Permanent Linked Portal?

[defendi]

One of my players wants to make a permanent circle for the linked portal ritual. What would you charge. My first instinct was the cost of an 8th level magic item, but that's only 3400. It seems light to me. I also thought about 10x the ritual cost (6800). Anyone have thoughts?

 

[Hymness]

You might want to run them through the search of a really special unique ritual component. Then, the cost would not only be the one of the gold pieces required, but also of the unique object (that might be of use at another moment). Plus, it would only be possible this way to do only once this kind of thing, since the component is unique.

And it would be a great adventure for your players. It could be 10 times the component cost (1350 gp) plus the adventure in wich there could be low treasures but the unique item

 

[mattdm]

I'm sure we'll see something official about this eventually — probably DMG 2. In the meantime, how difficult do you want this to be for your players in your campaign?

 

[Stogoe]

I'm sure we'll see something official about this eventually — probably DMG 2. In the meantime, how difficult do you want this to be for your players in your campaign?

And how many of them do you want them to spread around your world? I'm of the opinion that creating one for the home base might be okay depending on the campaign, but traveling cross-country seeding cheap instant travel is probably not the desired outcome.

 

[James McMurray]

Let them do it easily and cheaply. Then watch the fur fly when the merchant guilds and those who normally charge for instantaneous travel find out about it.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I wouldn't make it easy, as otherwise there should/will be permanent linked portals (always-on stargates) everywhere.

I like the idea that it cannot be done without some extremely rare component.

Also, I would have it cost at least the price of 10 scrolls of Linked Portal (6800 gp) since, once it is established, anyone can use it (which makes it more like a scroll than an actual ritual).

Finally, I might also take a page from other similar persistant rituals (Forbiddance) in that the caster has to expend a healing surge every day to maintain the portal. If he does so for a year and a day, it becomes permanent.

 

[Lacyon]

Finally, I might also take a page from other similar persistant rituals (Forbiddance) in that the caster has to expend a healing surge every day to maintain the portal. If he does so for a year and a day, it becomes permanent.

That's an awesome idea. (Also explains why you don't see too many permanent portals - NPCs don't have that many healing surges!)

 

[Wolfwood2]

I wouldn't make it easy, as otherwise there should/will be permanent linked portals (always-on stargates) everywhere.

That's not what they're asking for, though. They players aren't asking for an always-on portal that they can teleport to without any additional cost or ritual. They're asking for a permanent circle that can be used as the target of a teleportation ritual. They'd still have to perform the ritual any time they wanted to get to the circle.

Myself, I'd make time rather than money to be the limiting factor. Keep the cost of 3400 gp (trivial for high level characters) but make inscribing the circle be a three month task requiring daily attention. That way it's easy to set up a circle inside your keep, but you can't somebody sneak into the dark lord's fortress and inscribe a circle there overnight.

 

[defendi]

Wolfwood2, that's an interesting way to handle it.

Yeah, basically the character is trying to start a world-wide mage's guild. He dead that most guilds and major temples have the circles, and he just wants to know how to make one.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Make it cheap in terms of gold. You don't want resources to bleed between flavour and effectiveness.

Having such a teleport circle doesn't really help your players in dungeon delving or combat, so it should not cost them a resource that (such as gold) has been balanced such that it's expected to go towards those ends.

Send them on a quest, make them leverage diplomatic contacts etc, but don't just charge money for the sake of it.