Teleportation costs for a guild?

[Kershek]

Let's say there's a merchant's guild that specializes in teleportation between cities. How much would they charge to teleport a party of adventurers from one place to another, assuming a few hundred pounds per person? What spells would they use and what can they do to lower the cost to make it more economical?

 

[X.plosion]

According to the DMG, page 149, an NPC charges
10 x spell level x casters level in order to cast a spell for a group of PC's. The spell that the casters would almost certainly use is Teleportaion circle. Its a ninth level spell so 90 times whatever the mage whos casting it level is. The casters have to be 18th level to cast it so you get a grand total of 1620 GP for casting the spell. This is before the 1000 GP material component cost of the spell though, so your players are looking at a 2620 GP cost to travel. On the upside the spell lasts 10 minutes, giving all the PC's ample time to cross in one casting.

Thats if you go by the books though. If you feel that it needs to be less or more then all the power to you to change it. Hopes this helps.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

A permanent Teleport Circle should do the job.

Technically this would cost 1,000 gp for the casting plus the cost to make it permenant. However, let's assume the mechant guild makes a sort of raidal web of these. One city hosts all the "home" circles, while the other cities have the "away" circles. So you couldn't go from City B to City C. But you could go from City B to City A to City C.

Technically, the cost would be minimal as the circles would see a lot of use (much like a modern toll road doesn't cost much for one trip). However, you'd have to figure that guards would have to be posted 24/7 on all circles all the time. So that would chew up some money as well. Plus, you'd want to gouge the customers, becuase what else are they going to do? Walk 100 miles?

Were it me, I'd charge 25gp per head and 500gp per cart. A method of travel that would be best suited for the wealthy.

 

[Kershek]

According to the DMG, page 149, an NPC charges
10 x spell level x casters level in order to cast a spell for a group of PC's. The spell that the casters would almost certainly use is Teleportaion circle. Its a ninth level spell so 90 times whatever the mage whos casting it level is. The casters have to be 18th level to cast it so you get a grand total of 1620 GP for casting the spell. This is before the 1000 GP material component cost of the spell though, so your players are looking at a 2620 GP cost to travel. On the upside the spell lasts 10 minutes, giving all the PC's ample time to cross in one casting.

Thats if you go by the books though. If you feel that it needs to be less or more then all the power to you to change it. Hopes this helps.

Right. That's way too expensive. I'm thinking that a guild will have access to ways in curbing the expense somehow. I'm looking for ideas on how to do this.

 

[Kershek]

A permanent Teleport Circle should do the job.

Technically, the cost would be minimal as the circles would see a lot of use (much like a modern toll road doesn't cost much for one trip). However, you'd have to figure that guards would have to be posted 24/7 on all circles all the time. So that would chew up some money as well. Plus, you'd want to gouge the customers, becuase what else are they going to do? Walk 100 miles?

Were it me, I'd charge 25gp per head and 500gp per cart. A method of travel that would be best suited for the wealthy.

Interesting... I'm surprised at the 25gp - cheap Charge more for total weight on the characters?

 

[BiggusGeekus]

The circle, according to the PHB (pg 265), doesn't care about weight. So price-per-head would be easiest.

I'm basically thinking to have it priced so that it more than pays for the guards, yet keeps the riff-raff away (so they don't need to go overboard on security).

Of course, these factors depend entirely on your campaign.