest at some point to see if he can manage to keep it up?" Managing these expectations well is a subject for a whole additional post. But if you get player buy-in first, you can't go wrong.
Mike
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