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Message: <blockquote data-quote="evilbob" data-source="post: 9451015" data-attributes="member: 9789">I've never worried about banning spells or splat books before: but this is the first spell that's made me question whether or not it should exist, especially in the campaign we're currently in. (Portho's Portal is from "Book of Ebon Tide.")It is a 4th(!) level spell that creates a teleportation portal that stays open for at least 24 hrs - up-casting to 6th level makes it permanent. It requires an hour to cast and 100g's worth of components (so it's not an "escape" spell), but the only other stipulation is that it must be to somewhere that the caster has "stood" before (in the mortal plain or the feywild). In other words, it's an extremely cheap, extremely low-level form of teleportation that only costs time and requires you to have been to a place. (It also can't fail, although "deities" can keep it from working in their domain.)I'm not worried about having a literal "escape rope" spell for dungeons - that stuff is usually hand-waved anyway. But this sort of spell fundamentally alters how a game world exists.<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">An 11th level cleric, sorc, or wizard (or anyone with access to a 6th level spell) can open a permanent doorway between two locations. If that were the case: massive numbers of merchants would go out of business, because you could just walk through a portal to get that rare spice 2000 miles to the south at any time. Trade caravans, mercenaries - they would all lose money as rare trade would become extremely common and competition for prices would expand to include anyone on the material plane. But that's assuming the portals are free to use: alternately, there could be powerful cartels or mage guilds charging to use these portals, and killing any 7th+ level caster who could challenge their trade - which would be an entire campaign issue all in itself!</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Similarly, all resources could be exploited so much more easily thanks to easy travel. Rare game, magic item components, even deep dungeon gem mining: retrieving it would now by trivial once it's found.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Say goodbye to dragon hordes or banks: as long as you could get to a location once, if treasure were unguarded for a few minutes, you could open a portal to/from your home and shovel everything through quickly. You might have to dispel your own spell so you couldn't be followed, but you would also be able to close it from the other side. Or let anyone else come through and kill the dragon or take over the bank. If an elf or other long-lived creature had ever stood in an ancient cave, they could periodically see if anything had decided to live there, and just rob it.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">No ruler would be safe, as any cleric/mage ambassador that visited their throne room could portal a small army in at any time. Assassinations would be extremely common; once breached, any location could be breached any number of times. Rulers would have to keep themselves moving.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The problem only gets bigger the longer the spell exists: once more people have had access to go somewhere, more people can cast the spell to go there again. Over-tourism! (Hey kids, want to see Mount Doom this weekend? It's just 5g to use the portal and then we can make one ourselves!)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Anti-portal tech could be palaces built on air or with anti-gravity spells so no one could stand there! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">I'm sure there are more.</li> </ul>All that to say: the entire world would be affected by teleportation circles with extremely light endpoint requirements that can also be cast by clerics, which is basically what this is. It fundamentally alters how technology works in that world - like teleportation circles and sending did before it - but at a much more accessible level.On a more specific note, it also completely trivializes huge chunks of the "Horde of the Dragon Queen." In fact, that entire campaign is pointless, because all the cult needed was a 7th level caster to avoid the entire thing. It's campaign-altering. If the BBEG has been to your town before, guess what? He can show up any time. Technically there's no requirement for where the spell could be cast from, so in theory someone could open a portal from the Abyss and let Tiamat into the world that way (although it is limited by deities). Ditto literally the entire campaign for Wild Beyond the Witchlight, although again, you could pull the "god" card out and have the portal be blocked that way.I know lots of people on this board ban stuff all the time, and that's totally fine. I'm looking for different advice: first, is this spell as bad as I'm worried, or am I overthinking it? Am I just being worried because I'm not thinking it through or being flexible enough? Second, what's a more natural response to this spell that could allow it in-game but not break campaign plotlines? (If it were a homebrew game I wouldn't care, but a published adventure before this spell is going to now have loopholes, IMO.)ps. Speaking of BoET: the titular 7th level Ebon Tide spell is almost a copy/paste of 8th level Earthquake, but one level lower. I feel like there may be a few spells that are going to be tricky from that book.</blockquote>

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