D&D 5E How much should it cost to use a permanent teleportation circle?

[O-Castitatis-Lilium]

I would have to say that the price would be in the thousands. The cost to make it, the materials to build it, the cost to maintain it, the cost and materials it takes to transport people from one place to another, the distance of where you are traveling, what's being transported, ect. There are plenty of different factors that need to be taken into account when coming up with the price. I'm assuming you need to train someone in being able to not only cast the teleport spell, but also train the same person in knowing where all of these circles would be so that they can transport people properly, that's not a cheap job to do, especially if the city is using tax payer money to build it and set it up with no private funding of a generous wizard. They need to see and remember the place of where they are teleporting to right...I think, I don't remember to be honest; so they would need to send the circle attendant to every location to memorize these places, which again will cost money lol. So I would say in the thousands per use, but that's my opinion and my reasoning for it anyways.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

When calculating your costs, don't forget your liability insurance, since someone may use your teleportation circle to commit a crime, and then Red Larch's most vicious lawyers will be coming after you personally for damages...

 

[Smackpixi]

Not much for cost, but then I also rewrote rules for my game. Perm circles only go to one other circle. Any number of other perm circles can lead to yours, like 30 one destination portals could lead to waterdeep. Need permission to set up a perm target. Receiving portal can have attendant wizard, need only be lvl 1, but can refuse transports, wouldn’t know what is coming, only from where. Random circles show sender, can be refused if target circle is attended.

 

[kigmatzomat]

Had a thought on this, and realized the more appropriate use of teleport circles is the opposite of what we think, meaning assuming the circles should be at the capitals. But this is a security nightmare and requires powerful casters in the borderlands to 'port to the city. Instead put the circles at the borders, specifically "outside" of your defenses & customs in a place that has natural barrier that is moderately easy to defend. Think a swamp or a chasm or a small island in a river. After all, a circle is only open for a smidgen over 6 seconds so there's a very finite amount of material that can move through it so you don't need a massive working area. Odds are there are still some defenses on the circles to reduce the risk of attack (i.e. submerging it under water) but being a border it isn't the same kind of risk as borders are already higher risk and have defenses.

Now instead of someone wherever opening a portal to a major city's circle, the major city opens a 'port to the circle on the outskirts. It still let's the city move large-ish amounts of materials quickly, it can send reinforcements to the borders but the city can't be invaded. It also means you need fewer powerful mages on the borders. The city can also cast the 'ports from different places, so there's no telling which of the city's "receiving areas" you would arrive (without having spies with Sending or equivalent).

The costs also get simpler as it's paying for the city-mage to open the 'port plus whatever "customs & convenience fees" are added on top. It may require waiting for a spot on the scheduled weekly/monthly 'port or have to pony up for a private out-of-sequence 'port.

 

[Stalker0]

Had a thought on this, and realized the more appropriate use of teleport circles is the opposite of what we think, meaning assuming the circles should be at the capitals. But this is a security nightmare and requires powerful casters in the borderlands to 'port to the city. Instead put the circles at the borders, specifically "outside" of your defenses & customs in a place that has natural barrier that is moderately easy to defend. Think a swamp or a chasm or a small island in a river. After all, a circle is only open for a smidgen over 6 seconds so there's a very finite amount of material that can move through it so you don't need a massive working area. Odds are there are still some defenses on the circles to reduce the risk of attack (i.e. submerging it under water) but being a border it isn't the same kind of risk as borders are already higher risk and have defenses.

Now instead of someone wherever opening a portal to a major city's circle, the major city opens a 'port to the circle on the outskirts. It still let's the city move large-ish amounts of materials quickly, it can send reinforcements to the borders but the city can't be invaded. It also means you need fewer powerful mages on the borders. The city can also cast the 'ports from different places, so there's no telling which of the city's "receiving areas" you would arrive (without having spies with Sending or equivalent).

The costs also get simpler as it's paying for the city-mage to open the 'port plus whatever "customs & convenience fees" are added on top. It may require waiting for a spot on the scheduled weekly/monthly 'port or have to pony up for a private out-of-sequence 'port.

you could argue this is how many airports operate. Most of them are not right smack in the middle of a major city, but tend to be more on the outskirts.

 

[Fanaelialae]

They could charge whatever they can get away with. If they're generous, it might be free. If they're greedy, thousands (or more) gold. Of course, in the latter case, their "service" wouldn't be very popular and might be problematic to enforce. What if someone arrives and is unable/unwilling to pay?

It also depends on the purpose of the circle. If the intent is to encourage trade, using the circle could be free, although there would likely still be import taxes and the like for bringing the goods into the city. An archmage's circle would be free for the archmage and their trusted associates, but anyone else might end up paying by being permanently polymorphed into a toad.

I would expect these types of circles to be outside cities, primarily for security reasons. There might be circles inside of cities, but these would likely be privately held and closely guarded secrets. An archmage's private circle, a circle used by smugglers, and the like.

If there's a network of mages (assuming there are sufficient like-minded high level casters in the world to pull it off) who've set up circles for transporting paying customers, I would expect them to charge for casting the spell rather than using the circle itself. The logistics are much simpler. You don't need to pay for guards and whatnot to guard the circle and collect payment. The mage collects payment up front. Sure, you might have the occasional mage using the circle you set up for "free", but are there really that many 9th+ level mages that this becomes a problem? If a non-network mage starts stealing customers, it's much easier to just make an example of that mage than to constantly police the circle. IMO

 

[Starfox]

I find this a good way to bring various in-world organizations into play.

• You want to use the city's teleport circle? Have you been a productive citizen and helped the city government?
• Want to use the druid's sacred stone circles (yes, druids use these in my games). Better be very well connected to the druids.
• Want to use the wizard guild's circle? Have you paid your guild fees?

And so on.
However, my world is getting socially more advanced, so commercial teleport circles might start to appear.
However part 2, my players enjoy overland travel, so this is actually rarely an issue.

 

[M_Natas]

Not considering it a toll bridge is certainly an error for whomever happens to have one in its temple, guildhall or important places, as the rules say they can be found... (implying a rather high magic setting). A single casting of the spell allow everyone within one round of the circle to cross. Even if you don't want to go full Tippyverse, it's reasonable than a two lines of porters can go across and that's 10-12 persons. Each, assuming STR 10, can carry 150 pounds of trade goods without being encumbered. Sure, they won't be carrying wheat, but let's say they carry saffron, the 10 persons can bring to the destination 22,500 gp worth of saffron (using 5e prices) from its origin to destination. Given the margin on long range, luxury goods, especially in a world where you can be ambushed by a dragon along the way, it's very wise for the merchant to pay 350 gp for spellcasting service to use your TC as a trading hub. Even more so if there is a TC at the point of origin. Unless there are common enough to have created a network so that every major city is bound to have one of them. But there would be much less caravans in such a world.

If you just go by RAW 128 creatures with 30 feet movement are able to cross the teleportation Circle in 6 seconds/ 1 round.

In a campaign I DM'ed I used that as a rapid response army ...
Higher level casters would cast teleport to go to a place, bringing portable teleportation circles with them (teleportation circles inscribe on wood panels that would be assembled at the destination area to create a safe arrival point) . Then at the location of the army there are some "lower" level casters whowould cast teleportation Circle, transporting 40 soldiers at a time to the portable teleportation Circle.

It is not explicitly RAW, but I would think that people would try to improve spells in my settings and that one of those improvements would be to inscribe teleportaion circles on things you can move around.

 

[NotAYakk]

If you just go by RAW 128 creatures with 30 feet movement are able to cross the teleportation Circle in 6 seconds/ 1 round.

In a campaign I DM'ed I used that as a rapid response army ...
Higher level casters would cast teleport to go to a place, bringing portable teleportation circles with them (teleportation circles inscribe on wood panels that would be assembled at the destination area to create a safe arrival point) . Then at the location of the army there are some "lower" level casters whowould cast teleportation Circle, transporting 40 soldiers at a time to the portable teleportation Circle.

It is not explicitly RAW, but I would think that people would try to improve spells in my settings and that one of those improvements would be to inscribe teleportaion circles on things you can move around.

I mean, the really obvious thing is to modify "teleportation circle" to be "concentration, 1 minute". And to get rid of the cheese-rush (as the 6 second readied action thing is really stupid, honestly), make it teleport up to 10 medium sized creatures per round (and scaling numbers of larger).

This is a better fit for the standard fantasy fiction than the existing mechanics, which are a bit gamey.