A world with no roads, no doors, and no boats

[BiggusGeekus@Work]

Good points about the resources required to coax a wizard to do it in the first place, but cost-benifit ratio is amazing.

Think about 16th century Europe if they had just one of these puppies connecting them to the New World. Think about one between ancient China and India. I realize that drawing parallels betwen real life history and fantasy settings is not always wise, but I think the point stands in this case.

Yes, the bill would be huge. But the money the leaders would stand to make would be outstanding.

 

[Usurper]

Naturally, the oldest cities would still be built on rivers or at mining centers dating from pre-portal times. They would have to continue there to use their resources to fund whatever cities don't lie near any natural resources. You could have some enmity between the cities that don't pull their own weight, making assassination and intrigue much more fruitful than when all your cities are separated by 100-mile stretches of land.

I should note that when I read the subject line, I was initially frightened that somebody was doing Gilligan's Island D20. No phones, no lights, no motor cars....

 

[jester47]

Thats why DMs should be very familiar with the spell section.

REad it do what you want.

Aaron.

 

[Irda Ranger]

jmucchiello - The food would come in the same way everything else would. Through the portal. Rome imported wheat and other grains from Egypt to support its massive population, and they did by ship. This would be much easier.

About Dispelling
- Yes, this would be an Item. Dispel would just shut it down for a time, not detroy it. If you have the FRCS you can get a detailed description of creating portals.

Who would build it -
Whomever wanted to collect tolls. Imagine you had an instant, no risk Silk Road to India! Imagine the tolls you could charge. The wealth to be made would be outrageous. Anyone who could make a portal would be stupid not to. Naturally, a Guild would emmerge to control the of creation portals, and to keep prices up. And who would argue with a Guild of 17th+ level Wizards? Well, maybe a Church ....

Older "pre-portal" cities -
In all the published campaign settings, society and magic have been around 1000's of years. Often magic was more powerful in the past than the present. Any cities that may have existed so far back in antiquity that it was "pre-portal", well I imagine most of them would be abandoned or destroyed by now. Or, you could "date" the age of a city based on how well it integrates modern magic. Montreal (I have heard) is the only walled city in North America, because technology had really advanced beyond walls at that point.

Usurper - Got a suggestion for a better thread title? I'm serious, I really didn't know what to call this.

Jester47 - ??? Not sure what you mean ...

Anyone ever thought of making a really big Passwall or Phase Door as the entrance to the city? At night, or at the command of the King, the Walls just turn into seamless stone. No gate to attack for that strategy either.

Irda Ranger

 

[Irda Ranger]

Teleportation Circle is limited to a 5' radius circle, aka 10' across. If you want to close down a circle simply move (roll, lower, whatever) a 12'-wide cylinder of stone over it -- the stone wouldn't teleport out and the spell would stop functioning once the stone was in place (based on the spell description). Move it about at will. Much safer than the well-protected courtyard, as it's foolproof. Even if you squeeze a dragon through the 10' diameter circle, he can't come through when the spell's not working.

I was thinking of how to protect yourself from surprise attacks (since you really can't see the enemy coming. The 12' block of stone would be a good "dead bolt", but you would need to think "What would I do it 30 Wizard-Commandos with staves of Maximised Destroy Everything in Sight came charging through the Portal unannounced? Gotta think about these things ...

Irda Ranger

PS - Hey, what do you think about my new sig? Interesting at all, or get a new one?

 

[Umbran]

Hm. Think about the tactical nightmare - the only thing you need to do to control a city is to control a small number of teleportation circles...

And, if you don't like the idea of a Dispel Magic taking it down, there's always Mordy's Disjunction...

I think the phrase "putting all your eggs in one basket" comes to mind. Even if you have one phenominal means of transportation, that doesn't mean you throw out all the others.

 

[SemperJase]

This points out the difficulty of high magic campaigns. The ramifications of readily available magic are mind boggling.

Doesn't it seem magic restricted worlds make more sense? But not necessarily more fun. This is why some details need to be glossed over for the high magic campaign.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I think of the Planescape metropolis Sigil. Basically, the concept you're describing here...the only way into or out of the city is by teleportation through gates...part of the reason they call it the "Cage." If the gates stop working, everyone is trapped.

Where that differs is that the gates in Sigil are the work of some deity-like being who opens, closes, and manipulates them to some unfathomnable nature, and that these are gates, so that each one can lead even to a different plane, with the right key.

It's quite a handy planar metropolis, but the fact that the gates can be so random is why no tactical advantage/disadvantage has been set up.

High magic works okay. You just gotta accept the reality that some pretty incredible things are fairly possible. Your typical city probably has the ability to *wish* major enemies out of existance, while those same enemies could *wish* invulnerability form *wishes*, thus cancelling each other out in the end.

 

[cbatt]

Re: Re: A world with no roads, no doors, and no boats

How do you get food into the city? It has to come from the villages around the city. Cities are built on rivers because you can float food on barges into the city.

Also, where does one find these benevolent 17th+ level wizards to make the circles and pay the XP costs to make them permanent?

Here's thought:

If you go by the book and hand out standard experience and adventuring characters advance at the standard rate, the world would be positively crawling with 17th+ level wizards in no time flat. (Provided there were enough evils for them to vanquish, as I'll explain below...)

I started a thread on this a few weeks ago after reading some comments on the WoTC site by the designer of City of the Spider queen. He states that the adventure is "long" (haha) at 2 months and that it should take PCs from 10th to 18th level in that time.

2 months! 8 mid to high levels! 2 months! WTF?!

Extrapolation along that line shows that it should take about 5 months of constant sucessful adventuring to advance from 1st through 20th level. Even accounting for things like downtime, level drain, and resurrections and so and and so forth, I don't think it's unreasonable to say that it should take an average of 3-4 years of steady adventuring for someone to go from 1st through 20th level. (As I said above: provided there were enough evils for them to vanquish.)

Consider that many adventurers start at ages 17-21. The first 20 levels of a character's life are like going to college and getting a BA or BSc. Epic levels would be like job promotions.

A network of permanent teleportation circles is hardly a stretch in this sort of scenario. Not to mention lack of disease, nigh-immortality (resurrection) and invulnerability (healing, resistances, etc...), and complete lack of night-time darkness (continual flames everywhere).

IMHO, if I took standard DnD and extrapolated a world from it, the place would be almost unimaginably more advanced than our own. For crying out loud, they can create food and water out of thin air! Star Trek and The Federation here we come!

[My advice: don't put "logic" and "realism" into the same sentence as Dungeons and Dragons. Ever.]

Okay, my mindless ranting is done. Back to the regularly scheduled programming in 4... 3... 2...

 

[Sarellion]

Let's stay with the basic assumptions

Lvl 17 mages are rather rare even if the adventurerers rise rather quickly.

How about a teleportation network from the ancient ones. they erected a great network connecting the world. People spread on the portal lines and built their cities there. This would probably lead to a row of city states with some supporting countryside. Therer never were boats or something like them in this world. At least not as far as people can remember. As the ancients disappeared they moved in, their tech barely bove the stone age. Now ages went by and nobody remembers the ancients. Some new cities are founded by mages who are powerful enough to create a teleportation circle, with them as heads of state.