Teleport Circle - Destroyer of Worlds

[Aaron L]

Who eats that much salt, anyway?

 

[Gez]

Let's see the culprit:

You create a circle on the floor or other horizontal surface that teleports, as teleport without error, any creature who stands on it to a designated spot. Once you designate the destination for the circle, you can't change it. The spell fails if you attempt to set the circle to teleport creatures into a solid object, to a place with which you are not familiar and have no clear description, or to another plane.

Creature step on it, it receives a teleport without error effect.

Here's what a teleport without error can affect:

Target: You and touched objects or touched willing creatures weighing up to 50 lb./level

"You" of course, don't apply. Since the circle is considered a magic trap, we may ditch the "willing creature" part.

So, we're left with a 50 lb./level limit on creature and goods transported. Given the price of buying a teleportation spell (and the price of renting the use of a permanent circle), that option would be good for VIP, or for very luxurious products like rare spices, and that's about all.

 

[s/LaSH]

There's absolutely no good reason the wizard wouldn't look at the situation and go, "Hey, that'd put 95% of your haulers and caravan guards out of business, thus wrecking the economy. No deal."

The ancient Greeks kept slaves. They also had the brains and technology to build energy weapons, and could quite easily have had an industrial revolution, but they took the same view: "Hey, we build a machine that does the work of 10 slaves, what do we do with the slaves?" They quite purposefully didn't advance technology for economic purposes.

It's far more likely that the innovation of a teleport network would arrive from some other source. The wizards wouldn't make commercial circles, they'd make diplomatic circles for quick communication between kings or nobles (or, initially, archmagi). Within the year, privileges would be acquired - certain super-rare items would be transported through the network, maybe once a week, by favoured merchants. Pepper or mithril fits the bill. That's how it would stay for a while, but the use of the circles would increase over time until it reached capacity, allowing the economy to adapt over the years.

And when the circles reached maturity, the world would be ready for them to be expanded. Given a few hundred years, everything would change. Where would the caravan guards and haulers go to work? I don't know, but they'd probably enhance the economy. Which is where the ancient Greeks were wrong - our modern society didn't collapse when we freed the slaves and emancipated women, it was enriched by people who had to find something else to do...

Therefore, assuming the Circle is a new discovery (which is pitifully easy to do), it's there, it's useful, but you won't see the merchants using it for decades to come.

In my world, I just don't let NPC wizards use spells above level 3, because I equate magic with technology. Thus the PCs are world-shaking innovators...

 

[Norfleet]

So, we're left with a 50 lb./level limit on creature and goods transported. Given the price of buying a teleportation spell (and the price of renting the use of a permanent circle), that option would be good for VIP, or for very luxurious products like rare spices, and that's about all.

The price of renting the use of a permanent circle is totally up in the air. Yes, teleportation circles do have a hefty fixed cost to establish, but once established, there's basically no inherent variable cost of use. Thus, rental prices could be anywhere from very high to very low, depending entirely on the creator's desire to promote or suppress its usage. There's no INHERENT cost to using an establish permanent teleport circle. It's even cheaper than using a telephone, since phone lines ALSO have large fixed costs to establishment, but there's SOME maintenance and upkeep to paid. Teleportation circles have no real maintenance of any kind. A "permanent" circle seems to remove the concept of a pounds-per-level limit, aside from establishing a maximum mass for any single discrete object. Thus, a teleportation circle can be treated as having a bandwidth, rather than a maximum weight limitation, aside from teleportation of massive discrete objects, where the bandwidth is equal to the most massive objects possible divided by the amount of time it takes to shove such an object from the outside of the circle to the inside, and then clear the destination of that object.

Like a telephone, this teleportation circle transit may START as something for only the very rich and powerful, but the absence of any variable cost, combined with a potentially massive transit bandwidth, will quickly turn it into something usable by the masses without some sort of inhibiting action from a controlling party. Once the "permanent teleport circle" is built, if the toll is a mere copper piece, that's 1 cp of pure profit: There's no variable cost to pay, so there's no point at which it would become inherently unprofitable to operate it, barring outside forces.

 

[Norfleet]

There's absolutely no good reason the wizard wouldn't look at the situation and go, "Hey, that'd put 95% of your haulers and caravan guards out of business, thus wrecking the economy. No deal."

That's generously assuming that wizards are nice people concerned about the economic well-being of the populace. Given that the dominant race of most worlds, humans, are neutral, that suggests that "good" concerns like this are probably a minority view, and I doubt a powerful figure like a level 17+ wizard is going to be easily intimidated into not doing this.

The ancient Greeks kept slaves. They also had the brains and technology to build energy weapons, and could quite easily have had an industrial revolution, but they took the same view: "Hey, we build a machine that does the work of 10 slaves, what do we do with the slaves?" They quite purposefully didn't advance technology for economic purposes.

They had the technology to build energy weapons? I don't think the hypothetical solar reflector death ray for toasting incoming ships really counts. That was never advanced beyond conjecture.

It's far more likely that the innovation of a teleport network would arrive from some other source. The wizards wouldn't make commercial circles, they'd make diplomatic circles for quick communication between kings or nobles (or, initially, archmagi). Within the year, privileges would be acquired - certain super-rare items would be transported through the network, maybe once a week, by favoured merchants. Pepper or mithril fits the bill. That's how it would stay for a while, but the use of the circles would increase over time until it reached capacity, allowing the economy to adapt over the years.

Doubtful. I think that, like much of everything else, the first innovation of a teleport network would come from military usage. The military would first use such a technology for transporting reinforcement troops and logistical resupply. In the real world, most technology generally originates with military application: Radar, computers, explosives...even the Greek "death ray" was originally thought of as a military application.

 

[Gez]

It's not that way transactions were made, though. There's no fixed price.

The owner of the teleportation circle will ask how much the merchant is ready to pay, and asks for thrice that. After lots of bartering, a deal will eventually be struck -- or not.

 

[MaxKaladin]

For 170 minutes, you can ferry through 1 mule a round, carrying 690 pounds of goods.

Lets trade something normal. Like... salt. 5gp a pound.
That's 3450gp on each mule (you can afford to put them at heavy load, because they're only taking a few steps.

170 minutes * 10 rounds *3450gp of goods = 5865000gp per circle.

Assuming no more than a 1% difference in price from end to end, that's 58650gp per casting of the spell. Your investment is 1700*8cp+1000gp+2cp (cost of drivers, 1 per 10 mules) = 1136.02gp per circle.

That's 586.5 TONS of salt. I honestly can't say how much salt a large city might use in a given period of time, but I'd guess that one could use this much in a fairly short time. I'd say it would have to be a large city since this is almost 6 million gp we're talking about here.

I see three problems with this calculation:

1. It assumes that the wizard casting the spell is working for free. Unless the merchant happens to be a 17th level wizard himself, the wizard's time would cost you most of that 58,650GP. There's not going to be much in the way of price reductions since the number of 17th level wizards is never going to be that high.

2. It doesn't take any sort of volume pricing into account. That 5gp per pound price is the final retail price. That's what it costs Joe Adventurer to buy a few pounds for his expedition to the Barrier Peaks. Merchants trading in bulk will probably be buying and selling for less per pound. The guy hauling it from the mines probably buys it for 1.25 gp per pound and sells it for 2.5gp per pound to a merchant in the city, who turns around and sells it a few pounds at a time for 5gp per pound. That assumes there aren't even more middlemen in there somewhere.

3. It also assumes that you're going to need 586.5 tons of material moved from one spot to another. That does happen, but most of the time that stuff is then going to have to be distributed from there. That means you will just have changed the pattern of hauling stuff, not eliminated the need for it. You'll need to collect everything needed to make a profitable teleport in one spot before hand and distribute it afterward at the other end. You will eliminate some long haul traffic this way, but that's about it.

A couple of other thoughts:

The low number of wizards limits how often you can do this as well as keeping prices high.

I wonder what would happen to the price of diamonds if this spell came into widespread use. You could see material prices going up as it became vital to the economy as well as being a luxury item barring any improvements in the technology of finding them that would increase the supply. That would also tend to lead to wars and intrigues over this new strategic resource.

If you want to talk about items that can cast the spell or permanent circles then yes, as I mentioned, it becomes economical despite a higher initial investment.

 

[the Jester]

I just had a thought. Wouldn't it be possible for a 17th-level mage to research a spell that steals life (read: xp) from a secondary source (read: other people) by then? Is there a spell like this already? Sure it would be decided evil, but it would theoretically be possible.

Hmmm, I'm going to have to explore this further. Be a good hook for a quest/adventure for the PCs.

I don't know of a spell, but the BoVD has rules for sacrificing creatures, and one of the bennies you can get is 'dark craft' xps, which are 'virtual' xps that you can only use for item creation.

 

[Nasma]

The objections to the use of the circle seem to fall into four categories:

1. it will be sabotaged
As already pointed out, this would be illegal. Imagine if a bridge were built across a river between two towns, the ferry man, worried about the loss of business then detroys the bridge. There is no way that he would get away with this. Almost everything is easier to destory than to build, teleportation circle is no different

2. monsters come through
Personally, I find this a bit arbitrary, the DM has just ruled that the idea won't work. Again, as already mentioned, this would provide an easy experience mine. Just plant a permenent symbol of death next to the circle and watch the xp come in

3. Other methods are cheaper.
This argument misses the fact that the circle has no running costs. No matter how much it costs to build, eventually a profit will be made. It will be worth it in the long run

4. This leaves the door open for attacking armies.
I would guess, that if the other large city/ metropolis, were invaded then someone would realise, and the circle could just be blocked with a net laid over it. Also, the invasion of a large city would be a fairly rare event.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Regarding the destruction of portals:
If you want to send a level 5 wizard firing a dispel magic at the portal, you could also send a level 5 wizard fireballing the merchant ship or a caravan.

All possibilities are crime, obviosuly, and if someone finds out who send the wizard, he will be in trouble. In case of the portal, the 17th level wizard who payed all his XP to create it might even feel ... offended, but this is probably not worse then having a whole cities merchants against them.

Regarding the motivation of a wizard creating portals:
If I didn`t want to go adventuring any more, because it became to dangerous (all the demons, devils and dragons are quite nasty), making a fortune by creating a portal is easy. And the wizard does not need any more wizard levels, he can already cast the highest level spells available to mortal magic. (Except you include epic level casting, but in this case, an epic level wizard might be willing to create a portal - it isn`t that much XP for him, anyway...).
He can use the money he just find to buy some scrolls for spells he is still missing (and these aren`t cheap) and pay his studies.

Mustrum Ridcully