D&D 5E Teleportation circles costs *how* much?!

[FormerlyHemlock]

Pshhh. A castle is worth one hostage: the previous owner.

I never get why people say the prices are ridiculous. Of course they are! ECONOMICS IS CRAZYYYYYYYYYYYYYY! Money has no inherent value! Prices are only logical in perfect theoretical markets! Infinite gold results in a lack of scarcity, driving down the value of gold as a substance! The more you own, the less everything is worth to you! Where does money even come from, and who's backing it anyways?

An entertaining exercise is to design a D&D world economy in such a way that the PHB prices and assumptions actually hold and make sense. The most important thing you need is for gold to have some kind of intrinsic value beyond its value as a medium of exchange. For example, if gold is the only way to bribe dragons into sparing your life, and major trade routes are dragon-infested, then gold becomes something akin to jet fuel in our world. Now there is a good reason why someone needs to go and kill dragons and take their gold: so the economy can continue to function.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

How much does a noble's estate cost to build?

Wow, that's kind of ridiculous. I wish that wasn't in the book. I was hoping to avoid the weird economy issues in this edition, since they'd removed prices on magical items.

The thing is though, 5e has a more consistent system than prior versions, so knowing a few things can really make sense of the world and put everything else in context.

Based on the assumed society, the best was to convert standard coinage (in USD) is:
1 cp = $1
1 sp = $10
1 gp = $100

1 gp per day, or $100 gets you a modest income, but more people are probably poor than modest in their income. 2 sp, or $20, is the average unskilled laborer.

Now, a noble's manor costs 25,000 gp, and 150 days (Assuming you are there to oversee the whole thing. It takes longer if you aren't pestering the foreman everyday, though I run it a bit more reasonably than that). Imagine that as about $2.5 million USD. Sounds pretty reasonable to me. Ships also have prices that make sense, and most of the goods and services make sense. Even weapons make sense if you realize that we are talking high-grade top of the line military armaments here, not a buck knife and a wall-hanger sword.

3e economy was rather messed up (although they stuck with the 1 sp = laborer's daily wage assumption, which 5e switched to 2 sp for some reason), so I was specifically paying attention to 5e and noticed it was a big improvement.

About the only thing that makes poor sense in the 5e economy, as written, is the magic item rarity suggestions. The game assumes a relatively low magic setting, but gives prices that only make sense (given the previous context) if magic is very widespread.

(Another minor problem with the pricing is cloth--it is way too expensive per yard, making it impossible to actually sell clothes at the prices given.)

 

[NotActuallyTim]

An entertaining exercise is to design a D&D world economy in such a way that the PHB prices and assumptions actually hold and make sense. The most important thing you need is for gold to have some kind of intrinsic value beyond its value as a medium of exchange. For example, if gold is the only way to bribe dragons into sparing your life, and major trade routes are dragon-infested, then gold becomes something akin to jet fuel in our world. Now there is a good reason why someone needs to go and kill dragons and take their gold: so the economy can continue to function.

I'm disappointed you didn't mention the sheep poop for currency idea.

Yeah, I'm actually working on an item agnostic pricing scheme. NPCs have a Need value of 1 to x, and items/services have a Scarcity of 1 to y (local, not fixed, so agnostic to individual items, but not regions) and this determines basic pricing of anything anywhere, but advanced conditions, like tariffs, danger, competition, haggling and so on can push that price up or down from the base. That way I don't need to price every item- I just need to understand the world and NPCs I'm working with, and can adapt to any kind of trade.

 

[BoldItalic]

Here's an "ask your DM" question.

An Enlarge spell cast on a material component magnifies its weight x8 temporarily. Does that magnify its value in proportion? Seems to me it should, but it creates a loophole.

For example, if I have a packet of "rare chalks" and some flasks of "inks infused with precious gems" worth a paltry 7gp and my assistants cast Enlarge on each of them, maintaining their concentrations for the 1 minute it takes me to cast Teleportation Circle, is that okay? By my reckoning, they are worth at least 50gp all the time while the TC spell is being cast.

Asking for a friend

 

[Halivar]

For example, if I have a packet of "rare chalks" and some flasks of "inks infused with precious gems" worth a paltry 7gp and my assistants cast Enlarge on each of them, maintaining their concentrations for the 1 minute it takes me to cast Teleportation Circle, is that okay? By my reckoning, they are worth at least 50gp all the time while the TC spell is being cast.

In a world where wizards can do such things, jewelers and bankers would hold gems and coin in escrow before purchase, to see if the magic wears off. The wealthier ones will keep a level 1 mage or level 0 adept on retainer to cast detect magic on them. But, at my table, you can't lie to magic; only the permanent properties of reagents are considered. Temporary glammers, alterations, and fabrications are ignored by the spell for which they are being consumed.

 

[RulesJD]

1. Wish -> 25,000gp worth of required components.
2. Long rest.
3. Wish -> Simulacrum. Instruct Simulacrum to cast Teleportation Circle every day until they run out of spell slots and use the provided required components.
4. Come back 8 days later and Wish -> Simulacrum. 8 days later because that's how many times the Simulacrum could cast it before running out of spell slots.
5. Repeat approximately 47 times over the course of a year. Bam, permanent teleportation circle with minimal work by the Wizard.

Alternatively, just get friendly DM that says Wish -> Teleportation Circle as permanant and you're good to go.

 

[Lehrbuch]

This reminds me of the magician series of books. The mages in had teleportation circles set up which were, I think, different mosaic patterns that had to be memorised to be used. I thought it was a neat concept.

So, kind of like Magician was based on someone's D&D meets Tekumel campaign?

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

The very wealthy will build teleportation circles, simply for the fact that they can hire a wizard to teleport them to other places instantly. It's like having a private jet, only faster.

 

[WolfDM32]

Consumables in magic

One thing is that I thought, spell components are now reusable in 5th edition. My understanding is that once one has a 100GP pearl for identify, that pearl is there all the time now for use for identify. Just that the wizard has to allocate spell slots for identify, so it may require additional rests prior to identifying magic items and in a dungeon that could be inherently strategically disastrous. So, the point being, 50GP of sapphire chalk is no longer consumed by the spell. Now if someone has to use the chalk to draw everyday, as a DM I would maybe say that the chalk runs after 10 days of drawings. after all, if it's just a circle or some ornate design would determine how fast the chalk is consumed in the drawing, but the spell itself would not consume the chalk in my opinion, unless the 50GP chalk is really just a really tiny piece of chalk that only lasts for one or two quick drawings and then is gone... But, that'd seem odd to me as a DM. Who buys a tiny sliver of chalk. Even if it is sapphire chalk.

That was one of the major changes to magic in 5th edition..... spell components are no longer consumed by the spells themselves. If someone steals your 100GP pearl and runs off with it, that's different. Casting Identify doesn't destroy the pearl though.

 

[BoldItalic]

One thing is that I thought, spell components are now reusable in 5th edition. My understanding is that once one has a 100GP pearl for identify, that pearl is there all the time now for use for identify. Just that the wizard has to allocate spell slots for identify, so it may require additional rests prior to identifying magic items and in a dungeon that could be inherently strategically disastrous. So, the point being, 50GP of sapphire chalk is no longer consumed by the spell. Now if someone has to use the chalk to draw everyday, as a DM I would maybe say that the chalk runs after 10 days of drawings. after all, if it's just a circle or some ornate design would determine how fast the chalk is consumed in the drawing, but the spell itself would not consume the chalk in my opinion, unless the 50GP chalk is really just a really tiny piece of chalk that only lasts for one or two quick drawings and then is gone... But, that'd seem odd to me as a DM. Who buys a tiny sliver of chalk. Even if it is sapphire chalk.

That was one of the major changes to magic in 5th edition..... spell components are no longer consumed by the spells themselves. If someone steals your 100GP pearl and runs off with it, that's different. Casting Identify doesn't destroy the pearl though.

The spell description in the PHB tells you whether or not the components are consumed. In the case of Teleport Circle, it says that they are. Hence concern expressed in this thread, that the cumulative cost of casting it every day for a year (to make the circle permanent) would be large (18250gp).